Pilgrimage, Voodoo and Politics

Abstract

The study of pilgrimage as a socio-religious phenomenon can be carried out at three different levels: (1) the study of shrines as sacred places, (2) the pilgrims themselves, and (3) the goals, motivations and reasons why pilgrims journey to specific shrines in an attempt to gain material and spiritual reward (Raphael 1974: 11; Turner 1974, Turner and Turner, 1978). Pilgrimage as an individual and collective march to a sacred place can be a mechanism for social integration in the same way that Durkheim (1915) perceives the function of religion in society. But religion has also been shown sometimes to play a disruptive role in society, as in the case of nativistic and revitalisation movements (Lanternari 1963; Wallace 1956).