Odette Mennesson-Rigaud

Odette Mennesson-Rigaud (1907–1990) was a French and Haitian ethnographer and photographer. She is most known for her research into the African diasporic religion of Haitian vodou.

Biography

Mennesson-Rigaud was born in 1907 in France.[1] She married Haitian Milo Rigaud on 10 January 1935 in New York City, United States. She became a Haitian citizen after her marriage.[1][2]

Mennesson-Rigaud was a self-taught ethnographer.[3] She worked as a field guide to foreign scholars who travelled to Port-au-Prince to study Haitian culture and the African diasporic religion of Haitian vodou, introducing them to vodou ritual specialists in an intermediary role.[3][4] Mennesson-Rigaud supported the research of Erika Bourguignon, Maya Deren, Michel Leiris, and Alfred Métraux;[5][6] Métraux dedicated his book Voodoo in Haiti (1959) to her.[7][8] American anthropologist Harold Courlander, who studied in Haiti, described Mennesson-Rigaud as "the ultimate insider, the outstanding non-Haitian. She knew everybody. She was the best informed of all researchers and scholars."[5]

In 1958, Mennesson-Rigaud published Le role de Vandou dans l'indépendence d'Haiti in the journal Présence Africaine,[9] which explored the role of vodou in the Haitian Revolution[10][11] and recounted the origin story of "Lakou Soukri".[12] She theorised that marronage provided Africans who escaped enslavement the freedom to develop their own religion.[13][14]

Mennesson-Rigaud also wrote about the Haitian twin cult and Marassa Jumeaux (the divine twins in Vodou), describing them as "the divine principle of life."[15] She described how twins were "semi-divinised" and recounted stories of the parents of twins trying to escape the children's power and wrath.[15] Details in Mennesoson-Rigaud's manuscript notes recorded that leafy vegetables were never given to twins, as they were thought to diminish their powers.[16]

As a photographer, Mennesson-Rigaud's photographs and drawings accompanied her husband's book Secrets of Voodoo (1969).[17][18][19] She also contributed images to the French periodical Haïti, Poètes Noirs (1951)[20] and photographed a pilgrimage to the Saut d'Eau Falls.[21]

Archive and legacy

Mennesson-Rigaud collected reptile and insect familiars or totems.[22]

Mennesson-Rigaud's archive, covering almost fifty years of work, was entrusted to the Bibliothèque Haïtienne des Pères du Saint-Esprit, which was destroyed by an earthquake on 12 January 2010. The archive of 488 documents has since been recovered. UNESCO recognised the global significance of this archive in 2017 by adding it to the Memory of the World International Register.[23]

In 2019, sound recordings covering religious expression in Haiti by Mennasson-Rigaud made in the early 1980s were donated to the collection of the American Folklife Center in Washington, D.C, United States.[1][24]

A mural of Mennesson-Rigaud was painted at the National Office of Ethnology in Port-au-Prince.

References

  1. ^ a b c Segal, Marcia K. (2022). "Vodou religious expression in Haiti collected by Odette Mennesson Rigaud, Milo Rigaud, and Shirley Kelle" (PDF). The Library of Congress. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  2. ^ Lawless, Robert (1992). Haiti's Bad Press. Schenkman Books. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-87047-061-5.
  3. ^ a b Cunin, Elisabeth (2021). "Entre histoire de la nation et histoire de l'anthropologie : dialogues Cuba-Haïti (1884‑1959)". Encyclopédie Bérose des histoires de l'anthropologie (in French). doi:10.70601/3v1ebli (inactive 2 January 2026). ISSN 2648-2770.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2026 (link)
  4. ^ Rey, Terry; Richman, Karen (1 June 2012). "Introduction to Special Issue: Haitian Religion". Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses. 41 (2): 145–147. doi:10.1177/0008429812441313. ISSN 0008-4298.
  5. ^ a b Palmié, Stephan, ed. (31 March 2008). Africas of the Americas: Beyond the Search for Origins in the Study of Afro-Atlantic Religions. BRILL. pp. 23, 316–317. ISBN 978-90-474-3270-8.
  6. ^ Jamin, Jean (1 May 2005). "Rendez-vous manqué avec le vodou". Gradhiva. Revue d'anthropologie et d'histoire des arts (in French) (1): 225–231. doi:10.4000/gradhiva.375. ISSN 0764-8928.
  7. ^ Uerlings, Herbert (1997). Poetiken der Interkulturalität: Haiti bei Kleist, Seghers, Müller, Buch und Fichte (in German). Niemeyer. p. 327. ISBN 978-3-484-32092-5.
  8. ^ Bulamah, Rodrigo (27 July 2017), "Alfred Métraux: Between Ethnography and Applied Knowledge", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.452, ISBN 978-0-19-936643-9, retrieved 8 December 2025
  9. ^ Mennesson-Rigaud, Odette (1958). "Le rôle du Vaudou dans l'indépendance d'Haïti". Présence Africaine (in French) (18/19): 43–67. doi:10.3917/presa.9581.0043. ISSN 0032-7638. JSTOR 24345515.
  10. ^ Journal of Religion in Africa: Religion en Afrique. Brill. 2007. p. 391.
  11. ^ Taylor, Patrick (1989). The Narrative of Liberation: Perspectives on Afro-Caribbean Literature, Popular Culture, and Politics. Cornell University Press. p. 110. ISBN 978-0-8014-2193-8.
  12. ^ Aje, Lawrence; Gachon, Nicolas (28 June 2019). Traces and Memories of Slavery in the Atlantic World. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-07498-7.
  13. ^ Geggus, David (1992). "Marronage, voodoo, and the Saint Domingue slave revolt of 1791". Proceedings of the Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society. 15: 22–35. ISSN 0362-7055. JSTOR 42952215.
  14. ^ Actes Du Quinzième Colloque de la Société D'Histoire Coloniale Française Martinique Et Guadeloupe Mai 1989 (in French). University Press of America. 1991. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-8191-8322-4.
  15. ^ a b Patton, Kimberley C. (3 November 2022). Gemini and the Sacred: Twins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 25, 158. ISBN 978-1-84885-931-9.
  16. ^ Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick (2005). Fragments of Bone: Neo-African Religions in a New World. University of Illinois Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-252-02968-4.
  17. ^ "Secrets of voodoo / Milo Rigaud ; translated from the French by Robert B. Cross ; photographs by Odette Mennesson-Riguad". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  18. ^ Rodman, Selden (1984). Haiti: The Black Republic : the Complete Story and Guide. Devin-Adair. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-8159-5701-0.
  19. ^ Chaudenson, Robert (1 October 2010). Société, langues, école en Haïti: En hommage aux victimes universitaires du séisme du 12 janvier 2010 (in French). Editions L'Harmattan. p. 22. ISBN 978-2-296-26641-4.
  20. ^ "Odette Mennesson-Rigaud". André Breton. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  21. ^ "Pilgrimage to the "Saut d' Eau" Falls (Haiti)". The Old Print Shop. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  22. ^ Cosentino, Donald (1995). Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. p. 425. ISBN 978-0-930741-46-4.
  23. ^ "Odette Mennesson Rigaud holdings". UNESCO. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
  24. ^ Segal, Marcia K. (3 October 2022). "More Haitian Voices: The Rigaud collection finding aid goes online | Folklife Today". The Library of Congress. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
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