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The physical or mortal parts of a human being are the corps cadavre and the n'âme. The corps cadavre is the body that decays after death. The n'âme is the spirit that allows the body to function while alive and passes as energy into the soil after death.
The z'étoile is the person's destiny and resides in the heavens, apart from the body.
The gros-bon-ange means, literally, "great good angel” and reflect the part of the cosmic energy that turns into lifeforce; it could be possible to separate a person's gros-bon-ange from him or her, and store it in a bottle or jar, where the energy can be directed to other purposes.
The ti-bon-ange makes up the other half of a person's soul. Meaning "little good angel," it is the source of personality. The ti-bon-ange represents the accumulation of a person's knowledge and experience and is responsible for determining individual characteristics, personality and will. It can leave the body when dreaming, for instance, or when the body is being possessed by a loa. The ti-bon-ange is the part of the human make-up that is most vulnerable to sorcery, even more so than the gros-bon-ange.
Voodoo belief does not consider death to be a cessation of life. Rather, in death, activities are simply changed from one condition to another. The body, the shell for the lifeforce, simply decays while the n'âme that animated the body returns to the ground as earth energy. It is the soul, the gros-bon-ange and the ti-bon-ange, that endures in a different form.
The gros-bon-ange returns to the high solar regions from which its cosmic energy was first drawn; there, it joins the other loa and becomes a loa itself. The ti-bon-ange hovers around the body for a time and then departs for the land of the dead, aided by rituals performed by the houngan.
Death rituals accomplish a number of functions in voodoo. The most important is to send the gros-bon-ange to Ginen, the cosmic community of ancestral spirits, where it will be worshipped by family members as a loa itself. If this is not accomplished, the gros-bon-ange can become trapped on earth, bringing misfortune on surviving family members.
The ti-bon-ange hovers around the body for a period of nine days, at which point a ritual called nine night is performed to ensure that the ti-bon-ange stays in the grave. If this is not done, the ti-bon-ange may also wander the earth and bring misfortune on others.
To banish the ti-bon-ange, it is first placed in a jar or govi. Sometimes it resides there as a worshipped spirit, as described above. At other times, the houngan burns the jar in a ritual called boule zen. This burning of the jars releases the spirit to the land of the dead, where it should properly reside. Another way to elevate the ti-bon-ange is to break the jars and drop the pieces at a crossroads.
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