Welcome to RA'CINE VODOU Art Center!

Ginen (also referred to as Guinée or La Guinée), is commonly refer to a place of origin of the africans descendants;  often saying “nou soti lwen, nou se Nèg Lafrik Ginen: We come from afar, we are from the Guinea region of Africa.  The vast majority of Haitian ancestors, over 90%, were imported to Haiti from the West Coast of Africa. That coast was called Ginen . Ginen was far, about 8,800 kilometers from the Caribbean. At the height of the Trans-Atlantic Trade of People as Slaves, it took 3 months for ships to travel from Ginen to Haiti. This long voyage gives credence to such Vodou songs as “si Ginen pa te lwen konsa, lontan mwen mache chimen mwen: If Guinea were not so far away, I would have long since found my way back.” When Haitian Ancestors were taken out of Africa to Haiti, it was for a one-way trip, never to return home. The name Ginen/Guinée became a generic term used to refer to West Africa as a whole.  

Ginen  has additional meaning, it is  also representative of a most sacred location because it sustains the holistic worldview in which it precise relationships and interactions that  take place within the supernatural realm It is the world  between the natural and the supernatural. In  essence it is at once a concrete place on earth and the place of the afterlife, inhabited by the spirits of our Ancestors. In Traditional Haitian Religion, there is no pedestal high enough to capture the great value that we bestow upon our Ancestors, the Ginen people.  Haitian people  describe themselves as heirs of Ginen, Eritye Ginen.  In Vodou practice, they salue Ginen, the salue all four point cardinal to show respect to the spirit who are consider the gate keepers inorders to give passage to world of ginen.