Max Beauvoir - Haiti Observer Blog

Max Gesner Beauvoir (August 25, 1936 - September 12, 2015) was a Haitian biochemist and a male priest (Houngan) and the supreme leader (Ati) in Haitian Voodoo. He was a chemist from City College of New York (1958), a biochemist from the Sorbonne (1962) and had worked as a biochemist at Cornell Medical Center till in the early 1970s, when he returned to his homeland in Haiti and applied for a patent to extract and produce cortisone from the sisal plant. Max Beauvoir, the Voodoo supreme chief, died on Saturday, September 12, in Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince after an illness at the age of 79. The cause of death was not immediately known. He played an important role to improve voodoo's sinister image in the world. On his twitter account, President Michel Martelly has described his death as a "great loss for the country".

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Haitian Max Gesner Beauvoir's profession was as a biochemist, but he also pursued a calling to become a Voodoo houngan. Beauvoir took his studies at the City College of New York, earning an associate degree in chemistry. He completed his education at the Sorbonne, earning an undergraduate degree in biochemistry. His career path led him to Cornell Medical Center, and then to a position as an engineer for the Digital Equipment Company, where he researched the topic of plant-derived hydrocortisone.

The event of Beauvoir's father's death motivated him to return to Haiti. Not long after he arrived back home, in 1973 he felt an urge to become a Voodoo priest, a houngan. He ascended to the heights of Voodoo priesthood, finally attaining the title Supreme Servitur, which gave him great status among the other Voodoo leaders.

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We just learned that the National Ati also known as the Supreme Chief of of the Voodoo religion in Haiti has passed away. Max Gesner Beauvoir died in Port-au-Prince this weekend. He was 79 years old.

Mr. Max Beauvoir was a biochemist and a houngan who had also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He Was the first to be elevated to the rank of "National Ati", the highest level in Haitian Voodoo, in 2008. He founded The Peristyle of Mariani in 1974.

Mr. Max Beauvoir's role as Supreme chief of Voodoo was to provide spiritual guide to voodoo practitioners and to defend the religion against ongoing attacks from the other religions such as Catholic, Protestant, Evangelist and other alike.

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A firestorm has erupted over a radio commercial comedian Tonton Bicha made for Rum Bakara, an import from the Dominican Republic (DR). The outrage focuses on two elements of the commercial, which tie into each other.

The advertising campaign promoting Rhum Bakara brands the product as "cultural rum". The connection made
by Tonton Bicha between the descriptor and its characterization is the trivialization of Voodoo, a Haitian religious belief that has only been legitimized by the government in the last ten years. The content of the commercial depicts a conversation between a houngan and voudouisant (positions held in Voodoo communities) that caricatures Haiti's Rhum Barbancourt, a venerable 150 year-old company that has passed down its legacy to four generations of rum makers.

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