Overview

In the Congo, my closest friend was named Kundabu, which means “Death is Wind.” We met him in Chapter Five. Death comes to all of us, like the wind. A proverb in a friend’s name, and nothing ever said about human existence is truer than that. Africana religions pay careful attention to the dead, who always remain in our community, ideally watching over us to eventually return, alive once again. Their return, our return, to the world of the living can be enabled by effective religious practice. This is a return to the here and now, the best of all possible worlds and one that we are meant to enjoy fully. The dead are venerated and fed and cherished for all that they have given and continue to give us, especially life, wisdom, and protection. In return, we serve them, revere them, feed them, care for their burial sites, and, in doing so, keep them among and within us. Death being wind, as it were, one day we will join them, hopefully to be likewise served by our living descendants, who will keep us alive in the land of the dead and will embody the wisdom and goodness that we taught them while we were their living elders. In the case of Haitian Vodou, for the living dead to return to us they will travel, across or under the water, to either Africa or Haiti. But if things go awry, they can also come back as ghosts or as zonbi, zombies. This is not to haunt us per se, but to labor mindlessly or serve sorcerers as destructive supernatural powers. That, of course, is altogether regrettable, the loss of a soul to zombification. It is an end to one’s desired return to this world, the world of the living, taking up one’s place anew in the family.

Haitian Vodou is a deeply African religion, in a distinctly Creole form. Thus, toward understanding Vodouist takes on death, dying, and the soul (Vodouist thanatology and pneumatology)—and to understand the zombie—our inquiry must begin in Africa, especially West Africa and the Kongo. This is the homeland of most of Haiti’s African ancestors, as well as most of the lwa. Ogbu Kalu writes, “The influence of ancestral spirits in Africa is pervasive, and devotional concerns over them loom so large in the primal religious structures that emergent religious forms must perforce reflect the encounter with ancestral covenants.”¹ Among the Igbo people, who mostly reside in what is today Nigeria, Kalu finds that the “dominant concerns” of indigenous religion “are nature deities, ancestral deities, and spirit forces – that is, spirits which enhance, preserve, or destroy life and fortunes.”² He concludes that “the core element of the primal religiosity of this culture theater is the cult of the ancestors.”³

Major African routes of the transatlantic slave trade. | Major Routes of the Transatlantic Slave Trade by David Eltis and David Richardson is used under a CC BY-NC 3.0 License.

As a Creole religion, an essentially African but partly Catholic religion in the Americas, Haitian Vodou is one of the “emergent religious forms” to which Kalu refers, and it does “reflect the encounter with ancestral covenants.” This is especially the case during Fèt Gede, the annual Feast of Gede, the lwa of all things related to death and dying, and an anthropomorphic trickster spirit. In this chapter we explore this feast and the nature of the soul in Haitian Vodou. We also briefly explore its relationship to zombies. But first a journey into the soul of Africa beckons.

The Soul in African Religion

Where is your soul, if it exists at all? Let’s contemplate that for a moment, please. Growing up Catholic, I was imbued with a sense that it must be somewhere in my chest. But in Haitian Vodou the soul is in your head. It also consists of two or three elements, depending on whom you ask. But there are no doctrinal texts or scriptures in the religion that dictate any kind of orthodox pneumatology, or teachings and understandings about the soul. As underscored in the previous chapter, Haitian Vodou also exhibits a great deal of variety, so writing anything definitive about Vodouist pneumatology is difficult. But it helps to begin in Africa, to explore this topic Afrocentricly, or by orienting our analysis with reference to the African origins of Vodou, including its notion(s) of the soul.⁴

As in Vodou, there is an impressive diversity of understandings of the soul in traditional African religions. Some of them conceive of multiple elements located in various parts of the body, like the head, stomach, or heart. Among the Fang, for instance, who today mostly live in the West African nation of Gabon, the human soul has seven elements or manifestations, per Claude Rivière:

eba, a vital principle located in the brain, which disappears after death; nlem, the heart, the seat of conscience, which inspires the acts of men and also disappears at the time of death; edzii, an individual name that retains a sort of individuality after death; ki (or ndem) the sign of the individual and at the same time his or her force that perpetuates itself after disincarnation; ngzel, the active principle of the soul as long as it is in the body; nsissim, both shadow and soul; and khun, the disincarnated spirit, which can appear as a ghost.⁵

That is a rather complex pneumatology, to say the least. Tragically, many Fang people were enslaved and forcibly brought to the Americas during the colonial era, where they were outnumbered by Africans of other ethnic groups,⁶ especially the Fon and the Kongo. So it is to their respective pneumatologies that our attention now turns, albeit briefly.

Fon Pneumatology

Fon, or Fon-Ewe or Ewe-Fon, traditional religion is a cornerstone and taproot of Haitian Vodou. It is perhaps the most influential of all African sources on this Creole religion that crystalized in the French slave plantation colony of Saint-Domingue, which would become the independent Republic of Haiti following the Haitian Revolution in 1804. Because of Allada (Ardra), the city and empire that they had built in Dahomey, today’s Benin, Fon is the source of the term for the Rada rite or pantheon of lwa in Vodou. It is also the source of the names of many of the lwa themselves,⁷ like, for instance, Mawou-Lisa, “the female upper god who created the sky and the earth,” who is “reflected in the Marasa (Divine Twins),” among the most popular spirits in the religion.⁸ Furthermore, as Benjamin Hebblethwaite explains, “The Fon and the Haitian people share a fundamental monotheism; the vodun or the lwa are branches of that trunk.”⁹ They are also the source of a rite in Vodou called Gede.¹⁰

In addition, Vodou’s ancestral spirituality,¹¹ as well as the religion’s attentiveness to the living dead, derives centrally from the Fon. “The ancestral cult, believed to be necessary for the perpetuation of the clan, is the focal point of Fon social organization and much religious activity,” per Michelle Gilbert:

Funeral ceremonies for dead adults are concluded three years after their death so that their souls are not lost to the clan. Every decade or so the ancestors are “established,” that is, they are deified as tovodu (family gods) by a rite in which a local group head must name all the dead group members from the most recently dead back to the earliest. At this rite an ancestral shrine (dexoxo) is built. There, the tovodu are annually “fed” and honored with dancing and praise songs.¹²

Thus, in Haitian Vodou, the dead must be fed in ceremonies called manje mò (food for the dead), and their souls, or at least part of their souls, should be preserved in the cycle of life, in their living families, here and now. As part of his research on Haitian Vodou, Leslie Desmangles did fieldwork in Benin and writes that among the Fon today “reclamation ceremonies serve, among other things, as opportunities for members of a clan to construct a memorial shrine in honor of their ancestors.” In this, Desmangles found “many parallels with similar reclamation rites in Haiti.”¹³ In a deeply interesting commentary on zombies, meanwhile Donald Cosentino reflects another enduring Fon notion in Haitian Vodou: “What zombies represent is a hijacking of the soul . . . so that it cannot rejoin the family, which is the whole purpose of life.”¹⁴ Reclamation rites are thus designed in part to protect the souls of the dead from being zombified.

Fon statue covered with ancient and authentic chains from slavery and ornamented with two crocodile skulls. Late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Private collection of Ji-Elle’. Photo by owner. | Fon Statue by Ji-Elle is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.

In Fon traditional religion, one’s soul is called a lovu, though there is a distinction between one’s “soul of life” and one’s “soul of dreams.” Neither has much influence on the idiosyncrasies of the lives of the living, but “in the case of death, lovu definitely left the person; and whereas the soul of life turned into a spirit (noli), walking around the living, the soul of death joined the ancestors . . . in the realm of the dead.”¹⁵ There is another element of the soul in Fon-Ewe traditional religion that eludes translation or explanation in English, but that amounts to three different souls or three elements of one’s soul. As Brigit Meyer offers, in Ewe religion “some spirits of the dead remained on earth to frighten or trouble the living.”¹⁶ That does sound like a zombie in Haiti, at least in one form. There are other zombic forms in Haiti, though, as we will see in the following chapter.

Finally, a few other influential notions of Fon pneumatology are central to Vodouist understandings of the soul. For instance, upon death, part of one’s soul, called the sae, returns to God, other parts become ancestors, and others can haunt the living, kind of like a zombie. Furthermore, there are ceremonies in Fon religion that must be performed after someone has died, especially a family member, and if these ceremonies are neglected or improperly performed, that part of the soul that should join the ancestors cannot.¹⁷ The dead are to be venerated and can watch over us, but should the living fail to serve their spiritual obligations to serve them, to feed them, and to perform such funerary rites, tragedy can strike. In Haiti, some of among the dead who are neglected in such a way might well be transformed into zombies, thereby breaking “the whole purpose of life.”

Kongo Pneumatology

Kongo pneumatology and cosmology are framed largely by the understanding that the universe is divided into two worlds, the world of the living, nza yayi, and the land of the dead, nsi a bafwa. As in Fon religion, in Kongo the dead are venerated and feared, and they are understood to cycle through this world and the ancestral realm. One important difference between the two African traditions, Fon and Kongo, is that in the latter pneumatology the soul does not return to God (Nzambe Mpungu) but to nsi a bafwa. In Kongolese religious thought, a human being consists of two elements, as K. E. Laman explains in a classic study:

Man is considered a double being, made up of an outer and an inner entity. The outer body again consists of two parts, the shell (vuvudi) which is buried and rots in the ground as quickly as a mushroom, and the inner, invisible part (mvumbi) which is eaten by the magic of the bandoki [sorcerer].¹⁸

So what transmigrates or reincarnates, then, if one of our elements rots upon burial and the other is eaten by bandoki? It’s not entirely clear, to the extent that another early ethnographer, Joseph Van Wing, found Kongolese pneumatology to be somewhat incoherent. But he found that it identifies a dual soul, consisting of a “sentient soul” and a “spiritual soul.”¹⁹ Lilas Desquiron argues that such a “very blurry” idea of the soul is also evident in Fon pneumatology, but that this blurriness contributed to the ease with which West and Central African ideas blended in the genesis of Haitian Vodou.²⁰ Per Wyatt MacGaffey, we also consist of an “imperishable social identity.”²¹ Such might be conceived of as the soul, which is invisible in Kongolese pneumatology. It separates from the body to embark on a journey from the world of the living to the land of the dead, in a cycle across the “reciprocating universe” or the “spiral universe.”²²

The universe is spiral and reciprocal largely because of the cosmological realities behind the chief symbol used in Kongolese religion to reflect it, an encircled cross (like a sun cross) called the yowa. In the yowa, the world of the living and the land of the dead are divided by a river, called nzadi, which our souls cross when we die on our spiritual journey between these two worlds. The yowa is circular in its tracing of the cycle of a human being from birth to death, a cycle that symbolically begins at sunrise, which almost always occurs around 6:00 a.m. in equatorial regions of the globe. In the yowa, the rising sun is situated on the nzadi, and an upwardly arcing line traces our journey from birth to full adulthood, which also traces the movement of the sun from its rise to noon. From that moment, we start our descent toward sunset, a downward arc that is traced in the yowa, toward the river. Once we are there, around 6:00 p.m., we die.

Mboma (an ethnic group closely related to the Kongo) Mintadi funerary statues from West Central Africa. Stone icons of historical leaders/rulers that are placed on the graves of important people to protect them. Private collection of Ji-Elle’. Photo by owner, 2018. Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium.²³ | Mintandi Funerary Statues by Ji-Elle is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.

But death is not the end, for now it is time for our souls (our “imperishable social identities”) to cross the river, leaving the land of the living and entering the land of the dead, becoming ancestors. Our journey in this land is toward midnight, now symbolized by the moon, a downward arc traced in the yowa from the river to the bottom of the circle. On this journey, our living descendants keep our souls alive, by feeding us, venerating us, naming their children for us, and keeping our graves clean and visiting them often. It is a dark and cold land, nsi a bafwa, hence it is symbolized in Kongolese religion by the color black.²⁴ The world of the living, which we left at sunset, is light and warm and is symbolized by the color white. The river itself is symbolized by the color red. A number of things can happen to our souls at this point, but ideally we will begin to travel on an upward arc as the moon begins its descent and we approach nzadi anew. The circle or the spiral is thereby complete once we reach the river, which happens at sunrise. Some of our souls will cross the river to return to the world of the living, reborn as infants who are our own descendants.

Kongolese yowa cosmogram, depicting the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, between the world of the living and the land of the dead. | Kongo Yowa Cosmogram by Hoodoowoman is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.

The symbol of this two-world universe is thus a circle, tracing our path from birth to death to ancestorhood and to rebirth. It is a cyclical path that crosses the same river twice, at birth and at death. This brings to mind a passage from the great poem “Éthiopiques” by Léopold Sedhar Senghor, who also happened to be independent Senegal’s first head of state:

Je ne sais en quels temps c’était, je confonds toujour présent et passé

Comme je mêle la mort et la vie. Un pont de douceur les relie

I don’t know at what times this was, I always confuse present and past

Like I mix death and life. A tender bridge relinks them.²⁵

Though the bridge does not appear in the yowa, the symbol contains two straight intersecting lines within its circle. One is horizontal, representing nzadi, and the other is vertical and connects noon and midnight. In Kongo traditional religion they are considered the most spiritual moments of day and night. Despite the lack of a bridge, our souls will one day cross the river into the land of the dead, but not immediately, as MacGaffey explains:

The passage to the otherworld takes a certain length of time. The deceased is considered to hang about, taking part in his own funeral and perhaps seeking vengeance on his enemies. Some say that if you look in a mirror at a coffin you may see the soul of the deceased sitting on it. . . . death is seen as a passage extending in time and place.²⁶

Thus, in both Fon and Kongo religious thought, life and death are part journey and part traversal. Although in each respective pneumatology the soul is conceptualized differently, the ideas of passage and journey are consistent, as is the essential belief that the dead are part of the community of the living, and they are to be venerated. Whether one’s soul contains several elements that separate at death, as in Fon pneumatology, or remains unitary beyond the grave, as in Kongo pneumatology, it lives on and moves on, remaining part of the world of the living. We will hopefully one day return to the world of the living, embodying and envesseled by another human being, one close to us, of our own family. And humans have a central role to play in ensuring the passage of our souls to the otherworld, by tending to our graves, feeding and feting us, and aiding our return across the river. In this way they participate in our completion of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

We have only scratched the surface of African notions of the soul, limiting ourselves, for the sake of time and space, to outlining the pneumatologies of the two traditional African religious cultures that are arguably the most influential on Haitian Vodou. Too many members of other African ethnic groups were also victims of the transatlantic slave trade, like the Mina and the Yoruba (the latter called Nago in colonial Haiti, in Saint-Domingue), whose spiritual traditions contributed much to African survival in the Americas and to the genesis and splendor of Haitian Vodou. But hopefully enough has been covered here to foster appreciation of the African roots of Haitian Vodou and Vodou’s teachings and traditions related to death, dying, the soul, and ultimately the zombie (zonbi).

Nanm ~ Vodou Soul

An old Jeep whose muffler needs repair can be heard coming from quite a distance away, especially in a rural part of the world with little noise pollution. I am a surfer, and when I lived in Haiti I used to drive over the bucolic green mountains from Port-au-Prince, the capital city, to Jacmel, a city on the nation’s southern coast, with a surfboard wedged into the oft-unreliable, misfiring American jalopy. As I rumbled down to the plain approaching the coast, young children would recognize the sound of my Jeep and rush out to the road to give me a surf report. On good days, from the perspective of a surfer, they would say: “Blan! Lanmè a gen anpil nanm jodi a, wi!”—literal translation: “White guy! The sea has so much spirit today, yes!” That meant that the surf was up! But, as any good translator or interpreter knows, literality is not a cardinal rule of allowing languages to make passages across disparate dialects and cultures with sound senses and grounded meanings. As the cliché goes, much is lost in translation.

In the enthusiastic surf report from the kids in southern Haiti, while many of the terms are straightforward, nanm is especially elusive to effective translation. While in a “narrow sense . . . nanm is a tough force that survives death,” as observes Alissa Jordan, it “is a contextual phenomenon that is situated in the shifting sands of daily life.”²⁷ While Alfred Métraux states that the word “is best translated as ‘energy’ or ‘effluvium’,” usually it is defined simply as “spirit” or “soul.”²⁸ But it is so much more, abundantly present in nature, not just in the heads, hearts, souls, and pulsating blood of human beings. The Vodouist notion of soul and Vodou’s rich healing traditions—and, it should be said, zombification—are all intertwined with natural forces, not just with divinity, as divinity is infused in nature. Consider that in Haitian Vodou the “soul is attributed to the sun, to the earth and to plants.”²⁹ Nourishment in the food that allowed us to grow physically and that sustains us is also nanm, as is the force within plants that enables healing. The earth itself has a soul, as do our bean fields, rice plantations, and mango groves.

As in Ewe-Fon pneumatology, in Vodou, souls can contain various components that may separate, or be separated. Furthermore, as suggested by the Jacmel kids’ surf report, nature is full of nanm, like the sea when the surf is up. It is a word that in Haitian Creole takes its cue from the French une âme (a soul) and, in variegated forms, is a key notion in Haitian Vodou, as reflected in the following explanation by Hebblethwaite:

In Vodou, nanm can be an immaterial creature – benevolent or malevolent. Mete nanm (putting soul) refers to the process of restoring a soul that has been taken from a body. A move nanm (bad soul) can refer to a ghost or a lougawou (female werewolf), as they wander around at night. A nanm zonbi (zombie soul) refers to the soul of a dead person that has been captured by a benyè (undertaker) and sold to an unscrupulous Vodou priest or priestess.³⁰

In most anthropological studies, the soul in Haitian Vodou consists of two parts, the ti bonnanj (the good little angel) and the gwo bonnanj (big guardian angel), though in some accounts these are actually “two souls which everyone possesses.”³¹ At times, the gwo bonnanj is itself considered to be the soul, but, just as defining namn as “soul” is problematic, so is defining gwo bonnanj as such, as Maya Deren explains:

The exclusive use of the word “soul” . . . would similarly misrepresent the sense of gros-bon-ange or esprit, which is understood, in Voudoun, as the invisible, non-material self or character of an individual, as distinguished from his physical body: i.e., the person John, as a concept, distinct from the physical body of John. As a matter of fact, the “psyche” as it is used in modern psychology, conveys some aspects of the Voudoun gros-bon-ange more accurately than the word “soul.”³²

Laënnec Hurbon defines the former, ti bonnanj, as follows: “one of two spiritual principals of the individual; in general, the support of the lwa in a person’s head.”³³ He defines gwo bonnanj as the second spiritual force or “principle” that “directs one’s affective and intellectual life.”³⁴ Hebblethwaite describes the ti bonnanj as “the part of the human mind dedicated to thought, agency, awareness, and memory,”³⁵ while the gwo bonnanj is “the divine particle and breath of life in all beings.” In my own experience of the religion, there is a third element of the soul called the mèt tèt. This term literally translates as “headmaster,” not in the sense of a school principal but in the sense of the spiritual master of one’s head. This is a spirit, a lwa, who serves throughout life as “the Vodouist’s protector,”³⁶ and “the loa that is dominant above all others in the psyche of an individual.”³⁷

Upon death, these spiritual elements are to be ritually separated in an important ritual called desounen and embark on journeys at various times and to various places. The destination of the mèt tèt is to the collective assemblage and energies of the other lwa of its identity. The gwo bonnanj is believed to hover about the body that it formerly occupied, one’s ko kadav (literally “cadaver body”), and it might remain around the living indefinitely as a ghost. But its ultimate destination is God, Bondye, as its purpose of animating a person is now finished. Finally, the ti bonnanj, essentially one’s consciousness, remains near the corpse and its community for nine days. Then it spends a year and one day (including those nine) under the water, after which a ceremony called wete mò anba dlo (bring the dead back from the water) is performed so that it may ultimately return to Ginen, to Africa. Though Vodou is not an apocalyptic religion and does not dabble in extensive speculation about heaven and hell, by some accounts the ti bonnanj is to be judged by Bondye. This separation and successful launch of these spiritual forces and journeys require the careful orchestration of the ritual of desounen.

We should pause here to reflect for a moment on water. Water is life, and without it we die, but it is also a connector between the living and the dead in Africana religions. In her fascinating study of water in Afro-Caribbean women’s creative writing and Africana spirituality, Rebeca Hey-Colón shares the following insight: “To engage with Afro-diasporic waters . . . is to erode the border between life and death.”³⁸ Life and death. The spiritual and the material. In Africana spirituality, such dichotomies are indeed eroded. Consider the following observation by Sandra Greene about indigenous religion among Ewe people of West Africa:

The ocean was understood to be a seemingly endless body of water over which one could travel to reach a desired destination. But it was also associated with a number of deities that had the power to both generate bumper harvests of fish and to consume through drowning the lives of those who depended on the ocean for their sustenance. . . . These sites and others were also associated with the sacred. They were sacred locations where the separately and intimately related worlds of the material and the spiritual came together.³⁹

Thus the worlds of the living and the dead come together at, or are separated by, water. Greene’s observations are about the so-called Slave Coast, home to so many ancestors of the Haitian people. Hence, it makes sense that, as I have written elsewhere: “The crossing of water is one of the most powerful symbols in Haitian Vodou. For example, the religion’s spirits and ancestors live ‘across the water’ (lot bò a dlo) or ‘under the water’ (anba dlo).” For such reasons, “commerce between them and their living human devotees implies such traversals of oceans, seas, or rivers.”⁴⁰

In some Kongolese conceptualizations the soul actually remains eternally under the water following one’s death, or at least one of the elements of the soul does. The “blurriness” of Fon and Kongo pneumatologies notwithstanding, they share, per Desquiron, a key commonality ensuring that “water would thus play a primordial role in the funerary world of Haiti.” For upon death we “enter into contact with water,” whether this contact is “transitory,” traversal, or permanent.⁴¹

Upon death, the elements of the soul must be carefully separated from each other. Otherwise, the living may be haunted or even harmed by the dead, and zombies can be made from one element of the soul. One’s ti bonnanj can be captured and placed in a bottle as a zonbi astral (astral zombie) and put to work by a sorcerer. In Haitian Vodou, this act of soul theft is usually attempted during the desounen funerary ceremony. Perhaps the ceremony can be better understood through etymology, or the study of word origins. Métraux offers that the term derives “from the French désonner” and that the ritual is also called “dégradation.” The term déssonner is an infinitive verb meaning “to unseat,” while dégradation is the origin of the same word in English.⁴² To unseat elements of the soul from one’s head upon death is clearly one function of the desounen ritual. It’s impossible to say when the term first emerged in Haitian Creole or in Haitian Vodou, but could there be other African etymological cornerstones to the word and its meanings?

A tomb for an ancestor in Delatte, Haiti, near the western coastal city of Petit-Goave. Photographer unknown. | A Large Tomb in Haiti by Bdx is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 License.

I asked this question of a leading scholar of Haitian Creole and Haitian Vodou, and at first Professor Hebblethwaite thought that it must be “a romance noun with the privative prefix de.” But then this: “Well, I busted open my copy of Dictionnaire Fon-Français by Segurola & Rassounoux (personal heroes of mine) and looked up Fon words with the sound soun out of curiosity.” From this inquiry, he discovered that the word sùn means fixer, French for to fix or establish. In Fon, the word is used in the expressions for “fixing a price” or “giving someone a name.…So, if this etymology is on the right path, then de-sounen would be a sort of ritual unfixing of the soul after death . . . the use of sùn in the context of naming is also extremely interesting since the desounen also involves giving (names of) spirits to a descendant.”⁴³

With that intriguing etymological excursion out of the way, let us explore the desounen ceremony itself. Understanding this funerary rite is key to understanding zombic culture and zombic forms in Haiti, and the best description I know is that shared by Métraux.⁴⁴ For Métraux, desounen is one of numerous rituals for the dead, arguably the most crucial, which is driven by fear of them: “Fear of the dead is such that their close relatives would never dare, under any pretext whatever, to avoid those duties which custom exacts.”⁴⁵ From my experience in both Zaire and Haiti, I know that fear is indeed a prime mover of ancestor veneration, but there is also devotion, appreciation, love, commemoration, and a deep sense of lineage that inspires such practices as desounen. You want your loved one’s transition to the other world, to the grave, to ancestorhood, to be as pleasant as possible, after all, and we all would like the same from our descendants and loved ones when we die.

The “ceremony begins with appeals to the loa,” after which the priest or priestess approaches “the death-bed, gets under the sheet, and crouches over” the corpse and uses the asson, or sacred rattle, to summon the spirits. After words are spoken into the ears of the deceased, “a shudder runs through the corpse and slowly it raises its head, or shoulders, as though trying to sit up – then it slumps back – an inert mass.” Métraux attributes this to “a muscular contraction” that is triggered by the lwa or mèt tèt leaving the body of the deceased.⁴⁶

Once the lwa has left the body, the priest or priestess traces a cross on the deceased’s forehead “then places a tuft of its hair in a little white pot,” along with chicken feathers, a practice that indicates that the ti bonnanj has been successfully released from the corpse. “The pot containing the soul of the deceased is carefully sealed and placed in a safe place – often in the boughs of a tree.” Preparation for burial follows, and this involves washing the corpse with herbs and water, plugging its nostrils and ears with cotton, and tying its big toes together. The jaw is also tied shut with a kind of “sling” wrapped over the top of the head. This prohibits the corpse from leaving and protects it from the entry of evil spirits, move zespri. After the corpse is dressed, the mourners pay their respects and it is taken toward its burial plot. It is blessed by a bush priest (pret savann) along the way, who recites Catholic prayers. Circuitous routes are taken to the cemetery to confuse the dead so they will not be able to return to their homes should they rise from the grave. Following the burial, the deceased “is regarded as being consumed with dread of his new loneliness and obsessed by a desire to come and fetch someone he was fond of.” Finally, nine days of prayer, a novena, take place at the home of the departed, attended by friends and loved ones, many of whom come and go at various times of the day and night.⁴⁷

The children in Jacmel who gave me the surf report will one day die, like all of us. This is a simple fact of human existence, for death is wind. Nanm, soul, life force, is deeply related to African notions of the infusion of God’s energies throughout creation. Nanm pulsates through our veins and is heard and felt in our laughter and seen in the play of children, in the rising tide, in the breast milk of a new mother. In Yoruba the word for this is ashe, in Swahili it is uzima, and in Lingala it is nguya.⁴⁸ In Haitian Creole it is nanm. Such energies, being God’s very life-giving and -sustaining presence, are eternal, so when their vessels die, when we or the trees die, when rivers run dry, when the bottles are broken, they depart, having served their purposes of animating us and all else that is life. This ontology, this theology, this understanding of being and of God, are cornerstones to everything that we have thus far explored in this and the previous chapter. Let us now turn our attention to the lwa in Haitian Vodou who are associated with all things death and dying. Many of them are classified as Gede spirits, though since any lwa could be one’s mèt tèt, all spirits experience the lives and deaths of those whose heads they have occupied over the course of their lives.

Feeding and Reclaiming the Dead in Haitian Vodou ~ Manje Mò and Wete Mò Anba Dlo

In three of the most important books ever written about Haitian Vodou, Maya Deren, Laënnec Hurbon, and Alfred Métraux each devote many pages to discussing the dead and rituals related to death, dying, and the ancestors. Here are the titles or subtitles of their discussions:

Deren: “The Rituals of Death” and “The Rites of Reclamation”

Hurbon: “Dialectic of Life and Death around the Symbol of the Tree”

Métraux: “The Cult of the Dead”

Rituals, Death, Rites, Dialectic, Symbol, Tree, Cult, the Dead—there is a lot said in those titles and subtitles alone, and it is inconceivable that any book on Vodou could ignore the dead, or that the religion could even exist without the dead and ancestral spirituality. Deren writes that “the rituals of death are designed to restore each successively to its proper province,” meaning the gwo bonnanj and the ti bonnanj. Concerning the material body, furthermore, “death rituals relating to the body are, in sum, directed against physical resurrection – against, on the one hand, a false decay, and, on the other, a false life.”⁴⁹ Surely, at least in part, the fear of zombification, of the dead being transformed into zonbi or of part of their soul being captured and transformed into zonbi, drives this obsession with proper burial. Ultimately, though, it is about respect for and veneration of the dead. “The dread zombie, the major figure of terror, is precisely this: the body without a soul, matter without morality. To avoid this development, all measures are taken to make certain that the body is truly lifeless and therefore physically useless.”⁵⁰

After discussing desounen, Deren outlines an important funerary ceremony called Wete Mò Anba Dlo, mentioned above, which literally translates as “retrieve the dead from under the water.” This ritual is conducted by an oungan or a manbo and their assistants/apprentices (ounsi) a year and a day after the death of a loved one and is intended “to reclaim his soul from the waters of the abyss below the earth and to lodge it in a govi.”⁵¹ A govi is a clay jar, a “sacred vessel” that houses the soul of the dead, while some house the lwa.⁵² At the beginning of the ceremony, which takes place in a temple, the govi are “consecrated and wrapped in white” and carried on the heads of the ounsi, shrouded in white shawls.⁵³ Now the priest or priestess is “functioning as a midwife” and “assists the third birth, the rebirth of the soul from the abysmal waters.”⁵⁴ A lwa is summoned by drumming and chanting, as well as by a bell and the asson (sacred rattle of the Vodou priesthood) to enter the govi to assist with the rebirth. “Some of the souls arrive in anger and are difficult for the houngan to handle.”⁵⁵ But, after “several hours,” success is achieved, with, in the case Deren observed, “the seven souls having all been reclaimed.”⁵⁶ The govi are then wrapped and placed on an altar in the temple.

Hurbon’s intriguing exploration of the importance of tree symbolism in Haitian Vodou as pertaining to life and death is well worth contemplating here. Hurbon is, in my opinion, the most important Haitian scholar of religion today, and he observes that “the tree has great symbolic importance in Vodou and appears in countless myths” in the religion. Most Vodouists in Haiti are illiterate, so hymns, myths, and songs are vital repositories of their religion’s wisdom, as is memory. And, for Hurbon and for the Vodouists with whom he has worked over decades, the tree has an “importance as a language of life and death.”⁵⁷ Trees are rooted in the earth, nourished by water, with branches reaching to the sky. They provide so much shade and so much material to Vodou, like drums and fuel for fire. This fire is used for cooking herbal remedies and food for the dead and the spirits—and for the living. After analyzing countless myths in Haitian Vodou, Hurbon concludes:

The Vodouist is lodged, in effect, in the shade of trees as the shade of the lwa. . . . Trees are present in the Vodouist’s entire cultural life. . . . On their branches are draped ribbons, cords, and bags. And all of this devotion to trees appears as a celebration of life, a confidence in the spiritual powers that constitute the language in which the Vodouist harmonizes aspirations and organizes the universe . . . a language that allows one to situate oneself in the world . . . to emerge from confusion; a regulatory language of one’s aspirations; a language that offers the possibility of putting into order the forces of life and death that abound.⁵⁸

Trees require nourishment, as do the living and the dead. Like any member of our community, the dead must eat, so we must feed them.

Next to desounen, the most important ritual performed in Haitian Vodou for the dead is the manje mò, Food for the Dead.

Feeding the dead in Vodou often includes offerings of this famous Haitian rum. | Barbancourt Rum by Wapster is used under a CC BY 2.0 License.

Métraux explains that such ceremonies “include offerings to the dead of food cooked without salt and prepared entirely by men.” I am not sure why this is a gendered element of the ritual (I have seen women in Haiti prepare food for the cause), but Métraux adds that African ancestors “get a special stew containing beef, pigs’ trotters, maize, and scarlet beans.”⁵⁹ Following is the great anthropologist’s rich description of this important ritual:

When a meal is served to the dead, a table covered with food is put in a room which is then shut off for a few hours to give them time to feast themselves at leisure. After prayers and appeals addressed to the ancestors . . . . the living sit down at the table and enjoy a banquet. The manger-mort ends with dances . . . . At dawn a procession wends its way to a crossroads to the strains of hymns: “Go my angel” and “send my soul.”⁶⁰

One would be remiss not to add a word about zen—not Zen Buddhism, but pots in Haitian Vodou that go by that name, just to add another ritual twist to our story about death, dying, and the soul in Haitian Vodou. Deren defines “zins” as “ceremonial cooking pots, usually of clay. . . .”⁶¹ Though more often a ceremony that is tied to initiation into Vodou, the boule zen (lit.: “boil the pots”) “can be a funeral ceremony for important initiates such as oungan, manbo, or ounsi kanzo,” as Hebblethwaite adds. “In the ceremony, the vèvè called zen is traced next to the vèvè of the main lwa of the deceased served.”⁶² And all of this, all zen, all cemeteries, all burials, all the dead, are overseen by Gede, to whom our attention now turns.

The Spirits and the Dead

Many lwa are centrally involved in death and dying in Haitian Vodou. And they all experience human death and dying when someone whose head they have occupied passes away after a human lifetime of animating them and shaping their ways. Such transcendent inhabitants are released in funerary services, especially desounen, and return to their respective spiritual collectivities. The lwa are unitary, but they can live in many heads and marry many devotees, and even sleep with them and go to Mass with them, all at the same time, if need be. Diffusion. Unity. Spirit. Death.

But some lwa have constant roles in human death and dying, ruling cemeteries, ever reminding us of our mortality, entering our lives and our deaths in myriad ways and forms. Most of these death lwa are classified as Gede spirits, for Gede is the ruler of all things related to death and dying in Haitian Vodou, and he has multiple manifestations and rules over an entire host of other lwa under his tutelage in the Vodou pantheon. Being the chief lwa of death, dying, and the dead, Gede is clearly one of the most important spirits in the religion. He is also quite sexually charged and symbolically represented by an erect penis. Cosentino once attended a Vodou ceremony in Haiti where Gede had arrived, and someone asked the lwa why he always wore glasses with one lens missing. Here was his answer: “Because the penis only has one eye.”⁶³ Hebblethwaite affirms that “Gede’s vulgar flair” is usually suggestive and at times driven by hymns and drums, as are most communal Vodou ceremonies.⁶⁴

In addition to sporting such purposely broken eyewear, Gede is always dressed in black, usually wears a top hat, and smokes a pipe. He is associated with human skulls and bones, which are often seen on altars and during rituals, at cemeteries, for the dead, lemò. This mercurial lwa speaks in “a high pitched nasal voice,” and during Vodou ceremonies, when someone is possessed by and is accoutred as Gede, he sprinkles perfume on the faithful, slaps them on the back, shakes hands, and breaks into highly sexually charged dances (banda), often with a cane, whose symbolism speaks for itself.⁶⁵ Cosentino describes Gede’s appearance as follows:

Often he dons a top hat and dress coat, all the attire of an undertaker. His face is powdered white to symbolize the whiteness of the human skull. He needs sunglasses because his work is underground in the tombs of the cemetery and his eyes can’t take the light when he comes to manifest himself throughout a possession trance. The single lens is said to symbolize the third eye of Gede that can see into the world of the dead.⁶⁶

Given Gede’s provenance over death, it is understandable that his “altars are frequently coffins” and that the most important holiday in Haitian Vodou is his feast day, Fèt Gede, but it is not his alone, however much he might claim it to be.⁶⁷

Gede takes numerous forms, and each November, they multiply in the bodies of people who perform him. For, since death is wind, “everybody got Gede,” as one renowned manbo (Vodou priestess) puts it. “Everybody!”⁶⁸ Karen McCarthy Brown explains that “Gede is both one and many, but his ranks are more populous than those of other spirits, and they grow more rapidly and more casually.” In New York, for instance: “There is a Gede who is a dentist, and one who is an auto mechanic; and now there is even a Protestant missionary.”⁶⁹ In his exhaustive glossary, Hebblethwaite lists fifteen Gede:

Gede Drivayè; Gede (Ti) Fatra; Gede Hounsou; Gede Kriyòl; Gede Lensou; Gede Loray; Gede Nibo; Gede Nouvavou; Gede Pikan; Gede Ramase; Gede Rounsou Mazaka; Gede Ti Wawè; Gede Ti Pis Lakwa; Gede Wonsou; Gede Yèhwe. . . . Gedevi; Gede Vi; Gedevi Yawe.70

There are even more,⁷¹ and each November they proliferate “rapidly” and “casually.” As Hebblethwaite goes on to explain: “While most lwa appear when called on, the Gede lwa, like death itself, can appear without notice. The Gede family is composed of many members – most notably Bawon Samdi, Bawon Simityè, Bawon Lakwa, Grann Brigit, and Gede Nibo.”⁷²

In Vodou, the distinction between the sacred and the profane, something that features centrally in many religions, entirely vanishes, if it ever existed at all. When one of the most important spirits in your religion takes the form of Gede Little Garbage (Gede [Ti] Fatra) or Gede Little Piss Cross (Gede Ti Pis Lakwa), the proverbial religious playing field is leveled. Gede is obviously highly complex, diverse, bawdy, and ever shifting, and dizzying are his varieties, but among his underlings listed above we should pay most careful attention to Bawon.⁷³ This is a book largely about zombies, after all, and Bawon’s permission is required to make the most common form of zonbi in Haiti, the zonbi astral.

Like Gede, Bawon loves the colors purple and black, and he rules cemeteries in Haiti and is symbolically associated with the Christian cross. Thus, one of his names/manifestations is Bawon Lakwa, Baron of the Cross, while another is Bawon Simitiyè, Baron of the Cemetery. Other names/manifestations include Bawon Gede (Baron Gede), Baron Gran Bwa (Baron of the Deep Woods), Bawon Kafou (Baron of the Crossroads), Bawon Kara (not sure what that means, to be honest), Bawon Kriminèl (Criminal Baron), Bawon Lento (also unsure), and Bawon Loray (also unsure, sorry).⁷⁴ Most commonly he is called Bawon Samdi, Baron Saturday. That name derives from French and is a classic example of how enslaved Africans and their descendants in Haiti effectively hijacked the language and religion of their oppressors, creating a remarkable religion and language of their own. Haitian Creole is spoken today by all Haitians (whereas French is spoken fluently by only 10–15 percent of the national population). Like most lwa, the Gede and their rite derive from West Africa, Benin, to be precise, and Bawon is one of the most important. This is understandable, given the elevated place of ancestral spirituality in Vodou and that cemeteries are among the most sacred places in the religion and the sites of the most important annual holiday, Fèt Gede.

Wherever a Vodouist sees a cross, whether in a church or in a cemetery or dangling from a rosary around someone’s neck or wrist, they see Bawon. His vèvè centers upon a cross, and black is his chief color. Hurbon describes Bawon as follows:

Baron Samdi, head of the spirits of the dead called the Gédé, always wears black and a top hat. His lascivious dances, called banda, imitate sexual coupling. Under his auspices acts of magic and sorcery, called “expeditions” after Saint Expedite, the Baron’s Catholic counterpart, are carried out in cemeteries or at crossroads. . . . For most of the problems of daily life, he is the spirit most often appealed to. . . . altars dedicated to Baron: always a cross, one or more skulls, a hat, glasses, bottles of rum given in offering, candles and so on.⁷⁵

Furthermore, Bawon “is represented as a robust black man with a long white beard. . . . He always carries a koko makak stick and a bottle of white rum.”⁷⁶ In many ways, Bawon is Gede, as “Lord of the cemetery . . . and of the magic related to both the Dead and the cross-roads.”⁷⁷

But Bawon cannot handle all his important life and death work alone, so he shares his duties with a female lwa named Grann Brijit (Old or Great Brigid), who is often called Manman Brijit (Mother Brigid). With Bawon, Grann Brijit is “responsible for the passage between life and death.” This goes far in making sense of the melding of skulls and sexuality in the general symbolism of the Gede, as well as Bawon’s association with the cross, for these passages entail crossroads, as reflected in the Kongolese yowa. Haitian Vodou is a very gender liberal religion, and there is no place of leadership that is elusive to women or members of the LGBTQ+ community with spiritual vocations. The pantheon of lwa reflects this powerfully. Despite being pushy with a voracious ego, Bawon cannot do it all alone, so he has Grann Brijit, and she has him. They are married, after all, and associated with Adam and Eve.⁷⁸

Grann Brijit is “the mother of the Gede” and “is as powerful as her husband,” and here is a description by Hebblethwaite:

She is a very old black woman. Grann Brijit is identified with Saint Brigid, the patron saint of Ireland. Her resting place is a cirouellier or a cursed brown fig tree . . . and in cemeteries she is represented by a pile of stones. Her days of consecration are Monday and Friday, and her color is black. Grann Brijit rarely possesses anyone, but when she does, the individual becomes like the dead. Vodouists wrap the possessed person’s jaw with a black scarf, put cotton in the ears and nostrils, cover her in a white cloth, sprinkle white rum, and chant for her.⁷⁹

For Grann Brijit, the “ritual meal is composed of potatoes, plantain, salted herring, grilled cod, corn, grilled pistachios, and a sacrificed black chicken.”⁸⁰

Although Grann Brijit is Bawon’s wife and oversees much of their spiritual work together, there is another female lwa who occupies a place of prominence in Vodou understandings of death, dying, and the afterlife, namely Mayanèt Bwa Seche, Marinette Dry Wood. Cosentino describes how at one Vodou ceremony he attended in Haiti, she “arrived in fury, convulsing on the floor in some unspoken rancor.”⁸¹ Hebblethwaite adds that Mayanèt “is assimilated with the popular Catholic image of Anima Sola (the Lonesome Soul) . . . . Mayanèt is tough and eats pieces of burning charcoal.”⁸² Though notions of evil are not as rigid in Vodou as in most other religions, Mayanèt, a fierce divinity of the Petwo rite or pantheon, is “dreaded” and associated with sorcery and with the screech owl. Venerating her requires building a fire and fueling it with gasoline and salt. “She is particularly respected by werewolves . . . and wanders through the woods and it is there, in secret spaces, that her servants come to leave her offerings.”⁸³ She is married to a lwa named Ti-Jean Zandor, “a little man dressed in red, who jumps up and down on one leg and perches at will on the tops of palm trees whence he keeps an eye on the roads and jumps on passers-by to kill them for food.”⁸⁴ Whatever their function or appearance, all of these lwa are Gede and fall under his dominion and gaze. And, like most Vodou spirits, he is very festive, as evinced most robustly in Gede’s annual feast.

Fèt Gede

Some twelve million Africans were enslaved, enchained, and pressed onto European ships over the course of 450 years to be forced to labor on plantations in colonies throughout the Americas, from Brazil to Virginia.⁸⁵ The brutality of this horrific crime is unspeakable, as were the physical and emotional traumas for its victims. Slavery also caused its victims tremendous spiritual trauma. They were torn from their families, groves, rivers, streams, trees, priests, priestesses, shrines, drums, and the burial sites of the dead in their homeland. To venerate the dead at their graves has for ages been an important religious obligation in West and Central Africa, where the ancestors are buried near or even in their homes. Stripped from those resting places, venerating the ancestors in Africa became impossible for their enslaved descendants across the Atlantic Ocean. Enter Catholic priests in the Americas, who brought not only Catholic saints to the attention of Africans but also feast days, none more important than All Saints Day and All Souls Day, November 1 and 2. Here was a welcome occasion to venerate all saints, who are all dead, and all souls, including those in Africa and those all around us, within us, in cemeteries or under our feet, beneath the earth or across the water. This would become Fèt Gede in Haitian Vodou.

The dead are not to be messed with or neglected in Haiti; instead, they are to be honored and fed, and hopefully their souls will return into our living lineage. About twenty years ago, I was driving in Port-au-Prince one October day with a couple of my students. We were listening to the local news on the radio and learned about a road project that would require the leveling of part of a cemetery. No provisions were made to preserve or even respect the remains of those entombed there, and within a few days after the project began, and countless tombstones were toppled and resting places bulldozed, a tropical storm brought torrential rains to the city. I recall my students and I discussing the likelihood that such disrespect would provoke harm wrought by the dead. The next day, I heard a report of human skulls and bones being swept by swelling rainwaters down one of the city’s busiest streets. A few days later, during Fèt Gede, a large tomb collapsed in the Grand Cimetière (Large Cemetery), killing several Vodouists who were there to celebrate the dead and to serve and fete Gede. When crossed or neglected, the dead exact revenge.

Vèvè representing Bawon Samdi, the Vodou spirit (a Gede lwa) who rules over cemeteries. | Gede Altar by chris is in the public domain.

Though the spatial and temporal foci of Fèt Gede are cemeteries and those two days, the Gede enter humans’ bodies and storm about marketplaces, in the streets, along paths, anywhere really, often with their faces painted white, the color of the dead. They “overrun the countryside and towns, clad in black and mauve.”⁸⁶ The Gede like strong liquor and hot peppers, and they abound during this feast, especially in cemeteries. Myron Beasley describes an urban burial ground in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during Fèt Gede:

I walked through the narrow pathways, surrounded by the gothic statuaries of tombs – some with bare concrete slabs revealing the empty lots – spaces I imagined as once occupied by a physical body and perhaps once were and sometimes are. On a most-holy of days, 1 November, bodies squeeze through the tight halls of this medina to the shrine of Baron Samdi. . . . I allowed my body to be whisked into the midst of the crowd – body to body, sweating, the smell of rum and chili peppers and moonshine – the libations so generously sprayed on bodies and the tall black cross in the middle of the cemetery mingled with the intense smell of incense and the ever-potent Vodou candles. ⁸⁷

The cross was surely once white, but over time it became smudged with candle smoke, blood, rum, herbs, and even semen, especially during such an “anxious and rambunctious” occasion as Fèt Gede.⁸⁸ In Haiti, as Maya Deren notes, such a focal cross “is in every cemetery; and the graves that are under the special protection of his female counterpart, Madam Brigitte, are marked by a mound of sacred stones.”⁸⁹

Thus, though Fèt Gede is about the dead and communing with the dead, and having Gede rampage throughout the world, other lwa, like Manman Brijit, are spiritual dignitaries in the amazing performance that is the Day of the Dead in Haiti. It is somewhat reminiscent of the Day of the Dead in Mexico, but in Haiti things are much more raucous, and there are no mariachis, though in both cases human skulls abound. Ogou, the lwa of metals, often also appears, while Legba is present at all Vodou ceremonies, as the keeper of the crossroads and the opener of all gates, who must open them for any ritual, whether funerary or initiatory, to proceed. In one sense, per Deren, Bawon is the Petwo manifestation of Legba.⁹⁰ They both are associated with crossroads, after all, and Bawon’s master symbol is the cross. Meanwhile, being perhaps in Haitian Vodou “the first humans, the Marasa, the twin lwa, are also the first, the original Dead.” So they are offered one of the first plates of food on All Souls’ Eve, the night before Fèt Gede really begins.⁹¹

The most exuberant, boisterous, and well-attended ceremonies on Fèt Gete take place in large urban burial grounds. These ceremonies are generally not orchestrated by religious leaders per se, though many manbo and oungan are present and lead some offertory and other rites. Instead, Fèt Gede emerges spontaneously among the faithful, in ways that range from solemnity to mayhem, taking myriad forms at any hour of the day or night. Many Vodouists visit multiple graveyards, including ones on privately owned land, venerating the remains of someone dear or otherwise related. “People pull weeds from the tombs,” Hurbon explains. And particularly on November 1 and 2, the lwa take over “and it is imprudent to refuse their attention”:

On the Day of the Dead, however, the appearance of the Gédé provokes laughter, for they are phallic lwa who tell dirty stories, perform lascivious and obscene dances, and spend their time playing jokes on the Voodoo faithful, such as stealing their money or personal property. They also like to eat well and drink rum.⁹²

Over and above such staple features of Fèt Gede, whether in the cemetery, at the marketplace, at the crossroads, in a temple, or at one’s home, Vodouists are accustomed to expecting the unexpected on this most important religious occasion of each year. For instance, one anthropologist saw a man masturbate onto Bawon’s cross in a large urban cemetery—“a sacred release of the spirit.”⁹³ Another saw the lwa Ogou appear at a temple on Fèt Gede “in the khaki uniform of a US Marine, complete with epaulets and the flat-brimmed hat. Her procession was accompanied by a brass band, led by a bugle, that played US Marine tunes.”⁹⁴ All such things notwithstanding, Fèt Gede is a recognition of our mortality and a celebration of life, of regeneration, spirit, and community—community that includes and deeply involves the dead.

Zonbi Prelude ~ In Guise of a Conclusion

From Ancient Persia to the Haitian Revolution, we have covered a lot of ground, and water, thus far, in our books but we are finally rounding the corner to find zombies. We started to do so in Chapter Five with our etymological exploration, but we got much closer in this chapter, beginning with a summary of the notion of the soul and the afterlife in relevant African traditions that are cornerstones of Haitian Vodou: Ewe-Fon and Kongo. We then explored the soul in Vodou, the living dead, the afterlife, and the relationship of the lwa to death, dying, and the soul, along with key rituals related to death and the dead, like desounen and Fet Gede. All of these and related topics are necessary background information for understanding certain forms of the zombie in Haiti. There are many kinds of zombies in Haiti, beyond the one that first sauntered lifeless onto the Hollywood silver screen in the 1930s. And now we turn the page, bringing the dead and the soul with us, to get better acquainted with the zombie.

Notes

1. Ogbu O. Kalu, “Ancestral Spirituality and Society in Africa,” in Jacob K. Olupona (ed.), African Spirituality: Forms, Meanings and Expressions, New York: Crossroads, 2000, 54. ↵
2. Ibid., 61. ↵
3. Ibid., 62. Culturally, the Igbo are closely related to the Yoruba people, and collectively they comprised nearly 10 percent of all African victims of the transatlantic slave trade. In Saint-Domingue, colonial Haiti, they were referred to as Nago. ↵
4. “Afrocentricity refers to African agency and the centrality of African interests, ideas, and perspectives in social, historical, behavioral, and economic narratives.” Moelfi Kete Asante, “Africology, Afrocentricity, and What Remains to Be Done,” The Black Scholar 50, 3, 2020, 48–49. ↵
5. Claude Rivière, “Soul: Conceptions in Indigenous Religions,” Encyclopedia.com, 1985, 2007, https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/soul-concepts-indigenous-religions, last accessed August 16. 2023. ↵
6. Antonio Salas, Ángel Carracedo, Martin Richards, and Vincent Macauly, “Charting the Ancestry of African Americans,” American Journal of Human Genetics 77, 4, 2005, 676–680. ↵
7. Samuel Nathaniel Murrell, Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to Their Historical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010, 18. The Ewe, who historically and presently are closely related to the Fon, reside mostly in what today is Ghana. ↵
8. Benjamin Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012, 266. ↵
9. Ibid. ↵
10. On this influence, see Benjamin Hebblethwaite, A Transnational History of Haitian Vodou: Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2021. ↵
11. The term “ancestral spirituality” was coined by Kalu. Kalu, “Ancestral Spirituality.” ↵
12. Michelle Gilbert, “Fon and Ewe Religion,” in Lindsay Jones (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion, New York: Gale, 2005, 3165–3166. ↵
13. Leslie G. Desmangles, The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992, 77. ↵
14. Donald J. Cosentino, Commentary in the documentary Zombies are Real: The Haitian and American Realities behind the Myth, Duke University, 2016. https://sacredart.caaar.duke.edu/content/zombies-are-real-haitian-and-american-realities-behind-myth, last accessed May 7, 2021. ↵
15. Brigit Meyer, Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1999, 64. ↵
16. Ibid. ↵
17. Anthony B. Parker, “The Traditional Religion of the Fon of Benin,” African Missions Resource Center, 1994, http://www.africamissions.org/africa/traditional%20religion.html, last accessed May 7, 2021. ↵
18. K. E. Laman, The Kongo IV. Uppsala: Studia Ehtnographica Upsaliensia. 1962, 1. As cited in Wyatt MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa: The BaKongo of Lower Zaire, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, 135. ↵
19. Van Wing, Joseph, Etudes Bakongo II: Sociologie, religion et magie. Bruges: Desclee De Bouwer, 1958, 13. As cited in Lilas Desquiron, Racines du voudou, Port-au-Prince: Editions Henri Deschamps, 1990, 105. ↵
20. Desquiron, Racines du voudou, 105. ↵
21. MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa, 35. ↵
22. Ibid., 42–89. ↵
23. On Mintandi (plural of Ntandi), see also Adenike Cosgrove, “Ntadi (Funeral Figure): The Thinker,” ÌmoDára, 2021, https://www.imodara.com/discover/dr-congo-mboma-ntadi-funerary-figure-the-thinker/. last accessed November 30, 2021. ↵
24. This is oversimplified, as the land of the dead is also called “white” (mpemba) because of the white skin that ancestors take on once they leave the world of the living. In the Congo, people engaging with or for the dead in ceremonies often dress in white. ↵
25. Léopold Sedhar Senghor, Poèmes, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1981, 119. ↵
26. MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa, 53. On death and dying and rebirth in Kongo religion, see also Simon Bockie, Death and the Invisible Powers: The World of Kongo Belief, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. ↵
27. Alissa Jordan, “Atlas of Nanm: Shared Bodies, Babies, Were-Women and Zonbi in a Rural Haitian Courtyard,” Ph.D. diss., Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, 2016, 69. ↵
28. Alfred Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, trans. Hugo Charetris, New York: Schocken Books, 1972 (1954), 255 ↵
29. Ibid., 153. ↵
30. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 269. ↵
31. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 377. ↵
32. Maya Deren, The Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti, London: Thames and Hudson, 1953, 17–18. ↵
33. Laënnec Hurbon, Dieu dans le vaudou haïtien, Port-au-Prince: Éditions Henri Deschamps, 258. ↵
34. Ibid., 257. ↵
35. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 295, 242. ↵
36. Ibid., 267. ↵
37. Deren, The Divine Horsemen, 31. ↵
38. Rebeca Hey-Colón, Channeling Knowledges: Afro-Diasporic Waters in Latinx and Caribbean Worlds, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2023. ↵
39. Sandra E. Greene, Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter: A History of Meaning and Memory in Ghana, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002, 1. ↵
40. Terry Rey, “Vodou, Water, and Exile: Symbolizing Spirit and Pain in Port-au-Prince,” in Oren Baruch Stier and J. Shawn Landres (eds.), Religion, Violence, Memory, and Place, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006, 198. ↵
41. Desquiron, Racines du Voudou, 106. ↵
42. This ceremony is also sometimes called degrade mò, “degrade the dead.” Deren, The Divine Horsemen, 228. ↵
43. Professor Benjamin Hebblethwaite, University of Florida, personal electronic correspondence, September 7, 2020. ↵
44. For another excellent description of this funerary ceremony, see Desquiron, Racines du voudou, 224–230. ↵
45. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 244. ↵
46. Hebblethwaite describes a related death ceremony in Vodou called voye (“sending), in which “the oungan sends the soul under the water to Ginen, briefly channeling the dead’s faint voice.” Hebblethwaite, A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou, 31. ↵
47. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 243–251. ↵
48. On uzima, see Placide Tempels, Bantu Philosophy, Paris: Présence Africaine, 1959. On ashe, see Katherine Olukeme Bankole, “Ashe,” in Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama (eds.), Encyclopedia of African Religion, New York: Sage Publications, 2009, 74. ↵
49. Deren, The Divine Horsemen, 41–42. ↵
50. Ibid., 42–43. ↵
51. Ibid., 46. ↵
52. Ibid., 330. ↵
53. Ibid., 49. ↵
54. Ibid. ↵
55. Ibid., 52. ↵
56. Ibid., 53. ↵
57. Hurbon, Dieu dans le vaudou haïtien, 129. ↵
58. Ibid., 131–137. ↵
59. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 263. ↵
60. Ibid., 264. ↵
61. Deren, Divine Horsemen, 338. ↵
62. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 222. ↵
63. Donald J. Cosentino, Keynote lecture, annual meeting of KOSANBA, Harvard University, October 18, 2018. ↵
64. Hebblethwaite, A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou, 221. ↵
65. Donald J. Cosentino, “ENVOI: The Gedes and Bawon Samdi,” in Donald J. Cosentino (ed.), Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum, 1995, 400. ↵
66. In ibid., 405. This passage is an aggregation of comments about Gede made by various scholars and practitioners of Haitian Vodou. ↵
67. Ibid., 400. ↵
68. In Karen McCarthy Brown, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, 376. ↵
69. Ibid. ↵
70. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 237, 239. ↵
71. Cosentino, “ENVOI,” 407. ↵
72. Ibid., 238. ↵
73. “underling” might be a misleading term in this regard, as the influential late Haitian painter and Vodou priest explains that to him, and surely many other Vodouists, “Gede is the secretary of the Bawon, who is the judge. Bawon is the father of the family.” In ibid., 406. ↵
74. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 217. ↵
75. Laënnec Hurbon, Voodoo: Search for the Spirit, trans. Lori Frankel, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1995 (1993), 74, 95. ↵
76. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 217. Further reflecting the deep and sometimes disconcerting sexual innuendo of the culture of Gede, koko makak, though the name of a stick or a cane, literally translates as “monkey’s vagina.” ↵
77. Deren, The Divine Horsemen, 69. ↵
78. Cosentino, “ENVOI,” 407. ↵
79. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 241. ↵
80. Ibid. ↵
81. Cosentino, “ENVOI,” 400. ↵
82. Hebblethwaite, Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English, 266. ↵
83. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 117. ↵
84. Ibid., 118. ↵
85. Estimates of the number of victims of the transatlantic slave trade range from 10 to 15 million. It began in the 1480s, when Portuguese slavers brought enslaved Africans to Iberia, with the first victims arriving in the Caribbean in 1502. (Earlier, there were African slaves on Columbus’s first voyage, in 1492.) The importation of African slaves to the Americas continued until Brazil gained independence in 1882. On the history of the transatlantic slave trade, please see David Eltis, et al. Slave Voyages: Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Data-Base, https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/about#methodology/introduction/0/en/, last accessed May 15, 2021. ↵
86. Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 329. ↵
87. Myron Beasley, “Vodou, Penises and Bones: Ritual Performances of Death and Eroticism in the Cemetery and the Junkyard of Port-au-Prince,” Performance Research 15, 1, 2010, 42. ↵
88. Ibid., 44. To get a sense of the sounds that surround the cemetery where Beasley worked, please see The Grand Rue: Roads as Thoroughfares of Life, Provoke! http://soundboxproject.com/project-haiti.html, last accessed May 15, 2021. ↵
89. Deren, The Divine Horsemen, 103. ↵
90. Ibid., 69. ↵
91. Ibid., 39. ↵
92. Hurbon, Voodoo, 94–95. “To whitewash tombs when weather has made them look faded,” writes Métraux, “and also now and again to weed them, is a mark of affection and devotion to the dead and a way to their goodwill. Such duties are incumbent on all relatives.” Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, 257. ↵
93. Beasley, “Vodou, Penises and Bones,” 44. ↵
94. Lauren Derby, “Imperial Idols: French and United States Revenants in Haitian Vodou,” History of Religions 54, 4, 2015, 420. ↵

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Glossary

Afrocentricity (Afrocentricly)

Theoretical perspective that places Africa and African ideas, including religious ideas, at the center of one’s consideration of Africana cultures anywhere in the world. ↵

All Saints Day

Catholic feast day that is celebrated every year on November 1 in honor of all saints, onto which Haitian Vodou has grafted Fèt Gede, the feast of Gede, chief spirit of all things related to death, dying, and the dead. ↵

All Souls Day

Catholic feast day that is celebrated every year on November 2 in honor of all souls, onto which Haitian Vodou has grafted Fèt Gede, the feast of Gede, chief spirit of all things related to death, dying, and the dead. ↵

Allada (Arda)

Name of a historical African empire and its capital city, which thrived, in various iterations, from circa the twelfth to the nineteenth century C.E. in what is today Benin. A place of origin of many victims of the transatlantic slave trade. ↵

Anba Dlo

Haitian Creole for “under the water,” where souls go for one year and one day after death. ↵

Ancestral Spirituality

All forms of veneration of—and other ritual services, like offerings and funerary ceremonies for—the dead, the ancestors. ↵

Ashe

Yoruba term meaning essentially “divine life force,” the presence and energy of God that is infused throughout creation, enabling and sustaining life and human wholeness and well-being. ↵

Asson

Sacred rattle of the Vodou priesthood. Usually made of a gourd filled with snake vertebrae and adorned with beads and perhaps a kerchief. ↵

Banda

Bawdy dance that commonly breaks out among Gede and Gede’s devotees, especially during Fèt Gede. ↵

Bawon Samdi (Bawon Simityè; Bawon Lakwa)

A Gede lwa, sometimes understood to be Gede himself. Ruler of cemeteries who dresses in black and purple, with a top hat and cane, and is associated with the cross. ↵

Benyè

Undertaker, in Haitian Creole. ↵

Bondye

Literally “Good God,” in Haitian Creole, and the name by which God is usually addressed or referred to in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Boule Zen

Literally “burn pots,” in Haitian Creole, referring to a ceremony that is either initiatory or funerary in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Cirouellier

A fig tree, considered cursed, which is the home of the lwa Grann Brijit. ↵

Cosmology

The study of the cosmos and our place and journey therein. ↵

Creole

The blending of African and European languages, cultures, and religions in the Americas. Also the language of the Haitian people and chief language used in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Dégradation

French for “degradation;” a cognate name for the desounen funerary ritual in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Desounen

Important funerary ritual in Haitian Vodou in which two or three of the elements of the soul are carefully separated and sent on their respective journeys, whether across or under the water, to Africa, to God, or to the lwa. ↵

Dexoxo

Ancestral shrine in traditional Fon religion. ↵

Eba

Element of one’s soul in Fang traditional pneumatology. Associated with vitality and located in one’s head. ↵

Edzii

Element of one’s soul in Fang traditional pneumatology. Associated with one’s individuality, which endures beyond death. ↵

Ewe

See Fon.

Fang

African ethnic group from what is today Gabon, many of whom were enslaved and brought to the Americas, including colonial Haiti. ↵

Fèt Gede

November 1 and 2, grafted onto the Catholic feasts of All Saints Day and All Souls Day; the feast of Gede, a celebration of the dead and of life. Arguably the most important holiday in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Fon (Ewe-Fon; Fon-Ewe)

West African ethnic group, culture, and language that is a taproot of Haitian culture and Haitian religion; located primarily in what is today Benin, home of the ancestors of many Haitian people. ↵

Gede (Gede Spirits)

The chief lwa of all things related to death, dying, and the dead, but also a lwa of sexuality, regeneration, and life. One of the most important lwa in Haitian Vodou. Gede dresses in black and wears a top hat, carries a cane, and sports eyeglasses with one lens missing. Takes numerous forms and rules over his own pantheon of lwa, who work with him and with the faithful in death, dying, and ancestral spirituality. ↵

Gede Nibo

One of the principal manifestations of the Gede lwa. A fiercely protective lwa of the Petwo rite or pantheon. ↵

Ginen

Africa, in Haitian Vodou, not just its literal translation as “Guinea.” A residence of the lwa and the destiny of part of our soul once we die. ↵

Govi

Clay pots or gourds into which elements of one’s soul, or sometimes the lwa, are ceremonially placed, which then usually reside on an altar in a Vodou temple, or ounfò. ↵

Grand Cimetière

Located in Port-au-Prince, the largest cemetery in Haiti, and one of the largest in the Caribbean. Important site of Fèt Gede. ↵

Grann Brijit (Manman Brijit)

Female lwa who is considered very old; the wife of Bawon Samdi, who plays an important part in Fèt Gede. Also considered to be the mother of all the lwa of the dead. Loves the color purple and is assimilated with Saint Brigid of Ireland. ↵

Gwo Bonnanj

Literally “Big Good Angel,” or “Big Guardian Angel,” a key component of the soul in Haitian Vodou, sometimes considered the soul itself. Associated with one’s self, in the modern psychological sense. A supernatural force that resides in one’s head, shapes one’s person, and is separated from the body ritually upon a person’s death. ↵

Khun

Element of one’s soul in Fang traditional pneumatology. Endures beyond death and is considered capable of morphing into something like a ghost. ↵

Ki

Element of one’s soul in Fang traditional pneumatology. Associated with one’s identity and with the supernatural force that enabled one’s life; lives on beyond the grave. ↵

Ko Kadav

Literally “cadaver body” in Haitian Creole. Our material bodies, whose souls vacate once we are dead. ↵

Koko Makak

Literally “Monkey’s Vagina”; a cane that the lwa Bawon Samdi usually carries whenever he appears, whether during Fèt Gede or during other periodic, less public Vodou ceremonies, usually at a temple or in a cemetery. ↵

Kongo

Largest ethnic group in the part of West Central Africa from which tens of thousands of victims of the transatlantic slave trade were forcibly brought to colonial Haiti, Saint-Domingue. Kongo culture, religion, and language are key cornerstones of Haitian culture, Haitian Catholicism, and Haitian Vodou. ↵

Legba

A lwa of the crossroads, a gatekeeper who opens the passageways for any ceremony in Haitian Vodou, hence he is the most present lwa of all; has many manifestations, both in the Rada and the Petwo rites or pantheons. Associated with Saint Anthony and with Saint Lazarus. ↵

Lemò

Literally “the dead,” in Haitian Creole. Key focus of ritual and devotional attention in Haitian Vodou, a religion steeped in ancestral spirituality. ↵

Lot Bò A Dlo

Literally “the other side of the water,” in Haitian Creole, and a key trope in Haitian Vodou, insofar as both the ancestors and the spirits, and eventually our own souls, do and/or will reside across the water, usually understood as the Atlantic Ocean. ↵

Luvo

Name of the soul in traditional Fon religion.

Lwa

“Spirit” in Haitian Vodou, though the etymology is unclear. Chief recipient of service and devotion in Vodou, and they take hundreds of forms and are believed to occupy our heads, perhaps our souls, and walk with us and support us through life and dying. ↵

Manbo

A priestess in Haitian Vodou. ↵

Manje Mò

“Feeding the dead,” in Haitian Creole. Important ritual in service of the ancestors; a feast featuring their favorite foods, and an occasion for communication with and for venerating the dead. ↵

Marasa

A lwa; conceived of as being twins. Once the first humans, and hence the first to have died, they are the associated with death and given offerings of food on the eve of Fet Gede. Associated with Saints Cosmas and Damian. ↵

Mawou-Lisa

God in traditional Fon religion. Also a lwa of high importance in Haitian Vodou.

Mayanèt Bwa Seche

Female lwa whose name translates in Haitian Creole as “Marianet Dry Wood,” a fierce divinity of the Petwo rite or pantheon, associated with sorcery, and thus death, and with the screech owl. Venerating her requires building a fire and fueling it with gasoline and salt. Associated with the Catholic Anima Sola. ↵

Mèt Tèt

Literally “Master of the Head,” in Haitian Creole. In the form of a Vodou spirit, it shapes one’s identity and guides and protects one through life. It is either a key element of one’s soul or separate from the soul. ↵

Mete Nanm

Literally “putting soul,” in Haitian Creole, or the replacement of the soul into a body after it has somehow been displaced. ↵

Mina

West African ethnic group located primarily in what are today Togo and Benin. Speakers of an Ewe dialect who were widely victimized during the transatlantic slave trade and forcibly brought to the Americas, whether Brazil, colonial Haiti, or elsewhere. ↵

Move Nanm

Literally “bad soul,” in Haitian Creole, a term often used in reference to a ghost or a werewolf that wanders about at night. ↵

Move Zespri

Literally “bad spirit” in Haitian Creole, essentially a reference to evil spirits in the world. ↵

Mpembe

“White” in the dialect of the Kongo people and in related dialects; reference to the world of the dead, for they are white in Kongolese traditional cosmology.

Nago

Collective term for enslaved Africans in colonial Haiti, Saint-Domingue, who derived from regions in which Yoruba was spoken, chiefly what is today Nigeria. ↵

Nanm

Usually translated as “soul” in Haitian Creole, derived from the French “une âme,” “a soul,” though its valences in Haitian Vodou range widely and the term is far more complex. ↵

Nanm Zonbi

Literally “zombie soul” in Haitian Creole, a reference to part of one’s soul that is stolen from the cemetery and sold to a sorcerer for destructive supernatural work. ↵

Ndem

See Ki. ↵

Nguya

Lingala word for “force,” a concept similar to that of ashe in Yoruba, or divine life energy. ↵

Ngzel

Element of one’s soul in Fang traditional pneumatology. Endures beyond death and is considered a principal vivifying force during one’s lifetime. ↵

Noli

Fon term for a soul that has morphed into an independent spirit that wanders about the living community. ↵

Nsala

Kongo word for “soul.”

Nsi A Bafwa

Kongo term that literally means “land of the dead,” the residence of the ancestors. A dark world where the dead are white and await their return to the living community in this world, nza yayi. ↵

Nsissim

One’s shadow; an element of one’s soul in traditional Fon pneumatology. ↵

Nza Yayi

Kongo term that literally means “this world,” the residence of the living. A world of light where the living are Black and on a journey to eventually die and cross nzadi, the river, to join the ancestors in nsi a bafwa, the “land of the dead,” a place where everyone is white. ↵

Nzadi

“River” in the Kongo language, or Kikongo. Metaphorically and cosmologically, that which separates the world of the living and the land of the dead, which we cross when we die. Associated with the color red. ↵

Nzambe Mpungu

“Great God” in Kongo religion. ↵

Ogou

Male lwa of West African origins of major importance in Haitian Vodou; associated with metals and all things related thereto, like warfare and tilling the earth. Often appears during Fèt Gede. ↵

Ontology

The philosophical study of the nature of being. ↵

Oungan

A Vodou priest, male. ↵

Ounsi

A novitiate in the priesthood of Haitian Vodou; assistant to priests and priestesses. Apprentice on a path of spiritual leadership in the religion. ↵

Petwo

Kongo-based or -derived pantheon of lwa in Haitian Vodou. Usually fierce, fiery, explosive, and protective. Most lwa have both Petwo and Rada manifestations. ↵

Pneumatology

Philosophical or theological study of the soul and all things related thereto. ↵

Pret Savann

“Bush priest,” literally, in Haitian Creole. A ritual specialist in Haitian Vodou who generally recites Catholic liturgical prayers in Latin and French at the opening of many Vodou ceremonies. Blesses a corpse on the way to the cemetery. ↵

Rada

Fon-based or -derived pantheon of lwa in Haitian Vodou. Usually cool and mellow. Most lwa have both Petwo and Rada manifestations. Term is rooted in the name of the ancient/early modern West African empire of Allada. ↵

Sae

Element of one’s soul in Fon traditional religion, which returns to God upon one’s death. ↵

Thanatology

The study of all things related to death, dying, and the dead. ↵

Theology

The study of all things relating to God and God’s relationship to humanity and all existence. ↵

Ti Bonnanj

Literally “Little Good Angel,” or “Little Guardian Angel,” a key component of the soul in Haitian Vodou. Associated with one’s personality and agency, which is ritually separated from the body and the other element(s) of the soul when we die. To be judged by God after one’s death. ↵

Ti-Jean Zandor

A fierce lwa who is husband to Mayanèt and who kills people for food. ↵

Tovodu

Family spirits or deities in Fon traditional religion. ↵

Trickster Spirit

A spirit in many religions who is mischievous and keeps people on their toes with all kinds of pranks and tumultuous interventions in life. In Haitian Vodou, Legba is the trickster par excellence. ↵

Uzima

Swahili for divine life force, which derives from God and animates all of creation, including human hearts and souls and drums. A cognate for the Yoruba word ashe. ↵

Vèvè

Intricate symbols of the lwa, usually comprised of intersecting lines and/or circles, but sometimes also sketches of anthropomorphic beings, fish, hearts, swords, etcetera, depending on which lwa is symbolized. ↵

Vodun

The spirits, divinities, deities, or gods of many indigenous West African religions, like that of the Fon peoples. In some parts of the Americas, the word is still used for a class of spirits, rather than an entire religion, like Haitian Vodou, where the spirits are called lwa. Also the name of traditional religion in today’s Benin. ↵

Wete Mò Anba Dlo

Literally “reclaim the dead from under the water”; an important Vodou ritual in which the soul, or part of the soul, of the dead is brought back to the community of the living, usually in one’s own lineage. ↵

Yoruba

West African ethnic group and a language by the same name, a lingua franca that was known to up to ten percent of all African victims of the transatlantic slave trade. The largest ethnic group in what is today Nigeria and a major cornerstone of Africana religions in the Americas, including Haitian Vodou. ↵

Yowa

Chief symbol of traditional Kongo religion; a cruciform in which a perpendicular cross is contained in a circle, representing the division between the land of the dead and the world of the living, as well as our cycle through life and death, and our rebirth. ↵

Zen

Pots used for cooking meals and herbal remedies for Vodou ceremonies and healing interventions. ↵

Zonbi

Haitian Creole for “zombie.” ↵

Zonbi Astral

Literally “astral zombie” in Haitian Creole; an element of one’s soul that is captured and placed in a bottle, whose force can be employed for destructive supernatural ends by a sorcerer. ↵