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The term Voodoo (Vodun in [Benin; also Vodou, Voudou, or other phonetically equivalent spellings in Haiti; Vudu in the Dominican Republic) is applied to the branches of a West African ancestor-based spiritist-animist religious tradition.

Its roots are varied and include the Fon, Ewe, and Yoruba peoples of West Africa, from western Nigeria to eastern Ghana. In Benin, Vodun is the national religion, and followed by around 60% of the population, or some 4½ million people. The word vodún is the Fon-Ewe word for spirit. Voodoo elsewhere is highly influenced by Central African traditions. The Kongo rite, also known in the north of Haiti as Lemba (originally a cult practiced among the Bakongo) is as widespread as the West African elements, but has largely been overlooked by North Americans.

Until recently, many assumed that the admixture of such traditions with Catholicism occurred in the New World. There is significant evidence that the model for such syncretis] can be found in the religious practices of the Kongo Empire.

The Fon tradition in Cuba is known as La Regla Arara.


African origins

Vodun is a magical form of animism that developed among various West African ethnic groups predating historical times. The cultural area of the Fon, Gun, Mina and Ewe peoples share common metaphysical conceptions around a dual cosmological divine principle: Nana Buluku, the God-Creator, and the God-Actor(s) or Vodun(s), daughters and sons of the Creator's twin children Mawu (goddess of the moon) and Lisa (sun god). The God-Creator is the cosmogonical principle, who does not trifle with the mundane, and the Vodun(s) are the God-Actor(s) who actually govern on terrenal issues.

The Pantheon of Voduns is quite large and complex. There are seven direct sons of Mawu, interethnic and related to natural phenomena or historical or mythical individuals, dozens of ethnic Voduns, defenders of a certain clan or tribe, as well as the modern Voduns, mostly coming from Ghana.

West African or Beninese Vodun is similar to Haitian Vodou in its emphasis on the ancestors, however each family of spirits has its own specialized clergy that is often hereditary. In Africa, spirits include Mami Wata, who are goddesses of waters; Legba, who is virile and young in contrast to the old man form he takes in Haiti; Gu, ruling iron and smithcraft; Sakpata, who rules diseases; and many other spirits distinct in their own way to West Africa.

Totalitarian regimes in West Africa tried to suppress Vodun as well as other forms of religion, but today they are flourishing again and Vodun is practised by over 30 million people in the area.

New World traditions

Haitian Vodou

Called Sèvis Gine or "African Service" in Haiti, a Creolized form of Vodou, Haitian Vodou also has strong elements from the Bakongo of Central Africa and the Igbo and Yoruba of Nigeria, though many different people or "nations" of Africa have representation in the liturgy of the Sèvis Gine. Among these other nations are the Taíno and Arawak Indians, venerated as the indigenous population (and hence, a form of ancestors) of the island now known as Hispaniola. A large and significant portion of Haitian Vodou most often overlooked by scholars, especially English speaking ones until recently is the Kongo component. The entire Northern area of Haiti is especially influenced by Kongo practice. In the North, it is more often called Kongo Rite or Lemba, from the Lemba cult of the Loango area and Mayombe. In the south, Kongo influence is called Petro. Many loas or lwas (also a Kikongo term) are of Kongo origin such as Basimbi, Lemba, etc.

Haitian Creole forms of Vodou exist in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, parts of Cuba, the United States, and other places that Haitian immigrants dispersed to over the years. It is similar to other African-diasporic religions such as Lukumi or Regla de Ocha (also known as Santería) in Cuba, Candomblé and Umbanda in Brazil, all religions that evolved among descendants of transplanted Africans in the Americas.


The majority of the Africans who were brought as slaves to Haiti were from the Guinea Coast of West Africa, and their descendants are the primary practitioners of Vodou (those Africans brought to the southern US were primarily from the Kongo kingdom). The survival of the belief system in the New World is remarkable, although the traditions have changed with time. One of the largest differences however between African and Haitian Vodou is that the transplanted Africans of Haiti were obliged to disguise their lwa (sometimes spelled loa) or spirits as Roman Catholic saints, a process called syncretism.

Most experts speculate that this was done in an attempt to hide their "pagan" religion from their masters who had forbidden them to practice it. To say that Haitian Vodou is simply a mix of West African religions with a veneer of Roman Catholicism would not be entirely correct. This would be ignoring numerous influences from the native Taíno Indians, as well as the evolutionary process that Vodou has undergone shaped by the volatile ferment of Haitian history.



Haitian Vodou grew in the United States to a significant degree beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the waves of Haitian immigrants fleeing the Duvalier regime, taking root in Miami, New York City, Chicago, and other major cities.


Haitian Vodouisants believe, in accordance with widespread African tradition, that there is one God who is the creator of all, referred to as "Bondye" (from the French "Bon Dieu" or "Good God", distinguished from the god of the whites in a dramatic speech by the houngan Boukman at Bwa Kayiman, but is often considered the same God the Roman Catholic Church talks about). Bondyè is distant from his/her/its creation though, and so it is the spirits or the "mysteries", "saints", or "angels" that the Vodouisant turns to for help, as well as to the ancestors. The Vodouisant worships God, and serves the spirits, who are treated with honor and respect as elder members of a household might be. There are said to be twenty-one nations or "nanchons" of spirits, also sometimes called "lwa-yo". Some of the more important nations of lwa are the Rada (corresponding to the Gbe-speaking ethnic groups in the modern-day Republic of Benin, Nigeria, and Togo); the Nago (synonymous with the Yoruba-speaking ethnicities in Nigeria, the Republic of Benin, and Togo); and the numerous West-Central African ethnicities united under the ethnonym Kongo. The spirits also come in "families" that all share a surname, like Ogou, or Ezili, or Azaka or Ghede. For instance, "Ezili" is a family, Ezili Dantor and Ezili Freda are two individual spirits in that family. The Ogou family are soldiers, the Ezili govern the feminine spheres of life, the Azaka govern agriculture, the Ghede govern the sphere of death and fertility. In Dominican Vodou, there is also an Agua Dulce or "Sweet Waters" family, which encompasses all Amerindian spirits. There are literally hundreds of lwa. Well known individual lwa include Danbala Wedo, Papa Legba Atibon, and Agwe Tawoyo.

In Haitian Vodou, spirits are divided according to their nature in roughly two categories, whether they are hot or cool. Cool spirits fall under the Rada category, and hot spirits fall under the Petwo category. Rada spirits are familial and congenial, while Petwo spirits are more combative and restless. Both can be dangerous if angry or upset, and despite claims to the contrary, neither is "good" or "evil" in relation to the other.

Everyone is said to have spirits, and each person is considered to have a special relationship with one particular spirit who is said to "own their head", however each person may have many lwa, and the one that owns their head, or the "met tet", may or may not be the most active spirit in a person's life in Haitian belief.


Most Vodouisants are not initiated, referred to as being "bosal"; it is not a requirement to be an initiate in order to serve one's spirits. There are clergy in Haitian Vodou whose responsibility it is to preserve the rituals and songs and maintain the relationship between the spirits and the community as a whole (though some of this is the responsibility of the whole community as well). They are entrusted with leading the service of all of the spirits of their lineage. Priests are referred to as "Houngans" and priestesses as "Manbos". Below the houngans and manbos are the hounsis, who are initiates who act as assistants during ceremonies and who are dedicated to their own personal mysteries. One does not serve just any lwa but only the ones they "have" according to one's destiny or nature. Which spirits a person "has" may be revealed at a ceremony, in a reading, or in dreams. However all Vodouisants also serve the spirits of their own blood ancestors, and this important aspect of Vodou practice is often glossed over or minimized in importance by commentators who do not understand the significance of it. The ancestor cult is in fact the basis of Vodou religion, and many lwa like Agasou (formerly a king of Dahomey) for example are in fact ancestors who are said to have been raised up to divinity.

Liturgy and practice



Values and ethics

The cultural values that Vodou embraces center around ideas of honor and respect — to God, to the spirits, to the family and society, and to oneself. There is also a notion of relative propriety — and what is appropriate to someone with Dambala Wedo as their head may be different from someone with Ogou Feray as their head. For example, one spirit is very cool and the other is very hot. Coolness overall is valued, and so is the ability and inclination to protect oneself and one's own if necessary. Love and support within the family of the Vodou society seems to be the most important consideration. Generosity in giving to the community and to the poor is also an important value. One's blessings come through the community and there is the idea that one should be willing to give back to it in turn. Since Vodou has such a community orientation, it is sometimes seen as an extention of the beliefs in the old Soviet Union, and, since the dissolution of the USSR, has drawn many Russian initiates. There are no "solitaries" in Vodou, only people separated geographically from their elders and house. A person without a relationship of some kind with elders will not be practicing Vodou as it is understood in Haiti and among Haitians.

In the view of some the Haitian Vodou religion is an ecstatic rather than a fertility based tradition and because of this some do not have prohibitions against gay men and lesbian women. Although it is rare, there are hounfos or temples in Haiti whose clergy are entirely gay males or lesbians, etc.

Orthodoxy and diversity



Survival in the Southern US

A common saying is that Haiti is 80% Roman Catholic and 100% Vodou. Thus the Catholic contribution to Haitian Voodoo is quite noticeable. However, in the United States the story is different, despite claims to the contrary.

Confusion about Voodoo in the USA arises because there exists throughout the United States a widespread system of African American folk magic belief and practice known as hoodoo. The similarity of the words hoodoo and Voodoo notwithstanding, hoodoo is neither an organized religion like Voodoo, nor does it incorporate elements of traditional Fon and Ewe practices or beliefs. This is because hoodoo derives primarily from Congo and Angolan magical practices of Central Africa and retains elements of the traditions and practices that arose among Bantu language speakers.

Most hoodooists are members of African American Protestant churches, such as the various Baptist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME), Pentecostal, and Holiness]] denominations, but when hoodoo is compared to African religions in the diaspora, the closest parallel found is not Voodoo, but Cuban Palo, a survival of Congo religious beliefs melded with some Catholic forms of worship.

Survivals of Haitian-influenced Voodoo religion in the southern US are claimed by some to be found within the African-American Spiritual Churches of New Orleans, a city with a large Catholic population. This is a fallacious assumption.

The Spiritual Churches of New Orleans are a Christian sect founded by Wisconsin-born Mother Leafy Anderson in the early 20th century. These churches incorporate Catholic iconography, ecstatic worship derived from African American Protestant Pentecostal sources, and a large dose of Spiritualism, but a closer examination shows that the hallmark of the New Orleans Spiritual Churches is the honoring of the Native American spirit named Black Hawk, who lived in Illinois and Wisconsin (Anderson's home state), not in Africa, or Haiti. Furthermore, the names of some individual churches in the denomination -- such as Divine Israel -- bring to mind typical Black Baptist church names more than Catholic ones.

In sum, Voodoo derives from West African religious traditions and was retained in modified form by slaves in the Caribbean who were held captive by Catholics, but in the USA, most of the slaves came from central Africa and were held captive by Protestant Christians, and their magical and spiritual tradition, called hoodoo, is far closer to the Congo-derived Cuban religion called Palo than it is to Voodoo.

Myths and misconceptions

Public relations-wise, Vodou has come to be associated in the popular mind with such phenomena as "zombies" and "voodoo dolls". While there is ethnobotanical evidence relating to "zombie" creation, it is a minor phenomenon within rural Haitian culture and not a part of the Vodou religion as such. Such things fall under the auspices of the bokor or sorcerer rather than the priest of the Lwa Gine.

The practice of sticking pins in "voodoo dolls" has history in healing teachings as identifying pressure points. How it became known as a method of cursing an individual by some followers of what has come to be called "New Orleans Voodoo", which is a local variant of hoodoo is a mystery. Some speculate that it was one of many ways of self defense by instilling fear in slave owners. This practice is not unique to New Orleans "voodoo" however and has as much basis in European-based magical devices such as the "poppet" and the nkisi or bocio of West and Central Africa. In fact it has more basis in European traditions, as the nkisi or bocio figures used in Africa are in fact power objects, what in Haiti would be referred to as pwen, rather than magical surrogates for an intended target of sorcery whether for boon or for bane. Such "voodoo" dolls are not a feature of Haitian religion, although dolls intended for tourists may be found in the Iron Market in Port au Prince. The practice became closely associated with the Vodou religions in the public mind through the vehicle of horror movies. In fact, voodoo always gets a bad rap in movies with possibly the only except being the film London Voodoo where voodoo is shown as a force for good.

There is a practice in Haiti of nailing crude poppets with a discarded shoe on trees near the cemetery to act as messengers to the otherworld, which is very different in function from how poppets are portrayed as being used by "voodoo worshippers" in popular media and imagination, ie. for purposes of sympathetic magic towards another person. Another use of dolls in authentic Vodou practice is the incorporation of plastic doll babies in altars and objects used to represent or honor the spirits, or in pwen, which recalls the aforementioned use of bocio and nkisi figures in Africa. One Haitian artist particularly known for his unusual sacred constructions using doll parts is Pierrot Barra of Port au Prince.


Template:NPOV-section Vodun has been culturally appropriated as a form of neopaganism by some people of non-African origin in the First World. Most of them have no cultural connection to Haiti or Benin and are initially attracted to Vodun's exoticism. Because Vodou is an initiatic religion, its teachings and practices are not fully accessible to outsiders who do not become congregants.


In November 1998, Florida Republican Senator Alberto Gutman charged his opponent with using voodoo against him in an election. He lost.


About 60% of the population of Benin, about 4½ million people, practice Vodun. (This does not count other animistic religions in Benin.) In addition, many of the 15% of the population that call themselves Christian practice a syncretism of Christianity and Vodun not dissimilar from Haitian Vodou. In Togo about half the population practices indigenous religions, of which Vodun is by far the largest, with approximately 2½ million followers; there may be perhaps another million among the Ewe of Ghana (13% Ewe and 38% indigenous beliefs overall out of a population of 20 million.)

Haitian Vodou is practiced alongside Christianity by about half the population, or some 4 million people, and this has been carried abroad with Haitian emigration.

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