Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

Voodoo is a religion which celebrates life and creation above all else. Hurston recounts ceremonies and gestures which represent the acts and organs of sex and birth. There is a huge pantheon of Voodoo gods called “loa,” some of which are popular across Haiti but many of which are confined to a particular region or community. Many outside observers equate the loa with Catholic saints because Voodoo practitioners use iconographs of various saints to represent particular loa. This is a misunderstanding, however, since the images of saints are simply the best available substitutes for an accurate visual representation of the loa. Houngans are required to draw their own personal depictions of the loa as part of their training, and no practitioner of Voodoo would ever actually conflate a loa with a Catholic saint. Many of the loa are in fact based on deities in the pantheons of West African pagan religions.

The loa are divided into families and fall into two broad categories: the “Rada” (or “Arada”) gods and the “Petra” gods. Broadly speaking, the Rada are the good loa that deal with life and creation, whereas the Petra are their evil counterparts associated with death.