Category: Lwa

Bacalou In Haitian voodoo, an evil loa (deified spirit of the dead), represented by a skull and crossbones. SOURCE: Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend,…

Agove Minoire is in Haitian voodoo, a female loa (deified spirit of the dead) who guards forest groves; symbolized by a phallus carved from wood.…

Legba (also Elegguá) Not the oldest, but perhaps the most important, orisha (god) in the African spirit pantheon is called Legba in Vodun and Elegguá…

La Sirène is a beautiful, classical mermaid with long flowing hair. Her name literally means “the mermaid.” She holds a mirror, which serves as a…

You don’t have to be human to be a magician. Simbi, among the greatest of all magicians, is a water snake spirit who rules all…

Silibo In his book, Ecstatic Voyage, seventeenth-century German scholar Athanasius Kircher describes the sun as populated “with angels of fire swimming in seas of light…

Sili Kenwa is a Dominican manifestation of the lwa known in Haiti as Ezili Coeur Noir, or “Black Hearted Ezili”. Sili Kenwa is syncretized to…

Rada Spirits The Rada lwa are among the two primary Haitian Vodou pantheons. (The other is the Petro lwa.) Most Rada spirits hail directly from…

Ogun is the West African spirit of iron. He is iron. Hold a knife or horseshoe in your hand and you hold Ogun.

The Haitian Revolution was initiated at a Vodou ceremony at Bois Caiman when a priestess (Mambo) sacrificed a black pig, invoking the lwa, Ezili Dantor,…