Vodou
Afro-Caribbean syncretic faith
Vodou, when capitalized, emphasizes its status as a formal religious tradition deserving the same respect as Christianity or Islam.
Scholars and practitioners often prefer this capitalization to signal that Vodou is a legitimate faith, not primitive superstition.
Vodou has been recognized as an official religion in Haiti since 2003. (Lowercase vodou is the same word in a less formal register.)
Vodou intermediary deities
- mamboFast Cuban ballroom dance
- LegbaVodou spirit of crossroads
- peristyleColumned enclosure around courtyard
- BondyeVodou's unreachable creator
Baron Samedi · Port-au-Prince · Creole · Caribbean · ancestor veneration · spirits · traditions · ceremony
Supernaturally reanimated corpse
- hexMalevolent incantation
- curseInvoked harm through words
- HollywoodAmerican film industry center
- sensationalismOverhyped news coverage
misrepresentation · fear · exoticism · exploitation · misconception · othering
Papal Christian denomination
- saintsCanonized religious figures
- African diasporaGlobal spread from one continent
- DahomeyBenin's former name
- YorubaNigerian people and language
Kongo · slavery · creolization · syncretism · colonialism · resistance · survival · adaptation
lwa
Vodou intermediary deities
- mamboFast Cuban ballroom dance
- LegbaVodou spirit of crossroads
- peristyleColumned enclosure around courtyard
Baron Samedi · Bondye · Port-au-Prince · Creole · Caribbean · ancestor veneration · spirits · traditions · ceremony · possession
zombi
Supernaturally reanimated corpse
sensationalism · misrepresentation · fear · exoticism · exploitation · misconception · othering
Catholicism
Papal Christian denomination
- saintsCanonized religious figures
- African diasporaGlobal spread from one continent
- DahomeyBenin's former name
Yoruba · Kongo · slavery · creolization · syncretism · colonialism · resistance · survival · adaptation
- religionsChristianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism
- witchcraftwitch, spell, spellwork, witches, spells
- Modern Religionevangelicalism, fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, New Age, Scientology
- African diasporaSanteria, orisha, orishas, ancestor veneration, Rastafari
- African religionsSanteria, orishas, ancestor spirits, loa, ancestral spirits
- Syncretic Churchessyncretism, Santeria, Rastafari, cargo cults
VodouProtestantism
Reformation-era Christian movement
Islam · Puritanism · Buddhism · Christianity · Roman Catholicism
Vodouatheism
Rejection of deities
materialism · secular humanism · physicalism · rationalism · empiricism