The Haitian Vèvè: Drawings That Call the Spirits

In a Vodou temple (ounfò) in Haiti, before the drums begin, the priest (oungan) or priestess (manbo) kneels on the earthen floor of the dance space, the peristil, beside the painted centre-post, the poto mitan. Taking a handful of cornmeal, they let it trickle between thumb and fingers, tracing an intricate design on the ground: a cross with a walking stick, serpents around a pole, a heart filled with lattice. Each design is a vèvè, the sign of a particular lwa (spirit). Offerings are placed on it, songs are sung to it, and as the ceremony goes on the dancers' feet blur it into the dust.

What vèvè are

• Ritual ground drawings made in cornmeal, flour, ash, coffee grounds or powdered brick, each belonging to one lwa.
• Drawn at the start of a service, to call the lwa and mark where offerings are laid. Legba's vèvè is usually drawn first, since he opens the gate between the human world and the spirits.
• Vèvè vary between houses and priests. Collections of them have been published, notably Milo Rigaud's Vè-Vè: Diagrammes rituels du Voudou (1974).
• They are also painted on temple walls, flags and, since the mid-twentieth century, in Haitian art.

Four lwa and their signs

The interactive floor above traces schematic vèvè for four lwa:

• Legba, the old man at the crossroads, keeper of the gate: a cross and a cane.
• Damballa, the white serpent of the sky and waters, with his wife Ayida-Wedo, the rainbow: serpents rising around a pole or an egg.
• Ezili Freda, lwa of love, beauty and luxury: a heart, often latticed. Her fierce counterpart Ezili Dantor's heart is pierced by a knife.
• Baron Samedi, head of the Gede, the spirits of the dead: a cross on a tomb.

Where they come from

Older writers traced vèvè to the Taíno, the Indigenous people of Hispaniola. More recent scholarship, following Robert Farris Thompson's Flash of the Spirit (1983), emphasises African roots: the Kongo cosmogram, a cross within a circle marking the boundary between the living and the dead, and the ground drawings and sign systems of the Fon and neighbouring peoples of West Africa, from whom much of Vodou's liturgy descends. Catholic imagery, and Masonic and ceremonial designs, have also shaped some vèvè. The mix is still debated.

Symbology and sacred encoding

A drawing as a door. The vèvè is not a picture of the lwa but a point of contact: offerings placed on it reach the spirit, and the lwa may come to "mount" a devotee in possession.

The crossroads. Many vèvè are built on a cross, the crossroads where the human and spirit worlds meet, echoing the Kongo cosmogram and Legba's role.

Made to be erased. A vèvè exists only for the ceremony; its effacement by dancing feet is part of the rite.

Connections

African Diaspora Religions (ch40) and African Traditional Religion (ch33). Compare the Pantheon's entries for Papa Legba, Ezili Freda and Baron Samedi, and the Tilma of Guadalupe (V13) for another meeting of Catholic and Indigenous imagery.

From The Divine Archives · https://getconexto.com/vault/haitian-veve.html