Vudú

West African Vodun
Vodun or Vudun is an indigenous organized religion of coastal West Africa from Togo to Nigeria. Vodun is practised by the Ewe people, Kabye people, Mina people and Fon people of southern and central Togo, southern and central Benin and (under a different name) the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria.
It is distinct from the various traditional animistic religions in the interiorsof these same countries and is the main origin for religions of similar name found among the African Diaspora in the New World such as Haitian Vodou, the Vudu of Puerto Rico, Candomblé Jejé in Brazil (which uses the term Vodum), Louisiana Voodoo and Santería in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. All these aresyncretized with Christianity and the traditional religions of the Kongopeople of Congo and Angola.
Theology and practice
Vodun cosmology centers around the vodun spirits and other elements of divine essence that govern the Earth, a hierarchy that range in power from major deities governing the forces of nature and human society to the spirits of individual streams, trees, and rocks, as well as dozens of ethnic vodun, defenders of a certain clan, tribe, or nation. The vodunare the centreof religious life, similarly in many ways to doctrines such as the intercession of saints and angels that made Vodun appear compatible with Christianity, especiallyCatholicism, and produced syncretic religions such as Haitian Vodou. Adherents also emphasise ancestor worship and hold that the spirits of the dead live side by side with the world of the living, each family of spirits having its ownfemale priesthood, sometimes hereditary when is from mother to blood daughter.
Patterns of worship follow various dialects, gods, practices, songs and rituals. Vodun recognises one God with many helpers called Orishas. A single divine Creator, called variously Mawu or Nana Buluku is an androgynous being who in one tradition bore seven children and gave each rule over a realm of nature - animals,earth, and sea - or else these children are inter-ethnic and related to natural phenomena or to historical or mythical individuals. The creator embodies a dualcosmogonic principle of which Mawu the moon and Lisa the sun are respectively the female and male aspects, often portrayed as the twin children of the Creator.
Mawu's youngest child, Legba, was to remain with her and act as a go-between withher other children: in some clans he is young and virile while in Haiti he takes the form of an old man. Other deities might include Mami Wata, god/desses of the waters, Gu, ruling iron and smithcraft, Sakpata, who rules diseases and many others. Eshu, a messenger deity who relays messages between the human world and the world of the Orishas, is depicted as a dark, short man with a large staffand often a pipe, candy or his fingers in his mouth. As the mediator between the gods and the living he maintains balance, order, peace and communication.
All creation is considered divine and therefore contains the power of the divine. This is how medicines such as herbal remedies are understood, and explains the ubiquitous use of mundane objects in religious ritual. Voodoo talismans, called"fetishes", are objects such as statues or dried animal parts that are sold for their healing and spiritually rejuvenating properties.
Priests
Often described as queen mother is the first daughter of a patriarchal lineage of a family collective. She holds the right to lead the ceremonies incumbent to the clan: marriages, baptisms and funerals. She is considered the one of the most important membersof community. She will lead the women of a village when her family collective is the ruling one. Her dominant role has often been confused or associated to that of a high priestess which she is not. They take part in the organisation and the running of markets and are also responsible for their upkeep, which is vitally important because marketplaces are the focal points for gatherings and...