Terms and Spirit Listing
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Canzo

(V.ENC) The first level of initiation is the grueling ritual called canzo, which serves as a rite of passage and symbolizes death and rebirth into the religion. Not every practitioner of vodou has to go through this ritual; usually only those devotees who are training to be become priests or who would like to take a larger part in the rituals do so. The canzo initiation requires a significant financial sacrifice, strict discipline, and the acceptance of moral obligation, so no one undertakes this ritual lightly. The ritual can take as long as a week to complete. First, the initiates take a purifying bath, start fasting, and drink a concoction made from the fruit corrosal, which is supposed to have a sedative effect. The initiates wear dried palm fronds as protection against evil spirits. They then lie down around the center-post, with their heads in the middle and their legs sticking out like the spokes of the wheel, while the houngan lectures them on what they are about to experience and their obligations once they are fully initiated in vodou. Afterward, they are locked in the djévo, where they receive the lave tête ceremony. Then, they undergo the final trial by fire. The following morning, the initiates reenter the real world dressed in white and wearing masks of palm leaves. They visit the sacred trees located around the hounfort and salute the spirits who reside inside them. They are then free to return to the peristyle, where a dance and celebration in their honor is held.

Carrefour

(V.ENC) Carrefour is the Petro equivalent of Legba. He represents the dark of night, and stands in balance to Legba, who represents the day. He controls the evil forces of the spirit world and allows bad luck, misfortune, and injustice to enter the world. His symbol is the crossroads, and his color is black.

Catholicism, influence on vodou

(V.ENC) In Haiti, the African beliefs mingled with the Catholicism of the French colonization to form a syncretic religion, one that combined significant elements of each religion to create a harmonious whole. The white plantation owners forbade their slaves to practice their native religions on pain of torture and death, and they baptized all slaves as Catholics. Catholicism became superimposed on African rites and beliefs, which the slaves still practiced in secret or masked as harmless dances and parties. Practitioners of this new religion, vodou, considered the addition of the Catholic Saints to be an enhancement of their faith, and incorporated Catholic hymns, prayers, statues, candles and holy relics into their rituals. Tribal deities adopted the aspects of Catholic saints. The cross, already a powerful symbol in the tribal religions as the crossroads, where the spiritual and the material worlds meet each other, was adopted as the symbol of the powerful god Legba. However, it's important to note that the vodou gods did not literally become the Catholic Saints; rather they adopted the symbolic trappings of Catholicism and the Saints who they seemed to resemble most while retaining their original characteristics and personalities.

Charms

(V.ENC) Because vodou is such an archetypal religion, symbols carry great power. They are not magical; they are just evocative of the gods that they represent and the power that the god holds. Vodou practitioners may wear charms or amulets, fashioned by a houngan and generally used for protection from harm, that invoke the power of one of the loa and impose that power on the wearer. For instance, a protective charm may be inscribed with the cross that symbolizes Legba. Again the charm itself is not magical; it simply represents the spirit who is conferring his power on the wearer through the symbol.

Cheval (chwal, ch'wl)

(V.ENC) Literally a "horse," this term refers to a person who has bee possessed, or "mounted," by a loa.

Clairin

(V.ENC) A raw white rum native to Haiti, a favorite drink of the Guédé.

Confiance, mam'bo caille

(SV) The apprentice houngan or mam'bo.

Congo

(DL) A handsome but apathetic loa. Content with any clothing and eats mixed foods with much pimiento, and is fond of mixed drinks.

Congo Savanne

(DL) A fierce petro loa. He is malevolent, fierce and strong. Savanne eats people. He grinds them up as we would grind up corn. His color is white. He is a loa not to be messed with.

Connaissance

(V.ENC) The complete body of knowledge of the loa, vodou rites, and herbal cures held by a houngan or mambo; some of this knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next, and some is intuitive or supernaturally revealed by the loa.

Corps cadavre

(V.ENC) The corps cadavre is the physical body, flesh, and blood of the human body that decay after death, as opposed to the everlasting components of the soul.

Coucher

(V.ENC) Literally "to put to bed," this term refers to the point in the initiation ritual when initiates are enclosed in the djévo.

Creole

(V.ENC) This term refers to anything that is native to Haiti, including the language, people, plant life, and loa, as distinguished from objects that have African origin.