Terms and Spirit Listing
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Engagement

(V.ENC) Certain Petro loa are partners in black magic and will perform harmful services in exchange for a huge price. This pact between the loa and a bokor is called an engagement.

Erzulie (Ezili)

(V.ENC) Representing love, beauty, purity, the ideal female, and the moon, Erzulie is the most beloved of the loa and wife of Ogoun, Legba, and Agoué. She can influence romance and marriage, good fortune, and artistic creation. Her symbol is the heart, her colors are pink and blue, and she is also represented by a model boat hanging from the ceiling of the peristyle. Her Catholic equivalent is the Virgin Mary. As offerings, she is given desserts, sweet drinks, champagne, perfumes, flowers, candles and white doves. Devotees possessed by Erzulie wear feminine clothes, dance, and flirt conquettishly, but this behavior is always followed by weeping for lost loves and unfulfilled dreams before Erzulie leaves the material plane.

(SV) The female energy of Legba is Erzulie, the Virgin of Voodoo initiates, commonly called Maîtresse Erzulie. She personifies another species of serpent, short and coiled upon itself, which feeds upon bananas and which lives chiefly in the water. Erzulie is the most attractive mystère of Voodoo. She is precisely the Voodoo heart, which she shares with Legba, and which is also his attribute. She is the mystère of eloquence-the mystère of the word, which she shares as an attribute along with Legba. She is the mystère of jealousy, vengeance, and discord, and on the other hand, the mystère of love, perpetual help, good will, health, beauty, and fortune.

(DL) She has tremendous power and is feared as much as she is loved. Also, she has several different roles: goddess of the word, love, help, goodwill, health, beauty and fortune, as well as goddess of jealousy, vengeance, and discord. She is usually known as a serpent coiled upon itself lives on water and bananas. Voodoo has a most special place for Erzulie, the loa of beauty, the loa who is so uniquely human since she is the differentiating force between human and all other creation. She is the ability to conceptualize, the ability to dream, the artistic ability to create. She is the loa of ideality. She is the female prototype of voodoo who represents the moon. She is the most beautiful and sensuous lady in the voodoo pantheon. She is respected and wealthy; wears her hair long; is very jealous and requires her lovers to dedicate a room for her ritual lovemaking. Erzulie is not a loa of elemental forces, but THE loa of ideal dreams, hopes and aspirations. As such she is the most loved loa of all. She is pale in appearance; almost white, even though she is Dahomean in origin. She is known as the earth mother, the goddess of love. She is depicted as a trembling woman who inhabits the water. She has no specific function, but is approachable in a confidential manner. In every sanctuary there is a room, or corner of a room, dedicated to her. Erzulie is fabulously rich, and, when she mounts someone the first act is always to accomplish her elaborate toilette. The very best of things which the houngan or mambo have are reserved for Erzulie. She will bathe, using soap still in a fresh wrapper if possible. She will dress in silks with fresh flowers and other signs of her femininity and specialness. Her sacred days Tuesday and Thursday. She wears red and blue dresses and jewels. As soon as someone is possessed by her, they are washed and dressed in finery. She is a high class mulatto who walks with a sacy sway to her hips. She is a "woman of the world" and is fond of sugary drinks. She is compared to Aphrodite. She is pleasure-loving, extravagant and likes to give and get presents. She fond of men but mistrust women as rivals. She is a woman of etiquette, and when she pretends to speak French, she purposely talks in a high pitched voice. She is a master of coquetry. She may simply visit with her servants, or she may eat or drink with great delicacy. She loves to dance and is the most graceful of all the loa. She is quite special to men and will dance with them, kiss and caress them, even in an often embarrassing manner. Yet she is closely associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary and her symbol is the heart, usually one broken with an arrow in much the same way as a dominant Catholic portrait of Mary has it. Erzulie wears three wedding bands since she has been (or is) wedded to Dumballah, Ogoun and Agwe. She has often flirted with Zaka, but she has completely dismissed his more coarse brother Ghede as unworthy (since he is black and she is mulatto). However, Erzulie is always in charge and may take any servitor present as her lover for the day if she chooses. However, the visit of Erzulie is never fully satisfying. In the end she always begins to weep. The world is just too much for her. At first people try to comfort her with more delicate food or drink or other gifts, but her tears continue to flow. It is this tearful and sad side of her that allows the women to accept her in her haughty ways. She is, in the end, one who suffers the burden of the world's sorrows. Despite her flirtations and loving ways, Erzulie is a virgin. She is the complete converse of the crude sexuality of Papa Ghede. She may not be a virgin in the physical sense, but in the sense that her love transcends the earth, it is a love of higher forces. She belongs to the family of sea spirits, but has become completely divorced form her origins as to be now almost exclusively a personification of feminine grace and beauty.

Erzulie Dantor

(V.ENC) The Petro aspect of Erzulie represents jealousy, vengeance, and discord, and she is often cruel toward women's desires. Her symbol is a heart pierced by a dagger, her colors are red and black, and her sacrifice is a black pig. Possession by the Petro Erzulies is marked by uncontrollable tantrums.

Colours: Blue, Red, multicoloured

Symbols: Dagger, kerchiefs of navy blue and golden yellow, silver chain necklaces, bowl of blood with knives, black dolls, blue paket kongo

Offerings: bottle of Barbancourt rum and another of Creme de Cacao, grilled pork with lots of pepper, strong cigarettes, yellow yam, cakes with blue and gold icing.

Erzuile Fréda Dahomey

(V.ENC) An aspect of Erzulie as a white woman who lives in luxurious surroundings.

Erzulie Jan Petro

(DL) Violent spirit loa belonging to the Petro tradition. Jan Petro is called upon to take responsibility for the temple where spells are on display; although she is a neutral entity, when not called upon it is the duty of the devotees to make them behave peacefully or violently, depending on their motivation for dealing with the spirits. Jan Petro as protector of temples is very powerful; when people come to the temple they soon find out. Jan Petro likes fresh air and water; she is a sea spirit. She likes perfume and lotion-any temple dedicated to her usually smells like lotion, for it is thrown on things she possesses.

Esprit (espri)

(V.ENC) The ritually raised spirit or soul of a dead person.