Max Beauvoir, supreme authority of Haitian Vodou, dies

Max Gesner Beauvoir was born 25 August 1936. He trained as a biochemist in New York and Paris before returning to Haiti and taking up the priesthood as an oungan. In 2008 he was raised to Ati, supreme servant, the highest office Haitian Vodou has ever named. He built the Peristyle de Mariani outside Port-au-Prince and spent decades defending Vodou against the people who called it superstition. He died on 12 September 2015.