Skip to content
🇭🇹   BETA  ·  Istwanou is free during beta — free access continues until January 1, 2027 or when we reach 100,000 entries, whichever comes first.  ·  4,236 entries published  ·  95,764 entries away from the 100k milestone.       🇭🇹   BETA  ·  Istwanou is free during beta — free access continues until January 1, 2027 or when we reach 100,000 entries, whichever comes first.  ·  4,236 entries published  ·  95,764 entries away from the 100k milestone.       
You are offline — some content may not be available
Undated

Undated: (Vévé, the Sacred Geometric Designs That Symbolize Individual Lwa in Vodou, Drawn in Flour, Gunpowder, or Chalk to Summon Spirits to Ceremonies, Roo…

Haitian

Undated: (Vévé, the Sacred Geometric Designs That Symbolize Individual Lwa in Vodou, Drawn in Flour, Gunpowder, or Chalk to Summon Spirits to Ceremonies, Rooted in Ground-Painting Traditions From Dahomey, the Congo, and Angola): Vévé are the visual language of Vodou, elaborate geometric designs that represent individual lwa and are drawn to summon those spirits to ceremonies. They can be permanently painted on the walls of a hounfour or traced in manioc flour, gunpowder, chalk, or ashes on the altar or floor. Each lwa has a distinctive vévé: a cross for Legba, a heart for Erzulie, a coffin for Baron Samedi, with regional variations adding local character. The designs range from simple to extraordinarily intricate, and those drawn on the altar are dismantled after the ceremony concludes. The tradition descends from ground-painting practices found in Dahomey, the Congo, and Angola, carried to Haiti by the enslaved, but the Haitian vévé evolved into something more complex than their African antecedents, developing into visual signatures of remarkable sophistication. Today, vévé have moved beyond the hounfour into Haitian popular art, appearing frequently on the colorful tap-taps that serve as public transportation, a sign that sacred imagery in Haiti has always been comfortable in public space.