The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans
Millennia ago, throughout southwestern and north-central Nigeria along with southern and central Benin, a religion was born from the ancestor worship and animism of the previous generations of the Yoruba people. Their beliefs became part of Itan, the total complex of memes that make up that society. This includes the songs they sing and the rhythms they play and even the gods they serve. The kind of polytheism they employ honors a Supreme Being along with many lesser deities. God is a trinity in the Yoruba religion, consisting of Eledumere, Olorun, and Olofi. Then there are the orishas, which are the souls of the dead that reflect divinity. This includes beings like Obaluaye, Logunede, Ara, Osumare, and Iroko, to name but a few. The point is that the longstanding spiritual tradition has been handed down for generations and has transformed over time.
In the 15th century, the transatlantic slave trade began after the Portuguese started exploring the coast of West Africa. Around 1650, the development of plantations on the newly colonized Caribbean islands and North American mainland brought groups of subjugated people that carried their unshakable faith with them. In places like Saint-Domingue, which is now Haiti, the Roman Catholic missionaries forced the Yoruba people to convert, which then caused them to blend their old beliefs with their new ones. This gave rise to creolized Haitian…
