also known as Creole Voodoo, originated
from the ancestral religions of the African Diaspora, and is one of many incarnations of African-based religions rooted in the West African Dahomean Vodou tradition and the Central African traditions found in Haitian Vodou. It became syncretized with the Catholic religion as a result of the massive forced migrations and displacements of the slave trade. Slave owners forbade the
Africans from practicing Vodou under penalty of death and, in areas controlled by Catholics, forced many of them to convert to Catholicism. The result was a creolization of the names and aspects of the Voodoo spirits to those of the Christian saints who most closely resembled their particular areas of expertise or power. Under the guise of Catholicism, Voodoo as a religion
survived.
