The Veves

The Veves

The Veves are without any doubt the most spectacular ceremonial factor of Voodoo. The Veves are designs traced upon the ground of the peristyle or the oumphor, or upon all sorts of objects, even ritual food. In the region of Port -au-Prince the veves are made with great care so that they are clearly visible and almost geometrically flawless. Elsewhere, however, it is made carelessly and crudely; and in some regions it is not used at all, for example in the oumphors in the neghborhood of Gonaives.

The Veves represent figures of the astral forces in a different way than the asson does. Their manufacture in the oumphor is the reproduction by voodoo magick of the astral forces themselves. This fact signifies that the veves, considered as astral forces, are necessarily personified by the star andcestors whose following is Voodoo- these ancestors being themselves personified by the loas, the spirits, the voudoun or the mysteres that moutn the voodooists.

In the course of Voodoo ceremonies, the reproduction of the astral forces represented by the veves obliges the loa (who are representations of heavenly bodies, stars, and planets) to decend to earth. Depending upon the rite, the veve is traced with wheat flour, corn meal, guinea-flour (wood ashes), powdered leaves, red brick powder, rice powder (face powder), and even gunpowder, powdered charcoal, bark, or roots.