Discover · The vocabulary

Glossary of Vodun

Thirty-nine terms, as they are spoken in Ouidah. A visitor who knows ten of these words understands a ceremony. A visitor who knows none watches people dance.

What this glossary does not do

It invents no definition. Around ten terms found in our own dossiers are deliberately absent, for want of a definition we can establish with certainty. A glossary that fills its own gaps loses exactly the authority it claims to build.

39 terms

Language and names

Vodun
The correct spelling. Vodun, never Vodoun or Voodoo: those two forms come from colonial transcriptions and American cinema, and they carry everything that word was made to mean. The one admitted exception is Haitian Vodou, which has its own orthography and its own history. Read the fiche →
Fongbé
The Fon language, spoken in southern Benin. It is the language of ceremonies, of songs and of the names on this page. Translation into Fongbé is systematically provided at the NGO events, so that traditional authorities and the local public take full part.
Gléxwé
The original name of Ouidah, founded around the sixteenth century. A town of cultic and cultural vocation, cradle of Vodun, whose current name is a Portuguese then French distortion. Read the fiche →
Kemet
The black land: the name ancient Egypt gave itself. It is the continuity of its civil calendar, recalibrated on the heliacal rising of Sirius, that founds the African reckoning of time and the year 6263. Read the fiche →

Titles and offices

Hounon
Mother of the sea. The title belongs to the one who managed to tame the sea, and it designates the highest dignitary of the Vodun universe. The first Hounon was Adetelou Gbinvlamin Agbessi Houndohome, who went to sea and never returned: it was to him that 10 January paid homage before it became a national holiday. Read the fiche →
Bokonon
The diviner of the Fa. It is he who consults the oracle and announces the sign of the day. Nothing serious begins in a ritual day before that announcement. Read the fiche →
Zangbetonon
The chief of the Zangbeto. He supervises the outings, decides what is shown and what is not, and answers for what happens during the outing. Read the fiche →
Zossoungbo
The chief of the land in Ouidah. Seeing the bearing and the aura of the first Hounon arrived at Sogbadji, it was he who had Dehoue Aglametoka grant him a place at Houxwe. He remains chief of the land, and his royal palace is among the high patronages of the NGO.
FRABO
Fraternity of the Bokonons, Babalawos and Olouwos, registered under no. 030/MISP. The organisation gathering the holders of the divinatory art in Benin, and one of the guarantors of the spiritual content of this site. Read the fiche →
Mariwo
The palm fringe, and by extension those who wear it to hold the crowd at a distance during Egungun outings. This is no decorative stewarding: contact with an Egungun in outing is proscribed. Read the fiche →

The deities

Fa
The oracle and the divinatory art. The Fa says what the day, the year or a decision requires. It has several times revealed the need to carry offerings to the sea, for those who fell into it and for those on the other side. Read the fiche →
Dangbé
The royal python, Vodun of alliance and of the continuity of life. It does not bend iron by force: it embraces life so that life may endure. Its power lies in alliance, never in dread. Its dwelling is Dangbéxwé, the Python Temple. Read the fiche →
Dan
The serpent, associated with air and the rainbow in the reading of the four primordial elements. In Ouidah, Dan is honoured at the Python Temple and, in its aquatic aspect, on the shore alongside Mami Wata. Read the fiche →
Agbe
The tutelary deity of the Hounon lineage, described as a miniature of the sea. Those who truly know this family know that its temperament is never far from what one would grant the ocean. Read the fiche →
Mami Wata
The deities of the waters. Fertility, prosperity, and the bond with what the ocean carried away. The adepts, in white, lay sweet offerings into the waves: perfumes, flowers, fruit, sweet liquors. Read the fiche →
Sakpata
Sovereign of the earth, associated with healing and regeneration. His adepts carry clay. His cult touches what the earth gives as much as what it takes back. Read the fiche →
Hèviosso
The deity of fire and thunder, one of the four primordial elements presented during Immersion Vodun. Read the fiche →
Tohossou
The deity of water, one of the four primordial elements. It opens the series of four presentations that structure the fourth day of Immersion Vodun. Read the fiche →
Legba
The guardian of crossroads, the one who opens or closes the paths. Nothing passes without him. Tolegba is his form installed at the entrance of compounds and quarters.
Gou
The deity of iron, of tools and of everything that cuts. He is honoured along the route of offerings on the first day of the Vodun year. Read the fiche →
Kokou
The warrior Vodun. His outings are among the most intense of the Vodun Days week. What an outside eye takes for violence is a demonstration of protective force, and it is held by those whose charge it is. Read the fiche →
Hunvè
The deities of the forest. Beneath the iroko of Kpassèzoun, this is the part of the cult that touches plants, traditional medicine and what the vegetal knows. Read the fiche →
Zomandonou
The Vodun attached to the princely lineages, celebrated at Ninssouxwé square during the Vodun Days. Rhythms of state, dynastic songs of praise, libations reserved for the royal houses. Read the fiche →
Ninssouxwé
The spirits of the ancestors of the princely lineages. The square carrying their name hosts the least spectacular face of the Vodun Days, and the most ceremonial. Read the fiche →
Mawu Lissa
The creative principle, honoured at the Mawuxwê temple. A whole day of Immersion Vodun is devoted to it, jointly with Mami-Dan. Read the fiche →

Outings and masks

Zangbeto
The guardians of the night. This is the customary police, the one that watched over the order of the quarters long before any administration. When a straw cone spins on itself, it performs no conjuring trick: it recalls who keeps the city. Read the fiche →
Égoungoun
The returned ancestors. Dressed in layered cloths that let no patch of flesh show, they do not represent the dead: for those who receive them, they are their coming. They come out at Maro square, in a quarter founded by freed men and women returned from Brazil. Read the fiche →
Guèlèdè
The mask and dance of Yoruba-Nago origin, inscribed on the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list. It features in the programme of the fifth day of Immersion Vodun. Read the fiche →
Dawetin
The balancing dance on giant bamboos. The poles are driven into sand, which is why the Arena of Ouidah has a sand floor rather than a hard one: people dance there fourteen metres above the ground. Read the fiche →

Ritual acts

Nu xu xu
The offering. It opens the relationship with the deity before any word. In a ritual day it precedes the presentation and the demonstration: one gives first, explains next, shows last. Read the fiche →
Ahandoxo
The vigil. Held in the evening, at the convent or the temple, extending the day into a more intimate register. Not all vigils are open, and those that are require particular dress and silence. Read the fiche →
Ayissun
The vigil proper to the Egungun cult, held at the convent on the night preceding their day. Read the fiche →
Xwetanou
The annual period during which the daughters and sons of the first Hounon went to carry his offerings to the one the sea had not given back. Everything else comes from there. Read the fiche →
Xwénuxo
The tales. A whole vigil of the African New Year project is devoted to them, by moonlight: stellar accounts, legends of the lineages, transmission of the memory of the sky. Read the fiche →

Places

Dangbéxwé
The dwelling of Dangbé, that is, the Python Temple, on rue Monseigneur Dartois, facing the Basilica. The sanctuary of the Xwéda people, left standing when their kingdom fell. Read the fiche →
Kpassèzoun
The sacred wood of Kpassè. Zoun designates the sacred grove: literally, the forest of Kpassè. Tradition says the founding patriarch of the city did not die but transformed there into an iroko. Read the fiche →
Xwéda
The indigenous people of this coast, present before Ouidah became a port and before Abomey extended its kingdom to the sea. Their capital Savi fell in 1727; what remained standing was Dangbé. Read the fiche →
Agouda
The freed men and women returned from Brazil in the nineteenth century, and their descendants. They gave Ouidah its Afro-Brazilian architecture, its Portuguese family names and the Maro quarter. Read the fiche →
Zomaï
Literally, the fire does not go there. The name of the enclosure where captives were held in darkness before embarkation, to break their bearings. Read the fiche →

Established and reviewed

Vocabulary established in Ouidah by Hounon Agbessi Avlessi W. Bertian and the After Vodundays team, through the fiches of places and with the collectivities that hold each cult.

Reviewed and validated by Dah Dohinnon Aguessy, FRABO, guardian of the tradition, Ouidah. Verified on 29 July 2026.

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