The Keeper of the Gate

Legba's role as the keeper of the passage makes him one of the most important and most beloved of all the lwa, for without him there is no contact between humanity and the divine world at all, he is the necessary first, the doorkeeper on whom every other communication depends. In the pattern of correspondences between the lwa and the Roman Catholic saints, developed by practitioners over the long history of Vodou as a way of honouring the spirits within a Catholic colonial world, Legba is commonly associated with Saint Peter, who holds the keys of heaven, and in some houses with Saint Lazarus, the poor old man. His origins reach back across the Atlantic to West Africa, and he is closely related to the Yoruba and Fon figures of Elegba and Legba, the trickster and messenger who likewise governs the crossroads and the opening of the way, a continuity that shows how the traditions carried by enslaved Africans survived and were remade in Haiti. Vodou is a living religion practised by many today, and its lwa are honoured with genuine devotion; the old man at the crossroads, lame and leaning on his cane, remains the spirit who opens the door between the human and the divine, greeted first at every gathering so that the way may be made clear.