Haitian Vodou organises its lwa into rites, and the two principal ones sound and move differently. The Rada rite carries the older West African inheritance, chiefly Fon and Yoruba, and its lwa are described as cool: measured, benevolent, dealt with through steady rhythm and patience. The Petwo rite took shape in Haiti itself out of the conditions of slavery, and its lwa are hot: fast, demanding, effective, addressed with sharper rhythms and the crack of a whip or a gunpowder charge. A ceremony can move between them, and a house serves both.
The dances follow the rites. Yanvalou belongs to Rada and to Danbala Wedo, the serpent, and is danced with the knees bent and the back rolling in a wave that travels from the shoulders down the spine, which is the serpent's motion made human. Mayi, Zepol and Parigol are other Rada dances with their own steps. Banda belongs to the Gede, the lwa of death and of the cemetery, and is danced with pronounced hip movement and open sexual humour, which is not a lapse from seriousness but the Gede's own theology: the dead are not to be approached with dread. Kongo and Petwo dances are faster and more percussive again. The drums are three in the Rada battery, and it is the smallest, the kata, that holds the pattern the dancers follow.