VéVé's are drawings made with cornmeal
or flour in Vodoun ceremonies as a means of focusing and centering the ritual
activity. Usually drawn at the base of the poteau-mitan but also at times
before altars or trees, they function as doorways between the worlds of the
lwa and humans. They are the mouths of the gods, libations and sacrifices
are made within their lines to feed and honor the lwa. They are often
drawn symmetrically, with a line coming down from the poteau-mitan, an
indicator of their role as cosmic crossroads, which the gods descend to ride
their horses. The mirror of left/right or hot/cool, represented as the dualism
of magic vs. religion, or of Rada and Petro nachons, is played out in
the action to either side of this center-post on the vévé.
There is a discrepancy concerning where these drawings originated. Maya Deren
suggests the Arawak peoples learned the techniques from Aztec on the mainland.
Others point to Congo drawings around the center-post in religious ceremonies
to represent the quarters and demarcate sacred space for the participants. The
concepts are fairly common in many world cultures, although the use of these
drawings as Goetic (not "Cabala-like") signatures of the gods is a more fruitful
avenue of comparison.
The vévé themselves, other than the center-post or the bisecting axis,
include numerous variations and additives. There are appels, or leaves,
signes to show affiliation with masonry, and pwę or points, all
of which can alter the balance of the drawing either left or right, up or down.
These last elements are said to represent the power of the lwa being
called, they are also the final additions to the vévé The pwę
more so than the vévé themselves, are a matter of individual preferences.
They can take the form of a dot, or several dots, 2, 4, 6, and 8 armed stars,
Masonic symbols, crosses in negative, and intersecting lines in weave-like patterns.
Brown, Karen McCarthy. "The Vévé of Haitian Vodou:
A Structural Analysis of Visual Imagery." Diss. Temple University, 1976.