Manbo

Because, like I said, women are just naturally more tapped in and we're more connected with the earth.

And that is kind of clashing with... our African traditional practices because, you know, in voodoo, we have a hooligan and mambo and a hooligan is a male voodoo priest.

Mambo is a female voodoo priestess.

So yes, technically they both have the same status.

But like I said, for me personally, I just can't, I can't see man being just as powerful as a woman.

Gee, that's... 24 years now.

I'm also a Haitian Mambo.

Haitian, I'm not Haitian.

Haitian in the tradition, the tradition of Haiti, Mambo.

Rada is a little bit cooler, and you dance like a serpent, like a snake because this again comes from the Vodun tradition where Dan led to our Damballa, who is the eternal wise cosmic serpent.

Ceremonies are led by ordained priests called Oungan and priestesses called Manbo.

However, Oungan and Manbo are relatively autonomous.

There's no officially sanctioned clerical hierarchy like what we see in Catholicism, and they fulfill all sorts of roles in their communities.

Not only are they trained to guide ritual services and initiate other priests and priestesses, but many also have what you could call a consulting practice.

For example, you can consult an Oungan or Manbo for advice, divination, or to provide an amulet or herbal prescription.

Vodou services are held at temples called Unfo.

These are sometimes a single building or a compound with an open space called a peristyle featuring a central pole or tree called a Poto Mitan.

The ceremony was led by a Houngan, a Voodoo high priest named Dutty Boukman, a powerful figure who had escaped slavery in Jamaica before arriving in Saint-Domingue.

Alongside him was a Mambo, a Voodoo high priestess named Cécile Fatiman.

In the flickering light of torches and under the canopy of the dense forest, the gathered men and women participated in a ritual that fused African spiritual traditions with the grim realities of their lives.

Voodoo, which had been a quiet and often hidden practice, now became a powerful force of unity and resistance.