Haitian Vodou Baron Samedi Cross

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A Haitian Vodou cross for Baron Samedi, carved and painted black with white detailing, on a three-tier stepped base. A … Read more A Haitian Vodou cross for Baron Samedi, carved and painted black with white detailing, on a three-tier stepped base. A skull crowns the upright, a second is painted at the crossing, and iron nails are driven through the join at radiating angles. The middle step reads BARON S above a row of repeating S figures. The reverse is painted to an entirely different scheme.

In Haitian Vodou, Bawon Samdi is chief of the Gede, the spirits of death and ancestry, and keeper of the boundary between the living and the dead. The first grave dug in a cemetery is understood to be his, and the cross that marks it — the kwa Bawon — becomes his address. Crosses of this form stand in for that marker on household and temple altars. See less