Thornton addresses a puzzle in Vodou and in a number of other African American religious traditions: how Catholic saints came to stand alongside deities drawn from Yoruba and Fon practice.

Two claims carry the argument. The first is that the saints came primarily out of the Catholic Kingdom of Kongo. The second explains why it was the Yoruba-Fon gods in particular who joined them: most religions of Atlantic Africa attach their spirits to a specific place or people, but this tradition has deities that travel and whose authority can extend anywhere, which made them fit company for saints in a way other African deities were not.