These are notes rather than a finished argument, and Bellegarde-Smith says so. What he offers is a set of reflections on death, pointing toward further work rather than closing the subject.

The Gede preside over death and sexuality, and their annual services draw crowds from across the Haitian diaspora. He asks what accounts for that hold. The answer runs through a Vodou theology he describes as humanistic rather than god-centred, in which the person stands at the centre of the cosmos, body, mind and soul are held in balance, and power is energy that can be enhanced, diminished or transferred.

Where Legba opens onto chance and possibility, the Gede supply the one certainty. Faces powdered white, dressed in black and purple, a lens missing from their glasses, they are bawdy and funny and see into two worlds at once. In mocking respectability they mock structures of domination, standing outside race, class and nation while remaining pointedly gendered.