| “ | Brigitte knows that with every breath, every cell I worship only her. The most beautiful, interesting, sexy, and powerful woman I have ever come across. And when she's not around, I fuck a lot of other women. | ” |
–Baron Samedi to Laura, "The Ways of the Dead" | ||
The Loa are spirits of the vodou/voodoo religion. They act as intermediaries between the humans and Bondye, the supreme God and Creator of the world. While not being gods themselves, and having roles akin to saints or angels, they are still worshiped through rituals and offerings, and thus often mistaken by non-vodou practicioners for deities. In the television series only two appear: Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte, living in New Orleans.
Background[]
Baron Samedi is a Haitian loa and leader of the Guédé family of loa, who represent death and fertility. He is an intermediary between Bondye and humanity, both for resurrection and for leading the dead to the underworld.
Baron Samedi's wife, Maman Brigitte, is also a loa. She originates from Ireland and is the only white Haitian Vodou god. She is associated with Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of the sun, the dawn, fire, spring, fertility, healing, knowledge, wisdom, poetry, medicine, smithcraft, warfare, arts and crafts, cattle and other livestock, sacred wells, and serpents.
Baron Samedi[]
A God of the dead, death, magic, sex and the underworld, but he's the life of the party, and the chef at New Orleans’ rowdy Le Coq Noir—where both the living and the dead, humans and gods alike, come to imbibe and dine. He enjoys disruption and debauchery. Although married to Maman Brigitte and deeply in love with her, he has a joyous habit of stepping out on his wife.
Maman Brigitte[]
Maman Brigitte is the female counterpart to and wife of Baron Samedi. Goddess of life, death, transition, justice, motherhood, fertility, cemeteries, crosses, gravestones, women, souls of deceased relatives, obscenities and passion. She helps spirits celebrate and embrace the afterlife. Quick-witted, sexy and full of life, she is a playful spirit with a roaring temper, and she shares a hedonistic dynamic with her adulterous husband. She is the only "white" loa in the entire Vodun pantheon and is originally from Ireland. Her character is based on Saint Brigid of Kildare, whose name is derived from Brigid the Celtic Goddess.
Significance in series[]
"The Beguiling Man"[]
When Laura vomits up some of her liquefying insides, she promises Sweeney he can have the coin whether she falls apart or finds a way to get her life back. Sweeney mentions he might have another option other than Easter to help her get her life back: the old Baron.
"Muninn"[]
At Ibis and Jacquel Funeral Parlor, Ibis is busy putting Laura back together, eating pieces of her as he works. Laura worries about how much longer she will have before her body falls irreparably apart. Wednesday invites her to come with him to find Argus Panoptes, someone who might be able to help her condition while Sweeney invites Laura to join him in New Orleans to meet the Baron. Laura opts to go with Wednesday.
"The Ways of the Dead"[]
Laura meets with Sweeney in New Orleans after traveling with Wednesday to see Argus Panoptes. They go to the "Coq Noir" where Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte agree to help Laura at a price. Laura converses with Baron Samedi, who asks her to tell him a truth in exchange for the potion he brews for her. In order to resurrect her, the potion must be mixed with "2 drops of blood infused with love."
Gallery[]
Notes and trivia[]
- In the novel, it is mentionned that the Loa do not have bodies of their own and are forced to "ride" human beings to manifest in our reality (their true shape only appearing in the Backstage), as per the vodou belief. The television series changed that by giving Baron Samedi and Maman Brigitte their own physical bodies in the human world.