Category Archives: Legba

For those of you who do not know him, Papa Legba is a Lwa (pronounced loo-WAH and can sometimes be spelled loa). Now you might ask yourself, what is a Lwa? The answer to that question is completed as there are many types of Lwa in the world but to simplify the subject I will speak here of them in the most basic sense. It is to be understood that I am not an expert on this subject but simply someone who has encountered Legba and can speak only from my own experiences and what little information one can gain from books.

Books on the subject range from enlightened works of true initiates to absolute garbage so you need be careful when researching the subject. As for the garbage I will not speak for too much credence has been given to it in the past. The better books will often tell you all that can be told to an outsider (such as myself) within the confines of a spiritual tradition with sacred oaths designed to keep much information secret.

Vodou, more commonly spelled Voodoo. I will be using the former as it is the traditional Haitian spelling of the word, and the more common Voodoo has become degraded through Hollywood movies and books about sticking pins into dolls to kill your enemies. Another reason for my choice in spelling is that when I first encountered a Lwa I reached out to traditional Haitian practitioners of Vodou to get an understanding of what it is was I was trafficking with and they all seemed to draw a distinction between Vodou and Voodoo, one being a deep faith that celebrated life and honored the dead, the other being a product of superstition and B movies. I will not make an attempt to explain Vodou as my knowledge of the subject is limited and there are some excellent books on the subject available to those who take the time to look. One advise I will give is to avoid books that use the spelling Voodoo as most of these I have encountered are not factual.

So why am I even discussing Vodou and the Lwa on a page dedicated to a spirit board? It is because one particular Lwa had a hand in the creation of this board. That Lwa is Papa Legba and I would love to share with you the story of how an ancient African spirit ended up with his portrait on the inside cover of a spirit board box.

This all began when my husband and I opened a small occult store here in the Appalachian Mountains. The store was small, and we had opened it with our own money, so the shelves were half empty, and we needed customers to get it off the ground. We had both studied magic and read about Voodoo (notice the spelling) but had very little real knowledge. We charred a lot of used books on magic and one day a customer wanted to sell us some old books, one of which was on Voodoo. I felt compelled to read the books as I usually do when I happen across a book on magic I have not read so that’s what I did. The book was small and had almost no information, but it did give some instructions for calling up the Lwa. I decided to try it and call on a Lwa that I thought could help the store to grow but first I would have to call on Papa Legba. At the time I had no idea who Legba was, but the book said he was a gatekeeper and must be called first (sometimes even a bad book can point you in the right direction). So it was, that I called to Legba in hopes of actually working with another Lwa. I say this other Lwa because we never made contact with them and now, I can’t even remember who it was. It was a short ritual and it felt like nothing happened until a few nights later.

I have always spoken to spirits in my dreams ever since my grandmother passed away and visited me right after. They tell me what it is like for them now and give advice. In this particular dream Legba came and talked to me and it seemed we spoke all night although after waking I could just remember pieces. He showed me a large tree that was sacred to him and told me why he has a dog that accompanies him, although I can’t remember the whole story now. He told me that the Fool card in the Tarot deck corresponds to him as the wanderer of the crossroads. He finished all this up by telling me something I did remember and that was that he wanted me to paint a picture of him. His only stipulation was that I had to paint him as old because age shows wisdom. When I stated telling people about my encounter with him, I was shocked to learn that most people already knew who Legba was, or should I say most people already had a misconception of who he was. I didn’t know it at the time but a popular T.V. show called American Horror Story had attempted to portray Papa Legba and because of this people were developing an interest in Vodou. Working in a store that sells occult products I got to talk to magical people from all walked of life. Some were people who had practiced for years while others were just starting to discover a whole world of magic and looked everywhere to find more. One of the things I noticed is that people new to magic tend to think that the stuff they see in movies and T.V. shows that deal with magic is true information. While this can be true, in most cases it is not. Here we may need a little understanding, the people who make movies or television have a job to do and that job is to entertain. It is not their job or respectability to teach you about anything. The stories they tell need to be exiting so they need characters that are exaggerated and/or embellished. For Legba this has become a double-edged sword. On the one hand this show has brought him to people who would not know anything about him without it but at the same time it created a false image of him that has more in common with the Christian devil then the wise gatekeeper he is. Nevertheless, I went on Netflix and watched the show and I immediately saw why he needed me to depict him as old. It seemed that the only real thing that bothered Legba about this show was that they made him young.

I had been doing a lot of digital art and just discovered a program that allowed me to paint as I would on canvas. So, I painted a picture I felt captured both his wisdom and dignity. Not long after that Jerome and I were asked by U.S. Games Systems to design a new spirit board. Now that is a whole other story that I intend to tell someday but as this post is getting too long, I will jump ahead and tell you that as the board evolved and we talked of different things we could put on the board it was the Veve of Papa Legba they wanted for the centerpiece of the board. After this I told them the story of Legba wanting me to paint him and they ask me to send them the painting. A year later when the board was actually ready, they sent us all the images that would make up the Tabula Mortem and on the inside of the box lid was Papa Legba. I can’t help but feel that he knew when he asks me to paint him that his image would be published and sold worldwide to those looking to make contact with the other side, after all he is the gatekeeper.