When thinking of Afro-diasporic religions, one might only have a vague reference to ‘voodoo’. Perhaps you have read up on Haitian zombies or watched a film where a black elder in New Orleans performs some obscure hoodoo rituals. Regardless, your knowledge might be limited and, in many cases, biased against a scarcely spoken about group of closely related belief systems.

Even many of us West Indians, especially those of us who grew up religious and Christian, have only ever heard whisperings about this mysterious, mystical practice. If not for my quest to discover more about my country’s role in decolonisation, I may not have discovered the importance of these religions to our ancestors and to ourselves at present.