Bondye
Haitian Vodou · deity · Haitian Vodou traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Bondye, from the French Bon Dieu, is the single supreme and creator God of Vodou, also invoked as Gran Mèt, the Great Master. Understood as omnipotent but essentially remote and unknowable, Bondye is not the object of direct ritual service; having created the universe, he delegates its administration to the lwa, who mediate between humanity and the divine. Devotees frame their observances with the phrase 'si Bondye vle' (God willing), acknowledging that the lwa themselves act only by his permission. This distant high god coexists without contradiction alongside the Christian God with whom Bondye is identified.
Domains
- creation
- sovereignty
Powers
- create the cosmos
- delegate authority to the lwa
Epithets
- Gran Mèt — Great MasterKaren McCarthy Brown, Mama Lola (1991), p. 6 (secondary)
Sources
- Bondye is the remote supreme creator god who, having made the world, withdraws and leaves its governance to the lwa.: Alfred Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti (1959), ch. 3 (secondary); Leslie G. Desmangles, The Faces of the Gods (1992), pp. 60-63 (secondary)