Mèt Kalfou
Haitian Vodou · deity · Haitian Vodou traditional religion; continuing · deity
THE HEADLINE OF THIS LANE. Legba opens the way and Kalfou blocks it, and the corpus held the first without the second - the fault this programme has now found in nineteen traditions. He is also the first Petwo lwa in the corpus: every one of the twelve records that preceded this batch was Rada or Gede, and an entire rite of the religion was missing.
Domains
- the crossroads
- obstruction
- petwo nation
- sorcery
Relations
- dark counterpart of: Papa Legba
- of the petwo nation with: Dan Petro
- of the master magicians with: Gran Bwa
Sources
- Reference treatment of Papa Legba and Kalfou: Papa Legba stands at the spiritual crossroads and gives or denies permission to speak with the spirits, and is invoked at the beginning of ceremonies to open communication with the other lwa; the literal embodiment of the crossroads is Kalfou, also Kafou or Carrefour or Mèt Kalfou, described as Legba's cousin-brother and his dark counterpart; where Papa Legba is the benevolent opener of the way, Kalfou is the spirit of dangerous crossroads, of confusion and of blocked pathways; Papa Legba belongs to the Rada nation, whose spirits are considered benevolent, healing and protective and are held to come from the African homeland, and Kalfou to the Petwo nation, whose spirits are fiercer and more aggressive and are described as born of the harsh conditions of slavery and resistance in the New World.