Damballa

Damballa is the great white serpent lwa (spirit) of Haitian Vodou, an ancient, gentle, and wise father figure linked with water, rain, purity, and fertility, and the husband of the rainbow serpent Ayida-Weddo.

Who Damballa Is

Damballa (also spelled Danbala or Dambala) is one of the most important lwa, the spirits served in Haitian Vodou. He is a serpent, usually imagined as a great white snake, and he is among the oldest and most respected of the Rada family of lwa, the spirits whose traditions trace back to Dahomey (in present-day Benin). His full name is often given as Damballa Wedo. His wife is Ayida-Weddo, the rainbow serpent, and the two are honored together.

Vodou is a living religion practiced by millions of people in Haiti and its diaspora. Damballa is not a figure from a closed-off past but a spirit people serve today, and practices differ between temples, families, and regions. The description here follows published ethnographies and should be read as an outline, not as the teaching of any particular house.

Nature and Service

Damballa is described as ancient, calm, and pure, a source of wisdom, peace, and fertility. He is linked to water, rain, springs, and rivers, and also to trees, where snakes rest. His color is white, and offerings to him are white and simple, often including an egg placed on a small mound of white flour, along with rice, milk, or other pale foods. Like many lwa, he has a vèvè, a sacred design traced on the ground in cornmeal or flour, which commonly shows two serpents.

When Damballa possesses a devotee during a ceremony, the person may glide or slither along the ground, flick the tongue, climb posts or trees, and make hissing or whistling sounds instead of speaking. Ethnographers such as Maya Deren described him as a spirit who does not talk in words, which sets him apart from more talkative lwa.

Through the long history of Vodou alongside Catholicism, Damballa came to be associated with certain saints in popular imagery. The best known is Saint Patrick, who is shown driving snakes out of Ireland. Some practitioners also connect him with Moses, whose staff became a serpent.

Origins and Sources

Damballa's roots lie in the serpent vodun of the Fon and neighboring peoples of West Africa, brought to Saint-Domingue (colonial Haiti) by enslaved Africans. In Dahomey the serpent Dan was associated with movement, continuity, and wealth, and the town of Ouidah, historically called Whydah or Hweda, was famous for its python temple. Many scholars connect the name Wedo with Hweda. The French colonial writer Moreau de Saint-Méry described Vodou gatherings in Saint-Domingue in 1797, including the veneration of a snake kept in a box, which is among the earliest written records of serpent devotion in Haitian religion. Detailed accounts of Damballa himself come from 20th-century ethnographers, including Maya Deren and Alfred Métraux.

Is Damballa a Dragon?

Not in the European sense. Damballa is a sacred spirit, not a monster, and he is approached with respect and devotion. He appears in encyclopedias of dragons because, like the Rainbow Serpent of Australia or the great serpent spirits of West Africa, he is a cosmic serpent tied to water and life.

Related

• Ayida-Weddo: Ayida-Weddo is the rainbow serpent lwa (spirit) of Haitian Vodou, the wife of the white serpent Damballa, honored with him as a spirit of the rainbow, water, fertility, and the union of sky and earth.
• Aido Hwedo: Aido Hwedo is the rainbow serpent of Fon religion in Benin, who carried the creator Mawu as the world was made and now lies coiled beneath the earth, holding it together.
• Rainbow Serpent: The Rainbow Serpent is a powerful creator being in the traditions of many Aboriginal peoples of Australia, a great snake linked to water, rain, and rainbows who shaped the land and punishes those who break its law.
• Ouroboros: The Ouroboros is a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, a symbol of eternity and endless cycles first found in ancient Egypt and later central to Greek alchemy and Western esoteric art.
• Dragons Across Cultures

Sources and Further Reading

• Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (Vanguard Press, 1953)
• Alfred Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti, trans. Hugo Charteris (Oxford University Press, 1959)
• Leslie G. Desmangles, The Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti (University of North Carolina Press, 1992)
• Karen McCarthy Brown, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (University of California Press, 1991)

Cite this entry: “Damballa,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/damballa.