Voodoo Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
48 free Voodoo trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This voodoo trivia quiz treats the subject as the real set of religions it is, not the Hollywood version. It covers Haitian Vodou: the creator god Bondye, the lwa and their Catholic saint counterparts, Papa Legba at the crossroads, Baron Samedi in his top hat, the Rada and Petwo nations, vèvè drawings, possession, the 1791 Bois Caïman ceremony that Haitian tradition says launched the Revolution, and the 2003 decree that made Vodou official. It then crosses to New Orleans for Louisiana Voodoo: Marie Laveau, gris-gris, St. John's Eve on Lake Pontchartrain, the Grand Zombi, and the snake, and back to Benin, Togo and Ghana for the West African Vodun that started it all. There is a round on the myths too: where the pin-stuck doll actually comes from, and the ethnobotanist who thought zombie powder was pufferfish toxin. Questions run from easy (which country Vodou developed in) to expert (which saint stands in for the serpent lwa). Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Haitian Vodou developed on which island?
Hispaniola
Hispaniola: in French Saint-Domingue, on the island's western third, enslaved Africans had to be baptised by law, and many are thought to have kept serving their own spirits behind the images of Catholic saints.
Q 02In Haitian Vodou, what is the supreme creator god called?
Bondye
Bondye, from the French Bon Dieu ('Good God'), is named daily in the phrase 'if God wills' but is thought too remote to ask for help, so everyday troubles are taken to the spirits who act as his go-betweens.
Q 03Most of Haitian Vodou's songs and prayers are performed in which language?
Creole
Creole, the everyday language of most Haitians, carries nearly all of the liturgy; a few songs keep fragments of West African languages, and a 'bush priest' may add Catholic prayers in French or Latin.
Q 04The word Vodou is usually traced to a word for 'spirit' in which West African language?
Fon
Fon, the language of old Dahomey, has vodún for a spirit or deity, as does its close relative Ewe; outsiders made it the religion's name, while Haitians traditionally say only that they 'serve the spirits'.
Q 05Which Haitian dictator, a physician by training, built Vodou into his own personality cult?
François Duvalier
François Duvalier, 'Papa Doc', studied Vodou as a young ethnologist; in power from 1957, he wove it into his personality cult and courted its priests, turning the faith into a tool of his rule.
Q 06Which lwa is saluted first in Rada ceremonies, as the guardian of gates and crossroads?
Papa Legba
Papa Legba is saluted first because he is believed to open the way for every other spirit: until he does, none of them can join the ceremony. He is pictured as a feeble old man leaning on a crutch.
Q 07Which Catholic saint is the crossroads lwa most often syncretized with in Haitian Vodou?
Saint Peter
Saint Peter, pictured holding the keys of heaven, was the natural match for the spirit who opens the way to all the others; worshippers in New Orleans Voodoo made the same pairing.
Q 08Who heads the Gede family of death spirits?
Baron Samedi
Baron Samedi leads the Gede, who for all their ties to death are the clowns of a ceremony: they turn up cracking crude jokes and mocking officials, soldiers and anyone who puts on airs.
Q 09How is the chief of the Gede usually depicted?
In a top hat and dark glasses
In a top hat and dark glasses, with a black tail coat, the chief of the Gede is dressed for a funeral; most Haitian cemeteries keep a cross in his name, where visitors leave candles and food.
Q 10Which James Bond film features a henchman who takes the name of the Gede's chief?
Live and Let Die
Live and Let Die (1973), Roger Moore's first Bond film, cast the dancer Geoffrey Holder as the laughing henchman, who seems to be killed yet is seen riding the front of Bond's train in the final shot.
Q 11Which serpent lwa is depicted with his consort as two intertwined snakes?
Danbala
Danbala and his consort Ayida-Weddo are drawn as two intertwined snakes, and he behaves like one: worshippers he possesses slither across the floor and flick out their tongues, hissing instead of speaking.
Q 12Which Catholic saint is the serpent lwa most often equated with in Haitian Vodou?
Saint Patrick
Saint Patrick is shown in the popular prints with snakes at his feet, which made him the natural face for the serpent lwa, honoured on 17 March; Moses, whose staff became a serpent, is the other match.
Q 13What is Èzili Freda the lwa of?
Love and luxury
Q 21According to Haitian legend, a Vodou ceremony at which site sparked the Revolution in 1791?
Bois Caïman
Bois Caïman, a wood near Cap-Français, is where legend has slaves from nearby plantations meet in August 1791, sacrifice a black pig and swear in its blood to revolt; the rising began a week later.
Q 22Who is said to have presided over the Vodou ceremony that launched Haiti's 1791 slave uprising?
Dutty Boukman
Dutty Boukman is said to have led the rite and given the signal for the revolt, while the priestess Cécile Fatiman made the sacrifice; tradition remembers him as a Vodou priest.
Q 23Which Haitian president granted Vodou official recognition in 2003?
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Love and luxury are Èzili Freda's realm and a heart is her emblem, yet the Catholic image paired with this spirit of pleasure is the sorrowing Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows.
Q 14Which twin saints are the Marasa, the sacred twins, equated with?
Cosmas and Damian
Cosmas and Damian, twin brothers and physicians in Catholic legend, stand for the Marasa, who rank so high that a ceremony greets them before almost every other spirit.
Q 15What is a Vodou temple called?
Ounfò
Ounfò (also hounfour) is the Vodou temple; the religion has no central authority, so each one is independent, run by its own priest or priestess and free to keep its own customs.
Q 16What are the titles for a Vodou priest and priestess?
Oungan and manbo
Oungan and manbo spend much of their time as healers: clients bring troubles of love, health or work, and the priest or priestess uses divination to find the cause and prescribe a remedy.
Q 17What are vèvè?
Symbolic floor drawings made in cornmeal or ash
Symbolic floor drawings made in cornmeal or ash, vèvè each belong to one spirit: tracing the emblem is meant to draw that spirit down, and the food offered to it is then laid on the design.
Q 18What is the ason?
A sacred rattle used to summon the lwa
A sacred rattle used to summon the lwa, the ason is a beaded gourd and the badge of the priesthood: becoming a priest or priestess is spoken of as 'taking the ason'.
Q 19What is a person possessed by a lwa during a ceremony called?
A chwal, or horse
A chwal, or horse: the spirit is said to mount and ride the dancer, speaking and acting through the body, and afterwards the 'horse' is believed to remember nothing of it.
Q 20Where do Vodouists believe the spirit dwells for a year and a day after death?
The land of the Ginen
The land of the Ginen is the spirits' ancestral Africa, pictured as a realm beneath the waters; only when a year and a day have passed can the family hold the rite that calls the dead back out of the water.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, himself a former Catholic priest, recognised Vodou as a religion in April 2003, so that baptisms and marriages performed by its priests became legally valid.
Q 24What was Operation Nettoyage, launched by Haiti's government in 1941?
A Church-backed drive to destroy temples
A Church-backed drive to destroy temples: in 1941 government forces helped Catholic clergy wreck Vodou sanctuaries in an 'anti-superstition campaign', which like earlier ones failed to break the religion.
Q 25In Haitian folklore, what is a zombie raised from the grave to do?
Labour in the fields
Labour in the fields: unlike Hollywood's flesh-eater, the Haitian zombie is a corpse with no will of its own, kept as a sorcerer's slave on a farm or sugar plantation, and often read as an image of slavery outlasting death.
Q 26Which Harvard ethnobotanist argued in the 1980s that Haitian 'zombie powder' was a real drug?
Wade Davis
Wade Davis built The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) on Clairvius Narcisse, pronounced dead in 1962 and found alive in 1980, and argued that zombification was a punishment imposed by secret societies.
Q 27Which animal's poison was claimed in the 1980s to be the key ingredient of Haitian zombie powder?
Pufferfish
Pufferfish carry tetrodotoxin, said to drop victims into a deathlike trance before burial; the theory proved controversial, as chemists who tested the powders found too little of the toxin to do it.
Q 28Which film, inspired by William Seabrook's The Magic Island, was the first feature-length zombie movie?
White Zombie
White Zombie (1932) cast Bela Lugosi as a Voodoo master in Haiti who turns a young woman into a zombie; it opened three years after Seabrook's book brought the zombie of Haitian folklore to English-speaking readers.
Q 29What role does the pin-stuck 'voodoo doll' play in Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo?
Hardly any in either
Hardly any in either: the pin-stuck doll is not prominent in Haiti or in New Orleans, and its link with the religion was forged by popular books and horror films of the early 20th century.
Q 30Which New Orleans pianist took his stage name from a 19th-century Voodoo conjurer said to be a Senegalese prince?
Dr. John
Dr. John was the persona Mac Rebennack built in the 1960s on a real conjurer of old New Orleans who sold herbal cures; his theatrical stage shows borrowed freely from Voodoo ceremonies.