Potomitan

What it is

A potomitan is a decorated post that stands at the middle of a Haitian Vodou temple. It occupies the peristyle, the sacred area at the centre of the hounfour, and is normally the entire trunk of a palm tree, though a growing tree is occasionally used instead. Practitioners hold that the loa, the spirits of the religion, come down through this post and enter the bodies of worshippers for a while. As a whole, the post is taken to represent Papa Legba, the gatekeeper and messenger among the loa, whose intercession is held to make contact with the divine possible at all.

How it is done

The post is a fixture of the temple rather than something performed. Offerings are made to consecrate it and to honour the spirit it stands for. These are placed either at its foot or at the base of the masonry pedestal, and they are made regularly, most notably just before the ceremonies proper begin, so that the post stays a fitting channel for divine power. In possession, the loa are believed to descend by this route and to occupy the faithful for a time.

Tools and materials

The usual material is a whole palm trunk. Its foot sits in a masonry pedestal, and its upper end is joined to the roof of the temple, so the post spans the building from floor to ceiling. Brightly coloured designs are painted on it. The commonest is a pair of snakes wound around each other, standing for Damballa and Ayida Weddo, the first male and female divine couple, who in Haitian cosmogony hold up the sky so that it cannot crumble and fall.

What it is for

The post is meant to be a conduit. Through it, practitioners hold, divine power passes between the spirits and the gathered faithful, and possession becomes possible. Because the whole structure is identified with Papa Legba, the messenger who guards the way, contact with the divine realm is believed to depend on him. Offerings at the post are made to keep that channel open and clean, and to give the spirit his due before a ceremony begins.

Peoples and places

The potomitan belongs to Haitian Vodou and is found in Haiti, inside the hounfour, the temple building, and specifically in its peristyle. In the wider study of religion it is described as a Haitian expression of two related ideas: the axis mundi, the imagined centre or pivot of the world, and the world tree. The names given to it in Haitian Creole vary in spelling, and outside Haiti it is usually written potomitan.

What people believe

Behind the post lies a world of loa, the spirits of Haitian Vodou, who are held to cross between their own realm and ours. Damballa and Ayida Weddo, the intertwined serpents of the painted design, are said to bear up the sky and keep it from collapsing onto the earth. Papa Legba, whom the post as a whole represents, is the gatekeeper and messenger, and without his mediation communication with the divine is held to be impossible. Possession is the moment when a loa takes a worshipper's body.

Compare and confuse

The potomitan is described as a Haitian form of the axis mundi and, more particularly, of the world tree, ideas found in many religious systems. Its name appears in English sources in several spellings, including poteau-mitan, poto mitan and poto-mitan, all rendering the Haitian Creole phrase for a central pole. It belongs to the hounfour, the Vodou temple, and is not the same thing as the peristyle, the sacred space it stands in.

Questions people ask about Potomitan

Good reading and sources

• Potomitan on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data