Among the Caribbean cults that have gained the attention of religious historians, none is more readily studied than Haitian Voodoo. Yet by the same token, Voodoo also is greatly misunderstood. As in the Brazilian cults, those who practice Voodoo are descended from West African peoples. Voodoo is particularly associated with Haitians and the Creoles of New Orleans. It is a hybrid of traditional African religious experience and Roman Catholic practices.

JAMES W. PEEBLES: When the Africans came here, especially most of them came through the port of New Orleans and Charleston, South Carolina. Now those who came through New Orleans and Charleston, South Carolina, came directly from Africa. All the others came from the islands. They had been indoctrinated, or broken in, in the islands or in the Caribbean, the West Indies. But those coming in from Charleston, those coming in from New Orleans, came directly from Africa. That is the reason you have in South Carolina and New Orleans, around that part, many, many traces of the indigenous African religion of Vodun.