Ogou Badagri

Strategy, command, iron

Ogou Badagri belongs to the family of the Ogou, the warrior lwa of Haitian Vodou served in the Nago rite, of Yoruba origin. Each Ogou has his own temperament, and Badagri is the one of strategy: where Ogou Feray is the strength of iron and the ardour of combat, Badagri commands, calculates and holds the line. He is represented as an officer, sabre at his side, and his possession is more restrained than that of his brothers. His name comes from Badagry, a port in present-day Nigeria through which tens of thousands of captives were shipped: to bear this name in a Haitian cult is to write the place of departure into the memory of the people who arrived. The Ogou hold a particular place in the national imagination, associated with the wars of independence and the military figures of the revolution. Badagri adds a nuance of his own: victory does not come from fury alone, but from the head.