This book is part of a broad project on the theory of secularization of sacred forms and vitalization of artistic genres in the Caribbean. All African peoples recognize the existence of a Supreme Being, theoretically transcendent but immanent in reality. His denomination varies among ethnicities, and more than a thousand terms abound from one end of the continent to the other, suggesting the wealth of His attributes. This ensemble is traversed through forces emitted and controlled by Him. Within his or her collectivity, the moral order rules institutions and the customs, facilitating the preservation of life.
Laws of nature dictate the individuals' attachment to the physical environment.
Thanks to the mystical order, he or she benefits from the power exercised by the spirits and the specialists of the sacred. Thus, the visible and invisible worlds figure in an intricate ensemble, analogous and distinct in their characteristics. At the end of a terrestrial life, at the last physical vestiges, the departed soul continues on, into the invisible realms of eternity and spiritual existence. Ancestors, sovereigns, deified spiritual, or founding heroes constitute a group of mediators in the next world. They keep an eye on the smooth running of their original communities.