Ayizan is a lwa of the Rada rite of Haitian Vodou, the spirit of the marketplace, of public order and of the priesthood, and, with her husband Loco, she is regarded as the first manbo, the archetype and origin of the Vodou priestess. As the spirit of the marketplace she presides over the public gathering-place at the heart of Haitian community life, over commerce and the ordered exchange among people, and thus over a kind of social order and the proper conduct of collective life. Her deeper importance, however, lies in her connection with the priesthood and above all with initiation. Ayizan is the patron and protector of initiation into Vodou, the guardian of those who undergo the sacred passage into fuller service of the spirits, and she is invoked to protect and to sanctify that process. She is strongly associated with the palm tree, and shredded palm fronds are her emblem and her protection, used in the rites over which she watches; the palm, ancient and enduring, suits her character as a founding and protecting spirit.
As the first priestess, standing with Loco the patron of the priesthood, Ayizan represents the very origin of the Vodou clergy and of the ordered transmission of sacred knowledge and authority within the tradition, the archetypal manbo from whom the line of priestesses is understood to descend. She is honoured as a spirit of great dignity, purity and protective power, cool and benevolent in the manner of the Rada spirits. Vodou is a living religion with an ordered priesthood and carefully guarded traditions of initiation, and Ayizan is the guardian of both, the spirit of the marketplace and of public order, and the first and archetypal priestess who protects those entering the service of the lwa.