Initiation into the Vodou Priesthood

Kanzo is the initiation of Haitian Vodou, the secluded rite through which a person becomes a committed initiate and, in its higher grades, enters the priesthood as a houngan or manbo. It is a graded process, undertaken after a period of preparation and at some cost, in which the initiate withdraws for a time under the guidance of an initiating priest and emerges with a changed religious status, new obligations, and a recognised place in the community of a Vodou house.

As an initiatory tradition, Vodou holds much of what passes within the rite to be knowledge shared only among initiates, and practitioners and scholars alike observe a boundary around its inner content; what is publicly known is its social and religious function rather than its secret detail. Anthropological accounts, such as Karen McCarthy Brown's study of a Vodou priestess, describe kanzo as marking a deep and binding commitment, transforming the initiate's relationship to the spirits (lwa) and to the house that raised them into the tradition.