Offerings:
Peppers, pepper sauce, pepper soaked in rum, cigars, black roosters, black cock feathers, sunglasses with one lens, top hat, pieces of marble from the cemetery, crosses, graveyard dust, black and violet candles.
Litany:
Pour Guede, Loa obscene de la mort, et de la sexualite. Pere de tous les Morts qui habitent aux cimetieres. Guede, qui marche sur les points marcuriels en bas decarrefour. Mangez, mangez ce soir, vous qui avez tellement faim. Acceptez nos offrandes. Entrez dans nos coeurs, dans nos bras, dans nos jambes. Entrez ici. Dansez avec nous.
Kreyol:
Pou Gede, Lwa seks, Lwa fa bagay, Lwa lan mo. Papa tout Mo ki abite nan simitie. Gede kapmache an ba kafou. Manje, ma swe-a, ouminm ki gran gou. Aksepte ofran'n nou. Antre nan ke nou, nan bra nou, nan jam'm nou. Antre vin'n danse avek nou.
Translation:
For Guede, obscene Lwa of death and of sexuality. Father of all the Dead who live in the cemeteries. Guede, who walks on the mercurial points of the crossroads. Eat, eat this evening. Enter into our hears, our arms, our legs. Enter and dance with us.
Traditional:
Guede is the Lwa of both death and sexuality. He lives in the cemetery at the bottom of the largest cross, or a cross that stands in the central crossroads in a cemetery. He ruled the Dead. he is the father of all the dead. Guede is usually pictured as a skeleton dressed in dapper clothing, with black tails and a top hat. He wears white gloves, carries a cane and smokes a cigar or pipe. Guede wears dark sunglasses that have only one lens. Sometimes this is said to symbolize that he sees in two worlds. Sometimes it is said that it more crassly represents the power of his one-eyed phallus. Guede is vulgar, even obscene. If he picks on you then you may have to pay him to go away. But he always tells the truth, and can be counted on when the situation is very difficult. He is the patron of young children and is good at healing them.
Guede is death but he is also regeneration and procreation. He is gluttonous, hoarding food under a table or behind a wall, where he devours it. Death is always hungry. Guede's dance is graphically sexual, with grinding hips and pelvis. Sometimes he even humps the drums. He is syncretized with Saint Gerard.
