the.com/voodoo

means A syncretic religion blending West African spiritual traditions with Catholic elements, practiced by millions, especially in Haiti and parts of West Africa — not the pin-doll curse-casting of horror movies.

from The word traces to 'vodun,' meaning 'spirit' or 'deity' in the Fon and Ewe languages of West Africa (roughly modern Benin and Togo). Enslaved people carried the religion across the Atlantic, where it took root and evolved in Haiti as Haitian Vodou, absorbing Catholic saints and imagery under colonial pressure to disguise and preserve its practices. The spelling 'voodoo' and its sinister pop-culture baggage — zombies, pins, curses — are largely American inventions, popularized by sensationalist 19th and 20th-century writers and later Hollywood, with little resemblance to the actual faith's rituals or beliefs.