text: Perhaps the best-known African-based
  religion today is voodoo, which is, at its
  core, shamanic. As many as 60 million people worldwide are thought to practice
  voodoo. Generally, it seems that it flourished
  wherever the slave trade was particularly
  Voodoo, which came into prominence in Haiti, is
  probably the best example of the assimilation of African beliefs into other cultures. The structure
  of voodoo was the result of the enforced intermingling of African slaves from different
  tribes. Little attention was paid to their spiritual
  needs, so in despair, a common thread had to be
  found by the slaves themselves. They began to
  invoke not only their tribal gods but also to
  practice rites other than their own. This tribal
  mixture can be seen in the names of different
  rites and in the gods, such as Damballa, Obatala,
  Oshun and Shango, who are still worshipped
  and who were originally deities from all parts of
  Africa. The slaves mixed practices and rituals
  from numbers of tribes and in the process
  developed a completely new religion that very
  quickly gained popularity.
  The French rulers of Haiti realized that this
  the new religion was a danger to their colonial
  system and so they denied all Africans the right to their religious practices, severely punishing anyone who was found practicing voodoo.
  The French decreed that all slaves be baptized
  as Catholics, and so Catholicism became
  superimposed on the African rites and beliefs (which the slaves still practiced, either in secret
  or concealed as harmless dances and parties).
  This religious struggle continued for more than
  three centuries, but none of the terrible
  punishments inflicted could obliterate
  the faith of the Africans.
  Followers of this new religion of voodoo
  considered the addition of the Catholic
  saints to be an enhancement of their faith and set about incorporating Catholic hymns,
  prayers, statues, candles, and holy relics into
  their rituals. Tribal deities were often given the aspects of Catholic saints; they did not become
  the Catholic saints, but retained their original characteristics and personalities while adopting
  the symbolic trappings of Catholicism and the saints whom they seemed to resemble most.
  The whole structure of voodoo reflects its
  history. The cross as a symbol, for instance, was
  easy to accept because it was already a powerful
  representation in the tribal religions, as the
  crossroads where the spiritual and material
  worlds meet. It was adopted as the symbol of
  the powerful god Legba, who is the guardian of
  the gates, the messenger of the gods, and has multiple faces. As the Trickster, he is the child
  who wants things he cannot have. The saint
  most closely associated with Legba is St Peter, who holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven.