Haiti's voodoo tradition traces back to slavery: by the late 1700s the French colony held some 2.9 million enslaved Africans, and the film follows that history to the secret ceremony at Bois Caïman in August 1791, where the leader Boukman is said to have sacrificed a black pig before the slave revolution began. From there the camera moves into present-day practice, filming pilgrims at Limonade beach who wait for the goddess Erzuli to possess a worshipper, and a houngan priest in Artibonite conducting a justice ritual with red and black dolls, hand-mixed powders, and a fire built from named papers. Cemetery rites for Baron Sammedi, king of the dead, and the communal lakú settlements run by houngans and mambos get their own segments. The film widens past Haiti to show a Cuban Palo Monte initiation, where a goat and two hens are sacrificed to feed the dead, and a Brazilian Umbanda ceremony built around drumming tied to specific spirits. Practitioners narrate their own rituals throughout rather than outside experts.