The principle of life is that which is the eterenal cause of fertility, birth, decay, or the passage of days into nights. This deity moves the heavens accounting forthe return of the ceaseless winds, tides, and currents that sweep through peoples lives as the waters of Africa sweep to the Yucatan and Mexico through countless islands scattered across the face of the Caribbean Sea. These tides bring people to and remove people from the dwelling places that the principle of life sustains for all things.

In Haitian, Guyanese, Tranidadian and Cuban slave traditions the deity of Legba is associated with this principle of life. The deity is a hermaphrodite in that it is both male and female to recall the regenerative prinicple. These traditions were brought to Louisiana and the Carolinas by the slave trade.

In the voudon, (or Voodoo) tradition of Haitian slaves Legba is the coequal and son of the creator god. The translation of this deity for the Red Cult practice of voodoo was to associate Legba with demonic powers. Haitian priests may refer to the devil as Legba, but other red cultists identy the god with Jesus, the son of God in the AfroCaribbean/christian syncretic religions that thrive amongst the slaves denied by law, the Biblical and religious education of Christianity.