The Gede are a family of lwa of death, headed by Bawon Samdi, who owns the first male grave dug in any cemetery, and Manman Brijit, who owns the first female one. They are also, explicitly and inseparably, lwa of sex and fertility — the tradition puts death and generation in the same hands as a matter of doctrine rather than of scandal. Their colours are black and purple, their dress is undertaker's formal wear gone wrong, their glasses have a lens missing, and their drink is kleren, raw cane rum, steeped with the hottest peppers available, which they consume in quantities and also apply to themselves in ways that establish they are not the person whose body they are using. The banda they dance is sexually explicit. They mock everyone — the priest, the wealthy, foreign visitors, the bereaved — and they are also the lwa most commonly petitioned to save a dying child, because a child's life is theirs to release.