Vèvè are ritual ground-drawings, one design per lwa, made by trickling cornmeal, ash, coffee grounds, brick dust or gunpowder from between the fingers onto the packed earth or concrete of the peristil floor. The designs are intricate, largely symmetrical, and specific: a serpent form for Danbala, a cross with a coffin for Bawon, a heart for Ezili, a machete for Ogou. They function as both signature and summons — drawing the vèvè is part of calling the lwa. They are made at the start of the service and are destroyed within the hour by the feet of the dancers, and nobody attempts to preserve them; reproductions on cloth and paper sold to tourists are commercial objects rather than ritual ones. A visual language deliberately made to be walked out of existence on the day it is made is an unusual thing for a tradition to build its iconography around.