Manje lwa, feeding the spirits, is the central obligation and the specificity is the point. Each lwa eats particular things: Danbala a raw egg on a mound of white flour, and nothing hot or strong; Ezili Freda cake, champagne and sweet liqueurs; Ezili Dantò fried pork, black coffee without sugar and Cuban cigarettes; Ogou rum and grilled meat; Zaka, the peasant lwa, cornmeal, a straw sack and a machete; the Gede peppered rum. Colours, cloths and vessels are specified too. Substitutions are noticed and remarked on by the lwa when they arrive. The economics are unforgiving: a proper feeding involves food for a large number of people, drummers, and often animals, and its cost in Haiti is substantial. Illness, accidents and reversals are routinely interpreted as a lwa presenting an overdue bill, and consultations frequently end with an instruction to hold a service the family cannot easily afford.