With his praise names : Also known as Azonwannon or Ayihosou, Sakpata is applied to the principle of earth, god or godess of everything in and on earth. It is known as king of all diseases.
Sakpata has no specific idole or symbole, but if any Sakpata temple is painted, you'll see on the wall a special broom (traditionally made with palm tree branches). Some walls are marked with small tampons or bear both the broom and the tampons.
As for the small marks, it symbolises chicken pox, mark of all terrible diseases that may appear on people's body
How to connect to Sakpata ?
Unlike connection to Vodun-Bo or Vodun Akwehonou (fetishes), you can't just decide to connect to a deity and do it. It may be fatal for you or plunge you in an incommensurable instability.
Sakpata being a deity, it has to be in your blood before you take any work in that trend. This means that everything starts with Ifa. As you have made up your mind to reconnect to the root, to practise Vodun, the very first thing to do is to go to Ifa. Your initiation to Ifa consists in finding out which Odu/Ifa sign you are based on. In other words, Ifa initiation tells you what spiritual clan you belong to. Each spiritual clan is led by different energies, deities. So, if your sign has to do with Sakpata, then the process of initiation can be tackled. Among those Ifa signs, we can quote Cɛ (tchè) and wlɛn. Many other signs evoke Sakpata but not more than these two signs.
Is Connection to the Deity synonym to Initiation to the deity?
No, it isn't. When a deity is revealed at your Ifa initiation, the work it requires is of different types. It may be deity worshipped by your family, your grandparents, maternal or parental, and there is already a temple for it. As it has been revealed that you are connected to that deity, the Ifa priest will question the deity to know what he/she needs from you.
It may simply requires to frequently go to the temple to do offering or sacrifices. In that case, a priest is there serving the whole family.
It may signal that nobody is there taking care of the deity and this one is calling you to refix the temple and take care of it. In this case, the probability is very high for you to be a priest or that you are or you are going to be a very important person in family that everybody will refer to in some circumstances.
It may be a deity that had never been in your family, that is, a deity that you were born with and you need to set up an altar for or take ritual so as to have a strong connection with it till you have means to make a temple for it.
When does Initiation occur?
There is need of initiation when your connection to the deity is that you need to set up an altar for it or when you are going to be its priest, the gardian of its temple or when in case of complex situation Woli (an Ifa sign) is out meaning you are going to take the place of an adept of your family who no longer exists. The initiation differs according to the why of the initiation.
No initiation is required if your connection is that the temple already exists and has a priest working for the whole family, and the deity simply requires that you need to periodically go to the temple for offerings or libation; but you are still highly connected and should be fully satisfied if the reading was perfect.
