In the parts of central and western Africa from which their people came, the Vodun of the Fon people of Dahomey and their neighboring pantheon, the Òrìshà of the Yorùbá, are and always have been separate. In Haiti, they mixed, along with those of Angola, Senegal, and Congo — Gods for all those whom the Europeans forced to leave their homes behind. Although they were forbidden from dancing their stories, they never forgot them; ultimately, it was the Vodun who gave shape to the Legends that joined fractured nations of people together by creating the 21 nanchons, new alliances of Gods and spirits. Although the Vodun are remembered in Vodou, the practice of serving the Gods, they themselves have a simpler name: They are the lwa, the Loa.