In Fon tradition Mawu is the moon and the cool and the west, and Lisa is the sun and the heat and the east, and they are two halves of one being.

Depending on the telling they are twins, a married pair, or a single deity with two faces — an eclipse is the two of them together. It is a strikingly symmetrical scheme: neither half is senior, and neither is complete. Mawu-Lisa travelled with the Atlantic slave trade and turns up in Haitian Vodou.