[7] The Petwo spirits are considered to be volatile and hot-tempered,[2] exhibiting bitter, aggressive, and forceful characteristics.
[3] The anthropologist Karen McCarthy Brown suggested that the contrast between the Rada and the Petwo reflected that between "two archetypal social groups", namely family members and foreigners or insiders and outsiders.
[2] A common offering to the Petwo lwa is rum that has been mixed with coffee, spicy pepper, blood, and gunpowder.
[2] Also involved in Petwo rites are small explosions of gunpowder, cracking whips, and shrieking police whistles.
[9] Desmangles thought that the Petwo lwa were not deities brought to the Caribbean by enslaved Africans but rather emerged on the island of Hispaniola amid the conditions of slavery.