West African Voodoo

In Africa today, voodoo is an animist religion with plenty in common with the indigenous beliefs found across the continent.

It does have a dark side, of course — market stalls in Benin and neighbouring Togo sell voodoo dolls riddled with nails.

The line between voodoo and juju (witchcraft) is blurry, and the latter does give rise to some heinous behaviour.

A few years ago, a Nigerian lynch mob demanded the police incarcerate a goat, which they believed to be a shape-shifting car thief.

However, for millions of Africans, voodoo is less about skullduggery than about showing respect to their ancestors.

Fetish shrines stand guard outside family compounds, topped with animal skulls and littered with offerings such as food and palm wine.

Communication and good relations with the ancestors, who live in a spirit world ruled by the supreme deity Nana Buluku and twins Mawu and Lisa (voodoo reveres twins), is seen as the key to a healthy, prosperous life.

A common way of communicating with the dearly departed is by entering a trance and becoming possessed by a spirit — a powerful example of which is the cowrie shell-masked figure of the Egungun.

Men in this state do genuinely speak with an unnerving, otherworldly voice, and touching them or looking into their eyes is supposedly fatal.

When I met an Egungun in Benin, surrounded by excitedly shrieking children, I became the butt of a jibe from beyond the grave; the character quipped, ‘Eh, le blanc’ (the French-speaking country’s equivalent of ‘hey whitey’).

Entering such a trance is normally the role of the priest, or juju man, who has an important place in the community for his ability to contact the dead.

Consulting the priest normally involves a trip to the fetish market with a list of the ingredients he needs to make a gris-gris (talisman or charm); rather like visiting the chemist with a prescription from the doctor.

The markets are stacked with animal parts from monkey testicles to bat wings, thunderstones and other curios.

In Togo, there is an impressive fetish market on the outskirts of the elegantly decaying coastal capital, Lomé.

The Marché des Féticheurs’s tables and mats are piled with grisly items such as porcupine skins, snake heads and monkey skulls; if you go shopping, check you are not buying an endangered animal part.

Most markets in Togo and Benin have a section devoted to fetishes, while the latter country has some famous sites such as Ouidah’s Sacred Forest and Python Temple.

Don’t expect to live out your Indiana Jones fantasies at the latter, although an attendant may drape a sleepy python around your neck for a photographic opportunity.

Ouidah was the final stop on African soil for slaves sold across the Atlantic by the Kings of Dahomey – the fearsome, human-sacrificing rulers immortalised in Bruce Chatwin’s novel The Viceroy of Ouidah.

You can follow the slaves’ footsteps on the Route des Esclaves, a 4km track from the Portuguese fort to the beach, lined with fetishes and monuments and concluded by the Point of No Return memorial. Egunguns converge on the Voodoo Festival there in January, while another fascinating Beninese spot is Abomey.

 The town was the seat of the Dahomey dynasty and you can tour their centuries-old palaces and temples, which are slowly crumbling into the dusty lanes.

African voodoo http://www.africanvoodoo.co.za
Voodoo healer http://www.africanvoodoo.co.za
Voodoo spells http://www.africanvoodoo.co.za
Love spells http://www.africanvoodoo.co.za/voodoo-lost-love-spells.html
Money spells http://www.africanvoodoo.co.za/money-spells.html
Revenge spells http://www.africanvoodoo.co.za/revenge-spells.html
Curses spells http://www.africanvoodoo.co.za/curses-spells.html