[ad_1]
Kneeling as she gazes out to sea draped in white material and strings of pearls, Simenou Dangnitche has simply accomplished the ultimate stage of her annual ritual. Each January for the previous 15 years, the 48-year-old native has joined a whole lot collaborating in Benin’s famed Voodoo competition. Contributors collect on the “Door of No Return”, an arch constructed by the seashore at Ouidah in southern Benin in reminiscence of these crammed onto slave ships sure for the New World. “It is greater than only a competition,” Dangnitche informed AFP. “The assembly here’s a pilgrimage, a rejuvenation, a reconnection with the ancestors to listen to them converse to us once more.”
Voodoo, identified regionally as Vodoun, is a faith that worships gods and pure spirits together with respect for revered ancestors. It originated within the Dahomey kingdom — present-day Benin and Togo — and remains to be extensively practised generally alongside Christianity in coastal cities like Ouidah, the place memorials to the slave commerce are dotted across the small seashore settlement. This 12 months, Dangnitche stated she was “surprised by the organisation and structuring of the competition”.
Benin’s authorities has rebranded the occasion and adjusted the format to make the festivities extra interesting to vacationers in a bid to spice up the nation’s financial system. It opted for a two-day celebration on January 9-10 with a reorganised programme in an occasion dubbed “Vodun Days”. In accordance with politician Kakpo Mahougnon, chair of the Benin Vodun Rites Committee, the federal government is contemplating additional extending the size of the competition. “It is a new means of presenting Vodoun,” stated President Patrice Talon, who took half within the celebration.
‘Nothing Satanic’
“Our intention is to totally divulge to the world what Vodoun is and the way it’s practised, to clarify Vodoun and its non secular and sociological ideas”, the president stated. “Vodoun is of financial curiosity to us, since tourism is a crucial sector,” he added. Ouidah was given a makeover for the event, with a number of of the city’s points of interest refurbished.
American Christopher Swain, who stated he comes yearly to “recharge and reconnect spiritually,” observed “vital modifications”. Ouidah’s public squares hosted celebrations together with jazz and dancing and even the president joined in. The faith’s 73-year-old non secular chief Daagbo Hounon informed AFP: “We have to show to the world that there’s nothing Satanic or evil about vodoun.”
“Vodoun is about tolerance, sharing, love, generosity and peace,” he stated. “Vodoun is non secular, however additionally it is a number of arts mixed, as we are able to see from the songs and dances of the trustworthy.” Alain Godonou, one of many heads of the Heritage and Tourism Company, stated the revamped celebrations “characterize a significant improvement within the promotion of Vodoun as an actual catalyst for tourism.”
They had been “a means of attracting extra curiosity so that individuals come to find the essence of Vodoun”, he stated. In addition to worldwide vacationers, the federal government desires to give attention to home tourism to spice up the native financial system and “reveal Benin to ourselves,” as Talon put it. He declined to offer particulars of the price range allotted to selling and organising Vodoun Days to draw guests.