National Voodoo Day in Benin
On January, 10th 2009, Benin celebrated Voodoo during the National Voodoo Day, a holiday which takes place each year since 1996. Although 60% of this West African country’s population practice voodoo, it had been targeted by the marxists authorities since the seventies. Since the beginning of the nineties, the goverment has pursued efforts to rehabilitate this cult, and every year, thousands of adepts “vodounsi” gather in several locations.
In Comè, a small town about a hundred kilometers west of Cotonou, hundreds of voodoo adepts gathered to sing, dance and offer prayers and sacrifices to gods and ancestors. His Excellency Houngué Towakon Guédéhoungué II, president of the voodoo cult in Benin, led the ceremonies.
[Published in World Sound #10, 2009]