Kneeling as she gazes out to sea draped in white cloth and strings of pearls, Simenou Dangnitche has just completed the final stage of her annual ritual.
Every January for the past 15 years, the 48-year-old local has joined hundreds taking part in Benin’s famed Voodoo festival.
Participants gather at the “Door of No Return,” an arch built by the beach at Ouidah in southern Benin in memory of those crammed onto slave ships bound for the New World.
Photo: Reuters
“It’s more than just a festival,” Dangnitche said. “The meeting here is a pilgrimage, a rejuvenation, a reconnection with the ancestors to hear them speak to us again.”
Voodoo, known locally as Vodoun, is a religion that worships gods and natural spirits along with respect for revered ancestors.
It originated in the Dahomey kingdom — present-day Benin and Togo — and is still widely practiced sometimes alongside Christianity in coastal towns like Ouidah, where memorials to the slave trade are dotted around the small beach settlement. This year, Dangnitche said she was “stunned by the organization and structuring of the festival.”
Photo: Reuters
Benin’s government has rebranded the event and changed the format to make the festivities more appealing to tourists in a bid to boost the country’s economy.
It opted for a two-day celebration on January 9-10 with a reorganized program in an event dubbed “Vodun Days.” According to politician Kakpo Mahougnon, chair of the Benin Vodun Rites Committee, the government is considering further extending the length of the festival.
“It’s a new way of presenting Vodoun,” said President Patrice Talon, who took part in the celebration.
Photo: AFP
‘NOTHING SATANIC’
“Our intention is to fully reveal to the world what Vodoun is and how it is practiced, to explain Vodoun and its spiritual and sociological concepts,” the president said.
“Vodoun is of economic interest to us, since tourism is an important sector,” he added.
Ouidah was given a makeover for the occasion, with several of the town’s attractions refurbished. American Christopher Swain, who said he comes every year to “recharge and reconnect spiritually,” noticed “significant changes.”
Ouidah’s public squares hosted celebrations including jazz and dancing and even the president joined in.
The religion’s 73-year-old spiritual leader Daagbo Hounon said: “We need to prove to the world that there is nothing Satanic or evil about vodoun.”
“Vodoun is about tolerance, sharing, love, generosity and peace,” he said. “Vodoun is spiritual, but it is also several arts combined, as we can see from the songs and dances of the faithful.”
Alain Godonou, one of the heads of the Heritage and Tourism Agency, said the revamped celebrations “represent a major development in the promotion of Vodoun as a real catalyst for tourism.”
They were “a way of attracting more curiosity so that people come to discover the essence of Vodoun,” he said.
As well as international tourists, the government wants to focus on domestic tourism to boost the local economy and “reveal Benin to ourselves,” as Talon put it.
He declined to give details of the budget allocated to promoting and organizing Vodoun Days to attract visitors.
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
RSS