On Benin’s voodoo holiday, followers pray and sacrifice for peace

The national voodoo holiday in the West African country of Benin had a distinctively political accent this year as practitioners from Africa and the Americas gathered to offer prayers and sacrifices for peace. Hundreds of followers of the traditional religion gathered in the Atlantic coast town of Ouidah, once an important port in the slave trade, to pray for calm during the tiny country’s presidential election scheduled for February. David Kofi Aza, a well-known priest, said last month that an oracle named Fa had predicted dozens of deaths in post-electoral violence because the loser would refuse to cede to the winner. The oracle did not reveal how the crisis would be resolved, Aza said.

The elections will pass in a peaceful manner in the name of the bounties of the ancestors.

Spiritual leader Daagbo Hounan Houna II

At the ceremony in Ouidah, spiritual leader Daagbo Hounan Houna II appealed to the dead to help keep order during the vote. Further inland in Savalou, the hometown of Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou, priests and dignitaries set a chicken on fire at a ceremony before spreading its blood and palm oil on a fetish made out of cowrie shells and sand. The election campaign has been overshadowed by a controversy over the ruling party’s choice of Zinsou as its candidate, a pick approved by outgoing president Thomas Boni Yayi.

Benin Africa