Ouidah and the Mono River

February 25, 2025  Ouidah and the Mono River

The coast along the Gulf of Guinea in Benin has long, beautiful and deep sandy beachfronts.  We are at the Hotel Casa Del Papa, on a gorgeous palm-lined sandy beach, with all the rooms facing the water.

 

But it is Benin, not the Caribbean, and the quality of the hotel is, let’s say, marginal.

We left the hotel and drove to the banks of the Mono River where our group of 12 was split into two boats to begin our trip downriver to the estuary: 

We stopped at a village named Avloh, and there was a shrine with fetishes of protection near the entrance: 

There was a grouping of baby dolls, most of which were twins: 

We learned that prior to the 17^th century, twins were considered to be a terrible curse, and were murdered when born.  Then one of the king’s wives had twins and everything changed.  There are lots of beliefs and superstitions about twins, with maybe the most interesting being that the first born is considered the junior and the second born the senior!  When both twins are girls, they are often married together to the same man.  Here is the proud mother of twins: 

The villagers make money by boiling down seawater and packaging the salt for sale.  These two cauldrons were boiling away in a hut with minimal ventilation.  The temperature outside the hut was in the 90s.  The inside was a furnace: 

Here’s the finished product: 

We came across this building with an Indian influence, and it was explained that most of the spirits in voodoo are forest spirits, but the Indian spirits come from the sea and thus represent a different set of influences. 

We learned about the approach to female infertility, which involves the promise of a very large donation to the spirits via the voodoo priest for a successful pregnancy.  As many as 21 cows may be pledged.  Of course no one has such riches, so if the pregnancy ensues, there is a debt.  The baby’s hair is not cut until the debt is paid; the long hair on children is said to be part of the origin of Rasta.

There was a Zangbeto mask ceremony on the day we visited.  The mask dancers are all men, post-initiation members of the village.  There is a magic aspect to the dances, with things appearing and disappearing from under the skirts of the dancer.  This girl was watching the events: 

Men were drumming with lots of variety in the patterns and rhythms of the drums, and women broke out into dance sometimes.  The masked dancers were spinning: 

Sometimes one of the spinners would stop and be tipped back, revealing….nothing!  No dancer inside.

 

Sometimes a fetish of some sort would be under the tipped dancer skirt: 

It was magical!  Sometimes there were two or even three spinners at once, each accompanied by a minder: 

Sometimes there was something alive under the skirt—in this case, a small white wriggly thing—I thought too small for a man, maybe a child? 

And once, there was a live baby crocodile which was under the skirt when it was tipped back:

We were told that the voodoo in this village is as pure as it gets.  The belief in the spirit world and the power of the spirits is deep and intense.

 Off to Togo tomorrow.  More then.