There must be a reason why the word “Dahomey” used to set off such explosions of fear, loathing and even respect in the untravelled European mind during the past three or four centuries.
Dahomey stood for savage abandon. It also, somehow, stood for wealth and abundance. It stood for an
intractable spirit of African independence. And much more.
The (white, gay, radical, anti-social) French writer Jean Genet conjures it as an incantation, the definitive reverence to blackness, in his stage play The Blacks — the very utterance of the name Dahomey being the ultimate antithesis to the whiteness that is at the core of that play’s exploration of the colonial condition.
Dahomey is voodoo — the unspeakable black nightmare at the end of the long white dream.
But why?
Dahomey, on the map, at least, is one of the smaller countries that were ultimately carved out of the skin of the African continent at the Conference of Berlin in 1888. Unlike its equally skinny German neighbour, Togo, to the west, and the obnoxiously overweight British possession of Nigeria to the east, Dahomey fell into the lap of the French.
It must have been something of a booby prize, considering the country’s daunting reputation. But I guess that, among all the European nations, the French probably had the best developed sense of fatalism, irony and aplomb to be able to deal with this hot potato.
Besides, the French had luxuriant territories like the Ivory Coast, Guinea and a significant portion of the Congo to console themselves with — as well as the whole of the Sahel region (Mali, Chad, Niger and so on) and most of North Africa besides. Dahomey was probably just a troublesome but fascinating distraction in the colonial game, a pocket-sized corporate toy for the amusement of some bored bureaucrat in an obscure corner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Or not. For some reason, invading and colonising powers always took Dahomey very seriously. And in post-colonial intercourse, Dahomey (or rather, its post-independence incarnation of Benin) is still of more than passing interest, as is evident in the close attention paid to its affairs behind the seriously high-walled, spacious, well-antennaed compounds of the latter-day French, American, and even Cuban embassies.
Cuba’s interest might be brushed aside as the justifiable (and suitably respectful) permanent mission of one voodoo-dominated nation to another — Benin, of course, being the mother of all voodoo nations, whose other members include Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, just for starters.
But what about the eager interest of those key Western states in what, on the surface, looks like an unpromising backwater posting for some anxious-to-please, radically ambitious university graduate with an eye on a plumb assignment to Washington, Moscow or the Vatican, somewhere down the line? They surely can’t be here just to keep an eye on the ever-shifting parameters of the voodoo world (although they probably should be, if they know what’s good for them — which they clearly don’t).
The CIA itself gives Benin few brownie points. It says that, strategically, the country has little to offer: “small offshore oil deposits, limestone, marble [and] timber” is all it concedes the country is worth. It also points out that “the economy of Benin remains underdeveloped and dependent on subsistence agriculture, cotton production and regional trade.” Nothing very strategic here.
So maybe it’s that Old Black Magic after all. Maybe everyone really is here just to get back in contact with their old voodoo roots, roots that they abandoned so long ago in favour of the harsh delights of wage servitude, the nine-to-five, polluted, urban lifestyle, and Sunday lunch as one’s one-and-only perk.
The man who took me around the Sacred Forest at Ouidah certainly has no problem seeing things this way. Westerners come to this cool, leafy sanctuary on the edge of the populous conurbation of Ouidah all the time, he told me, and expect to leave with blessings for a lifetime.
The Sacred Forest might seem to have been purposely situated so close to the town, rather than deep in the inaccessible interior, precisely to give this kind of comfort and visitability to the credulous Western tourist. But stepping into this acre of another time, on this timeless continent, gives the lie to this perception. It also gives the lie to the idea that Africa’s history began with the first incursion of European explorers across its coastline.
Ouidah, and the Sacred Forest that lies, inexplicably, within its boundaries, speaks to an African civilisation that was right there, nestling on the edge of the sea and ready to welcome, trade with, resist or embrace anyone who was prepared to take the risk of stepping on to its shores. And the spine of Ouidah’s civilisation, and of the kingdoms of Dahomey, Benin, Abomey and others in the interior, was (and is) voodoo — a religion as profound, manipulative, comforting, affirming, sanctioning and authoritative as any other that the world would throw in the direction of this continent.
I found myself drawn to the Iroko tree at the centre of the forest, which is reputed to be the reincarnation of the ancient Dahomeian king, Kpasse, who transformed himself into that timeless forest form rather than submit to the onslaught of the first Portuguese invaders. Spreading away in all directions were sculptures, some of clay, others made up of various found objects in metal and plastic, representing various ancient deities: the gods of fertility, war, protection and so on.
If there is any doubt that voodoo is a living religion, it was dispelled by the frank delivery of the curator of the forest, unwavering in his confidence in the power of the voodoo spirits.
So confident is he, in fact, that from time to time he even allows himself to indulge in a mass at the local church — strictly for social purposes, of course. Why not? All religions are equally valid, in his view. If the Christians choose to worship in their own way, who is he to criticise them?
The modern town and the ancient forest co-existing in harmony at Ouidah: live and let live.
John Matshikiza is a fellow of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research
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