Benin Voodoo Festival Rebrands To Draw Tourists

Ouidah, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Jan, 2024) 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.

"It's more than just a festival," Dangnitche told AFP. "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 practised 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 organisation and structuring of the festival".

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 reorganised programme 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.