My mission to see a man turn into a lion continues.
Benin is known as the heartland of Voodoo (spelled Vodun in Benin). It is the predominant traditional religion in parts of West Africa, especially the southern parts of Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Ghana. There are also many commonalities with traditional religions throughout sub-Saharan African. Voodoo in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Louisiana; Santería in Cuba; and Condomblé in Brazil are all partly based on West African Vodun, and have integrated aspects of other African religions (including from the
Kongo Kingdom, where I used to live in Angola), Catholicism, and indigenous religions. Apparently, there is also a group of African-Americans in South Carolina and Georgia called the
Gullah, who have maintained much of their African culture and practice a religion similar to West African Vodun (sounds like a good road trip).
[Photos from the Voodoo-related Snake Temple in Ouida, Benin]
Voodoo was about the only thing I knew about Benin when I came, and I was pretty excited about the chance to learn more about it. I’ve previously participated in a Santería ceremony in Cuba, heard endless tales of
black magic in Angola, and learned about Voodoo in Haiti (and freaked everybody out at JFK airport arriving with an interesting souvenir [see below]).
While traveling to another town for work, I got to talking with the driver, Noel. It turns out he’s a Voodoo priest. We talked about his beliefs and my interest in learning about the religion. He said I was welcome to come the next time he did a ceremony. Or if I wanted, he would initiate me into Voodoo. I said I was interested, but what I really wanted to see was some of the crazy magic I had heard about in Angola (shrunken men, men turning into animals, belts turning into snakes, etc.). He said that stuff exists here, but he doesn’t do any of that. Contrary to what I learned watching The Serpent and the Rainbow, that kind of thing has nothing to do with Voodoo. Those things are magic, which always comes from the Devil. Voodoo is only used for good and is about communicating with the deities, not doing magic. So, it seems that all the cool stuff is evil…figures.
I asked Noel if he has seen magic.
“Oh, of course! It’s everywhere!”
“What have you seen?”
“Lots of stuff. A chicken is walking around, and with one word, it just drops dead. You can make people have bad stomach pain all of a sudden.”
“In Angola, people said it was common for men to be shrunken to doll size and put in bottles.”
“Oh yeah, that happens all the time. I knew a guy who used to do that all the time. He would disappear and then would appear inside a bottle. You could see him dancing around like crazy in there. He had the same face, just really little.”
“And you saw this?”
“Sure.”
“With your own eyes?”
“Yeah, I saw it!”
“So how does he get in and out of the bottle?”
“He just appears in there and then appears outside big again. But one time he couldn’t get out. Finally we broke the bottle and he died. I was at the funeral.”
“You had a funeral for a tiny shrunken man? Did he have a tiny coffin?”
“No, no. When he died he went back to normal size.”
“Oh, ok.”
“I also had an uncle who used to turn himself into a lion all the time.”
“Your uncle could turn into a lion?”
“Yeah. He did it a lot.”
“You saw this?”
“Sure.”
“With your own eyes?”
“Yeah! Lots of times. But one time, some enemies of his found his idol and broke it and he died. His body had turned back into a human, but his head was still a lion’s head.”
“Did you see the body like that?”
“Sure, we drove it all the way back from the village like that.”
“So, you had a body of a half-human, half-lion and you didn’t take a picture?”
“Well, we didn’t want to upset his children if they saw a picture of their dead father.”
“Yeah, but come on, it’s a person with a lion’s head. You didn’t feel any desire to share that with the world?”
“Would you want someone to take a picture of your father’s body?”
“If he had a lion’s head, yeah!”
Of course, Noel doesn’t do this kind of thing. He can however, help somebody find love or a good job. In fact, he has a lot of foreigners who send him money and their name and he helps them with a problem they have (and asked if I had any friends in the U.S. who were interested in Voodoo). I expressed my skepticism to Noel. For every example of proof of his powers (A guy was looking for a job and couldn’t fine one, then after going to Noel, he found the job he wanted), I would give a reason why that was not actually proof (Maybe the guy just found a job). As the aspiring epidemiologist that I am, I said I would like to do a randomized case-control study to see whether the people he helps actually have better fortunes than the control group. He didn’t seem that interested in the idea.
We’re now talking about preparing a Voodoo initiation ceremony for me. At the very least, I should get some good photos and a story out of it.
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