Vodun. Timothy R. Landry
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into the wider discussion of authenticity, especially as Vodún locality shifts from somewhat bounded “culture areas” in West Africa to more fluid transnational spaces around the world.
An influx of spiritual tourists who are purchasing religious objects and becoming initiated into Vodún has encouraged both foreigners and Béninois to question what it means to believe. In Chapter 4, “Belief, Efficacy, and Transnationalism,” I walk the reader through my own journey with belief as I struggle, despite my initiations, to believe in the spirits and in witchcraft. In so doing, I explore the analytical value of belief in Vodún and consider how spiritual tourism and emerging capitalist markets have begun to transform Vodún’s beliefscape. Drawing on the ways in which Vodún in Bénin has connected belief to notions of efficacy, both Béninois and foreign practitioners actively negotiate their belief in the spirits. For some, their belief in Vodún and fear of witchcraft have led them to a belief in Christ, where protection from malevolent forces comes without the need to provide expensive offerings and rituals to the spirits. For others, Vodún’s transnational presence has opened the possibility of believing in spirits that they previously rejected in order to attract international clientele and monies. These changes, I argue, have led belief and transnationalism to creatively absorb additional layers of meaning, thereby simultaneously strengthening and transforming the ways in which belief and efficacy are understood by foreign and Béninois Vodúnisants.
People from different national, racial, and ethnic backgrounds have come to believe in Vodún. Their involvement in the religion has led to the global commodification of ritual secrecy. With secrecy limiting tourists’ access, while paradoxically rendering the experiences they have in Bénin as more authentic and more coveted, secrecy becomes the primary social mechanism by which Vodún expands. In Chapter 5, “Global Vodún, Diversity, and Looking Ahead,” I show how Vodún’s commodification has both enriched and complicated the religion’s global expansion. By examining the politics of cultural appropriation and cultural borrowing, I complicate the process of cultural appropriation and ultimately show that the complexity surrounding these practices is never an all-or-nothing proposition. Instead, I argue that, when mediated by local interested agents, the transnationalization of West African religions such as Vodún is only Vodún’s next step in its already long journey across space—a journey that, as Rush (1997) has argued, defines Vodún and encourages its continued local and global vibrancy.
This project owes a great deal to the legacies of scholars such as Melville J. Herskovits (1938, 1971 [1937]) and Pierre Fatumbi Verger (1995a, 1995b), who realized early on that practitioners of West African religions have long been important actors on the global stage. Herskovits in particular argued that cultural flows have the potential to transcend distinct continental divisions. Throughout this book, I build on the prescient approach of these earlier researchers by emphasizing both the challenges and benefits that are tethered to Vodún’s current multinational and multiracial development. While Vodún’s recent expansion is incredibly messy, filled with contradictions, and deeply enmeshed in postcolonial and racial politics, the religion has proven to be incredibly resilient. Indeed, Vodún has shown, time and time again, that the religion thrives within these contested spaces, where politics and power seem insurmountable.
CHAPTER 1
Touring the Forbidden
The reproduction of Vodun cults is increasingly becoming dependent on external tourism … as incomes deriving from religious service cannot alone sustain communities and their religious life. Vodun priestesses and priests take advantage of the opportunities that cross their paths and take up the challenge that the initiation of foreigners or the participation in tourism activity might carry.
—Forte 2010: 141
The untold story of Vodún’s contemporary expansion begins with a rise in what many Béninois simply call “Voodoo tourism.” Ouidah’s tourists typically follow a well-worn script. Most of them visit the Python Temple, where Dangbé, the python spirit, is served;1 King Kpassé’s sacred forest, which is the seat of the vodún known as Lǒkò;2 and the slave route (La Route des Esclaves) that was established in the early 1990s with support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Landry 2011) and other foreign governments (especially Germany and France). While these three destinations form a “must-see” triumvirate of tourist sites in Ouidah, other places such as the palace of Daágbó Xùnɔ̀, the so-called supreme chief of Vodún in Bénin, are also becoming popular, as tourists become increasingly adventurous, following the advice of tour books about Bénin (e.g., Butler 2006), and as more Vodún priests and temples make themselves available to tourists in the hopes of earning extra money.
The average tourist is content to have a photo taken with a snake from the Python Temple wrapped around his or her neck; to walk through Kpassé’s sacred forest to see a permanent exhibition of Vodún-inspired art sculptures erected in the early 1990s for “Ouidah ’92: The First International Festival of Vodun Arts and Cultures” (Rush 2001); or even to hike the 2.5-kilometer sandy road from Ouidah’s center to the beach where some one million Africans boarded ships bound for the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade.3 However, for a minority of other tourists scripted activities are not enough. These tourists commonly speak of “adventure” or “going off the beaten path,” a desire to experience “the real Bénin” or, for many, “real Voodoo.” For them, it becomes important to capture a special photo of restricted or secret Vodún ceremonies, temples, or people that would lend “authenticity” to their “African adventure” or to their “frightening brush with Voodoo.” Some of these “adventure tourists,” as they often call themselves, seek out diviners to learn of their futures or to understand more clearly their pasts (e.g., Rosenthal 1998: 168–69; Clarke 2004: 239–56; Forte 2007: 134–36); some even strive to become initiated into one or more of the Vodún cults found in southern Bénin. As indigenous religions and international travel intersect in Bénin, a constellation of local and global forces has begun to push Vodún practices along several dimensions at once, impelling local and foreign peoples to collide. To chronicle these changes, in this chapter, I explore the ways in which tourism develops simultaneously alongside Vodún in Bénin. In this way, I deprovincialize religions such as Vodún that are frequently seen as being restricted to their locale and that play a decidedly “other” role in most Westerners’ imaginations. To illustrate the transnational practice of Vodún, I focus both on the politics of travel, attending especially to international visitors who wish to become initiated or use the “secret powers of Vodún” to gain control of their lives, and on how these themes contribute to Vodún’s transnational flow.
Understanding the Local Political Economy of Vodún
Spiritual tourists complain regularly about the cost of ceremonies, initiations, and even religious paraphernalia such as beads, special bird feathers, and other supplies needed to construct shrines for the spirits (see Landry 2016). Coupling the rising costs associated with livestock and other ritual supplies with a long-established precedent within Vodún linking money and religion (cf. Ogundiran 2002), spiritual undertakings such as initiations can be costly. Tourists may pay more than locals for the privilege of initiation, but local practitioners also pay relatively large sums of money to seek advice from diviners, to become priests, and even to placate—or thank—the spirits. Sometimes the financial expenditure is great—even for Béninois practitioners. Over a period of six months, Marie paid over 4.5 million CFA for her initiation ceremonies, her priestly regalia (such as expensive beads and prayer instruments), and the construction of a small temple attached to her house devoted to Tron, her new vodún.4 While Marie’s expenses were exorbitant, there exists an established and vibrant local spiritual economy whereby the costs associated with Vodún vary from paying only 100 CFA to receive divination to the high costs paid by Marie. However, most local costs fall between these two extremes and often come with a promise from the spirits that any money spent on Vodún will be returned exponentially. Even with