How a Voodoo festival is helping people learn more about their ancestry

(16 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ouidah, Benin - 10 January 2025
1. Various of voodoo worshippers singing
2. SOUNDBITE (French) Christian Houetchenou, Mayor of Ouidah:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT AND IS PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOT 3++
“Vodun Days is their return to the source, for all Africans. It is to come back and live their culture, and art, and spirituality for those who practice Voodoo. It’s very important.”
3. Various of Zangbeto masquerades performing
4. Various of Voodoo worshippers dancing
5. SOUNDBITE (French) Suzanne Celeste Delaunay Belleville, Voodoo priestess:
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON PREVIOUS SHOT++
“And all the lands that people were sent to (deportation), from Haiti to Martinique to Guadeloupe, to St. Lucia, to Cuba, and to Brazil, with different names-there is voodoo. With a different history.”
6. Tourist dancing with a Voodoo worshipper
7. Close up of souvenir
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jaimie Lyne, tourist
++SOUNDBITE STARTS ON SHOT6 AND IS OVERLAID BY SHOT 9 AND PARTIALLY BY SHOT 10++
“I think one thing I want the people to appreciate about the Vodun culture is that it’s the culture of communion with the land and the elements, and it's really more about how everything has an explanation in terms of all of the symptoms, all of the realities of the world, the rain, the sun, etc.. So, it's mostly something that just links everything and makes it whole.”
9. Various of voodoo artefacts
10. Voodoo worshipper dancing
STORYLINE:
Gravity defying dancers move to the beat of drums at the 2025 Voodoo Festival in Ouidah, Benin.
The event draws thousands of visitors from across the globe, offering a vibrant celebration of one of the world’s oldest religions.
The annual festival features traditional ceremonies, dances, and rituals that can offer deep insights into the spiritual practices of the region.
For tourists like Jaimie Lyne, a data analyst from Guadeloupe, the festival serves as a meaningful link to ancestral history.
Lyne's curiosity about her roots was sparked by her mother’s visit to Benin in 2023, deepening her connection to the cultural legacy of Voodoo, or Vodrun.
“I think one thing I want the people to appreciate about the Vodun culture is that it’s the culture of communion with the land and the elements,” she explained.
One of the world’s oldest religions, Vodun originated in the kingdom of Dahomey - present-day Benin - and is rooted in animism.
It is the belief that all things, from rocks and trees to animals and places, have a spirit.
Vodun, an official religion in Benin, is practiced by at least a million people in the country.
While some scholars argue that the concept of Vodun, an official religion in Benin, is practiced Voodooism is archaic and the festival should be abolished, others believe the religion is misunderstood.
The festival is attracting increasing numbers of tourists keen to learn more about West African traditions.
European merchants deported an estimated 1.5 million slaves from the Bight of Benin, a territory that includes modern-day Benin and Togo and part of modern-day Nigeria.
The coastal town of Ouidah was one of Africa’s most active slave-trading ports in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Close to a million men, women and children were captured, chained and forced onto ships there, mainly destined for what would become the United States, Brazil and the Caribbean.
Slavery brought Vodun to the Americas and the Caribbean, where it became Voodoo, a blend with Catholicism.
AP Video by Dan Ikpoyi
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