Ewe ceramics as the visualization of Vodun

African Arts, Spring, 2007 by Lisa Aronson

On February 12, 2005, members of a Yeve (1) Vodun shrine in the Ewe village of Anlo-Afiadenyigba in southeastern Ghana paid their due respect to Mami Wata as part of their month-long ceremony in honor of Heviesso, the powerful and omnipresent thunder god. On the final day of the event, the Mami spirit entered a woman's body in the form of a snake. Lured by the spraying of toilet water and white powder and the rhythms of the drums, the snake slithered ever so slowly to her shrine, where she encountered desirable items, including food sacrificed in her honor, richly patterned cloth, and--the focus of this essay--a range of ceramic vessels featuring creatures familiar to her world (FIG. 1).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Ceramic sculptural pots are an important component of the visual culture of Anlo-Ewe Vodun (meaning "gods" or "spirits"), yet they have received surprisingly little attention in the literature (Herskovits 1938; Hubner 1995; Savary 1970), most of it focused on the names of the pots and their ritual associations rather than production and marketing. I first became aware of Vodun pottery while doing a pilot study of Anlo-Ewe Vodun body arts, including tattooing, body painting, beadwork, a prescribed set of dress codes, dance movements, and spirit possession (FIG. 2). This study was not without its obstacles because of the highly personalized nature of the topic and the reluctance on the part of the Anlo-Ewe Vodun practitioners to reveal information about their religion to outsiders. To help overcome such barriers, I turned my attention to Ewe Vodun pottery, which I found to be a useful venue for learning the identities and relationships of the various gods and for understanding the role that visual culture plays in Vodun worship. The mutual trust this investigation engendered led to a more open dialogue with the potters and ample opportunity to participate in their Vodun ceremonies.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

My research suggests that Ewe ceramics, like body arts, provide a visual language intended for the Vodun gaze. The potters shape their pots the way they visualize their spiritual world and then use them in ways that make that spiritual world more attractive to the Vodun. Moreover, this visualization is reflected not only in the forms themselves but in the unusual means the potters use to construct them. Employing what is best described as the "punch" method, the potter pushes out the flat area of a clay disc to give rounded, spherical form to the vessel--creating a shape that mimics their spiritual world--on top of which images of different Vodun are attached.

The potters with whom I worked come from the Vodun-centered village of Dzodzefime, where pottery production is a major occupation for the majority of its women (FIG. 3). While they are not the only potters in this region, the women from Dzodzetime seem to be the most prolific within the Dzodze area. The pots they make for Vodun, like the religion itself, have roots further east among Ewe relatives in Togo and the related Fon of the Republic of Benin. When the ancestors of the Dzodzefime potters migrated from Togo more than 100 years ago, they settled where they now live precisely because of its abundance of clay deposits, suggesting that knowledge of pottery production was something they brought with them.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

While Vodun pottery production now thrives in this region, Ghanaian Ewe devotees will occasionally cross the border into Togo or even travel to the Republic of Benin for their pots. Such was the case with the pots featured in the above-mentioned Anlo-Afiadenyigba altar to Mami. When asked why the artists constructing the altar went to Benin for their pots when local ones were available, the Afa diviner, a leading figure in this particular shrine, explained, "For the same reason that you go to Japan for electronics." (2) Such an acknowledgement, phrased in terms he thought I would appreciate, affirms the often-expressed belief that Vodun in Benin is more powerful and effective. But, as the Dzodzefime potters informed me, people from Benin or Togo also come to southeastern Ghana to acquire pots. This apparent ebb and flow calls for a more thorough examination of the production and patronage of ceramics within this broad Vodun-specific area of West Africa.

Similar to their Fon ancestors, the Ewe potters from Dzodzefime make a wide range of ceramic pots for both domestic and ritual use (FIG. 4). (3) Their repertoire includes pots with holes for use as sieves (zenongwe), small pots with covers (zevi agbawu), wide-mouthed soup pots (deti ze), flat bowls for toasting pulverized corn kernels (sowu), and small bowls with a textured interior surface suitable for grating peppers (tadi tugbavi). Certain pot types serve both domestic and ritual functions, suggesting that the dividing line between these two categories is not always clearly defined. For example, a small water pot to which a deep red slip has been added (zedzi, 'red pot') can be used both for daily food preparation and for making offerings to the dead. Other ritual pots include those honoring twins (venavize)--distinguished by the ring at the bottom that prevents the pot from touching ground--and miniature versions (gozi) of larger pots used as metaphorical offerings on shrines.