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Contemporary Vodun arts of Ouidah, Benin
African Arts, Winter, 2001 by Dana Rush
(17.) According to local oral history, the rainbow serpent vodun, Dan, reminded de Souza of the European dragon; thus the two entities were merged into one Vodun spirit, Dagoun, in a de Souza Vodun temple, just down the street from the family's compound.
(18.) I am unaware of the significance of these numbers.
(19.) Although this account could be read as a contemporary means for Daagbo Hounon to place himself at the forefront of the ongoing reinvention of Ouidah's history, I was told a very similar story by Dorothe Mizehoun, the Abomey-born former director of the History Museum of Ouidah (interview, Oct. 16, 1995).
(20.) Daagbo Hounon's turtle, which was still alive in 1996, represents the turtle of the first Supreme Chief of Vodun.
(21.) See Burton for a very early reference to and documentation of azan, or "fringe of dried palm-leaf," as a marker of something sacred ([1864] 1966:79, fn.). Robert Farris Thompson has recorded azan in an altar in Surinam (1993:26-27). In Metraux's "Voodoo Glossary," aizan is defined as "Fringe made with fibers of palm (Oreodoxia regia). Has the power of keeping away evil.... The aizan is often hung on the lintel of humfo doors, on the poteau-mitan or on other sacred objects. Sometimes it is used to cover offerings" ([1959] 1972:373).
References cited
Agbo, Casmir. 1959. Histoire de Ouidah du XVI au XX siecles. Les Presses Universelles.
Assogba, Romaine-Philippe Ekanye. 1990. Le Musee d'Histoire de Ouidah: Decouverte de la Cote des Esclaves. Saint Michel: Editions.
Blier, Suzanne Preston. 1995. "Vodun: West African Roots of Vodou," in Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, ed. D. J. Cosentino, pp. 60-87. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
Brown, Karen McCarthy. 1995. Tracing the Spirit: Ethnographic Essays on Haitian Art. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Burton, Sir Richard. [1864] 1966. A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomey, ed. C.W. Newbury. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Cerny, Charlene and Suzanne Seriff (eds.). 1996. Recycled Re-Seen: Folk Art from the Global Scrap Heap. New York: Harry N. Abrams for the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe.
Clifford, James. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Cornevin, Robert. 1962. Histoire du Dahomey. Paris: Editions Berger-Levrault.
Cosentino, Donald J. 1995. Sacred Art of Haitian Vodou. UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
Curtin, Philip D. 1969. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
de Souza, Simone. 1992. La Famille de Souza du Benin-Togo. Cotonou: Les Editions du Benin.
Drewal, Henry. 1988. "Performing the Other: Mami Wata Worship in Africa," Drama Review 32, 2:160-85.
Galembo, Phyllis. 1993. Divine Inspiration: From Benin to Bahia. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Herskovits, Melville J. 1938. Dahomey: An Ancient West African Kingdom, vols. 1, 2. New York: J. J. Augustin.
Law, Robin. 1991. The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550-1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade in an African Society. Oxford: Calendon Press.
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