Contemporary Vodun arts of Ouidah, Benin

African Arts, Winter, 2001 by Dana Rush

Auction Block. The Slave Route officially begins under a large tree, where the public auctions are said to have been held. The tree is located just behind the compound of Don Francisco de Souza, who was born in Brazil in 1754 and died in Ouidah in 1849. De Souza, of Portuguese and Amerindian parentage, arrived in Ouidah in 1788 and became intimately involved in the transatlantic slave trade. He was named Viceroy of Ouidah by his friend and business partner, King Gezo of Abomey. De Souza's influence in the trade spread east to Badagry (Nigeria) and west to Anecho (Togo). At the height of his involvement he is said to have supplied more than one hundred slave ships traveling between the west coast of Africa and the Americas (Verger 1968 in Sinou 1995:114).

It seems likely that the auctions held during de Souza's tenure as Viceroy took place close to the family compound. (It must be remembered, however, that de Souza's activity covers only about sixty years of Ouidah's centuries of participation in the slave trade.) This plot of land, known as Dantissa, is currently the site of festivals for the vodun Dan, the rainbow serpent. It lies between the de Souza compound and de Souza's Vodun temple to Dan, whom he renamed Dagoun. (17)

Tree of Forgetting. The place where the Tree of Forgetting is believed to have stood is marked with a sculpture by Dominique Kouas of a three-headed, three-footed, three-armed Mami Wata and a small symbolic tree (Fig. 12). The base of the statue is engraved with the legend of the "Tree," endorsed by former President Soglo. Although it seems logistically impossible, this legend purports that all of the enslaved women marched around this tree seven times, and all of the enslaved men, nine times. (18) The intent was to make them forget their origins and cultural identities. The failure of this idea was evident in the Ouidah 92 festival itself, which made it abundantly clear that such identities thrived and continue to thrive in African diasporas throughout the Americas.

[FIGURE 12 OMITTED]

Clement Lokossou compares the forced circuits around the Tree of Forgetting as a type of "zombification". In that process, rumored to exist in Haiti, the work of a sorcerer causes one to lose one's identity and become one of the "living dead" (1994:128). "Zombification" has never has been a named concept or process associated with Vodun in Benin, and has only been introduced there through knowledge of Haitian Vodou.

Zomai Enclosure. After encircling the Tree of Forgetting, the captives are said to have been led to the Zomai Enclosure. The name, translated as "a place where fire can never go," refers to the darkness of the place. The building itself is no longer extant, but the spot is now commemorated with three contemporary works: a central sculpture made by Dominique Kouas, flanked by two bound and gagged figures made by Cyprien Tokoudagba.

Kouas's piece, composed of different faces bearing different scarification markings, represents the many enslaved Africans from a variety of ethnic backgrounds who converged in this dark place before they were sent across the ocean (Fig. 13). The six Yoruba markings (three on each cheek), and the ten Fon markings (two on each cheek, temples, and forehead) are readily discernible. The artist also included a scale to represent the ideal of equality among peoples throughout the world.