By Mauliya Risalaturrohmah
Ouidah, historically called Whydah, Juda, Juida, Ajuda, which is formally the Kingdom of Whydah (the name for the Whydah Bird of Paradise), is a city in Benin. Ouidah has become a relaxed and prosperous beach town with sweeping expanses of golden sand to laze upon. It is considered as the Voodoo capital of Benin. Ouidah is known as a mecca of spirits and gods that are worshipped by the adherents of Voodoo, a religion coming from the West Africa. Voodoo is also called as ‘vodoun,’ and practices associated with it can be seen through the street of Ouidah. The city is known as the spiritual capital of the vodoun religion, and hosts an annual International Vodoun conference. “Every January, thousands of voodoo worshipers joined by crowds of tourists and descendants of slaves head to the Gate of No Return monument in Ouidah in Benin. Erected in 1992 in memory of those packed on ships bound for the New World, it is a living reminder that the small Beninese coastal town of Ouidah once was the muster point for the black slave trade on the southern coast of West Africa.” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBfTmO_zeU]. Interestingly, the changes in local representations of Voodoo identity have been constructed and influenced by commercial interests within Voodoo itself. In practice, people seem to commercialize the aspects of the religion for the tourism industry. As stated by Bell [2012: 99], when certain cultures are put on display, people themselves are viewed as the obstacle for the progress which tourism wishes to bring about. Now, promotions for tourists are developed by citizens in the area. In fact, the International Voodoo festival was originally celebrated mainly by locals, but now many tourists also join the Voodoo rituals. The slogan that proclaims that Ouidah is the Mecca of Benin, and this is also stated by one of the guides of the Temple of Pythons named Jean Zossoujbo. This is why I call Ouidah a mecca of spirit or the religious Mecca of Benin; locals do not only host their annual festival but visitors can also access other sacred places. For example, one can tour the sacred forest that is used during the Voodoo rites. The forest is not accessible to the public, but tourists can enter with the help of a guide who explains the spiritual meaning of the site. The Temple of Python is another site that tourists can visit. For 3.00 USD, visitors get a guide who will take them around and inside the temple to see the python, a snake which is recognized as a totem in Benin, and an important animal in the religion of Voodoo. Hence, it is forbidden to kill a python because it is thought it will cause bad luck local residents. Although for some pythons are feared, in Ouidah the python is not seen as harmful but rather is respected. Ouidah is a site that displays the mixing of beliefs and practices that represent both a clash of cultures and the ability for ancient traditional beliefs to adapt to modern life. In other words, what has been maintained by Voodoo practitioners is influenced by local's strong effort to combine what they believe to be their religion [Voodoo] and what they have preserved as tradition from their ancestors. Local practitioners highlight the religious nature of their practices: Djabassi Manonwomin has stated that “It is like we are sending all the evil in the country, on the continent, away. The people today are corrupt, we can see that. It it is from the old days, but now more open. More people are hungry (for corruption). They put their beliefs in front of themselves.” Furthermore, labeling Ouidah as the Mecca of Benin has become a way to promote some sites in Voodoo that have previously not been exposed to the general public. According to Hollinshead in Kravanja (p. 199), “the politics of imaginary, iconology, fashions, and values regimes by which the tourist industry in general makes, un-makes, and re-makes locals are becoming more and more complex.” By wearing spectacular and colorful costumes, people celebrate the Voodoo festival in Benin at the beach, as it is recognized as the heart of Voodoo in West Africa and the site of the birth of Voodoo in Benin. This festival is also completed by the spirit of ‘Egungun’ from the Yoruba clan coming from Nigeria. Egungun is represented by the dancer representing the spirit of Yoruba, believed in Nigeria as being built from earth and giving guidance to human beings http://www.anehdidunia.com/2012/10/festival-voodoo-spektakuler-menyeramkan.html. The festival has been held since 1997, and is attended by by people who seek the blessing of the head of Voodoo practice in Ouidah. The ritual starts with slaughtering a goat which is offered to the spirits. Some of the religious followers are indistinguishable from the tourists. Although tourism brings benefits to places like Ouidah, I think that it is hard to find the value of spirituality when there are outsiders joining in these religious rituals just to satisfy their curiosity. By looking at some rituals of celebration in Ouidah, Benin, it seems people consider that these festivals are very attractive to international tourists. There is one tourist coming from America said that “Actually Voodo is a national religion. And it is not about the negative aspect of putting pins in dolls and working magic for evil. The people who practice Voodo are lovely people, they are very kind [Gail Hardison].” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBfTmO_zeU. From some of the videos I watched about the interaction between tourism and Voodoo, I learned that that not all people who practive Voodo have the financial ability to hold the main rituals that become tourist objects in a luxurious way. Some people attempted to take their children to work outside Ouidah to earn money in order to be able to hold this ritual. One of the top head of the Voodoo ritual explained that “to hold the ritual is like going to university, people must pay for it since it is spiritual education for them.” It means that people must prepare and spend large amounts of money to hold this ritual each year. It is like what Bell [2002: 98] says we can see as a dynamic that creates an inharmonious social and political environment in which the two groups [guests and hosts] do not have shared interests and lifestyles. Voodoo practitioners in Ouidah are maintaining their own culture, not just producing culture for tourism. Not all rituals to commemorate Voodoo are held in public, there are still the traditions that are held in private moments in the home and are invested in by locals for the sake of their spiritual well-being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouidah https://www.lonelyplanet.com/benin/ouidah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv6EmX7dYLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZBfTmO_zeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67_WYt28Bhk http://www.voodoospiritualtemple.org/about-us.html https://unseenbenin.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/the-temple-of-python-in-ouidah/ written by Leila Abdoulaye http://www.anehdidunia.com/2012/10/festival-voodoo-spektakuler-menyeramkan.html http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/11/snakes-sacrifices-and-sales-benin-voodoo-festival-is-vibrant-mix.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVzBWHLmQ2Ehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVzBWHLmQ2E Hollinshead in Kravanja, Bostjan. 2002. On Conception of Paradise and the Tourist Spaces of Southern Sri Lanka. Nanzan University. Asian Ethology, Vol.71, No.2, pp. 179-205 [in part of additional notes in page 199] Bell, Elizabeth R. 2012. “Pirates of Our Spirituality”: The 2012 Apocalypse and the Value of Heritage in Guatemala. Sage Publications, Inc. Latin American Perspectives, Vol.39, No.6, TOURISM, GENDER, AND ETHNICITY, pp. 96-108.
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