{"id":132526,"date":"2026-06-09T16:57:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T22:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-voodoo-overcame-suppression-and-became-a-democratic-force-in-the-west-african-nation-of-benin\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T16:57:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T22:57:43","slug":"how-voodoo-overcame-suppression-and-became-a-democratic-force-in-the-west-african-nation-of-benin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-voodoo-overcame-suppression-and-became-a-democratic-force-in-the-west-african-nation-of-benin\/","title":{"rendered":"How Voodoo overcame suppression and became a democratic force in the West African nation of Benin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Daagbo
Daagbo Hounon Houna II, the Supreme Spiritual Voodoo Chief, left, is greeted by priestesses before an interview with The Associated Press In Ouidah, Benin, May 14, 2026. (Sunday Alamba\/Associated Press)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mathieu K\u00e9r\u00e9kou had amassed power partly by banning the practice of so-called sorcerers, whose authority he deemed subversive to his own. Voodooists would have the last laugh.<\/p>\n

The opposition figure who defeated K\u00e9r\u00e9kou, Nic\u00e9phore Soglo, rehabilitated Voodoo, or Vod\u00fan as it is known in Benin, as part of national heritage and emphasized the kind of tolerance that K\u00e9r\u00e9kou would try to emulate when he successfully sought reelection in 1996.<\/p>\n

Two decades and three presidents later, this West African nation is a bastion of democracy in a region dubbed \u201cthe coup belt\u201d for the trend since 2020 of military takeovers. President Romuald Wadagni was inaugurated May 24 to replace Patrice Talon, who stepped down after serving two terms.<\/p>\n

To an intriguing degree, Benin\u2019s democratic stance reflects the resilience of the Vod\u00fan religion, which confounded K\u00e9r\u00e9kou\u2019s authoritarianism until he could no longer afford to be so rigid. The humbling of K\u00e9r\u00e9kou showed that no leader, however powerful, could strangle faith in the land of Voodoo, according to devotees and scholars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe return to democracy recognized the existence of traditional religion,\u201d Vod\u00fan supreme leader Daagbo Hounon Houna II told The Associated Press. \u201cK\u00e9r\u00e9kou acknowledged that (African) religions must be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

K\u00e9r\u00e9kou\u2019s complex relationship with Vod\u00fan and other religions<\/div>\n

K\u00e9r\u00e9kou was no ordinary president. As a major in the military of Dahomey, as Benin was then known, he took power in a 1972 coup and presided over a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship. But his nationalization of state enterprises helped trigger economic collapse toward the end of the Cold War, adding to pressure for change from the Catholic Church and others in the National Conference of 1990.<\/p>\n

That period was also marked by an assault on Voodoo religion. Vod\u00fan was considered backward to K\u00e9r\u00e9kou, even as he retained the services of spiritual advisers known as marabouts. Priests were detained and shrines were lost in urban projects, angering believers.<\/p>\n

Voodooists are believed to have retaliated against K\u00e9r\u00e9kou, who grew terrified of being zombified by a curse. He recruited a Malian marabout nicknamed the Devil and experimented with other religions in search of spiritual strength, according to devotees.<\/p>\n

K\u00e9r\u00e9kou faced \u201cthe heat, and there were parts of the country he couldn\u2019t go to,\u201d said L\u00e9on Bani Bigou, a former lawmaker who once served as K\u00e9r\u00e9kou\u2019s adviser. \u201cThis is precisely what led him to reconsider his position regarding Indigenous religions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benin\u2019s president, who had been raised Catholic, later professed Islam as Ahmed K\u00e9r\u00e9kou before embracing born-again Christianity, a decision that may have been aimed at self-preservation, said Gerrie ter Haar, an emeritus professor of religion and development at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that K\u00e9r\u00e9kou \u201cremained terrified to become a victim of a Vod\u00fan curse and had to search for stronger spiritual power\u201d he saw in evangelical Christianity, she said.<\/p>\n

History of Voodoo in Benin<\/div>\n

Roughly half Benin\u2019s 14 million people identify as Christians, according to the U.S. State Department. Yet Vod\u00fan is \u201cthe first religion of all Beninese,\u201d said Mahougnon Kakpo, a prominent politician and lawmaker in Cotonou, Benin\u2019s commercial capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rest is hypocrisy,\u201d Kakpo said. \u201cK\u00e9r\u00e9kou himself practiced Voodoo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vod\u00fan is an animist religion in its engagement with the spirit world. Believers see grace and providence in nature, from rocks to rivers. Ceremonies involve sacrificing animals, incantation and frenzied dancing.<\/p>\n

The birthplace of Vod\u00fan is Ouidah, a city on the Gulf of Guinea that once was a major slave-trading port. It\u2019s the seat of Houna II, the Vod\u00fan supreme leader.<\/p>\n

On a recent morning, Houna II adjusted his thick robes as he settled into his antique chair to describe Voodoo\u2019s resilience, his account punctuated by incantations from the priestesses surrounding him.<\/p>\n

Voodoo\u2019s \u201csworn leaders were not afraid to confront anyone, to leave behind what their ancestors bequeathed them no matter the cost,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has been shown that the more you attack their religion, the more you raise their spirits.\u201d<\/p>\n

K\u00e9r\u00e9kou was among several postcolonial African leaders who tried to replace religious authority with their own. But he failed and later recanted. That is partly why K\u00e9r\u00e9kou is remembered by his people as \u201cthe chameleon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gnassingb\u00e9 Eyad\u00e9ma, as Togo\u2019s president, successfully encouraged a personality cult, depicting himself as a savior. Eyadema, who justified some attacks on his opponents by calling them sorcerers, ruled uninterrupted from 1967 to 2005.<\/p>\n

In Za\u00efre, present-day Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko took power by force and presented himself as a \u201cgod-chief,\u201d widely feared for his perceived access to occult forces. He ruled virtually unchallenged for three decades.<\/p>\n

K\u00e9r\u00e9kou goes up against Voodoo\u2019s resilience<\/div>\n

K\u00e9r\u00e9kou\u2019s 1991 defeat marked the first time a sitting president had been voted out of power in West Africa. Five years later, he returned as a civilian democrat, his Marxist-Leninist banners gone. And he backed the creation of the National Voodoo Board, with a festive holiday celebrated Jan. 10 since 1996.<\/p>\n

K\u00e9r\u00e9kou failed to eradicate Vod\u00fan \u201cbecause he was attacking a centuries-old social practice deeply rooted in the daily lives of Beninese people, a resource to which he and officials in his regime had been able to turn in the exercise of power,\u201d said Narcisse Martial Yedji, a political sociologist at Universit\u00e9 d\u2019Abomey-Calavi. \u201cK\u00e9r\u00e9kou could not win over all the guardians of Voodoo traditions. Voodoo is not private property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voodoo proved resilient, he said, and even now \u201cpriests claim that most public authorities resort to magical-religious practices and other rituals deeply rooted in the Voodoo collective consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 2001, seeking his last term, K\u00e9r\u00e9kou was actively campaigning for the Voodoo vote in Ouidah, where pilgrims can be found carrying talismans by the sea.<\/p>\n

There, in a forested patch on the edge of a wetland, a Vod\u00fan devotee named Ir\u00e8ne Kpatenon pointed to the stump of a tree that was the shrine where he occasionally deposited fruits, because he heard that \u201cVoodoo spirits like sweet things.\u201d Kpatenon recently prayed for well-paying work.<\/p>\n

Pilgrims to Ouidah may march along the sandy path heading to the monument known as \u201cthe Door of No Return\u201d for the hapless victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Even in that sad episode, there is a story of resistance that Houna II proudly recalled.<\/p>\n

Enslaved Africans transported to the Caribbean, notably present-day Haiti where the religion is known as Vodou, would rebel against their owners.<\/p>\n

In a Vodou ceremony known as the Bois Ca\u00efman pact of 1791 \u2013 during which a pig was sacrificed for its blood \u2013 some slaves plotted the rebellion that made Haiti the first free Black republic in 1804.<\/p>\n

Haitian Vodou was suppressed, stigmatized for centuries as superstition and diluted by Catholicism. As in Benin, Vodou in Haiti survived to have a lasting influence on culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoodoo is life,\u201d said Dossavi Yovo, a priestess in Houna II\u2019s temple, discouraging those who would be so faithless as to mix Christianity with Vod\u00fan. \u201cIf you want to practice Voodoo, you have got to dedicate yourself to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daagbo Hounon Houna II, the Supreme Spiritual Voodoo Chief, left, is greeted by priestesses before an interview with The Associated Press In Ouidah, Benin, May 14, 2026. (Sunday Alamba\/Associated Press) Mathieu K\u00e9r\u00e9kou had amassed power partly by banning the practice of so-called sorcerers, whose authority he deemed subversive to his own. Voodooists would have the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6430],"tags":[407],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-132526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","tag-religion-and-belief"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132526"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=132526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}