Religion – Sivu 2 – Villa Karo

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Happy Easter! And memories of last autumn’s Tabaski

Last October 26th the residents of Villa Karo got the opportunity to participate in the Tabaski celebration as Villa Karo’s guardians Boubé and Abdullaye, who belong to the Muslim minority in Benin, invited them to join the religious feast. Two lambs were prepared on open fire and tasty Fulani cheese was served for the vegetarians.

Tabaski is one of the most important celebrations of the Muslim year. This day – the date of which varies from one country to another from and year to year– is to commemorate the prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his young and only firstborn son in obedience to a command from God. It marks the end of the annual pilgrimage, Hajj to Mecca. Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and each able-bodied Muslim is supposed to carry out this duty and head to Mecca at least on in the lifetime, if this is financially realisable. For the Tabaski celebration, a sheep, cow, goat, buffalo or camel is sacrificed in the name of God. One-third of the meat is given to friends and neighbors and one-third or more of the meat is donated to the poor and needy.

With a resemblance to Easter, Tabaski is the celebration of sacrifice, reconciliation and forgiveness: Eid-al-Adha – Feast of Sacrifice. This year the celebrations in Benin will be on Tuesday 15th October. Meanwhile, Happy Easter to everybody!

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National Vodun Day

Vodun Day 2013 by Hannu Lindroos

National Vodun Day was celebrated again in Gbêcon, in Grand-Popo on 10th January 2013.

People across West Africa hold beliefs similar to Vodun, but in Benin this belief system is recognised as an official religion. It is followed by some 40% of the population.

Even if authorities in the past sought to extirpate Voodoo from the country, it is now being widely accepted and celebrated as a religion in its own right, and considered a deeply rooted aspect of the region’s culture.

Since 1996, the 10^th of January has been dedicated to celebrate Vodun and the ”Voodoo Day” is a bank holiday. One of the biggest celebrations of the day take place in the Voodoo-stadium of Grand- Popo.

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Divine dwelling

In what we had been taken for a storage room, we found a temple, a divine dwelling. The gods took the heart and the blood. We ate the rest with hot corn porridge before rushing away from Zangbetos way in the narrow streets of Heve.

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Yêke Yêke Voodoo Festival in Glidji, Togo

Me, Rea-Liina Brunou and Marjo Räsänen got our first touch with the West-African voodoo ceremonies at the annual festival of the Gé-people in the village of Glidji, Togo.

The followers of the voodoo god of the sea Mami-Wata gathered there in the mid-September in order to find out how the becoming year is going to be. In the eve of the festival the voodoo priests got to a forest and looked for a sacred stone there. The next day the stone was brought to ceremony place where all the supporters and guests were waiting. The colour of the stone tells how the year is to treat us: the lighter the colour, the better the year is going to be. For the Mami-Watas, the white colour has special significance and everyone was dressed up in white (us included). In the blazing sunlight the sea of white dresses was dazzling.

This year there was disagreement among the priests of different sects about who among them was the honoured one to carry the sacred piece of Earth to the ceremony place. The dissatisfied party started to rebel. In the midst of everyone waiting for the stone to arrive – out of the blue – big (non-holy) stones started to fall from the sky to the audience who were trying to defend themselves by using chairs as a shield. The situation turned into a small chaos as people were running in all directions. Fortunately the conflict got soon settled and a white shiny stone found its way to the ceremony place promising the best possible for this year!

Avainsana: Religion