shouted Remi above the cacophony. On a high, I headed north to Abomey the next day. - Greater sense of connection to the Universe, - Stress-relief, such as lightening burdens. Roman Catholicism is by far the largest religious group in Benin and is followed closely by Islam and Vodun. 6 talking about this. I politely refused seconds. and never miss out again. In 2020, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival will feature a program about the West African nation of Benin and how communities connect to their environment through spirituality and traditional knowledge. It was the crowning moment in a miraculous spiritual adventure. It is quite small at 9.6 inches high, 4.9 inches wide, and 2.4 inches deep (24.5 cm H, 12.5 cm W, and 6 cm D). Mr Yaseen, a spiritualist with the highest level of Knowledge. Spiritual Healing in Benin : Yaseen Spiritualist This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/place/Benin-historical-kingdom-West-Africa, Art and Life in Africa - University of Iowa Museum of Art - Benin Kingdom, World History Encyclopedia - Kingdom of Benin, The British Museum - Benin: an African kingdom, Humanities LibreTexts - Kingdom of Benin (1180 CE 1897 CE), kingdom of Benin - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). On the initial visit the place was overgrown with tall grass and it was impossible to recognise any graves. The land, which is presently part of southern Nigeria, remained under British control until 1960. Rituals, related to the Benin cosmic view form an intrinsic part of life. Water, quartz and cowry shells were also heaped on the cast beads. Historians believe residents often dressed in bright colors, primarily blue, green, and yellow. Materials & Size It is a pendant mask made of elephant ivory, iron, and copper alloy. Frenzied drumming ushered the Egungun into the compound. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. Support the Folklife Festival, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, sustainability projects, educational outreach, and more. Following the Punitive Expedition of 1897, Benin City remained under British control for more than 60 years. Brian's sudden death was a huge blow to his wife, Patricia, who is still hale and hearty and living in her native Dublin, and the other members of his family. Using the traditional diviners tools of tray, sand, and shells, he conveys the results over the phone. Averting my eyes, it brushed its horsehair flywhisk across my face. Christianity entered Benin during the late 16th century. As reported by Black Past, little, if anything, remains of the legendary Kingdom of Benin. Edited from a report sent by Fr Peter McCawille SMA, Society of African Missions Fa diviner Koffi Akossa uses chains of kola nut pieces and other materials to gain insight into clients situations. Spiritual music, lyrics, and videos from Benin-City, NG on ReverbNation A lot of the nominal Muslims in Benin practice Islam together with their traditional local religious beliefs. In the tiny West African nation of Benin, Voodoo remains the state religion. The Gate of No Return in Ouidah, Benin (Shutterstock). He hails from Obrumudu-Oghara Ethiope West Local . St. Joseph Catholic Church It remains an important source of palm kernels, palm oil, and lumber. I sensed the Voodoo floodgates were opening. After beseeching the god to grant my wish, I sealed our deal by anointing the shrine with blood-red palm oil and spitting out three mouthfuls of fiery homemade gin. Copyright 2023 - Yasseen Spiritualist - All rights reserved. P.D. Peter McCawille, SMA, was working in Benin City. Voodoo Day is a public holiday and there is a national Voodoo museum. A core belief of spiritualism is that individuals survive the deaths of their bodies by ascending into a spirit existence. Through sacrifice, bokonon are able to communicate with deities and manipulate asean intangible concept, sometimes described as spirit or life force. Everything has asepeople and animals, as well as vodun. Possessed by the dead, men wore flamboyant sequin-spangled capes adorned with animal and human motifs. After communing directly with the powerful Dankoli fetish, a further half-day's drive north at Savalou, Filbert and I returned south for my last day in Benin. Josh Liberty | ReverbNation The reality of Voodoo in Benin - BBC News An Introduction to Fa Divination of Benin - Smithsonian Folklife Festival The audience hall in the palace in Benin City, in present-day Nigeria, was a space made to wow. The Oba of Benin is the traditional ruler of the Edo people, and his palace has sacred cultural significance. Google Arts and Culture reports Queen Iden was, and is, considered a hero for the sacrifice she made for the betterment of Benin city. Spiritual healing can be very empowering for the client, as there is a desire on the healers part to enable each person to heal themselves. The Non-Catholic Christians in Benin include Jehovah's Witness, Rosicrucians, Methodists, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Unification Church, Assemblies of God, Seventh-day Adventist, Celestial Christians, and Baptists. A pioneer Missionary to the North America born on the 16th June 1947 at Iguogie, in Benin City. In an attempt to bring her husband peace, and secure his position as Oba, Queen Iden offered herself to be sacrificed. I lost all my hopes getting rid of this . We passed coachloads of white-robed Christians fresh from celebrating the apparition of the Virgin Mary at Dassa-Zoume. The descendants of Benins ruling dynasty still occupy the throne in Benin City (although the present-day oba has only an advisory role in government). Written nearly 30 years ago, it tells of Dom Francisco de Silva, a 19th-century Brazilian migrant who became Benin's most notorious slave trader. Texas: A Celebration of Music, Food, and Wine, Roots of Virginia Culture: The Past is Present, Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions, Nuestra Msica: Music in Latino Culture (2005), Haiti: Freedom and Creativity from the Mountains to the Sea, Nuestra Msica: Music in Latino Culture (2004), South Africa: Crafting the Economic Renaissance of the Rainbow Nation, The Baltic Nations: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Heartbeat: The Voices of First Nations Women, Russian Roots, American Branches: Music in Two Worlds, The Czech Republic: Tradition and Transformation, Culture and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, Masters of Traditional Arts: The National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellows, Creativity and Resistance: Maroon Culture in the Americas, The Changing Soundscape in Indian Country, Forest, Field and Sea: Folklife in Indonesia, Roots of Rhythm and Blues: The Robert Johnson Era, Les Ftes Chez Nous: France and North America, The Caribbean: Cultural Encounters in the New World, Ingenuity and Tradition: The Common Wealth of Massachusetts, Migration to Metropolitan Washington: Making a New Place Home, Music from the Peoples of the Soviet Union, Cultural Conservation and Languages: America's Many Voices, Cultural Conservation: Traditional Crafts in a Post-Industrial Age, Black Urban Expressive Culture from Philadelphia, National Heritage Fellowships Program (1983), National Heritage Fellowships Program (1982), Music and Crafts of the Southeastern United States, Community Activities and Food Preservation, Folklife in the Museum: A Nation of Nations (1978), Folklife in the Museum: Renwick Gallery (1978), Folklife in the Museum: A Nation of Nations (1977), Folklife in the Museum: Hall of Musical Instruments, Folklife in the Museum: Renwick Gallery (1977), An Introduction to the Ozarks: Its Not What You Might Expect, Curating Creative Encounters: A Living Religions Playlist, Preserving the Personal: Armenian American Visitors Reflect on Festival Memories. Anyhow this was not my real inspiration for visiting Benin, a peaceful democratic West African minnow squeezed between Nigeria and Togo. A Christian worship service inside the Cotonou Cathedral. Two bulky 'monsters' galloped into the arena sending people scattering into a banana grove. A Look At Today's Voodoo Spirituality In Ghana They also sometimes ask for offerings, such as a chicken or a sheep, which is then sacrificed to the divinity, or some alcohol is poured onto the floor. Soon, 20 other women were doing the same; a lot of flesh for a modest Englishman. A sort of 'must try harder' school report, potentially remedied by sleeping under a white sheet with a light left on. Recommended Benin's constitution provides for freedom of religion which is also respected by the government. I followed a fanfarecortege(jazz funeral) and visited a temple writhing with pythons dedicated to the snake god Dan. I would like to say thanks once again. A compass of escape and meeting which rests on two main pillars: the spectacular character of the places, often classified with the UNESCO world heritage, and the charisma of the main characters who are transmitters of their respective traditions.Subscribe to see more full documentaries every week:https://bit.ly/2lneXNyTRACKS publishes unique, unexpected and untold stories from across the world every week. Religious Beliefs In Benin - WorldAtlas Amid pandemonium, the lady serving my meal screamed, ducked under my table and grabbed my legs. Keeping with tradition, the palace is situated in the center of the city. A miraculous spiritual adventure to Benin City | Society of African Fachtna ODriscoll, SMA, the Provincial of the Irish Province, who informed him that another Irish SMA, Fr. Many associations also sponsored camps where believers could congregate in a leisurely atmosphere, have private sessions with mediums, and attend daily sances. Privileged regalia. Voodoo spirituality, known in Ghana as Vodun, is one of them. King Ghezo's intricately carved throne rests upon four skulls of rival chiefs while beyond all taste (amid fine Portuguese silks and British cut-glass decanters) is a royal flywhisk assembled from a human cranium attached to a horsetail. Until one evening, while enjoying a fried fish and tomato-infused maize meal, a huge commotion occurred. Some Egungun whirled like dervishes, green, silver and yellow capes creating spinning circles. In 1843, English Methodists began in Benin spreading among the Gun people from the coastal region. Culturally diverse, Benin's people follow a diverse mix of Christian, Muslim and West African traditional beliefs. McCawille in the cemetery on Wednesday, 10th March, to which all those local people who had helped in finding the grave were invited. "Of course," he responded. - Spirit beings are little changed from their earlier selves as those in the spirit-world are Yet what really captivated me were the tales of Voodoo, a practice that is still followed by over 60% of Beninese today and considered the state religion. It was registered on 19 Jul 2016 and it's current status is unknown. "The power of Mawa-Lissa (Voodoo's Supreme Being) sent Fa to earth as a medium to answer questions about the future," Yvette told me, also describing how the medium casts his beads into one of 256 positions that he then interprets as the word of his god. Some simply scared the crowd. But during the 18th and early 19th centuries the kingdom was weakened by violent succession struggles between members of the royal dynasty, some of which erupted into civil wars. Communion with the spiritual world is both possible and desirable, and spiritual healing is the natural result of such communication. Instead, the main altar (bereft of human skulls) was a dribbling accumulation of wax and oil that reminded me of a cheesy table-decoration in an Italian restaurant. The messages that mediums claimed to receive were examined in order to build theoretical constructs for explaining how spirit contact could occur. It also profited greatly from the slave trade. In The Slave Trade, Depopulation and Human Sacrifice in Benin History, author James D. Graham recounts Commander Bacon's impression of Benin City. Since that time, increasing numbers of people throughout the country have been finding inspiration and guidance in the teachings of Bah'u'llh. In a local compound where ripening calabash fruits aped basketballs, Remi wangled me into a family ceremony of ancestor worship: Egungun. Spiritualists sought to make contact with the dead, commonly through the assistance of a medium, which is a person believed to have the ability to contact spirits directly. Benin is a religiously diverse country consisting of Atheism and Agnosticism which accounts for 7% of the population, West African folk religions and traditional beliefs aside from Vodun which accounts for 6% of Benin's population and Eckankar, Baha'i faith and other beliefs accounting for 3% of the countrys population. A person's condition after death is directly related to the moral quality of his human existence. Fa divination and its variants have adapted to the needs of the diverse communities in which they are found. Hornbills glided across the road with greater ease than the strugglingtaxis-brousse(bush taxis) bearing chassis-bending loads of people and cargo bound for Cotonou. However, by the dawn of the new century, the Edo people began clearing the rainforest and eventually building homes on the land. I raised my camera but several men with panic-stricken expressions warned me not to. May Brian Senior rest in peace until the day of the Resurrection. Blood is a nourishing force, one that builds community as it is shared between and among humans and spirits. However, upon further inspection, they realized there were clear patterns in the architecture and the actual layout of the city. b. See more information about the objects on Learning Lab. Tradition asserts that the Edo people became dissatisfied with the rule of a dynasty of semimythical kings, the ogisos, and in the 13th century they invited Prince Oranmiyan of Ife to rule them. Some mediums worked while in a trancelike state, and some claimed to be the catalyst for various paranormal physical phenomena (including the materializing or moving of objects) through which spirits announce their presence. Many divination practices are connected to religious traditions, but they are also used to glean insight into all aspects of daily life. One of the wonders of the world. - Ramandeep Kaur Cheema. Two brothers, Joe and Ger, and a sister, Eileen Irwin, still reside in Castlebar. But Voodoo is more than a belief system, it is a complete way of life, including culture, philosophy, language, art, dance, music and medicine. Residents also appointed judges or moderators to settle disputes and to maintain overall civility. These gatherings evolved into the Sunday church services that became common in spiritualist churches in the 20th century. "If your wish comes true," reminded Pascal, the Voodoo attendant, "you must return to sacrifice two chickens to Dankoli.". It was a defining and joyous moment. In 2016, the population of Benin City was estimated to be 1,500,000. Vodun majorly concentrates on spirits and divine elements that rule the earth, deities which govern human society and natural forces as well as spirits of individual trees, streams and rocks and defenders of a certain nation, clan or tribe.
Greater Democracy In The Progressive Era Powerpoint, Mexican Rooster Breed, Is Alex Meyer From Treehouse Masters Married, Articles S