Belief in witchcraft appears to be widespread in Benin, even among the educated. I often hear locals suggest that someone might fall victim to gris-gris, or black magic. My colleague's husband, for example, has never been able to identify someone as a sorcerer, but he knows what they do. For instance, a sorcerer might transform himself into a dog and then bite you. Even at church in Dangbo, I heard a woman explain how a jealous first wife cursed the new second wife, causing the second wife to be hospitalized with an incurable illness.
Recently, I was discussing burial practices with some village friends and they were surprised to learn of the practice of cremation. Here in Sonsoro, the dead are always buried. Burning is a fate reserved for those who practice gris-gris and must be killed in order to be stopped.
A few years ago in Sonsoro, there was such a situation. A man was widely known to practice gris-gris. Cross him and you would become sick or even die. If he asked you for food and you didn't serve him for free, he would curse you. Eventually, the killings came to be too much and the community decided they must be stopped. Therefore, for the good of the community, the man was rounded up and burned.
Death has been a predominant subject of conversation lately because of some significant deaths in the community. A few days ago, a well-respected old man died. In the local tradition, the community played music, danced, and feasted to celebrate his death. Here, deaths are celebrated when the deceased lived to an old age, or at least old father/motherhood. The locals consider that they were lucky that the person was with them for so long.
In contrast to that is the tragic death of two young men yesterday in a motorcycle accident. Around 9 pm, I heard strange, loud moaning sounds. Apparently, it was orchestrated mourning. Today, these deaths were the topic of conversation everywhere and hundreds of people participated in the funeral proceedings. The somber mood contrasted greatly with the joyful rejoicing we had a few days ago for the other death.
I wonder what they would think of our Halloween. A growing trend here seem to be what these people did for the old man and that is to celebrate ones life, not quite to the extent that these people have, but with a memorial. How old is old in Benin? Loud mourning seems to be common in third world countries, I think, which is such a contrast to the US.
ReplyDeleteJean Ralley
I have hesitated to say too much about Halloween since they actually do believe in witches. I guess I can just leave out the witches part. I just missed a Beninese Muslim holiday called Tabaski. Like Christians and Jews, Muslims have the Biblical story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son but God saying he could sacrifice a ram instead. In remembrance of this story, Beninese Muslims slaughter rams on Tabaski (which was on Friday), eat the meat, and share liberally with their neighbors and the poor. My colleague was planning to buy three rams: one for himself and one for each wife.
ReplyDeleteI am not quite sure what the cut-off for old is here. The death of someone in his 20s and perhaps 30s would be considered a tragedy, and someone who is 70+ would be a celebration. I am not so sure about the rest. My colleague said that 64 is still too young, but a friend of mine danced at her father's funeral when he was presumably much younger.
My dad has always said that he wants his funeral to be a celebration of his life and he joked about us booking the Beach Boys. Now he's settled on just having Beach Boys and Beatles music, and he's been working with my siblings to pick out the specific songs.