Art African Iron Ritual Voodoo Fon 1693

Fon voodoo ritual iron from Benin. Piece over 50 years old. Piece on base.

At the top of the pantheon of Vodou gods reigns Mawu, the supreme god surrounded by related gods, the Lwa.

All are represented except mawu. They take the form of fetishes: stones, plants, pieces of metal, statues, sticks, mounds of earth, bottles, pots, or a composite of several materials.

They ensure the protection of the property of the home or the community, chasing away disease or any kind of plague.

These fetishes are sacred objects in which the spirit or the force of the god finds its embodiment. The material accumulated on their surface until it disappears gives it its power.

Voodoo was born from the meeting of the traditional cults of the Yoruba gods and the Fon and Ewe deities, during the creation and then the expansion of the Fon kingdom of Abomey in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Voodoo is the cultural foundation of the peoples who descended by successive migrations from Tado to Togo, the Adja (including the Fons, the Gouns, the Ewe... and to a certain extent the Yoruba...) peoples who constitute an important element of the populations in southern Gulf States of Benin (Benin, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria…).

Voodoo (pronounced vodoun) is the adaptation by the Fon of a Yoruba word meaning "god". Voodoo therefore designates all the gods or invisible forces whose power or benevolence men try to conciliate. It is the affirmation of a supernatural world, but also the set of procedures allowing to enter into a relationship with it. Voodoo corresponds to the Yoruba cult of the Orishas. Just as voodoo is a cult to the spirit of the world of the invisible. At each opening, the Vodun priest asks for the help of the spirit of Papa Legba to open the doors of the two worlds.

Voodoo can be described as a culture, heritage, philosophy, art, dances, language, art of medicine, style of music, justice, power, oral tradition and rites.

With the slave trade, voodoo culture spread to America and the Caribbean islands, especially Haiti. It is characterized by the rites of "incorporation" (voluntary and temporary possession by the spirits), the sacrifices of animals, the belief in the living dead (zombies) and in the possibility of their artificial creation, as well as the practice of witchcraft on pin dolls (voodoo doll).

The practice of their religion and culture was prohibited by the settlers, punishable by death or imprisonment, and was therefore practiced in secret. Voodoo, however, integrated Catholic rites and conceptions, thus making it acceptable. Thus was born the “Christian voodoo”.

In the 1950s, the Vatican made peace with the voodoo cult.

Voodoo has endured and its practitioners display their beliefs without fear.