Abomey and the Dahomey Kingdom

After Natitingou we headed to Abomey, the capital of the Dahomey Kingdom. The Dahomey Kingdom was the kingdom responsible for the slave-trade with the Europeans in this part of West Africa (these slaves were shipped out of Ouidah, where we were days earlier). The museum - a UNESCO World Heritage Site - left much to be desired, but the owner of our hotel (a local who grew up in Ouidah) gave us a tour of Abomey that was fantastic. He spoke English well, but with a foreign accent that gave him an air of authenticity in the African town. He told the stories of Dahomey's Kingdom with such enthusiasm and mysticism that we were forced to listen with the fascanation of a child listening to his bedtime story; wide-eyed and grinning ear-to-ear. The Godfather (as we dubbed him) began the tour with his friends and himself singing an ancient Dahomey song that people in Abomey still sing when they have laboruious work to do, and it ended with the same song. It was a great touch and had a beautiful melody.
During our tour of Abomey - which consisted of visiting the ruins of several palaces of former kings, as well as sacred Voodoo temples - we saw a funeral procession along the main road. The casket was a typical casket, complete with a crucifix affixed to it, but the procession that consumed it was all Voodoo. There was music and chanting, singing and praising. Passerbys and onlookers threw change onto the coffin, or else placed it on the wife's forehead, where it would then fall to the ground and to be picked up by other family members. The most startling part of the procession was when the two young men carrying the coffin - who we assumed to be sons - got to the centre of the roundabout and began running as fast as they could with the coffin, coming within inches of a sealed door (that I originally thought they were going to try to break through with the coffin), only to turn around and head back in the opposite direction with an equal amount of force and determination. They did this several times across the circle, so much so that twice we had to get out of the way of a casket running at us with the determination of death (sorry). They finally placed the casket on the circle and took some much needed rest as passerbys threw more money on the casket (as onlookers, we did indeed throw on some coins of our own). The experience was mesmerizing.
The same night we were taken to a small Voodoo ceremony with two guides. It was held in the courtyard of a small settlement (the equivalent of a 'court' by our street-standards), and attracted what seemed to be all the local families. The Voodoo priest (who is dressed in ornate style with threads and beads coming off him at every angle) began the ceremony with some dancing that was followed by some talking in African tongue. The rhetoric seemed light and in good humour, as laughs were regularly drown from those in attendance. Following that, several other ornately dressed people came out and danced for over an hour. Often the dances turned into 'face-offs', or were otherwise mirror interpretations between two people. As we were unable to ask questions (our guides only spoke French, and it wasn't appropriate for us to be asking questions during the ceremony), we are not sure of the significance of much. One interesting thing that happened to us was when we nearly had our sandals taken by one of the priests. Apparently it is impolite to wear sandals during the ceremony, but our guides were either dumb or ignorant of this rule, as they had their sandals taken, and bribed the priest so as not to take ours. After that, we took our sandals off for the remainder of the ceremony. Although this sounds really bad, there were many people wearing sandals, and the priest made a point of getting as many sandals as he could until everyone was in bare feet. It was a little scary at the time, but immediately following it provided a few shaky laughs (from us) and friendly smiles (from those around us). While dancing was obviously an integral part of the ceremony, so too was the music. The 'band' consisted of about 8 to 10 young men playing African drums and bells. The music was so constant and so intense at times that it was intoxicating and dizzy-ing. Music is without a doubt one of the most sacred and constant things in West Africa.
After the ceremony we returned to our hotel to get some much needed rest. Despite the best inetentions of the Godfather, his hotel is a dump: no running water; a hard and lumpy mattress, and; a tempermental power supply. Add to all this the biggest cockroach I have ever seen serving as a guard to the bathing quarters (he definitely kept people out), and Abomey goes down as an all-out African experience in less than 20 hours.