The second day of my stay in Daagbe, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house for a whole day. Not because I did anything bad, but because Oro, a voodoo fetish that women aren’t allowed to see (or they die/someone hurts them), was out that day.
Oro gets three days a year to rule the town, all within a 21-day span that’s like the Oro season of the year. By the time I move in to Daagbe, the season will be over, so I won’t have to worry about it until next year (the townspeople have promised to tell me in advance when he’s coming, so I’ll be completely safe). Actually, next year, I’ll probably take a weekend trip around that time – it’d be a good excuse to visit friends.
Anyway, so I (and everyone else in the town) stayed inside all day and listened to Oro run up and down the street all day – it sounded like a recording of a lawnmower with high whistling giggles on top. Fun fact about voodoo: woman priests are actually way more powerful than man priests. Less cool but related facts: women are so powerful that they can’t be trusted to handle their power until they’re older, and when they’re on their period, they’re dirty and can’t be let into the temple. Thus, male voodoo priests are obligated to have more than one wife, so that there’s always someone who’s not bleeding to work the magic.
That was a little critical, and I apologize. Voodoo is a pretty cool religion, and there’s a traditional healer who lives close to me in village. I met him, and he gave me a long speech (in Goun, translated by my friend Gabriel) about how he was so, so, sooo happy to have me there, how I was going to do such good things for the village, and how he was going to do some praying for me to protect me against any black magic that might happen. Really sweet, and good to know that I’ve got all sorts of gods on my side.
No comments:
Post a Comment