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Powerful Pots, Humbling Holes, and Regional Ritual Processes: Towards an Archaeology of Huedan Vodun, ca. 1650–1727

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Abstract

Situated along the “Slave Coast” of West Africa, the international coastal trading entrepôt of Ouidah is infamous as the point of embarkation for hundreds of thousands of people spirited into the Middle Passage. Accordingly, scholars have looked to it and the surrounding region as a font of culture and history for diasporic groups. In scholarly narratives, the larger Gbe-speaking region surrounding Ouidah is characterized as the homeland of Vodun, a religious tradition that influenced diasporic religions throughout the Atlantic world. This paper explores early Huedan Vodun at a local level and works to bolster, and at the same time problematize, the project of addressing Vodun at increasing geographic scales and temporal depths. It builds on longstanding research which recognizes that context is critical for interpreting possible ritual or religious significance of archaeological material.

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Notes

  1. See Blier (1995b), Deschamps (1960), Herskovits (1932), Herskovits and Herskovits (1933), Maupoil (1943), Médiohouan (1993), and Verger (1957) for broader issues in the study of Vodun. I use vodun to describe the generic term for deity or spirit and Vodun to describe the religious tradition.

  2. E. Kofi Agorsah, pers. comm., Jan. 2009, suggested that Gilli's translation of the Ewe word vo may need further fieldwork to confirm.

  3. I use Hueda (or Huedan as an adjective) to describe the 17th- through 18th-century coastal polity located in the modern Republic of Bénin also known as Fida (Dutch), Ajuda (Portuguese), Whydah (English), Ouidah (French), Xueda, Quedah, Quittah, etc. I use Ouidah to describe the orthographically ambiguous Huedan coastal trading center known locally as Gléhué. I use Savi to refer to the capital of the Huedan polity known also as Xavier, Sabi, etc.

  4. It is beyond the scope of this paper to present an atlas of the historiography of the region or Hueda. For reviews, see Akinjogbin (1967), Bay (1998), and Law (1989a, b, 1990, 1991, 2004). This paper builds on efforts (e.g., Bay 2008; Blier 1995a) to explore and foreground the material culture of Vodun and specifically describe the active role that such objects played in mediating and producing cultural processes.

  5. Kenneth Kelly first used archaeological and ethno-historic techniques to identify the historically known Huedan palace at Savi. For a review of this research, see Kelly (2002). I am indebted to Kelly for introducing me to the archaeology of the region and sharing his unpublished materials.

  6. For a discussion of the multi-ethnic community at Ouidah, see Law (2004).

  7. If modern Vodun practices can be used as a guide, such features may relate to Legba shrines. See section below.

  8. See Aronson (2007: 81) and Norman (2000).

  9. For a technical and morphological discussion of ritual ceramics in southern Bénin, see (David 1983) and Norman (2000). For a similar discussion of smithing, see McNaughton's (1979) discussion of Nyama, the Bamana term for energy in action which blacksmiths use to transform billet into usable tools, but a force that can also become unstable and dangerous during such acts of transformation.

  10. In the Gbe language cluster, the suffix -zen indicates ceramics (cf. Savary 1970: 36). Thus, danzen translates literally as ceramic for/of the serpent deity, dan.

  11. David (1983: 170) suggests that perforations on adjalalazen represent the pocked scars of smallpox. These vessels are common in modern shrines to Sakapata, the deity of smallpox (Norman 2000). In the 19th century, Richard Burton noted a “perforated pot” in the same shrine that contained a “Bo-doll” (Burton 1966[1864]: 178–79).

  12. Nonetheless, modern ritual ceramics are subjected to the elements, children at play, and curious livestock.

  13. For a similar characterization see Fatunsin (1992: 32) , who argues that in Yoruba religious veneration, the design on ritual ceramics often reflect some of the attributes of the divinity the pot is used to venerate.

  14. Earlier in this paper, I argued that in the modern religious practices of the region, there appears to be a regionally reoccurring preference for perforated ceramic vessels in ritual settings. It appears from excavations at Aseye rockshelter, Iffe-Ijumu in southwest Nigeria (Allsworth-Jones 1996: 320) and Old Oyo by Willet (1961: 76), and Crossland and Posnansky (1978) at Begho in Ghana that perforated ceramics were common in archaeological assemblages dating to the 17th and 18th century. In both the Ghananian and Nigerian examples, the authors used modern rites to interpret the archaeological material as having ritual significance.

  15. David (1983: 174) notes that large ceramic cooking vessels are used by the Gun in southern Benin to contain the skulls of family members

  16. I thank Suzanne Blier who shared with me her thoughts on the incised decoration of this vessel as well as for bringing to my attention her work on the Dahomean weke.

  17. Phillips (1732: 224) claims to have shot a “wooden” figure, presumably the Agoye, after waiting several hours for it to speak and give a pronouncement. Based on archaeological research at the house, compounds of Huedan elites where ceramic figures similar in depositional context and form to modern wooden bo or bochio figures, it appears Bay (2001: 52) has further cause to argue that elites in the Dahomey Gap zone used such figures in religious rites.

  18. See Ogundiran's (2002b: 46-47) description of a 13th-century burial at Iloyi of a decapitated skeleton, with a grinding stone, quartz stones, jar, and bowl fragment, possible food offerings, the skull of a sheep/goat and a land-snail shell.

  19. Georgina Beier (1980) suggests that in Nigeria, certain types of ritual pottery have died out including ritual pots, and relief sculpture made for the shrines of orisa, in particular for Sango and Erinle. Beier argues that this decline relates to the rise in popularity of modern mass-manufactured ceramics in a sinusoidal relationship with the declining popularity of locally produced ceramic ones.

  20. See Mintz and Price's (1992) discussion of “cognitive orientations” or dispositions transcending specific West African cultures and Apter's (2002) discussion of the of the broad Dahomean–Yoruba complex in terms of regional ritual process.

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Adria LaViolette, Kenneth Kelly, J. Cameron Monroe, Jeffrey Hantman, Grey Gundaker, E. Kofi Agorsah, Suzanne Blier, and Joseph C. Miller for comments on earlier versions of this paper and/or the dissertation project from which it was drawn. Alexis Adandé served as the local coordinator of my project and offered his considerable knowledge of the archaeology of southern Benin. Joseph Adandé, Obaré Bagodo, Souayibou Varissou, Bienvenue Olory, Didier N'dah, and Elisée Soumoni deserve special thanks for their kind encouragement and local logistical assistance. Hope Norman gracefully rendered the line drawings and ably and patiently assisted in all aspects of the field project. Early field efforts in 2003–2004 were supported by The Explorers Club Washington Group; the Graduate School of Arts and Science, University of Virginia (UVa); the Department of Anthropology, UVa; and the Center for Academic Excellence, UVa. The longer field season in 2005–2006 was funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant (#0432893), a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (#P022A0500), and a special grant by the Embassy of the Netherlands to Cotonou. The paper was strengthened through the comments of two anonymous reviewers. All errors and omissions of fact are the sole responsibility of the author.

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Norman, N.L. Powerful Pots, Humbling Holes, and Regional Ritual Processes: Towards an Archaeology of Huedan Vodun, ca. 1650–1727. Afr Archaeol Rev 26, 187–218 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-009-9057-1

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