Benin: Abomey – Voodoo Fetish Market
Benin is the heart of the Vodun or Vodoun or Voodoo religion and Abomey is its heart. To get shivers down your spine and a shock to your system – come visit the voodoo fetish market in Abomey. Shock, awe, disgust, horror, nausea will circulate through your system. The voodoo practice is based on the existence of a variety of spirits that constantly need to be pleased and spoken too via various fetishes, sacrificial ceremonies, voodoo dolls, and so on and so forth, wearing various amulets, making various bizarre concoctions and drinking, eating, and touching all this insanity, plus sacrificing live animals. The fetish market in Abomey is a vast collection of dead and dried, as well as live, animals and objects. If you want to see all the animal species that once existed in West Africa, but are now near extinct – come here! We saw dozens on leopard and cheetah heads, hyena heads and skins, hedgehogs and porcupines, wild civet cat skins and skills, domestic cats and dogs, horse skulls, dry chameleons and frogs and lizards by the pound, dried crocodiles, hundreds of rare owls, dried and recently killed colorful birds like Abyssinian rollers, parrots and even ground hornbill skulls. It’s just totally horrifying and insane! And people in Abomey buy and sell and use all these in ceremonies every single day, even saying – “I am a Christian but I still practice voodoo”. At least now you know why there is no wildlife in West African National parks.
