How the West demonised Vodou (something completely different)
Africa is in the process of recovering its old social customs. One of these is the religion of Vodou. Most people on our side of the ocean are familiar with this as mainly a Haitian custom.
Vodou is gravely misunderstood worldwide they say in the final video. In the West, it has been portrayed as devil worship and cult-like. But even keeping the 6,000-year-old religion alive in its home country has been a challenge – chiefly thanks to colonialism and the barbaric slave trade. We went to Benin to demystify the past, present and future of this vibrant religion.
This is not the only old religion or spiritual customs from Africa and there are many methodologies. With old customs like this, the clarity of bringing wisdom through to today without a written record and in the midst of grave destabilization across centuries may be questioned. The leaders of the practice today may be fully suspect.
I lived in Africa and have seen of course the customs, attended some ceremonies and have heard the stories. What I know (and this is from indigenous) is that the religion itself is highly dependent on ancestors. I am reminded of the recent speech that we posted from Ebrahim Traoré, where in his poetic opening statement for a new African Covenant, he referred to the ancestors twice, both in the opening sentences, as well as in the closing. https://sovereignista.com/2025/05/21/ebrahim-traore-a-new-african-covenant/
May the ancestors watch with pride
We will honor our ancestors by refusing to repeat their captivity
As younger children on farms in Africa, all that we were interested in ceremonially were the jumping and dance and following the leaders and the drumbeat. We were interested in fun aspects but nothing else. I don’t feel today that anything harmed me. As an adult, of course I listened to the stories and those were all about lost love, bad mothers in law and problems of life. Of course the ancestors were consulted and some stories were horrific. Those ancestors could make one take out that mother in law right smartly. Average people believed that. There was always the Tokeloshe which was this little elf like spirit being supposedly kind to humans but could trick them as well and the Tokeloshe could make normal people break out in fear sweat if they thought they insulted the spirit being.
In the Southern parts of the continent, there is only one practitioner that I really had respect for. His name was Credo Mutwa and he has passed on now. He followed the ancestors, but also the Christian church.
He built a cultural village located in the heart of Soweto, south of Johannesburg. It consists of a remarkable collection of buildings and sculptures, which attempt to document African art, mythology, culture, folklore and architecture. The village is also a journey into the mind of one of South Africa’s most intriguing cultural figures.
Credo Mutwa is a controversial figure, to say the least. He is one of Africa’s foremost sangomas or traditional healers – although he describes himself as a ‘sanusi’, an archaic term for a role that includes prophetic divination as well as traditional medicine.
He is also a firm believer that aliens walk among us, coming and going as they please. Despite his colourful life he is highly regarded as an artist, cultural commentator and recently, for his work in conservation and hospice treatment.
In 1974 Credo Mutwa, in an attempt to enlighten Africans to their own greatness as well as to protect their cultural heritage, began to fill a site in Soweto with sculptures of images and stories from African folklore. He continued this work on and off for 12 years, training other artists to help him complete his vision.
However, in the political turmoil of the 1980s, Mutwa’s support for Black Consciousness ideas of positive African separatism – which called for black people to develop their own communities, without the input of white people – was misinterpreted by some as support for apartheid.
As a result, the site was vandalised several times, and Mutwa’s son was murdered in the political clashes around it. In 1986 he abandoned the project, leaving everything to fall into a tragic state of neglect and disrepair. In 2006 a restoration project was undertaken under the guidance of Musa Ntanzi, a student of Mutwa.
The village consists of recreations of tribal homesteads, traditional burial practices and an eclectic array of sculptures: from Zulu chiefs and tokoloshes (African elves that sometimes help humans, but usually trick them into harm), to gods and aliens.
The site is surrounded by gardens containing plants like the wild olive, aloe, plumbago and the canary creeper, which are used in traditional African medicine. The sangomas who live close to the area often come to the gardens to gather materials for their practices.
Credo Mutwa in discussion with David Icke and Bill Ryan:
The original video on Vodou in Benin is at this link: It is too big to load up on Global South.