In Benin the national faith is celebrated every year on Voodoo Day. The day is filled with animal sacrifices , ceremonies , and ritual dances , with religious ecstasy as the ultimate goal.

In Benin the national faith is celebrated every year on Voodoo Day. The day is filled with animal sacrifices , ceremonies , and ritual dances , with religious ecstasy as the ultimate goal.

People come to this lively festival in Benin from the surrounding countries in West Africa as well as from countries where the descendants of slaves live, such as Brazil, Haiti and the US, to celebrate their roots and their faith. Benin is the only country where vodun, meaning “spirit" in the local language, is officially recognized and where there is a national holiday to celebrate it.

All over the country, Beninese carry out rituals for the spirits who define man’s happiness on earth. The most lavish ceremonies are held in Ouidah, a town on the Atlantic coast from which hundreds of thousands of slaves were shipped to America and the Caribbean. On the beach there is a monument to them, “The gate of no return.” During the festival, worshippers circle this gate in a ritual dance, as the roaring crowd cheers along to the drumbeats. Along the road connecting the town and the beach, the 4 kilometer-long Route des Esclaves, people perform their own little rituals and sacrifice chickens and goats. This dirt road is a sacred place for the Beninese, and you can see talismans and figurines. In addition to these smaller observances, there are more organized ceremonies which vodun high priests and the kings of the various tribes attend.