Voodoo priests pray for tsunami victims

Voodoo priests pray for tsunami victims

Ouidah, Benin - Sacrificing two chickens and a goat, a group of Voodoo priests in the West African nation of Benin joined the millions of people around the world praying for survivors of the Asian tsunami disaster.

The prayers of "relief for the ravaged people" were made during annual National Voodoo Day celebrations by top Voodoo priestess Nagbo Hounon Gbesso, who sacrificed the animals on a beach here on Monday.

Forty kilometres to the east in the seaside commercial capital, Cotonou, Hounongan Agbegbe, deputy head of a national Voodoo community, called upon the spirits of the dead "to relieve the pain of the people devastated and tested in Asia by the tidal waves".

More than 150 000 people died in the December 26 earthquake and tsunami, across 11 countries on the Indian Ocean.

At least 60 percent of Benin's six million inhabitants practice Voodoo - a tradition that holds, in part, that life derives from the natural forces of earth, water, fire and air.

Countless Africans shipped into slavery from this lagoon-lined strip of the south Atlantic took the legacy of Voodoo with them to the Caribbean, the American South, and elsewhere.

Ouidah, a long strip of beach west of Cotonou, served as a major embarkation point for the slaves.

Today, scores of Americans and Haitians return every year to attend the January 10 festival, which began here in 1995.

Last year, Voodoo priests in Benin prayed for bloodshed across Africa to end. - Sapa-AP

Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-01-11 07:10:34

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