High Tide in Tucson_ Essays From Now or Never - Barbara Kingsolver [78]
The Royal Palace Museum at Abomey, in central Benin, is a monument made of red clay soil and blood. The twelve successive kings of the Dahomey Empire struck fear through West Africa for two and a half centuries, prior to the French conquest in 1892. When a Dahomey king died, his subjects killed huge numbers of war prisoners in his honor and mixed their blood into the walls of a temple built to house his spirit. The prisoners would otherwise have been sold to Portuguese slave traders, so it’s hard to assess the exact degree of their bad luck. I felt chilled, considering their lives, as a museum guide led me through the labyrinth of the palace’s red walls. We entered a hall of huge carved animals, the royal icons for different kings: a blue chameleon, a copper-covered lion, a hyena with a poor wide-eyed, half-swallowed goat sticking out of its mouth. (That one, I was told, symbolizes the king’s lack of compassion for enemies.) Specifics of history were recorded on giant appliquéd tapestries on the wall. The one devoted to Guézo, ninth in the line of kings, showed Guézo himself engaged in one of his legendary sports: beating an enemy over the head with the unfortunate’s own dismembered leg. In the long hall that housed all twelve kings’ wooden thrones, Guézo’s stood out, twice as high as the others, resting on the skulls of four of his important enemies. “They were Yoruba,” the guide stated placidly as I stared at the varnished skulls. “From north of here.”
In another courtyard, a small temple held the remains of wives of the tenth ruler, Glélé. When a king died, the guide explained, forty-one of his wives were also killed, to keep him company. (“Would those have been his most or least favorite?” I asked; the guide said, “Probably the prettiest.” So. A high price for beauty.) We crossed the compound, past a long row of cannons bought from the Portuguese for fifteen slaves apiece, and arrived at the tomb of Glélé himself. I was asked to remove my sandals, out of respect, before ducking through a doorway into the dim clay room. A fabric-draped bed marked the burial spot. On market days, townspeople bring food here to leave as offerings.
I returned blinking to the bright courtyard, wondering what it could be in this ferocious history that still inspires devotion. African political scientists point out that tribal wars are a legacy of colonialism, with its doctrines of cultural superiority and its habit of roping different cultures together inside arbitrary borders. Undoubtedly this is true, but Abomey stands as a testimony to precolonial horrors. Silently I walked past piles of charred animal bones left behind from a recent ceremony. Yesterday’s rain had settled the dust, and in the palms above me even the birds seemed subdued.
Ouidah, the historic point of departure for most of the slaves sold from West Africa, had been chosen as the noisy heart of the International Vodoun Festival. The old Portuguese fort, which houses a museum on slavery, I found crowded with African tourists participating in what mostly resembled a street fair.
On the edge of town, just out of earshot of all the hubbub, was the Sacred Forest, a shadowy glen where fetish chiefs are buried. Huge statues of vodoun divinities had been erected there among the trees, for the tourists. I walked among them, stopping to admire Legba, a household protector: he sported the horns of a bull and a huge, erect penis. A woman standing beside me was wearing the image of Pope John Paul II all over her body—a special edition of wax cloth commemorating the recent papal visit. She fanned herself in the steamy heat and rested a hand on Legba’s giant bronze foot.
As the only Yovo in sight,