WEST AFRICA PART 2 "GELEDE" "Mothers Power, Gelede Dance" A Vodou Ritual! Benin/Ketou

Images of the traditional Gelede dance ceremonies held in Ketou, Benin, from the images I obtained during the trip we made with the team before the World Doesn't Change in the West African countries Benin Togo and Ghana in January 2020. The origin of the vodouu belief, which is the manifestation of spiritist, that is, animist beliefs in the region, is the lands of West Africa.
Although the origin is much older, after meeting the white man, it became even stronger as a spiritual protective shield against those who enslaved their people. In summary, it is a whole worldview that includes medicine, justice and philosophy, and it is believed that everything, animate and inanimate, has a spirit on the basis of belief. The creator god has twin children, the moon goddess and the sun god.
That's why families with twin children think they are rewarded by the gods. Since God does not deal with worldly affairs, divine beings and vodouu priests take care of these things for the god. As a natural result, this creates a clergy class, and genetic transmission is defined to ensure the continuity of the class.
Today, communities that perform special dances by wearing Gelede masks are called Gelede. Gelede dance is the most important ritual of the Yoruba, one of the most important tribes living in Benin, Togo Nigeria and Sierra Leone with a population of 30 million. The Yoruba also live in Cuba, Brazil, and the Caribbean, where they were taken during slavery.
The Gelede dance is performed at the beginning of the annual agricultural cycle, at funerals or during important events such as famine or epidemics. Olodumare is the name of the one and only supreme god in the Yoruba. There are also divine beings believed to provide communication between Oludumare and people. The general name of these divine beings, believed to be commissioned by Oludumare, is Orishas.
The most common of the Orishas, ​​who act as intermediaries between the divine realm and the human realm, are Obatala, Eshu, Orunmila(ifa), Oduduva, Shango, Ogun, and Oshun. Women are believed to have a power called ASE. According to the belief, it is up to these women to use this power as creative, restorative or destructive. When these powers are used in a destructive way, women are called aje, or witches, and are believed to have the capacity to destroy individuals or entire communities when angered.
The gelede dance, which has been performed since the 18th century, has been included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list since 2008.
In these ceremonies, however, do not use your destructive powers against the Yoruba people; instead, many rituals are performed to encourage rain and fertile soil. For these reasons, the Gelede dance is called the “Mothers Power”. Reminiscent of western theater, where each mask represents a humorous or ironic character, Gelede shows also serve as an educational function to organize social and daily life, rather than entertaining the audience with the short stories they contain.
Gelede masks, which have feminine features, are carried by men dressed as women and give the message they want to give to the community both with their masks and with their dances.
While it gives useful messages on many issues, from limiting the number of children to prohibiting circumcision in girls, it also includes many rituals from frightening children to respecting authority in order to regulate the social hierarchy.
As a result, the Coming ritual, which is guided by the current government with the aim of ensuring the social order for them and the purpose of their power, has a very important place in terms of vodou belief.
The most widely performed ritual among the Yoruba tribes continues in its original form in very few regions today.
The images I acquired during the demonstrations during my trip to Benin Ketou in 2020 found a place for him in Strasbourg, France, on November 18, 2022. The original masks of gelede rituals are exhibited in the exhibition, which will be open until 8 October 2023 in the museum called “Château musée Vodouu”. It will be a pleasure for me to be visited by friends who have passed through France.
The shows you will watch in the videos will perhaps lose this sincerity and authenticity after a few years. For these reasons, I wanted to share the information I gathered about the Gelede culture, accompanied by these images I recorded.
Enjoy watching
Koksal Sahin
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Kalitenin adresi, yine mükemmel belgesel tadında bir video 👏🏻

[@atakansahin4354]

Gelede dansından güzel görüntülerle beraber törenlerini anlatan harika bir video olmuş.

[@nadiravsaroglu8788]

Mükemmel bir çalışma. ;nsanın meramı, merakı ve görüp öğrendiklerini kalıcı olarak sergilemesi ve diğerlerine aktarması çok önemli. Devamını da bekliyoruz.