Related
Translate
Previous entry: A Wholly Controversial Holy Man
Next entry: Slimming clubs weigh into trademark war over who has the right to ’sin’
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- Australian senator tells Parliament of widespread criminal conduct within the Church of Scientology
- World’s oldest ocean-going passenger ship, ministry ship Doulos, to stop sailing
- When a child dies, faith is no defense
- Israel Charges Extremist With Attempted Murder Of Messianic Family
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
- 1-year prison term for man who participated in cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites
- Australian police take up complaints about Scientology
Voodoo priests may catch bird flu
More articles on this topic: VoodooPriests who tear out the throats of live chickens in ritual sacrifices to voodoo gods may risk contracting bird flu now the deadly virus has reached Africa.
Voodoo priests in Benin, which borders Nigeria where an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus was found in poultry last week, sacrifice animals to invoke blessings or favours from the gods.
Officials in the tiny West African country, which is the home of the ancient religion, say spreading the word about bird flu may help to save the lives of voodoo devotees.
“We have identified the groups at risk, including fetishists and followers of the voodoo cult who sometimes kill animals with their teeth,” says Guillaume Hounsou-ve, director of livestock at Benin’s agriculture ministry.
Sheep, goats and other animals are sometimes sacrificed, but the favourite offering is a chicken.
Priests commonly kill birds by ripping their throats out with their teeth or using a knife to cut their heads off.
Both methods would bring them into contact with chicken blood, one of the ways bird flu is thought to be spread to humans.
The disease has killed more than 90 people in Asia and Turkey since 2003.
Hounsou-ve and other senior officials in Benin have spent the past few days drafting an action plan to counter bird flu.
“We will target our messages, above all in regions where there are ‘convents’,” says Hounsou-ve, referring to the houses used for voodoo rituals.
A common practice
An estimated 60% of Benin’s 7 million people practise voodoo, although many also follow other religions like Christianity or Islam.
Voodoo convents are found across Benin but more commonly in southern areas near the Atlantic seaboard.
Once known as the Slave Coast, many thousands of Africans were shipped from here by European traders during more than three centuries of slave trading.
Many took their voodoo beliefs with them to the New World, notably Haiti, where rites and traditions from different parts of Africa met and evolved.
Voodoo in West Africa and the Caribbean encompasses a wide range of rituals, from sacrificing animals to dancing, in which devotees fall into trances said to be a form of possession by gods.
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: A Wholly Controversial Holy Man Next entry: Slimming clubs weigh into trademark war over who has the right to ’sin’
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
