OUIDAH, Benin-
A heartbeat-like drum throbs as West African women wearing cowrie shells and beads writhe before a carved fetish. A knife-wielding man with a chalk-whitened face performs intricate dance steps to honor the python spirit. The 10-day Benin Voodoo Festival wrapped up Wednesday with a final celebration of original African-style ancestor and spirit worship, not the pin-stuck dolls and black-magic zombies of Hollywood lore. American visitors of African descent were on hand at a former slave port in the tiny West African nation to discover their ancestors’ practices. Amid the singing, drumming and praying, many also contemplated roots ripped asunder. “Did my great-grandmother stand on this beach? Am I from here?” wondered 23-year-old Alise Williams, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “There is so much of our history that is lost,” said Williams softly as a crowd of women wearing red feathers passed by, singing in a language Williams didn’t understand to a god she doesn’t know. “But now we come to learn, not exploit.”
