Event Details

The voodoo religions surround a touch of mysticism and exoticism. Many people associate voodoo with needle puppets and zombies. The reality is much more complex. In fact, the voodoo religions are centuries old and have a comprehensive and abstract theological foundation. They can be traced back to the Yoruba religion in Nigeria and possibly even further back to the ancient civilizations in the northeast of the African continent. Today, as the religion is called in Africa, Vodun is mainly distributed in Benin, Ghana and Togo. Through the slave trade, West Africans arrived in the Caribbean and on the American mainland and with them their beliefs, which in the colonies mingled with Christianity and indigenous religions of America. Especially in Haiti, a separate voodoo variant was formed. But also in Cuba, Brazil and the US there are African-American religions, which are strongly influenced by Vodun and Yoruba. The exhibition is a world premiere and shows for the first time these religions on both sides of the Atlantic in their entirety. On two floors, we present almost 1,200 objects.