A Ghanaian-Japanese Priest preserves African spirituality
“Until the Lion learns to tell its story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”-An African Proverb
My name is Sena Voncujovi and I was born into a family of West African Vodu priests. The word “Vodu” comes from the Ewe and Fon languages and simply means “spirit” or “free the community”. It is a set of ancient West African spiritual practices that consist of spirit reverence, ancestor worship, and herbal remedies. The West has portrayed Vodu and other African spiritual traditions as primitive, superstitious, and backward — sentiments that, over time, Africans themselves have internalized. According to the World Factbook, Eight out of ten Ghanaians today are either Christian or Muslim, and given the current dominance of these religions, practitioners of Vodu are often stigmatized in contemporary Ghanaian society. Throughout my life, I was often labeled a “devil worshipper” by my peers and even teachers. As you can see, the legacy of colonialism can so wholly and intimately affect a society, even decades or centuries after the departure of the Colonialists.
With the number of practitioners dwindling by the generation, this ancient practice is in danger of going extinct. With the death of each elder, age-old ancestral wisdom and knowledge, orally transferred through generations, is tragically being lost forever. Although my father, a Ewe Vodu priest, has been recording traditional practices for the past two decades, his efforts were merely for familial records and often inaccessible. I knew that in order to effectively preserve this ancient knowledge system, we needed to modernize how we documented and transmitted our practices.
To tackle these problems, I started a project called ReVodution (combining the words “Vodu” and “revolution”) five years ago in the U.S while I was a student. ReVodution is a virtual platform that aims to preserve Vodu wisdom and educates people about its practices. My goal is to demystify and de-stigmatize Vodu through this project. My first project was to produce an educational short film that reflects the story of Vodu from the perspective of practitioners in Ghana. However, I did not have any knowledge of film production or the funds to make my idea into a reality. I, therefore, wrote up a proposal and applied for several grants and fellowships at my college but was rejected by all of them. I even approached wealthy businessmen in Ghana in my network to fund my project but to no avail. I then reached out to my former photography professor who was no longer at my university. She responded, “I loved your Vodu work in my class. I will come to Ghana together with a professional videographer. We can pay for our own flights and daily costs.” As a result of my persistence, I was able to overcome my funding and technical obstacles. This was how our first film, “Like A Knife: The Real Vodu” was created.
After the release of our film on social media, our project began to pick up traction. With the photos from our Ghana trip, I successfully curated the first-ever Vodu exhibition at MiddleburyCollege. I slowly started to gain recognition within my college community as the “Voodoo boy.” A few months later, I was invited by the African Students’ Association to present my film at the annual African Conference attended by many African students from colleges across the United States. These students later invited me to their colleges as a guest lecturer. The more I spoke about Vodu, the more support I began to garner. In 2016, I applied for a college grant to create the second film in Cuba exploring the similarities between Cuban Santeria and Vodu. This time, my team received significant funding. To date, we have produced six educational films, built a virtual community of over fourteen thousand followers in over fifty countries, and have delivered several lectures at leading universities in the United States, Japan, and Africa, including Columbia University, African Leadership University, Meiji University, and more. We have also digitally preserved hundreds of rituals, herbal remedies, and folklore with the help of academics, volunteers, and interns interested in cultural heritage management.
While ReVodution started as just a short film, it is now a small social movement with thousands of enthusiasts and followers. Indeed, ReVodution is only possible because of the tens of thousands of supporters that voluntarily share their wisdom, skills, and resources. These people were drawn to my passionate cries to preserve and de-stigmatize Vodu and I believe this small success is the direct result of indefatigable effort and a refusal to lose hope. My love for my culture and the need to present it positively taught me that Africans are not lacking in any way. Africans need to be proud of their deep spiritual traditions and rich cultural heritage and cultivate an image of themselves and their self-worth that is not dependent on a colonial identity. Only then will Africans truly be free and respected in the world.
