GHANA,

FETISH PRIESTS, WITCH CAMPS AND FUNERAL RITES

120 pages, 170 photos and 1 map



The book is divided into three parts. The first part, which is the most comprehensive, is about fetish priests, their shrines and the rituals they perform, when they get into contact with the spirits – mostly those of ancestors. Sometimes also small spirits appear, who look very peculiar and are surrounded by a great cold. A priestess shows us that a trance dance is a further possibility to get insight into the realm of the ancestors.

Sometimes the spirits also want to be fed with blood, what means that animals have to be sacrificed to appease them.

The second part of the book is about a so-called witch camp. In Kukuo we meet women who were accused of being witches and who had to leave their former lives and their families behind and found refuge in this village. Four women tell the moving stories of their lives.

The last part of the book describes funeral rites in Ghana. Most probably there is no other country in the world in which funerals play such an important social role. Various aspects – from death to burial and commemoration – will be shown and explained in this book.