Voodoo Kokuzahn Ceremony

Once every three years, devotees of the Voodoo deity Koku gather for a spectacular seven-day celebration called Kokuzahn. to the accompaniment of Voodoo drum rhythms, worshippers spin into possessed states and perform extraordinary feats after summoning the powr of their god through a series of offerings made in the Koku fetish shrine. A boy stands with a chicken balanced on his head, while fetish priests kill the bird by pointing their knives at it from a distance of several feet. A man lies with a mortar on his chest, while shea nuts are pounded in the vessel causing no harm to the man underneath. Maize porridge is ooked in a calabash with no bottom. Men touch white-hot swords with their tongues and slash at their bodies with shards of glass - all without injury. Finally, at the end of the festival, the power of Koku leaves the bodies of the worshippers, and they lie exhausted on the sand.