What Vodun actually is
The museum explains an organised belief system rather than the cinema stereotype.
Photo Claude TRUONG-NGOC — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Photo Claude TRUONG-NGOC — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Photo Claude TRUONG-NGOC — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Photo Claude TRUONG-NGOC — CC BY-SA 3.0
A museum devoted to the religions of West Africa, in a nineteenth-century water reservoir west of central Strasbourg. The building is odd in itself: a circular stone water tower built under German rule, later abandoned and then converted into a museum. The cylindrical form and stone vaults give the objects an unexpected setting. The collection is private and holds more than two hundred pieces from Benin, Togo, Nigeria and Ghana: figures, masks, altars and ritual objects from the African Vodun religions. What distinguishes its presentation is that the museum explains what these religions actually are, rather than the stereotype American cinema created: an organised system of belief with priests, rites and ethics, which travelled with the slave trade to Haiti, Brazil and America and mixed there with Christianity. You should know that some pieces are ritual objects of considerable force, and some contain organic material — these are genuine religious things rather than artworks made for display. It has a weekly closing day and limited hours. Check before going.
The museum explains an organised belief system rather than the cinema stereotype.
Circular stone vaults from the German period give the objects a strange setting.
The religion travelled with the slave trade and mixed there with Christianity.
A former water tower, west of central Strasbourg
Museum of Modern and Contemporary ArtA large museum of modern and contemporary art in a glass building on the bank of7 min walk
Barrage VaubanThe Barrage Vauban is a stone bridge-dam built by Louis XIV's famous military en9 min walk
Ponts CouvertsThe Ponts Couverts are three bridges crossing the Ill's four arms at the entranc10 min walk
La Petite France'Little France' is the quarter Strasbourg gets photographed from: sixteenth- and11 min walk
Place Benjamin-ZixA small square in the heart of the Petite France, ringed by Alsatian houses with13 min walkVodun is an indigenous religion of Benin, Togo and Nigeria with priests, rites and a system of spirits. When Africans were taken by force to Haiti and Brazil they carried their beliefs and had to hide them behind Christian saints, so Haitian Vodou arose as a synthesis. The voodoo of American cinema is a distortion unrelated to either.
With reservations. The pieces are ritual objects, some made with organic material, and they are visually powerful and may frighten young children. The museum is serious and does not court sensation, but the material itself is not gentle to look at. For teenagers interested in anthropology it is genuinely interesting.
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