Official language:
French

Other languages:
Bariba
Fon
Yoruba
other local dialects

<top>

• Voodooism and fetishism are still widely practiced and many of the associated artifacts attract and repel visitors in equal numbers.
• Fetishes, which form an important part of Beninese craft traditions, are objects regarded with awe as the embodiment of a powerful spirit and are thought to protect believers.
• Only priests can communicate with voodoos and spirits of the dead.
• If you do bad and you kneel down to urinate, the voodoo on the ground will look inside you. The ground will attack you and leave a pimple on your body.
  
  <top>

• Animism (Voodoo)
  <top>

• Deformed babies, breech babies, and one of two newborn twins are thought to be sorcerers in some rural area. <top>

• Usually rice, foufou, cassava, yams or sweet potatoes garnished with a sauce made from peanuts, spinach or other greens, and tomatoes or plantains, cooked in palm oil.
• Those who can afford it eat meat stews, snails, smoked goat or grilled chicken with chilli sauce.
• Meals are washed down with a home-made millet brew (chapalo), palm wine or the national beer, la Béninoise.
  
  <top>