© A. Pappone
Northern Ghana is a vast region where the lush vegetation of the Atlantic belt is gradually being replaced by boundless arid savannahs, granite cliffs, mango and shea forests, and where voodoo deities are gradually giving way to the magic of ancestral spirits and the power of animist fetishes.
Tamale is the capital of the Northern Region and the most Islamised city in Ghana. However, the people of the rural areas have syncretistically preserved traditional cults and beliefs, to the point that it is in some of these villages that women accused of witchcraft are ‘interned’, a sort of ghetto where superstition mixes with magic and tradition. The experience of visiting one of these ‘witch villages’ can be quite intense, but also extremely interesting.
From Tamale, going up towards the border with Burkina Faso, you reach an area of beautiful granite hills, the Tongo Hills, places of animist worship that are among the most important and popular in Ghana. Here, in a small ancient village of clay houses, Tengzug, live the Talensi people, who for centuries have gathered around the royal court, a maze of tiny dwellings shaped like sculptures and scattered with protective fetishes, on which traces of animal sacrifices are often visible.
These inhabitants are the custodians of ancient traditions and guardians of one of the most sacred places in animist culture. In a small cave one of the most powerful and visited feticheurs in Ghana lives. Dozens of believers come here every day to make propitiatory sacrifices and ask for favours and intercessions with the spirit world. The ceremony requires anyone wishing to appear before the feticheur to remove their shoes and remain bare-chested. It is definitely a suggestive experience that allows a genuine confrontation with one of the many realities of Ghana.
