Secrets

In the past ten years the well-known ethnologist and photographer Henning Christoph has undertaken many expeditions to Cameroon. During these journeys he came into contact with cults and ceremonies that are normally inaccessible to outsiders and some of them were even considered extinct.

The current exhibition “Secrets” is dedicated above all to these areas. The main venue is the Kingdom of Oku, the most important and highest in the Cameroonian grasslands. The most important of the secret societies based there are presented here, as well as their beliefs and cult objects.

Another focus of the show is on three mixed religions from the African Diaspora, which emerged under the influence of the Central African Bantureligions in the course of slavery. The violent deportation of Africans – some estimates put the number of victims at 40 million – lasted for almost four centuries, and the majority of them came from Central Africa.

By mixing the genuinely African religion (the practice of which was forbidden by the colonial powers) with Catholicism and the beliefs of the indigenous peoples of Brazil, Cuba and Haiti, religions such as Palo, Quimbanda and Bizango emerged in the diaspora. These are characterized by the rather hot-blooded and violent spiritual powers of Central Africa in contrast to the usually milder West African gods.

These are also areas that are normally closed to outsiders – they are kept strictly secret. It is an extraordinary stroke of luck to be able to present altars and rites of the three mentioned denominations here in the Soul of Africa Museum in Essen, NRW.