SAKPATA

Earth, disease, healing

Sakpata is the great earth vodun of the Fon of Benin, also known to the neighbouring Gbe peoples. Called Ayinon, the master of the earth, he governs the fertility of the soil, the harvests and all that comes out of the ground, but also the eruptive diseases bound to it: smallpox, measles, chickenpox. Disease is understood as the sanction he inflicts on those who offend the earth. His cult, of Yoruba origin, took root in the region of Dassa-Zoumè before spreading through the whole Gulf of Benin in the wake of the smallpox epidemics of the early eighteenth century. Sakpata in fact designates a family of vodun with many manifestations. His emblems evoke at once the earth and the ill it sends: a perforated jar recalling the pustules, ritual scarifications, fibres and straw. His devotees, the sakpatasi, honour him with dances and go so far as to roll in the dust as a sign of allegiance. Greatly feared, his name is avoided in times of epidemic in favour of respectful euphemisms. He corresponds to Shapona among the Yoruba and, in Brazilian Candomblé, to Obaluaiê or Omolu — signs of the continuity of his cult within the Afro-diasporic pantheons.