The Python Temple, Dangbéxwé

Dangbé is the royal python. The Xwéda brought it with them from the Adja-Tado basin and made it the Vodun of the matrix, of alliance and of the continuity of life. It does not bend iron by force. It embraces life so that life may endure. Its power lies in alliance, not in dread: it protects by welcoming, by holding the lineages together, by keeping the coolness of the earth.

Tradition tells that in the time of the wars endured by the Xwéda people, as the enemy army hunted the sovereign and his warriors, pythons came out of the vegetation and confused the trail, saving the king. It was then decreed that the python would never again be hunted, harmed or eaten, but venerated as the father of the city and the ally of the Xwéda people.

In 1727, under the reign of King Houfon, Sahé, later known as Savi, the Xwéda capital, fell to the armies of King Agadja of Danxomè. The people withdrew to Gléxwé, founded by the Xwéda, which would become Ouidah. What remained standing was Dangbé. The deity became the ark of a scattered people. This is why this sanctuary is not a stage set: it is what survived the fall of a kingdom.

Responsibility for the cult rests on precise lineages. The Zossoungbo, who established the sanctuary in the Agoli quarter. The Agbo Atakpaloko, known as Agbamou, who hold the princely guardianship. And the Adjovi Akankotoglonou, associated by an unprecedented act of recognition. Their initiates carry on the face the ritual scarifications known as “two by five”, which echo the markings on the head of the royal python.

Until the middle of the twentieth century, Dangbéxwé remained closed to anyone who was not a devotee. It was the Dangbesi, the women initiated to the serpent, who opened the door. They alone could handle the python in public. One of them was the first to place the animal on a traveller's shoulders to show that it would not bite. Tourism in Ouidah was not imposed from outside. It began there, through an act of transmission decided by one woman of the temple: Drè Dègbénou.

Not everything is open to visitors. The night rites, the outings of the pythons through the city, the consecration altars and the sanctuary of the relics remain closed to the uninitiated, and will stay so. What opens to you is the courtyard, the sacred tree, the ritual basin and the pythons. The sanctuary has been renovated, but it has not become a museum. That it stands facing a basilica without either one ever yielding says enough about the hospitality that has marked this cult from the beginning.

Visitor protocol

• Shoes are removed at the entrance to the sacred enclosure of the central altar.
• Appropriate dress is required.
• Photography is allowed in the courtyard and with the pythons presented by the official guide. It is forbidden inside the initiation rooms.
• A customary offering, strong drink or kola nut, accompanies the blessing given by the guardian or the priest present.
• By traditional rule, the restricted sanctuary is not open to women during menstruation.