Benin: a healing ceremony during which patients prepare for their illness to be driven into the chickens they are holding, who will then be sacrificed to the god Legba. Photograph by H.V. Meyerowitz, 19--.

1900-1999

1 photograph : photoprint ; sheet 12.5 x 17.8 cm

This is where the sickness must go when it has been driven out. Two fowls are brought and placed in the patient's arms so that the sickness may leave them and enter the bodies of the fowls instead. The child also holds a bottle in his hand filled with palm oil, which is used both for treatment and afterwards when the fowls are sacrificed to a Legba, a protector of families. Every sacrifice to a Legba must include some palm oil. Photograph by H.V. Meyerowitz, copyright by Kurt Lubinski Lettering attached to label on verso Photograph verso bears photographic studio stamp: "Copyright Kurt Lubinski [...]"

Wellcome Collection 580839i