Togolese Witch Doctor
Togo 2001
We had driven from Lome into the bush where we parked by a canal and met some Togolese boatmen who had been hired to take us to a small ‘island’. It must have been near the ocean as when the tides came in the waves began to besiege the island from all sides. If you lay in the surf, the power of the waves would roll you onto the land. I hadn’t packed a bathing suit, so I didn’t experience this phenomenon but I watched the other tourists being tossed onto the sandy bank.
Later, when dark descended, the boatmen took us to their village. A young man complaining of headache and frequent episodes of falling down was to undergo a voodoo ceremony to relieve his symptoms. The witch doctor, barefoot but wearing a suit, approached the boy, guiding him to the sandy river bank where the boy fell and lay inert at the witch doctor’s feet.
The witch doctor grabbed at the boy’s seemingly lifeless form as if to give him a type of artificial respiration all the while muttering incantations. When no change in the boy’s status resulted, the witch doctor began to go into a trance himself: leaping about, throwing out his arms, foaming at the mouth. Now and then he would glance at us, his eyes wild and glittering in the firelight.
After about five minutes of the witch doctor’s exhortations, the boy began to stir and was soon able to stand although rather unsteadily. The cure had been accomplished.
Did I believe that the boy had been cured of a serious malady? No. But if the boy felt he was cured, then that is all that matters. Did the witch doctor receive money for his efforts? Yes, he did. We gave him plenty.
I shot this with Kodak 3200 ASA. It was my go-to film because, despite being grainy as all get out, it got me the shot in dim light. I never did try to print this negative in the darkroom. And even if I’d tried, I’d never have gotten results to compare with what I was able to do using Photoshop and Alien Skin’s Exposure 5. Now, for me, that is a miracle!