A Fon mother cradles her twins at the Hohokpedo festival. A welcome event, the birth of twins signals the arrival of “He who comes divided”, all twins being regarded as separate parts of a single being.At left: crowds gather during the first day of Hohokpedo, a Fon festival dedicated to celebrating living twins. At right: A father poses proudly with his twin children; twins, believed to be of divine origin, are always treated with respect.A gathering of mothers with triplets who sing to the accompaniment of Axatse gourd shakers and clapping hands.Portrait of identical twins attending the annual Hohokpedo Twins Festival wearing matching textile outfits.Twins are considered sacred and are treated more carefully than other children. They are always dressed alike, and gifts given to them must be in duplicate. If one twin dies, a small wooden image of the deceased must be carried by the mother and cared for at all times.At left: a fetish mound is covered with palm oil to bless the generation of twins. At right: At a special altar in her home, Domengo Pascaline performs private rituals for her Hovi Dijo twin dolls. She blesses them with a libation of palm oil and feeds each doll with coconut slices and kola nuts.A Hovi Dijo carved wooden twin is as powerful as a living twin and must be equally cared for by its parents.A Fon Woman cares for three Hovi dolls; one for her father; one for her twin brother and one she found on the street and feels obliged to look after. Cooking and washing for her Hovi, she loves them as if they were her own children.Inside the home, the dolls are placed in their own carefully crafted chairs and benches.When taken outside, they are tucked into their mother’s waistband or carried in protective leather bag.One mother may even “babysit” a number of dolls belonging to other mothers along with her own, tucking them into her waistband for protection.The dolls are fed daily at a small home altar, dressed in stylish fabric outfits, and, when taken out of the house, carried tucked in the waistband of the mother.Throughout the day of the festival offerings of food and libations are given to the effigies while mothers sang and danced with them.Seated by the altar in her shrine, a Mami Wata priestess, responsible for the beauty, fertility, and well-being of women, carries a Hovi Dijo twin in her wrap.A Voodoo priestess carries her twins in her waistband as she chants to her deity.A priestess performs a dance celebrating the annual Festival of Twins.Priestesses dance and enter trancelike states to the beating of a ritual drum. In an altered state they experience oneness with their deity.During the slave trade, many Voodoo practices were transported to Cuba, where they are known as Santería. Adelaide, a Cuban priestess living in Havana, blesses her twin effigies with smoke from a cigar and libations of Cuban rum.A Yoruba Gelede mask features a mother nursing her twins. Yoruba traditions surrounding twins are similar to the Fon, but their twin effigies are known as Ibeji.Yoruba people in Nigeria believe that twins share a single soul. When one twin dies, it disrupts the balance of the shared soul. To counteract this a small wooden figure, called Ibeji, is carved as a symbolic substitute for the soul of the dead twin. If both twins die two of these figures are carved.Ibeji effigies must be fed and well dressed as they can bring happiness to the family. They can also bring disaster, disease and death, and therefore, must be treated with great respect.
