Field Notes — editorial dispatches

Slow reads on the festivals, the heritage, the memorial geography of the Slave Coast

Each Field Note pairs with a cornerstone. Read the cornerstone for the architecture, the Field Note for the inside view.

Twenty Field Notes across the eight festivals and pillars we cover. Each cluster contains a primer (what is it), Operator Notes (how to be in it), and a deeper reading (the scholarship that frames it). Browse by festival below.

Vodun Days

See the cornerstone →

Primer

What Vodun Days actually celebrates

Operator Notes

Ouidah on January 10 — arriving as a foreign observer

Memory & History

Houngans, hounsi, vodunon — the convent hierarchy

Porto-Novo Mask Festival

See the cornerstone →

Field Note

Guèlèdè at UNESCO — what the 2008 inscription said and didn’t

PANAFEST + Emancipation Day

See the cornerstone →

Primer

What PANAFEST and Emancipation Day actually celebrate

Operator Notes

Cape Coast in July — arriving as a foreign observer

Memory & History

Saidiya Hartman, the Door of Return, and PANAFEST

Hogbetsotso

See the cornerstone →

Primer

What Hogbetsotso commemorates — the Anlo-Ewe departure from Notsé

Operator Notes

Anloga in November — arriving as a foreign observer

Memory & History

Spieth, Greene, Nukunya — writing the Anlo-Ewe memory

Agbogbo-Za

See the cornerstone →

Primer

What Agbogbo-Za commemorates — the Ewe of Notsé

Operator Notes

Notsé in September — arriving as a foreign observer

Memory & History

Pützstück, Hentschel and the Schutzgebiet — German colonial archive

Fetu Afahye

See the cornerstone →

Primer

What Fetu Afahye commemorates — the 77 deities of Oguaa

Operator Notes

Cape Coast in September — arriving as a foreign observer

Memory & History

Sarbah, Casely Hayford, Coe — the Fante intellectual tradition

Evala

See the cornerstone →

Operator Notes

Wrestling as ritual, not as sport — reading Evala again

Memory & History

Fanon, the camera, and the body at the village ring

Pillar: Slave Route Ouidah

See the cornerstone →

Pillar

Slow reads on the festivals, the heritage, the memorial geography of the Slave Coast

Vodun Days

What Vodun Days actually celebrates

Ouidah on January 10 — arriving as a foreign observer

Houngans, hounsi, vodunon — the convent hierarchy

Porto-Novo Mask Festival

Guèlèdè at UNESCO — what the 2008 inscription said and didn’t

PANAFEST + Emancipation Day

What PANAFEST and Emancipation Day actually celebrate

Cape Coast in July — arriving as a foreign observer

Saidiya Hartman, the Door of Return, and PANAFEST

Hogbetsotso

What Hogbetsotso commemorates — the Anlo-Ewe departure from Notsé

Anloga in November — arriving as a foreign observer

Spieth, Greene, Nukunya — writing the Anlo-Ewe memory

Agbogbo-Za

What Agbogbo-Za commemorates — the Ewe of Notsé

Notsé in September — arriving as a foreign observer

Pützstück, Hentschel and the Schutzgebiet — German colonial archive

Fetu Afahye

What Fetu Afahye commemorates — the 77 deities of Oguaa

Cape Coast in September — arriving as a foreign observer

Sarbah, Casely Hayford, Coe — the Fante intellectual tradition

Evala

Wrestling as ritual, not as sport — reading Evala again

Fanon, the camera, and the body at the village ring

Pillar: Slave Route Ouidah

The Slave Route of Ouidah — walking memory on the Bight of Benin