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

Arriving in Ouidah for Vodun Days

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

Arriving in Ouidah for Vodun Days

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