American Voudou: Journey into a Hidden World

13: Africa in America

13 IT WOULD BE easy to miss Oyotunji-and although I'd been there before, three years ago-I almost did. The 1-95 exit halfway up from Savannah to Charleston dumps directly onto South Carolina 21, a two-lane blacktop with the traffic load of a New York thoroughfare. Day and night, cars and trucks connecting Beaufort, Parris Island, the Gullah Islands or the tourist resorts ofthe South Carolina coast to the rest ofthe state thunder along as though in transit from the earth to the moon. It's dangerous, distracting, and sometimes deadly to drive-that much worse if you're looking for a faded, hand-lettered wooden sign, halfobscured by brush, proclaiming, "African Village-As Seen on TV." I zoomedpastitthe first time, doubledback, andbarelypicked it out on my second pass, braking down hard for a sudden right turn into the red-dirt entry road reaching out from the high weeds. Too hard, too fast, for the eighteen-wheelerbarreling up my rearbumper atleast twice my velocity. Figuring I had maybe two seconds to get offthe highway and live, I steered sharply to the shoulder. Loose gravel and slick mud carried me into an 177 178 - AMERICAN VOUDOU uncontrollable rear-end skid toward the lip ofa deep rain gulley. Only because my tires found some small salvation of traction did I right the wheels and pop into the side road inches ahead of the semi's massive oncoming chrome grille. The passing air horn was deafening, and righteous. My hand had knotted on the gear shift knob so tightly it hurt to loosen up. I was okay, though after I had taken a few deep breaths and moved down the rutted lane I had been seeking , I was still trembling from the adrenalin. Perhaps that heightened my next impression, the gradual transformation, as I drove, of the curtain of semitropical forest I had seen from the highway into a living tunnel of vines and trees, an unsettling, ambush-quality density of every hue and shape of green. Then, abruptly, I rounded a curve and the foliage parted. In the clearing before me was an almost unbelievable tableau that had changed little over the years. Road coming into Oyotunji village. AFRICA IN AMERICA - 179 I paused at the untended and mostly symbolic sentry gate, where a half-fallen sign warned, "You Are Now Leaving the United States," and parked in a grassy clearing just outside. I could see up ahead several young boys, clad only in red waistwraps , running down one ofthe dusty trails that laced the compound . A woman in white robes and white head scarffollowed them, shouting something I couldn't make out in the Yoruba language-likely a scolding. The air was wet and thick as in New Orleans. I was already sweating as I walked through the gate and angled over to a shady patio within a quadrangle, orbazaar, offive or six stalls offering African clothing, jewelry, potions and wood carvings. Beyond the bazaar, Oyotunji stretched out for several hundred yards in every direction. The living quarters, open-air temples, dancing pavilions and shrines were off to the left. To the right, past an Elegba altar and a wake-up drum fashioned from an oil barrel, rose the walled enclosure known as the Afin-the royal compound . Within the Afin were the homes ofthe king and some of his wives and a half-dozen or more individual altars to all the major orisha. Everything hadbeenbuiltby hand, over the years, exactly as it would have been done in Nigeria or Dahomey. To my surprise, no one was out. I walked into the main crossroads at the center of the village, then back to the patio and plopped into one of the molded plastic chairs. Not a soul. I thought about the afternoon when I'd first seen the place. I'd only stayed a few hours, just enough time for a quick tour, a visit with the king, and a cowrie shell reading by a haughty female Shango priestess. But the memory had stayed with me, like a glimpse of Xanadu, and I knew even then I would someday be back. "It's a curious feeling just coming in here," the man who ruled the ten-acre medieval compound had told me. "You leave the highway and you twist and turn down a dirt road and then suddenly, you're here, in another context altogether...