The city of Porto-Novo pulsed with life on Sunday as thousands of spectators gathered for Benin’s annual Mask Festival, a kaleidoscope of heritage where wood, fabric, rhythm, and spirit fused into a spectacle of cultural affirmation. The air was thick with drumbeats that seemed to echo the heartbeat of centuries, while masked dancers in swirling costumes transformed the streets into moving shrines of memory and identity.
This was no ordinary celebration. To the Yoruba, Somba, and Betammaribe communities, the masked figures—whether Egungun with their towering fabrics or Zangbeto with their whirling raffia—are not merely performers. They are the living embodiment of ancestors, guardians of moral order, and intermediaries between the visible and invisible realms. Each step, each gesture, each clap of drum and rustle of cloth was a reenactment of stories passed from generation to generation, a dialogue between the present and the timeless voices of the past.
Spectators watched with reverence, some bowing slightly as the masks drifted past, aware that these were not simply costumed dancers but ancestral spirits who carry the authority to ward off evil and bless the living. “This represents our culture, it’s what defines us as Beninese,” reflected architect Farid Mutairou, his eyes tracing the movements of a spinning Zangbeto. “We are among the only African countries that are proud to keep our culture.” His words captured the deeper resonance of the festival: not mere performance but a declaration of survival, pride, and identity.
The festival has grown into one of Benin’s most visible cultural signatures, drawing not just local communities but visitors from across West Africa, Europe, and beyond. For the government, it is both an emblem of heritage and a strategic tool of cultural tourism, part of a national vision to make tradition a driver of modern economy. “The Mask Festival is for sure for tourist appeal of Benin because the president, in his vision, wants to make tourism an economic driver,” said Porto-Novo’s mayor, Charlemagne Yankoty.
But beneath the economic potential lies an anthropological truth: the Mask Festival resists erasure in a world where globalization often swallows fragile traditions. In Porto-Novo, the masks are more than attractions—they are archives of ancestral wisdom, a living philosophy of balance between the human and the spirit worlds. When the Egungun dancers swirled in their layered fabrics or when the Zangbeto spun like protective whirlwinds, the city was reminded that its strength lies not in imported ideals but in a rootedness that continues to inspire awe.
As the festival concluded, the drums slowly softened, the masks receded into the night, and the city’s streets returned to stillness. Yet for those who witnessed it, the presence of the ancestors lingered in the air. Porto-Novo had once again declared itself not just a capital city but a keeper of Africa’s sacred memory, where culture does not merely live—it dances.
