The twins, Hòxó

A birth that calls for the Fâ

A paper presented in 1973 at the École pratique des hautes études describes the rites that follow the birth of twins among the Fon. The parents gather what is needed, and a particular ceremony takes place, reserved for women: the paternal and maternal aunts must be present, while the twins’ mother does not attend. A week later, a consultation takes place with the diviner, during which the prohibitions the twins must respect are revealed^[2]. The Fâ is thus present from the moment twins arrive in a family; for the bokonon, this consultation carries a particular responsibility, since what is revealed will accompany the children all their lives. See What is the Fâ?^[1].

The hohovi, statuettes of twins

The word hohovi refers to the statuettes of twins among the Adja and the Fon; among the Anago, of Yoruba descent, they are called ibeji. When a twin dies, a wooden statuette is carved and receives the care due to a living child^[3]. The photographer Éric Lafforgue met, in the Bopa region, mothers who carry these statuettes in their clothes, with only the face showing, and who speak of their dead twins in the present tense^[4].

For someone discovering this tradition from outside, it may seem surprising. For a family that has carried it for generations, it is a way of not considering the relationship entirely broken by death. Old hohovi bear the traces of this care: the features of the face fade under the repeated gestures of several generations, and the patina bears witness to the attention they received^[1][3].

Hoho, the spirit of duality

The word hohovi reads “children of Hoho”, a spirit that symbolises duality. Twins are seen as beings with a divine essence, both feared and venerated, able to bring their family happiness as well as warning. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria and the Anago of Benin, the cult of twins took a neighbouring form, with its statuettes, the ibeji; according to collectors who have studied these objects, the Yoruba statuettes hardly go back beyond the second half of the eighteenth century, and the roots of the cult may lie rather in Fon and Ewe societies^[3].

The story of Akaba and Hangbe

Tradition links the cult of twins to the royal history of Abomey. According to an often-told story, King Akaba, twin of Hangbe, told his sister that he would not die like other men but would disappear into the woods, and left her a statuette, asking her to care for it as for himself. The story would also explain why Hangbe reigned for a time, from 1708 to 1711. It is an oral tradition, which this entry reports without being able to date it from archives^[5]. The same story explains an expression still heard: a twin does not die, he “goes into the woods”.

The names of twins

Twins and the children around them receive particular names, whose use varies between families and sources. The 1973 paper names the first twin Zinsou, the second Agossou, and the child born after them Zinhoué^[2]. The usages reported today by Fon-language sites differ: Dossou and Dossi for twins, and Hoho for twins in general^[6]. A child born in breech position, called Agossou if a boy and Agossi if a girl, is sometimes considered and treated as a twin^[7]. There is no single list valid for every family: to know the names used in a family, it is best to ask its elders^[1].

When a twin dies

The death of a twin does not break the relationship: the family maintains it through the hohovi and the obligations that come with it. The living twin, or the parents, care for the statuette; in the Bopa region, mothers also go to ask for alms at the market or in the street, in the name of their twins^[4]. What seems essential to me is to understand this continuity before looking only at the objects or the ceremonies. The place of twins joins that of the ancestors: in both cases, death transforms the bond without abolishing it. See Le culte des ancêtres (in French)^[1].