Ogun: Sacrifice to the iron god

I found about this practice by chance one day when I was at a mechanic’s workshop having my car fixed. When I asked whether I could document the annual festival, the answer from the high priest was a straightforward yes.

“There’s nothing hidden about the practice,” he said. Indeed, the practice is entirely legal.

As workers gathered near a forest in the Utako neighbourhood of Abuja where mechanics gather to work on vehicles, there was a solemn atmosphere at first. But as soon as the animal was sacrificed there was a feeling of wild jubilation.

The high priest poured the dog’s blood, as well as palm oil, palm wine, salt and kola nuts on the symbols of these workers’ trades: keys, spanners and other tools piled up in a metal barrel and decorated with palm fronds.

Worshippers of Ogun normally travel to their home states in the southwest of Nigeria. However following an invitation to the capital, the high priest has come to carry out the ceremony in Abuja for the past few years.

This year followers of Ogun prayed that authorities would leave them in peace from vehicle inspections, for example, to get on with their business.

The male dog, purchased especially for the sacrifice, was kept in a metal cage. Before the sacrifice the dog was choked with a noose and pulled out of the cage, after which two men pulled on either end of the animal.

One held the noose while the other pulled the two hind legs. Prayers were being said and then the high priest cut off the head of the dog from the body using a cutlass. Hot projectiles of blood gushed in all directions as the priest grabbed the body to direct the rest of the blood onto the symbolic items.

I love dogs so I could feel his pain very clearly. At the point when the dog’s head was severed the truth is I had to look away and keep my camera pointing in the direction of the sacrifice.