wife of the god
ABOUT THE PROJECT
"They say the women are the slaves of the shrine; to us they are the queens of the town" - Nana Humali, Ghana
While studying arts and culture in Ghana, West Africa as an undergraduate student at the School for International Training, I came across a local newspaper article stating there are women and girls serving as slaves to fetish priests of traditional religion, forced into physical labor and marriage. The following day a rebuttal appeared defending this religious practice, stating the women and girls are queens of the town and wives of the god. They accused the attack to be a ploy by Christian missionaries to end traditional religion. My journalist, feminist, anthropologist brain clicked on. I HAD to see for myself.
I traveled to the town which is home to the most prominent shrines and thousands of female initiates seeking answers. What does it mean to be a wife of the god? I was given unprecedented access and lived amongst the women and priests doing anthropological research. In 2005 I returned to visually document the town and story and worked alongside anthropologist Dr. Julie Jenkins. We returned in 2012 to continue this on-going documentation. Hear the women's stories in the video on the next page or continue scrolling to see the images.
RESULT
Ohio University Graduate Student Achievement Grant
1st place Atlanta Photojournalism Contest
Photographs & Limited Edition Prints
Written Magazine article & Multimedia documentary
Gallery exhibits
Feature article in Virginia Quarterly Review
Feature article in NYU's The Revealer
Unprecedented access to the shrines and ceremonies
An adopted Ghanaian son named Romanoff