NEIL L.

NORMAN
KENNETH G. KELLY

Landscape Politics: The Serpent Ditch and the

Rainbow in West Africa

ABSTRACT Anthropologists and archaeologists have long been interested in the intersection of social, political, and religious insti-
tutions and landscape features. Recent efforts have been aimed at elucidating the tensions between the perception and description of
such features among Western and non-Western groups. This article seeks to contribute to this project through an analysis of a series
of massive ditches (c. 17th–19th centuries A.D.) in southern Bénin, West Africa. In their accounts of the region, European travelers de-
scribed these features through tropes and terminology that ascribe Western military designs and exploits. With insights drawn from
archaeological and anthropological data, we argue a different perspective: that groups from the West African kingdoms of Hueda and
Dahomey used the built landscape to reference cosmological factors, in attempts to negotiate and shape the political landscape of the
region. [Keywords: West African Archaeology, landscape politics, Vodun, Dangbe, earthenworks]

W HILE MAPPING1 A PORTION of the massive ditch

complex that surrounds the archaeological site
of Savi2 in coastal Bénin,3 West Africa, one of us (Neil Nor-
man) asked a Dahomean collaborator to run a transect
through a ditch segment to plumb its depth. He looked at
the ditch with trepidation and suggested it might be more
appropriate if Norman took the measurement, since for
him the ditch evoked the presence of Dangbe, the python
deity worshiped by Vodun practitioners in the area.4 This
statement was striking, since virtually all of the ancient
ditches were incorporated into a modern productive agri-
cultural landscape, and other local collaborators had been
involved with identification, mapping, and archaeological
testing of these very earthworks. When Norman asked if it
would be appropriate for him to enter the ditch himself,
our collaborator suggested that it should be fine as long as
Norman proceeded respectfully and realized the potency
and potential danger of the space. This moment demon-
strated clearly that the earthworks embodied differing cul-
tural significance for specific individuals, compelling the
research that follows.
We consider this study as part of the growing body of
comparative data elucidating the interrelations of political,
social, and religious institutions with the built landscape
(e.g., Bauer 1998; Bender 1993; Fox 1996; Holley et al. 1993;
Kolb 1994; Koontz et al. 2001). In settings involved in the
European colonial expansion following the late 15th cen-
tury, contextualizing landscape features within such insti-
tutions is often aided by research designs that conjoin his-
torical and anthropological methodologies (cf. Hantman
1990; Sahlins 1985). Researchers investigating West Afri-
can history from the 16th century to the present often
ground their interpretations in European observations of
the social and political interactions of the region (e.g.,
Curtin 1975; DeCorse 1998, 2001; Wallerstein 1986). Pri-
mary documents have aided greatly in the understanding
of African/European interactions in the area. However,
others argue that greater efforts should be made to enu-
merate the tensions, dissonances, and conflicts between
European accounts of contact and interaction and other
lines of evidence (Fleisher in press; Kelly 1997b; LaViolette
in press; Miller 1980; Stahl 2001).
Ann Stahl (2001:1–40) suggests that archaeological data
are in a prime position to help us address not only con-
flicts between primary sources but also the “silences” asso-
ciated with the selective and subjective process of record-
ing historical accounts (cf. Trouillot 1995). We suggest that
common themes in attempts by West African groups to
manipulate the built landscape and shape the ways it is
presented and perceived offer an avenue to explore such
historical processes at the local and regional levels. This
methodology borrows from Martin Hall (1987:3–4), who
suggests evaluating elements of the built landscape based
on their relation to the goals and strategies used to natu-
ralize and reinforce power relations within and between
groups. Hall (2000:44) notes that these strategies are often

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 106(1):98–110. COPYRIGHT © 2004, AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

 Norman and Kelly • Landscape Politics in West Africa
met with ambiguous and unexpected responses, and, thus,
we fully acknowledge that the experiences and perceptions
of such ditches throughout West Africa were, as they are
today, multifarious. One of the strengths of Hall’s research
in colonial and modern South Africa is to explore the em-
bedded meaning(s) and political significance of landscape
from the perspective of African groups involved in their
construction and use. Thus, necessary tensions often de-
velop between European accounts of the African land-
scape and the accounts of those African groups that create
and maintain the features.
In the discussion that follows, we seek to demonstrate
such tensions between European and African accounts of
the ways that ditches were used to signify and implement
power relations in social, political, and religious spheres in
southern Bénin. Particular attention will be focused on:
(1) the Huedan5 capital of Savi (early 17th century to
1727) and (2) the Dahomean capital of Abomey where, in
the early 18th century (see Figures 1 and 2), Dangbe was
incorporated into the Dahomean pantheon, as ditches
were adopted as architectural features around that palace
complex. European traveler’s accounts relate these ditches
FIGURE 1. Project Area.
99
to European design and inventiveness; however, we argue
that they more closely relate to efforts by West African
groups to implement monumental architecture for the
creation of social distinction (Kelly 1995, 1997a), as well
as attempts to provide symbolic and physical protection
through evoking cosmological elements. We hope that
this study will add to the voices of researchers calling for
theoretical models and heuristic devices that are sensitive
to African perspectives and cosmologies (McIntosh 1999;
Schmidt 1996), that give time depth to historically specific
moments, and that situate these moments within the po-
litical dynamics of the region (Piot 1999:1–26).
HISTORICAL AND REGIONAL BACKGROUND
Researchers commonly characterize the 14th and 15th
centuries as a period of intensification and consolidation
in the coastal forest zone of modern-day Togo, Bénin, and
Nigeria, as kings in the region extended their spheres of
control over areas of several hundred kilometers. In turn,
these kings were reliant on regional governors who ad-
ministered portions of their kingdom, collected tribute,
mediated disputes, organized religious ceremonies, and
100 American Anthropologist • Vol. 106, No. 1 • March 2004
FIGURE 2. Map of the Central Site Area of Savi.
coordinated corvée labor for public works and agricultural
operations. Attached artisans produced items from gold,
brass, clay, ivory, and cloth, which were traded by coastal
groups to larger northern polities that controlled trade
networks throughout the region and beyond (Law 1991;
Polanyi 1966).
The arrival of European traders on the West African
coast in the late 15th century, and their sustained efforts
from the 16th–19th centuries to trade captive Africans
across the Atlantic, caused a radical reorganization of this
network. Polities in the interior traded captives to coastal
groups, who used their position at the nexus of trade to
exact tribute and taxes from both European and African
groups. Coastal polities used this tribute to acquire Euro-
pean armaments, further aiding the expansion of political
control and adding to the zeal to capture neighboring
groups. Regional conflict ensued as politically centralized
polities scrambled to annex surrounding areas. During the
height of this conflict in the early 18th century, settle-
ment patterns became tightly nucleated, as those living
near territorial boundaries relocated to the centers of the
kingdom to seek protection from raiding/slaving parties
(Law 1990, 1991).
After visiting the region, the early-18th-century Euro-
pean traveler Etiénne Des Marchais noted that the area in
and around the Huedan capital of Savi was “so populated
with dwellings and inhabitants that it can be said to form
a single town” (in Law 1991:59). Law estimates the popu-
lation of the Hueda kingdom at approximately 100,000
for the late 17th century; from this population of both free
and enslaved the king could field a military force of be-
tween 20,000 and 40,000 for defensive and offensive op-
erations (Law 1991:58–59). This military force was neces-
sary to defend Savi and the coastal port and transatlantic
entrepôt of Glewhe (later Ouidah) from the regional con-
flict between the kingdoms of Oyo, Allada, and Dahomey.
Dahomey posed the most immediate threat to Hueda, as
Dahomean kings sought to use military might to expand
their political control to the Atlantic coast. A key feature
in the military posturing and political hegemony involved
African elite groups marshalling the symbols of their re-
spective pantheons. In the section that follows, we outline
the theoretic perspectives that guide this study of ditch
systems as representations of members of these pantheons
in southern Bénin, and the connection of these deities to
the political maneuverings of the area.
LABORING FOR DITCHES AND THE DEFINITION OF
SOCIAL SPACE
Many of the older, large-scale urban settlements through-
out the forest zone in Togo, Bénin, Ghana, and Nigeria
share the common element of incorporating ditches into
social systems that attempt to construct physical barriers
and social boundaries: zones of protection and inclusion.
Patrick Darling’s (1984) research in and around Benin City
in southern Nigeria includes the most complete discussion
of the massive ditch features from this period. He notes
that the concentric bank-and-ditch systems in the area
were created not only to distinguish the royal palace com-
plex from nonelite areas but also to encircle and protect a
majority of the settlement. He estimates the total length
for the southern Nigerian earthenworks at 16,000 km with
an average depth of three meters. Such a system would
have required the removal of 37 million cubic meters of
fill, and an estimated 150 million hours of labor to com-
plete. This calculation led Graham Connah (2000) to write
that such structures speak as much to the ability of the
King of Benin and his religious administrators to organize
excess, or corvée, labor as they do to the king’s ability to
organize defensive posturing of the kingdom. The ditches
appear to be a major outlet of the compulsory labor that
the King of Benin commanded through powers of taxa-
tion.
Connah (2000) notes a florescence of ditch systems in
Later Iron Age (c. A.D. 1300) settlements throughout the
savanna and coastal forest areas of West Africa, where elite
groups coordinated enslaved and corvée labor for the con-
struction of immense edifices and public works. Robin
Law (1991:93–94) correlates the political prominence of
kings in the area to their ability to keep these laborers in
public displays of service and commerce. Africanist an-
thropologists have recognized a close relationship between
 Norman and Kelly • Landscape Politics in West Africa
the ability of an African political leader to command sur-
plus labor and the extent of his or her administrative-juris-
dictional authority (Guyer 1995; Webster 1990).
It is telling that in the coastal forest zone of West Af-
rica, this labor was organized to create ditches rather than
walls or other devices for separating social space. Paula
Ben-Amos (1980:78–82) suggests the interpretations of
West African ditches should not focus solely on their use
as barriers but also take into account their use as symbolic
structures that demarcate the sacred from the profane. After
comparing historical accounts with contemporary inter-
views, she suggests that in Edo cosmology the ditches and
gates found throughout the Kingdom of Benin (14th–19th
centuries) served as a crossroads where aspects of the spiri-
tual and natural worlds collided. Numerous offerings were
thus required in these areas to placate the various entities
passing between realms. Not surprisingly, the ditches asso-
ciated with the most powerful crossroads between spiri-
tual and earthly planes were those in closest proximity to
the palace complexes (e.g., Benin City), adding to the
prestige of elite groups residing within palace complexes.
Furthermore, elite groups were protected from outsiders and
internal political dissent by locating themselves within
the physical and symbolic boundary provided by the ditch
system.
In a similar fashion, Merrick Posnansky (1981) draws
from oral histories and archaeological data to interpret a
series of ditches at Notsé (occupied from mid–15th century
to the present) in the coastal forest zone of modern Togo,
as defining social boundaries.6 He recorded a four-sectioned
wall-and-ditch system that enclosed most of the settle-
ment. Subsequent work there by Dola Aguigah (1986, 1992)
suggests the complex was not used for defensive purposes
but to demarcate the territory under Notsé control. Pos-
nansky and Aguigah base their interpretation on the oc-
currence of a ditch running inside the walls, where it adds
no defensive value to the structure (Posnansky 1985). This
interpretation is countered by Nii Quarcoopome (1993),
who draws from oral traditions to suggest the wall was
constructed during the 17th century as protection against
raiding groups from the east and north. He also notes that
a smaller wall (agbobovi), which circumscribes a much
smaller area, was constructed during the reign of the in-
itial king of Notsé to “isolate the royal domain and to pro-
tect the notables” (Quarcoopome 1993:114–115, emphasis
added). Thus, it is conceivable that Notsé walls and ditches
served multiple defensive and symbolic functions, includ-
ing division of the site between elite and nonelite zones.
Drawing from ethnohistoric accounts, Sandra Greene ech-
oes this interpretation, claiming that portions of the wall-
and-ditch system served to “symbolize the town’s status as
a major economic power and ritual center within the re-
gion” (Greene 2002:15). In the section that follows, we
discuss evidence for ditches in Southern Bénin being used
to define social space and represent political prominence
in a similar fashion to those described above.
101
DITCH SYSTEMS IN SOUTHERN BÉNIN
The centrality of Savi to the trade of captive peoples drew
French, English, Portuguese, and Dutch traders and emis-
saries to reside in the area (Polanyi 1966). The various
kings of Hueda were adept at manipulating the competi-
tive nature of these European groups to benefit their own
coffers. Huedan kings resisted exclusive trading status
with any single European group, thus allowing maximum
competition between European traders and Huedan con-
trol of the last stage on the African side of the Atlantic
trade. In turn, the authority of the kings of Hueda was reli-
ant on their ability to monopolize these trade networks
and to control related political relationships (Kelly 1997a;
Law 1991).
As Europeans established ephemeral settlements in
southern Bénin in the late 17th and early 18th centuries,
they became entangled in the politics of the region. Huedan
elites restricted the movement and relative freedom of
European traders and diplomats, by curtailing their oppor-
tunities to move throughout the kingdom and their settle-
ment opportunities (Kelly 1997a). Huedan kings ordered
the construction of European “trading lodges” within the
series of ditches that marked the boundary of their palace
complexes, thus placing European activities under the
constant gaze of the king and his representatives.
This circumscribed settlement isolated the European
traders by separating them from their naval reinforce-
ments at the coastal port of Ouidah. Archaeological evi-
dence7 (Kelly 1997a, 2001) from Savi suggests that build-
ing materials such as European bricks, originally destined
for these European lodges, were diverted for use within the
palace complex. This requisition of material exemplifies
the dominant position that Hueda kings held in trading
relationships and alludes to the strategies used by elites to
create differentiation through use of the built landscape.
Namely, elites used architectural features to signify and
distinguish their privileged positions in social, political,
and religious spheres. In addition to materializing this
separation, the activities conducted within and outside
the palace zone further point to the differentiation of in-
teraction spheres.
The elite zone contained within the palace complex
became the economic hub for the kingdom as it provided
space for negotiations between European and African trad-
ers. At the same time, the palace complex was also the
center for the creation of symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1990)
through the manipulation of European traders (Kelly
1997a), and it was the locus for religious ceremonies con-
ducted by the king and other religious officiates. The ditch
system that divided the palace complex from the remain-
der of the settlement separated these spheres of interac-
tion and placed symbolic and physical space between elite
and nonelite activities.
European visitors, traders, and emissaries resided
within the palace complex at Savi more or less continu-
ously from 1670 until its destruction in 1727. Yet these
102 American Anthropologist • Vol. 106, No. 1 • March 2004
European eyewitnesses, many of whom were trained ob-
servers, made no mention of the earthworks that enclosed
the elite district (Kelly 1997b). These observers, nonethe-
less, described in copious detail the features of the built
and social landscape that they considered relevant to
maximizing trade and advantage. Over a century after Savi
fell to Dahomey, Sir Richard Burton reported after a visit
to the area that:
Nothing now remains of the ancient glories of Savi; even
in A.D., 1772, we are told, only the moats of the many
European forts could be traced. A long trench, with a tall
growth of trees, was the sole remnant of the palace occu-
pied by the Whydah kings. [Newbury 1966:94]
It is not surprising that Burton attributes these structures
to European innovation and action, as such accounts and
tropes were common among European travelers from the
19th century (Hall 2000). Undoubtedly, Burton’s account,
as well as modern historic accounts, were influenced by
earlier European maps and documentary sources from the
17th to 18th centuries that often exaggerated the size and
position of European trade lodges in relation to the Huedan
palace complex (Kelly 1995:277–279). Archaeological evi-
dence suggests strongly that these ditches were the result
of Huedan efforts and designs.
Kelly (1997a) draws from the archaeology of Posnan-
sky (1981) and Aguigah (1986, 1992) at Notsé when inter-
preting the ditch system at Savi as an attempt by Huedans
to define internal social relations. Kelly (1997b:361–362)
downplays the physical defensive significance of the Savi
ditches as they were breached by repeated causeways that
apparently allowed access to the palace complex without
checkpoints or other means of controlling movement into
the elite zone. Furthermore, the ditches do not encompass
the entire town—only the elite section (Kelly 1997a:360).
Kelly concludes that the ditches served as a material,
and monumental, representation of the authority of the
king of Hueda, and a reminder of the political prominence
necessary to organize the labor involved. Archaeological
evidence supports the assumption that ditches stood be-
tween elites and nonelites, as survey (Kelly 1995) and ex-
cavation (Brunache 2001; Kelly 1995, 1997a; Kelly et al.
1999) data reveal a higher proportion of non-African trade
goods concentrated within the palace complex compared
with those areas outside.
In a similar fashion to artifact variance in elite and
nonelite areas, the massiveness of the architectural fea-
tures located inside the palace complex served to signify
the relative status differences of those living inside. Struc-
tures inside were up to 115 meters in maximum dimen-
sion, while initial investigation of the structures outside
the palace complex indicate that nonelite house structures
averaged approximately two-and-a-half meters in length
(Kelly 1995). The late-17th-century observer William Bos-
man recorded a similar massiveness of architecture associ-
ated with the palace, describing the Savi palace complex
with the king “who lives in . . . majesty at Sabbee [Savi].
[The] palace is a . . . large bamboo building of a mile or
two round, where he keeps near a thousand women”
(1721:366). This discrepancy suggests the amount of labor
organized to construct and maintain the structures within
the elite zone, as well as the ditch system that stands be-
tween elite and nonelite areas of the site. Archaeological
investigations indicate that the Savi ditches enclose an
area of approximately six-and-a-half hectares through a
segmented system, with individual segments varying be-
tween ten and 70 meters in width and up to 220 meters in
length. The maximum depth of the segments was re-
corded at eight meters below the surface of the edge of the
excavation. Occasional low mounds, possible vantage
points two to three meters in height, are located adjacent
to the ditches, but they do not appear to be related to
walls. The ditches do not retain, or drain, large quantities
of water; however, standing water may collect in lower ar-
eas of the ditches during the rainy season (Kelly 1997a;
Kelly et al. 1999). They meander in noncontiguous seg-
ments, that when viewed from the ground level, trace a
serpentine pattern between the elite and nonelite sections
of the site.
Kelly suggests that if the Hueda did not regard the
ditches as defensive, then it is possible that European ob-
servers understood this, but saw no alternative role the
ditches could have played. He posits that European visi-
tors and residents did not comment on the ditches be-
cause they were not identifiable in terms of their own pre-
conceptions of the size, shape, style, and placement of
military fortifications (Kelly 1995:303). We propose that
when the historical silences associated with these ditches
are considered alongside the accounts of political and re-
ligious posturing in and around the palace complex, the
Huedan strategies associated with defining social space
can be understood in more nuanced fashion (Stahl 2001).
For Hall (2000), there is a close relationship between the
ability to make claims to authority and the ability to con-
trol material representations (i.e., the built landscape),
and products, of such relations of power. In his concep-
tion of political power, a key strategy becomes attempting
to control the presentation and perception of these mate-
rial representations at times when a group’s, or individ-
ual’s, prominence is on display. Therefore, the ditches
may also be interpreted in relation to attempts throughout
the region to control the presentation and use of religious
symbols and political iconography associated with the ser-
pent deity Dangbe. The section that follows provides an
overview of Dangbe worship in southern Bénin, and the
relationship between those religious practices and the
ditches at Savi and Dahomey.
DANGBE WORSHIP IN SOUTHERN BÉNIN
Ian Hodder (1995) suggests issues of performance and dis-
play should be considered in the interpretation of archae-
ological assemblages, such that archaeologists should at-
tempt to link material culture with the pageantry of past
events. Melville Herskovits (1938), Herskovits and Frances
 Norman and Kelly • Landscape Politics in West Africa
Herskovits (1933), and Law (1991) note that European
travelers to the region were fascinated with Huedan wor-
ship of the python deity Dangbe and recorded numerous
accounts of Dangbe being called upon on occasions of
economic, political, and social significance. In the early
18th century, Des Marchais recounted that Dangbe was in-
voked for political purposes “on all occasions relating to
their government” (in Law 1990:209). In the mid–19th
century, Richard Burton described the sacred python con-
sidered the earthly manifestations of Dangbe as “a brown
yellow-and-white-streaked python of moderate dimen-
sions; and none appear to exceed five feet” (in Newbury
1966:74). This characterization corresponds with the col-
oration and physiology of one type of python indigenous
to the area today: the Royal/Ball Python, Python regius,
usually less than six feet (Villiers 1975). Similar to the ac-
counts of modern Dangbe practitioners (Norman 2000),
historic travelers noted that Dangbe was considered to
regulate weather and agricultural fertility.
An early-18th-century traveler to the area recorded
that “the great men paid their respects to the king of Why-
dah as the head of the descent group which had as its
tohwiyo [symbolic head] the revered serpent Dan[gbe], and
recognized him as their leader in negotiations with the
Europeans” (Argyle 1966:16). However, the sociopolitical
and religious authority associated with Dangbe worship
both legitimated and circumscribed the actions of the
king, as he was obliged to provide gifts to governors and
other royal retainers during the annual ceremonies associ-
ated with Dangbe.
The most sacred ceremony on the Huedan calendar
was the procession of the King of Hueda to the main tem-
ple of Dangbe located immediately outside the palace
walls. Des Marchais noted such a ceremony associated
with the coronation of Huffon (c. 1713–15; see Figures 3
and 4). He describes a formal procession to the temple of
Dangbe by the wives of the king after the coronation cere-
mony held within the palace complex, followed by a pro-
cession to the shrine by the king himself three months
later. Law suggests that this action secured Huffon’s en-
dorsement for his position “from the kingdom’s national
deity as well as from its traditional overlord” (Law
1990:225). Before this ceremony, there was civil unrest as-
sociated with the legitimacy of Huffon, concerning the
political jockeying between two of his chief governors. In
attempting to mount a coup against Huffon, one governor
required his supporters to swear allegiance through taking
oaths to Dangbe (Law 1990:221).
The public ceremonies associated with the annual
procession were normally held immediately outside the
palace complex, with major rites thus adding to the sa-
credness within, and further linking the authority of the
king with the supernatural (Blier 1995; Law 1991). Ritual
restrictions reinforced the mystique of the palace and the
“exalted status” of the king, who left the palace com-
pound “once or twice” a year (Law 1991:77–78). The king
remained inside the palace complex except for the annual
103
procession to the temple of Dangbe, where his wealth was
placed on display as his court paraded items from the pal-
ace compound around the palace walls and to the temple
of Dangbe (Law 1990:226). A large portion of the Huedan
population was mobilized for the procession by ritual spe-
cialists, who led the drumming, dancing, and singing (Law
1991:95–96). The king of Hueda served as the head offici-
ate, while his wives demonstrated royal largesse by throw-
ing cowries and other items of value to the assembled
crowd. The procession and related ceremonies resemble
Achille Mbembe’s (1992) description of the use of specta-
cle as a strategy for reinforcing political structures and ex-
isting relations of power, as such events lend credibility to
the existing power structures (Orr 2001; Turner 1974, 1995).
Following Mbembe, such structures would allow elite groups
to conduct ceremonies, which translated into political
prominence in the more mundane aspects of life. Like-
wise, the bodies (Figure 3) of those processing and observ-
ing (including Europeans and those animals and persons
occasionally sacrificed to Dangbe) added to the aura of the
Huedan elite groups and reinforced their position as the
mediator between the sacred and profane, arbiter of life
and death. It is clear from documentary sources and sub-
sequent archaeological investigations that the procession
would have coincided with the path of the ditch system,
as the party moved outside the palace and proceeded to
the temple of Dangbe.
The ditches surrounding the palace at Savi circum-
scribed the path followed by the procession and forced
participants to retrace the symbolic boundary of the elite
district. In one instance when the king of Hueda left the
palace to invoke Dangbe and reestablish the relationship
of exchange between Hueda and the Huedan pantheon, it
is telling that the structure of the ritual focused on move-
ment in and out of the palace complex, with the encir-
cling ditches marking the point of transition between the
two spheres of Huedan society. Dangbe is considered to
control movement and the transition between social cate-
gories (Blier 1995:201). As the physical representation of
Dangbe, the ditches would have literally shaped the
movement of the procession into a form consistent with
the aesthetic principles associated with Dangbe, discussed
below.
In the section that follows, we highlight the incorpo-
ration of palace structures into the political machinery of
the kingdoms of southern Bénin.
PALACES, POLITICS, AND THE BUILT LANDSCAPE
Numerous archaeologists (e.g., DeMarrais et al. 1996; Joyce
and Winter 1996; Thomas 1993) have commented on the
relationship between elements of the built landscape and
political activities. Recent attempts have been made to
place such landscape elements within their social context
(e.g., Bender 1993, 2001; Kelly 1997a). Edna Bay (1998: 11–12)
notes that in the 18th–19th century the palaces in the
coastal forest zone were active elements in the political
104 American Anthropologist • Vol. 106, No. 1 • March 2004
FIGURE 3. Procession to the Temple of Dangbe, from Des Marchais (1731: Plate 7).
interactions of the area. The Dahomean palace at Abomey
was considered by individuals in the area to be the center
of the universe, and as such it also exemplified the funda-
mental ideological and organizational principle in Da-
homean cosmology: Any whole is the sum of complemen-
tary forces.
The Dahomean palace itself was organized to exem-
plify the oppositions in these complementary parts of in-
side–outside, right–left, royal–commoner, male–female, and
to invert the relationships experienced outside the com-
plex (Bay 1998). By inverting traditional relationships and
social categories, the palace presented Dahomeans a sa-
cred space where many rules and norms upheld outside
the palace did not apply. For example, gender roles were
reversed within the palace, as the only way to talk to the
king was through courtesans acting as intermediaries and
diplomats. Similarly, female warriors served as the king’s
personal guard, eunuchs appeared in palace audiences in
women’s dress, and courtesans appeared in male dress of
Yoruba style. Other norms observed outside the palace
were upheld, as right superseded left and elite superseded
commoner, and all who entered the palace were obliged to
show deference to the authority of the king (Bay 1998).
The ditches at Savi served to mark the boundary
where outside social relations and practices did not apply.
Inverting the typical relationship on the West African
coast, and highlighting the tensions inherent in their rela-
tionship, European traders, the major source of Hueda
wealth, were compelled to live inside the palace. European
travelers and diplomats who held high offices outside the
palace were forced to genuflect on arriving before the king
and remain so until their audience ended. These inver-
sions also affected the daily practices of the king; though
most individuals could move freely throughout the king-
dom, the king’s movement was restricted to life within the
boundary ditches of the palace (Law 1991:75–78).
It is not surprising, then, that a deity who permeated
the religious and economic activities of the Huedan peo-
ple would also be incorporated into the kingdom’s politi-
cal iconography. Ben-Amos (1999) suggests that religious
iconography was incorporated into art created in the 18th-
century Kingdom of Benin, and that elite groups used such
art to shape the interpretation of events and as mnemonic
devices used to spur the recollection of oral histories. The
built landscape and monumental architecture of southern
Bénin was used to signify similar relationships between
elites and the divine, and to naturalize their position atop
Huedan and Dahomean society. For Hall (2000:25–27), ar-
chitectural features effectively communicate political
authority when they are linked to elite groups through
performative events such as the parade described above,
and the action of corvée and enslaved laborers toiling in
the ditches in compliance to the king and his administra-
tors. In such a social environment, the built landscape can
 Norman and Kelly • Landscape Politics in West Africa
FIGURE 4. Huedan coronation ceremony. Note the conical python shrine in the center of the palace courtyard, from Des Marchais (1731:
plate 4).
be interpreted as an expression of social and political
structure that communicates these relative differences in
structural positions, through symbolic associations that
denote affiliation with, and differentiation between, cer-
tain groups (cf. Lawrence and Low 1990; Kelly 1997a). The
following section describes attempts to designate or ap-
propriate symbols of Dangbe for such political purposes.
DANGBE AND THE DITCHES
Beyond the proximate relationship between ceremonies
for Dangbe and the ditches that surrounded the palace,
modern residents living near the site of Savi associate rem-
nant ditches with the aesthetic elements used to describe
serpents in general, and Dangbe in particular. Daniel
Miller and Christopher Tilley (1984) and Tilley (1994) sug-
gest that landscape features should be evaluated with an
approach empathetic to the possible experiential qualities
of certain settings. They suggest that adequate inferences
regarding the political significance of archaeological fea-
tures must include analogies related to emotions evoked
by such features. Our collaborators considered the dank-
ness of the ditches and the serpentine patterns they trace
on the landscape analogous to similar qualities of serpents.
Melville Herskovits (1938:245–255), while comparing and
contrasting the serpent deities worshiped throughout
105
southern Bénin in the mid–20th century, noted that these
deities are associated with things in the world that are
flexible, moist, and that fold, refold, and coil, as well as
things that are considered to connect the earth and sky.
These associations parallel the physical characteristics of
pythons and the ecological areas that they inhabit. Al-
though pythons spend most of their lives in terrestrial set-
tings where they brood in abandoned burrows, they also
hunt from trees and return to branches for protection after
engorging on the ground (Villiers 1975). The association
with dankness, and moisture might relate to the python’s
adept ability to negotiate aquatic environments, as well as
the slight oily feel of their skin. Pythons are excellent
swimmers and occasionally hunt from rivers and streams.
John Murphy and Robert Henderson (1997:17–18) note
modern accounts of pythons swimming several kilometers
in and around the Victoria Nyanza islands of eastern Africa,
and those of Ghanaian fishermen who reported catching
pythons in fish traps set in the sea, some of which were
alive after being submerged for several hours. The impor-
tance of the Savi ditch system referencing qualities associ-
ated with pythons in general and Dangbe in particular can
be better understood as strategies for reinforcing political
and religious hegemony of those groups residing within
the ditch system, when it is considered in relation to ac-
counts describing the manner in which pythons shaped
106 American Anthropologist • Vol. 106, No. 1 • March 2004
FIGURE 5. Temple of Dangbe in Ouidah, from Chaudoin (1891:343).
the daily practices and bodily comportment of people
from the area.
In the mid–19th century Forbes recorded that around
the Dangbe temple at Ouidah there were:
many snakes of the Boa [python] species. These are al-
lowed to roam about at pleasure; but if found in a house
or at a distance, a fetish man or woman is sought, whose
duty it is to induce the reptile to return, and to reconduct
it to its sacred abode, whilst all that meet it must bow
down and kiss the dust. Morning and evening, many are
seen prostrated before the door [of the temple of Dangbe].
[1966:109]
The treatment of pythons in this account (see also Figure
5) is similar to the description the king received while he
was holding court. As mentioned above, courtesans as well
as European visitors were compelled to genuflect through-
out their audience with the king (Law 1991:78). In a simi-
lar sense, the king and pythons normally resided in sancti-
fied spaces out of view and shielded from the profane
elements of daily life. John Duncan noted that in the mid-
19th-century homage was paid to pythons:
When one of [the pythons] is picked up by any one, oth-
ers will prostrate themselves as it is carried past, throwing
dust on their heads, and begging to be rubbed over the
body with the reptile. After taking the snake up, a very
heavy penalty is incurred by laying it down, before it is
placed in the fetish-house. [1847:126–127]
When the reverence shown to these earthly representa-
tions of Dangbe is considered, it is not difficult to imagine
the symbolic importance of placing monumental architec-
ture that references the qualities associated with the deity,
in close proximity to the symbolic center of the kingdom.
The symbolic protection that the ditches afforded the resi-
dents of the palace complex at Savi should be viewed in
relation to Huedan conceptions that Dangbe will protect
those groups contained within, or beyond, physical struc-
tures that evoke qualities associated with serpents. Bay
notes that an early-18th-century European observer of the
battle for Savi suggested that the Huedans
only went every Morning and Evening to the River side,
to offer to their principle God, which was a particular
harmless Snake they adored, and prayed to on this occa-
sion, to keep their Enemies from coming over the river . . .
there is a constant Tradition amongst them whenever any
Calamity threatens their Country, by imploring the
Snake’s Assistance, they are always delivered from it . . .
the Pass of the River being . . . wholly left to the Care of
the Snakes, whom the Enemy little feared; and they hav-
ing observed for several Days, that the Whidaws kept no
set Guard there, it encouraged the King of Dahomè’s Gen-
eral to send two hundred of his Soldiers to ford the River.
[Bay 1998:60]
Through activation by sacrifice and ceremonies, the
river became a symbolic boundary defended by Dangbe
against attack from invading forces. In light of these ac-
tions taken by Huedan devotees to engage Dangbe in the
defense of Savi, it becomes difficult to support conten-
tions in European travelers’ accounts and, later, interpre-
tations that draw on them (Akinjogbin 1967:69–72; Argyle
1966:19; Law 1991:284–285), that little was done in de-
fense of the Huedan Kingdom. European observers over-
looked the nuances of warfare being waged by Dahomey
against Hueda, using the application of flintlocks, bayo-
nets, castles, and cannon as their referent of military op-
erations. They furthermore underestimated the impor-
tance, in terms of Huedan cosmology, of the defense being
mounted at the river. In the stand at the river bounding
Huedan and Dahomean territories, Huedans appear to
have used one of the most potent forces available in their
arsenal—an appeal to the serpent deity to control move-
ment at the frontier of their kingdom.
A similar strategy can be seen in relation to elite groups
at Savi, who used the annual procession to the shrine of
Dangbe to activate the ditch system at Savi as the last line
of defense against enemies who would target the symbolic
center of the kingdom. The center of the Savi was strategi-
cally important not only as the ritual center but also as a
physical sanctuary for sacred pythons and the head offici-
ates for Dangbe worship. Travelers’ accounts suggest that
Huedans treated symbols of Dangbe worship with the ut-
most respect, which made their avatars the targets for
 Norman and Kelly • Landscape Politics in West Africa
outside groups. Law (1991:28) notes that recent oral histo-
ries record that the key to military victories throughout
the region involved capturing and retaining the royal py-
thons, the incarnation of Dangbe.
In such a social environment in which individuals
associated military victories and political and religious
authority with serving as the steward for the royal serpents,
it is not difficult to comprehend the importance of pro-
tecting the serpents from outside groups. Likewise, if out-
siders understood the power fields that could be mobilized
by Dangbe, the importance of monumental architecture
that references the aesthetic qualities associated with the
deity can be more clearly associated with the strategies as-
sociated with Huedan defense.
The relationship between Dangbe worship and earth-
works becomes even more striking when viewed in light of
Dahomean efforts to incorporate elements of the panthe-
ons, cosmologies, and material culture associated with
Dangbe into Dahomean religious and political practices.
THE APPROPRIATION OF DANGBE AND DITCHES
Dahomean soldiers targeted not only the Huedan palace
complex and its inhabitants but also the royal serpents as-
sociated with Dangbe. The serpents were incorporated lit-
erally and symbolically into the Dahomean kingdom by
being consumed by Dahomean troops at the time of Savi’s
conquest in March of 1727 (Law 1991). In a similar fash-
ion, the Huedan populace was incorporated into the Da-
homean fold. William Snelgrave witnessed the decapita-
tion of 400 war captives in 1727 and noted a collection of
4,000 skulls from sacrifices offered after the conquest of
Hueda earlier the same year (in Law 1986:249). William
Smith recounts that the general who put the torch to the
European lodges at Savi ordered “all the boys in the Camp;
some of which were not above Seven or Eight Years of Age,
to cut off the Heads of All the Aged and Wounded among
the Captives that were unmerchantable” (Smith 1744:192).
The collection of skulls is a key strategy, because the Da-
homean king considered the heads of his subjects his
property, with skulls the symbolic seat of knowledge and
religious essence (Law 1989). Through incorporating heads
of the conquered Huedans into the royal treasury, Agaja,
king of Dahomey at Savi’s conquest, was symbolically in-
creasing the size of his kingdom. In doing so, and annexing
Huedan lands, Agaja also incorporated aspects of Huedan
cosmology into the Dahomean pantheon, and Huedan
material culture into the repertoire of forms created by ar-
tisans housed within the palace compound at Abomey.
European observers recognized that Dahomey’s strategy
of permitting continued worship of Dangbe was instru-
mental to assimilating the conquered Hueda. After Agaja’s
conquest of the Hueda, he negotiated with Huedan ritual
specialists for Dahomean acquisition of Dangbe and other
local deities. Dahomean administrators shifted the wor-
ship of the python deity from the former capital of Savi to
the coastal port of Ouidah where Dahomean bureaucrats
107
could monitor its activities (Law 1991). The compound of
the Yovogan, the Dahomean chief of Europeans and state
official governing the affairs of Ouidah for the king of Da-
homey, was located between the two largest threats to the
king’s influence over the area; the Temple of the Python
and the European trading quarters. Later, the Catholic Ca-
thedral entered the ideological battle after being estab-
lished directly adjacent to the Temple of the Python (Kelly
2002).
Although Dangbe worship never became as prominent
as other major gods worshiped on the Abomey plateau,
Agaja attempted to incorporate Dangbe into the liturgy of
Dahomean Vodun. While Dangbe was being installed in
the Dahomean pantheon, Law notes that Etienne Gallot, a
French officer serving in Ouidah, was engaged by Agaja to
teach the Dahomeans “how to dig trenches and raise crude
fortifications, which was unknown among these people”
(Law 1992:110). The statement that these techniques were
unknown is not credible, because Dahomey had political,
economic, and social relations with both the Kingdoms of
Hueda and Benin, both of which employed ditches around
their palace complexes since at least the 17th century (Law
1991). Furthermore, architectural features found aestheti-
cally pleasing or militarily advantageous readily spread
throughout the southern forest zone (Shinnie 1971:22–24).
It seems more likely that the ditches represent an effort to
increase the defensive qualities of the Abomey palace com-
plex, while at the same time incorporating monumental ar-
chitecture associated with Dangbe into the material culture
of the capital. The fact that the creation of the ditches co-
incided with a time when thousands of war captives were
removed from Savi to Abomey and most likely partici-
pated in the construction of the ditches as enslaved labor
suggests that Agaja used Huedan labor to construct the
physical symbol of the merger of the two kingdoms. This
symbol was a ditch system that evoked the political, relig-
ious, and economic prominence of the Huedan palace
complex so closely associated with Dangbe.
Such earthworks were followed by other attempts to
incorporate serpent imagery into the Dahomean palace at
Abomey and associate elite activities with its prominence.
In the 1850s, Guezo, King of Dahomey, commissioned the
sculpture of bas-reliefs representing Dan Ayido Houédo, a
serpent biting its own tail, as one of the symbols of his
reign. Dan Ayido Houédo, known also as the “rainbow ser-
pent,” is considered by our collaborators in the Savi area
as a derivation of Dangbe and serves in a similar fashion in
the Dahomean cosmology and mythology, as it did earlier
in Huedan cosmology. Namely, Dan Ayido Houédo was
considered to control the eternal movement between the
earthly plane and the hereafter, as well being the source of
material wealth for those closely associated with his wor-
ship (Blier 1995). By comparing and relating himself to
Dan Ayido Houédo, Guezo was able to project an “aura of
timeless power” (Piqué and Rainer 1999:75).
Beyond referencing the element of timelessness asso-
ciated with Dangbe, it was strategically important for Guezo
108 American Anthropologist • Vol. 106, No. 1 • March 2004
to associate himself with the earlier military exploits of
Agaja. The bas-reliefs located throughout the palace com-
plex were central elements to the transition and mainte-
nance of political power in the kingdom, because royal
storytellers used them as mnemonic devices that illus-
trated and evoked the oral histories of the kingdom.
Through retelling and shaping of the histories both ver-
bally and through the built landscape, the legacy of the
Dangbe became inextricably linked to that of the rainbow
serpent Dan Ayido Houédo, as the history of the Daho-
mean palace became linked to the Huedan palace.
CONCLUSION
In numerous societies in the West African coastal forest
zone, groups created ditch systems as means of protection
by placing both literal and symbolic space between zones
of their settlement. As symbolic barriers, the voids of the
ditches created earthly manifestations of cosmological fea-
tures, patrolled by members of their respective pantheons.
Following Hall’s (1987) discussion of the way elements of
the built landscapes are used as political features to distin-
guish relationships and boundaries between African and
European groups, we have described the series of massive
ditches at the urban centers of Savi and Abomey in rela-
tion to the political strategies of the Huedans and Da-
homeans. That such earthworks were the product of large-
scale mobilizations of corvée and enslaved labor points to
the prominent role they played in West African social rela-
tions, as well as physical reminders of the ability of elite
groups to organize such labor. European observers related
the construction of the ditch systems at Savi and Abomey
to European design and deployment. However, archaeo-
logical and ethnographic data show that ditch and other
earthenworks were used throughout the region prior to
European incursion (Connah 2000; Darling 1984; Posnansky
1981). Thus, earthworks at Savi and Abomey most prob-
ably relate to attempts to mitigate West African interpolity
conflicts through incorporating the physical and symbolic
defensive value of ditches related to cosmological bounda-
ries into the material culture of the kingdoms.
In these ways, the symbols of Dangbe inspired by pre-
vious practices at Savi were incorporated into the pan-
theon and material repertoire of the Dahomean kingdom,
evidenced today by the ditches still visible near the palaces at
Abomey and the place that the rainbow serpent holds in
the Dahomean cosmology. The importance of Dangbe’s
relationship to ditches begs comparison to earthen struc-
tures far from West Africa, in places where individuals
from the area came to live. Two examples are the use of
ditches in modern Haiti associated with Vodun rites for
the “Rainbow Serpent” (de Heusch 1989:295–296), and de-
fensive ditches associated with the 17th-century Maroon
Kingdom of Palmares in Brazil (Diggs 1953:66). This tre-
mendous expenditure of labor on ditch construction by
West Africans and their descendant groups, on both sides
of the Atlantic, speaks to the prominence of such struc-
tures in the negotiation of power relations.
By focusing on strategies using elements of the built
landscape to create social boundaries, this case study at-
tempts to revisit moments of European interaction through
the perspective of nonwestern groups. Such critical reex-
aminations are sorely needed for periods and areas where
European travelers, though a demographic and political
minority, form the recorded and vocal majority through
their primary accounts. By highlighting these alternative,
and often contradictory, versions of the significance of
elements of the landscape in nonwestern settings, other
lines of evidence can be brought to the interpretation of
features that, since the moment of “contact,” have lan-
guished under theories drawn primarily from European ac-
counts. We hope to add to the scholarship of anthropo-
logical investigation of articulation of such sociocultural
factors and landscape features, by situating this specific
case study from southern Bénin within a broader regional
phenomenon of West African groups’ incorporation of
ditches and other barriers into social, political, and cosmo-
logical institutions.
NEIL L. NORMAN Department of Anthropology, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904
KENNETH G. KELLY Department of Anthropology, University
of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208
NOTES
Acknowledgments. This research was made possible through the
support and encouragement of many people. We would particu-
larly like to recognize Professor Merrick Posnansky, UCLA; Pro-
fesseurs Alexis Adandé, Elisée Soumoni, and Joseph Adandé, De-
partment d’histoire et d’archéologie, Université Nationale du
Bénin d’Abomey-Calavi; Mme. Rachida de Souza, Secrétaire
Générale de le Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication;
M. Eric F. Totah, Directeur du Patrimoine Culturel; Mme.
Micheline Egounlety, Conservateur, Musée d’Histoire de Ouidah;
the Agomadje family, Savi; M. Boniface Bossoukpè. The University
of South Carolina College of Liberal Arts Scholarship Support
Grant provided funding for the 1999 research of Kelly, under
whose guidance and auspices Norman worked. The University of
Virginia, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Department of
Anthropology provided funding for Norman’s summer 2003 re-
search project. At the University of Virginia, this article benefited
from comments of Carolyn Heitman, Dennis Blanton, Seoyeon
Choi, Yadira Perez, Abigail Holeman, Alex Caton, Matthew Meyer,
David Sapir, and Dell Upton. Concepts for the article were devel-
oped through coursework with Hanan Sabea and Patricia Watten-
maker. Jeff Hantman was a stabilizing force and an endless source
of theoretical information through the article’s construction and
revision. Norman owes a deep debt of gratitude to Adria LaVio-
lette, whose previous research, guidance, and counsel fundamen-
tally informed this article and who clarified tangled prose through
reading and commenting on numerous drafts. We appreciate the
review and critical commentary of Ann Stahl, Barbara Bender, and
a third anonymous AA reviewer.
1. This article originated as Neil Norman’s M.A. thesis in anthro-
pology at the University of Virginia, which explored the cosmol-
ogy of the ditches at Savi and Abomey. It builds on published and
unpublished work, intellectual guidance, and fieldwork opportuni-
ties provided by Kenneth Kelly since 1998.
2. Kelly directed six field seasons of archaeological survey, testing,
and data recovery in the region from 1991–99. Norman conducted
 Norman and Kelly • Landscape Politics in West Africa
two ethnoarchaeological field seasons of interviews and guided
surveys of sacred sites in the region in 1999 and 2003.
3. By convention and for clarity, the modern political state of
Bénin will be differentiated from the historical Kingdom of Benin
by the accented “é.”
4. For a detailed discussion see Jakob Spieth 1911, Melville Hersko-
vits 1938, Melville Herskovits and Frances Herskovits 1933, and
Susan Blier 1995.
5. The historic polity of “Hueda” is transliterated using the Eng-
lish form to distinguish it from its coastal port with the same name
“Ouidah” (French transliteration), as well as historic sources that
use Whydah, Whidaw, Fida, etc. (see Figure 1).
6. See also Jack Goody’s 1957:83–87 description of the Lo Da-
gaba’s use of ditches as social boundaries.
7. For a detailed discussion of the archaeological work at Savi, see
Kelly 1995 and 2001.
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