Epé Ekpé ritual takes centre stage in Togo
The centuries-old Epé Ekpé festival of Togo’s Guin people has taken centre stage with the retrieval of the Sacred Stone, one of the most important moments in the community’s traditional and spiritual calendar.
Observed since 1663, Epé Ekpé — also known as Ekpéssosso — marks the beginning of the traditional new year among the Guin. More than three centuries after its beginnings, the ceremony remains an important expression of ancestral memory, spirituality and communal identity.
The celebrations follow a sacred lunar calendar and are shaped by a sequence of rituals governing both individual conduct and community life. Among these is the Sédodo, a period characterised by prohibitions and the observance of established community rules.
Another important element is the Situtu, a fundamental rite of purification. Together, the practices prepare the community spiritually for the new year and reaffirm the obligations that bind its members to one another.
The high point of the ceremonies is the retrieval and unveiling of the Sacred Stone. This year, the stone was presented by followers of Mama Koley, the deity associated with the ritual.
The stone's colour is traditionally interpreted as carrying meaning for the year ahead. This year's stone was white, a colour associated with purity, social peace and prosperity for the community.
Beyond its religious significance, Epé Ekpé has endured as an institution of social cohesion. Its ceremonies bring together questions of spirituality, authority, collective responsibility and historical memory, demonstrating how traditional institutions continue to occupy an important place in contemporary West African life.
In 2025, the cultural significance of the tradition received international recognition when the associated celebrations were inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The recognition places emphasis not simply on preserving a ceremony, but on safeguarding the knowledge, practices and social relationships through which the tradition has survived across generations.
The ritual also offers a reminder of the cultural continuities that run across the modern borders of West Africa. Communities along the Gulf of Guinea have maintained religious, linguistic and political traditions whose histories long predate the colonial boundaries separating present-day Togo, Ghana, Benin and their neighbours.
For the Guin, therefore, the retrieval of the Sacred Stone is not merely a spectacle or festival attraction. It represents the renewal of a covenant between the living community, its inherited traditions and the spiritual world from which those traditions draw their authority.
Photographs documenting the ceremony have previously featured in Togo of the Kings, an exhibition by the Palais de Lomé examining the country's royal and traditional heritage.
Source: Palais de Lomé
Photography: Kodjo Wornanou