Fon people

The Fon (Fon nu), a third of Benin and its largest people at nearly five million, with kin in Togo, speak Fongbe of the Gbe family along the Bight of Benin. They founded the Dahomey kingdom at Abomey, whose palace reliefs, appliqued banners and all-female Agojie regiments awed visitors, and whose slave and palm-oil trade financed a centralised state that swallowed Allada and Ouidah. Kotafon and Ayizo subgroups fill the southern towns from Cotonou to Lossa. French conquest took Abomey in 1892, but Vodun religion, Gelede festivals and the royal palaces, now museums, keep Fon court memory. Cotonou markets, zemidjan taxis and the Ganvié stilt villages carry Fon modernity, and the Dahomean Amazons march again in festivals and films. From Cotonou to Lokossa, Fon towns still speak Fongbe in markets and schools. Kotafon and Ayizo fishers work the coastal lagoons south of Allada. Atakpame traders carry Fon cloth into the hills.