The story
Fete des Generations Atchan in Bingerville/Abidjan villages
The Fete des Generations, known locally as Fatchue, is a traditional ceremony of the Atchan, or Ebrie, people of the Abidjan lagoon region, including villages around Bingerville, marking the transfer of village leadership between age-based generations roughly every fifteen years. Named after the war dance performed during the event, it formally admits a new generation of men and women into adulthood and civic decision-making within this historically egalitarian lagoon society.
Along the Ebrie lagoon that gives Abidjan its shimmering waterfront, including the villages around Bingerville, the Atchan people, who call themselves Tchaman, have organized political life for generations through an age-based system unlike almost anywhere else in West Africa.