Epe-Ekpe is the new year festival of the Guin people, held annually over a long weekend in September. The central rite is the divination of the takin — a sacred stone — drawn from the Kpessosso forest by the senior priestess of Nyigblin. The colour of the stone is interpreted as the prophecy for the coming year, and the announcement is the symbolic high point of a week of ceremonies, processions, drumming and dancing that draw pilgrims from across Togo, Benin, Ghana and the wider diaspora.
For a non-initiate visitor, much of the festival's deeper religious content remains private and is conducted within the priesthood. What is open and unforgettable is the public side: processions in white cloth through the town, the great gathering at the sacred forest, the all-night drumming, and the social atmosphere of an entire community taking over its streets. Aného fills with overflow visitors during the festival; book accommodation well in advance, dress respectfully, and ask before photographing anything that looks ritual rather than spectacle.