Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System

1. Traditional Religion in West Africa and in the New World: A Thematic Overview

1 TrAdiTionAlreliGion inWeSTAfricA AndinTheneWWorld AThematicoverview Though some scholarship of the past four decades on African religion and culture has been fairer, broader, more objective, and more accurate in its examination and presentation than many earlier works, overall much traditional African and African-derived life and culture continue to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. Nowhere is the mischaracterization of West and Central West African tradition more discordant with reality than in numerous early portrayals and interpretations of African traditional religion. As both the product of and the producer of pejorative misrepresentations of African traditional cultural life, some of the materials that degrade and misinterpret the religious core of traditional African society can be found in the private journals and other accounts by missionaries, traders, explorers , settlers, and agents of the Crown used as primary sources. Though this scholarship has often been racist and pejorative, it is still possible, however, to glean comparative factual information concerning traditional African religious practices that would carry over into the New World. With the apparent exception of Kongo, where early conversion of the Kongolese nobility to Catholicism appears to have been voluntary, or at least Gimme that old time religion Gimme that old time religion Gimme that old time religion It’s good enough for me —Traditional Gospel hymn Hazzard_Text.indd 19 10/10/12 8:44 AM 20 chapter 1 without colonial pressure,1 the dual notions of Christianizing and civilizing “African savages” complemented each other; in some instances, the two processes, generally accompanied by colonialism, were one and the same, as a quote from a prayer by Rev. T. Muller, chaplain to the 1841 expedition up the Niger, illustrates: Our help is in thee, O God! Who hast made heaven and earth. Undertake Thou for us, and bless Thou the work of our hands. Give success to our endeavours to introduce civilization and Christianity into this benighted country. Thou hast promised, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God: make us, we pray thee, instrumental in fulfilling this Thy promise.2 Similar attitudes would confront traditional African religious practice in the Americas and Hoodoo in the United States. Of all the harmful labels attached to traditional West African religion, the labels idol worship and superstition and their association with evil or “dark” forces have been long-standing. The notions that the Christian god was the one “true God” and that West African spiritual practice was founded solely on ignorance and fear accompanied the numerous and influential outsiders entering Africa. African scholar John S. Mbiti, an astute observer on the attitude of both early and contemporary scholarship toward traditional African life and culture, speaking in 1990 of the early scholarship on African traditional religion, had this comment: One of the dominating attitudes in this early period was the assumption that African beliefs, cultural characteristics and even foods, were all borrowed from the outside world. German scholars pushed this assumption to the extreme, and have not all abandoned it completely to this day. All kinds of theories and explanations were put forward on how the different religious traits had reached African societies from the Middle East or Europe. . . . These earlier descriptions and studies of African religions left us with terms which are inadequate, derogatory and prejudicial.3 Even in the twenty-first century, unfounded prejudice, misrepresentation, and misunderstanding of traditional African religion, though challenged and somewhat abated, still continue. Unfortunately, contemporary popular images, with unlimited power to capture the psyche and imagination of the youthful observer through special effects and fantastic animation, have continued to be one of the most powerful tools in reinforcing the older misrepresentations . Where these images would be contested and challenged, the African as the human element is simply excluded from the portrayal, as with Disney’s 1999 animated version of Tarzan. This full-length cartoon Hazzard_Text.indd 20 10/10/12 8:44 AM Traditional Religion in West Africa and in the New World 21 fantasy, which continues the insidious legacy of pejorative portrayals, may be even more harmful than earlier misrepresentations because it completely eliminates the African from his homeland and, through exclusion, silences and renders him invisible and inferior in his own environment. Because these types of misportrayals encourage a denial and erasure of African culture , the ideological implications of this vicious manipulation are potentially far reaching for those of African heritage as they further contribute to the already existing self-loathing. The African slave trade to...