(re)membering african religion

(Re)Membering African Religion and Spirituality in the African DiasporaAuthor(s): Helen Pyne TimothySource: Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 134-149Published by: Center for Black Studies ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41715122 .Accessed: 10/03/2014 17:08

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134 Journal of Haitian Studies Vol. 8 No. 1 2002

Helen Pyne Timothy University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago

(Re)Membering African Religion and Spirituality in the African Diaspora

In 1991, Rex Nettleford wrote: "The germ of a Caribbean civilization giving to the African presence the centrality it commands is a special kind of reality hovering on the consciousness but yet to be fully acknowledged, despite the pervasive psychic energy with which it invests the region's ontologisms, epistemologies and world views." (Warner-Lewis XVIII).1 The "psychic energy" to which he refers is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the area of the understanding of African traditional religion2 and spirituality - a continu- ation of African society in the Diaspora, which has been the most problematic in terms of its full acknowledgment as an important force in Caribbean societies and, indeed, in all New World African societies. This state of affairs is not surprising, since this is perhaps the aspect of African societies that was the most violently suppressed within the period of slavery, and against which an ideological war still is being waged today. Originally, in direct confrontation with Christianity for the mind and soul of the enslaved Africans, this religion continues to present challenges to the missionary zeal of the militantly pros- elytizing evangelical/born-again Christian religions that now have flooded the Caribbean, and to which African religion is still the very anti-thesis of "true religion."3

The problem, however, becomes far more complex than a simple case of religious conflict. African traditional religion had been implicated as providing the justification for, and the sense of power and control necessary to gener- ate the desire for rebellion, for revolution, time and again in Cuba, in Haiti, in Jamaica, and indeed, throughout the period of slavery. Simply the consciousness of having gods other than those possessed by the enslavers was of course tremendously mentally liberating, and served to inspirit the desire for revolt. Furthermore, successful enslavement thrived not only on capture and coer- cion, but also on insecurity, on division, and on fragmentation of culture and society. Religion, by its very nature, invites community, kinship, and cohesion - all threatening factors for the rule of the slave master, the colonialist, and the economic oligarchies that have succeeded these systems; so that in freedom as in slavery the hostility vented toward the African religions continues.


(Re )Membering African Religion and Spirituality in the African Diaspora 135

The powerful ideological bashing concerned itself with characterizing African religion as "witchcraft," "superstition," "devil worship," "evil," and more recently perhaps, "folklore." All civil structures within the Caribbean always have denied, and continue to deny the existence of this "special kind of reality;" and this is as true of the education systems where children cannot declare themselves as belonging to an African religion when they go to school, because of the legal system, where laws against the practice of "obeah," or "witchcraft" have not been repealed in the Independent Caribbean systems. Even in the Parliaments where the other previous "heathens," the Hindus and Moslems, have been forgiven and may now swear on their Holy Books to represent all the people of the State, adherents of African religions still must swear legally on the Bible, in order to represent the population as a whole. Social stigmatizing also continues to exert powerful influences against the full recognition of this aspect of Caribbean life; so that, in the five hundred years since enslaved Africans were first brought to the New World, this aspect of their presence has yet to be fully acknowledged, yet to be given the understanding and the recognition that it deserves.

Despite these reflections, the subject of this paper points to interesting occurrences and treatments of African religious consciousness in selected lit- erary texts from the Caribbean region. These record evidence that African religions have remained in the minds and imaginations of the African people at a level of consciousness of which writers and artists are aware, and that the beliefs, rituals and practices still constitute powerful forces that are unassailably part of those tangible and intangible identifying marks that constitute "Caribbeanness." Writers are not the only artists who have brought African religions to the forefront of Caribbean consciousness, of course. Musicians throughout the region long and consistently have used the drumming rhythms, the chants, and musical tones and keys as the lynchpin of popular music in the Caribbean, whether it be in the reggae, mambo, meringue, zouk or calypso; but this rhythmic connection has become so common place as to be accepted without particular note or comment. In the literature, however, the use of Afri- can religion has become so pervasive that it seems to constitute a trend that has to be remarked, and that is not yet taken for granted. African religions have, in fact, been a part of the written texts on the Caribbean for a very long time; but when the Caribbean was being surveyed and recorded by the outsider, the external eye of the slave-owning class or of the traveler, African religious beliefs and practices were treated within the framework of the dominant discourse, i.e., as part of the benighted superstition and ignorance of the people: and even to the present day there are many writers who still treat these manifestations of a wholly different ontological system, as local color, exoticism, humorous interludes, without any attempt to put this system within a mode of


136 Helen Pyne Timothy

contestation with the dominant discourse. In recent times this assessment of the role of African religious beliefs and practices has become the case more and more and it is my thesis that the writers are attempting to "fully acknowl- edge" the "centrality" of African religion to the consciousness of Caribbean society and people, and in this way to attempt to (re)member both the frag- mented pieces of African traditional religion and the disassociated consciousness of this aspect of the African presence in the New World.

In discussing manifestations of African religion in the New World, it is to be expected that one should begin with a Haitian text, since the presence of Vodun in Haiti has been one of the most pervasive influences on all aspects of Caribbean life. Not only was Vodun a crucial factor in the Haitian Revolution, and therefore the essential ingredient in the mix of forces leading to the aboli- tion of slavery in the entire region, but it also has been a powerful, and continuing force in Haitian society and politics since the arrival of Africans into San Domingue. It is therefore fitting that in one of the classic novels of the Haitian experience, Vodun should play a vital part. Jacques Roumain 's Mas- ters of the Dew 4 examines Haitian peasant life within the context of an African philosophy that engages with the notion that good and evil are but two sides of the same coin in human life, that evil and harm are generated by the negative forces in human personality such as envy, jealousy, hate and spite, and that the vulnerability of human life can be protected by calling on the African gods through the proper rituals and ceremonies. Roumain was, of course, strongly influenced by the ideas about the chronicling of Black life in the New World, which were being articulated by the thinkers and writers of the Harlem Re- naissance (his work was written in 1923), and he gives respect to all manifestations of African culture in Haiti. But what is remarkable is the rich and authentic detail with which he records the ceremony of thanksgiving to Legba (Elegua), the god whose attributes include all possibilities connected with getting to the crossroads in one's life, both literally and symbolically, and who also brings messages from the gods to human beings. Roumaine 's treatment of Vodun in Haiti is stunning in its naturalness and its refusal to hide or mask the details of the ceremony in an era when the presentation of the continuities of African culture in the New World were not seen as anything but the manifestations of ignorance and illiteracy. Indeed, for many decades after the appearance of Masters of the Dew, African religious ceremonies still were being treated as exoticism, superstition devoid of philosophical theological content (as they perhaps, even now, are being treated in the popular cinema). Interest- ingly, Roumain makes his hero Manuel, who is the manifestation of good, a slightly skeptical observer of the Ceremony, which his mother organizes as an essential mark of thanksgiving to Legba for leading him safely home from his sojourn in Cuba, also for being a guide through the path of his future endeav-


(Re)Membering African Religion and Spirituality in the African Diaspora 137

ors; but the suggestion is that Manuel, having lived away from home for a long time, is not as committed to the belief system as he once was, and sees it as perhaps less useful than his mother does. Depicting one of life's ironies during the tragic ending, he is murdered by the forces of human evil - a jealous rival - the very kind of evil from which the ceremony seeks to protect him.

Apart from rendering the belief system that informs this manifestation of African traditional religion as coherent and holistic, as well as an alternative way of controlling the unpredictable and the occurrence of suffering, grief and death within human life, Roumain also confronts the challenges of presenting some of African rituals, which are interpreted as savage and backward in Eu- ropean and colonial master discourses, as emotionally appealing and spiritu- ally acceptable. Thus, in the ceremony to Legba he describes in detail the nature of spirit possession by the gods and details the change in character and appearance that the peasant, whom we have met in human form, undergoes as he becomes the instrument of the godhead, and his prophet to human beings. Again he details in the ritual the pouring of libations, the blood sacrifice of the sacred animal, (in this case the koklo)5, and the drinking of its blood as integral and perfectly natural parts of the ceremony. By the inclusion of these details he reasserts the authenticity of the ritual in the New World, and at- tempts to put the dismembered and discredited areas in the ritual back together. Roumain further counters the notion that these ceremonies are the instruments of communion with the devil - the instruments of evil and black magic - by clarifying their place in the communication with the godhead, and that cleansing ceremonies such as these are given in love and thanksgiving even as they seek to placate the gods. A short passage illustrates the tone and feeling in the work, and the respect with which the episode is treated:

...Bowing Bienaime offered Dormeus a pitcher of water. The houngan accepted it gravely and,. ..slowly lifted it toward the four cardinal points. His lips were muttering secret words. Then he sprinkled the soil... traced a magic circle... and began to sing...

Papa Legba open the gate for us! Ago ye! Atibon Legba! Oh! Open the gate for us, So that we may pass:... Papa Legba master of the three crossroads! Master of the three canals! Open the gate for us!... ...And Legba, the old god of Guinea, was there...

( Masters of the Dew. 65-66) This passage illustrates some ways in which Roumain succeeds in invest-

ing the presentation of Vodoun with certain essential ideas: First he shows that



memory of the religion has not been eradicated during the period of slavery, since the ceremony is rich with details of the ritual and with the music and chanting; next he reveals that the ordinary peasant in Haiti has the ability to communicate with his gods, and does not have to go through the intercession of the priest who may be the representative of the order of the enslaver; and it is powerfully reassuring of the notion that despite all indications to the con- trary, the old gods of Africa have not deserted their people in the travail of life in the New World - but human life is unpredictable, and there are of course, no guarantees, no matter what the religion. Above all, he points to the importance and meanings of the old symbolic order of the religion - such as the importance of the numeral 'three,' and the memory of an African language still in use in the chant; thus becoming a sacred language associated only with religion. There is also the naturalness of the idea of the sacredness of water and the four cardinal points of the earth. But most important perhaps is the occurrence of the transformative power of the religion, which converts the power- less Dormeus into the powerful houngan who can lead his people into communication with their gods, and who may for a short space of time transform them into gods themselves, tapping into the power of the universe.6

Roumain 's text also points to the historical relationship between Haiti and Cuba at the level of the people. Manuel, his hero, returns to Haiti after many years as a cane cutter in Cuba and the reader is able to extrapolate from this figure the idea that the interaction of Haitians and Cubans on Cuban soil and at several points in their history must have served to reinforce the memory and the observances of African religion in Cuba. It is well known, for example, that a laige number of persons of Cuban descent both inside and outside of Cuba continue to practice Santera to this day, and the reflection of various aspects of this religion have long informed Cuban literature. Most interesting is the fact that some writers, since the Revolution, have chronicled these manifestations as integral to the recognition of that which is Cuban essence or Cuban identity. Moreover the style of 'magical realism,' which is associated so closely with Latin American and Cuban writing uses the "other-worldli- ness" of African religions, such as the communication through dreams, con- versations with departed ancestors, the inspiriting of the natural world, as part of its modus operandi to convey a perception of ordinary reality as merely a veil between this world and the spirit world. This pervasive awareness of alternative perceptions of modes of being provides interesting interrogations of the monolithic vision presented by militant Christianity where it seeks to sup- press the other as un-truth, and thus implicitly promotes the validity of other possibilities for discerning truth.

Some incorporation of African religion in Cuban literature, when overtly referenced, is interesting, in that details of ritual are not necessarily included;


(Re )Membering African Religion and Spirituality in the African Diaspora 1 39

there may be inscription of social and communal praxis, which reveal the pragmatic nature of the relationship to the religion:

She was taken up to the labor room. Obadina stayed below murmuring a rosary. At four in the afternoon she was still shouting, groaning and crying with each new wave of pain. Obadina's soul thought was that the Christian God was not powerful or merciful enough. She stuffed the rosary deep into her pocket, smoothed the folds of her full starched skirt and went to the godfather's, to the house of babalao Epifanio Ruiz.

...Epifanio was a black man in his fifties at the time, tall, very thin, with a tired gait and a hollow voice; his look was wise and gentle... The babalao consulted the If with the ekuel , transcribing the Odu as it was revealed to him. When he finished he told Obadina that a boy would be born, strong and good; son of Chang and favorite of Yemay ; that the motto for all his days would be Ob Ikuro , The King Didn't Lie, and any lies he told would become truths, and the truth lies, and having come into the world to win he'd never lose. He also said the one about to be born should also carry on him a bit of red cloth, and that for the first years of his life he must wear an iron chain around his left ankle so that Oggn , who was always jealous of sons of Chang , would recognize and respect him. After saying this, he gave her a piece of red cloth and a hen's egg that he had cleansed in omiero de Oloddu Mare. "Now go back to the hospital," he told her. "You must find a way of getting your daughter and put the piece of cloth on her belly and rub it with the egg. Then you will go out into the street and smash it on the nearest corner; the boy will be born strong and healthy, and your daughter will live to see him grow up. As soon as he is born, you must cleanse him with the cloth, and keep it so that he carries it with him always..." My mother was almost beside herself when Obadina, nobody knows how, burst into the room, covered her belly with the piece of red cloth and rubbed it gently with the egg. "Ay, Chang ," she said.

" Cawo , cawosile every day! Oba cozo , king of kings!" The one about to be born is your son, power and glory be yours on man's earth, help him and help his mother, daughter of mine and most faithful and loving woman of Oyl Then, without looking or speaking to anybody, she went out into the street and on the nearest corner threw the egg to the ground. ( Afrocuba . 160-161)



This passage, taken from a story written in 1990, reveals aspects of Afri- can religion in the Caribbean that bear mention. First, there is the understanding that in the Cuban situation, and indeed, elsewhere, these religions co-exist in the minds and hearts of their believers, with the Roman Catholic Church - thus we see that Obadina is telling her rosary, but makes a conscious choice when to switch allegiance and to call upon what is obviously the Yoruba (oth- erwise Orisha) version of African traditional religion. It is true to say that African traditional religious belief tends to be accommodating of other faiths, and does not regard itself as the only, or exclusive path to the truth. Hence, ideas from other religions are incorporated. In the Caribbean it is usual to explain the overlapping of the African system with the Christian, especially with the Roman Catholic version, where the saints of the Church have been matched with counterparts in the traditional pantheon, as a desire to mask the true belief system by pretending that it is Catholic. While this explanation undoubtedly has some validity, there is also the dimension that the adherents see these systems as related in profound ways at the spiritual level. To those who perceive these systems as opposed, such a claim would probably seem heretical; but a study of the two systems and the readiness with which adherents of the one perceive correspondences in the other, reveal that they have certain aspects of belief in common, not the least of which is the belief in one god. In the Cuban situation, which this narrative reveals, there is also the understanding that this religion can be used to solve problems in everyday life and a reminder that it is part of the whole way of life of its adherents. In the quotation referenced, just as the child who is born must carry the red cloth (the symbol and color of Shango) in his pocket during the years of his childhood, so this religion and his Guinea god will be remembered in his life. Quiones suggests that because of its role in providing pragmatic solutions for the people, this religion will continue to be consulted, and to be remembered.7

In I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Maryse Cond has provided a remarkable tour de force by structuring her text entirely within the epistemologies and ontologies generated from African belief systems. The seeing-eye and narrative voice are Tituba's: an orphaned Caribbean slave child who grows into young adulthood in isolation from the all-pervading European world- view. Her socialization is entirely African - she learns to communicate with her dead ancestors, as well as the medicinal properties of plants, the arts of survival in the wild, and respect for nature. But Cond also incorporates the fact that these very powers can be used to harm and afflict enemies, just as they can be used to give help and succor. Cond explores though, in a highly playful and satirical manner, just what happens when the European world- view becomes 'the other,' and the African one forms the central point of depar- ture. Tituba (the inscribed version of the Barbadian-born Caribbean enslaved



African woman who was imprisoned in the Salem Witch Trials) understands her religion and its applications within the natural world, and its ability to provide the keys, which can remove the barriers to communication between the living, the dead and the unborn, thus revealing the cyclical nature of all existence. Cond places this system into an active contestation with the Puri- tan religious, beliefs and with the systems of medicine and science of the period - and she uses Tituba as the skeptic who interrogates the nature of these systems.

Cond, does not, unlike Roumain or Quiones, record a particular or rec- ognizable traditional religious system, but chooses instead to provide an eclectic mix of beliefs and 'powers' culled by the Caribbean person from influences provided by individuals from various African nations. For example, Tituba 's mother and stepfather are Ashantis, but the woman who initiates her into the secrets of her religion is Nago. In this way Cond highlights the kind of Creolization of African religious beliefs and practices that took place in the Caribbean. Both Warner-Lewis and Alleyne attest to the fact that the barriers between the separate African nations were broken by the strictures that the slave system imposed, and that therefore the primary syncretism that ensued was a syncretism between the religious beliefs and practices and the overlapping of various terms used for religious practices. Thus the sort of syncretism to Christian beliefs, which now appears so salient in the Cuban and Haitian situation, would have been a second stage, occurring after the kind of pan- African interaction that Cond presents. Tituba 's practices are not completely Yoruba-dominated or Congo-dominated, but rather a calquing of practices from various parts of Africa. Conde thus conveys and dignifies the notion that the (re)membering of African religion in the Caribbean can never be a com- plete resurgence of a particular system as it exists in Africa today, but is sure to be a new creation, forged in the new circumstances imposed by the slave past.

Interestingly enough Cond rarely uses African languages in her descrip- tions of rituals and uses few names of African gods. Rather she tends to use Caribbean proverbs, Caribbean folk-songs thus substituting a new ethos in the Caribbean; generated out of Africa, but forming itself into something new. Of course Cond also points to the unity of the African world-view on the macro level, and suggests that the differences in the belief systems are in the details, not in the overarching systems.

One idea that Cond includes, which we have not thus far discussed, is the relationship between African religious beliefs and the revolts of the slave period. In her inimitable style, Cond represents this idea in an ambiguous way:

He sat down on a stool and set his candle on the ground so



that it made a thousand flickering shadows. "I want to know if I can count on you." For a moment I remained speechless, then said: "For what, in heaven's name?" He leaned toward me. "Do you remember the song about Ti- Noel?" Ti-Noel? I gave up trying to understand. He stared at me with a look of commiseration as if I were a dull-witted child and started to sing in a surprisingly good voice. '"Oh Papa Ti-Noel, the white man's gun cannot kill him. The white man's bullets cannot kill him. They bounce off his skin.' Tituba, I want you to make me invincible." So that was it. I almost burst out laughing but refrained for fear of irritating him, and managed to reply very calmly: "I don't know whether I'm capable of that, Christopher!" "Are you a witch?" he shouted. "Yes or no!" I sighed. "Everyone gives that word a different meaning. Ev- eryone believes he can fashion a witch to his way of thinking so that she will satisfy his ambitions, dreams, and desires..." "Listen," he interrupted. "I'm not going to stay here listening to you philosophize! I'm offering you a deal. You make me invincible...." He had hardly left the room when I heard sighs that I recog- nized immediately. I decide to ignore Abena, my mother, and turned to the wall, calling on Mama Yaya. "Can I help him?" Mama Yaya puffed on her small pipe and sent a smoke ring into the air. "How could you? Death is a door that nobody can lock. Ev- erybody has to go through it when his day and hour come. You know full well it can only be kept open for those we love so that they can catch a glimpse of those they left behind." (/, Tituba. 145- 146)8

This richly textured, multi-layered passage from I, Tituba captures the interstices created in the minds of the enslaved through the process of enslavement and the experience of Caribbean cultural contacts. Christopher, as his name implies, has assimilated to some prevailing influences culled from contact with Europeans. On the one hand he has to prepare his defense against the realities of totalizing power, derived from "guns and bullets." On the other hand, the African songs and sayings that he knows do not immediately pro-



vide the antidote to this reality. He therefore asserts the historical "Ti-Noel" already Creolised and engaged in battle with "the white man." Yet to find this antidote he turns to Tituba, one deeply steeped in African belief systems. Hence, he goes to the pre-existing order, a layer of existence that transcends ordinary reality, to curb the "power" of "guns and bullets." But Christ[opher] already has imbibed so much of the contact that surrounds him that he has misplaced Tituba. He has taken her out of the valid place and space she holds in one system and has transferred her to the "other" by calling her a "witch" - a concept that has very little space in African traditional beliefs and even then, is conceptualized differently. Can Tituba "philosophize?" Can she make Chris- topher invincible? The juxtaposition of these terms with Tituba's immediate consultation with the spirits of her ancestors, a pure and authentic part of the structure of the African traditional religions, dramatically reveals the chasms, the unreliability that could exist in the use of languages and their meanings as Africans in the Americas tried to synthesize very different ontologisms. Ironi- cally Mama Yaya does, indeed, philosophize: "Death is a door that nobody can lock . . ." But perhaps this is not what is meant by "philosophy" in the European language or what Christopher himself means.

Nevertheless, Cond does reveal how the enslaved Africans depended on the African gods to raise their self- esteem and to give them the confidence that they could escape from slavery, either by running away and becoming a maroon, or by engaging in revolt. For many the solidarity imparted by the feeling of being in an African religious community is still necessary today, and Cond modernizing Tituba's language and sensibilities and Christopher's confusions would seem to suggest that her tale is intended to be relevant to the present situation.

It is possible to interpret I, Tituba... as being more concerned with the interrogation of the notion of a spiritual universe culled from African religions as being an important aspect of New World African life. In her more definitive assessments of the value of Tituba's powers, Cond writes:

...When I run to someone's deathbed. When I take the trem- bling spirit of a dead person in my hands. When I let human beings catch a glimpse of those they thought they had lost forever. For now that I have gone over to the invisible world I continue to heal and cure. But primarily I have dedicated myself to another task, ... I am hardening men's hearts to fight. I am nourishing them with dreams of liberty. Of victory. I have been behind every revolt. Every insurrection. Every act of dis- obedience... I do not belong to the civilization of the Bible and Bigotry.



My people will keep my memory in their hearts and have no need for the written word. It's in their heads. In their hearts and in their heads.... And then there is my island. We have become one and the same. There isn't one of its footpaths I haven't trod. There isn't one of its streams I haven't bathed in. There isn't one of its silk-cotton trees in whose branches I haven't sat. This con- stant and extraordinary symbiosis in my revenge for my long solitude in the deserts of America. A vast, cruel land where the spirits only beget evil! Soon they will be covering their faces with hoods, the better to torture us. They will lock up our children behind the heavy gates of the ghettos. They will deny us our rights and blood will beget blood. (/, Tituba. 175- 178)

Again she updates her narrative from the slave period to the modern world; and asserts that the spiritual has the power of regeneration, not only in the Caribbean, but even in North America. The transformative power is still present, but now is not tied to a specific ritual, rather to an understanding of, and communication with the spirituality of the ancestors. As Cond makes Tituba prophecy to a "symbiosis" within minds and hearts of New World Africans that is so empowering as to transcend the privilege that is extended to the written over the oral; the book over the spiritual insight; and this powerfully reinforces the notion of the continuous transcendence of the African spiritual system beyond the temporal, or historical time.

A similar idea is presented in Paule Marshall's Praise Song for the Widow?, where she presents the African- American woman who, completely having sub- limated her African identity as she becomes more successful and materially comfortable in the United States, has a prolonged re-awakening in Carriacou when she participates in the Big Drum Festival there. At this festival the Carriacouans (re)member their ancestors as they perform the dances from the particular African nation in which they originated. But there are no barriers between them - they are united completely in the community of Carriacou, and as they celebrate their heritage they honor their ancestors and invoke their gods:

Clangorous, insistent, soaring, the iron was sending out a call loud enough to be heard from one end of the archipelago to the other. Iron calling for its namesake and creator. Until after a time the call was answered. Those among the elderly who, like Lebert Joseph, possessed connaissance could tell. They sensed a presence squatting in the darkness beyond the reach of the gas lamps. Ogun Feraille. Taking his nightly stroll around the islands he had heard the sound of the gong-gong and dropped in. {PraiseSong. 246-47).



Marshall refers to Ogun, powerful Yoruba god of iron, as visiting the danc- ing throng, so that the secular ritual, the dance, becomes sacred. But there are important differences between Marshall's reworking of African religions and that of Roumain. In the Haitian and Cuban contexts the practice of the old religion has the effect of continuing the idea of Africa as the homeland - on the point of death for example the soul of the New World African must return to Africa to his old village, and to visit his nation, before going to join the ancestors. Marshall who is African-American of Caribbean lineage, suggests that the homeland is the Caribbean, because the gods of Guinea are there, just as they would be in Africa. Presumably, therefore, the old gods of Guinea are wherever their people are, so her recapture of African spirituality in the Diaspora she sees as enabling her to bring young African-Americans back to themselves, and to the understanding of their people. Marshall combines some ideas from Orisha, the Yoruba version of African religion with the syncretic Shouter Spiritual Baptist faith, the religion that combines elements of Chris- tianity, such as baptism, with elements of African traditional religion such as spirit possession; returning to Africa; and discovering the ancestry while in trance. They also speak in tongues to deliver the messages of the gods.10 Marshall perceives the connection between the occurrence of this religion in the Caribbean and in the United States; in particular she connects the ritual in Carriacou to the communities from Africa evident in the Ring-Shout ritual in the Sea Islands of Georgia. Thus she declares the conviction that young Afri- can- Americans can recapture their heritage through the re-acquaintance of these spiritual ideas.

Marshall's perception of a unified Creolised Diaspora achieved through a revival of African spirituality filtered through the experience of slavery is presented even more strongly by Erna Brodber. Brodber lives in, and writes from Jamaica, but she has a similar kind of vision of the essential unity of all New World Africans, a unity that can be recaptured and understood through spirituality. Brodber's powerful, visionary works are all-inclusive, designed to reverse the fragmentation wrought through the institution of slavery. It is as though she seeks to reverse the Middle Passage; but not by the new fragmentation into separate and even hostile nations in Africa, but to seek a new, unified vision of what it means to be African in the New World. Brodber's vision is steeped in the spiritual history of Jamaica, and in her book Myalu she uses Myalism12, a spiritual movement that swept the Jamaican slave population from time to time in the late 18th century and especially during the 1830s through the 1840s. Revivalist, apocalyptic and millenarian, this movement was directed against evil in the society and especially those African religious practices that were directed against other Africans (commonly called in the Caribbean 'obeah').13



But in its more positive aspects as encoded by Brodber, Myalism was a force for uniting all the highly spiritual people within the society on the visionary level. Brodber therefore pulls together the entire ancestry of Carib- bean peoples in this spiritual co-operative force. Based on "Ole African," which is the essential ingredient in its development and which she presents as the truly pure and powerful spirituality, she also includes some Europeans, in this case a Scottish woman, who has the basis for similar belief systems from her native country. In other words, Brodber captures the tendency towards inclu- siveness already mentioned as a feature of African traditional religious practice, and in this way unites all those of African descent in the Caribbean; even those of mixed ancestry are able to find their way home within this framework. Myalism was one of those eclectic religions, which drew what it needed from all other religious manifestations in the society, and combined them into a new way of interpreting African religions. Here again we have Brodber ar- ticulating a position similar to that already taken by Marshall, except that Brodber's explication perhaps, is developed more fully. It is true to say, however, that both writers incorporate the notion of Creolisation with the mixture of the various elements in a mutually respectful system, each reinforcing and explicating the other.

Brodber continues this exploration of the emergence of these combined African and Christian forms in her latest work Louisiana14. Here Brodber uses an African- American of Caribbean descent, married to an African of mixed race who, in Louisiana, under the tutelage of a Vodun "Mother" succeeds on the spiritual plane to a visionary apprehension of the history of all the African people who enter her salon. She constantly communicates with the ancestors, who seek her out for messages; so that she is able to pierce the veil of existence just as those practitioners of specific African religions were able to do. Brodber implies that the "healer" of African tradition must now, not only sup- ply herbs for the body, but also must heal the deep-rooted hurt that imprisons the mind and spirit. Through a complex re-working of correspondences between names of people and names of places in Jamaica and Louisiana, she implies that ancestral spirits are reincarnated to carry on the work through the spirituality of various individuals who have the gift of divination and prophecy. This work is essentially the unification of all persons of African descent in the modern world.

Brodber's handling of this vast idea is astonishing in the ease with which the fictional text is able to convey her intentions. Using the idea of a tape- recorder, the instrument of the scientific investigation of culture, she breaches its objectivity by constructing it as a receiver of the voices of the ancestors and the means of recapturing their stories rather than hers. This device enables the author to suggest that this level of communication is not involuntary, but in-



deed planned and verifiable in a scientific way. But the intuitive link is also crucial, since the individual must be willing to receive the message, must open channels of communication with the unseen world of the ancestors. In this way Brodber 's character becomes possessed, not by the god, but by the Carib- bean and African- American ancestors who turn out to be one and the same. She becomes the diviner, the prophetess, the healer for the entire diaspora:

He / they didn't get far. I felt my head grow big, as if someone thought it was a balloon and was blowing air into it. My shoul- ders rocked like a little paper boat trying to balance itself in the sea. You need feet to help you balance. Mine had grown stiff and my body slid from my chair to the floor, fluttering like a decapitated fowl. And I spoke. I was seeing things as if on a rolling screen, a movie screen. I saw the yam vines, light green on the pale yellow bamboo sticks; I saw the big brick oven; I saw the tombs, the barbeque; I saw the sand-dashed house; I saw the rush-seated chairs; I saw the green basin with the red flowers at its side; I saw the goblet sitting in it. I saw my Granny in her many layered garb. I saw me. A baby no more than nine months, in her arms. I saw her putting that baby in its crib. I saw the baby rise, holding onto the crib rail. I saw my Granny reach for the baby. I saw her fall before her hands could connect. I saw her there on the floor. I saw her watch that baby for hours. I heard the baby whimpering in fright. I saw that baby sleeping the troubled sleep of the emotionally exhausted. Madam motioned them to leave me alone. I saw myself on the floor. I saw the men around me. I saw madam's encourag- ing smile. I heard myself talking to that company in a baby's voice, as if a nine-month-old baby can talk. I saw space. I stopped talking. My head had returned to its normal size. There was no stiffness any longer in my legs but I was so drained. I just sat there. Madam indicated to them that they should let things be, so I sat there unable to move without help and with no help forthcoming. Then it was prophesying. I went on with the weak no-go body into prophesying. I looked at the faces of the men sitting around me and I saw stories. I saw long deep stories, stretching back and back on stacked, ruled, six by eight cards. The first cards said "name," "place of birth," "date of birth." I read that for nearly all of the men gathered in that room. Ben's card said "place of birth = Louisiana, St. Mary." ... I let that pass. ( Lousiana 88-89)

Brodber 's world seems to reflect the transportation of the African traditional religion, and

African spirituality into a different space from the continuities that we



had mentioned previously at the beginning of this paper. But it is the syncretic world of cultural and religious syncretism and cultural change, the world of the Creole and the African- American, of the African nearly five hundred years later, which is still affected by the slave-past, but changed, incorporating other elements into his religious practices while seeking to maintain an identity that can become a unifying force and give direction, even as they still stand at the crossroads, craving the one who will "open the door."

This paper began with Nettleford's hope of "... a Caribbean civilization giving to the African presence the centrality it commands..." By looking at the literature that is appearing from all over the Caribbean region, I have demon- strated the effort to record, interpret, change, modernize15 many aspects of African traditional religious practice, and to make both these practices and the spiritual beliefs on which they are based, the keys to a new understanding of New World African needs and desires, as well as to promote the idea of unity on a deeply subconscious level even in the midst of distance, loss, and change. The writers are attempting to pull together all the elements of the New World experience, and with the steady gaze towards Africa as the base, trying to accommodate both continuity and change. Marshall, Cond and Brodber are some of those contemporary writers who are reinterpreting the old Guinea religion, its beliefs, symbols and rituals in new ways - ways calculated to serve the pragmatic needs of Africans in the new age, and in new spaces. They are using it as the instrument in a new version of pan- African endeavor, that of drawing the new/old communities together, making them aware of each other, realizing that there is need for recognition of profound similarities, in experi- ences and feelings, in needs and in attitudes. They are calling on the spiritual element to be nothing less than the savior of the New World people, with the task, after four hundred years, to reverse the fragmentation, to reconnect the branches to the tree.

Notes

1 Warner-Lewis, Maureen. (1991) Guinea's Other Suns. The African Dynamic in Trinidad Culture. Dover, MA: The Majority Press. 2 The term, "African traditional religion," is used to characterize all the religious practices that were brought from Africa by peoples from the various nations. These practices represent the indigenous African religion before Christianity and Islam spread throughout Africa. In the Caribbean the most pervasive, commonly called Shango, Vodun in Haiti or Santeria are related Yorubaland versions from Ile-Ife, Oyo and Dahomey. Other manifestations from Congo and other areas such as Kumina in Jamaica and Rada also are practiced. See Warner-Lewis and Alleyne, Mervyn. (1988) Roots of Jamaican Culture. London: Pluto Press, for full discussions and explanations.



3 Consider, for example, the presence in Haiti of Pentecostals, and Seventh-Day Adventists, among others actually seeking to convert Haitians away from Vodoun. 4 Roumain, Jacques. (1978) Masters of the Dew. London: Heineman 5 A cock that has been ritually dedicated to the god. The flesh is cooked and eaten. 6 All of these ideas also are used by Cond and Quiones. In Marshall and Brodber, symbolic uses of these ideas enrich the meanings of the texts and seek to reflect the religion as the subliminal base. 7 Perez Sarduy, Pedro and Jean Stubbs, (eds.) Afro Cuba. 1993. Ocean Press. Victoria, Australia. "Ifa says." (1990) Tato Quiones 159-161. The Orisha religion in Cuba is discussed fully in this text. (Note that the term "orisha" derived from Yoruba "Ori" meaning "the gods" is becoming more and more to be regarded as the proper name for all observances of this religion, although as is to be expected, because of fragmentation and the centuries of observance in secret and transmission through the oral tradition, there are differences in practice in each island. Warner-Lewis points out that in Trinidad since the official, state-sponsored visit of the Ooni of Ife, the spiritual head of the Ile-Ife (Yoruba) Orisha religion, the thrust has been towards "purity" and unity in the practice as the religion becomes re-united to its base in Nigeria. The Ooni also has visited his flock in Cuba, and in various cities in the United States. 8 Cond, Maryse. (1994) /, Tituba , Black Witch of Salem. New York: Ballantine Books. Maryse Cond is from Guadeloupe and this book originally was written and published in French. Moi, Tituba , Sorcire... Noire de Salem. 9 Marshall, Paule. (1984) Praise Song for the Widow. New York, Dutton. 10 See Warner-Lewis and Schler, Monica. Alas , Alas , Kongo. 1980. John Hopkins U. Press. Baltimore for full discussions of the Shouter Baptist Faith. Marshall links one of the Nation Dances re-enacted in Carricou with the Ring Dance performed in South Carolina. (See Warner-Lewis and Schler.) 11 Brodber, Erna. My al. 12 See Warner-Lewis and Schler for discussion of Myalism. 13 "Obeah" became a negative term commonly used in the Caribbean to describe all manifestations of African religion as the tendency became more entrenched to associate all African rituals with "evil," "black magic," and "witchcraft." The practice of "Obeah" was a criminal offence during the Colonial period and in some areas the law has not been repealed. See Warner-Lewis and Schler for further discussions. 14 Brodber, Erna.(1994) Louisiana. London: New Beacon Books. 15 For further discussions on the changing nature of African traditional religion in Africa see: Olupona, Jacob K. (1991) African Traditional Religions In Contemporary Society. New York: Paragon House.


Article Contentsp. 134p. 135p. 136p. 137p. 138p. 139p. 140p. 141p. 142p. 143p. 144p. 145p. 146p. 147p. 148p. 149

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 1-183Front MatterDossier on Emile OllivierEmile Ollivier [pp. 5-5]

Mille Eaux d'Emile Ollivier: dcanter les fleuves de l'enfance hatienne et de la souffrance maternelle [pp. 6-26]Erzulie, the Divine Paradox: as Rose in Chauvet's "Colre" and as Nomie in Ollivier's "Mre-Solitude" [pp. 27-38]New Trends in LiteratureIn the Father's Shadow: Dany Laferrire and Magloire Saint-Aude [pp. 40-55]The Stakes of the "I-Game" in "Mmoire d'une Amnsique" [pp. 56-78]

Society &World SenseLittrature Orale Hatienne: Analyse d'un Nouvel Apport [pp. 80-97]Vodou in Haiti: Way of Life and Mode of Survival [pp. 98-109]

Diasporic ConnectionsThe Haiti-New Orleans Vodou Connection: Zora Neale Hurston as Initiate Observer [pp. 112-133](Re)Membering African Religion and Spirituality in the African Diaspora [pp. 134-149]

Research ReportsThe Facult des sciences de l'ducation Regina Assumpta: A successful teacher-education project in Cap-Hatien [pp. 152-160]A Phoenix Ready to Rise: The Arts and Crafts at Cap Hatien [pp. 161-168]

Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 170-171]Review: untitled [pp. 171-172]Review: untitled [pp. 172-175]Review: untitled [pp. 175-177]

Selected List of New Books on Haiti [pp. 178-179]Back Matter

(re)membering african religion

Documents

african religion

african diasporaauthors

african presence

african society

aspect of african societies

new world african societies

jstor terms

jstor archive