Hoodoo (spirituality)

Hoodoo
Hoodoo spiritual supplies and candles
TypeSyncretic: African diaspora religions
RegionAmerican South, United States
Carolina Lowcountry, Sea Islands of the Gullah Geechee Corridor, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tidewater region (Maryland/Virginia), Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Affrilachia, and Mississippi
LanguageEnglish and Sea Island Creole AAVE Tutnese
MembersAfrican-Americans
Other name(s)Lowcountry Voodoo
Gullah Voodoo
Rootwork
Conjure
Hudu
Juju

Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous botanical knowledge.[1][2][3][4] Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure men or conjure women, and root doctors. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include rootwork and conjure.[5] As a syncretic spiritual system, it also incorporates beliefs from Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims, and Spiritualism.[6][7] Scholars define Hoodoo as a folk religion. It is a syncretic religion between two or more cultural religions, in this case being African indigenous spirituality and Abrahamic religion.[8][9]

Many Hoodoo traditions draw from the beliefs of the Bakongo people of Central Africa.[10] Over the first century of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 52% of all kidnapped Africans (over 900,000 people) came from Central African countries that existed within the boundaries of modern day Cameroon, Congo, Angola, Central African Republic, and Gabon.[11] By the end of the colonial period, enslaved Africans were taken from Angola (40 percent), Senegambia (19.5 percent), the Windward Coast (16.3 percent), and the Gold Coast (13.3 percent), as well as the Bight of Benin and Bight of Biafra in smaller percentages.[12]

Following the Great Migration of African-Americans, Hoodoo spread throughout the United States.

  1. ^ Raboteau, Albert (2004). Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-802031-8.
  2. ^ Hazzard-Donald, Katrina (2013). Mojo Workin' The Old African American Hoodoo System. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252094460.
  3. ^ Young, Jason (2007). Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-3719-2.
  4. ^ Chireau, Yvonne (1997). "Conjure and Christianity in the Nineteenth Century: Religious Elements in African American Magic". Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation. 7 (2): 226. doi:10.1525/rac.1997.7.2.03a00030. JSTOR 1123979. S2CID 144404308.
  5. ^ Anderson, Jeffrey (2015). The Voodoo Encyclopedia Magic, Ritual, and Religion. ABC-CLIO. p. 125. ISBN 9781610692090.
  6. ^ Byron; Bryant; Chireau; Khabeer; Lovejoy; Lofton; Johnson (2014). "Theorizing Africana Religions: A Journal of Africana Religions Inaugural Symposium". Journal of Africana Religions. 2 (1): 125–160. doi:10.5325/jafrireli.2.1.0125. JSTOR 10.5325/jafrireli.2.1.0125. S2CID 142938123.
  7. ^ Hazzard-Donald, Katrina (2013). Mojo Workin The Old African American Hoodoo System. University of Illinois Press. pp. 38–41. ISBN 9780252094460.
  8. ^ Hazzard-Donald (2011). "Hoodoo Religion and American Dance Traditions: Rethinking the Ring Shout" (PDF). Journal of Pan African Studies. 4 (6): 195. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  9. ^ "African Religion in America". Harvard University. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
  10. ^ Wood, Funlayo (2013). "Sacred Healing and Wholeness in Africa and the Americas". Journal of Africana Religions. 1 (30): 376–427. doi:10.5325/jafrireli.1.3.0376. JSTOR 10.5325/jafrireli.1.3.0376. S2CID 146450832. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  11. ^ "NPS Ethnography: African American Heritage & Ethnography". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  12. ^ "Africans in Carolina · African Passages, Lowcountry Adaptations · Lowcountry Digital History Initiative". ldhi.library.cofc.edu. Retrieved 2022-11-29.

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