Abstract
It is with the telling of African religious traditions that we understand African American religion and culture. The hidden aspects of culture and symbol are woven into religious culture and thought regarding the deep, sensitive and unspoken parts of the African Experience from slavery to the Americas. What really happened, what was felt and how early Africans and the African American community survived is deeply embedded in Hoodoo. We just did not realize this, at least until Katrina Hazzard-Donald introduced this fascinating and well-researched book, Mojo Workin’. This book will wake you up from remaining naïve about how racial oppression and colonization insisted that early Africans use their religion as a means of spiritual expression and problem solving to get to the bottom of what they knew very well, that injustice and wrongdoing is ultimately dealt with through spiritual practice and this practice is what makes religion useful as a belief system that sets the record straight; because in the end, every religion, whether it be European, Middle Eastern, or African, speaks to a system of justice.
Hazzard-Donald reminds us that it is important to go back and trace the roots of what one calls “pure religion,” because all religion is a cultural derivation of group thought; and in this sense every religion is comprised of some folklore, ancient practices and even superstition. The uniqueness that makes this book very valuable is that we did not know how to retrace or deconstruct the sacred from the cultural beliefs and practices that created it, and thereby scholars of race and religion may have missed the rich systems of thought that flow deep through experience and are passed down from one generation to the next.
Mojo Workin’ sheds light on how these passed down African religious thought systems were integrated into modern African American culture and left unnamed traces, hints, and symbols of a system of African folk belief tradition that was central to the organization, planning and behavior of those who believed in the spiritual systems of thought passed down from the ancestors. This understanding never left African culture and is deeply embedded in African American culture and religion; and with the help of skilled sociologists, anthropologists, cultural sociologists and honest theologians hope is possible to parcel out, chisel away and observe what is present from the everyday lens of the people whose traditional practices, culture beliefs and livelihood were well integrated and flowed throughout particular systems of thought that each knew through experience with it.
The author’s methodology relies on accounts of persons, cultures, traditional West African and Old World African religions and ancient customs involving folklore, which is the experience through which we all have roots. We each carry a bit of lore, superstition and tradition and some type of experience with this as a system of thought, social custom and religious practice; thus, integration and transmission of the root flows through our veins. Throughout the book, examples of cultural practices, gestures, expressions, both verbal and physical, and modalities of understanding and interpretation clearly indicate that the religious system of Hoodoo effectively emerged within institutions and many characteristics of modern-day religious culture worldwide.
The author brilliantly weaves together intersections of African religion from the old world to the new world in the Americas which verifies that the new Africans to America were not completely stripped of their African culture but utilized it to influence European versions of Christianity. The sophistication of this process throughout the many different African tribes is impressive and had not the author explained this in such clear detail, an important part of African American religious culture would be incomplete.
Hazzard-Donald’s research extends throughout the Old African religious system to the new world and demonstrates how our American culture incorporated Hoodoo and how these traditional African practices survived. What is most impressive is her ability to trace the religious roots of Hoodoo religion to the present with such clear methodology. Her arguments are well connected and after you start reading this wonderful book you don’t want to put it down because you realize that you never received such an honest and factual telling of our religious story in the first place. With this book, you will get a fair and detailed analysis of how religion, culture and race are so inextricably intertwined that the term “spirituality” will have new meaning to any serious scholar who is interested in learning about race and religion and the role they play in shaping our understanding of social justice and who is and is not on the right side of truth-telling.
Have you ever pondered the following questions: what are the social and cultural manifestations of religious thought; how do social lore and mythology create reality as we understand it in the twenty-first century; what is the underlying basis of spirituality, superstitions, and their transformation over time? If so, and I am convinced we all have to some degree, then this is the book to read. I do not think that any other book explores the roots of African thought and wisdom and its integration into western culture this well. In fact, the organization and clarity with which this author writes makes moving through the 248 pages a breeze and may possibly leave you thinking, when is the next volume or edition coming out in print? If so, you are not alone in your thinking because this is what great scholarship does.
This work could also leave you revising implicit assumptions of social reality and even deconstructing previous interpretations of our religious construction of the social world. To say that no one told us the truth in the first place or that we were left out of the loop until Hazzard-Donald’s powerful and illuminating book, Mojo Workin’, is the distinct conclusion I came to, and I am most certain that you will appreciate this wonderful piece of scholarship as much as I have.