Welcome Spiritual Seekers
ZULU X
deprived status as the "Other" for the colonial masters, but recent
studies have begun to examine the power structures within the slave
community itself. Herbert Klein, in African Slavery in Latin America
and the Caribbean (1986), has pointed out that knowledge was an
important granter of status in the slave community. Knowledge of
African ways or customs, or even in some cases elite status
transferred directly from Africa gave some slaves a leverage in their
community in contrast with their official status. The same occurred
with many of the male and female Africans who were part-time
religious, health and witchcraft specialists, most of whom had a
status inside the community completely unrecognised by the master
class. The historian John Blassingame, in The Slave Community (1972),
has said:
Whatever his power, the master was a puny man compared to the
supernatural. Often the most powerful and significant individual on
the plantation was the conjurer.
Voodoo is a syncretic system derived from deeply rooted Africanist
beliefs and colonial French Catholicism. African-American religious
systems and subcultures can be seen in Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and
other Antillean areas. In the Fon language spoken in Benin, vodun
means an invisible force, terrible and mysterious, which can meddle in
human affairs at any time.
As a reaction to being torn violently from their roots, the slaves
tried to resume their cultural and religious traditions. Ancestral
spirits, forces called supernatural, were invoked and celebrated in
secret, far from the master's eyes, yet in the shadow of the Church,
as the worship of saints and the Catholic sacraments served as a
screen and a support for African beliefs. The creation of a coherent
belief system was extremely important in the development of a feeling
of cohesion among the slaves which would provide them with a sense of
self and community.
The process of syncretization among the African religions helps to
explain why those cults found it relatively easy to accept and
integrate parts of Christian religious belief and practice into the
local cult activity. Initially this integration was purely functional,
providing a cover of legitimacy for religions that were severely
proscribed. But after a few generations a real syncretism became part
of the duality of beliefs of the slaves themselves, who soon found it
possible to accommodate both religious systems.
The conjurer in African-American culture is frequently referred to as
a "two-headed doctor," a person of double wisdom who carries power as
a result of his or her initiation into the mysteries of the spirit.
The term "conjure" implies someone who uses spirituality as well as
practical means to effect their intentions. The strong belief of the
community in the efficacy of the conjure-man's or conjure-woman's
treatments helps to aid the desired result. The strength of conjure as
a poetic image resides in the secrecy and mysteriousness of its
sources of power, in its connections to ancient African sources
syncretized by a community of diasporic believers with Christian
scriptures, and in the masterful improvisational skills of its most
dramatic practitioners.
The place of women in the slave community's power structure is an
important one. Women have long had access to the types of societal
functions which voodoo revolves around -- physical healing, spiritual
healing, peacemaking and so on. The figure of the "Occult Woman" has
long been presented as the figure that best embodies what is perceived
as incoherent or problematic, which at the same time holding a
possible key to new synthesis and integration. Voodoo priests an
priestesses were traditionally involved with the "maroons"-- runaway
slaves who formed communities within the forested interiors of a
number of Caribbean islands-- and they had sufficient power within
their own communities to organise and execute revolts, with disastrous
consequences for the slave-owners.
This project was completed under the direction of Dr Leon Litvack as a
requirement for the MA degree in Modern Literary Studies at the
Queen's University of Belfast. The site is evolving and will include
contributions from future generations of MA students on other writers
and themes.