Mojo Workin' // The Old African American Hoodoo System

Reparations Club Verified independent store

→

A bold reconsideration of Hoodoo belief and practice Katrina Hazzard-Donald explores African Americans' experience and practice of the herbal, healing folk belief tradition known a s Hoodoo. She examines Hoodoo culture and history by tracing its emergence from African traditions to religious practices in the Americas. Working against conventional scholarship, Hazzard-Donald argues that Hoodoo emerged first in three distinct regions she calls "regional Hoodoo clusters" and that after the turn of the nineteenth century, Hoodoo took on a national rather than regional profile. The spread came about through the mechanism of the "African Religion Complex," eight distinct cultural characteristics familiar to all the African ethnic groups in the United States. The first interdisciplinary examination to incorporate a full glossary of Hoodoo culture, Mojo Workin' The Old African American Hoodoo System lays out the movement of Hoodoo against a series of watershed changes in the American cultural landscape. Hazzard-Donald examines Hoodoo material culture, particularly the "High John the Conquer" root, which practitioners employ for a variety of spiritual uses. She also examines other facets of Hoodoo, including rituals of divination such as the "walking boy" and the "Ring Shout," a sacred dance of Hoodoo tradition that bears its corollaries today in the American Baptist churches. Throughout, Hazzard-Donald distinguishes between "Old tradition Black Belt Hoodoo" and commercially marketed forms that have been controlled, modified, and often fabricated by outsiders; this study focuses on the hidden system operating almost exclusively among African Americans in the Black spiritual underground. Katrina Hazzard-Donald is a professor of sociology at Rutgers University-Camden and the author of Jookin' The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African American Culture. "Mojo Workin' is a key contribution to the study of Hoodoo in America, with some energizing new ideas about its origins, early expression, and broader religious aspects."--Journal of American Folklore "A powerful reinterpretation of African American Hoodoo. This comprehensive volume will be an important tool for anyone interested in African American folk belief and the supernatural."--Jerrilyn McGregory, author of Downhome Gospel: African American Spiritual Activism in Wiregrass Country "Hazzard-Donald set out to demonstrate the need to include African American Hoodoo in the study of African American religion in the New World. The search she presents in her work clearly validates the belief that there is a strong connection between African American Hoodoo and African American religion. . . . The author provides a great deal of research and analysis that is sure to aid scholars, students, and enthusiasts."--Journal of Folklore Research Publisher: University of Illinois Press Publish Date: December 17, 2012 Pages: 248 Language: English Type: Paperback EAN/UPC: 9780252078767 Dimensions: 9.3 X 6.0 X 0.7 inches | 0.9 pounds BISAC Categories: Politics, Society & Current Affairs, Spirituality & Religion Show more