Gimmie That Old Time (Tribal) Religion at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

Gimmie That Old Time (Tribal) Religion

by Guest Contributor Tami, originally published at What Tami Said

I admire a good ghost story, especially a “true” one. I read tales of the paranormal. I watch those ghost investigator shows on television. And I’ve been known to take ghost tours in cities that I visit. I am intrigued by the idea of unknown realms beyond our comprehension. I love that glance-behind-you-and-make-sure-the-closet-door-is-shut chill that lingers for days after hearing a particularly delicious spooky tale. And I am fascinated by the places where history and the paranormal meet, like Gettysburg, Pa. But one aspect of ghost stories—true and otherwise—that I am not so fond of is the demonization of the traditional spirituality of people of color.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard reputed hauntings attributed to Indian burial grounds, angry shamans or the mere fact that “y’know where your house sits used to be Native American land.” (Cue ominous music…duh, duh, duh, DUH!)

Not as popular, but too common, is the “slaves were here” explanation. Watching a DVR’d episode of Ghost Hunters the other night, I heard a woman at a historic house that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad explain a supposedly haunted room by sharing the accepted lore about the space: (paraphrase) People say some slaves got in here an sacrificed an animal. (Cue ominous music…duh, duh, duh, DUH!)

Why do we never hear this?

Worried homeowner: I just don’t understand what is happening. Furniture is moving about the house. My wife hears disembodied voices in the laundry room. Our little Billy is interacting with a shadowy figure in the backyard and the dog refuses to go into the basement.

Ghost expert: Well, Mr. Homeowner, we’ve done some research and…some Episcopalians once held a church service right on this very land! (Cue ominous music…duh, duh, duh, DUH!)

What? Not scary enough for you?

As a black woman, I am sensitive to the ways that traditional African or African-influenced religions get a bad rap in American pop culture. I say this, even as someone who was raised a Christian.

The words Voodoo and Santeria conjure up all kinds of nasty images, thanks in part to racist Hollywood depictions of the faiths. Even I once bought into these beliefs being spooky and satanic. It wasn’t until I took a fascinating class on radicalism and the black church, taught by none other than Rev. Jeremiah Wright, that I learned the truth about African religions and how people of the Diaspora adapted them, using them for spiritual strength and to spur the battle for freedom and civil rights.

Voodoo is a religious tradition originating in West Africa, which became prominent in the New World due to the importation of African slaves. West African Vodun is the original form of the religion; Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo are its descendants in the New World. Read more.

Santeria is one of the many syncretic religions created in the New World. It is based on the West African religions brought to the New World by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. These slaves carried with them their own religious traditions, including a tradition of possession trance for communicating with the ancestors and deities, the use of animal sacrifice and the practice of sacred drumming and dance. Those slaves who landed in the Caribbean, Central and South America were nominally converted to Christianity. However, they were able to preserve some of their traditions by fusing together various Dahomean, baKongo (Congo) and Lukumi beliefs and rituals and by syncretizing these with elements from the surrounding Christian culture. Read more.

You may not agree with these belief systems, but I maintain that they are no more frightening than the Celtic polytheism that influences a lot of modern New Age belief and indeed some of traditional Christianity. Why is New Ageyness seen as benign, if not a bit silly, while African-based traditions on the other hand are viewed as dark and demonic?

Oh, I know this is a little thing. Ghost stories are meant to be harmless fun. I take them in that spirit. But it rankles when I see drumming, gyrating, chanting, scantily-clad Africans, bathed in firelight, used as shorthand for impending evil in some film. And it annoys me that the tour guide at the Underground Railroad stop mentioned above would assume slaves were summoning ghosties with their dark tribal religion, instead of, say, gathering spiritual strength for what must have been a harrowing journey to freedom.

File this under minor racial annoyance…another dull ache.

Trackbacks & Pings

GIMME THAT OLD TIME (TRIBAL) RELIGION « penitential chimp Weblog on 22 Apr 2008 at 5:02 pm

[…] April 18, 2008 Just an article I found this morning GIMME THAT OLDTIME (TRIBAL) RELIGION […]
Meet the Neo-Colonialists: Madonna and Vanity Fair at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 01 May 2008 at 5:30 am

[…] Muslims and Christians? Oh no, that’s way too normal, better to talk about that old time tribal religion from quaint, backwards […]

Comments

Aaminah wrote:

“y’know where your house sits used to be Native American land.”

LOL. Yeah, duh, there’d be manifestations going on EVERYWHERE if that were all there was to it. Obviously, everyone’s house sits on what used to be Native American land.

And you really had me laughing at the “alternative” version the Underground Railroad home - Episcopalian services… ROFL.

Thanks for this Tami. So true…

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 7:15 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

I lived in Miami for a while and knew some people who were involved in Santeria. I had an ex-boyfriend who was bitterly against it… because his aunt had spent thousands of dollars on rituals intended to move her up a pay grade at her job, all to no effect. To him, it felt more crass and commercialized than “dark and demonic”.

In Cuba, it’s all over the place, and a lot of art we saw there was heavily influenced with Santeria themes. The iconography is fascinating. The appeal is diverse, and a fair number of believers are racially white.

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 8:14 am ¶
dramelyrique wrote:

Almost every crime or supernatural drama series that I have followed in the past has had a show on Voodoo or Santeria, where someone put a curse on someone else using voodoo dolls or spells. It always involved revenge. The shows with Native American ghosts also had vengeful spirits seeking to harm the descendants of the people who took their land.

“You may not agree with these belief systems, but I maintain that they are no more frightening than the Celtic polytheism that influences a lot of modern New Age belief and indeed some of traditional Christianity. Why is New Ageyness seen as benign, if not a bit silly, while African-based traditions on the other hand are viewed as dark and demonic?”

I think it’s a combination of guilt and fear. Guilt that their ancestors enslaved, raped and killed Black and Native American people and fear that someday, “their people” will try to get back at them. (Supernaturally, anyway.) It’s not a very rational fear and maybe that is why they choose to express it through portraying African and Native American influenced beliefs in a negative way.. Because they know it would sound ridiculous or offensive it they outright said it.

It’s also easier to characterize African slaves and Native Americans as subhuman than accept that their (White Americans) own flesh and blood was responsible for so much evil. I think using religion is a semi-more discreet way of dehumanizing Non-Whites because then you could always argue that you’re not against the people, just their faith.

(My thoughts are all over the place today so I hope I make sense!)

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 8:44 am ¶
Kai wrote:

Excellent post, Tami.

As I see it, you can’t really separate the European idea of Man’s Dominion Over Nature from the Christianity-justified white male supremacist imperialism which has descended upon the world for the past 5 centuries, with its fundamental metaphysical and physical drive to wipe out indigenous religions and matriarchal cosmogonies. Interestingly enough, matriarchal impulses often survived colonialism by being covertly channeled into love of the image of Mary, mother of the Son of God.

You know, even just 20 years ago, Buddhist meditation was widely seen in mainstream US society as a freaky Yellow Perilish invitation to demonic possession. Back in the day I actually experienced some pretty strange, nasty attacks on various meditation groups by wacky right-wingy Christian groups (though I mostly just felt mildy embarrassed for their ignorance). These days, meditation is pretty mainstream and the Dalai Lama is kind of the Pope of new age liberals. Apparently, ghost stories change with the times, too. Maybe our planetary crisis is pushing people to re-examine this whole Man’s Dominion Over Nature concept. Maybe those ghost stories will gradually become stories of ancestral wisdom.

Peace.

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 9:21 am ¶
Anya wrote:

Really interesting post, thank you!

My religion professor said that “voodoo dolls” actually came to the US via a British folk tradition called poppets. They were displaced onto Vodou later on and associated with ‘black magic’… need one really say more?

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 9:32 am ¶
Versai wrote:

Also, you rarely hear that slave spirits may be haunting a place because they were horribly murdered/mistreated/tortured etc. If ghost really exists, I’d think a lot of those lovely southern plantations/sundown towns/etc would be poltergeist central.

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 9:58 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

Dramelique, that’s a good point about the focus on revenge. Santeria and Voodoo definitely get that stigma.

I think the human religious impulse is driven, in large part, by a desire for shortcuts to get us the things we think we want.

From an American mainstream perspective, animist religions (Western or otherwise) are looked down on because there’s too much “quid pro quo” involved. I give the god something, the god helps me, or hurts me enemies. There’s supposed to be too much of a bargaining aspect. Combine that disdain with racism, fear and guilt, and the stigma is really intense.

But if you really look at American popular Christianity with a more critical eye, quid pro quo is all over it. Prayer chains. Faith healing (anywhere from Benny Hinn to a simple belief that faith in God can make you healthier). Even Imprecatory prayer!. It’s just expressed in a different way than animism.

I’m a believer in a Buddhist tradition that explicitly rejects petitionary prayer, though I wouldn’t give myself a pass from the “wanting a shortcut” mentality. But from my perspective I really don’t see a fundamental doctrinal difference between, say, Episcopalianism and Santeria.

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 10:29 am ¶
Tree wrote:

Speaking as a Native American living on soil I knew used to be the hunting grounds of a now-extinct clan branch of a larger tribe, in a house that has careful middens and eyes scrawled on the walls beneath the walls (have photos somewhere of them–red ochre things–about seven in a row) and living in a town that is considered by whites, due to its slave history, to be extremely haunted…
I attribute any bumps in the night to the loam on which the foundation rests, cats, passing trains, and an airfield nearby.
Ghost stories are fun, but the psychological fears are obviously aimed at the ’status quo’.
On the other hand, there are some great African and Native American ghost stories about spooky woods, a presence of which in my local area is quite pronounded due to the summer rains and the nearby state park.
White guilt may be to blame for the slaves in chains ghost stories rattling about. Terror of the unknown really doesn’t seem to stop their development of former Native American lands, though.
As for Santeria, the ‘Serpent and the Rainbow’ was published, and Hollywood made a movie, sensationalizing the religion in extremely adverse ways. Then 1994 or 1996 rolled around, and Florida apparently discovered the chicken sacrifice. (Who knew? Insert eyeroll.)
Sad as it is to say, but the lack of historical precedent (or visible historical occupation) is the only thing keeping muslims of all ethnicities from joining the parade of poltergheists.

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 11:29 am ¶
laura wrote:

Actually, I don’t know that it is a ‘little thing’. I mean, its all part and parcel of the system, and there are certainly other things that are more detrimental to individual people. But it’s one of those little things that reinforces the idea that ‘tribal’ = ‘primitive’ = ‘uncivilized,’ in the colloquial sense. So on and so forth. I personally think that ‘ancient Indian burial’ reinforces the idea that Native American people are no longer here, though I’m not really sure if/how that would extend to the ’slaves’ thing.

Maybe I’m biased because that kind of stuff pisses me off? I don’t know…

I have some thoughts on the religion stuff more generally, but they haven’t solidified yet…

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 12:10 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:

C’mon, don’t knock Episcopalianism! There’s schism (civil war) in the national church and in several of its dioceses right now. This could be the ghost of ‘piskies past chiding the schismatic priests and vestry members (= board members or elders).

On the slaves were here bit - before I read further to the chicken sacrifice bit, I thought, well duh, why wouldn’t the angry spirit of a captured slave, or one who died on the road, be an appropriate ghost.

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 12:13 pm ¶
Arturo wrote:

Tami, can I steal that Episcopelian joke? Good stuff!

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 1:22 pm ¶
Fatemeh wrote:

Great post; thank you for pointing this stuff out. I remember watching some similar program about a haunted house in New Orleans that was supposedly haunted by a Voodoo queen from the 1800s. The ominous music intended to scare viewers adds a nasty layer when it’s played on top of rituals hyped up as “freaky” and “demonic.”

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 1:54 pm ¶
muffinsinegypt wrote:

ha! Great post. It reminds me of my one of my (awesome) little brother’s altercations with his high school english teacher, who responded to a question on vodou traditions by saying “Well, unfortunately it is still in practice today…”

My brother pretended to comiserate by sighing and saying, “Yeah, unfortunately Christianity is still in practice today.” Not the smartest behavior for getting ahead in class, but still…! Maybe he can send this article to his teacher.

Posted 18 Apr 2008 at 5:06 pm ¶
Tarah Sweeney wrote:

Great post. What I love about this site is that its authors manage to articulate things I get angry about.

And you do it so well. I’m (slightly) envious.

Posted 19 Apr 2008 at 2:40 am ¶
atheist woman wrote:

It would be hilarious about the episcopalians. Not that this is important, but: my experience with reactions to New Ageyness has been all oh no SATAN, WITCHES (and some more Satan to boot).

This actually reinforces your point because Tituba, the slave-woman who was involved with the Salem Witch Trials, was supposedly introducing the girls to her beliefs.

dramelyrique, excellent points.

Posted 19 Apr 2008 at 11:11 pm ¶
Sass wrote:

Great post. From now on I’m going to start all of my ghost stories with, “Did you know this very spot was once a Mormon burial ground?”

Dramelyrique nails it - guilt and fear, guilt of the wrongs from slavery, from Manifest Destiny, etc. As though the collected energies from all the pain and suffering brought upon them could topple white society.

Posted 20 Apr 2008 at 4:53 pm ¶
jessilikewhoa wrote:

just found the site, and i love it. i was totally watching that episode of ghost hunters and when they got to that part i was like “grrrr, wtf?!!!!” it was just so fucking racist and absurd i couldnt believe it. then again, in the 3 seasons the show has been on the air (4 counting the current season), i think ive seen one person of color on it.

Posted 22 Apr 2008 at 11:55 pm ¶
Aleasa wrote:

I often wondered why there are not a large record of slaves haunting plantations since they received awful treatment while living there. I remember watching a show on Ghost Hunters and they were visiting a house in Charleston, SC reported to be haunted. The house had a carriage house where a woman slave had been raped and murdered there. On tape you could actually hear the ghost of the woman screaming stop!

I would love to hear more slave ghost stories, I know they are out there.

Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 7:19 pm ¶
Amanda wrote:

Thanks for this article. It’s not “a little thing.” Our oral history (even urban legends) of course reflect our shit and, worse, perpetuate it. I found this page because I was google searching to find an answer to why so many house hauntings are by white ghosts. I’m thinking it’s because the spirits feel (or we project that they feel) ownership over a space (all that “they can’t move on,” “they feel angry about the home renovations,” “they want you out” crap) or, more to the point, entitlement to the home or land in a way that non-whites historically haven’t in this country. What do you think?

Posted 18 Jul 2008 at 7:08 pm ¶