Death of the Gods - Swarthmore College

2Death of the Gods

Let us rejoice in and adore the wonders of God's infinite love in bringingus from a land semblant of darkness itself, and where the divine light ofrevelation (being obscured) is in darkness. Here the knowledge of thetrue God and eternal life are made manifest; but there was nothing in usto recommend us to God . . .

PHYLLIS WHEATLEY

I had always been told from the time I was a small child that I was aNegro of African stock. That it was no disgrace to be a Negro and had itnot been for the white folks who brought us over here from Africa asslaves, we would never have been here and would have been much betteroff.

"AUNT" ADELINE, FORMER SLAVE

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-1.N ONE of her earliest poePhyllis Wheatley reflected upon her religious heritage:

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,Taught my benighted soul to understandThat there's a God, that there's a Saviour too . . . *

According to B. B. Thatcher, in his Memoir of Phillis Wheatley,the black poet remembered nothing of her African past with theexception of one ritual, "her mother's custom of pouring out waterbefore the sun at his rising.'''' Thatcher remarks that this "no doubt,was a custom of the tribe to which she belonged, and was one oftheir religious rites."2 There were other slaves, however, whoremembered far more of their African past than Phyllis Wheatleydid and who held a different view of their forced migration fromtheir native lands.

Charles Ball, in the narrative of his life under slavery, recounteda slave funeral at which he assisted:

I assisted her and her husband to inter the infant. . . and itsfather buried with it, a small bow and several arrows; a littlebag of parched meal; a miniature canoe, about a foot long, anda little paddle, (with which he said it would cross the ocean tohis own country) a small stick, with an iron nail, sharpenedand fastened into one end of it; and a piece of white muslin,with several curious and strange figures painted on it in blueand red, by which, he said, his relations and countrymenwould know the infant to be his son, and would receive itaccordingly, on its arrival amongst them . . . He cut a lock ofhair from his head, threw it upon the dead infant, and closedthe grave with his own hands. He then told us the God of hiscountry was looking at him, and was pleased with what hehad done.3

According to Ball, the father of the dead infant was a "native of acountry far in the interior of Africa" who claimed to have been a"priest in his own nation."4 Of the native Africans among theslaves, Ball states:

44

I

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DEATH OF THE GODS 45

They are universally of opinion, and this opinion is founded intheir religion, that after death they shall return to their owncountry, and rejoin their former companions and friends, insome happy region . . . 5

African-born slave Chloe Spear, brought as a child to Boston, likePhyllis Wheatley, "wished for death; supposing that when shedied, she would return to her country and friends." This beliefwas derived, according to her biographer, "from a superstitioustradition of her ancestors, who, she said, supposed that the firstinfant born in a family after the decease of a member, was thesame individual come back again."6

Nor did all slaves agree that embracing the Christian gospelmeant accepting enslavement as a "providential mercy," as Euro-pean traveler Fredrika Bremer learned from a conversation with a"Lucumi" slave on a Florida plantation around 1850:

'You have come hither from Africa?' He replied, Yes; that hehad been smuggled hither from Cuba many years ago. He wasnow overseer on a plantation, and was very well off. He was aChristian and seemed pleased to be so. He spoke very sensiblyand cheerfully, and had a good, open countenance.'You do not wish to return to Africa?' said I. 'Oh yes, Missis;oh yes, that I do:' replied he; there I should be still better off.''But people often kill one another there,' remonstrated I. 'Ohbut nobody troubles themselves about that. And there are agreat many good people who live there at peace.' 'But lookhere, my friend,' said Colonel Mac I., who is a strong Calvin-ist; 'if you had remained in Africa, you would not have be-come a Christian as you are now, and then the devil, in theend, would have had you!' The negro laughed, looked down,shook his head . . . and at length exclaimed, again looking upwith an expression of humor and inventive acuteness, 'Now,Massa, look'ee here! The Gospel is now being preached overthe whole of Africa, and if I had remained there, what was tohinder me from being one who heard it as well there as here?'To this there was no reply to be made, and the . . . negro had .the last word.7

Some slaves, like the ancestor of Leonard Haynes, rejected

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46 THE AFRICAN HERITAGE

Christianity. Recounting a family tradition, Haynes states: "Mygrandfather of three generations came over from the Gold Coast ofAfrica and was sold to a Mr. Haynes in Georgia. My grandfatherwas an African priest. This fact made him hostile to Christianpreachers and to the religion of the Christians. Hence, he refused tojoin with the other slaves in their religious gatherings . . ."8

There were, moreover, a few Muslim slaves from Africa whocontinued, as best they could, to observe the customs of Islam."Muh gran come from Africa," remarked Rosa Grant of PossumPoint, Georgia. "Huh membuh when I wuz a chile seein muhgran Ryna pray. Ebry mawnin at sun-up she kneel on duh flo inuh ruhm an bow obuh an tech uh head tuh duh flo tree time. Denshe say a prayuh. I dohn membuh jis wut she say, but one wudshe say use tuh make us chillun laugh. I membuh it was 'ashane-gad.' Wen she finish prayin she say 'Ameen, ameen, ameen.'"Similarly, Katie Brown of Sapelo Island, Georgia, was a descen-dant of Belali Mahomet, a Muslim slave and driver. " . . . Belalian he wife Phoebe pray on duh bead," Katie recounted. "Dey wuzbery puhticluh bout duh time dey pray and dey bery regluh boutduh hour. Wen duh sun come up, wen it straight obuh head anwen it set, das duh time dey pray. Dey bow tuh duh sun and hablill mat tuh kneel on. Duh beads is on a long string. Belali he pullbead an he say, 'Belambi, Hakabara, Mahamadu.' Phoebe she say,'Ameen, Ameen.'" Charles Lyell visiting Hopeton Plantation onSt. Simon's Island, Georgia, before 1845, encountered "OldTom," head driver for the plantation, a Foulah who had remaineda strict Muslim, though his children and grandchildren had "ex-changed the Koran for the Bible." Omar ibn Said, a slave inNorth Carolina, wrote an autobiographical fragment in Arabicscript in 1831 in which he recalled:

Before I came to the Christian country, my religion was thereligion of Mohammed, the Apostle of God—may God havemercy upon him and give him peace! I walked to the mosquebefore day-break, washed my face and head and hands andfeet. I prayed at noon, prayed in the afternoon, prayed at

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sunset, prayed in the evening. I gave alms every year ... Iwent on pilgrimage to Mecca. . . When I left my country Iwas thirty-seven years old; I have been in the country of theChristians twenty-four years.

During those twenty-four years Omar had converted to Christi-anity:

When I was a Mohammadan I prayed thus: 'Thanks be toGod, Lord of all worlds, the merciful the gracious, Lord ofthe day of Judgement, thee we serve, on thee we call for help.Direct us in the right way, the way of those on whom thouhast had mercy, with whom thou hast not been angry andwho walk not in error. Amen.'—But now I pray 'OurFather'... in the words of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.9

According to the Reverend Charles Colcock Jones, "The Mo-hammedan Africans remaining of the old stock of importations,although accustomed to hear the Gospel preached, have beenknown to accommodate Christianity to Mohammedanism. 'God,'say they, 'is Allah, and Jesus Christ is Mohammed—the religionis the same, but different countries have different names.'" Somereligious customs observed by the slaves seemed to combine Afri-can and Christian elements. For example, on the Sea Islands, asRachel Anderson recalled, at harvest time: "We hab a big feas. Allnight we shouts an in duh mawnin right at sunrise we pray anbow low tuh duh sun." Alex Anderson described the practice ofriver baptisms: "Duh preachuh and duh candidates goes down induh watuh. Den duh preachuh make a prayuh tuh duh ribbuhand duh ribbuh washes duh sin away."10

Despite these countervailing examples, it seems that in theUnited States the experience of Phyllis Wheatley, if not her theo-logical explanation of it, has been the rule rather than the excep-tion. Under British North American slavery, it seems that theAfrican religious heritage was lost. Especially does this appear sowhen black religion in the United States is compared with thecults of Brazil and the Caribbean. In candomble, vaudou, santeria,and shango "the acceptance of Christianity by the African slaves,

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and its transmission to their descendants, has by no means meantthe disappearance of African beliefs or patterns of worship," butto a large extent has led to their continuity in a new "unifiedsystem of belief and ritual."11 Why was the same not true of slavesin the United States? Two conflicting answers have been pro-posed: one is that African retentions in the United States werenegligible because the African was almost totally stripped of hisculture by the process of enslavement; and the other, that theslave system did not destroy the slaves' African culture and aconsiderable number of Africanisms continue to define Afro-American culture in the United States. The foremost advocate ofthe former position is E. Franklin Frazier; of the latter, Melville J.Herskovits.12

The Debate

Herskovits' most complete and most careful statement of his thesisis The Myth of the Negro Past. The myth that Herskovits wasintent on destroying was the belief that the American Negro hadno past except a history of primitive savagery in Africa fromwhich he had been delivered by contact with European civiliza-tion in America. For Herskovits the destruction of this myth wasnot simply a matter of detached scholarship. It also had importantpractical ramifications in the struggle against racism. To denythat the black American had a culture and history of significanceand sophistication in Africa and to suggest that African culturewas not advanced enough to endure contact with superior Euro-pean culture was to imply that Negroes were an inferior people.Furthermore, Herskovits thought it important to recognize thehistorical relevance of African retentions in order to evaluate cul-tural differences between white and black Americans in scientificrather than racist terms. Discrepancies between white and blackvalues and behavior were due not to "culture lag," i.e., backward-ness on the part of the blacks but to a different cultural back-ground whose roots lay in Africa.13

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As an anthropologist, Herskovits was interested particularly inthe study of culture contact and acculturation. To the debate overAfrican retentions he brought an amazingly broad perspective,informed by extensive field work in Dahomey, Dutch Guiana,Haiti, Trinidad, and, to a lesser degree, Brazil. He studied the"New World Negro" in the light of his research in the slavingarea of West Africa where a large number of Afro-Americansoriginated. In discussing the culture of black people in the UnitedStates he insisted that the situation of North American Negroesbe placed on a spectrum or continuum with other Afro-Americansocieties. The scale of African retentions stretches from DutchGuiana with the strongest and most integral examples of Africanculture, at one end, to the United States with the weakest andmost fragmentary evidence of African influence, at the other. Her-skovits thought it important to view the United States in com-parison with other areas of the hemisphere where Africanisms areapparent in order to discover clues to more subtly disguised Afri-can patterns of culture in the United States.14

In contrast to Haiti and Brazil, African retentions in the UnitedStates cannot be ascribed with any certainty to definite areas ofWest Africa such as Nigeria or Dahomey. Herskovits compen-sates for this difficulty by defining West Africa as a single-culturearea with an overall similarity and unity despite local differences.He suggests a "base line" of West African culture to serve as ameasure for determining Africanisms in the United States; fur-thermore, within the general culture of West Africa there is afocus, and this focus is religion. Throughout New World Negrocultures the strongest Africanisms are to be found in religion.15

Herskovits divided the myth of the Negro past into five state-ments, or submyths, and then proceeded to rebut each statement.

The first myth is: "Negroes are naturally of childlike character,and adjust easily to the most unsatisfactory social situations,which they accept readily and even happily . . . " On the contrary,Herskovits argues, Africans and Afro-Americans are neitherchildlike nor naive, but have developed a sophisticated world

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view. A mark of the sophistication of their world view has been arefusal to interpret life in terms of a simplistic dichotomy betweengood and evil. This world view has allowed them to "adapt toeveryday situations of all sorts." Besides, blacks were not contentwith slavery. Slaves resisted individually and rebelled collectivelyfrom the earliest days of slavery in Hispaniola.16

The second myth states: "Only the poorer stock of Africa wasenslaved, the more intelligent members of the African communityraided having been clever enough to elude the slaver's nets." Her-skovits answers that the slave trade was not selective of the dregsof African society. There were instances when troublesome rivalswho belonged to royal or priestly ranks were sold into slavery bywary rulers attempting to safeguard their thrones. When priests ofthe water cult in the coastal area of Dahomey, for example, provedintransigent, the conquering king of Abomey solved the problemby selling them into slavery.17

"Since," according to the third myth, "the Negroes werebrought from all parts of the African continent, spoke diverselanguages, represented greatly differing bodies of custom, and, asa matter of policy, were distributed in the New World so as tolose tribal identity, no least common denominator of understand-ing or behavior could have possibly been worked out by them."Not so, contends Herskovits, since the majority of slaves camefrom the "areas lying in the coastal belt of West Africa and theCongo." He denies that a large number of slaves were broughtfrom more than two or three hundred miles inland. Within thiscentral slaving area there were two main language groups, Sudan-ic and Bantu. Within each group distinct dialects had a great dealof similarity in basic structure. Moreover, resemblances betweenthe two large groups do exist. Finally, the slaving regions repre-sented a unified cultural area. Therefore, the separation of tribesduring slavery did not create an insurmountable "barrier to theretention of African customs in generalized form, or of their un-derlying sanctions and values." Slaves from differing tribes had abasis for communication when they "learned words from the Ian-

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guage of their masters and poured these into African speechmolds."18 Herskovits goes on to make an even stronger assertion:just as European words were translated into African speech pat-terns, so European culture was translated into African value andbehavior systems. Therefore, "the reasons most often advanced toaccount for the suppression of Africanisms in the New Worldturned out to be factors that encouraged their retention."19 This isan extremely important contention, which will be examined later.

"Even granting," goes myth number four, "enough Negroes ofa given tribe had had the opportunity to live together, and thatthey had the will and ability to continue their customary modes ofbehavior, the cultures of Africa were so savage and relatively solow in the scale of human civilization that the apparent superiorityof European customs as observed in the behavior of their masterswould have caused and actually did cause them to give up suchaboriginal traditions as they may otherwise have desired to pre-serve." This belief is based upon a biased ethnology and a simplis-tic understanding of acculturative process. The culture of WestAfrica was neither savage nor low and was not automaticallyoverwhelmed by contact with supposedly superior European cul-ture. Africa was an active partner in the acculturative relationship,states Herskovits. However, in the United States, Herskovits ad-mits, African religious behavior had to be reinterpreted "in lightof a new theology." Two factors determined the degree of reinter-pretation necessary. The first was the intensity of the exposure ofslaves to European culture, as determined by the ratio of blacks towhites. The smaller the number of slaves, the more complete wasthe control of the master; the tighter the supervision, the moreintense was the pressure to acculturate. A second factor influ-enced the slaves to reinterpret African behavior: traditional Afri-can openness to the "new and foreign." This characteristic Afri-can acceptance was particularly manifest in religion, where "bothconquered and conquerors often took over the gods of their oppo-nents." The resilience of slaves' attitudes toward new gods fre-quently led to "slightly modified African sanctions supporting

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forms of a given institution that are almost entirely European." Inother words, a "principle of disregard for outer form while retain-ing inner values" is "characteristic of Africans everywhere" and is"the most important single factor making for an understanding ofthe acculturative situation."20

The fifth and final myth is: "The Negro is thus a man withouta past." Herskovits asserts that the Negro does indeed have apast, a cultural history which makes him a distinctive participanton the American scene, as distinctive as the Swedish, German,or Irish immigrant. In brief, "the civilizations of Africa, likethose of Europe, have contributed to American culture as weknow it today."21

It is necessary in analyzing Herskovits' thesis and the evidencehe adduces in its support to remember that he is attacking amyth. Demythologizers often run the risk of erring on the side ofoverstatement. This is a fault of which Herskovits is not innocent.Perhaps none took him to task for it more forcefully than theblack sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, the foremost spokesman fora position diametrically opposed to Herskovits'. While admittingthe existence of African retentions in Latin America and theCaribbean, Frazier denies that African culture was able to survivethe conditions of slavery to any significant extent in the UnitedStates. He admits that a few individual slaves remembered some-thing of their background in Africa. However, exceptions provethe rule: African traditions and practices did not take root andsurvive in the United States.

These isolated instances only tend to show how difficult it wasfor slaves, who had retained a memory of their African back-ground, to find a congenial milieu in which to perpetuate theold way of life . . . The slaves, it seems, had only a vagueknowledge of the African background of their parents . . . 22

It is Frazier's position that the process of enslavement and thepassing of earlier generations born in Africa destroyed the cultureof the slaves. The vacuum thus created was filled by Christianity,which became the new bond of social cohesion. The new world-

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view which gave meaning to life was Christianity, articulated inthe images and stories of the Bible, as accepted by the slaves andcelebrated in their spirituals.23

Deculturation began, according to Frazier, on the other side ofthe Atlantic, before the Africans even set foot on the slave ships.The fact that many slaves were captured in intertribal warfare andthe demands of the plantation work force ensured that a largepercentage of the slave population was young and male. Andyoung males "are poor bearers of the cultural heritage of apeople." In the coastal barracoons slaves were mixed togetherwithout regard for kinship or tribal ties. The trauma of theMiddle Passage further isolated slaves from countrymen whospoke the same language or observed the same traditions.24

On this side of the Atlantic the size of the plantation where theslave ended his journey was a significant factor in either allowingfor or reducing African cultural retentions. On the larger planta-tions, where the black population was much larger than thewhite, there was less opportunity for contact and so the process ofacculturation was slow. But, Frazier contends, the majority ofslaves in the United States were situated on smaller plantationsand farms: "In some of the Upland cotton regions of Alabama,Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas the median number ofslaves per holding did not reach twenty, while in regions of gen-eral agriculture based mainly upon slave labor in Kentucky,Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Ten-nessee the median number of slave holdings were even smaller."25

The process of "seasoning" ("breaking in") new slaves requiredthe prohibition of African languages. "Salt-water" (African-born)Negroes were looked down upon by slaves already used to theways of plantation America, and social pressure was exerted uponthem to learn new customs.26 Slaves were under continual sur-veillance and control. On the small farms the slaves worked withtheir white owners; on larger plantations they toiled under the eyeof the driver and overseer. Gatherings of five or more slaves with-out the presence of a white observer were universally forbidden.

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In addition, the mobility of the slave population and the destruc-tion of familial stability due to the internal slave trade made socialcohesion an impossibility. Therefore, Frazier concludes, "It is im-possible to establish any continuity between African religiouspractices and the Negro church in the United States."27 Here the"Negroes were plunged into an alien civilization in which what-ever remained of their religious myths and cults had no meaningwhatever." African memories were forgotten, African patterns ofbehavior and attitudes toward the world lost their meaning.Slaves had to develop "new habits and attitudes" in order "tomeet new situations."28

Frazier takes Herskovits to task for basing his assertions onflimsy evidence. Herskovits had not been able "to refer Africansurvival in the United States to a specific tribe or a definite area."When he argues that the spirit of African belief is preserved underthe adoption of European religious forms, Frazier counters thatthis simply means that the "existence of such survivals cannot bevalidated on scientific grounds." A case in point is Herskovits'attempt to explain the popularity of the Baptist church amongblack Americans by reference to water cults in Africa. The Bap-tists successfully proselytized Negroes, says Frazier, not becausethey practiced baptism by immersion but because they were ener-getic proselytizers with strong appeal for lower classes.29

Frazier admits that in the "magic and folk beliefs of the ruralNegroes in the United States, some African elements have proba-bly been retained." However, he hastens to add, it is a very difficulttask to separate African from European folk belief. And as theAfro-Americans "have emerged from the world of the folk" themajority "have sloughed off completely the African heritage."30

The debate has been a lasting one. The positions representedby Herskovits and Frazier have continued in one form or anotherto inform a variety of discussion on black history and culture,including the fields of music, folklore, language, and art. Thereare those who deny that there is any difference between white andblack Americans except color. There are those who ground black

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identity and black pride upon a reclamation of historical continu-ity with the African past. There are those who identify blackrebellion with the survival of African culture. The ideologicalconflicts between separatists and integrationists have involvedjudgments about the survival of African culture in the UnitedStates. Commentators on black religious life have been subject toideological pressures to take a stand in the Herskovits-Frazierdebate, understanding that wider implications would derive fromtheir conclusions. Given the implications and emotions involvedin the issues, it is a difficult but, for that reason, all the morenecessary task to evaluate the evidence with care and open-mind-edness, to be aware of one's own preconceptions and not to drawhasty conclusions.

Cases in Point:Baptism by Immersion and Spirit Possession

The weakest part of Herskovits' argument is his contention thathe has found African retentions in the institutional form and the-ology of certain types of black churches. He is more convincingwhen he speaks of "patterns of motor behavior" and folk belief,but here, too, he weakens his credibility by overstatement.

Herskovits begins his chapter on "Africanisms in ReligiousLife" with the following statement:

Underlying the life of the American Negro is a deep religiousbent that is but the manifestation here of a similar drive that,everywhere in Negro societies, makes the supernatural a ma-jor focus of interest. The tenability of this position is apparentwhen it is considered how in an age marked by skepticism,the Negro has held fast to belief. Religion is vital, meaningful,and understandable to the Negro of this country because .. .it is not removed from life, but has been deeply integrated intothe daily round. It is because of this, indeed, that everywherecompensation in terms of the supernatural is so immediatelyacceptable to this underpriviledged folk, and causes them, incontrast to other underprivileged groups elsewhere in the

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world, to turn to religion rather than to political action orother outlets for their frustration.31

Arthur Huff Fauset's critique of this generalization is significant,especially because it has been widely held that black people aresomehow "naturally" religious. Fauset denies statistically thatAfro-Americans are greater churchgoers than other Americans.32

As to the importance of the church in the black community, it is afact explained by the intransigence of white racism which rele-gated black control to one social institution, the church. There isno proof that religion as a compensatory force among the under-privileged has been more widespread among the black poor thanit has been among the oppressed of other ethnic backgrounds.Besides, religion has also functioned as a spur to resistance, self-assertion, and rebellion in black history. Finally, when given thechance, as for example during the period of Reconstruction,blacks have turned readily to political action. Herskovits' general-ization about the "religious bent characteristic of Negroes every-where" reveals a characteristic problem in his method: How issuch an assertion to be proved, disproved, or even taken? As animpressionistic remark it has a certain validity. Religion hasplayed a central role in Afro-American culture in the UnitedStates. But it is a different matter to ground the "scientific" hy-pothesis that religion forms the focus of black culture in both theNew World and in Africa on the observation that black peoplehave a "religious bent." The sweeping generalization only seemsto weaken credibility concerning particular examples.

Turning to specific institutional characteristics of the blackchurches, Herskovits found Africanisms in the worship of "shout-ing" churches. Listening to the radio broadcasts of black churchservices he concluded that "spirit possession by the Holy Ghost"inspired "motor behavior that is not European but African."33

The rhythmic hand-clapping and antiphonal participation of thecongregation in the sermon, and the theological view in which"God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are all concerned with the

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immediate fate of those who worship them," strike Herskovits as"deviations from the practices and beliefs of white Baptists." Theimmediacy of God in the services he heard, the manner in which"the Holy Ghost visits with the minister, taking messages to Godfrom those in need of help," seemed to Herskovits to reflect theAfrican heritage of the worshippers.34 The theological example isnot convincing. A sense of the immediacy of God, of his involve-ment in daily life is not a deviation from the beliefs of whiteBaptists or indeed of many other Christians. The role of the HolySpirit as a messenger seems to be a sermonic conceit that is notforeign to Christian belief.35 Hand-clapping and congregationalresponse would not be in the least surprising to white holinessand pentecostal church members, nor would "spirit possession."

Perhaps the most frequently attacked example of a specific Afri-can survival cited by Herskovits is baptism by immersion whichhe links to water cults in Nigeria and Dahomey. The strongappeal of the Baptist denomination for Negroes was due partiallyto the West African religious background, where water cults areextremely important. The Baptists' insistence on immersion wasan attractive rite to Africans familiar with water cults because theconcept of baptism is one "that any African would find readilyunderstandable." In Africa, Dutch Guiana, and Haiti, possessionby water spirits drives the possessed devotee to hurl himselfbodily into a stream, pond, or river. Similarly in the baptismalservice of rural black Baptists the spirit occasionally falls upon thenew Christian emerging from the water, causing him to shout.Therefore, baptism through "the transmutation of belief and be-havior under acculturation . . . furnished one of the least difficulttransitions to a new form of belief.36 There are two objections thatcan be made to Herskovits' comments on baptism by immersion.While Herskovits embraces the principle "that the acculturativeprocess in each locality is to be analyzed in terms of the peculiari-ties of its own historic past and its own socio-economic present,"he violates this principle too frequently by glossing over signi-ficant differences.37 Because he views the whole of Afro-America

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as a spectrum or continuum, he sometimes blurs important dis-tinctions and argues from an example in one area to an invalidapplication in another. The applicability of his analogy that just asspirit possession occurs in the water cults in Africa, so is shoutingassociated with baptism in the United States breaks down uponcareful examination. The African devotee is possessed by the godwho has replaced his personality and who impels him into thewater, the god's own element, whereas the tradition which liesbehind baptism by immersion is Judeo-Christian and the descentof the Spirit on this occasion has the warrant of Scripture: " . . .he will baptize with the Holy Spirit."38

The second criticism, made by every critic of Herskovits, is thatthe appeal of the Baptist denomination for Afro-Americans didnot derive from their African background but from the attractionof evangelical religion to the slaves. To be fair to Herskovits, it isnecessary to point out that he lists several other reasons for thespread of the Baptist denomination among black people: the en-ergy of the Baptist evangelists, the personal emotional appeal ofrevivalism, the ease with which a Baptist congregation could befounded, the opportunity for even the unlearned to preach. Her-skovits clearly saw the African water cults as only part of theexplanation.

Furthermore, there is a crucial aspect of Herskovits' argumentwhich often goes ignored in the discussion of slave acculturation:the suggestion that at least some African religious concepts andbehavior were not totally dissimilar to certain beliefs and practicescharateristic of evangelical Protestantism. Perhaps the religiousheritage of American Protestants and the African religious back-ground were not completely antithetical. Culture contact was notin every case culture conflict with either Africa or Europe emer-ging victorious. The acculturative process was broader and morecomplex than simple retention or destruction of Africanism. Ele-ments of African behavior and belief could have been modified bycontact with European culture and could have merged with it in anew syncretistic form. Conversely, European traits could have

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been shaped and reinterpreted by the slaves in the light of theirAfrican past. On the one hand, the similarity of some traits maymake it very difficult or even impossible to separate what is Africanfrom what is European in origin; on the other hand, this verycommonality might have served to reinforce certain African ele-ments while others withered under severe prohibition and attack.That some elements of African religion survived in the UnitedStates not as separate enclaves free of white influence but as aspectshidden under or blended with similar European forms is a thesisworth considering in more detail, especially since there are strongarguments for its validity in the areas of music, folklore, and lan-guage. There were two areas of commonality between African andEuropean religion where mutual reinterpretation and syncretismpossibly occurred: ecstatic behavior and magical folk-belief.

Ecstatic behavior, in the form of spirit possession, is, as we haveseen, central to the liturgy of West African peoples and theirdescendants in many parts of the New World. Commonly, therites of worship consist in drumming the rhythms of the gods,singing their songs, creating a setting so that they will comedown and "ride" their devotees in states of possession. The pos-sessed takes on the personality of the god, dancing his steps,speaking his words, bearing his emblems, acting out his characterin facial expression and bodily gesture.

In the United States slaves and their descendants were notpossessed by the gods of their fathers but they did engage in atype of ecstatic behavior called shouting. Is there a relationshipbetween the phenomenon of shouting in black revivalisticchurches in the United States and spirit possession in West Af-rica, South America, and the Caribbean?

Shouting was a common, if sensational, occurrence at the fron-tier camp meetings. While several accounts of these meetingsstressed the slaves' peculiar propensity for shouting, white revival-ists also shouted and jerked, barked and laughed a holy laughteras well.39 Herskovits theorizes that it was the influence of theblack participants in the camp meetings that accounted for the

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pattern of ecstatic behavior which emerged. In support of thiscontention, he refers to a description by Frederick Morgan Da-venport which contrasts ecstatic behavior at a revival in NorthernIreland with one in Kentucky. The account states:

I wish in closing to call attention to the difference in type ofthe automatisms of Kentucky and Ulster. In Kentucky themotor automatism, the voluntary muscles in violent action,were the prevailing type, although there were many of thesensory. On the other hand, in Ulster the sensory automa-tisms, trance, vision, the physical disability and the sinking ofmuscular energy were the prevailing types, although therewere many of the motor. I do not mean that I can explain it.40

Davenport and Frazier explained the difference in behavior as amatter of chance. Herskovits thought the difference was due to theinfluence of the slaves upon the white revivalists in Kentucky. Hestates that "the tradition of violent possession associated with thesemeetings is far more African than European, and hence there isreason to hold that, in part at least, it was inspired in the whites bythis contact with Negroes."41 Herskovits supported his contentionby referring to the difference between black and white revival ser-vices in the twentieth century as described by Hortense Powder-maker in After Freedom. At Negro revivals the participants weremore active than were white congregations; "greater rhythm andspontaneity" were characteristic of the black revivalists; the blackpreacher's sermon was more melodic and regular, less halting thanthe white minister's; black congregations moved less convulsivelyand more smoothly than their white counterparts. Powdermakerattributed these motor differences to social conditioning, "the re-pression caused by the interracial situation" which "finds relief inunrestrained religious behavior." Herskovits held that the differ-ences between white and black congregations "in the manifestationof ecstasy and hysteria" served to "underscore the differences be-tween the worship characteristic of the cultures from which theancestors of these two groups were derived."42

Although ecstatic behavior in response to the revivalist preach-

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ing of the camp meetings was an experience common to slavesand slaveholders on the frontier of late eighteenth- and early nine-teenth-century America, the special responsiveness of the slaves torevivals was noted by several witnesses. One observer remarked:"By no class is a camp meeting hailed with more unmixed delightthan by the poor slaves."43 In 1807 Jesse Lee, a Georgia evangel-ist, noted: "The first day of the meeting, we had a gentle andcomfortable moving of the spirit of the Lord among us; and atnight it was much more powerful than before, and the meetingwas kept up all night without intermission. However, before daythe white people retired, and the meeting was continued by theblack people."44 John Leland noted in 1790 that slaves in Vir-ginia "commonly are more noisy in time of preaching than thewhites, and are more subject to bodily exercise, and if they meetwith an encouragement in these things, they grow extravagant."In the camp meeting the slaves met with encouragement. Theproclivity of the slaves for "bodily exercises" was not due to anyinnate emotionalism; nor was it totally due to the need of anoppressed class to release pent-up tension. Rather, the slavestended to express religious emotion in certain patterned types ofbodily movement influenced by the African heritage of dance.45

Slaves and ex-slaves sought and welcomed the presence of theSpirit, which moved worshipers to shout and dance not onlyduring the special "seasons of revival" but also during regularchurch services (whenever allowed). Frederick Law Olmsted vis-ited a black church in New Orleans where he experiencedfirsthand the power of evangelical preaching to arouse ecstaticbehavior.

As soon as I had taken my seat, my attention was attracted byan old negro near me, whom I supposed for some time to besuffering under some nervous complaint; he trembled, histeeth chattered, and his face, at intervals, was convulsed. Hesoon began to respond aloud to the sentiments of the preach-er, in such words as these: "Oh, yes!" and similar expressionscould be heard from all parts of the house whenever the

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speaker's voice was unusually solemn, or his language andmanner eloquent or excited.

Sometimes the outcries and responses were not confined toejaculations of this kind, but shouts, and groans, terrificshrieks, and indescribable expressions of ecstasy—of pleasureor agony—and even stamping, jumping, and clapping ofhands were added . . . I was once surprised to find my ownmuscles all stretched, as if ready for a struggle—my face glow-ing, and my feet stamping—having been infected' uncon-sciously. ... I could not, when my mind reverted to itself,find any connection or meaning in the phrases of the speakerthat remained in my memory; and I have no doubt it was his"action" rather than his sentiments, that had given rise to theexcitement of the congregation.46

After attempting to capture the strong rhythm of the preacher'ssermon with each beat marked by the antiphonal response of thecongregation, Olmsted went on to describe the effect of the ser-vice on one of the worshipers.

The preacher was drawing his sermon to a close . . . when asmall old woman, perfectly black, among those in the gallery,suddenly rose, and began dancing and clapping her hands; atfirst with a slow and measured movement, and then withincreasing rapidity, at the same time beginning to shout "ha!ha!" The women about her arose also, and tried to holdher . . . The woman was still shouting and dancing, her headthrown back and rolling from one side to the other. Graduallyher shout became indistinct, she threw her arms wildly aboutinstead of clapping her hands, fell back into the arms of hercompanions, then threw herself forward and embraced thosebefore her, then tossed herself from side to side, gasping, andfinally sunk to the floor, where she remained ... kicking, as ifacting a death struggle.47

To what extent, if any, did a tradition of African spirit possessioninfluence such ecstatic behavior? There are two issues involved incomparing African spirit possession with the religious behavior ofslaves and their descendants in American "shouting" churches. AsErika Bourguignon has succinctly stated:

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What is generally spoken of as "spirit possession" actuallyinvolves two distinct aspects, two distinct levels of ethno-graphic "fact": an observable behavior pattern and a system ofcultural beliefs and interpretations. These, however, in turnstructure expectations and therefore behavior.48

In other words, though not separated in fact, there are two as-pects which should be distinguished for the sake of clarity indiscussion: the faith context in which the possession experienceoccurs and the patterned style of outward response by which theecstatic experience is manifest.

On the level of theological interpretation and meaning, Africanspirit possession differs significantly from the shouting experiencefound in the revivalist tradition of American evangelicalism. Inthe central possession cults of the Yoruba and Fon peoples thedevotees are possessed by a god—in the cults of Haiti and Brazil,by several gods in succession—whose personality displaces that ofthe human medium. The advice, commands, gestures, and iden-tity of the god are transmitted through the possessed. Personalitytraits of the god are expressed in the patterned action of thepossessed devotee who makes the god present to the cult commu-nity. It is believed that the possessed "has been invaded by asupernatural being and is thus temporarily beyond self-control,his ego being subordinated to that of the [divine] intruder."49 Thedevotee becomes the carrier of the god, taking up the god's em-blems, wearing his sacred colors, tasting his favorite food anddrink. Comparing Haitian vaudouists with Spiritual Baptists(Shakers) from St. Vincent, Erika Bourguignon distinguishes be-tween African and Protestant forms of spirit possession. "Whilethe Haitian," she states, "impersonates specific, well-delineatedanthropomorphic entities, with complex personalities and a greatrange of possible activities, the Vincentian does not." She addsthat the "Haitian trancer sings and dances, smokes, drinks andeats," and sometimes "may climb a tree or dive into water" whilepossessed. "Most importantly, while the Haitian interacts withothers during his possession trance, with spirits possessing people

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and with other human beings, the Vincentian does not." Instead,the Vincentian's attention "is drawn inward to his interactionwith the Spirit." Though the Vincentian trancers "participate in acommon experience," they do not interact with each other as theHaitians do "from the standpoint of a personal transformation."The "manner of operation" in both experiences, Bourguignonconcludes, "is distinct in its formal and in its ideological fea-tures."50 While Bourguignon is specifically comparing Haitian toVincentian types of spirit possession, her differentiation is applica-ble to the North American possession experience as well. Thecontext of belief shapes the possession experience and determinesthe manner in which the experience is interpreted. While theremay be similar effects—ego enhancement and catharsis, to nameonly two—on this level of faith event, there are major differencesbetween spirit possession as it occurs in African and Latin Ameri-can cults, on the one hand, and the ecstatic shouting experience ofUnited States revivalism, on the other. There is a discontinuity,then, between the African heritage of spirit possession and theblack shouting tradition in the United States. The African godswith their myriad characteristics, personalities, and myths do not"mount" their enthusiasts amid the dances, songs, and drumrhythms of worship in the United States. Instead it is the HolySpirit who fills the converted sinner with a happiness and powerthat drives him to shout, sing, and sometimes dance.

A different possession belief was held by the slave in NorthAmerica. One explication of this belief was given by an ex-slavepreacher and recorded in God Struck Me Dead:

The old meeting house caught on fire. The spirit was there.Every heart was beating in unison as we turned our minds toGod to tell Him of our sorrows here below. God saw our needand came to us. I used to wonder what made people shout butnow I don't. There is a joy on the inside and it wells up sostrong that we can't keep still. It is fire in the bones. Any timethat fire touches a man, he will jump.51

It is in the context of action, the patterns of motor behavior

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preceding and following the ecstatic experience, that there may becontinuity between African and American forms of spirit posses-sion. While the rhythms of the drums, so important in Africanand Latin American cults, were by and large forbidden to theslave in the United States, hand-clapping, foot-tapping, rhythmicpreaching, hyperventilation, antiphonal (call and response) sing-ing, and dancing are styles of behavior associated with possessionboth in Africa and in this country.

The strong emphasis on rhythmic preaching, singing, moving,and dancing in the religious behavior of the American slaves haslong been noted by observers. Ex-slave Robert Anderson de-scribed the patterns of religious expression which he saw in hisyouth during slavery:

The colored people .. . have a peculiar music of their own,which is largely a process of rhythm, rather than written music.Their music is largely, or was . . . a sort of rhythmical chant. Ithad to do largely with religion and the words adopted to theirquaint melodies were largely of a religious nature. The storiesof the Bible were placed into words that would fit the musicalready used by the colored people. While singing these songs,the singers and the entire congregation kept time to the musicby the swaying of their bodies or by the patting of the foot orhand. Practically all of their songs were accompanied by amotion of some kind . . . the weird and mysterious music of thereligious ceremonies moved old and young alike in a frenzy ofreligious fervor . . . We also had religious dances, which wereexpressions of the weird, the fantastic, the mysterious, that wasfelt in all our religious ceremonies.52

It appears from early accounts that the African tradition of"danced religion" retained a strong hold on the religious behaviorof the slaves. Rev. Morgan Godwin, who arrived to minister toMarston Parish in York County, Virginia, in 1665, later wrote ofthe religious dancing of the slaves:

. . . nothing is more barbarous and contrary to Christianity,than their . . . Idolatrous Dances, and Revels; in which theyusually spend the Sunday . . . And here, that I may not be

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thought too rashly to impute Idolotry to their Dances; myconjecture is raised upon this ground . . . for that they usetheir Dances as a means to procure Rain; Some of them havingbeen known to beg this liberty upon the Week Days, in orderthereunto . .. 53

During the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century therewas a great deal of indifference, reluctance, and hostility to theconversion of the slaves. (Not until the successive waves of reli-gious revival known as the Great Awakening began in the 1740sdid incidents of slave conversion occur in any sizable numbers.)In the face of this religious indifference some forms of Africanreligious behavior seem to have continued. Rev. John Sharpecomplained in 1712 that even Christianized slaves in New York"are buried in the Common by those of their country and com-plexion without the office; on the contrary the Heathenish ritesare performed at the grave by their countrymen .. . "54 And Alex-ander Hewatt noted in 1779 that in South Carolina "the negroesof that country, a few only excepted, are to this day as greatstrangers to Christianity, and as much under the influence ofPagan darkness, idolatry, and superstition, as they were at theirfirst arrival from Africa . . . " He was particularly disturbed thatSundays and "Holidays are days of idleness... in which theslaves assemble together in alarming crowds for the purposes ofdancing, feasting and merriment."55 Later Methodist, Presbyte-rian, and Baptist revivalists condemned these secular forms ofamusement and taught the slaves that conversion required theirabandonment. While evangelical missionaries prohibited dancingas sinful, they afforded the slaves a morally sanctioned context fora sacralized type of dancing in the emotionally charged setting ofthe revival. In 1845 Sir Charles Lyell commented on the way inwhich slaves, though converted to Christianity, continued todance.

Of dancing and music, the Negroes are passionately fond. Onthe Hopeton plantation violins have been silenced by the Meth-odist missionaries ... At the Methodist prayer-meetings, they

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are permitted to move round rapidly in a ring, in whichmanoeuvre, I am told, they sometimes contrive to take enoughexercise to serve as a substitute for the dance, it being, in fact,a kind of spiritual boulanger . . . 58

The unusual religious behavior of slaves at camp meetingsaroused the disapproval of some Christian evangelists. In a workentitled Methodist Error or Friendly Advice to Those MethodistsWho Indulge in Extravagant Religious Emotions and Bodily Exer-cises (1819), John Watson complained about the style of musicalbehavior of black revivalists in the Philadelphia Conference:

Here ought to be considered too, a most exceptionable error,which has the tolerance at least of the rulers of our campmeetings. In the blacks' quarter, the coloured people get to-gether, and sing for hours together, short scraps of disjointedaffirmations, pledges, or prayers, lengthened out with longrepetitious choruses. These are all sung in the merry chorus-manner of the southern harvest field, or husking-frolicmethod, of the slave blacks; and also very greatly like theIndian dances. With every word so sung, they have a sinkingof one or other leg of the body alternately; producing an audi-ble sound of the feet at every step, and as manifest as the stepsof actual negro dancing in Virginia &c. If some, in the mean-time sit, they strike the sounds alternately on each thigh . . .the evil is only occasionally condemned and the example hasalready visibly affected the religious manners of some whites.From this cause, I have known in some camp meetings from50 to 60 people crowd into one tent, after the public devo-tions had closed, and there continue the whole night, singingtune after tune, . . . scarce one of which were in our hymnbooks. Some of these from their nature, (having very longrepetition choruses and short scraps of matter) are actuallycomposed as sung and are almost endless.57

Besides shedding some light on "the original religious songs ofblacks—as distinguished from the standard Protestant hymnsthat they sang—"58 the account above is significant because ittends to support the argument that black patterns of behaviorinfluenced white revivalists at the camp meetings.

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Religious dancing and shouting were by no means confined tocamp meetings. Olmsted remarked on the regular religious wor-ship of the slaves on one plantation:

On most of the large rice plantations which I have seen in thisvicinity, there is a small chapel, which the negroes call theirprayer-house. The owner of one of these told me that, havingfurnished the prayer-house with seats having a back-rail, hisnegroes petitioned him to remove it, because it did not leavethem room enough to pray. It was explained to me that it istheir custom, in social worship, to work themselves up to agreat pitch of excitement, in which they yell and cry aloud,and, finally shriek and leap up, clapping their hands and danc-ing, as it is done at heathen festivals. The back-rail they foundto seriously impede this exercise.59

The religious dance most frequently described was the ringshout of the slaves in the Sea Islands. The ring shout, musicolo-gists agree, is a particularly strong example of African-influenceddance style in the United States. Frazier and others have relegatedthe ring shout to the Sea Islands, where they admit Africanismswere strong, but there is evidence that the ring shout was awidespread and deeply ingrained practice among slaves in otherareas as well. The following passage from A.M.E. Bishop DanielAlexander Payne's autobiography indicates that he had met withthe ring shout in many places a little over a decade after slavery:

About this time [1878] I attended a "bush meeting" . . . Afterthe sermon they formed a ring, and with coats off sung, clappedtheir hands and stamped their feet in a most ridiculous andheathenish way. I requested the pastor to go and stop theirdancing. At his request they stopped their dancing and clap-ping of hands, but remained singing and rocking their bodiesto and fro. This they did for about fifteen minutes. I then went,and taking their leader by the arm requested him to desist andto sit down and sing in a rational manner. I told him also that itwas a heathenish way to worship and disgraceful to themselves,the race, and the Christian name. In that instance they brokeup their ring; but would not sit down, and walked sullenlyaway. After the sermon in the afternoon, having another oppor-

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tunity of speaking alone to this young leader of the singing andclapping ring, he said: "Sinners won't get converted unlessthere is a ring." Said I: "You might sing till you fell down dead,and you would fail to convert a single sinner, because nothingbut the Spirit of God and the word of God can convert sin-ners." He replied: "The Spirit of God works upon people indifferent ways. At camp-meeting there must be a ring here, aring there, a ring over yonder, or sinners will not get con-verted." This was his idea, and it is also that of many others.These "Bands" I have had to encounter in many places . . . Tothe most thoughtful... I usually succeeded in making the"Band" disgusting; but by the ignorant masses . . . it was re-garded as the essence of religion.60

In the exchange between Payne and the "Band" leader it issignificant that the latter found the ring shout necessary for con-version and for the working of the Spirit.

Payne goes on to describe the "ring" of the "Bands," alsoknown as "Fist and Heel Worshippers."

He who could sing loudest and longest led the 'Band,' havinghis loins girded and a handkerchief in hand with which hekept time, while his feet resounded on the floor like the drum-sticks of a bass drum. In some cases it was the custom tobegin these dances after every night service and keep it up tillmidnight, sometimes singing and dancing alternately—a shortprayer and a long dance. Someone has even called it the"Voudoo Dance." I have remonstrated with a number of pas-tors for permitting these practices, which vary somewhat indifferent localities, but have been invariably met with the re-sponse that he could not succeed in restraining them, and anattempt to compel them to cease would simply drive themaway from our Church . . . And what is more deplorable,some of our most popular and powerful preachers labor system-atically to perpetuate this fanaticism. Such preachers neverrest till they create an excitement that consists in shouting,jumping and dancing.61

It seems, then, from Payne's account, as well as those of others,that dancing was a crucial part of worship for some slaves andex-slaves. The label "Voudoo Dance," which Payne records, was

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not entirely a misnomer. There are close parallels between thestyle of dancing observed in African and Caribbean cult worshipand the style of the American "ring shout." Folklorists John andAlan Lomax who recorded a ring shout in Louisiana in 1934enumerated the parallels.

We have seen "shouts" in Louisiana, in Texas, in Georgia andthe Bahamas; we have seen vaudou dancing in Haiti; we haveread accounts of similar rites in works upon Negro life inother parts of the Western hemisphere. All share basic simi-larities: (1) the song is "danced" with the whole body, withhands, feet, belly, and hips; (2) the worship is, basically, adancing-singing phenomenon; (3) the dancers always movecounter-clockwise around the ring; (4) the song has theleader-chorus form, with much repetition, with a focus onrhythm rather than on melody, that is, with a form that invitesand ultimately enforces cooperative group activity; (5) thesong continues to be repeated from sometimes more than anhour, steadily increasing in intensity and gradually accelerat-ing, until a sort of mass hypnosis ensues . . . This shout pat-tern is demonstrably West African in origin.62

George E. Simpson has described the dancing of the Revivalistcult in Jamaica in terms that bear striking resemblance to theAmerican ring shout.

Halfway through the service the leader may begin to circlecounterclockwise the altar, or a table inside the church, or the"seal" in the yard outside the church. The officers and leadingmembers of the church, often up to twenty people, fall inbehind him as all of them "labor in the spirit" . . . This "spirit-ual" dancing is believed to increase the religious understand-ing of the participants.63

There are a number of detailed descriptions of the technique ofthe ring shout in which African style dance patterns can be noted.W. F. Allen reprinted an account of the shout on the Sea Islandsfrom the Nation (May 30, 1867):

. . . the true "shout" takes place on Sundays or on "praise"-nights through the week, and either in the praise-house or in

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some cabin in which a regular religious meeting has beenheld. Very likely more than half the population of the planta-tion is gathered together .. . But the benches are pushed backto the wall when the formal meeting is over, and old andyoung men and women . .. boys ... young girls barefooted,all stand up in the middle of the floor, and when the 'sperichil'is struck, begin first walking and by-and-by shuffling round,one after the other, in a ring. The foot is hardly taken fromthe floor, and the progression is mainly due to a jerking,hitching motion, which agitates the entire shouter, and soonbrings out streams of perspiration. Sometimes they dance si-lently, sometimes as they shuffle they sing the chorus of thespiritual, and sometimes the song itself is also sung by thedancers. But most frequently a band, composed of some of thebest singers and of tired shouters, stand at the side of theroom to 'base' the others, singing the body of the song andclapping their hands together or on the knees. Song anddance alike are extremely energetic, and often, when the shoutlasts into the middle of the night, the monotonous thud, thud,thud of the feet prevents sleep within half a mile of the praise-house ... It is not unlikely that this remarkable religious cere-mony is a relic of some African dance... Dancing in theusual way is regarded with great horror by the people of PortRoyal, but they enter with infinite zest into the movements ofthe "shout."64

As Harold Courlander wrote: "circular movement, shufflingsteps and stamping, postures and gestures, the manner of stand-ing, the way the arms are held out for balance or pressed againstthe sides, the movements of the shoulder, all are African in con-ception and derivation."65 It has even been suggested by LorenzoDow Turner that the very word "shout" derives from saut, a termused by West African Muslims to denote "dancing or movingaround the Kaaba."66

The ring form of religious dancing occurred on occasions otherthan revivals and praise meetings. Funerals, for example, wereoccasions for dancing and sometimes drumming, at least in theSea Islands. Rachel Anderson, an elderly Georgia coast resident,recalled: "Use tub alluz beat duh drums at fewnuls. Right attuh

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diih pusson die, dey beat um tuh tell duh uddahs bout duhfewnul. . . On duh way tuh duh grabe dey beat duh drum as deyis mahchin long. Wen duh body is put in duh grabe, ebrybodyshout roun duh grabe in a succle, singin an prayin."67 Andanother old Georgian, Ben Sullivan, stated: "Dey go in a longpruhcession tuh duh buryin' groun. Den dey dance roun in a ringan dey motion wid duh hans. Dey sing duh body tuh duh grabeand den dey let it down an den dey succle roun in duh dance."68

In the ring shout and allied patterns of ecstatic behavior, theAfrican heritage of dance found expression in the evangelical reli-gion of the American slaves. To be sure, there are significantdifferences between the kind of spirit possession found in WestAfrica and in the shouting experience of American revivalism.Different theological meanings are expressed and experienced ineach. But similar patterns of response—rhythmic clapping, ring-dancing, styles of singing, all of which result in or from the state-of-possession trance—reveal the slaves' African religious back-ground. The shout is a convincing example of Herskovits' theoryof reinterpretation of African traditions; for the situation of thecamp-meeting revival, where enthusiastic and ecstatic religiousbehavior was encouraged, presented a congenial setting for slavesto merge African patterns of response with Christian interpreta-tions of the experience of spirit possession, an experience sharedby both blacks and whites. The Protestant revivalist tradition,accepted by the slaves and their descendants in the United States,proved in this instance to be amenable to the influence of Africanstyles of behavior. Despite the prohibition of dancing as heathen-ish and sinful, the slaves were able to reinterpret and "sanctify"their African tradition of dance in the "shout."69 While the NorthAmerican slaves danced under the impulse of the Spirit of a"new" God, they danced in ways their fathers in Africa wouldhave recognized.

Moreover, the argument, mentioned above, between BishopPayne and the leader of the ring-shout band hints at a deeper levelof reinterpretation. If, as Payne claims, the "ignorant masses"

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(read "less acculturated") regarded the ring shout "as the essenceof religion," and if the shout leader's contention that "without aring sinners won't get converted" was representative of generalbelief, the "holy dance" of the shout may very well have been atwo-way bridge connecting the core of West African religions—possession by the gods—to the core of evangelical Protestanism—experience of conversion. There are also hints that the process ofconversion may have been related in the slaves' minds to theAfrican-style period of initiation into the cults of the gods. Slavescustomarily spoke of the period of seeking conversion as "mourn-ing" and thought of it as a time when the sinner should go apart,alone, to a quiet place to struggle with his sins. This period andplace of retirement resemble the novitiate of West African andCaribbean cults in two details. Fugitive slave Henry Brown re-called that when his sister "became anxious to have her soul con-verted" she "shaved the hair from her head, as many of the slavesthought they could not be converted without doing this," a cus-tom similar to initiation rites in Brazil, Trinidad and West Africa.The other similarity may be noted in Samuel Lawton's descrip-tion of a practice followed in the Sea Islands which resembled theuse of cloth bands in the "mourning ground" ceremony of Spirit-ual Baptists in Trinidad: "Seekers may sometimes be identified bya white cloth or string tied around the head. This is a signal thatthey are seekin' and all others are to 'leave 'em alon.' "70

Ring shouts were also called "running sperichils," a term whichsuggests a connection with a broader and more inclusive categoryof religious expression, the Afro-American spirituals. There wereseveral kinds of spirituals—shouts, anthems, and jubilees—serv-ing different occasions and reflecting different moods. Stylesranged from the exciting tempo and rhythmic stamp of the shoutto the slow, drawn-out "sorrow songs" which usually come tomind when the spirituals are mentioned. While the lyrics andthemes of the spirituals were drawn from Biblical verses andChristian hymns, and although the music and melodies werestrongly influenced by the sacred and secular songs of white

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Americans, the style in which the slaves sang the spirituals wasAfrican.

Frequently, musically literate observers despaired of adequatelyconveying the style and sounds of the spirituals they had heard.One who tried was Lucy McKim Garrison, who in 1862 wrote ofthe difficulties involved in her task:

It is difficult to express the entire character of these Negroballads by mere musical notes and signs. The odd turns madein the throat, and the curious rhythmic effect produced bysingle voices chiming in at different irregular intervals, seemalmost as impossible to place on the score as the singing ofbirds or the tones of an AEolian harp.71

A later compiler of spirituals complained of a similar problem:"Tones are frequently employed which we have no musical char-acter to represent. Such, for example, is that which I have indi-cated as nearly as possible by the flat seventh . . . "72

The singing style of the slaves, which was influenced by theirAfrican heritage, was characterized by a strong emphasis on calland response, polyrhythms, syncopation, ornamentation, slidesfrom one note to another, and repetition. Other stylistic featuresincluded body movement, hand-clapping, foot-tapping, and heter-ophony. This African style of song performance could not bereduced to musical notations, which explains why printed ver-sions do not capture the peculiar flavor of the slave songs, whichwere consistently labeled "wild," "strangely fascinating," of "pe-culiar quality," and "barbaric" by white observers.

Despite the African style of singing, the spirituals, like the"running spirituals" or ring shout, were performed in praise of theChristian God.73 The names and words of the African gods werereplaced by Biblical figures and Christian imagery. African styleand European hymnody met and became in the spiritual a new,Afro-American song to express the joys and sorrows of the reli-gion which the slaves had made their own.74

Another area of religious behavior in which European tradi-tions of slaveholders and African traditions of slaves proved conso-

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nant with one another was that of folk belief, the realm of magic,"hoodoo," and "conjure."

Folk Belief: From Vaudou to Conjuring

No discussion of Africanisms in the religious life of black Ameri-cans could be complete without reference to voodoo. However,when speaking of voodoo in the United States, as opposed tovaudou in Haiti, an important distinction must be made betweenvoodoo as an organized cult and voodoo as a system of magic.Voodoo as a cult flourished until the late nineteenth century,particularly in New Orleans, though it was not confined to thatarea. From the early days of French Louisiana, the voodoo cultwas associated with slaves imported from the French West Indies.Voodoo originated in the religion of Africans, but the most imme-diate catalyst to the growth of the cult in Louisiana was theemigration of slaves and free blacks from the island of Saint-Do-mingue at the time of the Haitian Revolution.

Initially the cult and the magical system of voodoo formed anintegral whole, but gradually voodoo as an institutionalized cult ofritual worship disintegrated, while its tradition of "root work"persisted in folk beliefs widespread among slaves and their de-scendants down to the present day. Voodoo priests—and morecommonly, priestesses—presided over the cult while building alarge clientele for various charms and gris-gris. New Orleans be-came known as the capital of "root work," and voodoo, or hoodoo,came to be a synonym for conjuring and conjurers apart from thecultic context of its African-Haitian origins.75

By all accounts, voodoo in New Orleans was centered uponworship of a snake god. Drumming, dancing, singing, possession,animal sacrifice, eating, and drinking were customary at the cere-monies in Louisiana, as in Haiti and West Africa. In Dahomey thegod Damballa (Da) was envisioned as a snake and as the rainbow,principle of fluidity and governor of men's destinies. Particularlyin the coastal kingdoms of Arada and Ouidah, conquered by Da-

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Documents

Death of the Gods - Swarthmore College