Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in BrooklynKaren McCarthy Brown's classic book shatters stereotypes of Vodou by offering an intimate portrait of African-based religion in everyday life. She explores the importance of women's religious practices along with related themes of family and of social change. Weaving several of her own voices--analytic, descriptive, and personal--with the voices of her subjects in alternate chapters of traditional ethnography and ethnographic fiction, Brown presents herself as a character in Mama Lola's world and allows the reader to evaluate her interactions there. Startlingly original, Brown's work endures as an important experiment in ethnography as a social art form rooted in human relationships. A new preface, epilogue, bibliography, and a collection of family photographs tell the story of the effect of the book's publication on Mama Lola's life. |
Contents
| 19 | |
| 33 | |
Raise That Womans Petticoat | 77 |
Ogou | 91 |
The Baka Made from Jealousy | 139 |
Kouzinn | 153 |
Dreams and Promises | 201 |
Ezili | 217 |
Danbala | 269 |
Plenty Confidence | 309 |
Gede | 327 |
AFTERWORD | 381 |
GLOSSARY OF HAITIAN CREOLE TERMS | 401 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 405 |
INDEX | 413 |
Sojeme Sojeme | 257 |
Common terms and phrases
Abimbola African Agèou Alourdes Alourdes's altar room ancestors asked ason Azaka Badagri Baka began Benin Brooklyn called Cecile cemetery ceremonies child Creole culture Dahomey Danbala dollars door dream Ezili Dantò Ezili Freda Fort Greene Fouchard Gede's Ginen give going Gonaïves Gros Morne Haiti Haitian Creole Haitian Vodou hand head healer healing initiation Jean Rabel Joseph Binbin Mauvant Karen Karen McCarthy Kouzinn Lasyrenn living Lola's look Madame Maggie Maggie's Makout Mama Lola manbo Manman Manman Marasa Marie Noelsine Marie Thérèse Mimose Mommie mother mountain moved mwen never night Ouidah Papa Gede Papa Ogou person Petwo Philo Philomise Port-au-Prince Port-de-Paix priest Rapelle religion ritual Saint Santería serve the spirits slave Sojème song stories talk tell things tion told took trip Vodou spirits voice walk woman women York Zaka
Popular passages
Page 6 - The Vodou spirits are not models of the well-lived life; rather, they mirror the full range of possibilities inherent in the particular slice of life over which they preside. Failure to understand this has led observers to portray the Vodou spirits as demonic or even to conclude that Vodou is a religion without morality—a serious misconception.
Page 15 - Only short flights of ratiocination tend to be effective in anthropology; longer ones tend to drift off into logical dreams, academic bemusements with formal symmetry.
Page 10 - I realized that if I brought less to this Vodou world, I would come away with less. If I persisted in studying Vodou objectively, the heart of the system, its ability to heal, would remain closed to me.
Page 14 - A corollary of this position is that the people who are being studied should be allowed to speak for themselves whenever possible, for they are the only true experts on themselves.
Page 1 - of the apothecaries of New World African religions offering fast-luck and get-rich-quick powders, High John the Conqueror root, and votive candles marked for the Seven African Powers. I was no more than a few miles from my home in lower Manhattan, but I felt as if I had taken a wrong turn, slipped through a crack between worlds, and emerged on the main street of a tropical city.