Hoodoo (spirituality)

Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created by enslaved Africans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities, Christianity and elements of indigenous botanical knowledge. Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure man or conjure woman, root doctors, Hoodoo doctors, and swampers. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include conjure or rootwork. As a syncretic spiritual system, it also incorporates Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims and Spiritualism. Scholars define Hoodoo as a folk religion. Folk religions are syncretic traditions between two or more cultural religions, in this case African indigenous spirituality and Abrahamic religion. Many Hoodoo traditions draw from the beliefs of the Bakongo people of Central Africa. Over the first century of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 52% of all kidnapped Africans (over 900,000 people) came from Central African countries that existed within modern day Cameroon, Congo, Angola, Central African Republic and Gabon. By the end of the colonial period, enslaved Africans were taken from Angola (40 percent), Senegambia (19.5 percent), the Windward Coast (16.3 percent), and the Gold Coast (13.3 percent), as well as the Bight of Benin and Bight of Biafra in smaller percentages. Following the Great Migration of African-Americans, Hoodoo spread throughout the United States. The first documentation of the word Hoodoo in the English language appeared in 1870. Its origins are obscure but some believe it originated as an alteration of the word Voodoo – a word that has its origin in the Gbe languages such as Ewe language, Adja language and Fon languages of Ghana Togo and Benin – referring to divinity. Another possible etymological origin of the word Hoodoo comes from the word Hudu, meaning "spirit work," which comes from the Ewe language spoken in the West African countries of Ghana,Togo and Benin. Hudu is also one of the dialects of the Ewe language of the Ewe people in West Africa.

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Related concepts (20)

Traditional African religions

The traditional beliefs and practices of African people are highly diverse, including various ethnic religions. Generally, these traditions are oral rather than scriptural and are passed down from one generation to another through folk tales, songs, and festivals, and include beliefs in spirits and higher and lower gods, sometimes including a supreme being, as well as the veneration of the dead, and use of magic and traditional African medicine. Most religions can be described as animistic with various polytheistic and pantheistic aspects.

African diaspora religions

African diaspora religions, also described as Afro-American religions, are a number of related beliefs that developed in the Americas in various nations of the Caribbean, Latin America and the Southern United States. They derive from traditional African religions with some influence from other religious traditions, notably Christianity and Islam. Afro-American religions involve ancestor veneration and include a creator deity along with a pantheon of divine spirits such as the Orisha, Loa, Vodun, Nkisi and Alusi, among others.

West African Vodun

Vodun (meaning spirit in the Fon, Gun and Ewe languages, vodṹ with a nasal high-tone u; also spelled Vodon, Vodoun, Vodou, Vudu, Voudou, Voodoo, etc.) is a religion practiced by the Aja, Ewe, and Fon peoples of Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria. Elements of the West African religion have survived and evolved into the current forms of religions with similar names that are found in the New World among the African diaspora in the Americas, such as Haitian Vodou; Louisiana Voodoo; Cuban Vodú; Dominican Vudú, Venezuelan Yuyu, and Brazilian Vodum (Candomblé Jejé and Tambor de Mina).