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Date: | Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:07:40 -0400 |
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In a message dated 8/24/2006 10:22:34 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
That will be quite a shock to Dr. Mark Leone, the head of the Archaeology in
Annapolis program and past head of the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Maryland, especially as he's always worked closely with the
local African-American community. You would have thought someone might have
pointed out that he was being rude, but apparently no one did.
Maybe things have changed since I did my reading on the subject years ago,
but if you can give a clear non-wikipedia definition of what constitutes
"Hoodoo," where it comes from, how it functions etc, with reliable references I
will stand corrected. Maybe in Maryland this is not the case, but where I come
from its a stereotype (think of witch doctors, drums, rituals, licentious
dancing and speaking in tongues), and a term that would be received coldly... At
any rate, according to Zora Neale Hurston Hoodoo is a term derived from
Voodoo that was used because her subjects categorically denied that the healing
they did had anything to do with Voodoo, which apparently arrived with the
Haitian refugees in the 19th century. What is the connection with 17th/18th
century Maryland? Why does every odd cache of artifacts have to be imbued with a
ritual definition anyway? And why is it only slaves who could have been the
responsible? Isn't this implicit racism? As other respondents have noted,
there is a clear record of such behavior among the British and Europeans on both
sides of the Atlantic. Why pick on one group or another when we just plain
don't know who is responsible and never will?
Carl
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