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