Thanks Carol for the thoughtful response. I'm glad to see HISTARCH actually  
serving its purpose of making people think and stimulating them to share 
ideas.  I don't mean to dismiss the hard work of everyone who believes as you do, 
but I  still have to say that as far as I can tell these are largely faith 
based  beliefs. In archaeology we are at a disadvantage. We can't contact the  
people who used symbols and ask what they mean by them. We are forced to  make 
inferential arguments and adjust them as better information comes to light.  
Allison Wylie said years ago that archaeology was more "scientistic" than  
scientific, and I agree. But that doesn't mean we can just abandon logic.  Speaking 
for myself, I see two stronger arguments being dismissed in favor of a  third, 
weak argument. So again, I'm willing to listen, but lets see some hard  facts 
in favor of this interpretation. Most of what I have seen consists of  
researcher A referring to researcher B, who refers to C, who cites something  like 
"One scholar I read said "Africans didn't convert to Christianity -- they  
converted Christianity to themselves" and accepts it as fact without asking  where 
the assertion came from to begin with, or whether it is valid. If recent  
research that I may not have seen has come to light which stands as proof of  
your interpretation please give me the references and I will reconsider my  
position.
 
Carl
 
PS: regarding your final points about keeping an open mind and working from  
a position of knowledge to interpret the evidence. In support of what you have 
 said, on the opposite end of this whole argument I have noticed that CRM  
archaeologists working in the heartland of Gullah culture in South Carolina can  
survey whole plantations and excavate both slave and freedmen's settlements  
without ever even mentioning the word "Gullah" or showing any knowledge of  
African American anthropology..... 
 
 
In a message dated 8/24/2006 6:19:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Excuse  me? At least 50 % (I've seen different stats, but they are all in the 
same  range) of the people enslaved in Africa and brought here came from the  
Bakongo region, so would have been part of that larger spiritual  
tradition...the region was (is) really huge. Many of the rest came from  
Yoruba regions, and at some of the archaeological sites you question there  
appears to be an admixture of uses which reflect both traditions. AND,  yes, 
Christianity too. That is people who were from, or were descended  from, 
Bakongo people did "use that symbol", in a variety of ways and  guises. It 
hardly matters whether the original potter who put the cross on  the bowl or 
whatever was a member of a Bakongo group. What's important is  that someone 
used THAT particular bowl, in a certain way, associated with  other objects.

We had a similar discussion on this a few years ago,  with the same 
skepticism, and similar players. Which is fair enough,  except for the 
snarkiness.

One the one hand, skeptics will admit  that they aren't up on the most recent 
DATA. I'm talking about real data,  not just speculation and untested 
assumptions. On the other, they say  they've "seen the evidence" and have 
rejected it. C'mon...It's an evolving  body of research, and the web of 
associations --a growing network of  examples -- between different sites, 
groups, contexts, etc. is getting  pretty huge by now. And, yes, even as 
people were using found-and-created  items in ways which may have referenced 
their ancestral beliefs, they  could also have embraced Christian symbols, 
like crosses, in part because  they were similar to those they were already 
comfortable with. These are  not mutually exclusive ideas or expressions. 
Consider the fact that the  Grace Methodist Church was founded at the Jordan 
Plantation, during the  same period in which some people at the plantation 
appear to have been  practicing African healing and other practices.

The EXPRESSED meanings  of various symbols may have shifted to reflect the 
context that people  were living in, but that's not to say that there weren't 
structural  reasons why certain symbols and traditions found resonance with 
some  people when they were exposed to them in a different setting.  And this 
 
shows up in the material remains. One scholar I read said "Africans didn't  
convert to Christianity -- they converted Christianity to themselves" (I  
forget the citation, sorry, but it says what I am trying to say). And it's  
not just "cosmograms", either -- the most recent research, not only from  
archaeology but also folklore studies, sees the so-called "cosmogram" as  
really being an expression of the importance of cardinal-direction  symbols. 
Which we've talked about before on this list.  Either way,  more and more 
sites are showing this stuff. While it's true that some  archaeologists are 
indeed interested in finding it, if it's there, it's  also true that these 
sorts of artifacts and, more importantly, artifact  contexts, WON'T be 
noticed unless the right questions are asked by someone  who is knowledgeable 
about what to look for. AND who uses fine-grained  field and analytical 
methods which will reveal this level of detail in the  deposit. Which gets me 
into a whole other discussion about method, but I  really don't want to go 
there.

Are these connections "proved"?!? I  know I'm showing my postprocessualist 
stripes here, but BAH (said in the  nicest possible way!). Buy the arguments, 
or not, but at least get up to  date on the most recent stuff and give the 
researchers credit for doing  sound archaeology, not just making this stuff 
up.

Carol (I really  did try to stay quiet...oh well).

****************************
Carol  McDavid, Ph.D.