Crossing Merfolk Narratives of the Sacred: Nalo Hopkinson’s The New Moon’s Arms and Gabrielle Tesfaye’s The Water Will Carry Us Home

This article defines what I call the ‘crossing merfolk’ narrative, the idea that African people who jumped or were cast overboard during the Middle Passage became water-dwelling beings. While critical attention has been increasing for 1990s’ electronic music duo Drexciya, whose sonic fiction contains the most well-known example of this narrative, this is actually a recurring tradition in Black oral and artistic culture that can be traced to West and Central African religions. I focus particularly on what I call ‘crossing merfolk narratives of the sacred’, M. Jacqui Alexander’s term for African diasporic religious traditions anchored in West and Central African cosmologies. Analysing the role of the sacred in two crossing merfolk narratives, Nalo Hopkinson’s 2007 novel The New Moon’s Arms and Gabrielle Tesfaye’s short film The Water Will Carry Us Home (2018), I argue that these texts expand the Black Atlantic imaginary and transform mermaid lore. I develop the term ‘diasporic collage’ to describe the ways in which Hopkinson and Tesfaye reference and combine water spirits and ritual practices from multiple African diasporic traditions into narratives that intersect mermaids and the Middle Passage.

African religions, spirituality, and mental health healing practices

Traditional African religions are diverse with each having its own rituals and symbolisms and often defining an ethnic and language group. Even though most subscribe to the notion of a supreme deity, a common feature of these religions is their polythetic philosophy in which there are many layers of deities and ancestral spirits. The African gods are not jealous, making religious fundamentalism alien to the adherents of traditional religions. African traditional healing practices, rooted in African religious beliefs, are commonly sought because they are thought to get at the root causes of illness and not just to provide relief from symptoms. In the face of globalization as well as pervasive influence of Western cultures, the Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam now jostle for dominance and for the sole occupation of the spiritual space. However, even when the average African subscribes to an Abrahamic faith, it is common for them to retain a world view steeped in traditional spirituality. An appreciation of this dualism is important when addressing the mental health condition of the African patient.

John Mbiti on the Monotheistic Attribution of African Traditional Religions: A Refutation

John Mbiti, in his attempt to disprove the charge of paganism by EuroAmerican ethnographic and anthropological scholars against African Traditional Religions argues that traditional African religions are monotheistic. He insists that these traditional religious cultures have the same conception of God as found in the Abrahamic religions. The shared characteristics, according to him are foundational to the spread of the “gospel” in Africa. Mbiti’s effort, though motivated by the desire to refute the imperial charge of inferiority against African religions ran, I argue, into a conceptual and descriptive conflation of ATRs with monotheistic faiths. In this paper, I challenge the superimposition of Judeo-Christian categories upon African religions. I argue that monotheism is just a strand, out of many, that expresses belief in God(s), and that it differs substantially from the polytheistic pre-colonial African understanding of religion. I provide a panentheistic paradigm using traditional Igbo ontology and religion to refute Mbiti’s generalization. Keywords: Monotheism, African Traditional Religion, Igbo, Paganism, Theology.

The Oxford Handbook of Divine Revelation

Following some of our eminent predecessors of recent decades, this volume takes a multidisciplinary approach to the notion of divine revelation to examine what it can mean in our time. Thus the book is divided into parts, reflecting how a proper understanding of God’s revelation can be reached systemically, with each part offering an avenue by which to comprehend divine disclosure. Some chapters deal with the biblical background to revelation; others examine the delicate relationship between a Christian understanding of the fulfilment of revelation in Christ and the original revelation given to Moses and Abraham, and to the created whole in the act of creation; yet others explore the theological aspects of revelation, from the Trinitarian problematic to charismatic forms of revelation. The philosophical explorations of revelation show the importance of philosophical reflection on revelation today and over time. A radical understanding of revelation is the ultimate horizon of the reality of divine revelation, connecting biblical, theological, philosophical, historical and comparative, and scientific approaches. Revelation-related forms in Hinduism, Buddhism, the Chinese tradition, and African religions contribute to an understanding of the important role of divine revelation in connecting cultures and religions around the globe. The notion of revelation in Judaism and Islam also has a paramount role in any comparative understanding, which must extend to the importance of our conceptions of revelation in the context of European history, especially the Holocaust, a watershed in our contemporary reflections on revelation which triggered radical re-evaluation of traditional theological and philosophical conceptions.

African Religions in Brazil

Despite their diverse political and cultural backgrounds, West Africans and West Central Africans shared some basic religious orientations. With a strong pragmatic focus on solving problems in this world, the dynamism and flexibility of their religious practices were critical for their quick reactivation within Brazilian slave society. The Atlantic transfer, however, deprived African institutions of their structural social basis so a complex innovative process of re-institutionalization was necessary to allow new forms of Afro-Brazilian religions to emerge. Ritual associativism first occurred around the colonial Calundu, mostly concerned with interpersonal healing and divination interactions, but rapidly saw the formation of parallel religious congregations inspired by an ecclesiastical mode of organization based on the initiatory recruitment of novices and the worship of multiple deities. Despite common elements of healing, divination, sacrifice, spirit possession, initiation, and celebration, the genesis of Afro-Brazilian religions was marked by astounding pluralism and eclecticism that led to a wide range of regional variation. The demographics and cultural specificities of the enslaved in each place, as well as local historical circumstances, determined distinct processes of creative synthesis among the various African traditions and between these and hegemonic Iberian Catholicism, Amerindian healing practices, and others. The circulation of ideas and priests across the country and between Africa and Brazil after the end of the Atlantic slave trade also added to the 19th-century consolidation of an Afro-Brazilian religious field. Despite a history of continuous discrimination and persecution, alongside occasional selective tolerance, Afro-Brazilian religions offered a unique space for the transformative reproduction of African values, behaviors, and forms of sociability, which had a long-lasting effect on Brazilian national culture. The temples’ struggles for legitimacy and recognition was expressed in a latent tension between those which claimed an alleged African ritual purity and those accused of syncretism, a divide to which scholars greatly contributed to and which has oriented their classificatory efforts.

The Kingdom of God on Earth, 1909‒1914

In addition to writing for a religious periodical and running for president in 1912, Roosevelt also undertook two major journeys abroad during this time. His African safari of 1909‒10 allowed him to observe and comment on traditional African religions and Christian missionaries. When he returned to the United States via Europe, he once again found himself mixed up in Vatican politics. In 1913‒14, Roosevelt and his friend the Catholic priest John Zahm planned a scientific expedition in South America. Roosevelt and his expedition eventually charted an unknown river in Brazil. These incidents continued to show Roosevelt’s religious ecumenism and support of religion in general.