Black Diasporic Art: The Embodiment of African Religious Imagery

Professor Jacob Olupona  

AFRAMER 181X: African Religion in the Diaspora

May 5, 2022

Introduction

African religion in the diaspora is founded on the art of embodying stories, symbols, and ultimately spirit. Even with a wide array of traditions alive within the African diaspora, storytelling and embodiment remain imperative regardless of the differences and similarities in the religions and traditions of Black people. For instance, Hoodoo, an African-American hybridization of Vodou and Vodun, have regional embodiments that differ in practice. However, these differences in embodied practice, such as utilizing different herbs in healing medicine, are dependent on regionally-specific ancestries, stories, and materials.

Evidently, African religions are an inherently sensory experience, as they rely on storytelling, objects, rituals, and experiences to translate the metaphysical. Hess Stinson, a Hoodoo practitioner and grassroots organizer, declares, “Hoodoo is forever, every generation is built to liberate us from the systemic conditions under which Hoodoo was born” (Stinson). This exemplifies that the practice of Hoodoo requires contemporary traditions that further liberation within each generation. Connecting religion to the sensory realities, material objects, and cultural experiences of the contemporary moment is naturally embedded in the practice of Hoodoo itself. Essentially, Hoodoo, like many African religions, is a living practice that is continually transformed and shaped by the realities of its believers.

The definition of religion is a contentious matter in religious studies. The foundational understanding of religion implied throughout this essay is drawn from David Morgan, Professor of Religion and Visual Studies at Duke University. Morgan defines religions as “ways of fabricating networks of relations among human beings, on the one hand, and relations with gods, angels, saints, the afterlife, spirits or ancestors, nationhood, destiny, or providence, on the other” (Morgan, 2020).  Morgan’s definition acknowledges the dual function of religion as a theory of “afterlife, spirits, or ancestors” and a practice of “fabricating networks of relations” (Morgan, 2020).  This understanding of religion adequately encompasses the reality of many African religions, which actively acknowledge the importance of incorporating the theory of “afterlife, spirits or ancestors” into the daily practices of “relations” and “nationhood” (Morgan, 2020).

Therefore, it is essential that African religions are understood as a metaphysical morality with a comprehensive worldview rather than as a set of beliefs unified within an institution, like a church. The comprehensive nature of African religions results in its codification as African Traditional Religions (ATRs) or African spiritual practices, which is furthered by the fact that most African worldviews are archived in oral tradition rather than preserved in written institutions. Ultimately, African religions are living traditions that are adaptable to the needs and experiences of its believers. The highly adaptable nature of African religions in the diaspora is directly contrasted by the stagnant nature of Abrahmic religions, which primarily center fundamental practices founded on written texts.

In recent decades, there have been many reports identifying the decline of religion in the West, which can largely be attributed to the fact that religion’s role in “fabricating networks of relations among human beings” has declined within the multicultural experience (Morgan, 2020). For instance, your community is less likely to judge you for lack of church attendance if people within the community practice different faiths. While many communities have maintained a devout religious following, most studies indicate that each generation becomes more secularized. The Cooperative Election Study found that as Gen Z enters adulthood, they’re affiliation to organized religions have declined. Specifically, in 2016, 39% of Gen Z were not particularly affiliated with a religion, which increased to 44% in 2020.(Burge, 2021). It could be noted that religious decline within younger generations is also caused by a lack of contemporary relevance in religious imagery.

Within the Black diaspora, the 2010s uncovered a movement towards reclaiming African religions. This was particularly popular among Millenials and Gen Z who often cite the spiritual adaptability of African religions as one of the main reasons they decided to practice these faiths. African spiritual traditions encompass the contemporary problems and needs of its believers, which allows Black people to develop comprehensive metaphysical moralities that are liberating from contemporary systems. For the Black diaspora, this need to fabricate networks of relations amongst humans and spirit is a two-folded task. Not only does reclaiming African religion require returning to the harm that has been done to African religious images, but it also requires that Black people fabricate networks that are unimaginable within current oppressive realities.

This essay examines the ways in which African diasporic visualizations contribute to the rememory of African religions. Historically, Western visual media of ATRs has been oversaturated with imagery that evokes fear, which ultimately demonized African spiritual beliefs. Yet, African diasporic artists have cultivated a genre of rememory that allows Black people to reclaim and revitalize the religious imagery within African religions. While music has been readily acknowledged as an art form that transforms the immaterial into the physical world, other art forms, such as written or visual media, have been less commonly acknowledged for inscribing African spirituality into the physical memories, or histories, of the modern world. In particular, this argument prioritizes the role of storytelling and digital media in archiving and generating the materiality of African religions within the diaspora. Black diasporic artists assume the role of Iyanifa, which is known in the Ifa tradition as priestess or mother of wisdom. Basically, by sharing art that revitalizes and creates positive African religious imagery, the Black diasporic artist continues the African legacy of oral tradition and remembering, by serving as an intermediary between spirit and community.

This analysis begins with a discussion of the unique role that visual culture plays in generating the African diaspora, which leads to a historical evaluation of Western media’s portrayal of African religions. Then, the essay will address the ways that Black diasporic artists (re)member African religious principles outside of the Western imaginary. Overall, this work aims to illustrate that Black diasporic artists have been healing the collective understanding of African religious morality through images and creations that are culturally relevant to Black people existing within an increasingly integrated diaspora.  Additionally, the works of Black diasporic artists are inspired by many denominational theologies and hybrids of demonoational theologies. It is important to note that most of the creations in this essay are inspired by Yoruba’s Ifa tradition, Haitian Vodou, and African American Hoodoo, as these are the most popularized African religions highlighted throughout the diaspora.

The African Diaspora: A Fracture in Time

In The Sacred Gaze, David Morgan defines the functions of religious imagery, which includes “ordering space and time, imagining community, serving as instruments of influence, and displacing rival images and ideologies” (BuggeIn, 2007). Plainly stated, Europeans viewed African religious imagery as “rival images” that needed to be displaced; in order to establish their religious “instruments of influence” (BuggeIn, 2007). This led to the demonization of African religions within academia, visual media, and the Western imaginary at large. The history of African religious representation in Western media is further discussed in the following section; however, it is important to note that the primary focus of visual studies is to explore “cultural work that images do in constructing and maintaining a sense of order in a particular place and time” (Dunn, 2006). Thus, it can be understood that the dominant African religious images promoted in Western media were constructed to maintain an order in which African diasporic people are deemed inferior. For example, a scholar of visual culture notes that terms, such as “totem” and “idol” were once denoted as “bad objecthood,” referred to as “problematic human-picture or human-object relations associated with a primitive or neurotic mindset” (Duibuisson, 2015). Yet, the academic exploration of visual culture and religion has led to a reclamation of these objects, as a way to “analyze how humans fall under the spell of images” (Duibuisson, 2015). Artifacts, such as totems and idols, were never respected as religious materiality, as they were commonly associated with Indigenous and African religions. However, this emerging understanding of religion “as a multi-media phenomenon that mobilizes the full sensorium” opens up an abundant archive of African images, including sounds, pictures, texts, stories, and other sensory embodiments (Duibuisson, 2015).

The study of visual culture and religion creates an opportunity for a rational evaluation of African religions and their survival within the African diaspora. As visual studies scholars are concerned with acknowledging the lived aspects of religion that are archived and embodied through religious imagery. When understanding religion “as a mediation that involves multiple media,” the music, dance, writings, poems, chants, stories, and movies that have illustrated African Religion become valuable research artifacts. While religious scholars have extensively acknowledged the importance of music and dance in African religions, there is a gap in the work that highlights the contemporary stories and visualizations that have served as religious images within the African diaspora.

Historical Depictions of African Religion: The Hollywood Voodoo Trope

Historically, visualizations of African religions have been stereotyped as a dark and evil magic, often based on a generalized depiction of Voodoo. Many Voodoo practitioners attribute the severe demonization of African religions to the Haitian Revolution. The Bois Caïman ceremony that initiated the resurrections leading to Haitian emancipation became notorious amongst European colonizers. The ceremony was a Voodoo ritual that honored deities through dance, animal sacrifice, and other rituals. Consequently, the success of this Black uprising was associated with an act of devil worship or black magic. As white Europeans feared that slave uprisings would increase due to the Haitian Revolution, the non-Christian practice that spearheaded the Haitian movement became the subject of Western ridicule. In other words, white Europeans displaced a rival ideology that seemingly threatened their dominance.

Hence, media in the nineteenth century portrayed Voodoo as primitive, savage, and evil, which is currently furthered in Hollywood media today. Early examples of the Hollywood Voodoo trope include White Zombie (1932), King of the Zombies (1941), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), and Voodoo Man (1944). These films evolved modern perceptions of Voodoo as intrinsically connected to death, horror, and evil. Each of these films connected the religious images of Haitian Vodou to “what scholars call, ‘the zombification of the other’ as a tool for enslavement” (Kone, 2019). In the first generation of zombie films released in the US, zombies were depicted as “slow and deliberately enslaved people” “to be ordered and controlled” (Morgan, 2020). One movie poster revealed the following tagline: “They knew this fiend was practicing zombisim on the natives, but when he tried it on a white girl, the nation revolted” (Kone, 2019). This tagline illustrates the radicalized and gendered expectations of who should be the “living dead.” These films solidified religious imagery of ritualistic, evil, magic in relation to Haitian Vodou.

Religious imagery of African spiritual practice as evil is sustained in its consistent evocation through cultural artifacts, such as music, television, movies, books. Recent films that evoke African religion as evil magic, include: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), Scooby-Doo (2002), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Bride of Chucky (1998). Most of these movies are mysteries or horror films that codify African religious imagery as dark magic in the Western collective narrative. These depictions of voodoo have infiltrated the African diaspora, causing many African diasporic people to reject the practices of Vodou and other African religions. Ultimately, the dominant narrative of African religion as devil worship was solidified in the Western collective narrative, as an accurate depiction of African religious imagery and symbolism. The most common symbols represented by tropes like voodoo dolls and evil witch doctors. In comparison, to other Eastern spiritual traditions—such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, ATRs have been demonized the most in the Western imagination.

Despite the popularized demonization of ATRs, there are many artists and visualizations of African religions that reject the European’s falsified religious imagery and symbolism. Instead, African diasporic artists use their creative works to reframe the ancestral practices that helped the ancestors of the diaspora survive.

Rememory & African Religion

The Transatlantic Slave Trade is often referenced as “the founding moment of modernity,” especially within the history of African Americans and the diaspora (Phillips, 2020). One author who specializes in Afrofuturism and Black Quantum Physics claims that the Transatlantic Slave Trade was “the first great Indigenous African Space-Time Splintering, a long wave form of trauma that continues to spread, touching upon, the present day” (Phillips, 2020). This splintering can be understood as the moment that led to the synthesis of the African diaspora, as Africans were brutally extracted from their cultural context and forced to assimilate with other cultures. This point of contact led to the hybridization of African religions that can be seen throughout the diaspora. For instance, the Yoruba tradition of Ifa has transformed into derivations of Afro-Caribbean religions, such as Santeria.

When the European pillagers caused a splintering in the Indigenous African spatiotemporal reality through enslavement, they utilized Christian religious imagery to displace African religious images and ideology; fundamentally, leaving Black diasporic people isolated in cycles of oppression. David Morgan claims that one primary use of religious imagery is as a tool to “order space and time” (Morgan, 2020). The ordering of space and time is particularly important to religious imagery, as these concepts permeate one’s ability to connect and exist within a community. In “Dismantling the Master’s Clock Work Universe,” Rasheedah Phillips claims that “Western linear dead physical timeline (with past, future, and a regularly moving now)” has replaced an “African living time,” in which “historical past and genealogies are conceptualized within contexts of space, place, totemic affiliation, and family names, as opposed to ‘exact chronology, recorded history, dominant figures, royal succession, centralized states and international relation’” (Phillips, 2020). The notions of space and time associated with African religious imagery were replaced with Western linear conceptions of time that correlated to Christian religious imagery. Phillips further claims that Christian linear spatiotemporal imagery is founded on Biblical apocalyptic visions.The close monitoring of time becomes necessary when religion claims that the end is near.“In Time Wars,” Jeremy Rifkin notes that ‘Western culture…institutionalized its images of the future by way of religion and politics, making sure that ‘the future can be made predictable and controlled” (Phillips, 2020).

Arguably, the most damaging result of Western linear time construction was the total de-legitimization of African space-time cultural traditions. African space-time consciousness maintains a perspective that “time is composed of events, while days, months, and years…may be considered just a graphic or numerical representation of its events. The indigenous heritage of time ‘often made no sharp distinction between the past, present, and the future and was generally uninterested in the minutia of time’” (Phillips, 2020). Features of African space-time consciousness include “concern for details of the event, regardless of time required; exhaustive consideration of a problem until resolved; and emphasis on present experience rather than past or future.” (Phillips, 2020). Phillips posits that Black people are living tensions of linear time, as the color of our skin integrates the past into the present, illustrating that time is multidirectional rather than unidirectional. Further, “Zerubavel rightly points out that ‘Being social presupposes the ability to experience things that happened to the groups which we belong long before we even joined them as if they were part of our personal past” (Phillips, 2020). This ability to experience social connection is largely rooted in the ability to carry on the legacies and stories associated with a collective past.

Based on the literature, film, and visualizations that are archived around Black religious legacies and stories, it is evident that the Western linear time structure has trapped African religion and the African diaspora in a repeating cycle of oppression. In particular, the Western linear time claims that we cannot alter past events; in this perception of time, individuals can only access a present that only moves forward rather than backward. Yet, Phillips introduces a term called retrocurrences, which is defined as “a backwards happening, an event whose influence or effect is not discrete and time bound—it extends in all possible directions and encompasses all possible time modes” (Phillips, 2020). Essentially, Phillips attempts “to construct a new diasporic African spatiotemporal consciousness” that accounts for the temporal tensions of Western linear time and the reality that time is multidirectional.

Black diasporic artists, in particular Black women writers, have utilized their art as evidence of time as multidirectional. Most notably, rememory is a concept of African diasporic time consciousness that is introduced in Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Similar to Phillips’ “retrocurrences,” Toni Morrison’s rememory can be understood as a tool of remembering traumatic histories with the primary goal of placing the oppressed as the authorial and narrative voice of the memory. Rememory was born from a “sociopolitical rise to authority and the desire to represent the genesis of their people” (Rody, 1995). Instead of remaining in the oppressive historical narration of African people as slaves with barbaric religious practices, Morrison—and several other Black women writers—create a canon of narratives that reframe the cultural inheritance of Black diasporic history. “This history thus acquires the function of communal ‘talking cure’: its characters, author, and readers delve into the past, repeating painful stories to work toward the health of fuller awareness” (Rody, 1995). Thus, the process or ritual of rememory welcomes an understanding of African spatiotemporal consciousness.  Remembering (or returning) to a traumatic or historical event can lead to a “fuller awareness,” which in turn, can heal the narrative for future generations. This ritual of rememory embodies the fact that the past is readily available within the present moment and extends to the future. Ultimately, rememory allows for Black diasporic artists and people to claim “the configurations of narrative authority,” especially considering the dominant and negative mass media perceptions of African people and religions (Clough, 1998).

Robert B. Stepto, literary theorist and professor of African American studies at Yale University, described the history of African-American narrative as “a chronicle of revisions” (Christian, 1980). Black diasporic artists utilize their art to revise history in such a way that fuller awareness can lead to the creation of spaces that are accepting of the Black diasporic community. From Stepto’s perspective, “African-American writers have used self-determination and the elimination of outside intervention as the impetus for revision” (Christian, 1980). As a principle of African religions and Black diasporic art, it can be understood that “remembrance is the key to redemption” (Christian, 1980). Yet, Black diasporic art cannot rely on the memories, myths, or stories provided about African religions and people provided by white Europeans, as they tell incomplete and harmful narratives about the African diasporic ancestors. Instead, “memories which cause pain to us as individuals become rememories or shared events which contribute to the healing of the teller and the listener” (Christian, 1980). This illustrates that the embodiment of storytelling within African diasporic art is inherently a religious and healing experience. The ritual of rememory is steepled in African religious imagery of space, time, and community. “This idea of an ever present, past, and continuous present is the foundation upon which Walker and Morrison construct their ideas of dream memories and rememories. This refutation of linear time is consistent with the definition of character as process, identify, fluid” (Christian, 1980).

Like Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Alice Walker’s Temple of My Familiar draws on African religious conceptions of time and space. Walker’s characters function in a reality in which “events, it seems are etched into the spaces where they occur: they are forever present, accessible to all” (Christian, 1980). Morrison’s conception of rememory claims that memories of history and culture are shared for fuller awareness and a healing reconfiguration; Walker’s dream memories alludes to the fact that “If we share the memories of our history and culture, dream memories suggest that we share its dreams, as well” (Christian, 1980). Both of these Black diasporic writers are concerned with the cultural inheritance of African diasporic imagery of space, time, and community. Due to the fact that most people, especially those exiled from their cultural roots, no longer live in communities where parents intentionally pass on archetypal stories to their children, the transmission of cultural inheritance becomes the responsibility of Black diasporic artists. One scholar claims that, “the novel must take up the traditional ‘healing’ function of African-American folk music and tales (“Rootedness,” 340) (Christian, 1980).

Notably, writers and Black diasporic artists of all mediums have brought African religions to the forefront” of African diasporic consciousness. Musicians have consistently been revered as practitioners of African religion, as they transform the metaphysical into the material, often revered as common place in studies of drumming, rhythm, and dance. By contrast, African religions in literature have a pervasive presence in the Black diasporic literary canon, but it is not yet taken for granted. In addition to literature, digital media, film, TV shows, and other visualizations of African religions have worked to reclaim African religious imagery. One scholar goes as far as to claim, “Black women filmmakers and writers embrace the role and responsibility of the priestess bearing and distributing life-force to sustain the community of viewers and readers” (Ryan, 2005).

The remainder of this essay will highlight Black diasporic artists and discuss the ways in which their creations codify a ritual of rememory that embodies a fuller awareness of African religious imagery. Through art and rememory, many Black diasporic artists have “created a model of self empowerment that involves the discovery (or recovery) of independent (spiritual) agency before and beyond any institutional endowment” (Ryan, 2005). Utilizing David Morgan’s framework of visual studies and religious imagery, the works of Black diasporic artists can be evaluated as African religious images that are grappling with the ruptured and traumatic histories that followed the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Black Women Writers

Many scholars have linked Black women writers to narratives of wellness and well-being. In particular, these Black diasporic artists are weaving together contemporary African religious imagery that is at its core a hybridization and amalgamation of African diasporic spiritual traditions. Previously mentioned, Alice Walker explicitly claims that her work is an ode to venerating her ancestors. Zora Neale Hurston, another canonic Black diasporic artist, was also explicit in her dedication to honoring ancestors. In one letter to W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston urges that he establish a cemetery “for the illustrious Negro dead.” Further, Hurston’s work with Afro-Caribbean religions was well documented in her book Tell My Horse. Hurston’s Tell My Horse explicitly focuses on stories about voodoo and “cults” within the Caribbean. Hurston’s language, appropriate for her time, reflects the bad objecthood placed on African religious imagery. Notably, Tell My Horse was published in 1938; approximately, five years after the release of White Zombie and in the midst of Hollywood’s founding Voodoo tropes.

However, unlike most representations of the time, Hurston is able to present her subjects as active, living humans. For instance, she describes Mother Saul, a leader of a Jamaican cult, as “the most regal woman since Sheba went to see Solomon” (Tell My Horse). Hurston’s illustrations of African religious imagery are unique and rare. Although her book was heavily influenced by her research on religious experiences in Jamaica and Haiti, Tell My Horse was often critically received, as many were confused with its mix of subject and style. Notoriously, Alain Locke referred to Tell My Horse as “anthropological gossip.” Many people discredited her anthropological research claiming that it was unaligned to the other research available in the field, which led to their casting of Tell My Horse as an anthology of creative folklore. It is clear that Tell My Horse is a mix of research, fiction, and literature, which honors the multimedia aspects of storytelling required when depicting African religious images.

By honoring the stories, dialects, and daily practices of Black diasporic people, Black women writers create clear imagery that illustrates African religious theory and practice (principles and embodiment).  Most of these Black women turn to either fiction or poetry, as their medium of healing the Western images of Black diasporic traditions. The genre of poetry and fiction are particularly well-suited for re-imagining African religious imagery because their art is taking on “the function of communal ‘talking cure’” (Rody, 1995).

Naturally, poetry is acknowledged as literary work that centers expression of feelings and ideas, so it is understandable as a tool of representing communal healing. June Jordan exemplifies the way that poetry can be utilized to incite rememory—or the development of accurate histories that brings the Black diaspora towards the “health of fuller awareness” (). In June Jordan’s “Gettin’ Down to Get Over,” she writes:

momma

help me

turn the face of history

to your face.

This poem asks her Black elder to help her “delve into the past,” so that a fuller awareness of history can be detailed by her mother’s existence. This work illustrates the way in which history has denied her Black elder a fair voice or representation, but it also acknowledges the fact that momma has been denied the truth of history for so long as well. Jordan’s poem depicts the multidirectional nature of history, which exemplifies the African imagery of time. The embodiment of the Black diasporic principle of time is also seen in the works of Lucille Clifton. In “i am accused of tending to the past,” Clifton writes,

i am accused of tending to the past

as if i made it,

as if i sculpted it

with my own hands. i did not.

These lines speak to the principle of rememory. The idea that one can sculpt time by acknowledging and tending to the past. Tending to the past in itself is an African religious principle that transcends many African religions; essentially, a commonality of most African religions is ancestor veneration. Clifton continues,

the past was waiting for me

when i came,

a monstrous unnamed baby,

and i with my mother’s itch

took it to breast and named it

History.

This set of lines represents the fact that for so long African diasporic people have been limited by the “monstrous” past that has been left unattended and un-mothered. The past exists with dark and violent images reinforced by the Western story. As a Black women writer, reclaiming and mothering History is the act of rememory. Clifton shares,

she is more human now,

learning language everyday,

remembering faces, names, and dates.

when she is strong enough to travel

on her own, beware, she will

The final set of lines indicates that Clifton’s act of mothering History has led to a “fuller awareness” of the face, names, and dates that provide the language to humanize Black diasporic people and culture. The acknowledgement of faces parallels Jordan's demand for History to turn towards her momma’s face.

Similarly, this mission of healing History was professed in works of Black women fiction, as well. As previously mentioned, Beloved and Temple of My Familiar developed pathways for Black diasporic rituals of rememory through art embodiment. Erna Brodber’s Myal and Eden Royce’s Root Magic are examples of explicit fiction stories that are an “effort to record, interpret, change, modernize many aspects of New World African needs and desires” (Timothy, 2002). Myal is a novel that explores the connections between Afro-Americans and Afro-Jamaicans, which explicitly draws on Myal, an African religion present within Jamaica. Brodber’s work is designed “to reverse the fragmentation wrought through the institution of slavery,” which she does by illustrating new images of African religions, like Myal (Timothy, 2002).

Eden Royce’s Root Magic is one of the most contemporary forms of storytelling that accomplishes a ritual of rememory. Royce’s Root Magic is a children’s novel that reverses fragmentation around the images of Hoodoo. This story follows twin siblings growing up in South Carolina during the 1960s. 11-year-old Jezebel and Jay come from a family of rootworkers who are communally acknowledged for their supernatural powers. Throughout the book, they are bullied by their African American peers who are losing trust in Hoodoo practices while also being attacked by local white police officers. Royce highlights an interesting dilemma within African American history during which Hoodoo and rootworking was being discredited within the Black community. This work opens up the history of Hoodoo in America by representing the reality that rootworkers were once established and well-respected individuals within the Black community.

In summary, Black women writers have historically embodied African religious imagery within their illustrations of Black diasporic people. As seen through the works of Clifton and Jordan, poetry has typically been utilized as a declaration, incitement, or prayer towards healing the fragmentations of stories created within the Western canon. On the other hand, fiction has been used to humanize characters, stories, and rituals that are more accurate in illustrating African religion. Interestingly, the Black women writers commitment to curing African religious imagery is an act of ritual in itself. They essentially become priestesses leading a ritual of rememory that allows Black diasporic people to heal their stories and connections to their ancestors.

Black Visualizations: Film, Digital Media, & Beyond

Over the past three decades, there have been films, visualizations, and digital media that is also working towards the goal of rememory in relation to African religious imagery. Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) is often cited as a fundamental film that portrays African Traditional Religions in a way that is both authentic and removed from an assumption of Western superiority. Daughters of the Dust follows a family in the Gullah community of coastal South Carolina as they undergo a generational split in which a younger generation is fighting to move to the mainland. Overall, the imagery conjured by Dash in Daughters of the Dust humanizes the spiritual traditions that are alive in the people, places, and stories of the American south.

In the film, one character addresses the great grandmother who is hesitant to migrate to the mainland. He says, “When we was children, we really believed you could walk the good out of evil…We believed in the Frizzle hair chicken, the coins, the roots and the flowers, we believe they will protect us…I ain’t been scared of nothing or no one because I knew my great grandmother had a ball in her pocket” (Daughters of the Dust). This illustrates the belief in the Gullah Geechee practices, which have been diminished to acts of superstition. The great grandmother responds, “Never forget who we is…There’s a time, a recollection, something somebody remembers. We carry these memories inside of we. Do you believe these hundreds and hundreds of Africans brought here on this other side would forget everything we once knew… We don’t know where the recollection come from sometimes we dream them, but we carry these memories inside of we.” The great grandmother directly explains the power of remembering and even harkens on Alice Walker’s dream memories. The matriarch of this family was respected as a diviner of sacred African religious principle, and she described her practice of protection as an act of remembering.

Other films that create African religious images that are transforming Black diasporic traditions include several Afrofuturist films. The most popular film that incorporates elements of positive African religious imagery is Black Panther (2018) in which the Black Panther enters the ancestral realm in order to access his power. This film also depicts the African religious imagery of time, in which past ancestors or events can be accessed in a multidirectional theory of space and time. Lesser known Afrofuturist films include Space is the Place (1974), Afronauts (2014), and They Charge the Sun (2016).

Many musical artists have also extended African religious imagery into the visualizations of their music. In particular, Beyoncé Knowles’ Lemonade depicts contemporary images of African religious practice. Largely drawing from her southern creole roots, her visual album illustrates Black women performing tasks often associated with Hoodoo. Furthermore, the motif of water throughout her project illustrates the power of water imagery within African religions. Most explicitly, Beyoncé is said to venerate or embody Oshun in her “Hold Up” music video in which she emerges from water in a yellow dress. This directly correlates to Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of water and femininity who is often associated with the color yellow. Solange Knowles evokes a similar reclamation of Black diasporic religious imagery in her project, “When I Get Home.” She incorporates elements of Afrofuturism, her creole history, and new images of African religion. Solange explicitly declares her work as an ode to creating Black diasporic spaces. Both sisters combine creole and African American religious imagery with the stories and narratives of Ifa, which reflects the hybridization of African American religious practices, like Hoodoo.

With the rise in Black diasporic individuals interested in reclaiming African religion, there has also been an increase in the digital communities and content created to support learning across the diaspora. In particular, there are podcasts, blogs, and social media accounts that are dedicated to the embodiment of African religious imagery through storytelling. Most notably, A Little JuJu Podcast is dedicated to Black spirituality, community, and womanist insights into healing. Juju, the podcast host, welcomes women and healers from all over the diaspora to collect their wisdom, knowledge, and rememberings. This iHeart radio nominated podcast is a modern adaptation of storytelling ensuring that African religious imagery lives on in a way that both honors the timeless oral traditions of our ancestors and the digital archiving of the contemporary moment.

Additionally, there are a plethora of social media accounts that are centered on reclaiming African Traditional Religions. As the world continuously evolves, it will be important for scholars to use technological and digital content as an indicator of the religious imagery that is alive within the culture. For the African diasporic culture, in particular, digital communities become avenues for connecting and healing narratives. As diasporic people have lineages across the world and oceans, connecting to various communities can be beneficial in bridging the fragmentation caused by white colonization.

Conclusion: Moving Backward, Leaping Forward

By acknowledging the narrative authorities controlling the rememberings of African religious imager, the African diaspora has the opportunity to break away from the cycles of oppression imposed by Western narratives. In particular, Black diasporic people can collectively heal the narrative of their ancestors by moving away from stories that oversaturates Black diasporic history with negative imagery. In practice, this can be exemplified by the way that historical figures—like Queen Nanny and other African diasporic leaders—can be centered in the historical narrative of African diasporic history. Rather than emphasizing the docile nature of enslaved people, as commonly seen in American history texts, the storyteller can choose to uplift the leaders who resisted the holocaust of Black diasporic people. Reclaiming the narrative authority of African religious imagery is a necessary step in Black diasporic liberation.

Further, it is valuable to uplift Black diasporic art and artists who are working towards rememory. The Black diaspora needs more artifacts and cultural imagery that recovers and uncovers the powerful acts of embodiment through music, dance, and storytelling. The intentional detail with which Black women writers are crafting healthier images of African religious principle and embodiment is important to acknowledge. The fact that many of these writers turn to poetry or fiction indicates that scholars, practitioners, advocates, and all those invested in creating a world that accurately and kindly depicts African religious imagery, principles, and practices should turn to Black fiction or Afrofuturism as a site of academic study.

Through the act of embodying African principles, Black diasporic artist reveal worlds of African religious imagery that can help the diaspora to address the contemporary needs faced by an increasingly intercultural realm.

Works Cited

Burge, R. (2021, July 19). Generation Z and religion – the most recent data. Religion in Public. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://religioninpublic.blog/2021/07/19/generation-z-and-religion-the-most-recent-data/

Buggeln, G. (2007). Book Review [Review of The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice, by D. Morgan]. Winterthur Portfolio, 41(2/3), 193–194. https://doi.org/10.1086/519672

Christian, B. (n.d.). Black women novelists: The development of a tradition, 1892-1976. Google Books. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://books.google.com/books?id=XehZAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=

Clough, P. T. (1998). TONI MORRISON: Rememory and Writing. Counterpoints, 85, 113–130. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42975432

Dubuisson, D. (2015, October 29). Visual culture and religious studies: A new paradigm. Brill. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://brill.com/view/journals/mtsr/27/4-5/article-p299_1.xml?language=en

Dunn, A. (2006). [Review of The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice, by D. Morgan]. Church History, 75(3), 708–710. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27644858

Koné, M. (2019). Black  Zombie: Capture, Slavery and Freedom. National Political Science Review Volume 20.3. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Muauz-Alemu/publication/339738184_Rethinking_Issa-Afar_Mimetic_Violence_beyond_Invisibility_of_Structural_Violence_and_Repetition_of_Direct_Violence/links/5e669513299bf1744f6d4340/Rethinking-Issa-Afar-Mimetic-Violence-beyond-Invisibility-of-Structural-Violence-and-Repetition-of-Direct-Violence.pdf#page=160

Letter from Zora Neale Hurston to W. E. B. Du Bois, June 11, 1945. Credo. (n.d.). Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b106-i184

Morgan, D. (2020, June 6). The Material Culture of Lived Religions: Visuality and Embodiment. The Jugaad Project. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://www.thejugaadproject.pub/home/the-material-culture-of-lived-religions-visuality-and-embodiment

Phillips, R. (2020). Space-time collapse. Black Quantum Futurism. Afrofuturist Affair/House of Future Sciences Books.

Rody, C. (1995). Toni Morrison’s Beloved: History, “Rememory,” and a “Clamor for a Kiss.” American Literary History, 7(1), 92–119. http://www.jstor.org/stable/489799

Ryan, J. S. (2005). Spirituality as ideology in black women's film and literature. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://books.google.com/books?id=QfNJgu6BUWkC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Stinson, H. (n.d.). More — hoodoo society. Hoodoo Society. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://hoodoosociety.com/book

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, February 23). Definition of religion. Wikipedia. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_religion

Timothy, H. P. (2002). (Re)Membering African Religion and Spirituality in the African Diaspora. Journal of Haitian Studies, 8(1), 134–149. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41715122