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Conjuring Moments and Other Such Hoodoo: African American Women & Spirit Work Kameelah L

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Conjuring Moments and Other Such Hoodoo: African American Women & Spirit Work Kameelah L Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 Conjuring Moments and Other Such Hoodoo: African American Women & Spirit Work Kameelah L. Martin Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES CONJURING MOMENTS AND OTHER SUCH HOODOO: AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN & SPIRIT WORK By KAMEELAH L. MARTIN A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006 Copyright © 2006 Kameelah L. Martin All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Kameelah L. Martin defended on June 29, 2006. ___________________________________ Darryl Dickson-Carr Professor Co-Directing Dissertation ___________________________________ Jerrilyn McGregory Professor Co-Directing Dissertation ___________________________________ Matt Childs Outside Committee Member ___________________________________ Tomeiko Ashford Carter Committee Member Approved: ____________________________________ Hunt Hawkins, Chair, Department of English The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii To the Unborn Child I lost during this process. May Spirit help you find your way back to me. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my appreciation and thanks to Darryl Dickson-Carr for his unwavering support and mentorship during my tenure at Florida State University. I am very pleased and honored to be the first doctoral graduate from the Dickson-Carr school of thought!!!! You have taught me how to be a scholar and how to be a professional. You taught me that Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo can be conquered—a task in itself! I wish you well as you embark on your new position at Southern Methodist University. FSU does not know the gem they are losing. I’ll be sure to send only the worthiest students your way. Thank you for challenging me. May the Force be with you!!! I would also like to thank the other members of my supervisory committee Tomeiko Ashford Carter, Matt Childs, and Jerrilyn McGregory, for their valuable time and priceless advice in my pursuit of an academic career. Your collective advice gave me the confidence and preparation that landed me a competitive position for next year. Thank you, kindly. In Spring 2005, I had the opportunity to teach LIT 2081: Exploring the Conjure Trope in 20th c. African American Literature where my students and I pondered the role of conjure relentlessly. Thank you those students for allowing me to share my research and for challenging me to rethink some of my choices….whether they realized it or not. I promised them a “shout-out” in my first book…until I conquer that hurdle, I hope that this recognition will suffice. Your feedback was invaluable! I owe a large part of my collegiate success to Georgene Bess Montgomery and Alfred Young who nurtured me as an undergraduate at Georgia Southern University iv and have continued to teach me long after I left their classrooms. Georgene, thanks for exposing me to the secrets of the spirit world. Your influence eventually set me on the path to studying women and spirit work. “Al” Young, you took me under your wing and so many times provided calm in the hostile world of graduate studies. Thank you for making my skin tough. No one has been as influential in my college career as you and Georgene. This is just as much your accomplishment as it is mine. My association with Georgene and Dr. Young introduced me to the National Council of Black Studies (NCBS) to which I am indebted to for offering a safe, critically engaging space to present my research even at its meager beginnings. Many thanks to NCBS…you raised me right! Lastly, I would not have been able to get through the trials of a doctoral program without the love and support of my family and friends. To my Grandma and Mom, there are simply no words to express my gratitude for everything you have done to get me here and more importantly, to KEEP me here. To my nieces Maria and Yanni, thank you for keeping Auntie sane with your hugs, kisses, and silliness. Auntie loves it!!!! To my fellow graduate students, Lisa Lakes, Heidi Marshall, and Julia Roundtree Livingston—you all have been my academic, emotional, and mental support. Thank you for your friendship and kindness. Thanks for cheering me on and celebrating the milestones with me. Thanks for the midnight runs to Coldstone. To my life long friends, Sorors, and any others who I lost contact with over the last three years: Thank you for not holding it against me!!! To my best-friend and future husband, Keith, thank you for being my number one fan. Thank you for being patient. I’m done. It’s over. Now, let’s finally start our life together!!!!!! v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................. vii INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 1. “DO NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE": RECONSTRUCTING THE STIGMA AGAINST WOMEN & SPIRIT WORK............................ 14 2. RESURRECTING THE CONJURE WOMAN ........................................ 53 3. TROUBLING THE WATER: CONJURE & CHRIST.............................. 90 4. “[CONJURE] WOMEN DON’T WEAR NO BLUES”............................ 133 5. CONJURIN’ UP AN IMAGE: BLACK WOMEN’S FILM..................... 164 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 205 REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 207 FILMOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 214 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ......................................................................... 215 vi ABSTRACT Taking the intersection of African American folklore and literature as its focus, this project investigates the conjure woman as a literary figure. African American healing women are prominent in African American literature, but are largely underrepresented in the discourse surrounding African American women, representation, and literary figures. My research reconstructs the negative connotation attached to women healers in the United States which, in part, recounts the life of Tituba, a female slave of African or Indian descent, who figured at the center of the Salem Witch Trials controversy. The historical lives of Marie Laveau, mother and daughter, are also interrogated as evidence of the othering of conjure women by the dominant culture. I examine the lore cycle of conjurers in early African American literature and suggest that a movement away from Eurocentric representations to a more culturally specific rendering of the conjure woman occurred during the twentieth century. Citing Charles Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman as a precursory text and employing Tituba and Marie Laveau as ancestral figures, I argue that contemporary authors like Gloria Naylor, Arthur Flowers, Jewell Parker Rhodes, and Ntozake Shange resurrect the conjure woman by reinscribing the figure into their works in such a way that undermines the negative connotations that have been associated with conjuring and African-based religions. vii I reference several African American novels to evidence how writers are re- appropriating a once negative image. Specific issues addressed in such an analysis include the community involvement of conjure women, the effectiveness of healing practices, the legitimacy of power, moral character, the influence of Christianity, and the debunking of stereotypes. I also take into account the relationship between conjure and blues music in a discussion that positions African American authors and film- makers as agents in reclaiming conjure women as folk heroes. This dissertation project provides a historiography and an in-depth analysis of conjure women, one that is intended to aid in the critical and cultural understanding of African American women and spirit work within the African American literary tradition. INTRODUCTION “Where there are preachers, there are also Conjurers; where there are conversions, there are dreams and visions. And where there is faith, there is, and ever continues to be, magic.” ~Yvonne Chireau Chireau’s assertion that there is a thin differential line between religious fervor and the supernatural speaks loudly about the permanence of folk magic among people of African descent. In May 2003, that permanence moved to new levels of acceptance when the American Express credit card company aired an advertisement on primetime network television in which two African American members of the NBA team, the New Orleans Hornets, paid a local conjure woman—with their American Express card, of course—to put a ‘fix’ on the jersey of Los Angeles Lakers player, Kobe Bryant, in anticipation of the first round of the post-season playoff series. As the commercial aired, I began jotting down ideas on how I planned to turn my fascination with women and magic into a dissertation project for the completion of a doctoral program I had not yet entered. This research project takes as its focus African American literature and folklore. I am most interested in the point where these two fields intersect, particularly as it relates to the African American woman healer, or conjure woman. My project seeks to investigate the conjure woman—a character
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