ANCESTORS

Who are the Hoodoo Ancestors? This is a broad topic.

The Cultural ancestors we all know- a la Black History Month. Since I see Hoodoo as a name for  African American  culture,  the historical or legendary ancestors are Hoodoo Ancestors - the only caveat being that they were born on  US  soil as descendants of the Africans shipped here.

The Biological ancestors- that's family blood-line family as far back as you can go to slavery.

Beyond where you can go are the Spiritual Ancestors, i.e.  the Old Black People . The Spiritual pantheons to me are the crux of the *working* Hoodoo Pantheon.

The large and very important category of Spiritual Ancestors can be divided into three basic pantheons (but there are really more):

-mythic,

-generational

-archetypal

Mythic Ancestors

Mammy &  Old Black Joe, are  the root couple of Hoodoo. They  represent the  Africans who survived the middle passage and bore children and died on the  soil of the United States.  Spirits  such as Mumbo Jumbo, i.e. the twins, Papa Lebas or Legba,  the Black Cat, The Hags (aka Haints or Haunts) are mythic which means we carried their memory in our celluar structure from home. 

The Generational Ancestors

Another spirit type is generational. the Uncles and Aunties, the Gal & Buck and Pickanniny spirits.  These age dependant classifications can be placed on the Kongo Cosmogram and in America they were color coded.

(ex: blue-black, brown suga,  red bone, high yella, tragic mulatto, passe-bon,)

The generational spirits are names of the age cycle of the Africans and get changed or refreshed in each cycle.

Ex: The Gal currently Baby Mama, Ho,  Hoochie Mama,

The Buck, aka Baby Daddy , Pimp, Thug/Ruff Neck, etc

The Archetypal Ancestors

In the archetypal  category our positive tutelary spirits  such as Baron Hoodoo, and High John  were  excluded by the dominant religious paradigm and  replaced  by  Biblical  characters who were regarded as non-African such as  KING  SOLOMON and MOSES.

In other cases   the  powers or  abilities of our guardians were  annexed to the major paradigm as is shown in the  Simbi or Cymbee. Included in this  New World pantheon are spirits such as  the Black Lawn  Jockey or Jack O' Lantern , a night Spirit and the Sandman, a crossroad guardian between the world of dreams and reality.  

The film image of the Magical Negro is really a Christenized version of the  older Islamic Blackamoor. Other archetypes were  negated simply by the English language we spoke which was structured so all words related to the dark or blackness were  evil &  our  most powerful positive  dark archetypes were converted to stereotypes or *Tar Babies*.  The Tar Baby was  a manmade or artifical device that functioned by attaching itself to African positive images and then destroying them.    The Tar Baby is the mother of all negative stereotypes. 

The Priest Archetypes

The Doctors and the the Old Wives (midwives) are the CULTURAL FUNCTIONARIES.   The male priest taking the title of Doctor.

The female priest being hidden under the title of Midwife.

They work in and with  the Hoodoo Spirit Pantheons.

So all of the above  are Hoodoo ancestors but Ancestors is  a Large Umbrella  ( see the Sambo image)  and each group or category under that umbrella a separate pantheon.  

unzipped 2006. The Orb of Djenra. Claim it at your own risk. Use it as you see fit.