A Study of Creole and
Neo-African Religions in the Caribbean
Literature and Creole Religion
We left somewhere
A life we never
found,
Customs and gods
that are not born againÉ
-Derek
Walcott, ÒLaventilleÓ
The
above excerpt from Derek WalcottÕs famous poem expresses a longing for a
connection with the past, with African roots, and with spirituality that is
often unavailable for the African slave and the victim of oppression. If one subscribes to the notion that
religious faith (or lack thereof) is one of the most fundamental aspects of a
personÕs identity, the question we must ask ourselves is whether or not the
colonized peoples of the Caribbean have any real access to a true process of
identity-making, since their African faiths were persecuted, made illegal, and
in many instances have died out due to forced conversions to Christianity. The purpose of this project is to take
a look at Neo-African and Creole faiths in the Caribbean since, as Margarite
Fernandez-Omos and Lizbeth Paravisini-Gerbert assert, ÒThe coercion and
resistance, acculturation and appropriation that typify the Caribbean
experience are most evident in the Creolization of African based religious
beliefs and practices in the slave societies of the New WorldÓ (2)1.
Since religion is so closely tied to Caribbean identity, it is important
to begin an exploration into the nature of Creole and Neo-African faiths, most
importantly when these faiths display a potential for resistance to white
colonizers and oppression.
This
project is by no means comprehensive, but seeks only to begin an exploration
into the diverse and multi-faceted nature of Creole religions and their
relationship to race, gender, age, locality, and nationality. Here you will find an overview of a few
of the most prominent Creole religious traditions and an analysis of their
function in one of the sites of culture making—literature. I hope that this project will lead to
further research questions, as well as further exploration of the media that
use Creole faiths as tools to combat imperialism and to search for identity
such as film, visual art, music, and other kinds of literature.
**Painting: Obeah in Trance II (1984) from series
"Romare Bearden, Rituals of the Obeah" by Romare Bearden.