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Hoodoo | |
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Type | Syncretic: African diaspora religions |
Region | American South, United States Carolina Lowcountry, Sea Islands of the Gullah Geechee Corridor, Louisiana, North Carolina, Gulf Coast, Tidewater region (Maryland/Virginia), Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Affrilachia, East Texas, and Mississippi |
Language | English, Sea Island Creole, AAVE, Louisiana Creole, Tutnese |
Members | African Americans |
Other name(s) | Lowcountry Voodoo Gullah Voodoo Rootwork Conjure Hudu Juju |
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African Americans |
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Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs that were created by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous botanical knowledge.[1][2][3] Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure men or conjure women, and root doctors. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include rootwork and conjure.[4] As a syncretic spiritual system, it also incorporates beliefs from Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims, and Spiritualism.[5][6] Scholars define Hoodoo as a folk religion. It is a syncretic religion between two or more cultural religions, in this case being African indigenous spirituality and Abrahamic religion.[7][8]
Many Hoodoo traditions draw from the beliefs of the Bakongo people of Central Africa.[9] Over the first century of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 52% of all enslaved Africans transported to the Americas came from Central African countries that existed within the boundaries of modern day Cameroon, Congo, Angola, Central African Republic, and Gabon.[10]
Following the Great Migration of African Americans, Hoodoo spread throughout the United States.