Candomblé

This type of global scattering of populations is known as a diaspora, and many of these people took their religions with them, which spread a variety of indigenous African traditions to North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean, where they evolved and blended with other cultural traditions.

Many of these are still practiced, such as Santeria in Cuba, Candomblé in Brazil, Vodou in Haiti, and Orisha-Vodun in South Carolina? Let's go to the Thought Bubble.

As a 15-year-old growing up in Detroit during the 1930s, Walter King asked his mom, "Who is the African god?" And she wasn't sure how to answer, so King set out on what would become a lifelong mission to bring African religion to African Americans.

He read everything he could about African traditions and eventually changed his name to Ofuntola Oseijeman Adeghbu Adefumi I.

And Brazil, just to go way, way backward, in 1896 doesn't make sense either.

And so the spaces where I think we should expand—and this is me coming out of Oberlin now, college and conservatory— is that I think we need to do a better job about examining the multiplicity of religions, like Lukumi, like Condomble, like Ife, like Vodun.

And honestly, with Black studies in general, and this is a critique from across institutions, is how we prioritize looking at sexuality studies.

What does it mean to be a Black trans woman? What does it mean to be bisexual, bi-curious? What's the historicity around that? And funny enough, There's an Oberlin alum.

And that's the Dikenga Diakongo, Cosmogram, or Yawa, and that represents the cycle of existence, the circle of life.

So this is a knowledge system, and it traveled directly to the Americas through the enslaved people of Congo, with a K, and then later with a C. Scholars trace its presence in African-American spiritual practices, Haitian voodoo, Cuban Palo Monte, Brazilian Candomblé.

I'm going to attach some links in the show notes so you can learn more about the Dikenga.

Oral tradition among the Teke, the Congo, and the Sangha people also transmits knowledge and governance, how we treat each other.

Mm-hmm.

yeah I mean I wanted you know when I when I first found out where the zombie came from I was shocked that I did not know this like I was always very interested in learning more about um African traditional religious practices especially in the Black diaspora I think that so much of our history and culture is really preserved in those spaces and so like For a long time, I've been, you know, learning about Candomblé, about Vodou, about Santeria.

So I was surprised.

I didn't know the zombie came from Haitian Vodou.