Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn Updated and Expanded Edition (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society)
By:
Karen McCarthy Brown
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Description:
Karen McCarthy Brown's classic book shatters stereotypes of Vodou by offering an intimate portrait of African-based religion in everyday life. She explores the importance of women's religious practices along with related themes of family and of social change. Weaving several of her own voices--analytic, descriptive, and personal--with the voices of her subjects in alternate chapters of traditional ethnography and ethnographic fiction, Brown presents herself as a character in Mama Lola's world and allows the reader to evaluate her interactions there. Startlingly original, Brown's work endures as an important experiment in ethnography as a social art form rooted in human relationships. A new preface, epilogue, bibliography, and a collection of family photographs tell the story of the effect of the book's publication on Mama Lola's life.
Publisher: University of California Press
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A brilliant and compelling account of "walkers between the worlds" - Walking between the worlds
Karen McCarthy Brown has penned a masterpiece! Mama Lola, known to family and friends as Alourdes, is a Mambo, an initiated priestess of Voudou who earns a modest living by serving her immigrant countrymen in America as a traditional healer and by conducting Haitian Voudou rites in her Brooklyn home. In 1978, Brown, then a professor of religion at New Jersey's Drew University first encountered Mama Lola while doing an ethnographic survey of the local Haitian population. Intrigued by the priestess and her misunderstood and maligned tradition, Brown became at first a friend, then a member of Mama Lola's extended family and finally an enthusiastic participant in many of the rites that comprise the corpus of Voudoun devotional life.
Mama Lola, her daughter Maggie, their children and their ancestors, and the 'Lwa' (spirits) who frequently 'possess' them are an engaging, wonderfully diverse crowd: deeply spiritual, profoundly thoughtful and often humorous characters marvelously skilled in surviving conditions of extreme deprivation and oppression and in adapting to the conditions of life (or, afterlife) in the strange world of urban America.
By the time I had completed this delightful book, I felt myself deeply involved in Mama Lola's life and that of her extended family. Brown's writing is textured and a pleasure to read. The author goes far out on a limb, leaving her observer role and social scientist expertise and becomes an initiate into the religion, wedding the 'etic' of academia to the 'emic' of an ecstatic, profoundly sensual, Earth-centered religiosity.
The arrangement of the text adds to its readability, with odd chapters offering stories about Mama Lola's family and heritage and even chapters devoted to the pantheon of lwa (spirits) of the Voudou tradition. A glossary of Voudou terms has been added, which is indispensible to readers new to the subject.
Students and scholars of Haiti, the African Diaspora and African religious traditions will enjoy and benefit from this work immensely. I recommend it as well to the general public for a most worthwhile reading adventure.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Praise for Mama Lola - What a journey! This is one of those rare books that not only tells a great story, but actualy envelops the reader and takes them on an incredible spiritual journey. The author writes in a style which is both familiar and confortable. When she describes places, rituals, or people, the reader feels like they are there, seeing these things with the author. As for Mama Lola herself, what a woman! Mama Lola, Alourdes, is presented as a kind, strong, knowledgeble, and powerful priestess. When the author writes Mama Lola's words, you can feel as if you are actually hearing her speak to you. The words along with several photographs give this book more than the reader could ever imagine. I will cherish this book as long as I live.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Vodou as psychodrama - One of the best books ever. This book strikes a perfect balance between a dry, scholarly approach and a colorful, sensationalist approach. It is written by a scholar who was initiated into and participated in vodou rituals, thus avoiding the kind of spiritual blindness that often afflicts scholars studying alien religions.
What is really fascinating about the practice of vodou as depicted in this book is how it functions as a kind of psychodrama for maintaining personal and social balance and mental health. Fascinating.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Human - This is an engrossing and moving read that compares with such books as "Woman Who Glows In The Dark" and "Macumba." It is about a very wonderful, gifted woman who is a Mambo, a Haitian Vudou healer and spiritualist. The story is about her life, her ancestors, her spirits and her relationships. The book is rich with insights.
Customer Review: 5 out of 5
You can't help but love this family! - Not really a book on Hatian Vodou. Mama Lola is more a family history and a description of what serving the spirits means to them.
Dr. Brown makes this amazing woman and her family come alive on the page.
Alourdes is all at once a devout woman, devoted mother, petulent and powerful woman. Her family is at once inspiring and beverage out your nose funny.
By the end of this edition, I found myself not only falling in love with Alourdes family, but with the spirits they so loyally serve.
A terrfic book if you want to understand what Vodou means to it's followers, what life is like for immigrant women and the pride and strength that comes from growing up in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
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