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Date: 09 Nov 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Subject: Re: Arguments
Message-ID: <20001109132426.23201.00000469@ng-fv1.aol.com>
References: <3A083B7B.12F8@luckymojo.com>
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.religion.orisha
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Subject: Re: Arguments
>From: catherine yronwode cat@luckymojo.com
>Date: 11/7/00 12:19 PM EST
>Message-id: <3A083B7B.12F8@luckymojo.com>
>
>Sfrthomas wrote:
>>
>> I found it significant that the Clover Leaf store here in DC
>> recently written about as a "hoodoo" store, doesn't call itself that.
>> I've been there a few times, and unless I missed it, that wasn't
>> there. If you're familiar with spirit work, from whatever tradition
>> you come, there are supplies in there that you would recognize. Same
>> with a botanica. The one is not per se "hoodoo", and the other is not
>> per se "santeria". But academicians get fixated on these differences
>> without a real underlying distinction.
>
>You are right that the items found in African-Carribean oriented
>botanicas are essentially the same as those found in a spiritual supply
>store oriented toward Christian practitioners of hoodoo. This is due to
>the shared African origins of all such paths. And that is why i post in
>this newsgroup... :-)
Your term "Christian practitioners of hoodoo" is interesting in its internal
contradiction. It reminds me of the saying, in reference to Haitians and their
religion: "80% Catholic, 20% Protestant, and 100% vodou". African religion
survives such contradiction; Christianity with its salvation doctrine, does
not. In other words, from an ATR perspective, Jesus and the saints may readily
be absorbed into the African worldview as egun. From a Christian perspective
however, the essential doctrine of Christianity is an exclusivist one that does
not permit being both-and. In other words, a "Christian practitioner of hoodoo"
is really not Christian.
>Just a note on Clover Horn in DC: This company was founded in Baltimore
>in the 1930s by a Jewish-American pharmacist named Menke and and from
>the beginning catered to an African-American clientele with the usual
>mixed line of cosmetics, drugs, and spiritual supplies found in many
>drug stores in the black communities of those early days. He
>manufactured many of the toiletries himself and sold both retail and
>wholesale, as well as by mail order, and he (along with the Valmor
>Company of Chicago) was one of the two suppliers of herbs, soaps,
>washes, oils, and other articles to the great healer Dr. Jim Jordan of
>Como, Tennesee. One thing did set Menke's establishment apart from some
>others of its era: he always carried a line of Jewish religious goods
>(and even kosher soap) in his stores, as well as Christian and
>African-diaspora goods. Mr. Menke still owned and operated both Clover
>Horn stores during the late 1960s when a friend of mine worked for him,
>but by that time the growth of cut-rate drug store chains had caused him
>to limit his stock to spiritual supplies. When he died, he left the
>stores to his black employees so that the work would be carried on.
Very interesting, but I'm not sure what the larger point is, if any.
>cat yronwode
>
Peace,
Grisso
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