Diaspora
The traditions that crossed the Atlantic and refused to die: Vodou, Santería, Candomblé, Hoodoo — how they survived, what they carried, and what they became.
Vodou Spirituality and Practice vs. the Hollywood Zombie
A sugar mill turns in the dark. Six men lean into the capstan bar, walking it in a circle, and their faces do not change. One of them slips and goes into the grinder. Nobody stops.
African Mythology in Fiction: How the Story Reaches the Page
In a Yoruba household, a story does not start on its own. The teller calls out "Àlọ́ o" — roughly, a tale — and the room has to answer "Àlọ́" before anything happens.
Black Folklore: Why the Teller Keeps Stepping Out of the Story
Before the tale begins, the teller says a strange thing. We do not really mean, we do not really mean, that what we are about to say is true.
Black Folklore: How West African Stories Traveled and Survived
In one Akan telling recorded in the 1930s, the storyteller opens by taking it all back: We do not really mean, we do not really mean, that what we are about to say is true.
African Mythology in Fiction: Why the New Wave Isn't New
In 1938, a schoolteacher in western Nigeria published a novel in Yoruba about a hunter who walks into a forest thick with spirits and does not come home the same man.
African Mythology and Oral Tradition: Reading the Form
There is a question that comes near the end of almost every reading. A hand goes up somewhere in the middle rows, and someone asks the novelist where the magic came from — as though African mythology…
Vodou Spirituality and Practice vs. the Hollywood Zombie
In parts of rural Haiti, a family will sit with a fresh grave for a few nights before they leave it alone. The fear behind that vigil is not the one Hollywood sells.
Children of Blood and Bone: What a Film Adaptation Can Carry
Ask a babaláwo how many òrìṣà (or-EE-shah) there are and you may get a number, then a correction, then a pause that means that is not really the question.
Not sure where to start?
Begin at Origins. Every other thread makes more sense once you know how each people says the world began.