Ring Shout ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

This book by Art and Margo Rosenbaum shares the history of the shout's African origins, a collection of commentaries and stories of observers and folklorists, and the shout songs performed by present-day African-American shouters.

Like sacred dances in West Africa, the African-American Ring Shout is seen as a spiritual work performed in a sacred context by some traditional Hoodoo practitioners, especially those from the American South. In this folk practice, the practitioners utilize the power of music, inspiring ecstasy or euphoria and sometimes even prophetic vision. The shouting was first described by early outside observers on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia during the Civil War.

Ring Shout may have originated from the Islamic ritual of pilgrimage called "tawaf," which enslaved Muslim Africans from Wolof, Mandinka, Fula, Susu, Temne, Mende, and Vai ethnic groups brought to the West Indies and Low Country region of the United States. If so, the term 'shout' may come from the Afro-Arabic word "shawṭ," meaning 'to run... until exhausted', such as the seven-time circumambulation around the "Kaaba" in a counterclockwise direction. According to some resources, though, such as the book Mojo Workin: The Old African-American Hoodoo System by Katrina Hazzard-Donald, "the counterclockwise movement is believed by some scholars to represent the full cycle of life through the phases of birth, childhood, adulthood, death, and rebirth as represented by the Kongo cosmogram and that Ring Shout trace the circle of cosmogram on the ground."


Members of the Gullah community were doing ring shouts at a local praise house in Georgia circa 1930. (Photo courtesy of Lorenzo Dow Turner Papers, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution)

Ring Shout is an important ritualized activity, a form of worship, and an expression of the slaves' deep and intense emotions. Ring Shout, to the accompaniment of call-and-response singing, feet shuffling, clapping, shells shaking, stick beating, and sometimes tambourine (all derived from African practices), often took place during congregational assemblies, prayer meetings, or Church services in praise houses, homes of the Elders, or even in the woods or barns.

Even though Ring Shout is an African-Muslim influence, drums are not traditionally used in the said practice. This is because the colonial assembly during the slavery period banned the slaves from using drums, as indicated in Article 36 of the Slave Code of South Carolina, which was instituted in 1740 and was later adopted by the other states due to the fear of the slave owners that drums were being used to gather the Africans together to plan rebellion: "It is essential to the safety of this Province, that all due care be taken to restrain Negroes from using or keeping of drums, which may call together or give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs and purposes." Without access to traditional drums, slaves began using whatever they had to create sound and beat, such as walking sticks, broomsticks, farming tools like hoes and shovels, and large mortar and pestles.

Songs and movements for shouting have been handed down from generation to generation from the period of the antebellum era, from which we learn that there were folk songs and dances in every mundane or spiritual activity of the slaves' lives, often imparting Christian values while also describing the hardships of slavery. The shout movement begins in a two-foot shuffle, slow at first and accelerating to an appropriate tempo, in which the feet never cross; the practitioners maintain that passing the leading foot would be unholy dancing, whereas shouting is in the service of God. Most of the dance motions are of the Kongo survivals, as they strongly resemble the dance patterns in the Northern Congo. On another note, the essential elements of the songs include cries and hollers, blue notes, call-and-response, and various rhythmic aspects of traditional African music that mirror melodic religious ceremonies among people like the Yoruba, Ibibio, Efik, Bahumono, and Kongo.

During the Great Migration of African Americans, the shouting and dancing associated with their religious activities were presumed to cease. The many discussions about shouting and folk dancing include opinions ranging from lukewarm compromise to outright ignorance and destructive criticism by White missionaries and Black clergies. However, it continued while taking on new forms as they evolved into negro spirituals, gospel songs, blues, and jazz. Ring Shout became known again in 1980 when McIntosh County Shouters and other Geechee groups from the Sea Islands came to the public's attention.

One of my favorites is this African-American slave shout song from the Coast of Georgia, "Pharaoh's Host Got Lost. " I usually sing it during Passover.

It invokes the image of God's chosen people and shows the wondrous works of God in the lives of our Israelite and African-American brethren when He saved them from the bondage of oppression and persecution.

This song served as a reminder for the African-Americans during the slavery era that God would one day remove them from the tyranny of the European settlers and would give them the 'justice' and 'freedom' they were asking and praying for, just like how God delivered Israel from the land of Egypt.

PHARAOH'S HOST GOT LOST

by McIntosh County Shouters

Leader:

Moses, Moses, lay your rod

Leader and group:

In that Red Sea--

Leader:

Lay your rod, let the children cross

Leader and group

In that Red Sea

Chorus:

Ol' Pharaoh's hos' got los', los', los',

Ol' Pharaoh's hos' got los'

In that Red Sea

They shout when the hos' got los', los', los',

They shout when the hos' got los'

In that Red Sea

Leader:

Moses, Moses, lay your rod

Leader and group:

In that Red Sea--

Leader:

Lay your rod, let the children cross

Leader and group

In that Red Sea

Chorus:

Ol' Pharaoh's hos' got los', los', los',

Ol' Pharaoh's hos' got los'

In that Red Sea

Leader:

Moses, Moses, lay your rod

Leader and group:

In that Red Sea--

Leader:

Lay your rod, let the children cross

Leader and group

In that Red Sea

Chorus:

Ol' Pharaoh's hos' got los', los', los',

Ol' Pharaoh's hos' got los'

In that Red Sea

Such a weepin' when the hos' got los', los', los',

Such a weepin' when the hos' got los'

In that Red Sea

See, What Our Path Is

Being immensely interested in African diaspora religions and Folk Catholicism, we primarily honor our ancestors, Church saints, angels, folk saints, and Afro-Caribbean spirits such as loas and orishas. If we absolutely have to put a label on ourselves, we prefer the label of “Folk Judeo-Christian” as we live according to the customs and traditions of conjure workers and root doctors from the Deep South and syncretic followers of Christ in various nations of the Caribbean and Latin America.

Our spirituality includes West African-based Caribbean-style tradition as well as Esoteric Christianity and Yoruba religion. Generally, we practice Gullah folk magic popularly known in the Deep South as Hoodoo or Lowcountry Voodoo; the ancient wisdom founded by Orunmila in Ile-Ife called Ifa, and a bit of Lihim na Karunungan (Filipino Esotericism or Philippine Mystery Tradition).

Respect, What Hoodoo Is

Despite visible evidence of Central West African, Islamic/Moorish, Native American, Judeo-Christian, European, and even a few East Indian/Hindu, Chinese, and Latino/Caribbean retentions, influences, and admixtures, this does not mean that Hoodoo is an open and unrestricted system of eclectic magic.

Conjure, and Rootwork is rooted in African-American culture and Folk Protestant Christianity. Any practitioners of Hoodoo who did not grow up within African-American culture should still have a fuller understanding and high regard for its origin.

In the beginning, the early conjure doctors were entirely Black. The students were all Black, the elders were Black, the teaching was Black, and they focused only on Blacks as their audience. But other races were accepted when they had also been brought into the Hoodoo community and learned the tradition. Even so, we should still acknowledge that Hoodoo, Conjure, or Rootwork is not ours but only belongs to the Black community. We are just believers who are grafted into their rich yet humble tradition and, by word and deed, embrace genuine African-American folk spirituality and magic. This is all we can do for all the blessings we received from God and our Black ancestors.

Hoodoo's lack of religious structure and hierarchical authority do not mean that any person or group can appropriate or redefine it. If one cannot respect Hoodoo as it is and for what it is, then please, do not play with it.

Learn, How Conjure Is Worked On

Authentic Conjure is not all about blending and selling oils and casting spells online to make money. Hoodoo has its own spiritual philosophy, theology, and a wide range of African-American folkways, customs, and practices which include, but are not limited to, veneration of the ancestors, Holy Ghost shouting, snake reverence, spirit possession, graveyard conjure, nkisi practices, Black hermeneutics, African-American church traditions, the ring shout, the Kongo cosmogram, ritual water immersions, crossroads magic, making conjure canes, animal sacrifices, Jewish scriptural magic, enemy works, Seekin' ritual, magical incorporation of bodily fluids, etc.

Unfortunately, they are currently missing in marketeered or commercial Hoodoo, as they are being removed, disregarded, or ignored by unknowing merchants who simply want to profit from an African-American spiritual tradition, thus reducing Hoodoo to just a plethora of recipes, spells, and tricks.

Tim and I are completely aware that we are not African-Americans, so we are doing our best to retain and preserve the customs and traditions of the slave ancestors to avoid unnecessary conflict with the larger Black-Belt Hoodoo community and prevent them from labeling us inauthentic outsiders and our practice as mere 'cultural misappropriation.'

Accept, Who We Are

The byproduct of eons of slave history, Black supremacists believe that only people with African or African-American blood are real Hoodoo practitioners and are often inclined to consider themselves as the elite of the Hoodoo community; a place in which they believed that Whites, Latinos, Asians or any other races who do not have Black ancestry do not belong. Black supremacists are prone to be very hostile towards both “outsiders” and those accepting of them, fearing that their promotion and acceptance would dilute or even negate the Black identity of Hoodoo.

Although we do understand why some Blacks hold this stance, since a lot of people nowadays are misappropriating many aspects of Hoodoo and teaching the spiritual path even without proper education and training (for purely monetary purposes), we would, however, want to say that not all non-Black Hoodoo practitioners are the same.

WE respect what Hoodoo is, and we never try to change it, claim it as our own, disregard its history, take unfair advantage of it, speak against the people who preserve it, and mix it with other cultures (like our own) and call it Filipino/Pinoy Hoodoo, Gypsy Hoodoo or Wiccan Hoodoo because there are no such things.