Mama Lola

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Marie Thérèse Alourdes Macena Champagne Lovinski, better known by the name Mama Lola, was a Haitian-born manbo (priestess) in the African diasporic religion of Haitian Vodou. She lived in the United States for much of her life. Lovinski came to broader attention as the central figure in Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, an ethnographic study by the anthropologist Karen McCarthy Brown that was first published in 1991.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Lovinski was the daughter of a manbo but did not take an active role in Vodou during her youth. Pursuing several jobs, she had three children. In 1962 she migrated to the United States, settling in the Brooklyn area of New York City. Amid a recurring illness she came to believe that she would only be healed if she returned to Haiti and was initiated as a manbo, which she duly did. Back in New York, she attracted a reputation as a manbo, providing healing and other services to individuals in both the U.S. and abroad. After meeting Brown in 1978, the anthropologist studied under Lovinski, ultimately being initiated into Haitian Vodou. Brown subsequently wrote about her experiences in several academic articles and then her 1991 book Mama Lola, which was reprinted in a revised second edition in 2001. The book brought Lovinski to greater attention, leading to a deeper involvement in African diasporic religious activity across the United States. She also gained initiation into the Cuban religion of Santería.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Alourdes was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She is the youngest child of Philomise Macena, a manbo from Jean-Rabel. Her father, Alphonse Margaux, was a lawyer and absent for much of Alourdes's early life.[citation needed] Her mother was a manbo but as a child she did not assist in her mother's religious activities.[1] As a toddler, she was given to another woman to raise, but taken back into the care of her biological mother when she was seven and then sent to live with her older brother and his wife.[1]

Aged 14, Alourdes became pregnant with her first child, a son, "Jean-Pierre".[1] Aged 16, she began work as a singer in Haiti's Troupe Folklorique.[2] She then began living with another man, bearing him a daughter, "Maggie."[1] In December 1954 she married a man who ran a shoemaking business, giving up her work as a singer at his insistence. Thinking him jealous and possessive, she eventually left him.[3] In a precarious financial situation, she worked as an occasional sex worker.[2] She then had a third child, "William."[4]

Move to the United States[]

In 1962, Mama Lola moved to New York City,[5] leaving her children in the care of her mother.[6] In December 1963 she became seriously ill with an intestinal infection and was hospitalized; she was re-hospitalized three months later.[7] Her sister-in-law then related a dream which Mama Lola interpreted as a message from Azaka, one of the lwa spirits in Vodou. According to this message, she would only be healed of her ailment if she returned to Haiti. On raising the funds she returned to Port-au-Prince, where her mother, during an instance of spirit possession, related a message attributed to the lwa Ogou that she must become a manbo.[8] Once back in New York City, she gained work in the laundry section of the Brooklyn Hebrew Home, remaining there for two years.[9]

In 1965 she brought her three children to live with her in New York City, where she was then working in the laundry section of the .[10] Later that year, most of her possessions were destroyed by a fire in her rented apartment.[11] Once she had raised sufficient funds to pay for a Vodou initiation ceremony, she visited Haiti and underwent the ceremony to become a manbo.[12] Back in New York City, her work as a manbo attracted a growing number of clients, resulting in invitations to help heal individuals of ailments in various parts of the eastern United States and Canada and also in both the Caribbean and Central America.[13] By the late 1970s, Mama Lola was in possession of a three-story row house in the Fort Greene area of Brooklyn.[14]

Work with Karen McCarthy Brown[]

In 1978, Mama Lola met the anthropologist Karen McCarthy Brown, who was then working for the Brooklyn Museum on a project surveying the area's Haitian migrant community. They were introduced by a Haitian whom Brown later called "Theodore B."[15] Brown had previously received her PhD in 1976 from Temple University.[16] According to Brown's later obituary, she and Mama Lola "formed an abiding friendship and working collaboration".[16]

Brown wrote about her experiences with Mama Lola in a 1987 article published in the .[17] She then used it as the basis for her 1991 book Mama Lola, which she described as an "ethnographic spiritual biography."[18] For the first edition of her book, Brown agreed to Mama Lola's request that photographs of her and her family not appear and that their identities be concealed behind pseudonyms.[19] Accordingly, in that edition, Brown called Mama Lola "Marie Thérèse Alourdes Macena Margaux Kowalski," but noted that it was as "Alourdes" that she typically addressed her.[20] The name "Mama Lola" had primarily been used by small children who were addressing her, but the publication of the book popularized the name and she began using business cards with "Mama Lola, Voodoo Priestess" written on them.[21]

Mama Lola won a range of awards, including the American Anthropological Association's Victor Turner Prize and the American Academy of Religion's prize for best first book in the History of Religions.[16] After the book's publication, both Brown and Mama Lola were invited to speak at various colleges and universities.[22] Mama Lola also spoke at "The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou" exhibition held at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.[23] Brown later related that through the book and these public appearances, Mama Lola became "something of a celebrity".[24] She received a growing number of enquiries from those interested in Vodou, and her number of initiates rose to over a hundred.[24]

Reflecting this growing fame, in 1993, Mama Lola, her daughter, and Brown visited Benin at the invitation of President Nicephore Soglo to take part in an international festival. There she encountered practitioners of traditional African religions.[25] During the latter part of the 1990s, many of those approaching Mama Lola seeking assistance have been practitioners of the Cuban religion of Santería; the ethnomusicologist Katherine Hagedorn noted that Mama Lola adapted to cater to this new constituency, "fortifying the extant links between Santería and Vodou."[26] Mama Lola subsequently became a santera, or female initiate in Santería.[26]

A second edition of Mama Lola was published in 2001. For this edition, Mama Lola asked that her full legal name be included rather than being concealed behind a pseudonym.[22] The second edition includes an afterword that describes a trip to Benin subsequent to the publication of the first edition. In this afterward, as in a 1999 scholarly journal article,[27] Brown describes changes in her relationship with Alourdes as they increasingly participate in public events together that celebrate Alourdes's role as a transnational leader of Afro-diasporic/Black Atlantic Religions.

References[]

Citations[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Brown 1991, p. 293.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Brown 1991, p. 164.
  3. ^ Brown 1991, p. 239.
  4. ^ Brown 1991, p. 240.
  5. ^ Brown 1991, pp. 70–71.
  6. ^ Brown 1991, p. 294.
  7. ^ Brown 1991, pp. 71, 73.
  8. ^ Brown 1991, pp. 73–75.
  9. ^ Brown 1991, p. 76.
  10. ^ Brown 1991, p. 225.
  11. ^ Brown 1991, p. 127.
  12. ^ Brown 1991, p. 77.
  13. ^ Brown 1991, p. 4.
  14. ^ Brown 1991, pp. 1, 128.
  15. ^ Brown 1991, p. 1.
  16. ^ Jump up to: a b c Todd 2015.
  17. ^ Brown 1987.
  18. ^ Brown 2001, p. xiv.
  19. ^ Brown 1991, p. ix.
  20. ^ Brown 1991, pp. 1, 2.
  21. ^ Brown 2001, p. 384.
  22. ^ Jump up to: a b Brown 2001, p. 385.
  23. ^ Brown 2001, pp. 387–388.
  24. ^ Jump up to: a b Brown 2001, p. 389.
  25. ^ Brown 2001, p. 390.
  26. ^ Jump up to: a b Hagedorn 2001, p. 133.
  27. ^ Brown, Karen McCarthy (1999). "Telling a Life: Race, Memory, and Historical Consciousness". Anthropology and Humanism. Anthropology and Humanism 24(2):148-154. American Anthropological Association. ISSN 1548-1409.

Sources[]

  • Brown, Karen McCarthy (1987). ""Plenty Confidence in Myself": The Initiation of a White Woman Scholar into Haitian Vodou". Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 3 (1): 67–76. JSTOR 25002057.
  • Brown, Karen McCarthy (1991). Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22475-2.
  • Brown, Karen McCarthy (2001). Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (second ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Hagedorn, Katherine J. (2001). Divine Utterances: The Performance of Afro-Cuban Santería. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. ISBN 978-1560989479.
  • Todd, J. Terry (2015). "In Memoriam: Karen McCarthy Brown". Drew.

External links[]

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