This study describes the use of literacy—including the written word—in the maintenance and practice of Lukumí, a Diasporic African spiritual tradition. While Lukumí is decidedly orally transmitted, the written word is still a critical part of its contemporary practice. Relying on data collected during participant observation of ceremonies and rituals, semistructured interviews and focus groups, the study reveals the ways in which orality, material culture, and the written word exist within a communicative continuum critical to Lukumí devotion and practice.
AniM. (2004). Let the circle be unbroken: The implications of African spirituality in the Diaspora. New York, NY: Nkonimfo Publications. (Original work published 1997)
2.
BastideR. (2007). The African religions of Brazil: Toward a sociology of the interpretation of civilizations. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1978)
3.
BrandonG. (1991). The uses of plants in healing in an Afro-Cuban religion, Santeria. Journal of Black Studies, 22(1), 55-76.
4.
CurtinP. D. (1969). The Atlantic slave trade: A census. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
5.
delaTorreM. A. (2001). Ochún: (N)either the (m)other of Cubainis (n)or the bleached virgin. Journal of the Academy of Religion, 69(4), 837-862.
6.
DianteillE.SwearingenM. (2003). From hierography to ethnography and back: Lydia Cabrera’s texts and the written tradition in Afro-Cuban religions. Journal of American Folklore, 116(461), 273-292.
7.
Du BoisW. E. B. (1903). The talented tenth. In The Negro problem: A series of articles by representative Negroes of to-day (pp. 102-104). New York, NY: James Pott.
8.
FisherM. T. (2003). Open mics and open minds: Spoken word poetry in African Diaspora participatory literacy communities. Harvard Educational Review, 73(3), 362-389.
9.
FisherM. T. (2007). “Every city has soldiers”: The role of intergenerational relationships in participatory literacy communities. Research in the Teaching of English, 42(2), 139-162.
10.
FisherM. T. (2009). Black literate lives: Historical and contemporary perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge.
11.
GatesH. L. (1988). The signifying monkey: A theory of Afro-American literary criticism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
12.
HaightW. L. (1998). “Gathering the spirit” at First Baptist Church: Spirituality as a protective factor in the lives of African American children. Social Work, 43(3), 213-221.
13.
HeathS. B.StreetB. V. (2008). On ethnography: Approaches to language and literacy research. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
14.
HullG.SchultzK. (2001). Literacy and learning out of school: A review of theory and research. Review of Educational Research, 71(4), 575-611.
15.
JahnJ. (1988). Muntu: African culture and the Western world. New York, NY: Grove.
16.
JohnsonL. (2012). Re-defining a literate identity: African American male youth, literacy, and schooling (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
17.
KirklandD. E. (2009). The skin we ink: Tattoos, literacy, and a new English education. English Education, 41(4), 375-395.
18.
LefeverH. G. (1996). When the saints go riding in: Santeria in Cuba and in the United States. Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, 35(3), 318-330.
19.
LeónA. (1971). Un caso de tradición oral escrita. Islas, 40(39), 139-151.
20.
LevineL. W. (1977). Black culture and Black consciousness: Afro-American folk thought from slavery to freedom. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
21.
MahiriJ. (2004). New literacies in a new century. In MahiriJ. (Ed.), What they don’t learn in school: Literacy in the lives of urban youth (pp. 1-17). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
22.
MarshallM. N. (1996). Sampling for qualitative research. Family Practice, 13(6), 522-525.
23.
MasonJ. (1985). Black gods: Òrìşà studies in the new world. New York, NY: Yorùbá Theological Archministry.
24.
MatoryJ. L. (2005). Black Atlantic religion: Tradition, transnationalism, and matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
25.
MattisJ. S.JagersR. J. (2001). A relational framework for the study of religiosity and spirituality in the lives of African Americans. Journal of Community Psychology, 29(5), 519-539.
26.
MbitiJ. S. (2008). African religions and philosophy (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK: Heinemann. (Original work published 1969)
27.
MerriamS. B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
28.
MichelC. (1996). Of worlds seen and unseen: The educational character of Haitian Vodou. Comparative Education Review, 40(3), 280-294.
29.
MillerI. L. (2011). Bongó Itá: Leopard society music and language in West Africa, Western Cuba, and New York City. African and Black Diaspora, 5(1), 85-103.
30.
MojeE. B. (2000). “To be part of the story”: The literacy practices of “gangsta” adolescents. Teachers College Record, 102, 652-690.
31.
MurphyJ. M. (1994). Santería: African spirits in America. Boston, MA: Beacon.
32.
MurphyJ. M. (2012). “Chango ‘ta veni’/Chango has come”: Spiritual embodiment in the Afro-Cuban ceremony, bembé. Black Music Research Journal, 32(1), 69-94.
33.
OlmosM. F.Paravisini-GebertL. (2003). Creole religions of the Caribbean: An introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo. New York, NY: New York University Press.
34.
PérezE. (2013). Nobody’s mammy: Yemayá as fierce foremother in Afro-Cuban religions. In OteroS.FalolaT. (Eds.), Yemoja: Gender, sexuality, and creativity in Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas (pp. 9-42). Albany: State University of New York Press.
35.
PogueT. D. (2013). Reading worlds seen and unseen: The role of literacy in Diasporic African spiritual traditions (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
36.
SchultzK. (2002). Looking across space and time: Reconceptualizing literacy learning in and out of school. Research in the Teaching of English, 36, 356-390.
37.
SmithT. H. (1994). Conjuring culture: Biblical formations of Black America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
38.
WinnM. T. (2011). Girl time: Literacy, justice, and the school-to-prison pipeline. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
39.
WirtzK. (2007). How diasporic religious communities remember: Learning to speak the “tongue of the oricha” in Cuban Santería. American Ethnologist, 34(1), 108-126.
