The Black Madonna: A Theoretical Framework for the African Origins of Other World Religious Beliefs Janet Michello LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York, 31-10 Thomson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101, USA; jmichell@lagcc.cuny.edu Received: 29 May 2020; Accepted: 29 September 2020; Published: 10 October 2020
Abstract: This review summarizes existing scholarship in order to theorize how Abrahamic religions and Hinduism were influenced by African beliefs, in order to illuminate the contributions that African beliefs have had on other world religions. The review begins with a brief historical overview of the origins of indigenous ideologies, followed by a review of classical theories of religion and a summary of contemporary religious trends, with particular attention on African beliefs. The Black Madonna, with origins in Africa, is a prominent example of how African beliefs have been integrated into other faiths in ways that are often obscured from view. The Black Madonna is compared with the characteristics and symbolism of the traditional fair-skinned Virgin Mary. It is estimated that there are hundreds of depictions of the Black Madonna, yet her identity as truly black is generally minimized. This review contributes a theoretical rationale for the lack of recognition and acceptance of the Madonna as black, contextualizing this within a feminist theoretical viewpoint and analyzing the connection to African folklore and traditional religious beliefs. The theoretical framework articulated in this paper contributes an elucidation of the ways that indigenous African religions have affected other world religions. Acknowledging this influence challenges the simplistic notion of reified distinctions between Western and non-Western religions.
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“In places such as Southern Italy, there are shrines dedicated to the dark-skinned Madonna, and veneration of her is still very much practiced; many of these observances are rich in traditional customs and reflective of specific regions with African influences (Birnbaum 2000). Such rituals have remained extensive and illustrate how her multiple depictions blended with cultural and traditional beliefs. The Mediterranean islands and coastal areas of Italy resisted invading cultures that brought male-dominant religions. Ancient beliefs held thousands of years before the common era have never been obliterated (Birnbaum 2000). This illustrates the long-standing importance of the Black Madonna originating in Africa and over millennia traveling to mainly different parts of Europe and in different points in time. The depiction of the Madonna as black is a representation that is not the same as the white Madonna. The white Madonna is saintly, holy, and representative of a special woman revered by Christians and Muslims as the mother of God. The image of the Black Madonna is a symbol for everyone; she is nurturing and “counters racism and sexism” (Birnbaum 2000). The Madonna as black is perceived as holding a greater place of importance and perhaps even God herself, even though to some she is the same Madonna as the white one but just a darker version. Here it is argued that such a role representing a dominant spiritual force is suppressed by patriarchal religions because of what the Black Madonna represents. It is in sub-groups such as Southern Italians, practitioners of Vodou of Haiti, and Santeria of the Caribbean, to name just a few, who hold her in high regard. Like Hinduism, most traditional African religions do not base their beliefs on the superiority of men nor on the separation and degradation of women. African religions are also a reminder of a statement made by feminist theorist M. Jacqui Alexander, “Amnesia that domination produces; the costs of collective forgetting, is so deep that we have forgotten that we have forgotten : : : some of the most inclusive and visionary ideas have been formulated by those on the margins, those excluded from formal political power, stigmatized, semi-literate, backward, and illegal” (Alexander 2006). This is comparable to what is referred to as liberation theology of Italians who differentiate themselves from the Vatican by declaring that “we are the church” in the hope for individual and social transformation (Birnbaum2000). Birnbaum found that in different locations the Black Madonna was prayed to for assistance in freedom from suppression. She noted that Our Lady of Guadalupe inspired the Mexican Revolution of 1810, and, in parts of Texas and Mexico, she was venerated more than Jesus or God the Father as the most potent religious, political, and cultural image of Chicanos and Mexicans. Birnbaum also referenced how posters of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa were visible everywhere in Poland during the solidarity liberation movement against unjust Soviet communist rule. Birnbaum wrote of how the Black Madonna was a role model for women, embracing her as powerful and one who could liberate them from varied and oppressive roles. It is the symbolism of the Black Madonna that made her so appealing to the down-trodden by offering hope and freedom from inequality.
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As mentioned above, Southern Italy is ripe with customs and traditions of the past which are still practiced today including worship of the Black Madonna, a dark-skinned Mary, Mother of infant Jesus, also portrayed as black.
Around 10,000 B.C.E., before the rising of the sea, Southern Italy, Sicily, France, and Spain were part of the continent of Africa and many artifacts of African influences remain (Birnbaum 2012). In Southern Italy, the intense veneration and celebration of the Black Madonna by local townspeople is evident as they come together to reenact miracles of this deity. Since most images of the Virgin Mary portray her as light skinned, her presentation as a dark figure is intriguing. In art and in churches, there are many Black Madonnas and, every year, throngs of worshippers visit the shrines in Southern Italy devoted to the Black Madonna, in places such as Sorrento, Positano, Foggia, Benevento, Calabria, Tindari, and Seminara. Each site has its own folklore and following and some of them include African traditions and/or music (e.g., in Foggia, Seminara, and Tindari). In Tindari
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Quote: “In Tindari, a Christian sanctuary was built on the same site where Africans fought invaders. Inscribed on the pedestal of the carved wooden Black Madonna of Tindari in Sicily, are the words, “Nigra sum sed Formosa”, (I am black but beautiful), illustrating the enduring legacy of dark mothers of primeval Africa (Birnbaum 2012). Birnbaum notes that this statue is near the site of the ancient goddess Demeter and the inscription is in reference to the “Song of Songs” in Hebrew scriptures. Birnbaum (2000) relays how the Catholic Church rejects the significance of the Black Madonna, illustrating how she is viewed as separate from the belief system of worshippers who venerate her for something other than just the mother of Jesus. It is this “other” interpretation of the Madonna that is rejected by traditional Christianity yet venerated by many who consider her to be a powerful figure and, in some instances, more powerful than her son—as God in her own right. Viewing the Madonna as non-white rejects the patriarchy of dominant religious thought and supports the idea that the Madonna is a powerful figure that has perhaps existed since creation as Mother of the Earth, Mother to humankind, and a symbol that has transcended time. It is the return of the African divine feminine that can assist in achieving equality within Abrahamic religions and other societal institutions. For millennia, a patriarchal society has ruled to the exclusion of the divine feminine who was peacefully worshipped before being replaced by a warrior father god due to the influence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, which relegated women to second class citizens; it is time to balance the masculine and feminine in order to bring the world to order (Perot 2008).”
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“Jews from Islamic countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The movement’s goal was to bring to light the reality of “pigmentocracy” in Israeli society, where ethnic origin had become strongly correlated with one’s socioeconomic position, and where Mizrahim were systematically discriminated against in comparison to Ashkenazi (European) Jews (see Frankel, this volume).Labeling themselves as the “blacks” of Israel added a racial dimension to the segregation and challenged the dominant Zionist narrative by framing it in terms of an internal colonial endeavor (Shohat 1997a). In their struggle for material and political gains, the movement undermined symbolic assets of the Israeli establishment and questioned the state’s formal objective of providing independence for all Israeli Jews. After two years of internal upheavals within Jewish society, during which the Panthers managed to mobilize thousands on the streets, the movement was put to rest by the Yom Kippur War. Nevertheless, the miserable war only intensified the public’s dissatisfaction with its leadership; along with the growing awareness of social inequalities it eventually brought about the dramatic political turn of 1977. Both cases presented above, that is the musical and the movement, feature the engagement of Israelis with foreign vernacular of black American aesthetics and index the growing influence of American culture in Israel (Melamed 2008). It is no wonder, then, that even in real time many Israeli commentators already viewed Almagor’s musical as an allegory to the social situation in Israel (Glazer 2012). As exceptional as it was at the time, the musical signified the potential of blackness as a conceptual framework for referring to local experiences. This book engages with expressions and appropriations of blackness as a basis for boundary-making, boundary-breaking, and boundary-re-making in”
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“There are more than five-hundred known Black Madonna statues and paintings worldwide and Ean Begg speculated that devotion to Mary developed from the esoteric popular religion common among the Templars and Cathars which was forced underground and deemed heretical. At the center of their beliefs was the divine feminine and the perception of women as compassionate, intelligent, and possessing social roles other than wife (Perot 2008). Much scholarship about the Black Madonna argued that Templars were responsible for bringing statues and paintings back from the Holy Land during the Crusades; there are Black Madonnas in numerous Templar cathedrals and churches and they are vividly apparent in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres in France which has three. Similar to Birnbaum, Carol Winters (2006), claimed that the Catholic Church remained silent about the origins and presence of the Black Madonna because she represents the feminine principle that started Religions 2020, 11, 511 11 of 15 at the dawn of human consciousness as Mother Earth from whom all life emanated. This is consistent With African folk religion viewing God as female, creator of humankind. Begg viewed her almost unknown status as one of disinterest on the part of scholars and art historians or her depictions are considered crude, diffcult to examine or date, or even grotesque. He made this claim by stating that a large proportion of ancient miraculous Madonnas of the world are black, yet so little is known about their existence. The exception is the Black Virgin of Padua because it is by the famous Italian artist, Donatello. Making note of the distinction between the Black Madonna and other depictions of Mary is significant because of the symbolism behind both types of representation. The Black Madonna is associated with Mother, Creator, and Protector of the Earth, a supreme advisor, one who understands the struggles of life, and a spiritual intervening force. Light-skinned or local cultural Madonnas are important too; however, the connotations associated with them are as the Mother of God, obedient to His will, living a life of virginity, pure, without sin, and the holiest of holy. She too answers prayers and understands sorrow and pain, especially the type of pain she experienced when her Son was crucified.”
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