What if the battle between good and evil came down to a conflict between those who are too uptight to dance and those who are free enough to dance? Recasting the oldest conflict nown to humanity in these terms is what Ishmael Reed does in his novel Mumbo Jumbo. This conspiracy theory novel digs down into the roots of Western and African culture, extending all the way back to ancient Egypt and the battle between Osiris and Set. But you don’t need to believe in conspiracy theories, Egyptian mythology, or other such “mumbo jumbo” to get what Reed is saying in this somewhat allegorical story.
The setting is 1920 in New York City, the time of Prohibition, the Jazz Age, and the Harlem Renaissance. New dance crazes are taking off in popularity and this is causing panic in some sectors of the white society who think of it as an outbreak of a disease or pandemic. Certainly this plague sweeping across America is more exciting than COVID-19. Two Vodun houngans, Papa LaBas and Black Herman, see the outbreak in another light; they see it as an opportunity to allow loas from the otherworld to enter into America since they believe that dancing is a result of possession by spirits. At a rent party. The two houngans get into a discussion with Abdul Hamid, the leader of a new religious sect caled the Atonists. In opposition to the Vodun movement fostered by the others, Abdul Hamid represents order, discipline, and strict morality. This conflict between Vodun and the Atonists represent two sides of the African-American soul. One side is steeped in magic and African traditions brought over by slaves to the Americas, and the other side is the conservative religious line that runs through Marcus Garvey’s UNIA, the Moorish Science Temple of Noble Drew Ali, the Black Israelites, and the Nation of Islam.
Whats gets revealed as the story progresses is that Abdul Hamid is secretly working for an ancient secret society called the Wallflower Order. (Get it? A “wallflower” is someone who goes to a dance but instead of participating, srands by the wall and watches.) Thw Wallflower Order is also employing Hinckle Von Vampton, a white O.G. grand master of the original Knights Templar. How he managed to survive from the 14th century up until the 1920s is never addressed, but this is a story involving magic and the occult so just let it go at that. Von Vampton is the editor of a sleazy tabloid newspaper and he is searching for the Android, an African-American spokesperson who will say what the Templars and Wallflower Order want him to say. Their mission is to control African-American people by preventing them from dancing.
There are other subplots and subtexts in this short novel. The most prominent involves another secret society called the Mu’tafikah, a gang that is plotting to steal indigenous art from a mueseum and ship it back to their countries of origin. Reed is addressing the fact that when you look at “primitive” art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art or other galleries, you are, in fact, looking at stolen property. Such high culture is a result of the colonial looting of artifacts from cultures that did not want to give them up. Some of them were made as sacred objects that served as means to ensure social cohesion in tribal societies. They weren’t intended to be gewgaws for rich white people who don’t even understand what they mean in the context of the societies that produced them. What Reed does in this novel is bring to light the ways in which white colonialists decimated the societies of the people they conquered and enslaved. The supposed superiority of white civilization is not built on the stable foundation of nobility and ethics the way some would want us to believe.
But the tone of Mumbo Jumbo is not bitter. In fact, it is barely even hostile. The concern of the Knights Templar is that if the dance crazes continue to flourish in the African-American community, then white culture will lose its purity and die out. But the response from Papa LaBas and Black Herman is not to destroy white culture. Actually they are solely concerned with creativity; they want to create a vibrant, life-affirming culture that is a unique and vital life source for the people of America. There is nothing destructive about it at all. And they don’t want to simply revive the old traditions of Vodun; they want to reinvigorate them to become an authentic American idiom of its own. Ishmael Reed’s message is that everything will be alright if African-American people are given the space to be themselves and live lives that are authentically their own.
The novel climaxes when the two houngans crash a party sponsored by the Wallflower Order in a rich woman’s mansion. It is there that Black Herman gives an account of ancient Egypt that starts with Osiris teaching the world how to dance and play music, while his envious brother Set tries to make everybody logical and unemotional. The teachings of Set eventually reach Moses who Reed portrays as a false prophet. These beliefs are then passed on to the Wallflower Order, the Knights Templar, and up to the Atonists of Abdul Hamid in the 1920s. If you read the Egyptian mythology passage carfeully, you will find parallels between the ancient Egyptians and the story of these New Yorkers in the Harlem of the 1920s. Scholars of history, theology, and mythology might be quick to point out that Reed’s portrayal of Egypt and Moses are not accurate at all, but in this way, Reed is reiterating his point that African-American people do not need to remain obedient to their traditions; they can reinvent and recreate their mythologies, religions, and culture to suit the needs of their times. That is how cultures are renewed and kept alive. In a Hegelian sense, this conflict between tradition and innovation is necessary to keep the social praxis thriving.
Ishmael Reed has certainly written an interesting novel with a unique set of ideas. The biggest problem with it is that the plot mostly moves along through dialogue and conversation. It is mostly people talking to each other. Some people will hate me for saying so, but I didn’t like James Baldwin’s Another Country for the same reason. But Reed’s characters do tell stories and exchange interesting ideas. It is just that a little more action and activity would have served the story well. The book is all about a plague of dancing but there is very little dancing that happens as the plot progresses. That type of descriptive action would have brought a lot more life into the narrative. Also, there is a small amount of word play and punning that Reed does well, but he could have done a lot more of it. Despite these flaws, this novel is still definitely worth reading because it expresses such an interesting range of ideas and a legitimate critique of American society.
Mumbo Jumbo is unique in another way. Written in the early 1970s, Ishamel Reed saw a connecting thread between the 1960s with its Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He saw both eras as times of renewal and creativity, times for Black Americans to build on and reconstruct their identity. In this way, Mumbo Jumbo is a celebratory and optimistic novel. Maybe we are now living in a time when this kind of optimism and rebirth could become useful again.
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