NOTE TO READER: This is one of my drafts of an admissions essay I wrote
for a Graduate program in Medical Anthropology. I am and have been doing
this research independently. I will continue to research it as long as
my body will allow. As long as my ancestors stand strong next to me,
above me, under me and around me. I did not get into the program but
this essay is going to turn into a book. While writing this essay I
realized that I can certainly write a book on this topic because there
was a lot I left out.
For those of you who would like to know
about my work, study and approach to Sensual Strength Training and Afro
Diasporic dance...this will give you a deeper understanding. Remember,
this is a work in progress.
Written by: Makeda V. Benjamin 1/15/09
Admissions Essay:
PhD/MPH in Medical Anthropology
My
interests in the field of Medical Anthropology developed gradually out
of my studies of dance, athletic conditioning and nutrition science.
Through my investigation of the literature in these fields, as well as
my readings in African American studies and ancient history; I
discovered that there were several ideologies and practices that
Africans and Native Americans shared in common, but also some
interesting differences. There is much evidence for the Native presence
amongst the Africans and vice versa when one takes a serious look at the
foods eaten by African Americans, certain rituals, religious practices,
dances and some of the musical instruments that are used throughout the
Americas.
Much of this history has been lost because it was
documented primarily by the European men that brutally colonized the
Americas in attempt to destroy a people with the intent to enslave them.
The European male colonizers of the Americas did not understand the
Matriarchal ways of African and Native American civilizations. They
believed we are all children of Mother Earth and thus we must pay her
respect. Ownership of land, people, water, etc. was not a part of their
ideology. To make matters worse the European male colonizers categorized
the world’s populations into races and then set up a rigid hierarchy
that they claimed was ordained by God. They forced their religion and
“God” on these indigenous people while claiming they were unintelligent,
“primitive” and savage.
Advances in the science of genetics,
and the seminal human genome study, has now confirmed that race is a
social construct, a sociological rather than a biological phenomenon.
Hence there is nothing scientific about racial categorization. However
there is certainly something to be said about ethnicity, nationality and
culture. Modern science has also confirmed that trauma is stored in
the DNA and if one wants to trace their biological lineage they must do
so through the matriarchal mitochondrial DNA. Diabetes, obesity,
depression and many other health epidemics found amongst Native American
and African American populations are the same. It is my belief that
this has much to do with the biological and cultural intermixing of the
two groups in combination with the shared legacy of terror and
malnourishment on the land of the Americas. The development of chronic
disease is a result of an interaction between one’s genetics and the
environment in which that person is exposed. I have chosen to
investigate this question with the tools offered by the disciplines of
anthropology because this is the area of study that includes a mixture
of social sciences and biological sciences to evaluate certain
occurrences. Likewise, the domain of public health is the area of the
health sciences that deals with influencing public policy as it pertains
to health epidemics. Thus, the evidence gained in anthropological
studies can fuel the fire behind decisions of public policy as it
pertains to the health of massive amounts of individuals. I have
selected the field of medical anthropology because I think it will best
prepare me to interrogate the issues that I find to be of importance.
I
am primarily interested in examining how trauma and the loss of one’s
center affect one’s physical, mental and spiritual health. Modern
physics and indigenous medicine both recognize that the farther away an
object gets from its center, or axis of rotation, the more unstable it
will become. I am particularly interested in the role colonization and
enslavement played in displacing Native Americans and Africans on this
western soil. Africans and Native Americans went through hundreds of
years of harsh torment in which the colonizers implemented many brutal
methods in attempts to weaken them by disrupting their center and
deliberately denying them access to their native language, spiritual
beliefs, traditional ceremonies, dances and rhythms. One cannot be
centered if they do not know where they come from and are not familiar
with their ancient ways.
Thus, these “primitive” peoples who
were regarded as unintelligent and non human had to develop clever
methods to disguise certain spiritual beliefs along with the
accompanying dances, songs and rhythms. The African slaves arrived in
the Americas without their drums or sacred instruments. They came
without the elders to teach them their ancient heritage and traditions.
Thus, they were forced to remember, retain and recreate these sacred
rhythms and dances. Native Americans open up the sacred circle of
dancing and drumming for various reasons. Ritual and social dance was
used for communication, healing, revolts, death and birth.
I am
particularly interested in social and ritual dances as it pertains to
national identity and cultural identity. I hypothesize that the
importance of one being able to connect with one’s identity is critical,
because it is vital to one’s mental health. The health of the mind
undoubtedly affects the health of the body. These dances were all
tremendously demanding and they were gracefully executed by enslaved
people who already had an unimaginable physical load to carry. As a
trained dancer, former, collegiate athlete and an exercise specialist, I
am intensely interested in the physical body and the hidden messages
and healing properties behind movement.
*******
I have used my
mind and body as tools to collect data, observe and learn. During my
first two years of graduate school at Columbia University I was focused
on nutrition education and applied physiology. During that time I worked
with clients who had several serious health imbalances both physical
and physiological. I also suffered a few rare and mysterious health
imbalances. The medical doctors were often quite puzzled and I always
diagnosed myself. These situations were pop quizzes and they forced me
to do an immense amount of research in order to help myself and my
clients. After two years I decided to take a break so I could recover
and continue to do my own studying, searching and critical thinking.
During this time I began to realize that illness was a physical
manifestation of mental and physiological imbalance. I also discovered
that Mother Nature has provided us with everything we need to remain
balanced and heal ourselves. This is why many of the world’s
biotechnologists are harassing indigenous people trying to learn what
they have been using to heal themselves for thousands of years. Once
they find out, they isolate the “active ingredient” and patent it. Once
there is a patent these indigenous people no longer have access to the
plant they have been using for thousands of years, unless they pay these
biotech companies for the use of the plant. I was very familiar with
this practice after having been a biotechnology major for my first two
years of undergrad. Discovering this truth is largely responsible for
propelling me into the field of Exercise and Sports Science and
Nutrition.
I strongly believe that there are complex relationships
between many phenomena that are not readily apparent from casual
observation; thus I hypothesize that there are multiple facets to the
health epidemics we are now witnessing in the world. It seems as if
every chronic illness has increased in record breaking proportions over
the past fifty years. My passion for wanting to help people heal and
really connect to their center propelled me into a zone of deep
contemplation and research about the root cause of many of today’s
modern day plagues, which include infectious disease, birth
complications, weak and diseased sexual organs, depression, obesity,
diabetes, cancer and several other chronic diseases.
I strongly
suspect that this lies partially in the fact that we have abandoned the
holistic healing wisdom of the ancients in favor of the modern
scientific belief that physical well being is unrelated to cultural
rituals that address spiritual well being. However many of the ritual
and social dances of those of African descent in the Americas involve
intense polyrhythmic manipulation of the sacral pelvic region. And
modern science has confirmed that each living entity omits an
electromagnetic field, which indigenous peoples acknowledged as chakras
for thousands of years and modern science is now beginning to confirm
that every object has a life force energy otherwise known as chi, prana,
mana, ka, etc.
It has long been recognized in all indigenous
medicine that trauma is stored in the womb space. In Japanese Shiatsu it
is referred to as the Hara. The womb space is also where the sacral and
root chakras are located. The womb space is where our umbilical cord
was located that connected us to our mothers. Thus our navel is a
constant reminder of our divine connection with Mother Earth. It has
also been recognized that we certainly inherit the trauma and imbalances
of our parents and ancestors and that is also stored in the womb space.
Thus,
rigorous and focused powerful contractions of the muscles that act on
that region are essential for releasing all of the horrible trauma
inflicted on those of African and Native American descent in the West.
The rape of Native American and African women, the women from whose
loins I descended, by white men who were their colonial masters or
owners was a routine affair for centuries. These women often had
several children while maintaining a very physical life style before,
during and immediately after delivery of their children. Unlike many
modern women who depend on hospital technology to give birth, indigenous
women did not need hospitals to do so.
The value of the African
slave woman was determined by how fertile she was. Yet these women were
still expected to perform the same levels of rigorous physical work
being performed by the men. To make matters worse, as the Afro-American
female scholar Dr. Harriet Washington shows in her path breaking study,
“Medical Apartheid”, a carefully researched and shocking investigation
into the history of racist practices in American medicine, the so called
“Father of Gynecology,” James Marion Sims conducted most of his
research on the black female body by brutally mutilating these women
against their will and without anesthesia. Often times the woman who was
being mutilated was held down by other slave women, who were forced to
participate in these grisly crimes against their sisters. This
experience was obviously quite traumatic for all of the women who were
forced upon threat of violence to assist in the procedure. Many efforts
were made to make Native American women sterile in order decimate their
population and it was quite successful in more than enough cases
However much of what modern science has learned about the human female
body through these invasive and often inhuman practices, justified under
the rubric of “scientific research” was already known to the ancients,
who had developed cultural rituals to address their maladies. Take
pelvic organ prolapse for instance. This is a condition in which the
internal organs, including the reproductive organs in the pelvic region,
begin to sag and put pressure on the pelvic diaphragm. This is a
development that results from years of not strengthening the internal
and external muscles in the pelvic region. It can also occur after
childbirth. However there is abundant evidence that such ancient
traditional dances as the Hawaiian Hula and Egyptian belly dance were
seriously taught and practiced as both a serious physical task and a
spiritual practice. These dances take large amounts of rhythmic
neuromuscular control of the hips and spine. There is certainly a mind
body connection here; because the more one mentally engages in
visualizing while executing a physical movement the central nervous
system will grow more nerves to innervate that muscle. The more nerves
that innervate a muscle the more control one has over that muscle. Thus
women were able to develop strength and control in the pelvic region
which enabled them to give birth to several children without all of the
machines used today.
Quantum physics has confirmed that
everything has a vibration and vibrational healing has long been
practiced amongst all indigenous cultures since the beginning of time.
Thus, the vibrations of the percussion instruments and accompanying hip
movements are quite healthy, healing and powerful. Often times, women
were surrounded by female drummers, dancers and singers to help ease the
birthing process. In Kundalini yoga the mind is used to raise that
energy from the base of the spine to the pineal gland in the brain.
Traditional Chinese medicine also demonstrates the path of stagnate
energy from the base of the spine to the brain being aroused by
movement, visualization and concentration.
All indigenous people
had sacred ancestral connections with the land that they inhabited.
They believed that their ancestors were still with them in the trees,
mountains and various sacred sites. It was important for them to include
their ancestors in their life rituals. Paying respect – often through
the offering of libations which are similar to the practices of incense
burning, or crossing with holy water to acknowledge the Saints in
Catholicism, was essential. One major way to accomplish this was
through dance, drumming and song performed in a circle.
Thus in
spite of the tools for analyzing past human experiences provided by
modern social science, we can barely imagine how incredibly painful it
was for Native Americans to be faced with death if they peacefully
attempted to visit the sacred sites of their ancestors – and the
consequences for their survival as a people. Native Americans were also
denied access to fertile land where they once acquired their food and
herbs for ritual and healing. These restrictions made it increasingly
difficult for them to continue with their traditional ways of living and
thus contributed to their demise as surely as the guns and horses of
the United States Calvary, the advance guard for the armed white
settlers that heralded the advance of “Western Civilization.” Enslaved
Africans had also been stripped of their native land and ancestral
dwellings by being forcefully shipped thousands of miles across the
Atlantic Ocean. And one little known fact is that there were a few
thousand Native Americans who were shipped across the Atlantic to such
places as Liberia, South Africa and Spain.
There are primary
documents written by the Spaniards when they arrived in Florida, which
describe Native Americans who were in outstanding health and condition.
They reported seeing women swimming across rivers with three babies on
their back and old men who were almost in the same physical condition as
the younger men. They reported that there were no signs of arthritis,
missing teeth, disease or deformity. They were healthy, intelligent
people. Many of the Africans learned about the animals and plants of
the Americas from the native peoples. Some of the plants and animals in
the Americas were also present in Africa, as the Harvard biologists,
explorer and lay anthropologist Dr. S. Alan Counter has shown from his
studies of the cultures and healing practices of the Jukkas, a group of
West African slaves who revolted against their Dutch slave masters in
18th century Surinam and fled into the jungle where they have lived
among the Indians of the Amazon rain forest ever since.
The truth is
that many of the groups who are referred to as “Black” or “Native” share
the same ancestors and genetics due to hundreds of years of living
amongst each other. This fact is largely overlooked in the various
health fields but it is quite significant when one wants to seriously
consider the root cause for many of the serious health epidemics amongst
people who descend from the Africans and Native Americans. It is often
said – and has become conventional wisdom in some circles - that the
majority of Native Americans died from coming in contact with European
diseases. However, I hypothesize that the ignorance of the Europeans who
colonized the Americas about the spiritual beliefs and healing
practices of the indigenous Americans or the Africans whom they
enslaved, contributed mightily to the incidence of fatal illness among
these populations.
Although their European conquerors failed to
comprehend it, both groups had a common understanding that the soul is
eternal and the living is just as important as the dead. There were many
Native Americans and Africans who refused to be enslaved and thus they
committed suicide. There are documented tales of Ibo warriors being
unloaded from a slave ship on the coast of Georgia and they all walked
right into the Atlantic Ocean and drowned themselves. These Ibo slaves
were all chained at the wrists and ankles. There are intense Ibo dances
from Haiti that are very warrior like; they are performed with machetes.
When the French were overthrown in Haiti, Haiti became the first free
nation in the Americas that was free of slavery. Once the French fled to
Cuba with their slaves, the Cuban slave masters were terrified. They
did not want their African slaves to be influenced by those warriors in
Haiti so they began to be more lenient with the African slaves as it
pertains to dance and music. The Cuban slave masters reasoned that if
you let the slaves drum and dance they will be happier and less likely
to revolt.
While the calculations of the slave masters proved
to be less than accurate, it did result in the development of a dynamic
musical and dance traditions that has influenced the music and dance of
the world. I would like to investigate the role that the ritual dances
which accompany their spiritual rites, and the folk medicine that
utilized these practices, played in healing and strengthening the people
in their struggle to survive and progress.
ON MY PROPOSED COURSE OF STUDY:
What theoretical issues do I plan to study in graduate school?
Dance
has been recognized as a universal language. There are various
similarities and differences regarding the rules of engagement between
dancers, musicians, dancers and singers, in traditional cultures. There
are minute differences between the energy, expression and essence in
which certain dances are executed in the same dance but in different
regions of the same country. All of these dances had important
connections to one’s cultural and national identity and many dances were
used for healing purposes; whether it was to fend off negative energy,
call forth certain spiritual forces and/or just to get the body ready
for reproduction. Anthropologist and dancer Yvonne Daniels, does an
excellent job of examining the healing properties in Haitian Vodoun,
Cuban Yoruba rituals and Bahian Condomble. The late Great Katherine
Dunham, founding mother of the modern Afro-American concert dance
tradition was also trained anthropologist, dancer, writer and activist
who spent considerable time in the Caribbean and South America studying
folkloric dances practiced by peoples of African descent.
In the
early 1930’s when Katherine Dunham was seriously choreographing,
performing and studying she was criticized for including so-called
erotic dance in her choreography. At the time the standard of dance was
judged completely from a rigid, western European perspective. The
folkloric dances Katherine Dunham presented to American audiences were
virtually unheard of at the time and therefore misunderstood. Even as I
write, African dances in the Americas are too often overlooked when it
comes to physical intensity and its connection to one’s overall health.
I
am interested in the ground breaking work of Professor Joseph S. Adler
in regard to closely examining the symbolic meaning of the body in
Indian wrestling and the relationship between health, culture and
politics. The body has symbolic meanings in all that it does but
unfortunately most humans are not connected and observant enough to
notice. I have noticed that professor Mary A. Gauza is very interested
in the role of religion and spirituality on the outcome of one’s health.
I am sure that the work of these thoughtful and perceptive scholars
will enrich my understanding of how the religious and spiritual beliefs
of the African and Native peoples of the Americas largely influenced how
these two groups managed to navigate through the strict slave codes
with hopes of overcoming and surviving.
Many of the dances from those
of African descent in the Americas involve rigorous manipulation of the
hips and buttocks. There are several primary documents in which
European slave masters complained that the Africans were always dancing
with their buttocks out with highly erotic movements. As the
distinguished German Africanist scholar Janheinz Jahn pointed out in
“Muntu,” one such dance, the Calinda, was actually outlawed in Brazil
and other Latin American countries because the hip movements were
considered lewd. They also recognized that the drum can put people in
trances, so strict slave codes were made in regards to playing drums and
performing certain ritual dances. Hence the African Slaves and the
Native Americans that lived among them mixed cultural practices and were
forced to devise all sorts of clever ways to deceive the harsh laws of
slavery and colonization.
The enslaved and brutalized Africans
and Native Americans underwent hundreds of years of laws aggressively
and violently forbidding them to speak their native language, play their
native drums or dance their native dances. Drums were used as
communication tools amongst Native Americas and Africans; there are
specific rhythms played to induce trance like states, but also to pay
their respects to nature. There were specific rhythms played during
child birth, funerals, hunts and wars. There were also specific rhythms
played in order to activate healing herbs and to dispel illness from
certain parts of one’s body. Each rhythm had specific song and dances
that accompanied them. They were clandestinely practiced in opposition
to the laws of a slave society that had different rules about which
instruments they could play and when they could play them, which dances
they could dance and when, which songs they could sing and when. Thus,
there is a hidden wisdom in the dances of those Neo-African populations
in the Americas as it pertains to health and healing.
Most of
the Afro American social dances as well as ritualistic dances associated
with death, the harvest, fertility, revolt and war involve intense,
hard, outright, vigorous movement of the hips along with the rest of the
body. It is interesting to speculate as to whether or not this esthetic
approach to the dance had anything to do with trying to dispel all of
the toxic energy that had been dumped on them from being denied access
to their ancestors, their native instruments and rhythms, and witnessing
their family members being auctioned off to masters who transported
them to some unknown place. Could these vibrant intense movements be
related to the dark earth in which we are connected through our navels;
possibly in attempt to create a safe haven (womb space) for the babies
they carried? Are these dances and powerful hip movements responsible
for helping these women give birth with ease? There are several healing
properties of the rhythmic activation of the core/center/hip region.
Every country in North America, Central America, South America and The
Caribbean Islands has a unique history as it pertains to slave society
and colonization. There are some similarities between colonies that were
occupied by the same European country; but there are distinct
differences in each country. Some of the countries have a richer
history than others as it pertains to folkloric (ritual and social)
dance and they should all be carefully and systematically studied in
order to understand the full context in which all of the dances and
rhythms developed. The harshness of slavery and colonization also varied
from colony to colony. Given all of this I am especially interested in
conducting a serious comparative analysis of the various traditions in
New Orleans, Louisiana, the Gullah and Geeche Sea Islands off the
Carolina coast in the coastal waters of the Atlantic; Haiti, Dominican
Republic, Cuba, Peru, Puerto Rico and Brazil.
Many of the dances
in the Caribbean and South America were also taking place at Congo
Square in New Orleans. In the 1800’s it was said that at any given time
there were five to six hundred Africans dancing and drumming. These
Africans were openly trading and interacting with the Native Americans.
Hence, this is how the development of the Mardi Gras Indians and the
Black Indians came about. I have studied with many elder masters from
all over the Americas that have testified to the importance of New
Orleans and Congo Square.
In the fall of 2006 I attended a
conference at Hostos College in New York City about the environmental
challenges that seriously threaten the traditional spiritual practices
of peoples of African and Native descent in the Americas. There were
many initiated priests, priestesses and practioners of various
traditional African spiritual disciplines and they spoke of not being
able to get access to certain ritual plants and materials due to laws
and heavy fines. For certain rituals they may need access to the ocean
or they may need to play their drums for hours while they chant and
dance. However, there are an increasing number of restrictive laws being
placed on these groups throughout the Americas. The environmental
policies are also affecting the lack of access these people have to
their ancient objects.
The distinguished Professor of Art History and
Dean of the African Civilization program at Yale University, Robert
Farris Thompson, was one of the presenters that day. Dr. Thompson has
done extensive research on various African derived dances in the
Americas, especially those derived from the Kongo. Dances from the Kongo
seriously concentrate in the sacral pelvic region. That day he gave a
lecture about the connection to Jamaican Dancehall dancing and Kongo
derived dances. Reflecting on Dr. Thompson’s learned and perceptive
lecture, I am reminded that art and science are required in any serious
attempt to interpret and teach history as well as the health sciences.
The
history of the Americas is clearly interlinked through blood and
culture. I want to focus on how certain Native and African dances
changed after the two groups came in contact with each other in the
Americas and how they came together and fused their spiritual practices,
using dance and polyrhythmic music as a means of survival: survival of
their physical bodies, their sanity, and ancient ancestral knowledge of
who they are and where they come from. A loss of identity, culture and
traditional practices has been shown in many studies to wreak havoc on
one’s mental, physical and spiritual health. Hence I would like to
conduct research that will contribute to our scientific understanding of
precisely how these cultural rituals and spiritual phenomena contribute
to physical and mental health and healing, and help to formulate public
health policies that take these traditional healing arts into account.
