The spirit of Black Hawk

Jason Berry

The exotic cultural terrain of New Orleans is enriched by the Spiritual churches. Combining elements from Roman Catholicism, Afro-Caribbean rituals, and down-home black religion, some one hundred of these houses of worship, most of them small, are scattered throughout the Crescent City. Their founder, Mother Leafy Anderson, was a faith healer and medium of African and Native American ancestry, who summoned spirits of the dead to commune with the living. In 1920 she came from Chicago to establish her denomination led by women and gladdened by jazz bands. Despite segregation laws, her congregations were integrated. At the center of her church Mother Anderson enshrined the spirit of Black Hawk, the rebellious Indian leader who in the 1830s waged a valiant rear-guard war against white pioneers and federal troops during the settling of the Midwest. Passionate present-day followers of...

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