None of this would have been possible without the hospitality and generous collaboration of many. Foremost among them, Ashabi Mosley deserves acknowledgment for her kindness, grace, and forbearance. I have been blessed with the assistance of Fadesiye, Mr. Mosley, Alimayu Harris, Arlene Stevens, Omisade, Miguel “Willie” Ramos, and Yomí Yomí. My love and gratitude also go out to Abirola; Damon Baggs; Mike Banish; Pedro Bonetti; Mike Cassidy; Glenda Kposivi Clark; Lucy Diaz; Kysha Egungbemi; Shukrani Gray; Mobosade and Shashu Harris; Markeya Howard; Ilé Afolabi; Kalimah Johnson; Salim Kenyatta; Chinaka Kizart; James Kubie; Gwen Luster; Marianne; Mayodumi; Alexandra Moffett-Bateau; Oba, Nosa, and Oyeyei; Okandinije; Olubi; Oshunleye, Nailah, and Jaylen; Keisha Price; Maddy Ramos; Toya, Maria, Jalyn, and Will Sevier; Jeanette and “Poppy” Shorter; Deidra Somerville and the boys; Cory Stephenson; Shanita Tyler; Kylah Williams; and Vicky Zuñiga-Winkler. María-Pimpa Junqueira and Alina Barranco, Ibae. Those left unnamed are not forgotten.
I am indebted to Bruce Lincoln and Stephan Palmié at the University of Chicago for their mentorship and critical insight. The late Martin Riesebrodt contributed analytical rigor and organizational acuity; I remain most appreciative for his patience. I enjoyed the administrative support of Teresa Hord Owens and Sandy Norbeck, as well as Wendy Doniger’s constant encouragement. Andrew Apter, Robin Derby, and Dwight N. Hopkins inspired me to keep moving forward. Stuart Michaels, Deborah Nelson, and Gina Olson were instrumental in ensuring that my time at the Center for Gender Studies (now the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality) was intellectually rewarding.
I am humbled to recall the thoughtfulness of Alan Hodder at Hampshire College; Roger R. Jackson, Michael McNally, Louis Newman, Anne Patrick, Lori Pearson, Asuka Sango, and Shana Sippy at Carleton College; and Loïc Wacquant at the University of California, Berkeley. At Dartmouth College, I have benefited from the guidance of Susan Ackerman, Ehud Benor, Rebecca Biron, Randall Balmer, Nancy Frankenberry, and Adrian Randolph, and from the collegiality of Christopher MacEvitt, Ronald Green, Susannah Heschel, Reiko Ohnuma, Catharine Randall, and A. Kevin Reinhart. I am honored to have had Stefania Capone, Yvonne Daniel, Robert M. Baum, Reena N. Goldthree, Deborah K. King, and Gil Raz read an earlier version of the manuscript in its entirety as part of a Leslie Center for the Humanities Manuscript Review. Their invaluable suggestions for revision, along with those of Colleen Glenney Boggs, transformed this book. The help of Meredyth Morley and Marcia Welsh was indispensable.
Without Jennifer Hammer’s persistent herculean efforts to bring this volume to press, the manuscript would still be in search of a hope and a home. She and Janna R. White gave it much-needed direction and editorial aid. I am also grateful to Constance Grady, Dorothea S. Halliday, Rosalie Morales Kearns, and the editors of the North American Religions series, Tracy Fessenden, Laura Levitt, and David Harrington Watt. My anonymous reviewers improved the book immeasurably with their detailed reports, and the exceptional staff of New York University Press shepherded it through the publication process. Any errors are mine alone.
An extraordinary group of confidants lent me their shoulders, ears, and books: Sandra Abdelmalak, Monica Coleman, Rosana Cruz, Laura Desmond, Yasser Elhariry, Martín Espada, Holly Fogleboch, Stephanie Frank, Alysia Garrison, Rory Johnson, Marta Nelson, Bernardo Pérez, Julie Püttgen, Andy Rotman, Cristal and Eli Sabbagh, Gregory Spinner, Jon Varese, Natalie Washington-Weik, John “Thabiti” Willis, and my fellow travelers in the History of Religions.
I would like to recognize the members of institutional bodies whose faith in this project took it through data collection and write-up. Funding was provided by the University of Chicago Martin Marty Center and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; the Ford Foundation; the University of Chicago Office of Multicultural Student Affairs; the University of Chicago Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality; the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program; and Walter and Constance Burke Research Initiation Awards for Junior Faculty at Dartmouth College.
Brief portions of chapter 1 first appeared in “Working Roots and Conjuring Traditions: Relocating ‘Cults and Sects’ in African American Religious History,” in Esotericism, Gnosticism, and Mysticism in African American Religious Experience, ed. Stephen C. Finley and Margarita Guillory (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 40–61. Passages from chapter 2 are borrowed from “Crystallizing Subjectivities in the African Diaspora: Sugar, Honey, and the Gods of Afro-Cuban Santería,” in Religion, Food, and Eating in North America, ed. Benjamin Zeller et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 175–94; and “Cooking for the Gods: Sensuous Ethnography, Sensory Knowledge, and the Kitchen in Lucumí Tradition,” Religion 41, no. 4 (2011): 665–83. Chapter 3 is a much expanded and revised version of “Cooking for the Gods.” Chapter 5 contains reworked and updated material previously published in “Willful Spirits and Weakened Flesh: Historicizing the Initiation Narrative in Afro-Cuban Religions,” Journal of Africana Religions 1, no. 2 (2013): 151–93. I am grateful to the editors and reviewers involved in the production of these publications for their emboldening and constructive feedback.
My son Raphael has sweetened my life and William Elison has sustained it—not least by doing the cooking. For waulking the tweed of this book with me, I give deepest thanks.