… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology

is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

Their dual identity, 'etre chretien, c'est etre

blanc', implicitly evoked the existence of its
opposite number, non-Christian and black, in a
nineteenth-century bipolar model of identity.
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast Page | 1
Peter Mark

Jews in general were associated with both

sorcery and poison. Witchcraft, Poison, Law,
and Atlantic Slavery Diana Paton

… a “Jewish Era in the Sahara.”

Jewish Portuguese presence in
West Africa Sahara & Atlantica

culture contact
the manufacture of modernisms,
syncretism, cargo & crisis cults

compiled by

amma birago

Luso-African religion was actually an amalgam

of Christian, Jewish and African practices.
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Peter Mark

… from the eighteenth century onward, changes

in religious practices in West Africa and the
Americas occurred in an interactive way that
profoundly affected beliefs and practices on both
sides of the Atlantic. …
The Fante Shrine of Nananom Mpow and the
Atlantic Slave Trade in Southern Ghana

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

The success of the East Indies Company, which was heavily

involved in the gold trade and the subsequent Brazilian and slave
trade, depended on far-flung family ties. - Labelle Prussin,
Judaic Threads In The West African Tapestry

Page | 2
Just as Jews elsewhere transported their culture in their wanderings,
Jewish migrants to sub Saharan West Africa initially brought with them
from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Near East
four essential resources: …
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

In 1620, the English traveler in the Gambia, Richard Jobson,

observed: another people ... as they call themselves, Portingales,
… be they never [sic] so black, to be called a Negro."
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity: Luso-Africans on the
Upper Guinea Coast from the Sixteenth to the Early
Nineteenth Century - Peter Mark

The Negotiations For Peace

In The Gold Coast 1826 To 1831
Ole Justesen
… on 11 May 1593, in a letter to the Conselho Geral,
Pero Rodrigues, visitor of the Jesuit mission in Angola,
wrote that São Paulo de Luanda was rife with Jews
and heretics of all descriptions

Contraband Trade by Curaçao' s Jews

with Countries of Idolatry, 1660-1800
Wim Klooster
Importance of Jewish networks
Family ties are often considered to have been
the distinguishing feature of Jewish commercial activities.

… Judeo-Arabic: A recipe for (causing) ophthalmia. Write on Tuesday,

in the hour of Mars, on a clean sheet of paper, with ink, and insert in it
a steel needle, and bury it in a moist place. … In the power of these names, strike
so-and-so daughter of so-and-so with ophthalmia, now now quickly quickly, …

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah

Gideon Bohak
He will give you permission to destroy so and-so son of so-and-so;
and let the death of so-and-so son of so and-so be in this hour of
all hours and in this period of all periods.
Amen, Amen, Selah. Page | 3

"For mine owne part, when I heare the Africans euill spoken of I
will affirme myself to be one of Granada; and when I perceue the
nation of Granada to be discommened then will I professe my
selfe to be an African." The Early-Sixteenth-Century Muslim
Traveler Leo Africanus

… Yet many scholars continue to credit the tacit assumption that

the Jewish presence never extended beyond the northern termini
of trans-Saharan trade routes, believing that, at most, a few
Jewish traders may have ventured across the inhospitable
expanses of the desert. Judaic Threads in the West African
Tapestry - Labelle Prussin

"What Do You Mean There Were No Tribes in Africa?":

Thoughts on Boundaries: And Related Matters In Precolonial Africa
Donald R. Wright
… the Luso-Africans, who resided along the lower and middle Gambia River in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Portuguese and Cape Verdean traders came to the Gambia in the fifteenth century
and took up residence along the river's banks. They and their descendants married local women, and over
the generations the offspring of such unions became progressively dark, until they were indistinguishable
physically from the Africans among whom they lived. Yet these Luso-Africans kept the trappings of their
Catholic faith.

'You have to be Catholic to serve the loa'.

Two distinct religions coexist without merging.
Catholic influences are superficial in voodoo,
whose reality is African.
Kongo in Haiti:
A New Approach to Religious Syncretism
Luc de Heusch

New and Old Christians were in frequent contact, ranging, … from "from casual acquaintance to
friendships and even to marriage.".... These similarities point to a belief system that is neither completely

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

Jewish nor purely Christian, but rather syncretically converso. … Inés combined her Jewish past with her
Catholic present to forge a new converso religious identity.
A Christian Means To A Conversa End
Sharon Faye Koren

Page | 4
In 1620, the English traveler in the Gambia, Richard Jobson,
observed: another people ... as they call themselves, Portingales,
and some few of them seem the same; others of them are
Molatoes ... but the most part as black as the natural inhabitants
.... They do generally employ themselves in buying ...
commodities ... still reserving carefully the use of the Portingall
tongue and with a kind of affectionate zeal, the name of
Christian, taking it a great disdain, be they never [sic] so black,
to be called a Negro."
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast
from the 16th to the Early 19th Century - Peter Mark

What distinguishes the economic activities of "the Portuguese Nation"

is precisely the seeming irrelevance of religion: openly professing
Jews and ostensible Catholics of Jewish background traded
with each other with few or no qualms.
Sephardic Business: Early Modern
Jonathan Schorsch

Meanwhile, their presence created political havoc,

enabling new men and women of commerce to gain
prominence and threatening older, often hereditary
elites.

From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and

the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America
Ira Berlin
Although the trading castles remained under the control of European metropoles, the towns around them
often developed independent political lives - separate from both African and European domination.
Meanwhile, their presence created political havoc, enabling new men and women of commerce to gain
prominence and threatening older, often hereditary elites. Intermarriage with established peoples allowed
creoles to construct lineages that gained them full membership in local elites, something that creoles
eagerly embraced.

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

And that no one would cause disorder in his land;

otherwise he would order that their [those who seek to
persecute the Jews] heads be cut off. If they wanted to
make war they should make it in the sea, not in his land
which he had already said was a market.
Page | 5

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities

on Senegal's Petite Côte - Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

With the arrival of Jacob Peregrino the Jews of Porto de Ale and Joal now had a "[r]abbi of all the Jews
who are on Guinea, on the coast, who are more than fifteen who publicly Judaize". Equally important, the
erudite Peregrino brought his knowledge of the Torah. Henceforth it would not be necessary for
Portuguese-born New Christians to travel from "Guiné do Cabo Verde" to Holland to go through the
ritual circumcision and education that would make them into publicly recognized Jews. … It is probable,
although we do not know for sure, that they had some link with the earliest-known "public Jews" of
Guinea.

… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early seventeenth century were known as "Portuguese"
and they spoke Portuguese. While a minority of them were actually of Spanish extraction, even this
minority had lived in Portugal after the Expulsion of 1492. Nevertheless, as Markus Schreiber, Marranen,
59, observes, "[g]enerally, the terminology is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, not all
'Portuguese' came from Portugal."

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic

Communities on Senegal's Petite Côte -
Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

… men such as the de Sousa brothers, who traveled from Senegal to Holland in order to undergo ritual
conversion and to assert their Jewish identity formally, had chosen to settle in Senegambia, in part to be
able to return to their religion. They established a synagogue in or adjacent to the housing compound of
Diogo Vaz, and they may well have requested that a rabbi be sent to them. …

The Jews among them belonged to a generation that, in large measure

because of the Expulsion and the Inquisition, had established an
extensive international network of commercial connections based in part
upon family ties. Pinhel, with his connections to Portugal, Holland, and
England, and the Rabbi Jacob Peregrino, with his ties to Portugal,
Holland, and Milan, were representative of these connections.
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast
Peter Mark

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

“To Judaism belong [the errors] which declare that the sentence of Pilate against Christ was just, and had
a great basis … “to be safe it would be advisable to send here a person with the requisite powers to reside
here [in San Pablo de Loanda] as it is a healthy place, and to have [members of the] religious [orders]
who can be helped with jurisdiction over Congo, the island of Príncipe, and São Tomé, which are full of
New Christians.” Page | 6
Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire,
Ed. Philip J. Havik and Malyn Newitt

… Santu" crosses and crucifixes, utilized as amulets

bringing good fortune in hunting, as tokens of prestige in
the investiture and in the procedures of justice and
probably for other purposes as well, prove that the
period of syncretism in art was no short episode.
Nkisi Figures of the Lower Congo
Zdenka Volavkova

Captain Tuckey, in 1816, saw at Noki, in the region of the cataracts, that "the crucifixes left by the
missionaries were strangely mixed with the native fetishes and the people seemed by no means improved
by this melange of Christian and Pagan idolatry." "Santu" crosses and crucifixes, utilized as amulets
bringing good fortune in hunting, as tokens of prestige in the investiture and in the procedures of justice
and probably for other purposes as well, prove that the period of syncretism in art was no short episode.

Tata Nsiesie observed, in the early 20th century, a special predilection for small copper images of the
Immaculate, and for the wooden statuette of St. Anthony. The latter was worn by pregnant Kongo women
on the breast in order to have either a son or a daughter, according to the kind of offering given it. In the
early 1880's J. H. Weeks received such a sculpture from a young man in whose family it had been for
several generations where it was regarded as a fetish.

Nkisi Figures of the Lower Congo

Zdenka Volavkova

The presence of cotton soutaches in early Tellern grave sites may well
be an ephemeral echo of Jewish burial evidence, lending weight to
the possibility that North African Jewish merchants, specializing
in the cloth trade by the tenth century CE, brought textile embroidery
across the Sahara to the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

"This king had slaves of diverse nations, among them a Jew, native of Maroc. … He knew how to speak
twenty-eight different languages, and to read and write in each. He informed the mariners of the changing

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

tides, the shifting winds, rains, storms, tempests and dangers of the sea that were approaching. ... He had
gathered and edited, from upper and lower Africa ... an ensemble of the nature of the beasts, the fish, the
herbs, the plants, the trees, the fruits, and the temperature of the climates; and, being versed in the art of
medicine, he had observed them in order to [apply] them to various illnesses."
André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle,
2 vols. (Pierre l'Huillier, 1575), vol. 1, 93-94 Page | 7

The presence of cotton soutaches in early Tellern grave sites

may well be an ephemeral echo of Jewish burial evidence,
lending weight to the possibility that North African Jewish merchants,
specializing in the cloth trade by the tenth century CE,
brought textile embroidery across the Sahara to the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali.

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin

… the wheel design universally

symbolizes the life cycle, man's fate,
birth, renewal, and infinity, and the number three is
a Hebrew synonym for "soul" or "spirit".

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin

Just as Jews elsewhere transported their culture in their wanderings, Jewish migrants to sub Saharan West
Africa initially brought with them from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Near East four
essential resources: a virtual monopoly over select artisanal skills such as metalworking, silk weaving,
and embroidery; a tradition of worldwide trade networks involving extended family ties; the complex
interactions among their various roles as scholars-merchants-artisans and cultural strategies that were
easily implemented in the sub-Saharan African environment; and a preexisting symbiotic relationship
between Kabbalah and Sufi Islam in which alchemy, amulets, gematria, and cryptography resulted in
similar graphic metaphors.

… in the early 20th century, a special predilection for small copper images
of the Immaculate, and for the wooden statuette of St. Anthony.
The latter was worn by pregnant Kongo women on the breast in order
to have either a son or a daughter, according to the kind of offering
given it. In the early 1880's J. H. Weeks received such a sculpture from
a young man in whose family it had been for several generations
where it was regarded as a fetish.
Nkisi Figures of the Lower Congo
Zdenka Volavkova

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

… Judeo-Arabic: A recipe for (causing) ophthalmia. Write on Tuesday,

in the hour of Mars, on a clean sheet of paper, with ink, and insert in it
a steel needle, and bury it in a moist place. And this is what you shall write:
[Three lines of "magic signs ‫]״‬. In the power of these names, strike
so-and-so daughter of so-and-so with ophthalmia, now now quickly quickly,
strike so-and-so daughter of so-and-so with ophthalmia. Page | 8
Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah
Gideon Bohak
A Genizah is a depository where sacred Hebrew books or other sacred items
that by Jewish law cannot be disposed of are kept before they can be properly
buried in a cemetery.

“Syncretism was one strategy by which African cultures

and mores could be maintained, in which facets of
African-and European-derived cultures were melded in
such a delicate balance that Europeans did not view the
African component - if they recognized it at all - as
being offensive.” Russell-Wood

The gold route from the Sudan to the western Magreb

was often called the Jewish route, according to Salo
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route.

Both before and after 1630, it was a road that
enabled a return to ancestral belief and served
to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean.
Communities of Port Jews and Their Contacts
in the Dutch Atlantic World
Wim Klooster

A. de C. Almada, His 1624 epitaph,

implying conversion, read, "He died as a Christian.
"The blacks call him Ganagoga, which means, in the language of the
Beafares, 'a man who speaks all languages,' as indeed he does. So he can
cross the whole of the hinterland of our Guinea (speaking to) whatever
blacks there may be there. ..."
Landlords and Strangers: Ecology,
Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000-1630
George Brooks citing the sixteenth-century Portuguese trader A. A.
de C. Almada.

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

The assertion of a Judaic heritage in West Africa is a rare exception today. Although this heritage is
barely acknowledged on much of the African continent, its study, more than an effort to redress a
grievance of interpretation or mourn the loss of a tradition, introduces a sharper lens through which to
examine, and ultimately reconstruct, some long neglected aspects of African art history.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin Page | 9

"This king had slaves of diverse nations, among them a Jew, native of Maroc. … He knew how to speak
twenty-eight different languages, and to read and write in each. He informed the mariners of the changing
tides, the shifting winds, rains, storms, tempests and dangers of the sea that were approaching. . . and
there was no one under the sky, in his time, who better described the horoscope and birth of men and the
hour of misfortune which would come to them, which he knew.
André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle,
2 vols. (Pierre l'Huillier, 1575), vol. 1, 93-94.

His awareness of the alchemists of Fez (presumably non-Muslim), his acquired

knowledge of Kabbalah (so prevalent in sixteenth-century Moroccan Jewish
thought), his references to Jewish masons, weavers, goldsmiths, and blacksmiths,
his familiarity with Jewish customs and the Jewish merchants with whom he
traveled …

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin

… The early-sixteenth-century Muslim traveler Leo Africanus provides another provocative illustration
of the multifaceted nature of Judaic involvement in the African milieu. His detailed account of Jewish
enclaves in the Islamic domains through which he traveled evinces more than a passing acquaintance with
the Jewish presence in Africa.

… all invite a broader interpretation of the Islamic-

Judaic connection in both North Africa and its Sanaran
outreaches.

In light of Judaic strategies that frequently involved conversion and reconversion

in both the Christian and Islamic worlds, perhaps the most tantalizing, chameleon
like comment in his Description de L’Afrique (1600) is what he says of himself:
"For mine owne part, when I heare the Africans euill spoken of I will affirme
myself to be one of Granada; and when I perceue the nation of Granada to be
discommened then will I professe my selfe to be an African."

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin on the early-sixteenth-century Muslim traveler Leo
Africanus

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

The Negotiations For Peace In The Gold Coast 1826 to 1831

Ole Justesen
Whatever the sources of the new religions, most converts saw little
cause to surrender their own deities. They incorporated Christianity
and Islam to serve their own needs and gave Jesus and Mohammed
a place in their spiritual pantheon. Page | 10

In 1620, the English traveler in the Gambia, Richard Jobson, observed: another people ... as they call
themselves, Portingales, and some few of them seem the same; others of them are Molatoes ... but the
most part as black as the natural inhabitants .... They do generally employ themselves in buying ...
commodities ... still reserving carefully the use of the Portingall tongue and with a kind of affectionate
zeal, the name of Christian, taking it a great disdain, be they never [sic] so black, to be called a Negro."
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast
from the 16th to the Early 19th Century - Peter Mark

The Role Of The Portuguese Trading Posts In Guinea And

Angola In The “Apostasy” Of Crypto-Jews In The 17th
Century - Toby Green
… on 11 May 1593, in a letter to the Conselho Geral, Pero
Rodrigues, visitor of the Jesuit mission in Angola, wrote that São
Paulo de Luanda was rife with Jews and heretics of all
descriptions:

“To Judaism belong [the errors] which declare that the sentence of Pilate against Christ was just, and had
a great basis. That those who die at the hands of the Holy Office are martyrs. A Torah was found here,
and on this Maundy Thursday some people gathered to have a celebratory meal at the house of someone
whose faith is deemed very suspicious …” Rodrigues claimed that the provisor, Manoel Roiz Teixeira,
was a great friend of the gente da nação, as the cristãos novos were sometimes known, and concluded
that “to be safe it would be advisable to send here a person with the requisite powers to reside here [in
San Pablo de Loanda] as it is a healthy place, and to have [members of the] religious [orders] who can be
helped with jurisdiction over Congo, the island of Príncipe, and São Tomé, which are full of New
Christians.”
The Role Of The Portuguese Trading Posts In Guinea And Angola
In The “Apostasy” Of Crypto-Jews In The 17th Century
Toby Green

The early-thirteenth-century southern Spanish development of practical Kabbalah

from its mystic and visionary base was accelerated by subsequent expulsions of
Jews from Spain and Portugal, spreading widely in Europe and North Africa.
Many of the Kabbalists-or-alchemists were from North Africa.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

Contraband Trade by Curaçao' s Jews

with Countries of Idolatry, 1660-1800
Wim Klooster
Importance of Jewish networks
Family ties are often considered to have been
the distinguishing feature of Jewish commercial activities. Page | 11

What distinguishes the economic activities of "the Portuguese Nation"

is precisely the seeming irrelevance of religion: openly professing Jews
and ostensible Catholics of Jewish background traded with
each other with few or no qualms.
Sephardic Business: Early Modern
Jonathan Schorsch

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route.

Both before and after 1630, it was a road that
enabled a return to ancestral belief and served
to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean.
Communities of Port Jews and Their Contacts
in the Dutch Atlantic World
Wim Klooster

One might say the same for this hypothesis on the Jewish presence in sub-Saharan Africa, where
seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of evidence from Islamic sources, from Hebrew sources, from
European sources, from travelers' accounts, from scholarly treatises and manuscripts, and from oral
history, mythologies of origin, and etymologies, some valid, some questionable, have been interwoven
with the artisan's creative logic of iconography, technology, and style. The assertion of a Judaic heritage
in West Africa is a rare exception today. Although this heritage is barely acknowledged on much of the
African continent, its study, more than an effort to redress a grievance of interpretation or mourn the loss
of a tradition, introduces a sharper lens through which to examine, and ultimately reconstruct, some long
neglected aspects of African art history.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

After his death, some writings and memoires, all in rolls in the
fashion the other side [of Africa] … were found in the house of
his master. He had gathered and edited, from upper and lower
Africa. ...
André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle,
2 vols. (Pierre l'Huillier, 1575), vol. 1, 93-94

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

"This king had slaves of diverse nations, among them a Jew, native of Maroc. … He knew how to speak
twenty-eight different languages, and to read and write in each. He informed the mariners of the changing
tides, the shifting winds, rains, storms, tempests and dangers of the sea that were approaching. . . and
there was no one under the sky, in his time, who better described the horoscope and birth of men and the
hour of misfortune which would come to them, which he knew.
Page | 12
After his death, some writings and memoires, all in rolls in the fashion the other side [of Africa] … were
found in the house of his master. He had gathered and edited, from upper and lower Africa ... an ensemble
of the nature of the beasts, the fish, the herbs, the plants, the trees, the fruits, and the temperature of the
climates; and, being versed in the art of medicine, he had observed them in order to [apply] them to
various illnesses."

André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle,

2 vols. (Pierre l'Huillier, 1575), vol. 1, 93-94

A. de C. Almada, His 1624 epitaph,

implying conversion, read, He died as a Christian.
"The blacks call him Ganagoga, which means, in the language of the
Beafares, 'a man who speaks all languages,' as indeed he does. So he
can cross the whole of the hinterland of our Guinea (speaking to)
whatever blacks there may be there. ..."
Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society and Trade in Western
Africa, 1000-1630
George Brooks citing A. A. de C. Almada

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin

Just as Jews elsewhere transported their culture in their wanderings,

Jewish migrants to sub Saharan West Africa initially brought with them
from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Near East four
essential resources: …

In the early sixteenth century, these textiles were actively commissioned by the Portuguese crown from
resident heads of North African Jewish weaving guilds such as Meir Levi of Safi. Various members of his
family subsequently performed roles as traders, moneylenders, interpreters, viziers, ambassadors, and
spies for both Portuguese and Moroccan rulers, adding a fascinating narrative, surely integral to the
complexity of Jewish involvement in the textiles saga.

Just as Jews elsewhere transported their culture in their wanderings, Jewish migrants to sub Saharan West
Africa initially brought with them from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Near East four
essential resources: a virtual monopoly over select artisanal skills such as metalworking, silk weaving,
and embroidery; a tradition of worldwide trade networks involving extended family ties; the complex

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

interactions among their various roles as scholars-merchants-artisans and cultural strategies that were
easily implemented in the sub-Saharan African environment; and a preexisting symbiotic relationship
between Kabbalah and Sufi Islam in which alchemy, amulets, gematria, and cryptography resulted in
similar graphic metaphors.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin Page | 13

Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah

Gideon Bohak
The second recipe is written bit of Hebrew, and is even to
annihilate (someone).
(Take) a sheet of lead and write in the first hour of the day, and bury it in a fresh grave:
I adjure you, Anger, Rage, Fury, Wrath, and Destroyer, you angels who are in charge
of destroying all flesh; you, destroy the body of so-and-so son of so-and-so from the world,
and do not delay him for even one hour.
In the name of ghwdr yh yh wh Sabaoth,
He who created the world in His wisdom and completed the earth in His intelligence,
and created the first man from dust and returned him to dust, He will give you permission
to destroy so and-so son of so-and-so; and let the death of so-and-so son of so and-so
be in this hour of all hours and in this period of all periods.
Amen, Amen, Selah.

Their dual identity, 'etre chretien, c'est etre blanc', implicitly evoked the existence
of its opposite number, non-Christian and black, in a nineteenth-century bipolar
model of identity.
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast
Peter Mark

From its inception, the newly emerging discipline of African art history
encompassed only regions south of the desert and, until quite recently, it was
perceived and interpreted through a bifocal lens: the Sahara, which cuts a
horizontal swath across the continent, was traditionally viewed as a wasteland
and an impenetrable barrier to cultural exchange between black and white.

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin
Extending over the centuries from the Near East to the Iberian Peninsula and from the Mediterranean
littoral into sub-Saharan Africa, these similarities have stood in striking contrast to the far more familiar,
culturally discrete art traditions identified and associated with indigenous West African cultures. … Yet
many scholars continue to credit the tacit assumption that the Jewish presence never extended beyond the

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

northern termini of trans-Saharan trade routes, believing that, at most, a few Jewish traders may have
ventured across the inhospitable expanses of the desert.

Once a thriving terminus linked by a trans-Saharan trade route to Tripoli, Kanem was heavily trafficked
by nineteenth-century North African Jewish traders. Here, interestingly, the embroidered tripartite design
of linked, spiraling soutaches has been rotated 90 degrees and centered on the most visible component of Page | 14
the tunic. The presence of cotton soutaches in early Tellern grave sites may well be an ephemeral echo of
Jewish burial evidence, lending weight to the possibility that North African Jewish merchants,
specializing in the cloth trade by the tenth century CE, brought textile embroidery across the Sahara to the
Bandiagara escarpment in Mali.

'You have to be Catholic to serve the loa'.

Two distinct religions coexist without merging.
Catholic influences are superficial in voodoo,
whose reality is African.
Kongo in Haiti:
A New Approach to Religious Syncretism
Luc de Heusch

And that no one would cause disorder in his land; otherwise he

would order that their [those who seek to persecute the Jews]
heads be cut off. If they wanted to make war they should make it
in the sea, not in his land which he had already said was a
market.

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities

on Senegal's Petite Côte - Peter Mark and José da Silva
Horta

A Christian Means To A Conversa End

Sharon Faye Koren
New and Old Christians were in frequent contact, ranging, … from "from casual acquaintance to
friendships and even to marriage.".... These similarities point to a belief system that is neither completely
Jewish nor purely Christian, but rather syncretically converso. … Inés combined her Jewish past with her
Catholic present to forge a new converso religious identity.

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin
… the wheel design universally symbolizes the life cycle, man's fate, birth, renewal, and infinity, and the
number three is a Hebrew synonym for "soul" or "spirit". The same icon is applied to the Moroccan
Jewish woman's shroud; its matching pair of three soutaches and the twenty-two buttons used to fasten it
express the symbolic continuity from marriage (fertility and birth) to death. Trans-Saharan evidence of

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

the remarkable persistence of this singular hall mark of design continuity and creativity appeared in a
mid-nineteenth-century rendering of the cotton-embroidered tunics worn by Bornu women in Kanem,
Niger. Once a thriving terminus linked by a trans-Saharan trade route to Tripoli, Kanem was heavily
trafficked by nineteenth-century North African Jewish traders. Here, interestingly, the embroidered
tripartite design of linked, spiraling soutaches has been rotated 90 degrees and centered on the most
visible component of the tunic. The presence of cotton soutaches in early Tellern grave sites may well be Page | 15
an ephemeral echo of Jewish burial evidence, lending weight to the possibility that North African Jewish
merchants, specializing in the cloth trade by the tenth century CE, brought textile embroidery across the
Sahara to the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali.

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin

Reviewing the Sources Scholars of Judaism have, at various times and places, poignantly argued for not
only a North African residential presence over these last two millennia but also a millennium-long Jewish
or Judeo-Berber trade presence throughout the Sahara. Yet many scholars continue to credit the tacit
assumption that the Jewish presence never extended beyond the northern termini of trans-Saharan trade
routes, believing that, at most, a few Jewish traders may have ventured across the inhospitable expanses
of the desert. … Since they usually raised no special legal problems, the North African Judaic sources had
little to say about Jewish artisanal trades. Absent from all these references and accounts, whether Judaic,
Islamic, or European, was any indication or acknowledgment of the unique interface between trader,
scholar, and artisan that migrant Muslims and/or Jews may have brought with them to the African scene.

… “to be safe it would be advisable to send here a person with the

requisite powers to reside here [in San Pablo de Loanda] as it is a healthy
place, and to have [members of the] religious [orders] who can be helped
with jurisdiction over Congo, the island of Príncipe, and São Tomé,
which are full of New Christians.”
Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire,
Ed. Philip J. Havik and Malyn Newitt

In addressing the probable historical Jewish presence in sub-Saharan Africa, one of its advocates
particularly stressed the likely insinuation of Jewish Kabbalah into indigenous occultism. Kabbalistic
thought is graphically expressed in a number of visual representations of cosmogony and numerology, for
example, circles, spirals, triangles, and squares. To be sure, many of these simple graphemes are accepted
as universal symbols, and many parallels in the worlds of Islam and Christianity are equally capable of ex
pressing both religious and philosophical concepts, but the ubiquitous presence of these simple
graphemes seems to exemplify practical Kabbalah's graphic resources.

Practical Kabbalah, often equated with Jewish magical practices such as the use of amulets, charms,
number and letter combinations, and rituals to counter the evil eye, is the popular tradition that has
evolved over the centuries, differentiated from the earlier esoteric, mystical Kabbalah tradition that arose
in twelfth- to thirteenth-century France and Spain and later in sixteenth-century Safed. One of the earliest
forerunners of Kabbalah theosophy was the Sefer Yesirah, or The Book of Creation, penned by a third
century CE Jewish scholar in Palestine.

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

Drawing on esoteric sources then prevalent in Palestine and Egypt, the act of creation, manifested in Ten
Divine Attributes (Sephirot) and ten distinct stages of emanation, was sometimes symbolized as a tree of
life. It was often pictured as a wheel often concentric circles within which Hebrew micrographie script
was in scribed, or as a spiral symbolizing the life cycle of fate, birth, renewal, and/or infinity. With the
flowering of practical Kabbalah many centuries later, the graphic design frame was abstracted into a
conceptual model and trans formed into an icon. Page | 16

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry:

Labelle Prussin

"For mine owne part, when I heare the Africans euill

spoken of I will affirme myself to be one of Granada;
and when I perceue the nation of Granada to be
discommened then will I professe my selfe to be an
African."

His awareness of the alchemists of Fes (presumably non-Muslim),

his acquired knowledge of Kabbalah (so prevalent in sixteenth-century
Moroccan Jewish thought),… all invite a broader interpretation of
the Islamic-Judaic connection in both North Africa and
its Sanaran outreaches.

Of particular relevance are the auspicious and inauspicious days defined uniquely by reference to Old
Testament events and the set of cosmological and astrological illustrations heavily infused with
Kabbalistic theosophy. The well-known early-sixteenth-century Muslim traveler Leo Africanus provides
another provocative illustration of the multifaceted nature of Judaic involvement in the African milieu.
His detailed account of Jewish enclaves in the Islamic domains through which he traveled evinces more
than a passing acquaintance with the Jewish presence in Africa.

His awareness of the alchemists of Fes (presumably non-Muslim), his acquired knowledge of Kabbalah
(so prevalent in sixteenth-century Moroccan Jewish thought), his references to Jewish masons, weavers,
goldsmiths, and blacksmiths, his familiarity with Jewish customs and the Jewish merchants with whom he
traveled all invite a broader interpretation of the Islamic-Judaic connection in both North Africa and its
Sanaran outreaches.

In light of Judaic strategies that frequently involved conversion and reconversion in both the Christian
and Islamic worlds, perhaps the most tantalizing, chameleon like comment in his Description de
L’Afrique (1600) is what he says of himself: "For mine owne part, when I heare the Africans euill spoken
of I will affirme myself to be one of Granada; and when I perceue the nation of Granada to be
discommened then will I professe my selfe to be an African.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry:
Labelle Prussin

Whatever the sources of the new religions, most

converts saw little cause to surrender their own deities.
They incorporated Christianity and Islam to serve their

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

own needs and gave Jesus and Mohammed a place in

their spiritual pantheon.

The Negotiations For Peace

In The Gold Coast 1826 To 1831
Ole Justesen Page | 17
… on 11 May 1593, in a letter to the Conselho Geral, Pero
Rodrigues, visitor of the Jesuit mission in Angola, wrote that São
Paulo de Luanda was rife with Jews and heretics of all
descriptions

Priests and ministers sent to tend European souls made African converts, some of whom saw Christianity
as both a way to ingratiate themselves with their trading partners and a new truth. Missionaries sped the
process of christianization and occasionally scored striking successes. At the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the royal house of Kongo converted to Christianity. Catholicism, in various syncretic forms,
infiltrated the posts along the Angolan coast and spread northward. Islam filtered in from the north.

… Santu" crosses and crucifixes, utilized as amulets bringing

good fortune in hunting, as tokens of prestige in the investiture
and in the procedures of justice and probably for other purposes
as well, prove that the period of syncretism in art was no short
episode.
Nkisi Figures of the Lower Congo
Zdenka Volavkova

“To Judaism belong [the errors] which declare that the sentence of Pilate against Christ was just, and had
a great basis. That those who die at the hands of the Holy Office are martyrs. A Torah was found here,
and on this Maundy Thursday some people gathered to have a celebratory meal at the house of someone
whose faith is deemed very suspicious…” Rodrigues claimed that the provisor, Manoel Roiz Teixeira,
was a great friend of the gente da nação, as the cristãos novos were sometimes known, and concluded
that “to be safe it would be advisable to send here a person with the requisite powers to reside here [in
San Pablo de Loanda] as it is a healthy place, and to have [members of the] religious [orders] who can be
helped with jurisdiction over Congo, the island of Príncipe, and São Tomé, which are full of New
Christians.”
Creole Societies in the Portuguese Colonial Empire,
Ed. Philip J. Havik and Malyn Newitt

The early-thirteenth-century southern Spanish

development of practical Kabbalah from its mystic and
visionary base was accelerated by subsequent expulsions

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

of Jews from Spain and Portugal, spreading widely in

Europe and North Africa. Many of the Kabbalists-or-
alchemists were from North Africa.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin
Page | 18
But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route.
Both before and after 1630, it was a road that
enabled a return to ancestral belief and served
to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean.
Communities of Port Jews and Their Contacts
in the Dutch Atlantic World
Wim Klooster

…, not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal."

the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early seventeenth century were known
as "Portuguese" and they spoke Portuguese. While a minority of them were actually
of Spanish extraction, even this minority had lived in Portugal after the Expulsion of 1492.
Nevertheless, as Markus Schreiber, Marranen, 59, observes, "[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal."

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic

Communities on Senegal's Petite Côte
- Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

The Jews who settled in Amsterdam between 1595 and 1620 were, as Jonathan Israel notes, primarily
Marranos from Portugal. During this period nearly all the foreign trade carried on by Dutch Jews was
with Portugal and the Portuguese colonies. Dutch Sephardic merchants used their family ties and contacts
in west Africa, to foster this commerce. The religious bonds that led some Portuguese New Christians to
travel from Guinea to Holland, and then to return to Africa as circumcised Jews, served also to facilitate
economic cooperation with the Dutch Jews. This connection between religion and commerce is
articulated in the "Memoria" of 1612, which states: Christians and practicing Jews. The term might
roughly be translated as "those of Jewish heritage."

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin
The early-thirteenth-century southern Spanish development of practical
Kabbalah from its mystic and visionary base was accelerated by
subsequent expulsions of Jews from Spain and Portugal, spreading
widely in Europe and North Africa. Many of the Kabbalists-or-
alchemists were from North Africa.

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

The early-thirteenth-century southern Spanish development of practical

Kabbalah from its mystic and visionary base was accelerated by
subsequent expulsions of Jews from Spain and Portugal, spreading
widely in Europe and North Africa. Many of the Kabbalists-or-
alchemists were from North Africa.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry Page | 19
Labelle Prussin

The Role Of The Portuguese Trading Posts In Guinea And Angola

In The “Apostasy” Of Crypto-Jews In The 17th Century
Toby Green
A much less well-worn strand of the story of the Sephardim, however,
is their presence and influence in the Portuguese trading posts of West
Africa. … there was a significant Sephardic presence in Angola and
Guinea, but that these Portuguese settlements were crucial in
the development of an active crypto-Jewish diaspora across the Atlantic
which was subject to widespread persecutions in Cartagena, Lima and
Mexico in the middle years of the seventeenth century.

In both North and West Africa, the djinn are a special race of
spiritual beings, sometimes evil, sometimes benevolent, in
constant contact with mankind.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

The expulsion of the Jews fell within the same decade in which Columbus reached America and Vasco da
Gama made his famous voyage to India. In Portugal this dispersal was not a single traumatic expulsion
but continued for centuries as the New Christians (Jews who had thought to remain in Portugal by
outwardly conforming to Christianity) were periodically persecuted and forced into new waves of
emigration.

Sao Tome and Principe. The first attempts to people the islands were not quite
successful. But from 1493 some progress was made. A number of young Jews
(2000 in 1493 alone) were transported to the islands, although they suffered a
high mortality rate. Slaves were also transported from Mina, Benin, Gabon, the
Kongo, and later, from Angola.
Portuguese Activities In West Africa Before 1600 The Consequences
J.O. Ijoma

Contraband Trade by Curaçao' s Jews

with Countries of Idolatry, 1660-1800
Wim Klooster
Importance of Jewish networks
Family ties are often considered to have been
the distinguishing feature of Jewish commercial activities.

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

What distinguishes the economic activities of "the Portuguese Nation"

is precisely the seeming irrelevance of religion: openly professing Jews
and ostensible Catholics of Jewish background traded with
each other with few or no qualms.
Sephardic Business: Early Modern Page | 20
Jonathan Schorsch

The early-thirteenth-century southern Spanish development of

practical Kabbalah from its mystic and visionary base was
accelerated by subsequent expulsions of Jews from Spain and
Portugal, spreading widely in Europe and North Africa. Many of
the Kabbalists-or-alchemists were from North Africa.

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry:

Labelle Prussin
The early-thirteenth-century southern Spanish development of practical Kabbalah from its mystic and
visionary base was accelerated by subsequent expulsions of Jews from Spain and Portugal, spreading
widely in Europe and North Africa. Many of the Kabbalists-om-alchemists were from North Africa.
Raphael Patai, The Jewish Alchemists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
Another characteristic of 'Portuguese' identity
was their Catholic religion. Along the Upper Guinea Coast, it was
common for each group to be characterized by
its own religious practices.
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast
from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century
Peter Mark

Monrad's sympathy drew a warm response from the Africans.

When he went down with "the fever of the land" shortly after his
arrival, a fetish priest in full professional attire murmered prayers
over his bed and was rewarded with brandy, his nectar.
An Incident in Elmina-Dutch Relations, The Gold Coast
(Ghana), 1739-1740
H. M. Feinberg

Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah

Gideon Bohak
… A bird's-eye view of the recent scholarship on ancient Jewish
magic reveals two separate clusters of activity. On the one hand,
the recent upswing in the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls has

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

made available numerous fragments of magical and quasi-

magical contents which previously were unavailable, or only
partly available.
… corpus of late antique and medieval Jewish texts which is
now coming to light. First, there are the amulets and the demon
bowls, written in Aramaic, Syriac, and Hebrew, which are by Page | 21
now well known to students of ancient magic.

Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah

Gideon Bohak
In terms of their forms, they include the usual assortment of recipe books, individual recipes, curses,
amulets for named individuals, and so on. In terms of contents, they defy any consistent classification,
and range all the way from parabiblical materials, halakhic texts, and mystico magical texts of the type
popular in the Hekhalot or Merkabah literature, all the way to recipes and amulets that would look
suspiciously familiar to anyone dealing with Greek, Demotic, or Coptic magical texts. Given this wide
variety of materials, these texts are not all of equal relevance for the papyrologist. Viewed from his or her
perspective, the material may broadly be divided in three. First, there are those texts whose contents are
so far removed from the earlier forms of Mediterranean magic as to be of little interest to a papyrologist.
Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah
Gideon Bohak
The second recipe is written bit of Hebrew,
and is even to annihilate (someone).
(Take) a sheet of lead and write in the first hour of the day, and bury it in a fresh grave:
I adjure you, Anger, Rage, Fury, Wrath, and Destroyer, you angels who are in charge
of destroying all flesh; you, destroy the body of so-and-so son of so-and-so from the world,
and do not delay him for even one hour.

In the name of ghwdr yh yh wh Sabaoth,

He who created the world in His wisdom and completed the earth in His intelligence,
and created the first man from dust and returned him to dust, He will give you permission
to destroy so and-so son of so-and-so; and let the death of so-and-so son of so and-so
be in this hour of all hours and in this period of all periods.
Amen, Amen, Selah.

… Judeo-Arabic: A recipe for (causing) ophthalmia. Write on Tuesday, in the hour of Mars, on a clean
sheet of paper, with ink, and insert in it a steel needle, and bury it in a moist place. And this is what you
shall write: [Three lines of "magic signs ‫]״‬. In the power of these names, strike so-and-so daughter of so-
and-so with ophthalmia, now now quickly quickly, strike so-and-so daughter of so-and-so with
ophthalmia. [Two more lines of "magic signs .[‫״‬Strike so-and-so daughter of so-and-so with ophthalmia,
now now quickly quickly. Students of Greco-Roman magic surely would note the habit of giving each
recipe a title, the astrological instructions ("Tuesday, in the hour of Mars ‫)״‬, …

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

… the previous recipe last page of the magician's booklet, it too in Judeo-Arabic:
For (causing) bleeding: Write on [...]-day, [in the Mars, with ink on a clean sheet
of paper, and tie it in pouch and place it in a cypress-wood tube and bury [....]
water-stream which flows to the east. …, you angels who are appointed shed the
blood of the daughter quickly.
Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah Page | 22
Gideon Bohak

Introduction: Recent Research On The Early Modern History Of Atlantic

Africa - Adam Jones and Silke Strickrodt
What mechanisms enabled European traders to offer credit to Africans during the
slave trade? Such questions are of interest in themselves, but they also have
significance for the Africa longue durée, for world history and for the problems
of contemporary West Africa.

Further south in the Gambia in 1661, English traders relied

on an African marabout who spoke Portuguese as their interpreter.
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity
Peter Mark

Recent research clearly shows that, from the eighteenth century

onward, changes in religious practices in West Africa and the
Americas occurred in an interactive way that profoundly affected
beliefs and practices on both sides of the Atlantic. Ritual
practices learned in Africa were used by slaves in Brazil to
protect and unify people living under the brutal control of sugar
planters.
The Fante Shrine of Nananom Mpow and the Atlantic Slave
Trade in Southern Ghana

Their dual identity, 'etre chretien, c'est etre blanc',

implicitly evoked the existence of its opposite number,
non- Christian and black, in a nineteenth-century
bipolar model of identity.

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities on Senegal's Petite Côte

Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

… among these Luso-Africans-or "Portuguese" as they were known in contemporary sources - there were
New Christians, some of whom were probably practicing Jews. Evidence of the Jewish presence in west
Africa remained scanty, however, and we argued that if some "Christian" Portuguese were in fact
practicing Jews, they were Jews primarily in the privacy of their own communities. A corpus of

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

manuscript sources from Lisbon archives, either discovered or reassessed by Horta, now occasion a
fundamental rethinking of the history of Portuguese New Christians and Jews in Senegambia.

Together, they demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt the

presence of practicing Jews who publicly affirmed their Jewish
identity, on the Petite Cote in the period from 1606 to 1612. Page | 23
The main documents in this group are pieces of a codex of the National Archives, Torre do Tombo; two
in the Biblioteca da Ajuda in Lisbon (one of the latter also in the Real Academia de la Historia de
Espafia); and another one from the Arquivo Historico Ultramarino. Together, they demonstrate beyond
the shadow of a doubt the presence of practicing Jews who publicly affirmed their Jewish identity, on the
Petite Cote in the period from 1606 to 1612. These sources radically trans- form our knowledge of the
early Jewish presence in west Africa. At the moment that an important Portuguese Jewish community was
being established in Amsterdam, two communities of Portuguese Jews, closely affiliated with their
counterparts in Holland, were growing in Senegal. 1993-98), provides documents and commentary for
francophone scholars.

"Some men of the nation of New Christians came from the states of Flanders
to the coast of Guinea in Flemish ships, who, having behaved like Christians
in this kingdom of Portugal and its overseas territories, have apostasized, some
of them taking Jewish names and all of them per- forming ceremonies and rituals
of the law of Moses."

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities on

Senegal's Petite Côte - Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

The Vicar of S. Domingos writes: "[Diogo] also had himself made

Jewish in Flanders." Gaspar Carneiro, "groom of the king's Chamber"
("moqo da camara d'Elrei"), testified that these two men "had been
Christians when they were at the river of Cacheu and they lived there
openly [on the Petite Cote] as Jews."

Among the numerous residents of the Petite Cote who are described in Inquisition sources as having
traveled from Guinea to Holland in order to become Jewish, ... From Lisbon to Santiago they would only
have needed fifteen days. Furthermore their travels were in many respects typical of the first generation of
New Christians in Senegambia who became Jews again at the dawn of the seventeenth century.

One has the impression that some of the Jewish residents of Porto de Ale and Joal retained their
Portuguese names to use whenever they were outside of the Jewish community. This would have been
consistent with the practice in Europe, especially among Portuguese New Christians, who used their
Christian names while they were in Portugal, and their Jewish name (or names) only when outside the
realm of the Inquisition. Of course, such a contextual choice of names implies as well at least some
element of multiple identities.

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities on Senegal's Petite Côte

Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

And that no one would cause disorder in his land; otherwise he

would order that their [those who seek to persecute the Jews]
heads be cut off. If they wanted to make war they should make it
in the sea, not in his land which he had already said was a
market. Page | 24

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities

on Senegal's Petite Côte - Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

A Sephardic Community on Senegal's Petite Cote there is a community with 100 families of Portuguese
and Blacks. To this port came people from Flanders who profess the law of Moses and here they do and
maintain their rituals and ceremonies like the ones of Judea - [ i.e. the land of the Jews in Palestine] - And
the Portuguese seeking to kill them and expel them from that place ran a serious risk. Because the King
took the side of the former and he told the latter that his land was a market [feria] where all kinds of
people had a right to live. And that no one would cause disorder in his land; otherwise he would order that
their [those who seek to persecute the Jews] heads be cut off. If they wanted to make war they should
make it in the sea, not in his land which he had already said was a market.

A Christian Means To A Conversa End

Sharon Faye Koren
New and Old Christians were in frequent contact, ranging, … from "from
casual acquaintance to friendships and even to marriage.".... These
similarities point to a belief system that is neither completely Jewish nor
purely Christian, but rather syncretically converso. … Inés combined her
Jewish past with her Catholic present to forge a new converso religious
identity.

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities

on Senegal's Petite Côte - Peter Mark and da Silva Horta

Inquisition records from 1612, however, paint different picture. It is clear that some, if not most, of the
Portuguese inhabitants of Porto de Ale were of Jewish origin. Nor was it a coincidence that the Dutch
Jews chose to settle there, for they were among friends, relatives, and, in many instances, co-religionists.
After the Dutch arrived, the Jews became probably the majority of the Portuguese inhabitants of Porto de
Ale. In fact according to the journal of Peter Van Den Broecke, by 1609 there was a community of 30
Portuguese and mestizos in Porto de Ale.

In the course of the next few years, many of the Portuguese of this community on the Petite Cote would
affirm or, in the case of New Christians, reaffirm their Jewish identity. In at least some cases the process
of judaization occurred locally, but in other instances the Portuguese traveled to the Low Countries,
where they established their Jewish identity before returning to the Petite Cote. In August of 1612,
information was sent to Bartolomeu Rebelo Tavares, Vicar of the Rio S. Domingos, and stationed at
Cacheu, that numerous New Christians from Flanders were arriving at the Petite Cite on Dutch ships.
Once settled there they assumed Jewish names and began openly to practice Jewish rituals. The term
"New Christians" indicates that these individuals were originally from Portugal.

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities

on Senegal's Petite Côte - Peter Mark and da Silva Horta

With them were many other Portuguese, many of them Jews," to settle definitively on the Petite Cote.
"Memoria" both Filipe and Diogo are said to have made the mentioned "circuit," the former passing by
Cacheu and the latter Rio Grande.22 It is unclear whether that movement was inspired by contact Page | 25
Portuguese Jews who came to the coast in the first Dutch ships whether it was begun by the Portuguese
Sephardic network with contacts along the coast.

"[Diogo] also had himself made Jewish in Flanders." Gaspar Carneiro, "groom of the king's Chamber"
("moqo da camara d'Elrei"), testified that these two men "had been Christians when they were at the river
of Cacheu and they lived there openly [on the Petite Cote] as Jews.,"24

The 4th [reason] needed more action and fire of the Inquisition than doctrine of the Gospel preachers,
unarmed and poor. This is certainly a more felicitous situation than that which obtained in regions where
the Inquisition was active. Unlike the subjects Nathan Wachtel's study of New Christians and Marranos in
Brazil New Spain, for example, most of the Jews of the Petite Cote did not, far as we can tell, become
victims of the Inquisition.

Even twenty years later, the religious situation of Jews on the Petite Cote does seem to have undergone
significant change. Holland, or more precisely, the Portuguese Jewish community Amsterdam, played a
central role in the personal evolution of individuals from New Christians to public Jews. The religious
education and the ritual circumcision-of the first Portuguese to settle as Jews the Petite Cote took place in
Holland. There too, many of them Hebrew names. In their depositions, church informants took pains give
both the converts' old Portuguese names and new names.

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities

on Senegal's Petite Côte - Peter Mark and da Silva Horta

The success of the East Indies Company, which

was heavily involved in the gold trade and the
subsequent Brazilian and slave trade, depended
on far-flung family ties.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

The nascent "Portuguese" community in Amsterdam rapidly

established an extensive trade network with the Portuguese
overseas commercial empire, a network that
was based largely on family ties.
Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities
on Senegal's Petite Côte
Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

Among the numerous residents of the Petite Cote who are described in Inquisition sources as having
traveled from Guinea to Holland in order to become Jewish,… Furthermore their travels were in many
respects typical of the first generation of New Christians in Senegambia who became Jews again at the
dawn of the seventeenth century. One has the impression that some of the Jewish residents of Porto de
Ale and Joal retained their Portuguese names to use whenever they were outside of the Jewish Page | 26
community.

This would have been consistent with the practice in Europe, especially among Portuguese New
Christians, who used their Christian names while they were in Portugal, and their Jewish name (or names)
only when outside the realm of the Inquisition. Of course, such a contextual choice of names implies as
well at least some element of multiple identities. When trading with Portuguese "Cristaos velhos," or Old
Christians, they would have been more likely to use their Portuguese names. In this respect the Jews of
the Petite Cote were no different from other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Portuguese and Euro-
African traders. These intermediaries in the trade between Africans and Europeans, also served as cultural
brokers or middlemen.35 In terms of identity, the Jews of the Petite Cote were Jews and Portuguese, just
as the "Cristios velhos' were Portuguese and Christians. In a similar manner many of the Luso-Africans
emphasized their Christian identity when among European merchants in the Cape Verde Islands, but
assumed a Muslim African identity when they were living in African communities on the mainland.

Two Early Seventeenth-Century Sephardic Communities

on Senegal's Petite Côte
Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta

Meanwhile, in Portugal during the first decade of the seventeenth century, the temporary easing of
restrictions on New Christian emigration led to an influx of Marranos and crypto-Jews into Amsterdam.
The nascent "Portuguese" community in Amsterdam rapidly established an extensive trade network with
the Portuguese overseas commercial empire, a network that was based largely on family ties. In
Amsterdam the synagogue, begun in 1612 but completed only in 1639, came to symbolize the wealth and
significance of this, arguably the most important Jewish community in western Europe in the seventeenth
century. An important step in the evolution of the Jewish settlements in Senegal occurred in 1612.

'You have to be Catholic to serve the loa'.

Two distinct religions coexist without merging.
Catholic influences are superficial in voodoo,
whose reality is African.
Kongo in Haiti:
A New Approach to Religious Syncretism
Luc de Heusch

In 1620, the English traveler in the Gambia, Richard Jobson, observed: another people ... as they call
themselves, Portingales, and some few of them seem the same; others of them are Molatoes ... but the
most part as black as the natural inhabitants .... They do generally employ themselves in buying ...

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

commodities ... still reserving carefully the use of the Portingall tongue and with a kind of affectionate
zeal, the name of Christian, taking it a great disdain, be they never [sic] so black, to be called a Negro."
The Evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity:
Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast
from the 16th to the Early 19th Century - Peter Mark
Page | 27

Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry

Labelle Prussin
The early-thirteenth-century southern Spanish
development of practical Kabbalah from its mystic and
visionary base was accelerated by subsequent expulsions
of Jews from Spain and Portugal, spreading widely in
Europe and North Africa. Many of the Kabbalists-or-
alchemists were from North Africa.

"What Do You Mean There Were No Tribes in Africa?":

Thoughts on Boundaries: And Related Matters In Precolonial Africa
Donald R. Wright
… the Luso-Africans, who resided along the lower and middle Gambia River in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Portuguese and Cape Verdean traders came to the Gambia in the fifteenth century
and took up residence along the river's banks. They and their descendants married local women, and over
the generations the offspring of such unions became progressively dark, until they were indistinguishable
physically from the Africans among whom they lived. Yet these Luso-Africans kept the trappings of their
Catholic faith.

Although the trading castles remained under the control of European metropoles, the
towns around them often developed independent political lives - separate from both
African and European domination. Meanwhile, their presence created political havoc,
enabling new men and women of commerce to gain prominence and threatening older,
often hereditary elites. Intermarriage with established peoples allowed creoles to
construct lineages that gained them full membership in local elites, something that
creoles eagerly embraced.

From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and

the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America
Ira Berlin
The resultant political turmoil promoted state formation along with new class relations and ideologies.
New religious forms emerged and then disappeared in much the same manner, as Europeans and Africans
brought to the enclaves not only their commercial and political aspirations but all the trappings of their
cultures as well. Priests and ministers sent to tend European souls made African converts, some of whom
saw Christianity as both a way to ingratiate themselves with their trading partners and a new truth.
Missionaries sped the process of christianization and occasionally scored striking successes. At the

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster
… the Iberian Jews arriving in Amsterdam in the early 17th century were known as "Portuguese" …"[g]enerally, the terminology
is 'Portuguese' without further differentiation, … not all 'Portuguese' came from Portugal." - Mark and da Silva Horta

beginning of the sixteenth century, the royal house of Kongo converted to Christianity. Catholicism, in
various syncretic forms, infiltrated the posts along the Angolan coast and spread northward. Islam filtered
in from the north.

Whatever the sources of the new religions, most converts saw little cause to surrender their own deities.
They incorporated Christianity and Islam to serve their own needs and gave Jesus and Mohammed a place Page | 28
in their spiritual pantheon. New religious practices, polities, and theologies emerged from the mixing of
Christianity, Islam, polytheism, and animism. Similar syncretic formations influenced the agricultural
practices, architectural forms, and sartorial styles as well as the cuisine, music, art, and technology of the
enclaves.

From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and

the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America
Ira Berlin

What distinguishes the economic activities of "the Portuguese

Nation" is precisely the seeming irrelevance of religion: openly
professing Jews and ostensible Catholics of Jewish background
traded with each other with few or no qualms.
Sephardic Business: Early Modern
Jonathan Schorsch

"For mine owne part, when I heare the Africans euill spoken of I
will affirme myself to be one of Granada; and when I perceue the
nation of Granada to be discommened then will I professe my
selfe to be an African." The early-sixteenth-century Muslim
traveler Leo Africanus

'You have to be Catholic to serve the loa'.

Two distinct religions coexist without merging.
Catholic influences are superficial in voodoo,
whose reality is African.
Kongo in Haiti:
A New Approach to Religious Syncretism
Luc de Heusch

… Yet many scholars continue to credit the tacit assumption that

the Jewish presence never extended beyond the northern termini
of trans-Saharan trade routes, believing that, at most, a few
Jewish traders may have ventured across the inhospitable
expanses of the desert.
Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry
Labelle Prussin

But the Atlantic route was not just a trade route. Both before and after 1630, it was a road that enabled a return to ancestral belief
and served to unify port Jewries on both sides of the ocean. Port Jews in the Dutch Atlantic World - Wim Klooster