Syncretism and Masking

A highly influential 1941 study proposed that African religious content simply survived disguised as Catholic imagery. Later scholars have argued this 'masking' framing actually understates the genuine, deliberate theological work African-descended practitioners were doing. This entry reports that scholarly debate; living traditions with initiatory boundaries are not described in ritual detail here.

Melville Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past (1941); critiques from Andrew Apter and others since 1991