Mama Lola Book Review

Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn This book talks about Mama Lola life and family heritage and how she becomes a healer in the Vodou religion. Marie Therese Alourdes Macena Champagne Lovinski or known as Mama Lola to everyone. She is the most famous Vodou priestess in the United States. The ethnographic book was written by Karen McCarthy who came in contact with Mama Lola in the 70’s and came very interested in the culture of Haitian Vodou. McCarthy becomes part of Mama Lola’s family and documents her life and her past. McCarthy wanted to learn about the Vodou culture, how it operates, who the spirits in the culture are and how you can please them. But her ultimate goal in this research is to find out how Vodou is a religion and how people relate to the culture. Mama Lola has become an important spiritual leader with the practice of Vodou in the United States where she lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. The book is an ethnographic spiritual biography because it does not follow the standard biography format because this book goes through Mama
She is carious of how the people in Haiti is able survive especially Mama Lola. Then the other part of the book is learning about Vodou through following Mama Lola. The ethnographer is convincing with her methods because she got first-hand experience with talking to Mama Lola and learning from her, she doesn’t just go through books and write the books. She goes and meets Mama Lola, makes trips to Haiti with her and family and becomes part of her family. McCarthy does not generalize anything in the book because every chapter and the history goes into so much detail that sometimes I felt like it was going into too much detail. I think reading this book I learned more about the Haitian and Vodou culture which makes me value my culture and other cultures more than reading this book and taking this