Abstract: Studies of African-derived religious traditions have generally focused on their retention of African elements. This emphasis slights the ways in which communities in the African diaspora have created and formed new religious meaning. In this fieldwork-based study, this book shows that African people have been agents of their own religious, ritual, and theological formation. The book examines the African-derived and African-centered traditions in historical and contemporary Jamaica: Myal, Obeah, Native Baptist, Revival/Zion, Kumina, and Rastafari, drawing on them to forge a new womanist liberation theology for the Caribbean.

Keywords: religion, Africa, diaspora, ritual, theology, traditions, Jamaica, Myal, Obeah, Native Baptist