Afrocentric mythology and cultural retentions in the African-American novel

The impact and influence of the cosmological, religious, and cultural mythologies of Western Africa on the literary landscape of the United States cannot be overestimated. Orishas from Fon, Yoruba, Mende, Santerian, and Voudon pantheons appear throughout the modern African-American novel, particularly novels by women.;Margaret Walker's Jubilee; Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones, Praisesong for the Widow, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, and Daughters; Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Sula, Tar Baby, Song of Solomon, and Beloved; Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo; and the novels of contemporary new authors (Edwidge Danticat, Arthur Flowers, Barbara Neely, Tina McElroy Ansa and Maxine Clair) under discussion here demonstrate a clearly discernable pattern of African cultural retentions.;Walker's historical novel contains vivid portraits of Ogun and Eshu, two significant Yoruba deities. Morrison and Marshall reject Eurocentric mythologies as viable paradigms of interpretation. Shange delivers three religions of the Diaspora--Santeria, Voudon, and Yoruba--in her delineation of three Charleston sisters. Using an Afrocentric-based belief system as a basis of critical interpretation elucidates the embedded Africanisms embraced by African-American authors.