Commentary on Primary Source
For students and teachers, this section provides an example of a primary source document. It is also meant to serve as an example for how historians can make use of these sources. In general, this page offers a glimpse into the Web of Healing through local archival materials.
Healing and Spirituality:
A Gris-Gris from the West Indies
Gris-Gris (courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia)
This fragment from the Koran is known as a “gris-gris”, which is a West African-style charm. Though the inscription — rendered in Arabic script — has not been translated, we know it was made in 1773. An educated Muslim priest enslaved in Leoganne, St. Domingue (known also as Santo Domingo) created it for a Swiss-born naturalist named Pierre Eugene DuSimitiere who brought it to Philadelphia in 1774. When DuSimitiere left Philadelphia for the afterlife in 1784, the gris-gris stayed behind. It is currently stored at the Library Company of Philadelphia, where it has been since his death.
As discussed in the other essays in this portion of the Web of Healing, we know that many of the African Americans living in Philadelphia in the late 18th century were descended either from slaves brought directly to the city from West Africa or were first enslaved in the West Indies and later transported to Philadelphia (see introduction). So although the charm was created in the West Indies and reflects West African tradition, it would have been familiar to many of the African Americans living in Philadelphia at the time.
Gris-gris were important in healing practices that involved conjuring and divining. These practices were closely associated with the supernatural and spiritual realms and would be utilized for protection from sickness or for illnesses that were not responsive to other methods.
Though scholars are in general agreement about how gris-gris were used, they do provide different perspectives on the origin of the term. Religious studies scholar Yvonne Chireau notes that European travelers, who found protective charms to be ubiquitous among African people, called them gree-gree or gris-gris, a term from the West African Mande language that related to spiritual force. African-American studies scholar Katherine Bankole asserts it is derived from the French word for “gray”, meant to evoke the multi-ingredient potions created by African diviners. Indeed, a gris-gris could be much more complicated than the strip of paper represented here. They often contained animating “medicines”, which might include human remains such as hair, bones, or nail clippings. Some charms involved actual living creatures . . . which are hard to preserve in an archive!
In this way, the fact that this particular gris-gris is in written form enabling it to be preserved, presents us with a fascinating piece of material culture, providing a glimpse into the experience of healing among certain African Americans in places like Philadelphia during the 18th century. Indeed, this gris-gris is interesting, not least of all because it helps us to recognize that the experience of healing among African Americans in 18th-century Philadelphia was characterized by attention to spiritual beliefs (see overview). This is not to say that African Americans did not also engage in more “conventional techniques” such as herbalism — which often involved roots — or even the doctoring of physicians like James Derham. While it would be inaccurate to assert that all African Americans participated in forms of conjuring, for most, healing was linked to spiritual factors — many healers saw themselves as possessing spiritual gifts and the healing experience held spiritual dimensions for patients as well. Indeed, the connection between healing and spirituality is, perhaps, one of the most resonant features of healing among African Americans during the time period, regardless of where they lived.
That this gris-gris was given to and saved by a European-American also gives us an opportunity to think about how whites might have regarded such charms. Although some scholars have recounted the fears of whites — particularly southern plantation owners — that their slaves would use their knowledge of conjuring to do harm, those who have focused on healing among African Americans in the North have used sources like this gris-gris as a means of exploring the active and passive exchange of ideas in the realm of the spiritual and supernatural belief between Americans of African and European descent. We know that charm-making customs were a part of white folk beliefs of the time and many of blacks’ spiritually-inclined beliefs about, and approaches to, healing resembled or were even shared by whites. Interestingly, it has been historians investigating the experiences of blacks in the 18th century who have pointed out that they were not the only Americans who held prominent spiritual-healing beliefs (Chireau, Pierson, Raboteau).