Mumbo Jumbo

English translates Mumbo Jumbo to 'Big empty talk'.

I love etymology, it's one of my hobbies. Words are one of my favorite things and if you can source the history of a word you understand them better. I also enjoy as a hobby figuring where someone is from by their accent/word usage/sentence structure. It's a game I play in my mind. If they are from one area but holiday in another region regularly they adopt patterns into their speech-I get as specific as I can. It's useful and it helps to communicate better when you have an understanding of where they are from. It makes me gay when I get it correct. Gay means happy...if someone is gay, that means they are happy. 

I grew up with the term Mumbo Jumbo in our house. Half the time I open my mouth I speak Mumbo Jumbo. Ha! I was born in Liberia and I think I took an understanding of Mumbo Jumbo with me through osmosis sometimes. 

I used to love to sit in a full restaurant in Okinawa, before I could understand some of the language...it was a beautiful white noise because I didn't know what they were saying. It sounded like a song, sometimes sad others happy. I care to know things though and quickly started listening closer. I turned on Japanese talk radio and listened. My hairdresser was a local and she would practice her English and I my Japanese as we sat with tea and cookies. Her shop was down the street from me in Awase, near Sam's by the Sea. I feel bad for every taxi driver that took me anywhere in Oki still...I was either asking questions or giving directions in Mumbo Jumbo (leftu or rightu works but doesn't mean anything, forku is a real word though as is beeru...)...now you know two Japanese words...hahahahahaha.) Most people would take an actually class, that to me would be torture, so I have to figure out a different way.  

I've almost always had 'foreign' languages around me. 5 times a day I heard the Adhan, for 8 years.

Back to Mumbo Jumbo, it comes from West Africa, as do I. You should look up the history of Mumbo Jumbo for fun.

There was a man in Liberia, when we lived there. He was working for one of the companies operating out of Monrovia. He had reneged on a deal or lied about some aspect to a local. Never piss off the locals. Witch Doctors are real whether you believe in them or not. If some one else does believe then they have power. The local went to the Witch Doctor and made his complaint. They spun their words towards the man who had done him wrong. A few days later that man woke up and a spider had eaten his flesh. He packed his bags and did not come back. This actually happened. Was it voodoo or magic or power of suggestion? Or a hungry spider?...Mumbo Jumbo has power in those that believe. 

"Be careful what you do,

Or Mumbo-Jumbo, 

God of the Congo,

And all of the other

Gods of the Congo,

Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,

Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,

Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you."-Vachel Lindsay

We are in a religious war against big empty talk, which is their religion, they being the people screaming lies in your heads, there are consequences for their words. If people believe in them but don't understand what they are saying and keep repeating it it becomes a truth to them. They believe in what they are saying. 

Big empty talk is all I hear around us these days. They don't know the power of the Mumbo Jumbo. I know the power of words. I'm a Liberian Witch Practitioner. We use words to push forward the future. Mumbo Jumbo can have power over others so you must be thoughtful in what you say to do no harm. You have to see the consequences before you and weigh them all looking far into the future. 

You haven't misunderstood all the things you hear and see around you in the news, on social media and from the mouths of politicians. You hear it all loud and clear. It's Mumbo Jumbo. It's one of my favorite languages, I know it well. It's one of the languages in which I'm fluent, one of the others is profanity. 

Be still and listen

One day I will tell you a story

I once spent a Samhain in New Orleans. A place filled with old magic I understand on a day when it's easier to speak with the long forgotten. The voices were loud; most around me couldn't hear them. They came at me wave after wave till I could do nothing but breath it all in just wanting fresh air. It didn't matter the trash on the ground, the smell of urine in the streets, the lady with her hand out. The bump of another into your own space...it disappeared. The Spirits of the past walked with me through the back streets as they told me stories.