Mumbo Jumbo is a funny and creative novel written by Ishmael Reed, an African American author born in 1938. The story takes place in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s; a time of great change, music, and cultural pride in black communities. The book was first published in 1972 and is now seen as one of Reed’s most important works.
Reed is known for using humour and imagination to challenge the way history has been told, especially from a European or Western point of view. Before Mumbo Jumbo, he wrote other satirical novels like The Free-Lance Pallbearers and Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down. Those earlier books were sometimes criticised for being too strange or for having unrealistic characters, but Mumbo Jumbo succeeded where they didn’t. It brings together laughter, mystery, and serious ideas in a balanced and powerful way.
In Mumbo Jumbo, we follow a special character called PaPa LaBas. He is a black HooDoo priest and detective. He solves mysteries using spiritual knowledge and traditional African beliefs. His mission is to stop a strange “epidemic” called Jes Grew, which is actually not harmful but represents African music, dance, and culture spreading across America. The people in power want to stop Jes Grew because it threatens their control and their version of history.
One of the best things about this novel is how it mixes real events with made-up stories. Reed uses this technique to show how some truths have been hidden or changed in history books. But instead of just complaining, he offers a fun, exciting story that teaches readers to think for themselves.
A key idea in the novel is called Neo-HooDoo. This is Reed’s way of saying that black people can create a proud and powerful identity by connecting the old African ways with new, modern ways of living. It shows that African American culture is flexible, creative, and able to survive even when others try to erase it.
In summary, Mumbo Jumbo is a detective story that celebrates black history, culture, and imagination.
Plot Summary of Mumbo Jumbo
Mumbo Jumbo is a creative and experimental novel that mixes fiction with real history. The story centers on Jes Grew, a mysterious “epidemic” of joy and excitement that starts in New Orleans and quickly spreads across the U.S. It makes people dance, laugh, and embrace life through jazz, blues, ragtime, slang, and black culture. But Jes Grew needs its Text to stay alive, and this Text is believed to be hidden somewhere in Manhattan.
The novel is set in Harlem in the 1920s, during the Harlem Renaissance, a period of great African American artistic and cultural growth. A man named PaPa LaBas is trying to find both the lost Text and the person who killed Abdul Hamid. His search leads him back to ancient Egypt, where he learns about two opposing forces: Osiris, the life-loving Egyptian god who started the movement behind Jes Grew, and Set, his brother, who leads a group called the Atonists, an anti-life group determined to stop Jes Grew.
The original teachings of Jes Grew were written in a sacred book called The Book of Thoth. In 1118, during the Crusades, the Knights Templar, a secret Christian group, found the book. One of their members, Hinckle Von Vampton, stole it.
When the Knights were outlawed in 1307, Von Vampton fled with the Text. Wherever he went, Jes Grew mysteriously reappeared as people sensed the power of the Text nearby.
Now, during the 1920s outbreak in Harlem, Von Vampton is working as a newspaper editor. He releases parts of the Text in a newspaper targeting black readers and makes a deal with the Atonists to help them fight Jes Grew in exchange for power. The Text ends up with Abdul Hamid, who refuses to give it back, so Von Vampton kills him.
PaPa LaBas finds Abdul’s body and a clue in his hand that points to the Text’s location. As a hoodoo practitioner and spiritual detective, LaBas is drawn to the Text’s deeper meaning. It could help free African Americans spiritually and culturally. However, LaBas is also struggling. His assistants have left, and he has argued with Abdul about the best way to organise and empower black communities.
One of LaBas’ former assistants, Berbelang, leads a group called the Mu’tafikah, who steal back African art from museums and return it to its rightful owners. They capture Biff Musclewhite, a former police commissioner, but he escapes and kills Berbelang.
Still, the Mu’tafikah succeed in recovering important cultural artifacts and send them to Benoit Battraville, a Haitian rebel inspired by freedom fighters like Toussaint L’Ouverture.
In the end, LaBas and magician Black Herman arrest Von Vampton and another Templar named Gould, who has been disguising himself in Blackface to spread anti-Jes Grew messages. They hand both men over to Battraville for justice.
Jes Grew begins to fade away. LaBas and Black Herman find the hiding spot of the Text under the Cotton Club, but it’s gone. In a letter, Abdul explains he burned the Text, fearing it would harm rather than help African Americans.
In the epilogue, set in the 1960s, PaPa LaBas gives a lecture at a university. He tells students that the battle between Jes Grew and the Atonists is not over, but he believes Jes Grew will eventually win.
Characters
The characters in Mumo Jumbo include PaPa LaBas, Earline, Berbelang, Abdul Sufi Hamid, Hinckle Von Vampton, Biff Musclewhite, and Woodrow Wilson Jefferson.
PaPa LaBas
PaPa LaBas is a 100-year-old Neo-HooDoo detective who lives in Harlem at the Mumbo Jumbo Kathedral. He acts as a spiritual guide, committed to preserving African traditions and fighting against forces that suppress black culture.
More than just a detective, he represents creativity, Afrocentric knowledge, and the struggle to stay spiritually connected in a modern world that often ignores the past.
Though he’s mystical, he also questions whether his beliefs still matter in today’s changing society.
Earline
Earline is PaPa LaBas’ most trusted companion. Unlike many characters in the novel, she shows real emotional depth.
Her heartbreak over the death of Berbelang pushes her into a spiritual crisis. After being possessed by a spirit, she is healed through an exorcism. Her journey shows how human feelings and Afrocentric spirituality can intertwine.
She’s one of the few characters who grows emotionally and personally.
Berbelang
Berbelang is a passionate black revolutionary who used to work with PaPa LaBas but breaks away because he thinks LaBas focuses too much on conspiracy theories.
Berbelang is more action-driven. He is interested in physically reclaiming stolen African art and making radical political change. He represents a more militant side of black activism that clashes with LaBas’ spiritual approach.
Abdul Sufi Hamid (Johnny James)
Abdul is a serious black Muslim who criticises PaPa LaBas for being too spiritual and not practical enough. He believes black people need real-world solutions, not mysticism.
Abdul represents a strict, organised, and grounded view of black progress, focused more on discipline and political structure than cultural or spiritual renewal.
Hinckle Von Vampton
Von Vampton is a white man, centuries old, and the editor of The Benign Monster. He illegally possesses the sacred Jes Grew Text and works to control or destroy black cultural expression.
He symbolises the anti-life force known as Atonism—a rigid, suppressive mindset trying to erase African culture.
As a villain, he’s more of a symbol of white manipulation and cultural theft than a realistic character.
Biff Musclewhite
Once a police commissioner and now a museum curator, Musclewhite is a cartoonish figure whose name matches his personality: forceful and brutal.
He represents the white establishment’s control over black art and culture, protecting museums that hold stolen heritage. His actions show how violence is often used to silence black resistance.
Woodrow Wilson Jefferson
Woodrow is a naïve young black man from rural Mississippi who never quite adapts to city life. He stands in for African Americans who are disconnected from their cultural history and unsure how to navigate modern life.
His character doesn’t grow, which reflects how some people get stuck when they have no strong cultural foundation.
Themes in Mumbo Jumbo
The major themes in Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed are life vs. death, historical revisionism, afrocentric identity, ideological extremism, double consciousness, and cultural theft.
Theme of Life Versus Death
Mumbo Jumbo is a powerful conflict between life and death, symbolised through the forces of Eros (love, vitality, creativity) and Thanatos (destruction, control, repression). This theme is most clearly expressed in the novel’s central tension between Jes Grew (a lively, uncontrollable cultural force inspired by African music and dance) and the Atonists (a secret white-dominated group determined to suppress it).
Jes Grew is described like a spirit or virus that causes people to dance, celebrate, and reconnect with their African roots. It spreads joy and energy wherever it goes. In contrast, the Atonists—who stand for rigid order, seriousness, and domination—see Jes Grew as a threat to the “civilised” world. They represent a death-seeking culture that wants to erase spontaneity, emotion, and freedom.
Reed uses this conflict to symbolise a broader human struggle: the fight between embracing life with all its color, movement, and messiness or choosing a lifeless system of repression, violence, and control. The Atonists celebrate extinction (like cheering the death of the watercress darter fish), while Jes Grew insists on survival, rebirth, and cultural joy.
Theme of Historical Revisionism
Mumbo Jumbo is also a sharp critique of how history has been written and who gets to write it. Reed uses the novel to rewrite history from an African American perspective to challenge the traditional, Eurocentric versions that dominate schoolbooks, museums, and popular culture.
Characters like Hinckle Von Vampton, a white editor who illegally possesses the Jes Grew text, symbolise how white institutions often take control of African cultural stories and rewrite them to suit their own purposes. By placing stolen texts and artifacts in museums or burying African contributions under lies, these powers distort the truth of black history.
Through the character of PaPa LaBas and his Neo-HooDoo detective work, Reed uncovers the hidden histories of African peoples. He reimagines the ancient conflict between Osiris and Set from Egyptian mythology as the original battle between life and death, suggesting that Africa—not Europe—is the true birthplace of civilisation and spiritual knowledge.
Reed questions how history is made and who controls the narrative.
Theme of Afrocentric Identity
Reed uses Mumbo Jumbo to affirm a proud and powerful sense of Afrocentric identity, one that is rooted in African heritage and not dependent on European approval. He does this through the concept of Neo-HooDoo, a flexible, spiritual philosophy based on African and African American traditions.
PaPa LaBas, the novel’s detective and spiritual guide, practices Neo-HooDoo. He draws strength from Haitian Vodun, African myth, and black community rituals. Neo-HooDoo is not about strict rules or closed systems; it adapts, changes, and thrives in the face of oppression. It celebrates storytelling, music, dance, improvisation, and healing.
This Afrocentric worldview values connection to ancestors, the use of black vernacular, and the resilience of African American culture. Reed inserts real-life black historical figures like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston into the novel to remind readers that black cultural excellence has always existed, even if history books have ignored it.
Theme of Ideological Extremism
Mumbo Jumbo presents a satirical take on ideological extremism, when people become so devoted to a belief system that they lose sight of common sense. Reed shows how rigid ideologies can be dangerous and even ridiculous.
Characters in the novel represent different extremes. There are Abdul Sufi Hamid and Berbelang on one end. Abdul Sufi Hamid, a militant black Muslim, burns the sacred Jes Grew text because he sees it as too immoral. Though he claims to fight for black liberation, his rejection of African spirituality and culture reveals how extreme puritanism can harm the very people it claims to protect.
Similarly, Berbelang, a revolutionary, breaks away from PaPa LaBas because he views LaBas’s concern with history and conspiracy as a distraction. Berbelang’s refusal to listen shows how ideological rigidity can divide allies fighting the same battle.
On the other end, groups like the Atonists and Wallflower Order represent white supremacist control of society. They seek to crush all cultural difference in favour of a cold, oppressive “order.”
Reed mocks all sides that take themselves too seriously or demand total control. He warns that when people follow any ideology blindly without balance or flexibility, they risk becoming tools of destruction rather than progress.
Theme of Double Consciousness
The concept of double consciousness, introduced by W.E.B. Du Bois, describes the inner conflict African Americans feel as they try to live in a society that devalues their identity. It’s the sense of looking at oneself through the eyes of a racist society while also trying to maintain self-respect and cultural pride.
In Mumbo Jumbo, this theme plays out in how black characters navigate between two worlds. PaPa LaBas embodies this tension. He lives in modern Harlem but is deeply connected to ancient African traditions and spiritual practices. He must balance the roles of detective, spiritual healer, and cultural historian. He is constantly shifting between what the dominant (white) world expects and what his community truly needs.
The novel’s structure itself reflects double consciousness: it mixes African oral traditions, black vernacular, and Western historical references. It refuses to be one thing. It mirrors the fragmented, layered identity many African Americans experience.
Theme of Cultural Theft
One of the most important and recurring themes in Mumbo Jumbo is cultural theft. Reed portrays the stealing and repackaging of African and African American culture by white institutions.
Hinckle Von Vampton, a white editor, illegally holds the Jes Grew text, a sacred document tied to black spiritual heritage. His control over the text represents how dominant cultures steal, censor, or distort black culture while claiming to “protect” or “preserve” it.
Museums and academic institutions are portrayed as places that strip African artifacts of meaning, turning sacred objects into lifeless exhibits. This mirrors real-life colonial practices where African cultural items were taken during conquest and now sit in European and American museums.
The Atonists, who fight Jes Grew, are determined to erase the memory of African civilization, rewrite history in Europe’s image, and suppress any force (like Jes Grew) that might reconnect African Americans to their past.
Reed uses satire to expose how cultural theft isn’t just about objects but about identity, power, and memory. He makes a case for reclaiming cultural heritage physically, spiritually and intellectually.
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