Marie Thérèse Alourdes Macena Champagne Lovinski (1933–2020),[1][2] also known by the name Mama Lola, was a Haitian-born manbo (priestess) in the African diasporic religion of Haitian Vodou.
She was a highly regarded healer, ritualizer, and spiritual guide in a close-knit community of Haitian immigrants in New York City and their networks along the eastern seaboard and abroad by the time she met anthropologist and religious studies scholar Karen McCarthy Brown in 1978.
Importantly, she deepened and expanded her own networks in Caribbean New York and Eastern Canada, the Haitian diaspora, Afro-diasporic religious and cultural centers throughout the United States, and among people unfamiliar with Vodou yet drawn to her as her extended spiritual family grew and she gained greater visibility.
[11] After she became pregnant with her first son “Jean Pierre” (pseudonym) at age fourteen through a relationship with another teenager, she moved from her brother and sister-in-law's home to her mother’s house in the Bas-Peu-de-Chose neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.
[13][14][15][16] Although she performed sacred songs for the Troupe, she had not taken formal steps to become initiated into Vodou, having largely observed her mother's spiritual and ceremonial work from a distance.
[19] Mama Lola's financial situation deteriorated severely after her separation from her husband and at a time when working women were often pressured into bartering sex for job opportunities.
[30] In 1978, Mama Lola met Karen McCarthy Brown, an anthropologist who was then working for the Brooklyn Museum on an ethnographic survey of the local Haitian immigrant community.
[31][32] Brown had been conducting research in Haiti since 1973 and earned her PhD in 1976 from Temple University but she considered the first meeting with Mama Lola as her introduction to spiritual leaders in the Haitian diasporic community of New York City.
[35] Brown addressed the process behind her writing and inserting herself as a character in her publications as a way "to allow readers to see my point of view (another term for bias) and make their own judgments about it"; to do justice to Mama Lola's story and include specific intimate details that Mama Lola deemed important; and to counter the "distorted image" of Vodou.
[37] For the first edition of her book, Brown agreed to Mama Lola's request to protect her and her family's privacy by using pseudonyms and photos in which they could not be identified.
[41] As Brown explained, Mama Lola became "something of a celebrity" where she was sought out for public engagements and spiritual work by a broad range of people.
[43] Their activities included their participation as a special delegation in 1993 at the invitation of the president of Benin Nicephore Soglo to a two-week-long series of events commemorating called "Reunion of Vodun Cultures", where Mama Lola formed what became a lasting friendship with the late Daagbo Hounon Houna (1916–2004), the Supreme Chef of Vodun in Ouidah, and their serving on the advisory board and lecture circuit for the 1995 "The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou" exhibition held at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.
[43][44][45][46] In a shorter 1999 article, chapter in a 2001 anthology, and the 2001 edition's afterword, Brown described challenges and changes in her relationship with Mama Lola as they increasingly participated in public events together that celebrated Mama Lola's role as a transnational leader of African diasporic religious traditions and emergent spiritual practices and highlighted the legacy of transatlantic slavery and impact of contemporary racism.
The publication of the Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou book on the exhibit revealed more about Mama Lola's identity, including photographs of her person.
[54][55] The Congress of Santa Barbara (KOSANBA), a scholarly association for the study of Haitian Vodou, undertook "the project that was closest to Karen's heart" of translating Mama Lola into French and thus making it and Mama Lola's story accessible to a broader audience of readers in Haiti and the French-speaking world (projected publication date in 2022).
[61][62] Mama Lola received broad recognition by New York-based community organizations and institutions that celebrate African American and Caribbean women's leadership and Haitian cultural heritage.
Among her closest Santería friends were priestesses in Oakland with whom she would visit, participate in cultural activities and ceremonies locally, and undertake healing work.
Mama Lola became a public face of Haitian Vodou in New Orleans through additional relationships Voodoo Authentica had cultivated and sustained over the years.
[74][75][76] Mama Lola gradually withdrew from public life as her daughter Maggie, her granddaughter Marsha, her close manbo and oungan friends, and her pitit fèys (spiritual children) took on some of the duties she once performed in New York, Haiti, and New Orleans.