Magic as a Central Theme in Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain

Introduction: Magic and History

There has been magic in the world since time began. Even in the scientific world, which has little to do with metaphysics, magic holds a significant place — for how can a scientist explain the tiny bit of matter that became the universe without resorting to something like magic? Throughout history, magic has occupied a significant place in human culture because there are many things about this world that people still cannot explain, and so they reason that some unseen force must lie behind it. Zora Neale Hurston saw this in the biblical story of Moses, as have many others. Moses was able to do wondrous things with the staff he carried — the rod of power (Hurston) — because of its magic. This paper discusses magic as a central theme developed in Hurston's Moses: Man of the Mountain, examining it from the perspective of African history and exploring how that theme has played a part in the history of the continent and its people.

Magic in Africa

The people of Africa have long been thought to be superstitious. Whether or not this characterization is accurate is less important than what the unknown has produced in the culture and beliefs of the peoples who inhabit, and have inhabited, that land. It is worth noting that people around the world hold religious beliefs that are not generally labeled as magical thinking. Yet when similar beliefs appear in the various religions of Africa, they are often given that distinction. Of course, African traditions include beliefs in the dead returning to life, the power of the shaman to cast away evil, and the efficacy of potions and chants to rid people of disease and harm — but that description also sounds like a retelling of certain scenes in the Bible. The source and the people do not ultimately matter. Magic has been a constant since humans first walked the Earth, because there had to be some way to explain events that were beyond rational explanation.

Magic exists throughout the world as a concept, even if it is not an empirical reality, but in Africa it has always been part of everyday life. This is true to such an extent that when some African nations have constructed modern legal codes to govern citizens, lawmakers have had to take the magical thinking of the inhabitants into consideration (Rio). The main thrust of Rio's article concerns how the government of Vanuatu, an island in the South Pacific, has had to contend with magical belief in constructing a modern legal code. But in relation to Africa, he notes that "today, there are reports of widespread witchcraft beliefs and accusations in Africa bound up with situations of great change in relations of production and ideology" (Rio). This is not, then, an issue of one place or one people, but something that occurs around the world. Nevertheless, magic is deeply ingrained in African thought, and its roots, Hurston seems to suggest, lie in events that bring ancient African religion and Judeo-Christian beliefs together.

One researcher writes about a book published by a former slave and missionized Christian from Africa, noting that "Africa remains in need of the colonizing and missionizing efforts of Western Christians with whom he identifies himself, but with a difference. Here Africans are imaged as the center of Christian sacred history, the bearers of God's promises, the recipients of God's favor" (Elrod). This interpretation makes sense because the biblical account does seem to center on Africa, and archaeologists have found substantial evidence that human life began there. It is no surprise, then, that Hurston takes one of the central figures of the Judeo-Christian tradition and explores how he was blessed with magic that could be enhanced by the power of God (Mark).

The Theme of Magic in Hurston's Narrative

In the story of Moses there are many instances in which he requires some form of supernatural assistance for his story to continue. From his very beginnings — placed in a basket of reeds constructed by his mother and watched by his sister Miriam as it floated down the Nile (Ex. 2:3–4) — Moses led a blessed life. The fact that he escaped Pharaoh's edict that every Hebrew boy must die was a miracle in itself. About this event, Hurston writes:

"The birthing beds of Hebrews were matters of state. The Hebrew womb had fallen under the heel of Pharaoh. A ruler great in his newness and new in his greatness had arisen in Egypt and he had said, 'This is law. Hebrew boys shall not be born. All offenders against this law shall suffer death by drowning.'"

The Egyptian edict meant that Moses had no chance at life. Only a magical act could save him, and that chain of events began as soon as he was born, according to Hurston's narrative.

His father wanted to kill him quickly to silence him, because a baby boy could mean death for the entire family. But his mother saved him — driven by maternal instinct and also by the sense that he was special. After three months of living with his family, Moses was placed in the reed basket and set afloat on the river. The magic within him carried the basket to a spot where Pharaoh's daughter and her handmaidens were bathing. This is the second instance of the protective magic that surrounds Moses. These two events are dramatized in the book as evidence that Moses carries magic within himself. What the Judeo-Christian tradition would call providence — because God had a larger plan for his life — Hurston frames as magic.

Moses had some power of his own, which is evident in Hurston's recounting of his days at the foot of Mount Sinai before God sends him back to Egypt, and it can be seen in small events throughout the narrative. The manner in which he escapes the death penalty that would be expected of someone who kills a Jewish overseer is yet another example Hurston provides.

Moses bore an Egyptian name and was the adopted son of a princess of Egypt, yet he intuitively knew he was not Egyptian. Possibly the story of how he was found among the bulrushes had been told to him, or perhaps his birth mother — who became his nurse — had shared his Hebrew heritage with him. But if he had always known his origins, it is difficult to imagine how he could have endured the treatment of his people while living in the luxury of Pharaoh's house. The knowledge that he was a Hebrew came to him through his wife, who was attempting to destroy him. In the anguish of this discovery, he came upon an overseer beating a defenseless slave and killed the man. The next day his personal attendant warned him that Pharaoh knew of the act and intended to have him seized. The book frames even this chain of events as the workings of magic (Hurston).

Moses did not receive his greatest power, however, until after he exiled himself to the desert: "He was seeing visions of a nation he had never heard of where there would be more equality of opportunity and less difference between top and bottom" (Hurston). As this theme builds throughout the book, Hurston uses it as a parallel — from the very beginning — to the plight of Africans and their descendants in the United States. The language she employs is drawn from a Southern vernacular, and the visions Moses sees are of a promised land where the people he now knows he came from will be free. This is another dimension of the religious tradition that has developed over the millennia around Moses's power, and he is on the verge of acquiring the object that will become the symbol of that power.

At the foot of Sinai — the mountain named in the title — Moses meets his future wife and her father Jethro. In the novel, Jethro is a shepherd, as he is in the Bible, but he is also a man of magic who instructs Moses in the power that already exists within him. This is consistent with some of the legends that have grown up around Moses in the cults that still revere him today (Osahon). Jethro introduced Moses to the power he already possessed — Osahon states that many believe Jethro was the father of modern witchcraft — but God enhanced it (Hurston).

Moses spoke to God in the burning bush, glimpsed God's presence at the top of the mountain, encountered God during the crossing of the Arabian Peninsula, and received God in the tent during the Israelites' long trek through the wilderness. Moses returned to Egypt almost forty years after he had left it. He confronted Pharaoh over the evil treatment of the Hebrews and demanded their release. Famously, Pharaoh did not relent until Moses had orchestrated the Passover night, when the firstborn of Egypt were killed — except in those households that followed Moses's instruction, given by God, to paint the lintels of their doors with blood, so that the angel of death would pass over. Hurston, through her characters, frames this as magic: Moses has the power, enhanced by God, to summon the angel of death upon the Egyptians. The Israelites depart carrying Egypt's gold, only to be pursued by Pharaoh's army. The magic of Moses then parts the Red Sea, the armies of Egypt are destroyed, and Moses leads the people into the desert beyond.

Throughout the entire book, Hurston attributes the credit for the "magic" that occurs to Moses rather than to the Jewish God. Like many scholars who have studied the Moses story, she may not have accepted the biblical account of God at face value, but she does appear to believe in the power of Moses's rod. This reflects the kind of thinking found in Osahon's article regarding the true nature of the Hebrews and the origins of Judaism. The magic, in Hurston's telling, derives from the power that Jethro revealed to Moses, and though she acknowledges a belief that God enhanced Moses's power, Osahon and other African scholars locate that power in the man himself.

Conclusion

Hurston's book contains many themes that could have been examined — from her use of spoken Southern vernacular to the novel's relationship with the history of American slavery — but she infused it above all with the magical presence of Moses. In the book, the providence that guided Moses is certainly supernatural, but it is rarely presented as an external guiding force; instead, it appears as something internal to Moses himself. It is striking to see how Hurston has drawn on Moses myths known around the world and tied them to the acts portrayed in the Torah and the Bible. Hurston never explicitly states her own beliefs, but this fictionalized account of Moses's life makes clear the magic he lived with and commanded — a magic that belongs as much to African religious tradition as it does to the Judeo-Christian scriptures from which the story is drawn.

Works Cited

Elrod, Eileen R. "Moses and the Egyptian: Religious Authority in Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative." African-American Review 35.3 (2001): 409–427. Web.

Hurston, Zora N. Moses: Man of the Mountain. New York: Harper Collins, 2008. Print.

Mark, D. "Moses, Man of the Mountain — Zora Neale Hurston." A Noble Theme, 2011. Web.

Osahon, Naiwu. "The Jews Lied Against Africa to Ascend." Modern Ghana, 2009. Web.

Rio, Knut. "Handling Sorcery in a State System of Law: Magic, Violence and Kastom in Vanuatu." Web.