Mumbo Jumbo (phrase)
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- For the video game character see Mumbo Jumbo (Banjo-Kazooie).
Mumbo Jumbo, or mumbojumbo is an English phrase or expression that denotes a confusing or meaningless subject. It is often used as humorous expression of criticism of middle-management and civil service non-speak, and of belief in something considered non-existent by the speaker (ghosts, supernatural phenomena, superstitious beliefs, etc.). Even long after the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, the term continues to be used derisively of Roman Catholicism, as in the The Independent headline of December 24, 1995: "`Mumbo-jumbo' is no bar to Queen Camilla, say experts."
It was coined during the time when Great Britain was colonizing areas of the globe inhabited by native tribes that practiced what seemed to the foreigners mysterious and puzzling rituals which were then called "Mumbo Jumbo", after a supposed idol. One of the sources for the English usage is the Vachel Lindsay poem The Congo, which contains the phrase "Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo". Some believe mumbo jumbo is a translation of the Swahili greeting "Mambo Jambo".[1] Mungo Park's travel journal, Travels in the Interior of Africa (1795) describes 'Mumbo Jumbo' as a character, complete with "masquerade habit", that Mandinka males would dress up in order to resolve domestic disputes.[2]
According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary:
- Mumbo Jumbo is a noun and is the name of a grotesque idol said to have been worshipped by some tribes. In its figurative sense, Mumbo Jumbo is an object of senseless veneration or a meaningless ritual.
