mumbo jumbo [M18th] This is a use of maamajomboo, in the West African Mandinka language the name of a masked dancer in religious ceremonies. It was used in English to refer to a god or spirit worshipped in West Africa or more generally for an idol, ‘what keeps the Women in awe’ according to F. Moore, who is the first recorded user of the word in 1738. It is typical of dismissive Western European attitudes of the time that the same book, Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa, is also the first place we find the word in its modern sense of ‘meaningless language or ritual, nonsense’.