African-American

07/27/2004

Black Frizzle and White Frizzle Chicks three weeks old.

Red Frizzle Chick

Home Up African-American Appalachia Le Traiteur Native American Pennsylvania Dutch Pennsylvania Dutch Vodun Hoodoo is sometimes known as Rootworking or Conjuring.	Introduction to Hoodoo
	This is a non-religious magickal system developed in America by African-Americans. Hoodoo is a dynamic mixture of the beliefs of Africans and those of Native Americans, Christians, Jews, and European pagans.
	Hoodoo is often confused with Voodoo (Voudun) which is a religion. Hoodoo has no God-worship elements but uses magick to control situations in life. Unlike pow-wow, it has less emphasis on curing, and more on obtaining the heart's desire. Some hoodoo is intended to harm others, or involves practices we would consider cruel to animals. I do not share or discuss any of these aspects of hoodoo on this website.
	Harry M. Hyatt This Episcopal priest did extensive research into Hoodoo magickal practices as a young man in the 1930s and again, upon his retirement in the 1970s. He published a collection in the 1930s with the negro dialect heavily edited. The works he published in the 1970s contained the original dialects of the people interviewed.
	Throughout this website, I quote spells directly from Hyatt's source work. I have left all the spells as he collected them, in the original dialect.
	In the spells listed here, any questions or comments made by Hyatt (as interviewer) are indicated in parentheses.

For the absolute best web source EVER on Hoodoo, visit the Lucky Mojo Curio Co.	Folk-Lore From Adams County Illinois was Hyatt's original work published in 1935. *Hoodoo - Conjuration - Witchcraft - Rootwork* was Hyatt's multi-volume second work, produced in the 1970s. This work contains Hoodoo practices from across the Midwest and South.
	In both books, all the people interviewed were African-American. For details on this collector of Hoodoo magickal practices, consult the Lucky Mojo Curio Co.
	Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by Catherine Yronwode	Rootwork: Using the Folk Magick of Black...		Hoodoo Medicine: Gullah Herbal Remedies
	Check out Cat's Hoodoo feather magick!
Hoodoo Practices
The mojo bag is central to hoodoo. The bag has different contents depending on use and can be carried on a person or placed somewhere for magical purposes. A mojo bag should only be touched and used by its owner.
Ritual Baths are an important aspect of hoodoo.
Using magickal powders is also a key element of hoodoo. Powders can be made from minerals or herbs, and often graveyard dust. Powders can go into a mojo bag, or be sprinkled, laid down in a specific pattern, or blown (at a place, person, object, or animal.)
A black hen's egg, blown out and filled with magickal powders can be strong hoodoo!
Goofer dust is a key ingredient in many Hoodoo powders. Modern practitioners can purchase it pre-made but old time conjurers made their own from mixing graveyard dust, dog dirt and chicken dirt until it looked like black pepper. Presumably, "dirt" meant feces.
The Chicken in Hoodoo
As stated earlier, I do not intend to share a comprehensive view of the chicken in hoodoo practices. It is my belief that there is always someone "out there" who will read about something and then do it. I will not be responsible, even indirectly, for any act that could be harmful to another person or cruel to an animal. Suffice it to say that, in many many cultures, chickens were the economically affordable animal sacrifice. One would never kill the family cow to work a cure, or to take revenge on a neighbor. But an old hen, or a spare rooster was rarely missed. Even magick is subject to the constraints of economics!
I will, however, share one ritual sacrifice practice (below) as an example. 'Nuff said.
Frizzly Chicken - Picks up Conditions - vol.2, P.968 "De frizzly chicken, all I've heard, picks up conditions." [New Orleans, LA. Informant# not indicated; E6:7-E19:3 = 2839-2852]
I do not know whether this is a reference to the chicken rooting out the powders laid by enemies, or the practice of using the frizzly chicken to draw illness out of a person.

Crossroads Magick
It was common to select the crossroads for works of magick because it was seen as an in-between place and unfixed, where one could still influence the course of action. The practitioner often encountered magickal animals as well as gods and devils during their spell work there. A black rooster was one of the most common animals encountered.
356. "Now de fo'ks of de road -- now, in case dis is whut chew wanta do, if yo' wanta learn hoodooism. See, if you wanta learn hoodooism, you go to de fo'ks of de road. Go dere -- yo' leave home zactkly five minutes of twelve an' have yo' a fo'k. Git chew a bran'-new silver fo'k an' git to de fo'ks of de road an' git down on your knees an' stick dat fo'k in de groun'; see, an' anything on earth yuh wants tuh learn an' know, things will come 'fore yo' an' tell yo' what to do. See. But chew got'a be dere zactly twelve 'clock -- go dere de third day but it's got'a be in de night, twelve 'clock in de night." [Mobile, Alabama, (656),937:3).]
In this spell, the things coming before you meant the magickal animals, quite possibly a black rooster.
	Sometimes, however, the rooster was red.		*The Barn Goddess says check this out!* Black Magic: Religion and the African...
333. "You go to the fork of the road on Sunday morning before day, go there for nine times in succession before the sun rise and make a special wish, a special desire, and whatever you want to do, if it's to be a conjure or to be a bad person, then the devil comes there. First comes a red rooster, then after that the devil sends something else in the shape of a bear and after that he comes himself and takes hold of your hands and tells you to go on in the world and do anything that chew want to do." [Elizabeth City, North Carolina, (182)]
The "devil" referred to here was really a version of an old African god or magickal being and not Satan.
Here is my one edited example of a sacrifice for magickal purpose. This is not the complete spell. I have omitted key elements on purpose.
To Learn to Play the Guitar		*Funky Chicken*
341. "If yo' want tuh learn to pick a guitar, go to a road nine Sunday mawnin's -- de fo'ks of de road, nine Sunday mawnin's. But 'fore yo' evah go tuh to learn yo'self, dey way fo' yo' tuh do -- git a rooster, an if he ain't blind, have some de young ones to knock his eye out... Don' do it chewse'f, but have somebody else tuh do it...Ah reckon yo' heerded dat ole song -- dey say long time ago it was named atter [after] [what a] root worker done, chew know. Dey say 'The Ole Blind Rooster, When He Comes.' ...Yuh kill de rooster and eat him, but don' eat none of it yo'self, see. You git de drumstick an' de eye -- take de eye time yo' kill him and bury it undah yo' step an' let nobody know whut chew done wit' it. Den yo take de drumstick an yo' go down to de fo'rk of de road Sunday mawnin' 'fore day, jes' right round 'bout three a'clock an' when yo' go dere, well, wanta learn tuh play de guitar..."
Then on the successive Sunday mornings there will be animal visitors at the crossroads while you pick guitar and on the final Sunday, a "li'l ole funny boy" who will "play all dumb" when you speak to him, but in the end will teach you to pick guitar. [Fayetteville, North Carolina, (1438), 2581:1.]
To Learn Tricks
340. "Jes' lak if yo' wanta learn some tricks, yo' know, yo' kin take a black chicken an' go dere fo' nine mawnin's, to de fo'k of de road. Have yo' a further road -- both of 'em public roads each way, not no blind roads, yo' know. Both of 'em have tuh be public roads, forkin'. Yo' take dis chicken an' go dere fo' nine mawnin's an' on de ninth mawnin' de devil will meet chew dere. An' he will learn {teach you} -- well, anything yo' wanta learn." (Do you do anything with that chicken?) "De chicken, he have tuh be live. Yo' ketch him alive an' carry him to de fo'k of de road, an' yo' go fo' nine mawnin's, an' on de ninth mawnin' he'll meet chew dere." [Fayetteville, North Carolina, (1415), 2528:3.]
Voodoo & Hoodoo: Their Tradition and...	Clara and the Hoodoo Man	Black & White Magic		Charms, Spells, and Formulas

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