6
The foundation of Black Belt Hoodoo practices that developed from the memories of captured slaves created the bedrock for spiritual and healing practices in the African American plantation communities. It endured despite untenably oppressive conditions and defied aggressive legislation intended to entirely eradicate it. Its ability to adapt to ongoing transition accounts for its very survival. The American South availed itself of every opportunity to destroy the African Traditional Religions (ATR) and the African healing and spiritual traditions, and yet, Hoodoo prevailed.
For centuries, the history of Hoodoo and Voodoo were presented primarily through the words of white slave owners, filtered through a perspective of privilege. Cultural boundaries inhibited accurate and cohesive understanding of practices that ran much deeper than superstition and lore.
In recent years, a more authentic representation of the developmental states of Hoodoo through the centuries emerged, entirely due to the hard work of researchers who dug deep into historical records to track the impact of enforced cultural change on the magical practices in the United States. Most of what we know comes from the efforts of people like Zora Neale Hurston, Albert J. Rabateau, Yvonne P. Chireau, and Katrina Hazzard-Donald.
Anthropologist, journalist, and novelist Zora Neale Hurston wrote a series of fictional books and folklore collections that illustrated life during various phases of the development of Voodoo and Hoodoo. Mules and Men (1935), Their Eyes Were Watching God (١٩٣٧), and Moses, Man of the Mountain (١٩٣٩) are considered her greatest works, as well as her classic study of Voodoo in Haiti and Jamaica, Tell My Horse (1938).
Albert J. Raboteau wrote the book Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South, which was a seminal study of slavery that helped to launch the Black Studies Movement of the 1970s.
Yvonne P. Chireau wrote Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition, an extensive and frank study of Conjure from the slavery period through the twentieth century. Her analysis of the history of Hoodoo speaks strongly to how magical practice informed the spirituality and healing modalities of Africans in the American South.
Katrina Hazzard-Donald wrote Mojo Workin’, which is arguably the consummate academic work on the origins and development of Hoodoo in the African diaspora. Although her extensive work in the research of Black Belt Hoodoo practices in America is sometimes criticized as largely speculative and without substantiation, I would argue that the lack of credible documentation itself necessitates a speculative approach. The blanks she fills in, based partially on her background in authentic African music, provide a strong foundation for the expansion of our working knowledge of Hoodoo history in America.
In the modern world of Hoodoo, our public rootworkers commonly present themselves as authors, bloggers, video-bloggers, teachers, and business owners. In comparison to Granny Magic and Brujería, the Hoodoo community has many public experts and elders, all of whom have their own stories and truths. Without working hard to think about it, I can name Starr Casas, Carolina Dean, Cat Yronwode, the late Dr. E. (Eddy Gutierrez), Professor Charles Porterfield, Orion Foxwood, Talia Felix, Denise Alvarado, Dorothy Morrison, Chief Amachi, Dr. Christos Kioni, Stephanie Rose Bird, and Deacon Millett as well-known personalities in the field. Each one of these people contributed on a grand scale to the aggregate knowledge of Hoodoo, and on a smaller scale, to my own education and Hoodoo practice.
Unlike Granny Magic and Brujería, Hoodoo in its current incarnation carries with it an underlying animosity that is palpable upon even a cursory exploration through online resources. If we follow the notion that the seed creating a movement informs the totality of its progress, Hoodoo developed out of the unjust and unearned dominance of one culture over another. This oppression not only continues through the current presentation of Hoodoo, but shaped it, forcing adaptation through an ongoing series of injustices.
When you look at photos of these famous rootworkers, all of whom are expertly qualified practitioners and teachers, you can see where accusations of appropriation come into play. Of those thirteen well-known practitioners who I listed without effort or research, only three of them—Stephanie Rose Bird, Chief Amachi, and Dr. Kioni—are visually identifiable as African American. Of course, most people know and understand that how a person looks does not always reflect their cultural heritage or genealogy, and yet, many of the attacks leveled from a racial perspective are directed at the marketing images of these rootworkers who appear to be Caucasian.
There is an underlying current, sometimes subtle and sometimes loud and angry, that while Hoodoo is an African American practice, the people who are making money from it are, on initial visual identification at least, white. My own mentors, Hexeba Theaux and Maya Grey, both excellent rootworkers and extremely knowledgeable about the history of Hoodoo, are Caucasian. Cat Yronwode, arguably the most influential living person in commercialized Hoodoo, is a Jewish woman.
A Community Divided
The racial component is only one point of division within the Hoodoo community. Many African American practitioners feel non-African American rootworkers are guilty of appropriation of a magical practice to which they are not entitled and that this is disrespectful to their culture. There is the pervasive infusion of the mindset of “You took everything from us; must you now claim this as well?” Some Hoodoo practitioners with direct historical lineage to Black Belt Hoodoo claim that without the genealogical and cultural context to adequately relate to the true origins of the practice, the spiritual aspect of the work is compromised.
Rootworkers specifically from the Cajun Bayou and New Orleans-based tradition of Hoodoo shoot back that the European people had just as much influence on the tradition as the Africans, and therefore claim ancestral entitlement to practice Hoodoo. Others insist that Hoodoo is primarily a Scottish and Pictish practice with only minimal African influence. Many Christian rootworkers insist that Pagan and non-denominational people have no right to claim that what they do is anything remotely close to Hoodoo, even if they use traditional Hoodoo recipes and techniques.
Some even go as far as to say that certain roots or recipes will not work for non-Christian or non-African American practitioners. I have personally found this not to be the case and feel qualified to comment since I am neither Christian nor African American, so it becomes less an issue of “Will the techniques and tools work?” and more of a question of the ethics of cultural and magical appropriation.
Maya Grey addresses the subject quite well when she says this:
In terms of “not everyone can practice Hoodoo,” it may simply be that some folks are just not gifted for this kind of work. It is like anything else. Some may have a proclivity for football or violin and others do not. One may try to learn any of these skills, but it may take years of grinding work and come less easily for some than for others. In my experience, you need to know yourself, have a strong will and sense of self and be beloved of the Spirits to get results.
Practicing Hoodoo is about getting results whether they be for positive or negative outcomes for yourself and clients. If you are not getting results (not “feelings” but actual quantifiable results), something is not working, and you must explore why. Delve deeper. Study more. Practice more. Observe.
Hoodoo is about solving the problems of life. It is street magic, like getting people out of prison, making debt disappear, finding love or sex, and hurting or neutralizing your enemies. These are real life gritty situations where your hands and feet are in mud, bone, smoke, and whiskey.
Put yourself in the shoes of a desperate client. Would you go to a lawyer, doctor, counselor if they never won, cured, or helped anyone? Nah, me neither.
Hoodoo was born of oppression, and in many ways, I think that it is relevant now more than ever. We are living in vastly uncertain times where racism is rearing its ugly head trying to pull back all our hard-fought gains. We live in a world where income and social inequality are on the lips of all.
Hoodoo can slip through the cracks, make the paperwork fail or succeed, help the innocent to be freed and the evil to be punished. What is a locked door to a spirit of the dead? Hoodoo is unseen and goes where it will.
Hoodoo is the working man and woman’s system of magic. It is the magic of the oppressed and it is there to help even the playing field. It can and does work. I have seen it, I lived it, I have worked it. Remember, though, that the work you do in Hoodoo must be justified by the spirits themselves. This is the path of the spiritual worker in Hoodoo: part streetwise mystic, part seer, and part herbalist. The good rootworker is clever, quick on their feet, and gets the job done with what is on hand—and I believe we are going to need more of them in the days ahead.
Most rootworkers I know personally understand and respect why others feel the way they do, but choose to instead cite the adaptive spirit of Hoodoo as an ever-evolving practice. This mindset calls for the inclusion of all rootworkers who experience a calling and embrace the heart of Rootwork.
Hoodoo worker and political activist, Channyn Lynne Parker says, “Hoodoo’s origins are rooted in the slaves of the African Diaspora, but what we know now as Hoodoo, is Pow-wow, Native American, and a gumbo of other magic as well. I just think that this is all being so over complicated.”
As a woman of color with a strong foundation in ancestral practice, the subject is close to Parker’s heart and her history. She goes on to say:
The thing is that at some point, as people of the African Diaspora, we have got to make peace and reconcile with those more complicated pieces of our bloodline. We must keep in mind that it is the “right now” in the magic that IS Hoodoo and “right nows” change … the usage and the means of Hoodoo evolve with the climate and the times that we are living in and currently facing.
On the whole, the practice of Hoodoo has become that of veneration; a remembrance of our ancestors’ bare bones survival. It’s not glitz, glam, and ritualistic. It speaks to the “kitchen magician” in us all. If you put your ears to the belly of Hoodoo, you will hear the sigh of Protestants, tired of the pretention of the Catholic Church. You’ll hear the slave mother putting all her heart and soul into the creation of a charm she’ll hope will ward off a lusty overseer tonight. You’ll hear Granny in Appalachia, rubbing a concoction of salve onto the chest of her son, fearful that she’ll lose yet another child to sickness. In short, you will hear the underpinnings of humanity in Hoodoo, the common thread of wanting to survive that is in us all. I hear them all … I hear their mistakes, their pain, their joys. I can’t hate any of the contributors to my existence, by fair or by foul. Without them, there would be no me.
Even within the cliques of modern Hoodoo practice, people are on the attack. A cursory search of Hoodoo blogs online will show many posts of rootworkers arguing that this person is not legitimate because of this reason, or that person is not entitled to practice for that reason. Full blog posts consist of authors defending themselves against these attacks with long pedigrees presented to explain why their participation in Hoodoo is valid. In short, tremendous energy is invested into the arguments of who is and is not a legitimate worker, almost to the point of surpassing the energy invested into the craft of Hoodoo itself.
I asked Maya Grey, the rootworker I quoted earlier in this chapter, why this was the case, and she proposed a reason I had not previously considered, which was that Hoodoo was one of the first magical paths to commercialize in such a way that practitioners were paid to work magic for others. This immediately created the competitive field that persists among rootworkers to this day. In such a field, some feel that the only way to get ahead is to discredit the competition. While this may not be the sole reason for divisiveness in the Hoodoo community, it is most certainly a factor.
Truly, however, Hoodoo in American practice was born out of turmoil and oppression, which remained so ingrained for centuries. As such, it is difficult to imagine that it could become a path of harmony and accord in such a short time, and indeed, it did not. Taken on its own merits, the techniques specific to Hoodoo bring strong results, and most rootworkers I know are quite satisfied with their chosen magical path. As a collective community, however, it is every bit as jagged and polarized as the environment from which it was birthed.
The Rebirth of Hoodoo Practice
The United States experienced a renewed interest in Hoodoo within the past few years. The appeal of a very basic system of magic designed to overcome adversity draws quite a crowd during times of poverty and loss of hope. Direct accountability for one’s own actions becomes attractive to those who feel they cannot trust others around them to be accountable.
Throughout the world, rootworkers use Hoodoo practices independently of any spiritual practice, while others layer their own belief system onto a Hoodoo framework. Some Hoodoo practitioners who vehemently insist that only Christian people who accept the Bible as their spiritual doctrine may practice Hoodoo or identify as a rootworker find this offensive.
Currently, the strongest points of contention among Hoodoo practitioners involve the precise details of its history and development, who has a right to practice it, and what constitutes a “legitimate” rootworker. These issues are hotly debated topics within the Hoodoo community and sometimes result in vicious conflict.
In the contemporary New Orleans area, the role of the two-headed doctor who practiced as both a conjure doctor and a root doctor is now the domain of the “treater,” or “traiteur” in Cajun/Creole. These healers still use the power of scripture, voice, breath, and herbs, although most traiteurs adamantly deny any magical component to their practice or any affiliation with Hoodoo or Rootworking. Most identify as Christian and heal using sacred knots, string work, herbal remedies, charms, and prayer. By tradition, a traiteur never asks for or accepts payment for their work and the client must ask them to assist rather than the traiteur offering of their own accord. Most specialize in a particular field of healing, such as skin disorders; tooth pain; eyes, nose, and ears; tumors; internal organs, or bleeding.
Although in its current incarnation Hoodoo is not a religious practice itself, to say that Rootworking is devoid of spirituality oversimplifies the practice. Often, this perspective is presented as a means of distancing Hoodoo, seen as a harmless folk magic practice, from Voodoo, which society views as more sinister and suspicious. This is of the same ilk as, “Oh, you’re a Wiccan, not an actual Witch.” Just as the term Wiccan mollifies the fears of a skeptical public as far as Witches are concerned, Hoodoo practice seems benign, provided it remains unaffiliated with Voodoo.
This separation between the secular and spiritual practices to all appearances began with the medical laws enacted against the African American healers and continued through the marketeering phase, finding completion around the turn of the twentieth century. The removal of spiritual involvement from Hoodoo persists. In modern practice, only the natural expressions of the Divine used in the Rootwork bring a spiritual component to the process, although individual Hoodoo practitioners may imbue their own spiritual process onto the work.
Regardless of why or how the two paths parted, at this stage of evolution, Hoodoo serves most practicing rootworkers as an expression of self-empowered, effective, nature-based folk magic and Conjure practice. It is a call to the grassroots (quite literally in this case) of magic. There is nothing more basic than blending herbs, roots, essential oils, bones, dirt, vinegar, body effluvia, and other natural products into a traditional recipe with the specific purpose of helping another person to heal from trauma, abuse, or misfortune.
My own call to Hoodoo/Conjure/Rootwork was something I could not ignore if I tried, which I did at first. It was pervasive and profound, presenting itself repeatedly and on a regular basis, each time with increasing insistence that it was what I meant to do. Ultimately, I followed it, studied extensively on my own, and then reached out to two local teachers who fine-tuned my education.
Most rootworkers I know practice in the same way that I do. They handmake Hoodoo products, seeking out the most authentic and natural recipes and ingredients available, usually growing their own herbs, digging up their own roots, and otherwise personally collecting natural materials for use. They then offer the products they create for the client to use themselves, which carries its own level of magical power layered onto the efforts of the rootworker. Alternatively, the client may choose to procure the further services of the rootworker and have them perform the magical work on their behalf.
This arrangement dates to the earlier days of Hoodoo, when rootworkers such as Dr. Buzzard would “chew the root” for a client who expected no justice in the outcome of their court case. He would sit in the courtroom during the proceedings while chewing on Low John (galangal) root.
Marie Laveau, who, along with other Voodoo queens, often did the actual Rootwork on behalf of their clients, is said to have prayed for a client for hours while holding three guinea peppers in her mouth. She then placed the peppers near the judge’s seat and the client was set free. Marie allegedly received a house in payment for these services.
Most rootworkers charge only a modest fee for their products and services, viewing their craft as a mission to their community rather than a path to riches. Unfortunately, those who do take untoward advantage of people in need are often the loudest and most visible faces of modern Hoodoo. A client recently contacted me by email saying that she had paid a Hoodoo priest more than eight thousand dollars to win back the love of her ex-fiancé. When she saw no results after her investment, the Hoodoo priest explained to her that her fiancé had left her because of an ancestral curse upon her that he would remove—you guessed it—for a few thousand more dollars, as well as sixteen pieces of underwear and forty-seven red candles, which she was to bring to him in a cemetery. At this point, she began to suspect the man was a fraud and contacted me to ask my opinion after viewing some of my YouTube video classes.
These types of charlatans are the modern-day equivalent of those marketeering age snake oil peddlers who took advantage of the client, then disappeared into the night. Fortunately, most rootworkers are honest, experienced people who approach Hoodoo with the belief that they are working in strong conjunction with nature toward the best possible outcome.
The Return to the Root
The trend of “returning to the root” grew in popularity over the past several years after decades of derision and dismissal of the path, either from fear or skepticism. Why is it so popular now? We find the answer in our current economic turndown. When times are tough for many in our society, those who practice magic are inevitably affected as well, and those who do not normally seek supernatural modalities to solve their problems start to explore non-traditional options. When people feel disempowered or disadvantaged in their own lives, they seek new ways to resolve crisis and undesired life conditions.
Hoodoo does not require extensive formal instruction, expensive tools or ingredients, and it is quite effective. When life is good and things go the way we expect or want them to, there is no great desire to create change. On the contrary, most people will avoid “rocking the boat” and actively work to maintain the status quo. When we suffer setback after setback and have difficulty creating or maintaining the life we want, many of us feel ready to try something different.
Hoodoo Uses Natural Ingredients
that Are Easily Obtained
During times of financial hardship, expensive ceremonial tools and robes go off the radar and people look for answers to their problems that do not involve a significant financial investment. Because Hoodoo originated using the most basic supplies available, it is quite forgiving in terms of ingredients. Look at any legitimate Hoodoo “cookbook” and you will notice two things right away. One is that there are no measurements offered, no “half a teaspoon of this” or “four grams of that.” The rootworker adds the amount of each ingredient that feels and smells right to them.
Next, you will see that there is a very long list of ingredients for nearly every recipe, usually with the directions to “pick six of these” or something similar. Hoodoo is quite literally about what you have on hand in your cupboard or what you can easily acquire. Four Thieves Vinegar, for instance, is a disinfectant that works the same way on your home that white sage does on the air around you. It purifies in the same fashion, but works on the structure of the home rather than the air. Every bottle of Four Thieves Vinegar should have a piece of garlic in it. Beyond that, you add three more “thieves” from a list of twenty or so ingredient options, including but not limited to lavender, rue, nutmeg, camphor, or sweet flag. Any will work just fine. For one batch of Four Thieves, you might use wormwood, mint, and sage. For another, cinnamon, clove, and rosemary. If you have that bit of garlic in there, it will dance just fine with any of the other ingredients on the list. This versatility is the beauty and simplicity of Hoodoo.
You will notice that many of the ingredients listed to make Four Thieves Vinegar are common kitchen herbs. We add these to a red wine vinegar base, leading one of my mentors, Hexeba Theaux, owner of Cajun Conjure, to say, “It might smell like meat marinade, but please don’t eat the Hoodoo!”
She maintains that items created for magical use take on a separate function and form than the same items used in the exact same combinations for culinary or other mundane purposes. I tend to agree with this conclusion and strongly suggest that when you make your own concoctions and decoctions, don’t eat the Hoodoo! Hexeba also scoffs when her students expect a fragrant, pleasant product from their Hoodoo efforts. She laughs and says, “Honey, this ain’t aromatherapy.”
Hoodoo Tailors Each Process
to the Individual Client/User
One of the greatest criticisms of Marketeered Hoodoo was that the commercialization and mass production removed the personalized spirit from the magical process. The conscientious rootworker now either makes their own products or purchases them from a trusted Hoodoo shop, supplier, or worker. Hoodoo products are not at all difficult to make, and creating them for yourself or those close to you intimately connects the rootworker and the client with the process. As you make the product, you know who will use it and how they will use it, which informs the magical process. This allows your vision for the outcome to permeate the work.
Although the forgiving aspect of Hoodoo affords an easy immersion for most new rootworkers, it is advisable to find a teacher who can help with the finer points and guide the novice as they learn.
As in the past, a primary benefit to working with a Hoodoo practitioner is their availability. Most adepts offer classes to share their knowledge and also provide their services to the community at large. As Hexeba says, “Root doctors: we make house calls.”
Information Is Readily Available
As previously stated in this book, the Hoodoo community is divisive and highly defensive of their perceived truths, but is also the most prevalent of the three folk magic paths this book will discuss, in terms of the availability of information. Fortunately, the world wide web gives everyone a voice, and plenty of free information is available if you know how to use a search engine. It is easy to shop around and look for Hoodoo niches that feel organic and right to you. Research extensively and find what “traditional” recipes for Hoodoo compounds, oils, powders, washes, and other products seem authentic and which ones feel sketchy.
Prepare to spend some time dropping into the proverbial rabbit hole when researching Hoodoo information online. Online booksellers offer huge libraries of information, and YouTube is home to literally hundreds or even thousands of instructional videos from every niche and theological perspective of Hoodoo.
If your interest in Hoodoo leads you to a deeper exploration of the subject, tune in to your spirit and trust your instincts. See what feels authentic to you and fully engage your spirit in the conversation. You will find the information that is right for you, and if you tune in, you will know instinctively what to avoid.
Hoodoo Fosters Accountability
Hoodoo empowers the client and the worker to know that both help and answers are available. It teaches those who use it to refuse to be a victim and to take action, regardless of their circumstances. When people feel helpless, there is nothing more empowering than to know that they can personally do something to create change. A primary focus of Hoodoo is on keeping your own side of the street clean and living a good life, but also that you must not hesitate to take action if another person aggresses against you or compromises your quality of life in a way that is intolerable. Hoodoo tells you that regardless of the oppression or challenges you face, you do not have to take it lying down. You can harness the energy of nature, direct the energy of God, and infuse your own inherent energy into the process of finding and enacting a reasonable solution. One of the most fulfilling aspects of my job is when someone humbles themselves to contact me as their last resort for problem solving, then feels positive and confident once we have worked together to establish a worakble and actionable plan to resolve their crisis.
Hoodoo Works
Hoodoo gets results. The lack of ceremony, circle casting, quarter calls, and elaborate invocations in favor of scripture and simple ingredients does not diminish the inherent power of Rootworking. It is a visceral and effective magical process that withstood the greatest oppression any culture can imagine and yet remains a force that creates positive change on an ongoing basis.
Contemporary rootworkers are often educated, professional people who began as apprentices and branched out on their own as their skills developed. Many incorporate the tarot or other divinatory systems and oracles into their practice for guidance. Their study is ongoing and adaptive, much as Hoodoo itself is adaptive. Although commercialized Hoodoo is still prominent, many rootworkers accept word-of-mouth referrals and do their work without involving accolades, fanfare, or ego.
Reconstructionists of the old ways seek to unearth as many of the traditional recipes as possible and yes, there are a few families with ties going all the way back to the Black Belt Hoodoo times who passed vital information through subsequent generations, preserving the healing and spiritual techniques developed by slaves on southern plantations. Authentic Black Belt practice in its truest sense, however, is virtually nonexistent.
Many valuable practices fell victim to the ongoing enforced changes throughout the centuries of Hoodoo development. Most of what we know is left to speculation and assumptions, and, to our advantage, those publishing their ideas do so from an increasingly educated and open-minded perspective.
The many stages of Hoodoo’s development resulted in the effective and vibrant path that many rootworkers now employ to help others and to help themselves. In spite of or because of the trauma of slavery, the Africans brought to this country clung fiercely to their cultural beliefs of healing, honoring their ancestral dead, and working with the forces of nature. Because of their tenacity and ability to adapt their practices to ongoing societal turmoil, Hoodoo refused to be crushed into the dirt of time, despite centuries of oppression. Instead, it picked up that dirt and made a spell out of it. It endured. And although it now presents in a different package than it did at its beginning, it remains a force for good in an unsure world.