Ritually Fixed And Prepared Jewelry ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

Ritually fixing and enchanting client's gold wristwatch for his Steady Job spell.

Charmed jewelry pieces in Hoodoo practice have origins dating back to ancient civilizations of Africa, where people make necklaces, bracelets, and anklets out of organic beads and other curious objects in their region. Beadwork has been an integral part of Central West African history from time immemorial. They function as a currency, possess authority, indicate wealth, serve as spiritual talismans, represent a connection to the deities or spirits, and form coded messages.

Africans started with materials they used to find easily in nature, such as shells, woods, bones, seeds, stones, ivories, and pearls for various magical and spiritual representations. In the pre-colonial era, some kingdoms in Congo used beaded masks and crowns to acquire psychic abilities. Further north was the Yoruba and Fon people, who used strands of beads as emblems of their spirits. Some jewelry was also created as representations of ancestors and other entities facilitating communication with the spirit world. Bamum people used jewelry made of cowrie shells like money, becoming a symbol of wealth. Krobo tribe was one of the main Ghanaian ethnic groups who had utilized glass African trade beads called Bodum beads within their culture. Old and valuable beads were often imbued with magical and medicinal powers and passed down through families as heirloom pieces. From Ewe to Aja to Akan tribes, all across West Africa, beaded jewelry had long held a sacred place in animist religions. The priesthoods of their indigenous spirituality used them in rituals, and they were often left at shrines as offerings to the spirits.

Bodum beads. (Photo courtesy of Jack DeWitt)

As time passed, they tried making different combinations; they began using gold and silver metals, red and pink corals, amber, copal, citrine, and even diamonds. During the colonial period, beads manufactured in Europe, such as millefiore and chevron beads, were used as mediums of exchange or payment for gold, salt, and slaves. The beads were worn for prestige and ceremonial purposes and occasionally buried with the dead. Nowadays, Africans use almost every material for their jewelry. Many traditional healers in Africa these days still wear native jewelry and beadworks as amulets which aid them in their divinatory and mediumship activities. In contrast, other people wear them as they believe they can provide them support in particular spiritual issues or areas of their life. Bead colors and types are usually chosen by the healer following the person's character or specific conditions or ailments that need to be addressed.

Charmed rings and earrings for rheumatism. (Photo courtesy of Newbell Niles Puckett Memorial Gift, Cleveland Public Library, Fine Arts and Special Collections Department)

The said African tribes brought this custom of ritually fixing jewelry to America. The conjure workers set the jewelry made from lucky pieces, amulets, charms, and other materials that are popular in Hoodoo tradition to work for a specific condition.

A technique used by all Hoodoo healthcare providers was the method of using strings to tie sacred healing knots. This old practice also came from West Africa, where people from Senegal down to Kongo tied strings around their waists or wore them as necklaces or bracelets for healing and preventive medicine. The ritually fixed string or thread was documented by Newbell Niles Puckett in South Carolina in the 1920s and 1930s. String or yarn soaked in turpentine and tied around the waist for nine days was used to cause miscarriage. Tied around the head with a knot in front was used to treat headaches. Tying a string around the left wrist using sixteen knots and traditional prayers was seen as a protective gesture against death and diseases, just like the Yoruba "Icofa ide" bracelet (Icofa means First Hand of Orunmila).

Patsy Moses from Fort Bend County, Texas, narrated how Black folks during her time wore their jewelry that was specially crafted to empower or amplify a specific quality of a person, heal sickness and bring about a particular desired condition: "De big, black nigger in de cornfield mos' allus had three charms round he neck, to make him fort'nate in love, and to keep him well and one for Lady Luck at dice to be with him. Den if you has indigestion, wear a penny round de neck. De power of de rabbit foot am great."

In due course, different types of amulets emerged in the Hoodoo scene besides single-knot and multi-knot string amulets, such as root necklaces, animal bone necklaces, prayer bead necklaces, religious pendants and medallions, and silver coin jewelry.

Fixing a client's necklace pendant and crystal bracelets to ensure her success and victory!

Today, Hoodoo practitioners fix and enchant modern jewelry in several ways and for many different reasons. Often, we find that folks use such jewelry for empowerment and motivation, for protection and to ward off evil, to heal specific parts of the body or remove adverse conditions, or as a sacred marker of a rite of passage such as baptism, marriage, or the birth of a child. This particular custom originated in African tradition in which parents adorned their children with beads when circumcised or had their first menstruation as a rite of passage into manhood or womanhood.

A King Novelty Co. catalog advertising the alleged good luck ring reputed to have money-drawing power induced in it.

My technique of enchanting jewelry for personal strength, courage, and spiritual power was taught to me by a conjure worker in Southern California. She instructed me to put seven kinds of empowering herbs and roots like High John the Conqueror, Master of the Woods leaves and althea leaves and roots, and chunks of pyrite into a bowl. Then I should stir them thoroughly with my hands while praying to God and instructing the herbs to aid me, activating them to boost my determination to win. After mixing the herbs, I was told to place the jewelry in the jar and then add the mixture while reciting Psalm 23 and Psalm 118:14-29 and praying to God to grant the jewelry power just like how He granted Aaron's staff power; power to inspire, to give me courage, tenacity, and force of will and to help me gain what I may have been lacking motivation wise. Before wearing it, she also instructed me to dress the jewelry with Power oil and smoke it with frankincense to invigorate and increase the power of enchantment.

Crystal bracelets and the appropriate dressing oils for them. (Photo courtesy of Marlon Molarte, The Crystal Diva)

Accessories that can be blessed can be crafted or designed personally or purchased from jewelry or gift shops. However, heirloom pieces of jewelry, such as wedding rings, lockets, pendants, etc., are the most recommended to use by most conjure workers. Those who are into gemstones and crystals and are familiar with their magical correspondence can make bracelets or necklaces to be ritually prepared and fixed. Others even incorporate symbols and sigils that can work for whatever the practitioner or the client desires.

A charmed prosperity pendant infused with appropriate prayers for the conditions the person is intended to address.

How do these pieces of jewelry help people to achieve their goals?

On a simple level, the charmed jewelry serves as a colloquial adornment or accessory reminder. As people go about their daily chores, whether at work or at a casino, the jewelry gives them an anchor to the world of magic and the Spirit.

The challenge is to make magic a part of daily reality. People see or wear jewelry regularly as a tangible reminder of the incorporeal God. Seeing God in their lives is a progression from recognizing His presence in mundane things like jewelry to the magical and spiritual realms.

Stones, minerals, and fossils that hold ancient energy and existed in nature millions of years ago are believed to possess great power. (Photo courtesy of Marlon Molarte)

In this way, the charmed jewelry has metaphysical talismanic benefit in helping to safeguard one from evil spirits, influence, or energies and making the wearer more focused on attaining his goal. The magical accessories remind us that God is always watching us, providing our necessities, and our actions should reflect that realization.

I had heard of a client of my friend before who was extremely lazy and willing to give up his work just to eat, sleep and play online games for the rest of his life. Once on his bed and at the moment of his idleness, the man's charmed pendant for success 'slapped him in the face.' Yes, he was struck literally, but also psychologically - with the jewelry around his neck appearing as a witness against him, not doing his part to succeed.

Enchanting a beauty pageant crown for a Crown of Success.

See, What Our Path Is

Being immensely interested in African diaspora religions and Folk Catholicism, we primarily honor our ancestors, Church saints, angels, folk saints, and Afro-Caribbean spirits such as loas and orishas. If we absolutely have to put a label on ourselves, we prefer the label of “Folk Judeo-Christian” as we live according to the customs and traditions of conjure workers and root doctors from the Deep South and syncretic followers of Christ in various nations of the Caribbean and Latin America.

Our spirituality includes West African-based Caribbean-style tradition as well as Esoteric Christianity and Yoruba religion. Generally, we practice Gullah folk magic popularly known in the Deep South as Hoodoo or Lowcountry Voodoo; the ancient wisdom founded by Orunmila in Ile-Ife called Ifa, and a bit of Lihim na Karunungan (Filipino Esotericism or Philippine Mystery Tradition).

Respect, What Hoodoo Is

Despite visible evidence of Central West African, Islamic/Moorish, Native American, Judeo-Christian, European, and even a few East Indian/Hindu, Chinese, and Latino/Caribbean retentions, influences, and admixtures, this does not mean that Hoodoo is an open and unrestricted system of eclectic magic.

Conjure, and Rootwork is rooted in African-American culture and Folk Protestant Christianity. Any practitioners of Hoodoo who did not grow up within African-American culture should still have a fuller understanding and high regard for its origin.

In the beginning, the early conjure doctors were entirely Black. The students were all Black, the elders were Black, the teaching was Black, and they focused only on Blacks as their audience. But other races were accepted when they had also been brought into the Hoodoo community and learned the tradition. Even so, we should still acknowledge that Hoodoo, Conjure, or Rootwork is not ours but only belongs to the Black community. We are just believers who are grafted into their rich yet humble tradition and, by word and deed, embrace genuine African-American folk spirituality and magic. This is all we can do for all the blessings we received from God and our Black ancestors.

Hoodoo's lack of religious structure and hierarchical authority do not mean that any person or group can appropriate or redefine it. If one cannot respect Hoodoo as it is and for what it is, then please, do not play with it.

Learn, How Conjure Is Worked On

Authentic Conjure is not all about blending and selling oils and casting spells online to make money. Hoodoo has its own spiritual philosophy, theology, and a wide range of African-American folkways, customs, and practices which include, but are not limited to, veneration of the ancestors, Holy Ghost shouting, snake reverence, spirit possession, graveyard conjure, nkisi practices, Black hermeneutics, African-American church traditions, the ring shout, the Kongo cosmogram, ritual water immersions, crossroads magic, making conjure canes, animal sacrifices, Jewish scriptural magic, enemy works, Seekin' ritual, magical incorporation of bodily fluids, etc.

Unfortunately, they are currently missing in marketeered or commercial Hoodoo, as they are being removed, disregarded, or ignored by unknowing merchants who simply want to profit from an African-American spiritual tradition, thus reducing Hoodoo to just a plethora of recipes, spells, and tricks.

Tim and I are completely aware that we are not African-Americans, so we are doing our best to retain and preserve the customs and traditions of the slave ancestors to avoid unnecessary conflict with the larger Black-Belt Hoodoo community and prevent them from labeling us inauthentic outsiders and our practice as mere 'cultural misappropriation.'

Accept, Who We Are

The byproduct of eons of slave history, Black supremacists believe that only people with African or African-American blood are real Hoodoo practitioners and are often inclined to consider themselves as the elite of the Hoodoo community; a place in which they believed that Whites, Latinos, Asians or any other races who do not have Black ancestry do not belong. Black supremacists are prone to be very hostile towards both “outsiders” and those accepting of them, fearing that their promotion and acceptance would dilute or even negate the Black identity of Hoodoo.

Although we do understand why some Blacks hold this stance, since a lot of people nowadays are misappropriating many aspects of Hoodoo and teaching the spiritual path even without proper education and training (for purely monetary purposes), we would, however, want to say that not all non-Black Hoodoo practitioners are the same.

WE respect what Hoodoo is, and we never try to change it, claim it as our own, disregard its history, take unfair advantage of it, speak against the people who preserve it, and mix it with other cultures (like our own) and call it Filipino/Pinoy Hoodoo, Gypsy Hoodoo or Wiccan Hoodoo because there are no such things.