Cowrie Shells ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

cypaea annulus, other cypaea spp.

The ever-popular cowrie shell has many uses and meanings in African and Hoodoo traditions. It was used as currency, jewelry, and religious accessories in West Central Africa. Thus, it became a symbol of destiny, wealth, and prosperity, especially in the Empire of Mali and the Kingdom of Dahomey. For a long time, the cowrie coexisted with many other forms of currency across West Africa, such as gold dust, salt bars, brass and copper rods, and other beads.

Cowrie Shells are also considered the mouth of Orisas in the Yoruba religion. Because of this, some practitioners of African-American folk magic and priests of African Diasporic religions such as Santeria and Palo utilize the shells for divination, borrowing the traditional African divinatory method called "Obi" and "Diloggun." In West Africa, Obi readers employ kola nuts (Obi means 'kola nut' in the Yoruba language). Still, in the Americas, they use four pieces of coconut or four cut cowrie shells to answer clients 'yes' or 'no' questions. This form of divination entered Hoodoo through contact between spiritual workers in America and the initiates of African Diasporic Religions.

Cowrie shells are used as Orisa Esu's eyes and mouth.

To have the guidance of the cowrie shells, traditional Obi procedures are applied by reciting a prayer before casting, gathering the shells with hands, blowing three times to align them with one's spirit, bringing them over the forehead while asking the question, gently shaking in cupped hands while saying specific blessings and casting them onto a divinatory mat. The casting will produce five different combinations with five other answers:

Alafia (4 mouth-up shells) - very positive 'yes' with a blessing of peace on the question being asked. You may achieve or receive even more than you requested, or the blessing would come sooner than you hoped.
Etawa (3 mouth-up and 1 mouth-down shell) - the answer is 'maybe,' and it requires a second casting to ascertain whether the answer is yes or no. The answer is yes if the second cast is Alafia, Etawa, or Ejife. If it is Okanran or Oyeku, then the answer is no.
Ejife (2 mouth-up and 2 mouth-down shells) - a positive result, and the question is answered (do not ask any further questions). What you would achieve or receive would bring balance.
Okanran (1 mouth-up and 3 mouth-down shells) - a firm 'no' answer. There's a presence of opposition and conflict, indicating that much work is still needed before you can receive the blessing in question.
Oyeku (4 mouth-down shells) is a strong 'no' with negative energy. Prayers, spiritual workings, and offerings are required to cleanse and protect the person being read.

Ejife! A positive response to Tim's question regarding his ongoing love spellwork.

Diloggun is a more complex method of divination used by initiates in the African Diasporic Religions. It is rare for Hoodoo practitioners to use this system unless one is initiated into the religion. The possible outcomes of a single casting are Okana (one mouth up), Eji Oko (two mouths up), Ogunda (three mouths up), Irosun (four mouths up), Oche (five mouths up), Obara (six mouths up), Odi (seven mouths up), Eji Ogbe (eight mouths up), Osa (nine mouths up), Ofun (ten mouths up), Owani (eleven mouths up), Ejila Shebora (twelve mouths up), Metanla (thirteen mouths up), Merinla (fourteen mouths up), Marunla (fifteen mouths up), Merindilogun (sixteen mouths up). There is also a seventeenth possibility, Opira (no mouths up), which is not considered an Odu, per se, but indicates significant problems with the reading (either on the part of the client or the diviner).

Aside from these magical and spiritual uses, cowrie shells are also used in love attraction and love-jinxing spells as they resemble female genitalia. To baptize a cowrie as an effigy of a woman, people dress it with menstrual blood, vaginal fluid, urine, or pubic hair.

A cowrie shell is used in the red doll to symbolize the genitalia of a specific woman.

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.