Who Are The Hoodoos?

Hoodoo is an African-American spiritual tradition or system that has tried to straddle the line between indigenous West African spirituality and Christianity. Most Hoodoo men and women are followers of Jesus Christ, and we believe he died on behalf of the world's sins. We also believe that human well-being is governed by spiritual balance, devotion to God or the Holy Trinity, veneration and propitiation of the ancestors and a pantheon of lesser deities, and the use of natural materials such as herbs, minerals, and animal parts to embody supernatural power. Our practice is a blend of cultural adaptations from the people of  Central Africa, Bight of Biafra, Sierra Leone, Senegambia, Gold Coast, Winward Coast, and Bight of Benin.

The origins of Hoodoo people can be traced back to the Gullah people in the Deep South, the Black Seminoles in Louisiana, and those enslaved Africans in the Mississippi Delta. They enjoyed the isolation and relative freedom that allowed for the retention of the practices of their Central West African ancestors. Hoodoos can also go by the titles like conjure doctor, spiritual worker, root doctor, rootworker, conjurer, hoodoo practitioner, and conjure man or conjure woman. Hoodoos can be males or females and are found in every rural community where their supernatural powers are implicitly believed. The source of their power is often attributed to things such as:

• Being born with a caul over one's head or born with umbilical cords tied around the neck or body.
• Having strange birthmarks (I have one) or dark Mongolian spots.
• Having webbed fingers and toes or being born with extra fingers and toes (polydactylism). 
• Having learned from an elder and received power objects from them such as canes, particularly crooked or snake-entwined canes like Moses' or Aaron's staff, little bags filled with mysterious substances and belts and necklaces made of animal's teeth, horns, or dried reptiles.
• Having experienced initiations involving ritual isolations and fasting, accompanied by learning dream lore, conjure work, and herbalism.
• Being born the seventh child of a seventh child.
• Having gone through strange paranormal incidents such as out-of-the-body experiences and near-death experiences.
• Having had a divine revelation from God or having received special powers from a spirit.

Because of Hoodoo's identification with Jesus and Christianity, most people who belong to significant Neo-paganism or any other magical paths have not shown any interest in practicing or even studying Hoodoo. Within Christianity, those spiritual workers or root doctors are sometimes seen as a group within the evangelical community and sometimes as a separate sect called Southern Black Church. At times, various Christian leaders have publicly criticized these Hoodoo-practicing Christians for their aggressive preservation and exercise of traditional African magic while at the same time for representing themselves as Christians.

Southern Black Church is often presented as an ethnic church for Black people - somewhat like a Korean or Chinese church, but with African ancestral retentions, especially Kongo practices. Other people who join a Black Church may be asked to convert to Black Southern Christianity through what they call 'Seekin Ritual.' This is where Hoodoo actually flourished and developed - inside the Black Churches.

Hoodoo includes the Old and New Testaments in its canon and believes the Bible can be used in magic. Supersessionism, the belief that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise made by God to the Jews and Gentiles in the Bible, is accepted by Hoodoo people too. But unlike other Christian groups that believe in supersessionism, most Hoodoo practitioners maintain a desire to practice many of the traditional practices given in the Bible, such as water immersion, anointing of oil, and spiritual foot-washing.

Core components of Hoodoo, according to Katrina Hazzard-Donald, include:

• Counterclockwise sacred circle dancing 
• Spirit communication
• Ritual water immersion
• Animal sacrifices
• Divination
• Spiritual healing
• Herbalism
• Ancestral veneration

These eight components, in all probability, were shared by all African ethnic groups in the American slave population, linking the New World to the Old.

When Hoodoo folks try to explain their practice within the mainstream conservative Christian community, they are often met with resistance and outrage. Among other things, the Fundamentalist Christian community objects when Hoodoo people claim they are Christians because of the folk magic and the abovementioned components of traditional African religion they practice are not Christian. The use of Christian elements strikes many as a subversive way of attracting people who do not know enough about the Christian faith to realize that what they are learning about is pagan.

However, for most Hoodoo people, this is not the case at all. Magic is not only pagan because there is 'Judeo-Christian' magic as well. The magic-practicing Christian people during the slavery period were, in part, a slave reaction against negative views about the African traditions in some Christian circles. It was unfortunate that in much of Christianity, Africanism is little understood and sometimes even feared by the average congregant. Where African customs and traditions are mentioned, they are always portrayed as merely forbidden practices that Christians must avoid.

Christian Hoodoos' picture of magic is quite different, though. The mystical and spiritual practices in the Bible are spoken of as gifts from God, guides to life, something to be cherished and enjoyed, as well as something to be practiced. Magic itself is not an abomination for Hoodoos. It is not a sin, the misuse of the divine and natural law, and the way that human traditions can end up supplanting these abominable laws. The principles of the divine law, especially the Ten Commandments, have become the bedrock of Hoodoo itself.

"What spirits do Hoodoos work with?"

The five most important would be:

• God (YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah, Lord Almighty, the Father), Jesus (Yeshua), and the Holy Spirit; collectively referred to as The Holy Trinity.
• Angels, the messengers of God. In Hoodoo, the most commonly recognized angelic image is that of the Guardian Angel.
• Ancestral spirits
• Plant and animal spirits
• Spirits of the dead

Other spirits that some Hoodoo practitioners honor or venerate are:

• Catholic Church saints
• Folk saints
• Deities from different cultures (Afro-Caribbean, Folk-Chinese, Hindu, etc.)
• Spirit guides

There is a growing community of Hoodoos in the United States, as well as in any other part of the world. An honorific title may be given to practitioners but is usually self-chosen. Root doctors around the world have tended to take these traditional titles:

• Doctor
• Mister/ Miss/ Mrs
• Brother/ Sister
• Daddy, Papa/ Mama, Momma
• Father/ Mother
• Granny
• Madame
• Aunt
• Reverend, Bishop, Pastor, Minister
• Professor

Hoodoo prayer services include much of the traditional Judeo-Christian liturgy, especially Psalms. African-American creole languages such as Geechee are common in Southern Black congregations, but Hebrew and Latin prayers are also getting popular nowadays.

It is difficult to estimate how many Hoodoo practitioners are in the world. Still, their existence can be found across the United States, mainly in communities with African-American and Folk-Christian populations.

Some famous Hoodoo practitioners:

• Allen Vaughn - an early 20th century conjure worker from North Carolina who was first to instruct his nephew, Dr. Jim Jordan, on the art of conjure. Aside from being a spiritual doctor, he was a Church leader and lay preacher in a Baptist Church.
• Benjamin "Black Herman" Rucker (1889-1934) -  the most prominent African-American magician of his time, born in Amherst, Virginia, and the professed author of Secrets of Magic, Mystery, and Legerdemain, published in 1925 that contains directions for simple illusions suitable to the novice stage magician, advice on astrology and numerology, and some African-American folk magic customs and Hoodoo practices.
• Aunt Caroline Tracy Dye (1843? -1918) - a highly respected seer born into slavery in Spartanburg, South Carolina but was more recognized in Arkansas and Midwestern United States. Her clients were Black and White, including prominent businessmen and other professionals, with an incredibly devoted group of followers from Memphis. So many people traveled to her place to consult her that a train was named the "Caroline Dye Special." Most people showed appreciation and satisfaction by paying her a few dollars for a card reading. Her reputation lives on in songs like Aunt Caroline Dye Blues by Memphis Jug Band.

AUNT CAROLINE DYER BLUES

by Memphis Jug Band

I'm going to Newport News just to see Aunt Caroline Dye

I'm going to Newport News just to see Aunt Caroline Dye

(What you gone ask her, boy?)

She's a fortune-telling woman, oh, Lord, and she don't tell no lie

(I'm going to see her myself)

I'm going to Newport News, partner, catch a battleship across the dog-gone sea

I'm going to Newport News, catch a battleship across the dog-gone sea

Because bad luck and hard work, oh Lord, sure don't agree with me

Aunt Caroline Dye she told me, "Son, you don't have to live so rough"

(Yes)

Aunt Caroline Dye she told me, "Son, you don't have to live so rough

I'm gonna fix you up a mojo, oh, Lord, so you can strut your stuff"

(Go on and strut your stuff)

Aunt Caroline Dye she told me, "Son, these women don't treat you no good"

Aunt Caroline Dye she told me, "Son, these women don't treat you no good

(Yes'm, I know that)

So take my advice, and don't monkey with none in your neighborhood"

I am leaving in the morning. I don't want no one to feel blue

Yes, I'm leaving in the morning. I don't want no one to feel blue

(We're all leaving)

I'm going back to Newport News, and do what Aunt Caroline Dye told me to do

• Charles Harrison Mason Sr. (1864-1961) -  founder and first Senior Bishop of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), based in Memphis, Tennessee, the most prominent African-American Pentecostal Church in the United States. In his book Conjure in African American Society, Jeffrey Anderson said he "used roots to supposedly discern God's will, a practice already familiar to those who had experience with hoodoo." Charles believed there was nothing wrong with seeing the power in utilizing roots. After all, rhabdomancy (divination through sticks, rods, staffs, or wands) was utilized by the patriarchs of the Bible. He was known to illustrate his sermons by pointing out earthly signs or displaying these items of nature.
• Chloe Russell (1745-?) - first known author of a Hoodoo dream book in the early nineteenth century. She was a Fulani woman abducted in Africa and enslaved in Virginia. After being freed by her master, she worked as a seer for thirty years. 
• Ed Murphy - a famous conjure doctor interviewed by Newbell Niles Puckett in Columbus, Mississippi, in the 1920s. People believed that he was born with the gift as he had shown several signs known to mark a gifted person, such as his three strange birthmarks on his left arm (representing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost), a luck mole on his right arm, being born with a caul on his head and his kinky hair on the sides of his head and straight hair on top.
• Mrs. Emma Dupree (1897-1996) - an herbalist and faith healer in Falkland and Fountain, Pitt County, North Carolina. She ascribed her healing skills with herbs to the power of Jesus Christ, who she believed was the source of all healing. Her garden-grown pharmacy included sassafras, mint, double tansy, rabbit tobacco, mullein, catnip, horseradish, silkweed, and other plants from which she made tonics, teas, salves, and dried preparations.
• Fred "Chicken Man" Staten (1937-1998) - a nightclub performer, conjure worker, and Voodoo priest. He was born and raised in a Baptist family, and he was told by his grandparents that he was of royal African descent and had supernatural abilities. Staten made many trips to Voodoo communities in Haiti and Louisiana as a young man to learn more about the religion and magical arts. He developed his Chicken Man persona when he started performing nightclub acts, including biting the head off a live chicken and drinking its blood.
• Dr. George "Ebony David" Webster (1910-1956) - a spiritual doctor and pastor of Divine Temple of Healing in Memphis, Tennessee. One of the most violent crimes attributed to conjure was his murder. Webster was alleged to have placed a hex on a member of the temple, which eventually drove the woman crazy. The accusation was derived from the miraculous feats Webster showed to his congregation during his healing sessions and sermons. The hexed member's children became enraged after seeing the effect of the so-called working on their mother and murdered him in cold blood. 
• Father George "Frizzly Rooster" Simms (born Joe Watson) - a preacher and rootworker in New Orleans. He was called Frizzly Rooster as he was known to instruct his clients and patients to keep at least one chicken in their backyards to scratch up any roots that may have been placed there by an enemy. Through this spiritual diagnostic method, he could read and lift curses successfully. One of his famous students was Zora Neale Hurston, whom he initiated into the tradition. 
• Harriet "Mama Moses" Tubman (born Araminta Ross, 1822-1913) - an abolitionist, political activist, humanitarian, and devout Methodist who was experiencing visions and lucid dreams, which she interpreted as messages from God. These divine revelations ushered the freedom seekers to the North and ultimately to freedom from bondage. She was the first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war; she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 enslaved people. Mama Moses has been revered and prayed to for healing, mercy, and deliverance from oppression and persecution for decades.
• Ida "Seven Sisters" Carter (1900-?) - a rootworker from Hogansville, Alabama. She once said to an interviewer that she was called to root working at just seven years old. Her self-initiation involved burning seven candles all night while she prayed, starting on the first of May for six consecutive nights. She repeated this process each May for seven years until the Holy Spirit told her that she was fully prepared to provide spiritual services for her community.
• Island Smith (1877-1953) - a Creek medicine man from Oklahoma. He was respected for his knowledge of traditional Creek medicines and cures. He attributed his gift for healing to being of Native American and African heritage, which made people believe he was twice as powerful as a full-blood of either ethnic or racial background. He once said: "Cross blood means extra knowledge. I can take my cane (a hollow reed that channels a native healer's energy and is used to administer herbal medicines), blow it twice, and do the same as a full-blood Creek doctor does four times. Two types of blood mean two talents. Two types of blood have swifter solid good sense, and I am one of them."
• Jack "Gullah Jack" Pritchard (?-1822) - enslaved African conjurer and Methodist from Charleston, South Carolina, who was known for aiding a free black man named Denmark Vesey and other African-born slaves in planning a significant slave rebellion that would become known as Denmark Vesey's slave conspiracy by providing them with crab claws as protective amulets against the "buckra" (Whites).
• Dr. James "Indian Jim" Alexander (born Charles Lafontaine, ?-1890) - a successful Hoodoo man who lived in New Orleans but was originally from Mississippi. He was said to have a mixture of Choctaw, European, and African ancestry. He was known for his highly effective curing ceremonies, which included the distribution of fruits covered in flaming brandy. He would also do head washings or cleansings with the same brandy before the altar of the Virgin Mary.  
• Dr. James Spurgeon "Jim" Jordan (1871-1962) - a famous Hoodoo doctor from Como, North Carolina, gained national repute among conjure clientele and reportedly made a fortune out of it. According to the book, The Fabled Doctor Jim Jordan: A Story of Conjure by F. Roy Johnson, Jordan claimed that "he never joined forces with 'Ole Satan' instead 'walked beside the Lord.'" He was visited by patients with diverse conditions and cured them with Hoodoo tricks he had acquired from the spirit world. He was known for making the weak walk and those close to death healthy again. Miracle-like stories about his works spread, making him seem more competent than other conjurers in the area and increasing his patronage.
• Dr. Jean "John Bayou" Montanee (died 1885) - an African native-born in Senegal and was enslaved to Cuba, where he purchased his freedom and became a ship's cook. He settled in New Orleans and became a fortune teller, spiritual healer, and gris-gris doctor. For some people, he is considered the Father of New Orleans Voodoo and the mentor of Marie Laveau. Also, according to some records, he could revive patients on the verge of death through his rituals. 
• Mother Leafy Andreson (1887–1927) - founder of New Orleans Spiritual Church Movement, which featured traditional 'spirit guides' in worship services, with a mixture of Protestant and Catholic folk-Christian rites such as spirit possession, prophesying, laying of hands, foot washing, and other activities as well as special services that honor the spirit of the Sauk leader Black Hawk who had lived in Illinois and Wisconsin, Anderson's home state and whom she claimed her personal guide.
• Madame Marie Catherine Laveau (1801-1881) - the famous 19th century New Orleans Voodoo Queen. She was a practicing and devout Catholic and was hailed as a 'saint' by the newspapers after her death, mainly due to her selfless and courageous work during the epidemics. She was also a dedicated Voodoo practitioner and conjurer whose power was feared and respected throughout Louisiana. Today, Marie Laveau's grave has become a shrine for Folk-Catholics and Afro-American traditionalists, some of whom have considered her a folk saint and taken her on as a spirit guide. 
• Mammy Mary Ellen Pleasant (1812/1817-1904) - a successful 19th-century entrepreneur, financier, real estate magnate, abolitionist, and Voodooist of partial African descent whose life is shrouded in mystery. She claimed she was born a slave to a Voodoo priestess. Some records reported that she lived in New Orleans for a time and learned Voodoo and conjure art directly from Marie Laveau. She also said she used her conjure worker's skills and fortune to support abolition. Like Mama Moses, her works empowered by conjure and rootwork ushered many of the freedom seekers to Northern California, where today she is still honored and revered. 
• Morris "Railroad Bill" Slater (?-1896) - an African-American criminal, notable for many dramatic escapes from the law, a conjure worker, and a folk hero akin to Robin Hood. According to members of the Black community at that time, Bill used his spiritual powers as a conjure man to avoid capture by changing his body into an animal and sometimes even an inanimate object. He became a personification of a trickster who appears in both Indigenous American and African-American folklore. His tale continued to emerge well into the 20th century.
• Madam Myrtle Collins - a professional rootworker who studied spiritual work by mail order and had received a diploma from the Rociscricians (AMORC) in San Jose, California ("de White Brothers"). One of the first practitioners offered to teach rootwork for a fee and described paying for teachings and buying formulae from other root doctors.
• Patsy Moses - a former slave and conjure worker in Mart, Texas, who spoke and shared some great information about charms and conjure tricks during her interview in the 1930s that was documented in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States (often referred to as the WPA Slave Narrative Collection).
• Rose Ellen Barbara Delilah "Ella Dunn" Ingenthron (1890-1995) - a granny doctor from Ozarks in Forsyth, Missouri, was one of the very important people for the rural populations of the highlands that had little to no access to medicine. She served as a medicine woman to her fellow villagers. She used herbal and naturopathic remedies (which she learned from her father) to treat their physical and spiritual maladies by giving them tonics, salves, and ointments.
• Sam Nightingale (?-1887) - an herb doctor, conjure man, and storyteller in Boonville, Missouri. Sam used old traditions from his native land, Guinea, to help people who were sick or had problems in their lives. He could perform spiritual cleansings using Rum and various herbs with absolute success and other obscure techniques such as curing patients by inducing them to vomit up a live snake, pulling lizards from their feet, burying patients in the earth up to their waists or their chests, having his patient swallow an entire box of pills and encouraging them to drink their own urine. People came from all around the state of Missouri for his spiritual and magical aid.
• Dr. Sandy Jenkins - the rootworker who gave the famous African-American social reformer, abolitionist, and statesman Frederick Douglass an empowered root to protect him from abuse by a sadistic overseer named Edward Covey. Jenkins explained to Douglass how holding the root on the right side of his body would render it impossible for his overseer or any other White man to whip him. The relic had worked successfully and prevented him from receiving the beating. Douglass was never bothered by the man again. 
• Stephany "Dr. Buzzard" Robinson (1885 - 1947) - the most renowned root doctor in the Deep South. He was from Beaufort, South Carolina, and was well-known for his healing and spell works. He had the power to influence, command, or control persons or situations and counter malicious works with sorcerous work. One of his famous tricks still in practice in the present-day Hoodoo is the 'chewing the root.' It was also told that he had financed the construction of the largest church in St. Helena in the Sea Islands.
• William Adams - an ex-slave and conjurer from Texas who became known for his esoteric interpretations of biblical lore. He was sought after for his healing and other supernatural abilities, which he attributed to the power of God and found sanctions for his beliefs in the doctrines of Christianity.

Contained Spells: Bottles, Jars, Boxes, Pots, And Eggs

Stay At Home - Sugar Box Bed Spell performed by Tim in which he utilized doll babies in a sugar box bed to symbolize long-lasting love and romance that will surely fill our client's home.

Contained spells are essentially little worlds in which specific events are made to happen that, in turn, affect our targeted conditions or client's situations. It is believed among Southern practitioners that God gave us the ability and power to create our own worlds and realities. Just as God separated the light from darkness and dry land from water, this biblical text affirms that humans - created in the image of God - may seek to bring order to our chaotic and dynamic world by making our own favorable world. The power can be experienced in Conjure, for example, in mojo bags, nation sacks, bottle spells, jar spells, cooking vessel or bucket spells, and box spells.

An old practitioner from the Deep South cautions people, however, to use the power of our imagination and creativity wisely in a justified, appropriate, and thoughtful manner. We must also reject the feeling that we are destined to live with and exemplify only in the world created by others. Our tradition teaches that each of us can model and remodel our worlds through our choices and actions. By doing so, each of us can bring honor to God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, and ourselves.

Nkisi mbumba. (Photo courtesy of Smithsonian Museum of African Art) 

Hoodoo tradition traces the origin of contained spells to Kongo "nkisi" - a general term for power objects made from wooden figures, wooden boxes, cooking pots, gourds, animal horns, animal skulls, sacks, and bundles that contain empowering spirit(s) that is regarded not only as a guide but also as a symbol, magical key, as it is, to the nature and essence of the purpose of nkisi such as divination, diagnosis, healing, social justice, and protection among the Kongo people of Central Africa. An object only becomes an nkisi if it is filled with medicinal ingredients ("bilonggo") and a spirit resides within the container, which could be an ancestral spirit ("bakulu"), a tutelary spirit ("bisimbi bankita"), or an earthbound spirit ("minkuyu"). One example of non-figurative nkisi is called "mbundu." It is usually made of nets, raffia bags, and wooden boxes with traditional bilonggo, "diiza" cactus, "nkasa" bark, and wooden dishes attached to the bundles. It is often employed to settle serious disagreements within the community.

A Kongo mbundu.

When the Kongo people were brought to the New World, they contributed significantly to developing container spells or contained spells. In the American South, aspects of minkisi have been retained through mojo hands and bottle and jar spells. To create these spells, the appropriate magical materials are bound and contained in a package or in a particular vessel, similar to how the Kongo people ritualistically make their minkisi.

How the Kongo captives were employed in America impacted their ability to continue these magical container traditions with little interruption. Due to their artistic talents, the Kongo people were also employed as artisans, woodcarvers, potters, and tailors. Through these media, they maintained their motifs and combined them with their magical knowledge, passing them down to future generations. Another significant advantage in preserving magical containers was the earlier exposure and conversion to Christianity of the Kongo people by the Portuguese when they were still on their native soil. They eagerly incorporated Catholic paraphernalia such as beaded rosaries, crucifixes, medals, relics, and images of saints into the minkisi tradition. When some enslaved Kongo were brought to the United States, they did not have difficulty adjusting since most of them had already learned to view these adaptations as Christian means to express their traditional Central African beliefs. This artistry, religious flexibility, relative isolation, and protective secrecy would lead to the perseverance of African container magic in America. The oldest containers used by the earliest Hoodoo practitioners are animal horns and teeth, eggs, and gourds. Later came pots, metal caskets and buckets, glass bottles and jars, boxes, and leather and cloth bags.

One interesting folk belief in Hoodoo that was developed amidst the spread of contained spells is that empty bottles, jars, or containers are believed to be hollow shells or vessels for the spirits, like a body without a soul, and parasitic spiritual entities can latch onto these empty vessels and live inside. Due to this, conjure doctors ensure all their stored empty containers are closed or covered. Drinking bottles are kept on their sides to prevent spirits from inhabiting them.

Suppose you have genuinely made an effort to deliver your best on your work, but your boss continues to treat you disrespectfully and unfairly and gives inconsiderately, then Boss Fix. The Honey Jar spell might help sweeten your supervisor or manager and favor you above all others!

Bottles and Jar Spells 

In the Deep South, throughout African-American history and even today, bottles, mason jars, canning jars, and jam jars are commonly used to cast magical spells for a wide variety of purposes, including love drawing, money drawing, court cases, and legal work, blessing, protection, enemy works, and peaceful home. Traditional supplies in such container spells are honey or sugar, which rootworkers employ when they want to sweeten people and situations; vinegar or lemon juice, which conjure doctors may prepare to sour a client's enemies; peace water, which is used to promote peace and harmony; and war water, which sorcerous practitioner may prepare and use for enemy works. At times, bottle and jar spells may contain a variety of trinkets, lucky pieces, curios such as herbs, animal parts, and minerals, petition papers, scriptural prayers, seals and sigils, Catholic paraphernalia such as crucifixes and medals of saints, and personal concerns for a variety of purpose. The items being included symbolize the work being done. Each ingredient represents the things or the conditions the person desires to acquire and experience in their own world or reality, such as romance, prosperity, or good fortune. Conjure workers who know the origins of Hoodoo practices and African-American folkways interpret them as a kind of 'neo-nkisi.'

Memory jars and face vessels usually deposited on graves in Southern African-American cemeteries also share a great deal of similarity with Kongo funerary markers ("maboondo"), both in their symbolic form and mortuary functions.

Simple Love Me - Honey Jar Spell

Materials Needed:

- A jar of honey
- Brown grocery bag paper
- Pen
- Square of camphor
- Two clove pods
- Two rose petals
- Deer's tongue leaves
- Two pieces of lodestones
- Red candle
- Love Me oil

Honey Jar Spell I personally performed for a client to sweeten the working relationship with her colleagues.

Ritual Procedure:

Prepare your grocery-bag paper by tearing it neatly on all four sides while saying, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!" and writing the person's name three times on it, one name under the other:

Juan dela Cruz
Juan dela Cruz
Juan dela Cruz

Then rotate the paper 90 degrees clockwise and write your own name across the person's name, three times as well:

Neal Ocampo
Neal Ocampo
Neal Ocampo

Now all around the crossed names, write your intention in a circle and in one continuous run of script letters (without lifting your pen on the paper), with no spaces. Do not cross t's or place a dot to i's or j's yet; just write your intention in one run and be sure to connect the end of the last word with the beginning of the first word to complete the circle. Afterward, cross your t's and dot your i's or j's. If you make a mistake, start all over again.

To control and influence your situation, circle the names on the paper with your petition.

Next, fold the paper toward you and make it into a small packet to bring what you want your way and express your intention. 

Then, get the jar of honey and open it. To make room for the folded paper packet and other magical ingredients, take out a spoon's worth, and eat it while uttering, "As this honey is sweet to me, so will I become sweet to Juan dela Cruz." Do this three times and push the folded paper packet into the jar.

Put the camphor, rose petals, cloves, a pinch of deer's tongue leaves, and lodestones into the jar. While placing them, instruct the camphor to remove mental messes, deer's tongue leaves to make the target initiate a conversation, clove pods to inspire connection or bond, lodestones to promote admiration and attraction, and rose petals to spark love and romance. Once done, close up the lid.

Shake the jar while focusing on your intention and all the positive energy and thoughts you can muster. Feel the power running into the honey, herbs, and stone, activating them to sweeten your special someone. Envision an inspirational event with your special someone and clearly affirm and pray that it is already happening in your world and will gradually permeate here in the physical world.

Dress the red candle with Love Me oil and stand the candle on the lid of the closed-up jar, and light it. As the candle melts in the jar, see the attraction and love flooding towards your target - see the red color lending you strength and allow it to fill your heart and mind.  Let the candle burn all the way out. Do this every Friday for as long as it takes. Add each new candle on top of the wax remains of the last one. Do not clean the dripped-on wax and open the jar; just allow your contained spell to be wrapped and surrounded by the magic of love and attraction. Feel its warmth permeate your condition to the very soul. Keep the jar on your altar.

Shut Up Jar Spell utilizes herbal curios such as red pepper, clove buds, devil's shoestring, slippery elm bark, alum crystals, chain, and padlock to shut the mouths of false friends and those who speak ill of our client.

Boxes

The most famous box spells in the Hoodoo tradition are mirror-boxes, used to imprison one's enemy and reflect and reverse all negativities, including ill-wishes and psychic assaults back to the sender. Mirror-boxes act like the enemy's coffin as it is traditionally buried in a cemetery after they are prepared, with petitions for the work to be held by spirits of the dead.

Coffin box is used by modern conjure workers for Destruction or D.U.M.E (Death Unto My Enemies) workings. 

Burying the curse of the mirror box in the graveyard to turn the body and souls of the enemies over to the hungry spirits!

Sweetening spells may be worked with boxes as well. Boxes, in this case, serve as lover's bed. Conjure workers use a packet of sugar instead of a honey jar as a container for a sweetening spell

Cooking Pots, Plant Pots, and Buckets

Though not popular in Hoodoo, some practitioners use this vessel the same way as other containers are used in spells. This type of spell is undeniably connected to the Kongo minkisi in its physical form: curios and other ritual materials are kept in pots or buckets.

Contained a spell for success and luck.

Preparing and fixing the pot to be used in the Destruction spell.

Kongo, Suku, and Yaka people are known tribes that create a magical mixture of animal bones, fur, claws, the dirt of animal footprints, and animal sexual organs, charged with gunpowder or glass to be contained in baskets, pots, and food tins.

This particular type of minkisi resurfaced, too, and is still current in the present-day Afro-Cuban religion of Palo. In this religion, the ritual focus is the "nganga," also called "el caldero" or "la prenda." The Cuban nganga is both a spiritual force or entity from the land of the dead and the container in which it resides, empowered by the inclusion of graveyard rocks and soil, human bones, skulls, branches, and sticks from various trees, knives, and blades, and animal remains. The priest of the religion called "Tata" can attract and confine the "mpungus" through the use of this vessel and direct their force for benefit or harm.

Palo Monte nganga.

This practice had since spread to the United States due to the exodus of Cuban refugees and was later adapted by Hoodoo and other folk magic practitioners.

Black Hawk, a Native American Sauk and Fox tribe leader who lived from 1767 to 1838, is being venerated by placing his plaster head in a tin bucket (some say the New Orleans version of a Palo nganga), with arrows, spears, "bwete" figure, stalks of golden wheat grain and American flags. Black Hawk buckets are often placed near doorways.

Venerating the spirits of Black Hawk and Bwete at a Spiritual Church Movement shrine. (Photo courtesy of Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers)

A Hoodoo practitioner from Florida taught me how to use a plant pot in contained spells. She asked me to look for a clay pot enough to actually create the world I wanted to experience. Then, I was told to fill an equal bowl of herbs, oils, dirt, and other materials I needed in my spell. After that, I mixed them thoroughly until they started to look like dough. I sprinkled my chosen fruit seeds (sweet fruits for luck, citrus for cleansing, and spicy for enemy works) into the pot, then I took gentle hold of the dirt dough, put it into the pot as well, on the top of my chosen fruit seeds, and cover them with more earth. As the pot was filled, my mentor told me that I should see the intention I was drawing being planted, as the seeds germinated and started to shoot, so my desire and intention would take root and blossom in my life.

Mojo Bags

A mojo bag is a small contained spell traditionally prepared by a spiritual worker for a client and covered with red flannel or chamois leather. To learn more about mojo bags, please see the link.

Eggs and Coconuts

Many Hoodoo spells utilize eggs and coconuts, but for these two natural materials to qualify as containers, other curios, oils, or powders must be introduced. Eggs and coconuts can also be seen as ready-made containers; they could represent a person's head and, thus, used to affect a person's mind either to heal or to curse with profound effect.

Necessary materials in creating Sigidi. 

This magical and spiritual significance came from Kongo, Yoruba, Fon, Ewe, and other West African ethnic groups in which coconuts and eggs are revered. In some Yoruba tribes, for instance, coconut is used to represent Sigidi's head. Sigidi is the protective aspect of the Orisha Esu. Coconuts painted with red and white dots are buried under the ground and covered with a plate of shattered glasses, iron nails, and blades. This will provide the owner of the Sigidi defense and protection from sickness and death. If people are under spiritual and magical attacks, initiated priests will do divination to know and assess if it's appropriate to use the Sigidi for the offense. If the spirits agree, the priest will dig up the Sigidi from the ground and sing the prayer for Sigidi from sunrise to sunset.

When I was still starting to learn about container spells, among the first spells that I knew was a rotten egg hex. To do it: obtain a large-sized egg (preferably a black hen) and write the name of your target upon it 13 times, along with your curses and evil intentions for him. Dip the egg in boiling water for a minute but not enough to cook it, then place it outside under the scorching Sun near a red ant's nest for thirteen days, so it will spoil. Poke a hole at either end of the egg and insert a mixture of rust, sulfur, Devil's dung, and Devil's shoestring, then throw the egg against the front door of your target's home at midnight. Walk away and don't look back.

Coconut head can also be used in the Inflammatory Confusion curse. This is performed by drilling the eyes of the coconut open, draining out its water, and inserting the target's name paper and other personal concerns. The coconut is then prayed over and baptized to tie directly to the target's head. Sulfur, graveyard dirt, black mustard seeds, vandal root, cayenne pepper, skunk cabbage, calamus root, and guinea pepper are added right after to dominate them most cruelly and confusingly. Lastly, the coconut head is sealed shut by dripping wax from a black candle around the holes and setting the candle on top of the head. Just place the coconut in a small bowl to make it steady and stable. Some people even cuss and shout at the coconut - it needs to be that ugly so one can really cause confusion on the target.

Correspondence By Moon Phases

Full Moon

Practitioners'abilities are said to be strongest during the full moon, as is all spellwork. Perhaps the best type of magic to cast on a full moon is healing and transformation magic.

Waning Moon

As the moon is growing dark, it is draining away in power. Banishing spells are the best cast at this time so the malevolent spirits or energies fade away with the moon's light.

New Moon

The dark moon is a good time for new beginnings. Any spells to bring new changes in your life should be cast at this time.

Waxing Moon

As the moon grows in strength, your spells will be strengthened. Spells to improve your life or a situation or condition should be cast at this time.

Should I Wear An Amulet Or Talisman Or Perform A Spell?

Mummified raccoon paw, Ojo de malo, and mercury dime.

Hoodoo' amulets and talismans' is the broad category of jujus, totems, or charms that conjure workers make, sell or use to invoke the aid of spirits. It may or may not require reciting or chanting prayers, using other efficacious spiritual supplies, and performing choreographed physical actions and gestures to activate them. Although amulets or talismans include far more than just magical accessories worn, the accessories themselves provide a valuable way of understanding what Conjure and Rootwork are all about and how to utilize them.

Craft-worker's space. (Photo courtesy of Marlon Molarte)

Amulets are usually made by craft-worker or jewelry makers and then prepared, fixed, and empowered for clients by the conjurer to work. Intense will, faith, and emotional power help link the object and the magical purpose. They constantly balance the interplay between using natural curios and traditional forms and creating a personally meaningful, sincere interaction with the spirits that reflect the intention of the one who prays.

When obtained, some amulets also come with specific blessings and prayers to be recited daily, weekly or monthly for various purposes. There are amulets, too, that are very dynamic and can change their meaning according to the client's needs or aesthetics.

Ammonite fossil talismanic necklace. (Photo courtesy of Marlon Molarte)

Beaded talisman for protection with miniature skulls. 

Although some Hoodoo practitioners want their clients to engage their spirits regularly through amulets and talismans, most of the most sincere and intense intentions have likely been expressed in spell works or conjure works. Traditionally, some personal spells (including their materials, ritual procedures, prayers, etc.) have been recorded for and used by other individuals.

Spells cast by a conjure worker on behalf of his clients to amulets ritually prepared and fixed by rootworker can be remarkably moving, both in how they reflect the particular concerns of the individual and in how they capture and express universal needs and desires. Choices between wearing an amulet and performing a spell are as much culture-based and efficacy-based. Select what works for you or for the client.

A Catholic rosary with freshwater pearls and Arabic Nazar (evil eye) made with multicolored Tiger's eye.

Fourth Solomonic Pentacle of Jupiter activation.

Crossroads Magic And The Ritual Of Selling The Soul To The Devil

Crossroad magic is a surviving remnant of Kongo and Mbundu influences, created anew by enslaved Africans in the United States. Crossroads, intersections, or the 'forks of the road' are where two roads meet and cross at right angles. Most Hoodoo practitioners consider the place the center of passage and communication between the physical and spiritual worlds, the main conduit for the flow of spirituality and magic, where they perform rituals, lay offerings, or dispose of their finished works. Whenever they go to crossroads, they are filled with awe of spirits and appreciation for the genius of magic.

Kongo tradition teaches that all creation began in cross-cosmogram, also called "yowa," as this symbol is believed to be the structure of the universe and eternal sources of moral sanctions. The horizontal line divides the land of the living from its mirrored counterpart in the realm of the dead. The land of the living is described as earth ("ntoto"), while the realm of the dead is called white clay ("mpemba"), also referred to as "kalunga." The circle at the center represents the sun while the emblematic four disks at the points of the cross stand for the four moments of the sun - dawn (birth), noon (life at its fullest), sunset (death), and, finally, second dawn (rebirth), and the circumference of the cross refers to the continuity and inevitability of life: for Kongo people who lead righteous lives will never be destroyed but will be reborn.

The symbol of yowa was traditionally used by "banganga nkondi" and "nsibi" (Kongo ritualists), in which they traced it on the ground and stood upon it to take an oath or vow to the name of God or their ancestors; to signify that they understand the meaning of life and death as a process shared with the dead below the river or the sea; or to secure the power of their charms.

They also used this cross 'sign' when they were sending messages to the dead by cutting the signs ("bidimbu") into the shell or skin of the animals (reptiles, birds, fishes) to communicate with ancestors and ask for spiritual sustenance. This is where Hoodoo practitioners took the custom of making a five-spot or quincunx pattern when they are dressing a tool or any object.

When the Portuguese introduced Catholicism to the Kongo people during colonization, the cross was superimposed on older traditions, and some Christian symbols were added to the "minkisi" tradition. Therefore, some Kongo people transported to America would most likely have had some contact with Christianity by that time.

This symbol was eventually brought to the New World through traditional earth drawings, gestures, forked sticks, and actual crossroads. As I previously pointed out, even before some enslaved Kongo people started joining Christian congregations, they were already using crosses made of branches and sticks as mediatory emblems when they were compounding leaves and roots for medicines. Nevertheless, as African-Americans embraced the Christian religion, the symbol - four moments of the sun was referred to as four corners of the world or four winds of heaven, descriptions found in Revelation 7:1. The five-spot or quincunx pattern also became known as the 'sign of the cross.'

Our altar to Marie Laveau with a wooden cross sign above the herbal, mineral, and zoological curios.

In the book of Folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt, a man from Waycross, Georgia, shared his method on how to subdue a person magically, employing a formula that included the sign of the four corners of the world:

"Take a clean sheet of paper, and you draw you a circle on that clean sheet of paper and put a cross in there just like that, you understand. That's the four corners of the earth... you put that seal on the ground. You put envelope, graveyard dirt, and photograph in there - you put that down on top of that seal... you put your right foot on it, and you turn your face on the west, you see, which is the sun going down, you see. Well, you take, well, you can speak the words if you ain't got it wrote out, you say O.L. Youngs, L.L. Youngs, you come to me and do as I say to you..."

Newbell Niles Puckett, an African-American scholar, shared some stories from folks in the American South, such as one North Carolina Black sacrificed a chicken at the forks of the road, asking for deliverance from an epidemic that had killed off the animals of his region. 

According to a legend, an African-American blues musician from Mississippi, Robert Johnson, sold his soul to the Black Man or 'Devil' at a local crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight to achieve musical success. The myth goes on that he met a large black man who took his guitar and tuned it. The devil played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. In exchange for his request, the devil required him to provide him with his soul. No one really knows where this myth came from. Still, people most likely created the story for several reasons, such as the hoodoo themes he usually incorporated in his Delta blues songs, his sudden and year-long disappearance and reemergence, his astonishingly rapid guitar mastery and the absurd religious belief that time that blues music were Devil's music. This fallacy had been driven due to the disapproval of conservative Christian preachers to the perceived immorality some blues songs had in their lyrics. One of Johnson's icons and mentors, Son House, once told this story to music historian and archivist Pete Welding. But in reality, the blues singer who publicly made this claim was not Robert but his friend Tommy Johnson, who was not related to Robert Johnson:

"If you want to learn how to make songs yourself, you take your guitar, and you go to where the road crosses that way, where a crossroads is. Get there, be sure to get there just a little 'fore 12 that night so you know you'll be there. You have your guitar and be playing a piece there by yourself...A big black man will walk up there and take your guitar and he'll tune it. And then he'll play a piece and hand it back to you. That's the way I learned to play anything I want."

This ritual of selling the soul to the devil or dealing with the devil, which Johnson performed to gain musical skills, was derived from European folklore, best exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, as well as being essential to many Folk Judeo-Christian traditions. This lore eventually had been assimilated into the Black practice as, according to the Western myth, the venerated location of the African - crossroad could also be used to summon the devil to make a deal or pact.

It is to be understood that the devil in Hoodoo tradition does not refer to the Christian figure of Satan but to the African trickster gods, Legba of Fon people, and Eleggua or Esu of Yoruba associated with crossroads. Hyatt wrote that, during his research in the American South from 1935 to 1939, when African-Americans born in the 19th or early 20th century said they or anyone else had "sold their soul to the big black man or devil at the crossroads," they had a different meaning in mind. This Hoodoo folklore and tradition of selling the soul indicates Kongo religious retentions surrounding crossroads, the survival of various African tricksters and crossroads spirits, and the Faustian legend of making a deal.

The Black Man, also called 'the rider,'  or the 'li'l ol' funny boy' is not worshipped, but he is highly respected among conjure workers. In Hoodoo lore, if the proper ritual is carried out, he can magically bestow a skill or knowledge unto the practitioner.

Crossroad Ritual

Accounts on this ritual vary a bit, but I will share my personal technique with you.

Believe it or not, no one ever taught me how to do this. I performed this ritual by accident and acquired a particular skill in conjure by accident as well. At that time, what I had in mind was just to weave a spell. I did not realize that I would meet the Black Man there. So I began the ritual by preparing the materials I was going to use in my spell: a tea-light candle, a bowl, herbs, minerals, and whiskey and took them with me, arriving at the crossroad precisely at midnight. Next, I sat on the corner of the street and performed the spell discreetly. About half an hour past midnight, I noticed two black dogs approaching me. I ignored them and just continued doing what I was doing. When I was about to close the ritual by pouring the whiskey into the bowl, I closed my eyes to pray first and extended my hands over the tiny flame of the tea-light candle, drawing them inwards three times in a circular motion. Then slowly, I opened my eyes and gazed at the candle flames. While staring, a man wearing a black suit and top hat approached me, took the bottle of whiskey from my hand, and poured the liquid into the bowl. I glared at him, and he smiled at me, turned his back, and walked away with the liquor. After that swift interaction, still questioning who that man was, thunder and lightning disturbed my concentration, so I immediately grabbed all of the materials (except the whiskey, I did not notice it anymore) and ran as fast as I could, not finishing the spell. I knew that the spell would be a failure at that time since I did not consummate the ritual but little did I know that the Black Man at the Crossroad finished it for me and granted my request.

It is weird, though, that the Black Man, in my experience, arrived so soon. Hoodoo tradition usually performs this ritual on 3 or 9 consecutive nights, and the Black Man would only appear on the last night.

Through this ritual, people could also acquire any other skill, not just magical, like playing musical instruments, gambling, painting, etc. One can bring an object that symbolizes the ability one wishes to excel or master, like a guitar for music, playing cards for gambling, watercolor, paints, and paper for art.

This practice actually turns up in the blues:

SOLD IT TO THE DEVIL

by Black Spider Dumpling

I sold my soul, sold it to the Devil and my heart done turned to stone
I sold my soul, sold it to the Devil, he won't let me alone
    Said I'm hateful and i'm evil, I carries a Gatling gun
    I drink carbolic acid, be darned if i will run
But I sold it, I sold it
Sold it to the Devil and my heart done turned to stone.

I done sold my soul, sold it to the Devil, but he won't let me alone
    I got a little baker shop right downtown
    Everything i bake, it is nice and brown
But I sold it, I sold it
Sold it to the Devil, and my heart done turned to stone.

I sold it, I sold it, sold it to the Devil, but he won't let me be 'lone
    My life it is unhapy, it won't last me long
    Everything i do, seem like i do's it wrong
But I sold it, I sold it
Sold it to the Devil, and my heart done turned to stone.

I sold my soul, sold it to the Devil, but he won't let me be 'lone
    I eat black spider dumplings for my dessert
    Go to the blacksmith, let him make my shirt
But I sold it, I sold it
Sold it to the Devil, and my heart done turned to stone.

I sold my soul, sold it to the Devil, but he won't let me be 'lone
    I live down in the valley, five hundred steps
    Where the bears and the tigers, they come to take their rest
But I sold it, sold it
Sold it to the Devil, and my heart done turned to stone.

I done sold my soul, sold it to the Devil, but he won't let me be 'lone
    I went to a place that I knew so well
    I shot that Devil right in Hell
But I sold it, sold it
Sold it to the Devil, and my heart done turned to ... eee-eee-vohl, eee-vohl [evil]

How do conjure doctors work with clients at crossroads?

A crossroad can serve as an altar, a place to perform magical spells. Rootworkers and conjure doctors believe that even after the African's capture, enslavement, and settlement in a foreign land, the divine and ancestral presence have never left this core symbol of African culture and that the power will never be destroyed. Crossroads are endowed with everlasting sanctity. Native African religions were damaged, but through it all, one symbol remained intact: the Cross.

Conjure doctors accompany their clients to go to the crossroads when performing uncrossing and road opener works. Some folks cast their break-up, banishing, and hot foot spells to set ex-lovers, bad neighbors, hostile co-workers, enemies, and troublemakers roaming, making them wander out through the crossroads and into the world.

I have met a Black American conjure worker online who claimed that all Hoodoo rituals and prayers from around the world ascend to this spot, from where they ascend to heaven or to the land of the dead. So he said that if someone is doing his spells outside the crossroad, he should direct his heart toward the nearest crossroad in his house.

An 1895 black and white relief line-block print of a sketch, "The Hoodoo Dance," by Edward W. Kemble, shows a portable crossroads or five-spot at its center.

Not all rituals that use the crossroads need to take place at the actual crossroads. When laying tricks or casting spells, some Hoodoo practitioners use what is known as a 'portable crossroad' or a circle with a cross inside, also called 'X' or 'cross mark.' These portable crossroads or cross-marks can be drawn on the ground using white chalk or on an altar with sachet powders or laid out on a cloth.

Hot-foot spell utilizing the crossroad emblem.

Traditionally, folk magic practitioners dispose of the remnants of their works, such as left-over candle wax, incense ashes, ritual bath water, etc., at the crossroads by throwing them into the intersection, turning away, and walking home without looking back.

A powerful ritual in which we utilized 7 protection herbs such as boneset, sage, feverfew, lemongrass, etc., laid out in a cross symbol or quincunx pattern to attract good spirits who will fight evil on our client's behalf, set up cross-me-not barriers, and send away troublemakers and people with questionable motives and intentions.

Road Opener ritual performed on a portable crossroad.  

Legends and rituals of The Black Man at the Crossroads (as recorded by Harry Middleton Hyatt):

Vol.2, pp.1357-58

Well, now, at de fo'k of a road, if it's somethin' tedious dat yo' want a undertake tuh do an' yo' jes' feel dat chew cain't accomplish it or somekind, yo' read de Psalms in de Bible dat yo' reads. Yo' read de 91 Psalms. Yo' read dat 91 Psalm but chew have tuh read it fo' nine days. Yo' read de 91 Psalms fo' nine days an' at de same hour of de day. An' now, goin' to de fo'k of dis road, yo' have tuh be at de fo'k of dis road at twelve a'clock in de night. Dat is, it no partic'lar rule, butjes' anywhere where a fo'k is, yo' see. An' yo' read dis 91 Psalms an' yo' have tuh pray an' yo' have tuh axe God tuh send dis spirit dere tuh meet chew dere, tuh meet chew dere at de fo'kof dis road. Now, when yo' git to de fo'k of dis road, yo' gonna see all kindathing. Yo' may git frightened. Yo' read dis Psalms. (You read that for nine days but you don't go out to the fork of the road?)No, yo' don't go dere, yo' readin' dis Psalms an' yo' preparin' yo'self tuh go dere - yo' preparing tuh go dere. Now, yo' read dis fo' nine days now. Today is de ninth day, see. Now, yo' goin' dere tonight. Yo' goin' dere at twelve a'clock tonight. See. Now yo' readin' dis Psalm, preparin' yo'self tuh go dere tuh meet deone dat chure gonna meet dere. Now, yo' ain't gotta go tuh bed, yo' gotta setup. Now, nine a'clock tuhnight dere gotta be somebody gonna come there an'tell yo' somethin' - dey gonna tell yo' lotsa things. It's gonna be somebody goin' tuh come dere an' dey gonna talk to yo' jes' lak ah'm talkin' to yo',an' now dey gonna tell yo', "Yo' git a pencil an' papah," or "Yo' git a type[writer] an' yo' take whut ah'm tellin' yo', whut ah'm givin' yo' - [here'sanother person interested in my machine] - yo' take whut ah'm givin' yo' an'yo' meet me at twelve a'clock." Yo' see. An' all yo' have tuh do, yo' jis' be big-hearted an' yo' do as dey sayan' dey'll work wit yo' wonderful. Den yo' take all whut dey give yo' an'tell yo' how tuh do an' whut tuh do an' now yo' meet 'em dere at twelvea'clock. (At the fork of the road?) Yessuh. [I don't want to read anything into the preceding rite - it's there.THIS WOMAN IS A MASTER CRAFTSMAN who knows every aspect of her work - the most important aspect of all, human nature, how far she can go. Instead of offering me her variant or variants of the devil meeting a person at the fork or crossroad, she throws a good-spirit atmosphere over everything, then tells me she and I are performing the fork-of-the-road rite!] ["Yo' git [[got]] a type [[writer - my Telediphone on which I pretendedto write]] an' yo' take [[are taking down]] what ah'm tellin' yo', whut ah'm givin' yo'...all yo' have tuh do, yo' jis' be big-hearted an'.....dey'll[[I'll]] work wit yo' wonderful."][My reply to her is quite ordinary. Or is it?][Without detracting from Nahnee's insight or subtracting any glamour from my big-heartedness, the reader should be informed that a person of her ability and reputation, despite the Great Depression and scarcity of money, rarely takes chances. Preceding her appearance a confederate of hers, man or woman, had made inquiries and had actually interviewed me. Neither my contact man nor I could ever identify these persons - we never tried, it was a waste of time, though occasionally we spotted a stool pigeon.] [Algiers, LA; Informant #1583 - Nahnee the "Boss of Algiers"; CylindersE94:2-E119:1 = 2927-2952.]

Make a wish:

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 aspecial 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)]

To learn tricks:

340. "Jes' lak if yo' wanta learn some tricks, yo' know, yo' kin takea 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 himto de fo'k of de road, an' yo' go fo' nine mawnin's, an' on de ninthmawnin' he'll meet chew dere."

349. "If you want to know how to play a banjo or a guitar or do magic tricks, you have to sell yourself to the devil. You have to go to the cemetery nine mornings and get some of the dirt and bring it back with you and put it in a little bottle, then go to some fork of the road and each morning sit there and try to play that guitar. Don't care what you see come there, don't get 'fraid and run away. Just stay there for nine mornings and on the ninth morning there will come some rider riding at lightning speed in the form of the devil. You stay there then still playing your guitar and when he has passed you can play any tune you want to play or do any magic trick you want to do because you have sold yourself to the devil." [Ocean City, Maryland, (14), Ed.]

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).]

Crossroad - Road Opening Work (Photo Courtesy of candlesmokechapel).