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.