Mercury Dime ~ Filipino Conjure & Rootwork

Coins, especially old ones or coins passed down from generation to generation; old coins from other countries; and non-monetary metal tokens are considered lucky in Hoodoo. But, there is a particular preference for the Mercury dime, silver dime, or Winged Liberty Head dime among experienced conjure workers.

Silver dimes were issued between 1916 and 1945. Contrary to popular belief, the obverse depiction of the legendary figure there is not the Roman God, Mercury, but a young Lady Liberty, identifiable by her Phrygian cap with wings on the side, sort of like the style in which Mercury is sometimes depicted.

In the eyes of some African-Americans and Hoodoo practitioners, they were still Mercury, the Roman God of financial gain, commerce, business, eloquence, communication, travel, luck, games of chance, and trickery. Therefore, it is still employed in money-drawing, business success, gambling, and safe travel works.

Due to this, some Hoodoo men and women also found a sense of familiar comfort with him and, as a result, honored him or worked with him - I, myself included. Mercury governs most of those things I do and love: business, magic, the Internet, and trickery.

In addition, a leap-year date on the coin is believed to be luckier than any other date due to its rarity. Some mojo makers prefer to use a leap-year dime combined with a two-dollar bill as their main ingredient. Traditional combinations incorporate some lucky curios such as nutmeg, lodestone, rabbit's foot, High John the Conqueror root, Lucky Hand root, horseshoe charm, four-leaf clover, and Swatiska charm.

A simple money-drawing hand with nutmeg, lodestone, brown sugar, and mercury dime inside.

The dimes are also the most common payment given when purchasing graveyard dirt.

Mercury dimes are also very protective against foot-track magic. Some old conjure workers advise their clients to wear them as an anklet or put them inside one's shoes to fear not walking over evil. Other coins with heads are effective, too, especially those figures who died as national heroes. This trick can also work as a warning device and an apotropaic charm against enemy work: if the coin turns black, an enemy has laid out an evil trick on one's path and stepped in it.

Fifty-seven-year-old sharecropper woman. Hinds County, Mississippi. Thin dimes around the ankles to prevent headaches. (Photo courtesy of Dorothea Lange, June 1937)

Tying it around the feet is also a popular remedy for rheumatism and sprained ankles among Black Americans throughout the States. This tradition has been well recorded in hospitals throughout the Deep South and East Coast and can be traced back to the West African practice of tying nine knots in a cord for healing and cursing.

Keeping a coin inside one's shoes during an interview or public speaking right under the heel is also practiced to relieve tension and stiffness, which can be physical symptoms of anxiety.

Likewise, some folks keep a silver dime under their tongue when taking food from a person they suspect to be a sorcerer; the coin would turn black if the food was poisoned.

Boiling a dime in water or milk and drinking the liquid is widely believed to be effective against magical poisons. When boiling and the coin moves around, if it is turned facing up, then the presence of poison is affirmative. If it is turned facing down, then it is negative. Silver dimes were difficult for slaves and even some freed Blacks to acquire, so they usually had to substitute coins or coinlike objects such as metal buttons to perform this diagnostic and curative ritual.

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.