Mojo bag
A mojo 'bag, in the African American spiritual tradition called Hoodoo, is an amulet consisting of a flannel bag containing one or more magical items. It is a "prayer in a bag", or a spell that can be carried with or on the host's body. Alternative American names for the mojo bag include a toby, lucky hand, nation sack, conjure bag, and a package. Other forms of African American amulet bags include the gris-gris and juju' bags.
With an origin among the Kongo people in Central Africa, the word mojo also refers to a form of conjure, Hoodoo, and charm work. Mojo containers have been fashioned as bags, gourds, jars, bottles, shells, and canes. The making of mojo bags is a system of African American occult magic that involves housing charms or spirits inside of a bag for protection and healing. Other times mojo bags are created to manifest results in a person's life, such as good-luck, money or love.
Etymology
The word mojo is derived from the Kikongo word mooyo, meaning "to the spirits that dwelt within magical charms." It refers to the cavity of a nkisi, where magical items are normally stored''.''Semantic change of the word
While the word mojo refers to magic and a conjure bag in traditional Gullah spirituality, it underwent a semantic change in American popular culture at the beginning of the twentieth century and came to refer to sexuality and virility. Musicians began to use the word mojo outside of its original context within African American culture. Mojo has also come to mean motivation in general.History and ideology
and West Africans practiced the spiritual art of creating conjure bags for protection, healing and to communicate with spirits. Historians of the time noted that they were frequently worn by non-believers and believers alike, and were also found attached to buildings. The word conjure is considered by some to be an alternative to the word mojo. Because of this, a mojo bag is also referred to as a conjure bag and hoodoo bag, usually made by a respected community conjure doctor.Central African influence
The Bakongo people of the Congo River region created medicine bags using leather or cloth and placed feathers, animal parts, roots, herbs and other ingredients for protection. When Bakongo people were enslaved in the United States, the practice transitioned continued in African American communities and became an essential custom in Hoodoo tradition. Mojo items were hung from trees, tied to a string, worn underneath the clothes in hopes of achieving the desired outcome for the user.The nkisi is one example of a mojo container made by hand from a root doctor. Spirits are contained in a bag, gourd, shells and other containers. Nkisi bags, which looked similar to mojo bags, are believed to be an ancestor of the mojo bags in American Hoodoo. The spiritual philosophy of the mojo bag also has Bakongo influence. In traditional Bakongo religion, simbi spirits can inhabit an nkisi bag for healing or protecting an individual or a community. The Nganga creates the bag for an individual using ingredients specific to a certain simbi to invoke it into the bag.
In the U.S., these Nganga conjurers were easily identified by the way they dressed, their demeanor, and charms, by the mojo bags worn by the individual. Some practitioners concealed their charms while others, who were in the business of conjure, sometimes wore their charms and mojo bags on the outside of their clothes.
West African variations
In West Africa, similar conjure bags are called juju and gris-gris. The word juju comes from the Hausa language, while gris-gris has origins in Mande communities and is associated with Afro-Islamic mystical traditions. The practice of using gris-gris was translocated to the United States with enslaved Africans and was incorporated by practitioners of Louisiana Voodoo and Hoodoo in the United States. Originally the gris-gris was adorned with Islamic scripture and was used to ward off evil, djinn spirits or bad luck. The Mandinka people were the first Muslim ethnic group imported from Sierra Leone to the Americas. They were known for their conjure bags called gris-gris and carried the talismans with them when they boarded slave ships heading to the Americas. Enslaved Muslims were sought out for conjure services requesting them to make gris-gris bags for protection against their enslavers and other dangers.American adaptation
During the Atlantic slave trade, some enslaved Africans were able to conceal their conjure bags before they boarded slave ships heading to the Americas. Gullah Jack, an enslaved man from Angola, carried a mojo bag onto a slave ship leaving Zanzibar and brought it with him to the United States. Even after he arrived, he was known for carrying mojo for his spiritual protection.Those principles of Bakongo religion that early Africans, like Gullah Jack, reinforced are what influenced the later creation of mojo bags in the United States for centuries to come. Certain natural and animal ingredients, such as animal bones, animal teeth, claws, and graveyard dirt were deemed necessary to contain a simbi spirit or an ancestral spirit inside of the bag for protection and healing. With the weaving of traditional African concepts, such as the Bakongo cosmogram, Kongo Christianity, Native American herbalism, American Protestantism, and Hoodoo tradition, African Americans were able to reimagine and reshape the mojo bag to address their new needs in a new land. However, beliefs were maintained, with Black people in the American South also observing the connection between the Christian cross and the Bakongo cosmogram. The cross continued to be viewed as an nkisi that harnessed the spirit of Jesus on the cross that could be invoked in rituals for healing or protection and for the removal of sorcery.
In the United States, mojos are used to ground spirits in certain locations to prevent the spirits of the dead from coming back and haunting the living by placing the last items they touched on top of their graves. The last items touched by the dead are also placed inside mojo bags to carry the spirit of the deceased with the living for protection. A mojo can be a bottle-tree charm, spirit jugs or memorial jugs to capture spirits inside containers to house their spirit to later work with the spirit in rituals.
Archeologists in New York discovered continued West-Central African burial practices in a section of Lower Manhattan, New York City which is now the location of the African Burial Ground National Monument. Historians and archeologists found Kongo related artifacts at the African Burial Ground such as minkisi and nkisi conjure bundles buried with African remains. These nkisi and minkisi bundles became the conjure bags in Hoodoo.
At Hermitage plantation in Nashville, Tennessee, archeologists discovered continued Central African traditions of using hexagonal glass beads for fertility and other spiritual purposes. Other charms found were mojo hands, lucky roots, raccoon penis bones, ceramics, and blue beads. These items found in a slave cabin showed enslaved African Americans used local roots and created mojo hands for protection and healing. Enslaved African Americans at Hermitage plantation used prehistoric artifacts for charms to draw spiritual power from ancient artifacts. In addition, archeologists found Kongo cosmograms engraved onto limestone marbles for spiritual power. The charms were used to protect from conjure and remove sorcery and reverse curses back onto the conjurer. The knowledge of charm bags was shared and passed down orally amongst people in the slave community.
The word hand in this context is defined as a combination of ingredients. The term may derive from the use of finger and hand bones from the dead in mojo bags, or from ingredients such as the lucky hand root, which was favored by gamblers. The latter suggests an analogy between the varied bag ingredients and the several cards that make up a hand in card games. Like their ancestors, African Americans continued to use mojo, believing it would provide protection and favor.
Making a mojo
Most Southern-style conjure bags are made of red flannel material. The use of red flannel bags for mojo bags was influenced by the Bakongo people's minkisi in Central Africa, and in Hoodoo red symbolizes protection from evil and spiritual power. Research from the National Museum of African American History and Culture explained that the color red symbolizes sacrifice, transition and power in countries where the belief in mojo was common, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo and Gabon. Other times when red cloth was not available, African Americans used whatever cloth they had to create a conjure bag. The contents of each bag vary directly with the aim of the conjurer. For example, a mojo carried for love-drawing will contain different ingredients than one for gambling luck or magical protection. Ingredients can include graveyard dirt, roots, herbs, animal parts, minerals, coins, crystals, good luck tokens, and carved amulets. The more personalized objects are used to add extra power because of their symbolic value.To house spirits of the dead inside mojo bags, jars, packets, and other containers and charms, graveyard dirt from a deceased person's burial plot is used. Spirits of the dead can protect a person from physical and spiritual harm. The conjurer prepares the graveyard dirt with certain incantations, prayers, Biblical or Quranic scriptures and other ingredients to instruct the spirit to heal or protect a person. Historians have traced this practice to the Bakongo people, who utilized graveyard dirt to house spirits of the dead, animal spirits, or ancestral spirits inside conjure bags for healing or protection. African Americans during slavery and freedom combined Native American herbal knowledge with African spirituality. Enslaved and free Africans upon arrival to the United States used North American herbs, and roots to create conjure bags. However, they applied an African interpretation in the preparation of herbal ingredients by creating nkisi and performing African religious rituals in the preparation of spiritual medicines.
A former slave from Texas said to make a conjure bag African Americans "would take hair and brass nails and thimbles and needles and mix them up in a conjure bag." Prince Johnson, a former slave from Mississippi, said his slaveholder would inspect her slaves to make sure they did not have any charms underneath their clothes. An oral account from Patsy Moses, a former slave from Texas, mentioned the use of red flannel cloth to make conjure bags using frog bones to protect from an enemy. Other Texas slave narratives showed that red flannel cloth was commonly used to make mojo bags incorporating frog bones, snake skins, and roots to protect from their enemies and remove curses. Some mojo bags were made to cause harm and bad luck for slaveholders, and other mojo bags were for protection depending on the ingredients used by the root worker. William Webb made mojo bags for enslaved people in Kentucky to keep the peace between the enslaved and their enslavers. Webb instructed the enslaved to gather roots from their local environment and place them in conjure bags and pray over them to keep the spiritual magic of the mojo bags active.