Hoodoo (spirituality)
Hoodoo is a complex set of spiritual observances, traditions, and beliefs—including magical and other ritual practices—developed by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous North American botanical knowledge. Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure men or conjure women, and root doctors. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include roots, rootwork and conjure. As an autonomous spiritual system, it has often been syncretized with beliefs from religions such as Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Spiritualism.
Hoodoo, frequently associated with conjure, is a compilation of religious beliefs and practices, centered on ancestor worship, justice, and rootwork, a botanical practice used for both healing and causing harm. It is mostly influenced by West African spiritual practices, incorporating Indigenous herbalism and European grimoires. While there are a few academics who believe that Hoodoo is an autonomous religion, those who practice the tradition maintain that it is a set of spiritual traditions that are practiced in conjunction with a religion or spiritual belief system, such as a traditional African spirituality and Abrahamic religion.
Many Hoodoo traditions draw from the beliefs of the Bakongo people of Central Africa. Over the first century of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 52% of all enslaved Africans transported to the Americas came from Central African countries that existed within the boundaries of modern-day Cameroon, the Congo, Angola, Central African Republic, and Gabon.
Etymology
The first documentation of the word "Hoodoo" in the English language appeared in 1870. Its origins are obscure. Still, some linguists believe it originated as an alteration of the word Voodoo – a word that has its origin in the Gbe languages such as the Ewe, Adja, and Fon languages of Ghana, Togo, and Benin – referring to divinity.Another possible etymological origin of the word Hoodoo comes from the word Hudu, meaning "spirit work", which comes from the Ewe language spoken in the West African countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Hudu is one of its dialects.
Recent scholarly publications spell the word with a capital letter. The word has different meanings depending on how it is spelled. Some authors spell Hoodoo with a capital letter to distinguish it from commercialized hoodoo, which is spelled with a lowercase letter. Other authors have different reasons why they capitalize or lowercase the first letter.
According to African American religion professor Yvonne P. Chireau, the lexicon that came to be associated with conjuring in the United States "emanated from West and Central African linguistic antecedents." For example, the word gris-gris is a Mande word of the Windward Coast and Senegambia. Mojo bags can be traced to the words wanga and mooyo in the Kikongo language. Juju bags are believed to have an origin amongst the Hausa people in Nigeria and Niger. The use of the Hausa word juju later became prevalent across other countries that the ethnic group immigrated.
History
Antebellum era
Yvonne Chireau stated, "Hoodoo is an African American-based tradition that makes use of natural and supernatural elements in order to create and effect change in the human experience.." Hoodoo was created by African Americans, who were among over 12 million enslaved Africans from various Central and West African ethnic groups transported to the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries as part of the transatlantic slave trade. The transatlantic slave trade to the United States occurred between 1619 and 1808, and the illegal slave trade in the United States occurred between 1808 and 1860. Between 1619 and 1860 approximately 500,000 enslaved Africans were transported to the United States. The America's Black Holocaust Museum puts the number of slaves taken to America in the Atlantic Slave Trade at 388,000 From Central Africa, Hoodoo has Bakongo magical influence from the Bakongo religion incorporating the Kongo cosmogram, Simbi water spirits, and Nkisi and Minkisi practices. The West African influence is Vodun from the Fon and Ewe people in Benin and Togo, following some elements from the Yoruba religion.After their contact with European slave traders and missionaries, some Africans converted to Christianity willingly. At the same time, other enslaved Africans were forced to become Christian, which resulted in a syncretization of African spiritual practices and beliefs with the Christian faith. Enslaved and free Africans learned regional indigenous botanical knowledge after they arrived in the United States. The extent to which Hoodoo could be practiced varied by region and the temperament of enslavers. For example, the Gullah people of the coastal Southeast experienced an isolation and relative freedom that allowed the retention of various traditional West African cultural practices. Among the Gullah people and enslaved African Americans in the Mississippi Delta, where the concentration of enslaved people was dense, Hoodoo was practiced under an extensive cover of secrecy. The reason for secrecy among enslaved and free African Americans was that slave codes prohibited large gatherings of enslaved and free Black people. Enslavers experienced how slave religion ignited slave revolts among enslaved and free Black people, and some leaders of slave insurrections were Black ministers or conjure doctors.
File:Dancing in Congo Square - Edward Winsor Kemble, 1886.jpg|thumb|During the slave trade, the majority of Central Africans imported to New Orleans, Louisiana, were Bakongo people. This image was painted in 1886 and shows African Americans in New Orleans performing dances from Africa in Congo Square. Congo Square was where African Americans practiced Voodoo and Hoodoo.
The Code Noir was implemented in 1724 in French colonial Louisiana. It regulated the lives of enslaved and free people and prohibited and made it illegal for enslaved Africans to practice their traditional religions. Article III in the Code Noir states: "We forbid any public exercise of any religion other than Catholic." The Code Noir and other slave laws resulted in enslaved and free African Americans conducting their spiritual practices in secluded areas such as woods, churches, and other places. Slaves created methods to decrease their noise when they practiced their spirituality. In a slave narrative from Arkansas, enslaved people prayed under pots to prevent nearby white people from hearing them at such times. A formerly enslaved person in Arkansas named John Hunter said the enslaved people went to a secret house only they knew and turned the iron pots face up so enslavers could not hear them. They would place sticks under wash pots about a foot from the ground because "f they'd put it flat on the ground the ground would carry the sound."
Formerly enslaved person and abolitionist William Wells Brown wrote in his book, My Southern Home, or, The South and Its People, published in 1880, about the life of enslaved people in St. Louis, Missouri. Brown recorded a secret Voudoo ceremony at midnight in St. Louis. Enslaved people circled a cauldron, and a Voudoo queen had a magic wand. Snakes, lizards, frogs, and other animal parts were thrown into the cauldron. During the ceremony, spirit possession took place. Brown also recorded other conjure practices among the enslaved population. Enslaved Africans in America held on to their African culture.
Some scholars assert that Christianity did not have much influence on some of the enslaved Africans as they continued to practice their traditional spiritual practices. Hoodoo was a form of resistance against slavery whereby enslaved Africans hid their traditions using the Christian religion against enslavers. This branch of Christianity among the enslaved was concealed from enslavers in "invisible churches." Invisible churches were secret churches where enslaved African Americans combined Hoodoo with Christianity. Enslaved and free Black ministers preached resistance to slavery and the power of God through praise and worship, and Hoodoo rituals would free enslaved people from bondage. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois studied African American churches in the early twentieth century. Du Bois asserts the early years of the Black church during slavery on plantations were influenced by Voodooism. Black church records from the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century in the South recorded that some church members practiced conjure and combined Christian and African spiritual concepts to harm or heal members in their community.
Known Hoodoo spells date back to the era of slavery in the colonial history of the United States. A slave revolt broke out in 1712 in colonial New York, with enslaved Africans revolting and setting fire to buildings in the downtown area. The leader of the revolt was a free African conjurer named Peter the Doctor, who made a magical powder for the enslaved people to be rubbed on the body and clothes for their protection and empowerment. The Africans who revolted were Akan people from Ghana. Historians suggest the powder made by Peter the Doctor probably included some cemetery dirt to conjure the ancestors to provide spiritual militaristic support from ancestral spirits as help during the slave revolt. The Bakongo people in Central Africa incorporated cemetery dirt into minkisi conjuring bags to activate it with ancestral spirits. During the slave trade, Bakongo people were brought to colonial New York. The New York slave revolt of 1712 and others in the United States showed a blending of West and Central African spiritual practices among enslaved and free Black people. Conjure bags, also called mojo bags were used as a resistance against slavery. In the 1830s, Black sailors from the United States utilized conjure for safe sea travel. A Black sailor received a talisman from an Obi woman in Jamaica. This account shows how Black Americans and Jamaicans shared their conjure culture and had similar practices. Free Blacks in northern states had white and Black clients regarding fortune-telling and conjure services.
In Alabama slave narratives, it was documented that formerly enslaved people used graveyard dirt to escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers rubbed graveyard dirt on the bottom of their feet or put graveyard dirt in their tracks to prevent slave catchers' dogs from tracking their scent. Former slave Ruby Pickens Tartt from Alabama told of a man who could fool the dogs, saying he "done lef' dere and had dem dogs treein' a nekked tree. Dey calls hit hoodooin' de dogs". An enslaved conjurer could conjure confusion in the slave catchers' dogs, which prevented whites from catching freedom seekers. In other narratives, enslaved people made a jack ball to know if an enslaved person would be whipped or not. Enslaved people chewed and spat the juices of roots near their enslavers secretly to calm the emotions of enslavers, which prevented whippings. Enslaved people relied on conjurers to prevent whippings and being sold further South. A story from a former slave, Mary Middleton, a Gullah woman from the South Carolina Sea Islands, tells of an incident where an enslaver was physically weakened from conjure. An enslaver beat one of the people he enslaved badly. The enslaved person he beat went to a conjurer, and the conjurer made the enslaver weak by sunset. Middleton said, "As soon as the sun was down, he was down too, he down yet. De witch done dat."
Bishop Jamison, born enslaved in Georgia in 1848, wrote an autobiographical account of his life. On a plantation in Georgia, there was an enslaved Hoodoo man named Uncle Charles Hall who prescribed herbs and charms for enslaved people to protect themselves from white people. Hall instructed the enslaved people to anoint roots three times daily and chew and spit roots toward their enslavers for protection.
Another slave story talks about an enslaved woman named Old Julie, who was a conjurer known among the enslaved people on the plantation for conjuring death. Old Julie conjured so much death that her enslaver sold her away to stop her from killing people on the plantation with conjure. Her enslaver put her on a steamboat to take her to her new enslaver in the Deep South. According to the stories of freedmen after the Civil War, Old Julie used her conjure powers to turn the steamboat back to where it was docked, forcing her enslaver who tried to sell her to keep her.
Frederick Douglass, a formerly enslaved person, abolitionist, and author wrote in his autobiography that he sought spiritual assistance from an enslaved conjurer named Sandy Jenkins. Sandy told Douglass to follow him into the woods, where they found a root that Sandy told Douglass to carry in his right pocket to prevent any white man from whipping him. Douglass carried the root on his right side as instructed by Sandy and hoped the root would work when he returned to the plantation. The cruel slave-breaker, Mr. Covey, told Douglass to do some work, but as Mr. Covey approached Douglass, Douglass had the strength and courage to resist Mr. Covey and defeated him after they fought. Covey never bothered Douglass again. In his autobiography, Douglass believed the root given to him by Sandy prevented him from being whipped by Mr. Covey.
Conjure for African Americans is a form of resistance against white supremacy. African American conjurers were seen as a threat by white Americans because slaves went to free and enslaved conjurers to receive charms for protection and revenge against their enslavers. Enslaved Black people used Hoodoo to bring about justice on American plantations by poisoning enslavers and conjuring death onto their oppressors.
During the era of slavery, occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph began studying the occult and traveled and learned spiritual practices in Africa and Europe. Randolph was a mixed-race free Black man who wrote several books on the occult. In addition, Randolph was an abolitionist who spoke out against slavery in the South. After the American Civil War, Randolph educated freedmen in schools for formerly enslaved people called Freedmen's Bureau Schools in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he studied Louisiana Voodoo and Hoodoo in African American communities, documenting his findings in his book, Seership, The Magnetic Mirror. In 1874, Randolph organized a spiritual organization called Brotherhood of Eulis in Tennessee. Through his travels, Randolph documented the continued African traditions in Hoodoo practiced by African Americans in the South. Randolph documented two African American men of Kongo origin who used Kongo conjure practices against each other. The two conjure men came from a slave ship that docked in Mobile Bay in 1860 or 1861.