Hoodoo: The Secret African American Spiritual Tradition.
Hoodoo is an African American spiritual system often referred to as conjure or rootwork.
It is documented as being practiced in the United States as far back as 1702. Yvonne Chireau writes in her book Black Magic, “Conjure is a magical tradition in which spiritual power is invoked for various purposes, such as healing, protection, and self-defense.” Hoodoo is rooted in West and Central African traditions with Native American and European influences. Christianity is often syncretized with Hoodoo and is frequently practiced together with many of its adherents identifying themselves as Christians. Yvonne Chireau writes, “The relationship between Conjure and Christianity was fluid and constantly shifting. Supernatural practitioners often adopted symbols from Christian traditions for use in their own practices and rituals”. The suppression of African culture and religion created a creolized spiritual system that was practiced by enslaved African Americans and their descendants. Hoodoo is often mischaracterized by scholars as a form of Lowcountry folk magic with African, Native American, and European influences. To understand Hoodoo, one would have to do more than a generic search on the topic and would have to delve deeply into the complex culture of African Americans in the United States, particularly in the South.
The spiritual system of Hoodoo is not just folk magic and superstition, but it is a system used to maintain the culture of the oppressed victims of African descent, control, healing, and resistance. Control and resistance are major themes in the Hoodoo tradition, that are echoed through its spiritual practices. Katrina Hazzard-Donald describes Hoodoo in her 2013 book Mojo Workin’ as a “Folk, spiritual, controlling, and healing tradition originating among and practiced primarily, but not exclusively by captive African Americans and their descendants primarily in the southern United States.” One of the main functions of Hoodoo was to countermand the will of the slave master. Mark Leone and Gloria Fry’s article “Conjuring in the Big House Kitchen” states that “Sacred spaces used protective magic to foretell or to diminish the forced separation of families, arbitrary whippings, and incessant labor”. For the enslaved Africans the ability to have some sense of control over one’s life was a grasp to remain as human as possible while being treated as property.
The making of Hoodoo has its roots in the continent of Africa.
Several tribes that were brought over to the Americas contributed to different aspects of the Hoodoo tradition. The amount of influence that certain ethnic groups played in the role of making Hoodoo depends heavily on the demographics of slave importation in certain regions. Katrina Hazzard-Donald states that “The Bambara, a tribe native to the area of what is now Mali, contributed to protective amulets known as gris-gris in the Louisiana region”. The Kongo of West Central Africa plays a critical role in Hoodoo. The Kongo’s spiritual talisman called the Nkisi is both sacred and influential in the Hoodoo system. This Nkisi has expressed itself in many ways in the United States as “hands” “mojos” and “tobys”. In the Kongo Nkisi were spiritual beings who interacted with and assisted humans in earthly struggles. Without the Kongo influence, Hoodoo would not have voodoo dolls, the marking of sacred spaces, and the use of the Bible as a talisman. As Africans became accustomed to life in a new land other cultures such as Native Americans and Europeans played a role in shaping their daily lives as well as their newly formed spiritual system of Hoodoo. Native Americans most likely heavily influenced the herbal healing aspect of Hoodoo. The use of candles to please spirits, rabbit’s foot for luck, playing cards for divination, and of course the Bible are all influences of European origins.
Hoodoo is more of a culture than it is a system of folk magic.
It is the fight to preserve African culture that was systematically stripped away from the enslaved Africans and their descendants. The African people fought with resistance to preserve their African culture and pride. Whether the resistance was to rebel, poison, or just quietly syncretize their beliefs with those of the dominant society, they were all mechanisms of survival. Hoodoo was what kept the motherland in the minds and customs of a people that had been carried away hundreds of years before.
Authored by Shanetta Summers