Mojo Workin': The Old African American Hoodoo System

Notes

notes Prescript 1. The term hoodooist was used to describe the alleged practitioner. 2. Kuna, “Hoodoo.” 3. The Ring Shout was the sacred circle dance performed by African American bondsmen and their descendants. The dance was always performed in a sacred context such as worship, death rituals, and other sacred occasions. It was observed from St. Louis to the Gullah Sea Islands, from Virginia to Mississippi, in Philadelphia , and in Maryland. The dance was always performed in a counterclockwise circling formation, with the center reserved for those who fell under the spirit and experienced possession. The ritual was modified with the introduction of church pews to the old “praise houses” and with the standard church pew formation in black churches. The ritual continues today as “shoutin’” or as “ketchin’ the spirit.” The Ring Shout can still, occasionally, be seen in its original circle formation along the Gullah Coast in older churches in communities like Awendaw, Buck Hall, and Pineland, South Carolina, on special occasions such as Mother’s Day. 4. Kulii, “Hoodoo Tales Collected in Indiana.” The informants in this study repeatedly stated that they learned about Hoodoo from the discussions of older family members. 5. Chireau, “Conjuring.” 6. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 25. 7. Thomas, “Working Class and Lower Class Origins of Black Culture.” 8. Hyatt, Hoodoo-Conjuration-Witchcraft-Rootwork. 9. Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro. 10. Hurston, “High John De Conquer; Hurston, “Hoodoo in America.” 11. Snow, Walking Over Medicine; Snow, “Sorcerers, Saints and Charlatans”; Snow, “Mail Order Magic”; Snow, “Folk Medical Beliefs and Their Implications for Care of Patients”; Mitchell, Hoodoo Medicine; Fontenot, Secret Doctors; Savage, “The Evolution of Hoodoo in Mississippi and Contemporary Black Health.” Hazzard_Text.indd 187 10/10/12 8:44 AM 188 Notes to Prescript and Chapter 1 12. Cooley, “Root Doctors and Psychics in the Region”; Cooley, “Conversations About Hoodoo”; Cooley, “Root Stories”; Kulii, “A Look at Hoodoo in Three Urban Areas of Indiana.” 13. Robinson, “Black Healers during the Colonial Period and Early 19th Century America,” 81–86; Chireau, “Conjuring.” 14. Chireau, Black Magic. 15. Bell, “Pattern, Structure and Logic in Afro-American Hoodoo Performance.” 16. Anderson, Conjure in African American Society. 17. Most notably Luckymojo.com. The owner of the site was rude and offputting , but only after I revealed both my status as an Olorisha/priestess of Ogun and that I was not interested in purchasing her wares. I found Ms. Yronwode to be very defensive, especially about the incorrect Hoodoo information she posts on the Internet. I found other Internet sites on Hoodoo, and the owners of the sites were even more defensive and hostile than Ms. Yronwode. Another site owner whom I contacted, calling herself “Starr,” screamed and cursed into the phone that she was busy doing “readings” and that I better not “mess with her.” Like the marketeers who advertise in black confessions magazines, few of the Internet marketeers were African American. Another site owner, who lists himself as both “Dr.” and “PhD,” became defensive and insulting when I asked about his credentials. 18. Whoopi Goldberg’s portrayal of an African American psychic in the 1990 Hollywood movie Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, is reminiscent in certain scenes of Mantan Moreland’s numerous portrayals in which he is fearful of “ghosts.” These Hollywood attempts at humor ridicule African American deep spirituality. 19. See glossary for explanation of the term called. 20. Thomas, “Working-Class and Lower-Class Origins of Black Culture.” Chapter 1. Traditional Religion in West Africa and in the New World 1. Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony; Thornton, “The Development of an African Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1491–1750.” John Tucker places the conversion of the first Kongo ruler earlier than Thornton; Tucker, Angola, 29. 2. Schon and Crowther, Journals of the Rev. James Frederick Schon and Mr. Samuel Crowther, 33. 3. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 6. 4. Starobin, Industrial Slavery in the Old South; Bradford, “The Negro Ironworker in Ante-Bellum Virginia,” Journal of Southern History 25 (May, 1959):194–206; Bromberg, “Slavery in the Virginia Tobacco Factories”; Green, “Georgia’s Forgotten Industry”; Green, “Gold Mining”; Galloway, “Sugar Industry of Pernambuco during the Nineteenth Century”; Guthrie, “Colonial Economy”; Harrison, “The Evolution of Colombian Tobacco Trade to 1875.” 5. An example is observed in the age-grade organizational unit that required that the youth, within a certain age range, be organized into mutual support Hazzard_Text.indd 188 10/10/12 8:44 AM [18.223...