PART TWO
HOODOO
I
PASSE and caterpillars began to cross the road
year in gathering and culling over
INTER W again. I had spent a
foiktales. I loved it, but I had to bear in mind that there was a limit to the money to be spent on the project, and as yet,
had done nothing about hoodoo.
So I slept a night, and the next morning I headed my tolnails toward Louisiana and New Orleans in particular.
New Orleans is now and has ever been the hoodoo capital of America. Great names in rites that vie with those of Hayti in deeds that,keep alive the powers of Aftica
Hoodoo, or Voodoo, as pronounced by the wh . ites, is burn
rica with all the intensity of a sup
ing with a flame in Arne ds of secret adherents. It
pressed religion It has its thousan
if like Christianity to its locale, reclaiming some of
adapts itse stics to itself. Such as fireworship as
its borrowed characten church by the altar and the candles.
signified in the Christian er of water to sanctify as in baptism.
And the belief in the pow . . g. So nobody knows
Belief in magic is older than writin how it started.
The way we tell it, hoodoo started way back there before everything. Six days of magic spells and mighty words and the world with its elements above and below was made. And now God is leaning back taking a seventh day rest. When the
d He'll start to making new again.
eighth day comes aroun , round halfpast five, on the sixth
Man wasn't made until a day, so he can't know how anything was done. . Kingdoms crushed and crumbled whilst man Went gazing up into the sky and down into the hollows of the earth trying to catch God working with His hands so he could find out His secrets and learn how to accomplish and do. But no man yet has seen God's hand, nor yet His fingernails. All they could know was that God made everything to pass and perish except stones. God made stones for memory . He builds a mountain Himself 176
r since the days of Moses, kings have been totinS rods for a sign of power. But it's mostly shampolish becaust
no king has ever had the power of even one of Moses' ter words. Because Moses made a nation and a book, a thousan( million leaves of ordinary men's writing couldn't tell wha Moses said.
Then when the moon had dragged a thousand tides bchin her, Solomon was a man. So Sheba, from her country wher
she was, felt him carrying power and therefore she came t talk with Solomon and hear him.
The Queen of Sheba was an Ethiopian just like Jethro, wit power unequal to man. She didn't have to deny herself
give gold to Solomon. She had goldmaking words. But st was thirsty, and the country where she lived was dry to h
mouth. So she listened to her talking ring and went to S Solomon, and the fountain in his garden quenched her thir
So she made Solomon wise and gave him her talking rin
178 MULES AND MEN
<P>And Solomon built a room with a secret door and everyday he shut himself inside and listened to his ring. So he wrote down the ringtalk in books.
<P>
That's what the old ones said in ancient times and we talk it again.
<P>
It was way back therethe old folks told itthat RawHeadAndBloody Bones had reached down and laid hold of the taproot that points to the center of the world. And they talked about High Walker too. But they talked in people's language and nobody knew them but the old folks.
<P>
Nobody knows for sure how many thousands in America are warmed by the fire of hoodoo, because the worship is bound in secrecy. It is not the accepted theology of the Nation and so believers conceal their faith. Brother from sister, husband from wife. Nobody can say where it begins or ends. Mouths don't empty themselves unless the ears are sympathetic and knowing.
<P>
That is why these voodoo ritualistic orgies of Broadway and popular fiction are so laughable. The profound silence of the initiated remains what it is. Hoodoo is not drum beating and dancing. There are no moonworshippers among the Negroes in America.
<P>
I was once talking to Mrs. Rachel Silas of Sanford, Florida, so I asked her where I could find a good hoodoo doctor.
"Do you believe in dat ole fogeyism, chile? Ah don't see how nobody could do none of dat work, do you?" She laughed unnecessarily. "Ah been hearin' 'bout dat mess ever since Ah been big enough tuh know mahself, but shucks! Ah don't believe nobody kin do me no harm lessen they git somethin' in mah mouth."
"Don't fool yourself," I answered with assurance. "People can do things to you. I done seen things happen."
"Sho nuff? Well, well, well! Maybe things kin be done tuh harm yuh, cause Ah done heard good folks folks dat ought to knowsay dat it sho is a fact. Anyhow Ah figger it pays tuh be keerful."
"Oh yeah, Mrs. Rachel, Ah've seen a woman full of scorpions."
HOODOO: CHAPTER I
"Oh it kin be done, honey, no effs and ands 'bout de
There's things that kin be done. Ah seen uh' 'oman w gopher in her belly. You could see 'm rnovin' 'round ir And once every day he'd turn hisself clear over and thei could hear her hollerin' for more'n a mile. Dat hard would be cuttin' her insides. Way after 'while she took
ill sick frorn it and died. Ah knowed de man dat don trick. Dat wuz done in uh dish of hoppinjohn."'
Mrs. Viney White, a neighbor, was sitting there so spoke. "Ah knowed into dat maliself. It wuz done over breaking de leg of one of his hens dat wuz scratchin' up garden. When she took down sick Ah went to see her an told her folks right then dat somebody had done throw her, but they didn't b'lieve in nothin'. Went and got a A/. cal doctor, and they can't do them kind of cases no good all. Fact is it makes it worser." She stopped short and no( her head apprehensively towards the window. Rachel no her head knowingly. "She out dere now, tryin' tuh eat drop. "
"Who you talkin' 'bout?" I asked.
"De one dat does all cle underhand work 'round here. even throwed at me once, but she can't do nothin'. Ah t mah Big John de Conquer wid me. And Ah sprinkles n tard seed 'round my door every night before Ah goes
bed."
"Yeah, and another thing," Mrs. Rachel said, "Ah keeps offa me too. She tries tuh come in dis yard so she kin something down for me too, but air Lawd, Ah got someth buried at dat gate dat she can't cross. She done been c several times, but she can't cross."
"Ah'd git her tuh go if ah wuz you, Rachel," Mrs. Vi said.
"Wisht ah knowed how. Ah'd sho do it."
"You throw salt behind her, everytime she go out of gate. Do dat nine times and Ah bet she'll move so fast won't even know where she's going. Somebody saltec
'Peas and rice cooked together, "A root, extensively used in conjure.
18o
MULES AND MEN
woman over in Georgetown and she done moved so much she done wore out her furniture on dc movin' wagon. But looka here, Zora, whut you want wid a twoheaded doctor? Is somebody done throwed a old shoe at youp~
"Not exactly neither one, Mrs. Viney. just want to learn how to do things myself "
"Oh, honey, Ah wouldn't mess with it if Ah wuz you' Dat's a thing dat's got to be handled just so, do it'll kill you. Me and Rachel both knows somebody that could teach you if they will. Dis woman ain't lak some of these hoodoo doctors. She don't do nothin' but good. You couldn't pay her to be rottin' people's teeths out, and fillin' folks wid snakes and lizards and spiders and things like dat."
So I went to study with Eulalia, who specialized in Manandwoman cases. Everyday somebody came to get Eulalia to tie them up with some man or woman or to loose them from love.
Eulalia was average sized with very dark skin and bushy eyebrows. Her house was squatting among the palmettoes and the mossy scrub oaks. Nothing pretty in the house nor outside. No paint and no flowe S
get tied to a man.
"Who is dis man?" Eulalia wanted to know.
"Jerry Moore," the woman told her. "He want me and Ah know it, but dat 'oman he got she got roots buried and he can't git shet of herdo we would of done been married."
Eulalia sat still and thought awhile. Then she said: "Course Ah'm uh Christian woman and don't believe in partin' no husband and wife but since she done worked roots on him, to hold him where he don't want to be, it tain't no sin for me to loose him. Where they live at?"
"Down Young's Quarters. Dc third house from dis end."
"Do she ever go off from home and stays a good while durin' dc time he ain't there neither?"
"Yas Ma'am! She all dc time way from dat houseoff fanfootin' whilst he workin' lak a dog! It's a shame!"
"Well you lemme know dc next time she's off and Ah'Il fix everything like you want it. Put that money back in yo' purse, Ah don't want a thing till cle work is done."
Two or three days later her client was back with the news
rs. o one day a woman came to
HOODOO: CHAPTER I
that the overDlus AiF
181
Was gone ushing. Euialia sent her away
and put on her shoes. said to me. "Now
e arid his Aifels nine times on a piece of
wri"teGitferdrayt'ssanltambowI and a lemon," she
paper and cut a little hole in the stern end of that lemon and pour some of that guripowder in dc hole and roll that paper tight and shove it inside the lemon. Wrap dc lemon and dc bowl of salt up and less go."
In Jerry Moore's yard, Eulalia looked all around and looked tip at the sun a great cleal, then pointed out a spot.
"Dig a little hole right here and bury dat lemon. It's got to Lie buried with the bloomend down and it's got to be where cle settin' sun will shirie on it."
So I buried the lerrion and Eulalia walked around to the kitchen door. By the time I had the lemon buried the door Was open and we went inside. She looked all about and found some red pepper.
"Lift dat stovelid for me," she ordered, and I did. She tfirew some of the pepper into the stove and we went on into the, other room which was the bedroom and livingroom A in one. Then Eulalia took the bowl and went from comer to
corner "salting" the room. She'd toss a sprinkling into a corner and say, "Just fuss and fuss till you part and go away." Under the bed was sprinkled also. It was all over in a minute or two. Then we went.out and shut the kitchen door and hurried away. And Saturday night Eulalia got her pay and the next day she set the ceremony to bring about the marriage.