﻿Here’s what we’re going to talk about in this one!
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Hello everyone, I’m Angela, and welcome to my symposium! I am a PhD and a university lecturer
and this is your online resource for the Academic Study of Magic
and Magic-practising Religions and Traditions.
Today I’m going to make one of my patrons happy. Nick, this video is dedicated to
you! And special thanks to my best friend Cipriano who gave me some useful insights.
Before we start, I want to make a couple of premises. The first is that Hoodoo is a very
complex phenomenon and there appears to be a lack of consensus on some of its aspects. The second is
that here I’m going to focus on the academic research on this tradition, not on sources
produced by the community of practitioners. Also, this video will not – nor does it intend to – be
an exhaustive explanation of the Hoodoo tradition but just an introduction. Let me know in the
comments if you’d like me to cover specific aspects of this tradition in more details.
But now let’s move onto the topic, shall we?
According to Hazzard-Donald, it is difficult to pin down one satisfactory definition of Hoodoo
that may encompass all of its complexities. And yet, she defines it for the purpose of her study
as the ‘indigenous, herbal, healing and supernatural-controlling spiritual
folk tradition of the African American in the United States’.
'Hoodoo— also known as “rootwork,” “conjure,” “conjuration,” and even “trickeration” — 'is
a complex and nebulous belief system with deep roots in the African American South. Boasting no
dogma, ecclesiastical structures, congregations, or religious hierarchy,
Hoodoo is perhaps best comprehended as a way of understanding the workings of nature
and destiny- as Wilson beautifully puts it.
As such, it offers believers both a system of explanation and a system of engagement—
a way to explain the often-inexplicable workings of the world and a way to act upon it.
Usually, bringing about these changes in the world
involves the use of roots and other plant materials; hence the name “rootwork.”'
According to Maduro, 'the Hoodoo subculture within the wider Afro-American culture has become most
organized and differentiated in the American South along the Gulf Coast. The most well-known Hoodoo
centres, known to his informants in San Francisco, were in Texas and Louisiana: New Orleans
and the surrounding area, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Houston. These regions were settled by Haitian
emigrants in the wake of the island’s revolution in 1791. That’s when large numbers of black slaves
were brought, by their French owners, to Louisiana, the nearest French possession'.
Yvonne P. Chireau sees Hoodoo as a religious tradition, more specifically as a ‘vernacular
religion’, seemingly endorsing an argument quite popular among religious studies scholars
according to which the term religion should not only identify traditions resembling the Abrahamic
or the World Religions but rather be more inclusive to the non-dominant,
non-institutionalised and non-dogmatic manifestations of religiosity.
On the other hand, Katrina Hazzard-Donald states that Hoodoo is no longer a religion.
Although it used to be, she explains that Hoodoo, now,
can be seen as ‘the reorganized remnants of what must have been, albeit short-lived,
a full-blown African-based religion among African American bondsmen.’.
Analogously to many west and central west African traditional religions, the Hoodoo religion
entailed practices such as spirit possession, ancestor worship, water immersion,
herbal medicine, sacred music, circle dancing
as well as having shaman-like figures who took on different roles in their community, for instance,
leading religious ceremonies or sacred rituals such as the Ring Shout.
When the African religion turned into hoodoo, a significant role was played by
cultural exchanges with Europeans, white American settlers, and Native Americans. Although a direct
influence of Native American spirituality on to Hoodoo has little supporting evidence,
the herbal healing practice found in Hoodoo shows remarkable similarities with Native
American customs suggesting that some degree of cultural exchange did, in fact, occur.
Moving on to the philosophical components of
Hoodoo we find two main philosophical foundations underpinning this practice.
The first is that elements found in the natural world and human by-products - such as oils,
hair, roots, and bones – possess an inherent power. Different elements
hold a different amount of power and their combination can increase or decrease their
effectiveness for a given purpose. This power is believed to be neutral, neither good nor evil.
The second philosophical stance – or underlying
belief – is that human beings can access and manipulate this power.
The extent to which this power can be exerted depends upon the knowledge of the individual.
Knowledge, in hoodoo, is often gained through the means of stories and tales of personal
experiences. As Wilson suggests, ‘Generations of practitioners have known that chewing the
root of Chewing John and then spitting it toward the person one hopes to influence will yield the
desired result. Similarly, stories about the money-drawing power of lodestones have long
circulated among gamblers and lottery players’. It is also noteworthy to mention that some of this
information is freely shared while more esoteric knowledge remains only accessible to those who
are traditionally referred to as rootworkers, hoodoo doctors, conjurers, and root doctors.
Contemporary practitioners of Hoodoo deem the source of their esoteric knowledge
to come through spiritual revelation, sometimes referred to as being ‘given
by God’. In other instances, knowledge is passed down via generational inheritance
through kinship. However, it is interesting to notice that those who seek help from
rootworkers show little to no interest in where their knowledge comes from. The key
point is the effectiveness of that practice, for both the practitioner and the client.
In a similar manner, the causal relationship between the workings
and their effects holds little relevance to those involved with the practice,
as what really matters, once again, is obtaining the desired result.
Another fascinating element of contemporary African American Hoodoo is its individualised
nature, alongside the absence of a pantheon of Saints of Spirits to seek assistance from.
Most root doctors practise alone rather than in groups or with other practitioners. Adopting
this individual spiritual revelation, traditional rootwork has no centralized
body of knowledge and no authoritative text beyond the Bible.
The set of practices in Hoodoo is quite varied, just as its now worldwide outreach
that goes far beyond the United States. But these may be topics for future videos,
granted you express your interest in the comment section.
Before wrapping up allow me to welcome to the Inner Symposium, my new patrons.
Thank you so much for pledging to my Patreon. It really means a lot to me. I'm so happy you joined
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Bye for now.
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