Pleased to make your acquaintences...

[CopperFox]

Hello to all. By luck, chance or fortune, I recently happened upon some links which eventually brought me to the LM site. After reviewing much of the material available online I am pleasantly surprised with how much the Hoodoo trad parallels many of the practices here, in rural southern West Virginia. Truly, I was laboring under the common misconception that hoodoo was simply another name for Voodoo.

A brief history lesson: at the onset of the Civil War, when Virginia seceded from the Union, West Virginia seceded from Virginia and the Confederacy. The peoples who lived in the rugged Appalachian mountains had little use for slave labor and no tolerance for the sort of men who would impose their will on another human being. Our state motto is: Montani Semper Liberi -- Mountaineers are always Free. As such, this area has always held an attraction for individualists and freethinkers.

With the advent of interstate travel, cable television and the internet, culture here has become nearly as homogonized as everywhere else. This was not true only a few short generations back. As a child in the early 1980's I had a personal experience that set the stage for my lifelong interest in folk magic and medicine. Many older people recall persons in the community who practiced what was termed "faith healing" -- some employed prayers and chants derived from the bible, others combined these prayers with the use of herbs and symbolic acts. On the surface, it easily passes for Christianity and traditional medicine -- upon closer inspection, the similarities to sympathic magick are undeniable.
I look forward to learning more about Hoodoo and applying it to my own workings!

[catherineyronwode]

Hello, and welcome to our community.

You are correct that hoodoo, which is primarily African American, has much in common with the Anglo-American Appalachian traditions of folk magic and medicine. One reason is that both groups long ago intermarried with and accepted many of the practiced of local native American people. Also, during the 19th century, the sort of faith healing, Spiritualism, and Holiness church-based practices you describe swept into both the Black and White communities of the East and South. Also, both were served by Jewish tradespeople (I'm sure you know this, but Wheeling, WV had a substantial jewish population at one time) and these Southern Jews included many pharmacists, who compounded herb-based remedies, including cosmetics, which sustained the traditions because they were compunded of ingredients that may have been backed by Native beliefs and also may have had a magical symbolism in their ingedients according to Classical European lore shared by the Ashkenazim, Anglo-Germanic, and Scits-irish people. This melting-pot effect extends into rural music of the era as well as folk magic. It's the stuff that folklorists just enjoy so much that they want to go around and blow up every chain store, mall, and interstae highway in America.

[Hoodoo Girl]

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing that information. I look forward to learning more from this forum!

[CopperFox]

Ms. Cat,
I very much enjoyed your response to my introductory post -- very accurate. Much of the folk magick here is heavily influenced by Indian intermarriage with German settlers. Other ethnic groups, such as the tri-racial Melungions had their own slant on these traditions, I'm sure. Although I have no firsthand knowledge of the Melungion folk traditions, many old time "witch tales" mention the Melungions as powerful conjurers. Common here too, is the use of the word conjure. I have always found it immensely amusing that staunch Christians (or Christos, as they are sometimes called) will happily "conjure" for you, but shudder at the very mention of the words "witchcraft," "spell," or "magick." Regardless of what one chooses to call it, all these influences have combined to make a very potent blend of prayer, ritual and herbals which are every bit as vibrant and viable as Hoodoo.

I understand you are an ardent folklorist, and if you are interested I would be more than happy to provide you with anecdotes and common practices that are known to me. Some of the chants and prayers of course are "common as apples" but I also have personal and familial experiences to relate. Sadly, a great deal of our traditional practices were grossly bastardized in the book American Folk Magick by Silver Ravenwolf -- while many of the chants and rituals were reported somewhat accurately the context they were given in were such that would have never been employed by Appalachian granny witches or conjurers. ( I try to be a tolerant person, but like you, am utterly disenchanted with the Mal-Wart world of cheap plastic crap and it rankles my soul to see my heritage co-opted by the Mall Witch set...)

Clearly, Ms. Cat, you are an astute business woman and skillful Rootworker and I certainly respect and admire that. I look forward to establishing myself as a LM customer in anticipation of enrolling in the Rootwork course. In the meantime, I hope you will tolerate my unceasing questions posed to other forum members as I seek knowledge and look for common ground between hoodoo and Appalachian folk magick traditions. Gemini, go figure, but I cannot help my curious nature! (Nor would I want to...) As I acquire some products from the LM formulary, I assure you my posts will become more specific to these items...until then, please indulge these questions as they may provide you with valuable folkloric information in turn.

Again, it is my pleasure to make your acquaintence and I eagerly look forward to doing business with you.

Ah, one last thing, Ms. Cat -- could you provide me with a phonetic spelling of your surname? No clue as to how to pronounce it...

[ablake]

Please don't bash me if I get this wrong but I think Yronwode should sound like "Iron-wood"?

I guess we will see...

[CopperFox]

Yep, you're quite right about that pronounciation -- although it took me a bit to puzzle out. This is one of those posts I referred to earlier in the forum support thread, where a very old post has been given today's date. I find this has been happening throughout the forum...it's a bit confusing, as the original posts are many months old. Hope it is resolved soon and the threads/posts are restored to chronological order.

[catherineyronwode]

Hi, CopperFox.

See old-posts-appearing-with-new-date-t5063.html