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by Quimbisero » Fri Aug 25, 2006 2:05 pm
Of course, and I'm a bit surprised cat didn't note this, they're not
[necessarily] practicing Hoodoo. This, and several other similar practices, such as placing St. Anthony upside down until he complies with a request, are common elements in Folk Catholicism, and not limited to the US, but found throughout Latin America and Europe.
Eoghan
(As i understand it, the placing of Saint Joseph upside down is Sicilian in origin and is the earliest version of this upside-down work, as Saint Joseph was the patron saint of Sicily. The inversion of other statues is of later conflationary development, as far as i can tell; for other entities in folk Catholicism have traditionally had their own unique forms of "withholding" or "physical" work: unscrewing the hands from statues of the Infant of Prague, removing the Baby Jesus from the arms of Saint Anthony statues, tying the string around the base of Santisima Muerte, etc.
(Saint Joseph is unusually important in USA hoodoo, especially when compared to the honour offered other saints, who have not become popular in USA conjure practices.
(A side-note: if hoodoo were as influenced by Haitian Voodoo as some deluded scholars would have us believe, why are there no USA hoodoo ceremonies or altars dedicated to Saint James, who plays an enormous role in Haitian folk Catholic / Voodoo iconography?
So, how do we explain the prominence of Saint Joseph in hoodoo? I believe the connection is through intercultural exchanges with Sicilian immigants. Colonies of Siicilian fishermen settled in many port cities in the USA, including New Orleans, San Francisco, and New York -- and, being darker-skinned than mainland Italians, and accustomed to commerce with North Africa, the Sicilians in these sea-coast areas had a high rate of intermarriage with African Americans. (My Sicilian father's cousin Virginia Percoco married a Black man in New York City during the 1930s, for instance, and Harry Hyatt recorded an interview with an intersex rootworker ("the Girl-Boy") in New Orleans who told Hyatt that his lover was "a Dago" -- undoubtedly a Sicilian, given the location).
Fava beans are called Saint Joseph Beans among Sicilians and Sicilian Americans because St. Joseph saved the island of Sicily from a famine when all other crops and the fish harvest had failed, by providing a bountiful supply of fava beans. In New Orleans the Sicilian-style Feast of Saint Joseph, where the Saint Joseph Beans are distributed as altar offerings, was opened up to participation by African Americans, and Fava Beans were thereafter called Mojo Beans in the African American community. So there is a stong link between Sicilian Saint Joseph rites of all kinds and hoodoo practice.
The practice of working with Saint Joseph by burying his statue (but not the us of Saint Joseph Beans) has spread into Ango-American communities of the USA as well, and became increasingly widespread after it was popularized during the 1970s. That era was so notable for the groth of Saint Joseph real estate work with statue burial that the urban legend site snopes.com at one point (and perhaps still) attempted to "bust the myth" that this was an old practice by claiming that it had been "invented by realtors during the 1970s"! This is one of the few cases of snopes.com being entirely wrong, by the way, for the site is usually quite accurate.
Snopes.com aside, and looking at the entance of Saint Joseph into hoodoo, i have a 1930s hoodoo supply company's catalogue ad for a Saint Joseph amulet case and statuette that is hinged in such a way that you can carry it on your person *with Saint Joseph upside down* -- which is clearly explained as the proper procedure in the ad. So it is old -- and it has been a part of hoodoo for decades longer than it has been a part of the White culture of America sampled by snopes.com.
Well, sorry to ramble, but in the absense of early material on the burial of Saint Anthony statues (which i would gladly receive, as i am not rying to be dogmatic here at all), i currently theorize that burying Saint Anthony upside down is a part of fairly recent spread of the Sicilian Saint Joseph upside-down rite to several other saints, each of whom originally had his or her own traditional "withholding" rites. As further evidence of the way these rites spread from one saint to another, i'd like to note that with the rise of the internet, the Saint Jude ex-voto rite of newspaper publication has recently been spreading onto Saint Expedite (but not onto Saints Joseph or Anthony).
(Just more food for thought. --cat)
I don't think I'll have enough money...
testimony starsinthesky7, ... and yes, Miss Bri is great!
