Hey from Maine!

[Arani]

I'm not a native to Maine, but I transplanted here five years ago from Indiana. Best move ever! I'm relatively new to hoodoo personally, although my family isn't. I've always been interested in the unseen, magic(k), folklore, mythology and the like for as long as I can remember. I dropped out of Christianity at fifteen, studied different religions for a year, and settled on Wicca as my general belief system. I found out I was good at spellwork, especially in the beginning. However, beliefs changed, and I drifted away from Wicca into a more nondenominational neopagan system, liberally tinged with Taoism and some Hindu. (Indo-pagan, actually.) I also drifted away from extensive spellwork, preferring to only do spells as a last resort, and also found fault in the "harm none/karma" rule. Not that I did (or do) malicious spellwork against people (except for once.....and it worked way too well, sadly) really. Just....removing them from bothering me. However, I've been dabbling in hoodoo for the last year or two, after discovering LM.

I'm a hodge-podge of the major American minorities. 1/3 black, 1/3 white (Irish, British, French), and 1/3 Native American (Blackfoot, Cherokee, Oklahoma Cree....mostly Blackfoot) but I identify as black on the census, since, you know, if you have brown skin and frizzy hair, it's generally assumed. Now, on my father's side, there's lots of hoodoo. My grandmother's grandmother (my father's great-grandmother) was born a slave, and freed pretty early on. (I was born when my father was 47.) As my grandmother, father, and aunt put it, "She could read and write, and wrote poetry, which was unusual for the time. She also read tea leaves, made "charms", and we think she killed her five husbands. She'd go out and pick things in the woods. She probably put what she picked in their food from what we can tell." My great-great grandmother was a conjure woman!! The even cooler thing is we have a picture of her, and her daughter (my grandmother's mother) AND we have some of her writings. I haven't read them yet, but my aunt has, and my father has too, I think. I'm currently trying to convince my aunt to copy them and send them to me. I'm hoping that there's some information on hoodoo in them.

Now my paternal grandfather (the man who married this woman's granddaughter) was born in the North Carolina islands, but my aunt and father insist he's not Gullah. Not sure which one, though. His mother was from the West Indies, and when my grandfather was a boy, they moved to Hollyoak. (How my aunt pronounces it. I think it's Holyoke, NC.) He was superstitious, and maybe a bit involved in hoodoo. He ran away from home pretty young and went to Indiana where he married my grandmother. My aunt and father say when they were young, he did all sorts of odd things. A horseshoe went up (points down) over the door as soon as they moved into a new place to "ward off bad luck". He always carried around what my aunt thinks is a chicken bone. It was some sort of bone at least, and when my cousin was very ill, he wanted to sprinkle onion-water on him with the bone. He also always had onion-water and used it for everything. My aunt is quite insistent on that. He died right when I was getting interested in paganism, and I wish he'd lived longer, so I could get all these stories from him. My father won't talk about it much, although I'm working on him, but my aunt tells me bits and pieces. Another odd sort of thing...my dad's side is traditionally Roman Catholic, not Protestant.

My mother's father was white and Indian (Blackfoot "half-breed"). His mother was full Blackfoot, although she died before he turned six. My grandfather was very religious, and rather superstitious too. He loved gambling and made some amazing wins. I don't know if he resorted to any charms, although I wouldn't be surprised. He /did/ drink water with bleach in it to "cleanse" himself. We were all kind of horrified when we found that out. But he lived to be 88 years old, although that's pretty young on my mom's side.

Anyway, family history has become fascinating to me, especially the superstitious and hoodoo parts. Hey, even my own mother wouldn't cut our fingernails until we were over a year old. She bit them off, so that we wouldn't become thieves. She wouldn't let us stand on her lap when we were babies so we wouldn't be bowlegged. (Didn't work that well with me. Thanks Dad.) Among other things. And she's a born again Christian (along with everyone else on that side)! So, yeah, I want to learn. I'm questioning my dad, aunt, great-aunts and great-uncles, and hopefully I'll find out my own family traditions and can superimpose on what is known already.

By the way, has anyone heard anything about onion-water in hoodoo tradition? Or chicken bones? It might have been a black cat bone, but I'm not sure. And sprinkling sick children with it? Maybe Miss Cat might know something?

[catherineyronwode]

Hello, and welcome to the forum -- your family history is fascinating.

If you have questions about specific herb, root, mineral, botanical, or zoological curios or their uses, please post in that section of the forum and we can reply there. Briefly, however, the use of onions (in various forms -- raw, baked, boiled, etc.) for treating sick children is Germanic / Anglo-Saxon and has entered conjure through contact between people of African descent and people of European descent in America.

[jwmcclin]

Welcome to the forum Arani.

[Miss Tammie Lee]

Welcome to The Forum!

[chickzilla]

Welcome, I am not far from you. I live in ct. Your family history is amazing. I've been working on my genealogy off and on for 30 years and I love doing it. Perhaps we will be students at the same time? I am clearing up prior obligations and preparing myself to take the course and hope to be able to sign up within the next couple of weeks .

[knight-of-the-night]

hello. let me say that, MAINE is so beautiful. i enjoyed visiting MAINE. such a beautiful scenery up their. the air is so fresh and clean.
so quiet and laid back too.

hope to hear from you.

c-ya.

[Joseph Magnuson]

What a great introduction! Wow!

Welcome to our forums!

-Joseph Magnuson