Good morning from Pennsylvania :)

[Rob_Chapman]

Hello, my name is Rob Chapman, I am from South-central Pennsylvania. I am a practitioner of PA Dutch Pow-wow in it's most culturally traditional form. I wanted to reach out and learn more about the practice of Hoodoo so I thought this would be the best site to do so! My studies and practices until now have focused exclusively on Pow-Wow but I am very interested in learning more about other American folk magic traditions.

[aura]

Hi Rob and welcome to the Forum! We're glad to have you with us

[Doctor Hob]

Good morning, sir, and welcome to the Lucky Mojo forum.

I've just recently begun an ernest study of Braucherei, in addition to my hoodoo practice. I'm very pleased to have you join us, here. If I can be of any assistance, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Rob_Chapman]

Thanks for the welcome, my interest in Hoodoo seems like a natural progression of my practices of Powwow. I realize PowWow had an influence on hoodoo and that connection interests me. I come at my practices as a Christian, which is the traditional foundation of PowWow and, I believe, many of the old hoodoo practitioners were also Christian. I am also a fan of those old Anna Riva-style chapbooks and have started writing some for the PowWow tradition. Personal chapbooklets were popular with the Powwows in the 1800's and very early 1900's and I'm trying to revive this, while at the same time making proper information public to those who have an interest in the tradition. My website is braucher.webs.com.

Insofar as hoodoo is concerned, my interests are largely academic. Does hoodoo call upon the Christian saints? I see mention of "spirits" in reference to hoodoo practitioners and I'm curious as to whom (or what) is being referenced by this term. Thanks for the help! If you ever have any questions about Powwow, I'd be glad to try and help

[Susan Barnes]

Welcome Rob!

[Doctor Hob]

Hoodoo is largely Protestant, in foundation. Working with saints was more common in areas with a strong Catholic presence (New Orleans, Baltimore, and Southern Texas, for example), though it seems like more practitioners are developing relationships with the saints.

References to "spirits" can be pretty broad. I won't presume to speak for anybody else, but in my practice, it may refer to any of the spirits (human, or otherwise) that I work with. These include ancestors, saints, divinities, and others.

I'm always excited to hear about more, authentic information being made available about Braucherei. I applaud your efforts.

[catherineyronwode]

Hello, Rob,

To answer your questions:

1) The idea that "many of the old-time hoodoo practitioners were Christian" certainly is true, but it is also the kind of unconsciously dismissive and distancing concept that enrages me. This is not your fault, and i am not attempting to single you out for criticism, but i am very much part of a LIVING tradition, and i am extremely sensitive to the fact that i am continually being forced into the unwanted defensive position of having to counter (mostly internet) attempts by (mostly Anglo-Saxon American) people to cast African American culture into the past.

"The old hoodoos were" and "hoodoo practitioners used to" are DEADLY phrases in my opinion, because they disrespect the living, unbroken tradition of African American culture and the culture-bearers who have maintained this Black tradition, usually out of sight of (mostly White) mainstream, anti-magical, consumer-oriented, mass-marketed, military-industrial, entertainment-mediated socio-political scrutiny. If you stood where i stood, you would see thousands of contemporary, vibrant, living African American hoodoo practitioners (both on the internet and on the streets) who not only are Christians, but are connected through family ties to this LIVING tradition.

Hoodoo oral tradition has never been "broken" in the way that Celtic American folk magic was, or that Braucherei has been. Its adherents flew under the radar simply due to the segregation politics of the 20th century, but that quality of being "hidden in plain sight" kept hoodoo vibrant, modern, adaptive, and regional in development, moving with the demographic flow of African American people from rural to urban environments, and continually being reinvigorated by infusions of new concepts and tools of practice.

So, having moved this discussion into the PRESENT TIME, i can address your assumption: YES, most African Americans are Christians, and therefore most practitioners of hoodoo are Christians. To parse this more finely, most African Americans are Protestant Christians, and the predominant denomination is BAPTIST. This single denomination has such pre-eminence in African American communities nationwide (with the exceptions of Maryland and Louisiana [where there are significant numbers of Roman Catholic African Americans], and urban areas [which support Spiritual Church Movement [Black Spiritualist] churches]), that for all practical purposes, one could say that hoodoo is the folk magic of Black American Baptists -- in the same way that one could say that Braucherei is the folk-magic of Pennsylvania German American Amish-Mennonite-Pietist-Dutch-Reformed-Church Protestants.

2) Therefore, to answer your question about Roman Catholic saints: NO, hoodoo is not organized around any form of Catholic saint veneration, except among the small minority of practitioners who happen to be Roman Catholics (perhaps 2 - 4 per cent of the overall population of African Americans).

I will venture to guess that the reason you think saints may be involved in hoodoo is that the internet has brought many Latin American Catholic folk-magic practitioners of brujeria and curandismo into contact with Anglophone practitioners of hoodoo and these Catholics have made the naive assumption that all folk-magic in America is the Anglophone equivalent to Latin American Catholic folk-magic. This false presumption has been continually countered and opposed, both by African Americans themselves, and by those who are part of the hoodoo community but came from other cultures (people such as myself -- born Jewish, and able to easily distinguish between Baptists and Catholics).

Do not confuse the welcoming attitude of a shop such as mine -- the Lucky Mojo Curio Company -- with the mass-conversion of an entire people to a new religion. African Americans are mostly Baptists.

In other words, i STRONGLY DISAGREE with Doctor Hob's statement that "it seems like more [hoodoo] practitioners are developing relationships with the [Roman Catholic] saints." My experience is the opposite. Not only have i witnessed a deep lack of knowledge of, familiarity with, or even courtesy interest in saintly Catholic entities among both White and Black Protestant Christians in general, i have also witnessed what amounts to a strong aversion, amounting to a forceful rejection, of Catholicism within the popular Black Baptist denominations (e.g. Primitive Baptist, Missionary Baptist, National Baptist) in specific -- and i see and hear it every day.

I speak with confidence, with decades of ongoing and continual sales records to back me up: Black Americans in general, and hoodoo practitioners in particular, are not adopting the veneration of Roman Catholic saints.

What i believe is happening is that White Catholics (specifically White Irish Catholics and Anglophone Latin American Catholics in the United States), with cultural blinders firmly in place, are "dabbling" with African American Protestant hoodoo in culturally insensitive ways, and they are deluding themselves -- often due to their lack of real, present, face-to-face contact with Black Americans -- that by their internet posts they can somehow remake African American culture in their own image.

At the Lucky Mojo Curio Company, we are "The Little Shop Where All Are Welcome," and when customers express an interest in the study or practice of hoodoo, we direct them to aisles two and three of the shop (about 1/2 of our floor-space), where they will find the accoutrements and spiritual supplies of African American hoodoo folk-magic. For all other religious traditions (Catholic, Buddhist, Bon, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Taoist, Animist, Pagan, Neo-Pagan, Kemetic, and Native American combined!), we direct customers to see aisle one (about 1/4 of our floor space). The remaining 1/4 of our floor space -- aisle four -- is the divination tools and book department, and the same pattern repeats in this department, with 2/3 of the books and divination tools being devoted to hoodoo and 1//3 of the books and divination tools being representative of world folk-magical and folk-religious traditions.

And even these floor-space models do not tell the true story of our sales records.

No disrespect to Doctor Hob, but i believe that if he were to run a store where he meets with and discusses the practice of hoodoo with African Americans on a daily basis he would change his mind within one week.

THERE IS A REASON THAT HOODOO CONDITION OILS AND CANDLES ARE NAMED BY CONDITION, NOT BY SAINT NAMES. Think about it.

Ask me how many bottles of Money Drawing Oil we sell compared to Saint Expedite Oil. Ask me how many Healing Miracle candles we sell compared to Saint Jude candles. The sales tell the story.

3) Regarding the "spirits" addressed within hoodoo -- these are a mixture of retentions from the cultures which contributed to African American folkways. The four most important would be

(A) Jesus,

(B) ancestors, because ancestor veneration is common in African religions and has been retained, sub rosa, in Black American folkways,

(C) the spirits of plants and animals, because this is common in Native American religions and the majority of African Americans from the South-Eastern states are culturally admixed with Native Americans, most prominently the Cherokee tribe, and

(D) the recently dead, which accounts for the modified form of Spiritualism found within the Black Baptist denominations, even though it is not "mainstream" [i.e. White] Baptist doctrine, which is linked to the aforesaid African retention of ancestor veneration and also to admixtures of Scots-Irish beliefs in ghosts and hauntings by the dead, because of the centuries of contact and intercultural exchange between African Americans and Anglo-Celtic Americans in the South-Eastern states.

I hope you find this of interest and i encourage you to read more about the subject in the section of this forum devoted to the topic of religion, as well as at my "Hoodoo in Theory and Practice" web site.

[Rob_Chapman]

Doctor Hob, thanks for your reply! I just read through part of your blog and you have some really great insights, particularly with your book reviews. Very well written!

Miss Catherine, thank you so much for your reply and answers to many of my questions, most of which I had not yet asked but you already answered most of them It was certainly not my intention to upset or insult, as I stated, I know very very very very very little about hoodoo and, to be honest, my ONLY exposure thus far to it has been through a primarily neopagan translation of the system. Now, this is not to disrespect the neopagan culture in any way, shape, or form, but I do know that this modern translation is not necessarily representative of hoodoo's rich past, as your post has proven to me. I had no idea of the history of hoodoo and your reply is extremely informative.

I do understand the concept of the 'living' tradition as, even if PowWow, it has to remain a living tradition otherwise it becomes outdated and antiquated and completely useless in modern times. While I am something of a traditionalist with my PowWow, I do understand that some of the modern takes on it ultimately help the tradition stay alive. That doesn't mean I necessarily agree with some of what's being done with it, especially from a cultural preservation point of view (I live in PA Dutch culture, was raised in PA Dutch culture, and feel it's important to help preserve that).

Someone once told me that, since I'm a PowWow, I would also like Hoodoo (you know how people say stuff like that sometimes) but it did make me interested in learning more about it. And you are correct, much of what is online resembles the Latin American Catholic folk magic; saint veneration and such. And the sources that I have asked so far (like I said, primarily neopagan) did not seem to have a full grasp on the system (maybe no fault of their own, I don't know, but there you go). So that's why I signed up for this forum. I had not visited this site before and was a little overwhelmed by all the pages and such so I signed up for the forum and, well, here I am.

Thanks again for all the great information, I will continue to watch for more and ask more questions!

Rob Chapman

[catherineyronwode]

Rob, if you are still interested, here are some links:

Hoodoo History, from my book "Hoodoo in Theory and Prsctice"
http://luckymojo.com/hoodoohistory.html
Following out links highlighted in the text will get you up to speed very quickly.

Demograohics of African Americans and Religions:
hoodoo-&-religion-voodoo-wicca-santeria ... tml#p56043

Neo-Pagans (Wiccans) and Hoodoo:
hoodoo-&-religion-voodoo-wicca-santeria ... ml#p117204

Working with Saints in Hoodoo?
deities,-angels,-spirits,-saints-questi ... .html#p322

Are There Hoodoo Saints?
deities,-angels,-spirits,-saints-questi ... ml#p111023

[Rob_Chapman]

These specific links help a great deal, thank you Miss Catherine.