Hoodoo: Guardian of Native American Culture

The African-American folk magic practice of hoodoo is a cultural salad bowl, in and that it has incorporated aspects from the numerous cultures it has come into contact with without destroying their identity. Passed on through families and social contracts until the recent electronic era, the just what entails hoodoo has remained largely unknown, and this obscurity has led to many of the cultural influences that make hoodoo unique being overlooked. Now that hoodoo is readily available for study, it appears as though Native American traditions were mixed into the metaphorical salad bowl that is hoodoo. Cultural exchanges between Native Americans and African Americans have immortalized aspects of Native American culture in the folk magic tradition of hoodoo, ensuring the continuation of Native American traditions through space and time in spite of the decimation of their race at large. (139)

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One of the beauties of cultural diffusion is that, like insects surrounded by amber, it can preserve aspects of cultures that otherwise would have been lost. Native Americans are all but a dead race at this point in time, and although there may be museums and preservations dedicated to their continuation, many of their traditions are isolated and won’t be practiced actively. Hoodoo, a folk magic practice also known as root-work and conjure that began with African slaves in the American southeast, is a prolific and flourishing tradition in its respective regions that, alongside its sister practice of voodoo (which is a structured religion as opposed hoodoo) is far from in danger of dying out.

Like many magical systems, hoodoo borrowed and appropriated practices from different cultures. Perhaps due to the close similarities between Native American magical practices, (the term rootwork in and of itself hints of ties to nature, and if one knows anything about Native Americans it was that they revered nature.) hoodoo drew heavily upon Native American culture. When one looks at the spells employed by the leading practitioners of hoodoo, known as root doctors and hoodoo doctors, they will find numerous instances in which hoodoo entails the use of Native American botanical folklore in herbal formulas and magical curios. Not only that, but African and Native Americans share a belief in animism. Finding definitive links between hoodoo and Native American practices will mean that, though the mother culture of which it was a part has been destroyed, some aspects of Native American tradition will live on. (261)

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Sources:

(Interview) “Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton: Hoodoo in New Orleans, Court Case
Spell, Madame Papaloose.” Interview by Alan Lomax.
Library of Congress Narrative. Web. 24 Oct. 2010.
.
(Newspaper) Blanchard, Kevin. "The Hoodoo Highway: Bottle Spells to Reverse Witchcraft in Lafayette, LA."
The Advocate. 3 Sept. 2004. Web. 26 Oct. 2010.
.
(Media/Song) Memphis Minnie. "Hoodoo Lady." Rec. 18 Feb. 1936. MP3.

(Book) Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules and Men. J. B. Lippincott, 1935. Reprinted,
Harper Collins, 1990.

(Autobiography) Cappick, Marie. "The Key West Story, 1818-1950" The Coral Tribune. May 1958.

(Book) Anderson, Jeffrey. Conjure in African American Society
2005; reprinted in paperback, 2007

(Book) Bird, Stephanie Rose. Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo & Conjuring with Herbs. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2004. Print.

(Website) Yronwode, Catherine. "Hoodoo in Theory and Practice." Lucky Mojo.
Web. 25 Oct. 2010.
http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html.

(Website) Yronwode, Catherine. “Ghostly Voices from Dixie Land.” Southern Spirits.
Web. 25 Oct. 2010
http://www.southern-spirits.com/

(Website) Amengansie, Hounon. "Hoodoo."
Web. 26 Oct. 2010.
http://www.mamiwata.com/hoodoo.html.

النرجيلة

Sphinx is, by and large, ephemeral.

A small hookah bar located near Tyson’s mall in Virginia, the mood in Sphinx changes as frequently as the perfumed smoke that swirls through the air: no two nights in Sphinx will feel the same.

There is one facet of Sphinx, however, that is immutable. It doesn’t matter whether one is Black, White, Indian, or Asian... only the bar’s Arabic patrons get the soft, cushy seats in the rear of the bar where the light is most dim.

I once crossed the line separating the bar, and immediately felt the almost psychic weight of a dozen dark eyes bearing down upon me. I didn’t stay long.

***

Mr. Rayyan is almost as changeable as the bar he runs- one moment he’ll be grinning as he brings out the glowing coals of shisha for the hookahs, and the next he’ll be glaring from the back of the bar, a cloud of smoke all but obscuring his swarthy visage.

If Sphinx is the macrocosm, Mr. Rayyan is the microcosm.

Arabic himself, Mr. Rayyan drew the invisible line that separates the restaurant in two: he’ll take your money, but in the end it comes down to his people and the rest of the world.

***

Kumbayah is a foreign concept at Sphinx.

Perfumed smoke may fill the air, and glittering lights may shine, but it’s all a facade under which the rot of racism and segregation, the truly immutable qualities of Sphinx, are hiding.

One wonders if the rest of Virginia is the same.





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