"As an amulet, JOHN THE CONQUEROR ROOT has no equal. It is used for Drawing Luck, gaining Mastery, and Strengthening Male Nature. We make a dressing oil from chips of the root, and incorporate it into sachet powders, incense, and crystals for bath or floor wash. All our JOHN THE CONQUEROR supplies contain pieces of real root!"
-- The Lucky Mojo Curio Co. catalogue
High John the Conqueror root is one of the staples of African-American folk magic. Its use in mojo hands is as ubiquitous as its qualities are varied, and its very name signifies power and prosperity to many.
Who was John the Conqueror and what is the root named after him? Ethnographers, especially those influenced by Zora Neale Hurston, say that he was a black slave whose life -- perhaps a real life that was embellished in the telling, perhaps a fictional life entirely imagined -- was an inspiration to slaves who wanted to rebel against their masters but could not do so openly. John, said to be the son of an African king, was in captivity, but he never became subservient, and his cleverness at tricking his master supplied many a story with a pointed moral. If he was a real being, he soon acquired some of the characteristics of mythical trickster figures like the Native American Coyote, the African-American Bre'r Rabbit, and the West African deity known variously as Elegua, Legba, and Eshu. He gave -- only to take away. He bet -- and never lost. He played dumb -- but he was never outsmarted. The reputation of High John is so great that, as recorded by the folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt in the 1930s, just reciting the words "John over John" and "John the Conqueror" is a powerful spell of magical protection against being hoodooed.
There are three roots named for John the Conqueror. Each is in a separate botanical family and has a different method of use.
High John the Conqueror is the most prized of the three John roots. When Willie Dixon sings in "Hootchie Cootchie Man" that he has "a John the Conqueroo," he means a John the Conqueror root -- the hard, woody tuber of Ipomoea jalapa, a member of the morning glory family, and a relative of the common sweet potato.
Fresh John the Conqueror root has a unique, spicy fragrance, reminiscent of a combination of cherry-scented pipe tobacco, vetivert, cedarwood, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and mace. Like many other ipomoeas, some of which are psychedelic, it is rich in alkaloids, but in magical practice, the root is not ingested, probably because it is an extremely powerful laxative. Instead it is used whole -- carried on the person as a pocket piece or as an ingredient in a mojo bag, especially one designed to draw money, bring luck at games of chance, or enhance personal sexual power.
John the Conqueror roots are primarily "male" roots because they resemble the testicles of brown-skinned men. When carried as a lucky amulet, a man's root is always whole. No African American man i know with a family background in hoodoo practice would walk into my shop and buy a broken High John root, even if it was as big as a baby's head and cost two dollars!
The whole roots that we carry at our Lucky Mojo occult shop are available for examination by walk-in customers so that they may select the one that "speaks" to them. I had a man in here once who drove about an hour and a half to see us, just to select the right root for his mojo bag. He spent almost fifteen minutes going through the hundreds of roots we had, and in my opinion, he picked out the absolutely most perfect root in the shop, without a doubt. It was so good that if i had seen it first, i'd probably have kept it for display. He got a bargain at $5.00 -- for that was a really good root.
John the Conqueror chips and pieces are only used in making spiritual supplies. That's why you may get more weight in a bag of chips -- even as much as ten times the weight of a small, symmetrical whole root.
To obtain the maximum results from a whole John the Conqueror root, it is customary to "fix" it, either as a pocket piece or in a mojo. Here are a few of the many ways a John the Conqueror can be fixed:
High John the Conqueror is also prepared in the form of anointing oil, spiritual incense, scented sachet powders, and ritual bathing and cleaning supplies. Each bottle or packet of these spiritual supplies should contain broken pieces of the root, plus other essential herb extracts. (Beware of modern so-called "Hi-Conquering" or "Hi-John" products that are made up of nothing more than synthetic oils, dyes, and fragrances; real High John the Conqueror spiritual supplies MUST contain pieces of the root.)
High John the Conqueror Oil is used to "feed" John the Conqueror roots and to dress mojo bags, and offertory candles that are used in spells of commanding, personal mastery, and courage. It can also be worn by a man on his body, to strengthen his nature or help him when he is gambling. Along with Lodestone Oil, Van Van Oil, and Fast Luck Oil, High John the Conqueror Oil is probably the most traditional of all hoodoo formulas, and it is still among the most popular.
John the Conqueror is one of a family of related formulas that also includes Nature Power, Master, Master Key, Commanding, and Crucible of Courage, products. Each one of these old-time recipes is slightly different -- some placing emphasis on sheer strength, others on male virility, leadership qualities, or mental force, or all of these combined with good fortune and luck at love and games of chance -- but they have in common the underlying aim of enhancing the magician's internally generated forces, enabling action upon the external world.
Southern John or Dixie John (rarely called "The Conqueror") is the root of the common Wake-Robin -- Trillium grandiflorum and related species. These spring-flowering members of the lily family have long been used medicinally, and among Euro-American herbalists, Low John is sold medicinally under the name Birth-Root or Beth-Root and used as an aid in childbirth and with menstrual cramps. However, in African-American folk magic, Low John is not ingested. It is carried on the person, usually for help in family matters and love. For instance, it is an ingredient in Dixie Love Spiritual Supplies.
The third John root is Chewing John, sometimes called Little John to Chew or Low John. This is Alpina galanga, otherwise called Galangal. It is a member of the ginger family and is medicinally used as a stomachic and carminative. In African-American hoodoo practice, its pleasant gingery taste is part of its charm and, unlike High John and Low John, Chewing John is actually chewed and the juice swallowed. A typical spell prescribes its use in court case magic: Chew the root, swallow the juice and discretely spit the "cud" onto the courtroom floor before the judge walks in; he will decide the case in your favour.
How did African slaves and their descendents come to believe that the root of a wild morning glory vine native to Mexico, Louisiana, and Florida was a powerful magical herb? The answer probably lies in the little-documented but widely-acknowledged contact between captive Africans and the Native Americans from whom they acquired local botanical knowledge.
Any intelligent herb doctor or shamanic healer who was transported to a new environment would seek out a list of regional plants whose uses corresponded to the ones with which he or she was familiar. Thus, it is only reasonable to assume that Ipomoea jalapa was the designated surrogate for a West African plant with similar magical or medical properties.
The Native Americas made use of various regional species of Ipomoea both as a laxative and for magic. To the Iroquois Indians, the plant was "Man Root" or "Man In the Earth" -- and men carried it while hunting to strengthen themselves and increase their endurance. It was even said that if a man rubbed his root before hitting another man in a fight, he could kill his opponent with one blow.
Because the character of the person or mythical figure called John the Conqueror partakes of the tricksterish and way-opening qualities of the orisha and the loa known variously as Elegua, Legba, and Eshu, it is not unreasonable to search for a hypothetical African fore-runner to John the Conquer root in the herbal folklore of Africa.
It may be that there are three John-roots in the African-American hoodoo tradition because each in its own way substituted for some part of an African root that incorporated diverse qualities. That is, an African root that could be chewed for male power was analogous to the Iroquois Man Root -- except that Man Root could not be chewed, so Chewing John was added to the retinue of John Roots to cover for that aspect of the African knowledge-base. Likewise the African root was used to help women in childbirth -- so the obvious substitution by Native shaman for this would be Birth Root or Dixie John.
It is also possible that the relative rarity and expense of whole Ipomoea jalapa roots made substitutions by unscrupulous root doctors inevitable. The fact than early ads for this plant sometimes carried the phrase "True High John the Conqueror Root" seems to be a tacit acknowledgement of widespread fraud.
By the 1930s, spiritual supplies incorporating John the Conqueror root as an ingredient were sold nationally by the primarily Jewish chemists and herbalists who supplied the urban black market. Probably the most popular of these compounded formulae was John the Conqueror Root in Oil. Each bottle of essential oil contained a small piece of High John root; the oil was used for anointing mojo hands and dressing altar candles. Another popular product of the era was John the Conqueror Perfume, worn by men to attract women and for luck in games of chance; it too was packaged with a piece of fragrant root in each bottle. A third product, John the Conqueror Herbal Tonic for Men, was an actual medicine, said to "restore lost nature" (sexual potency); in addition to John the Conqueror root, it contained other herbs traditionally believed to increase male sexual vigour.
After World War Two, commercial manufacturers of hoodoo spiritual supplies gradually began to leave out the actual botanical ingredients that had originally given the products their names -- and their power. Today most John the Conqueror anointing oils, sachet powders, floor washes, 7-day candles, and incense (except those manufactured by the Lucky Mojo Curio Co.) have never been in the same factory with a John the Conqueror root. Contemporary mass-manufacturers merely sell artificially-scented petroleum-based oils under the John the Conqueror brand name, even going so far as to replace the image of the root with that of a bearded Caucasian king wearing a Medieval circlet crown, after the style of Charlemagne. This phoney "John the Conqueror" image obscures the authentic derivation of High John as a kingly African who was sold into slavery but nevertheless outwitted his captors. It also obscures the widespread ethnobotanical use of various Ipomoea species for medicinal and psychedelic purposes.
HIGH JOHN THE CONQUEROR ROOT
IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN BLUES LYRICS
Chicago blues musicians Willie Dixon (left) and Muddy Waters (right) have
probably done more to familiarize white folks with the magical uses of John the
Conqueror roots (and mojo hands) than any book on folklore ever could. Here are
Dixon's lyrics for "My John the Conquer Root," recorded by Waters in 1964. Thanks to
Gorgen Antonsson of Stockholm for the discographical information.
My pistol may snap, my mojo is frail
I was accused of murder in the first degree
Oh, i can get in a game, don't have a dime,
#13473: My John The Conquer Root (Willie Dixon)
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OTHER SITES OF INTEREST
MY JOHN THE CONQUER ROOT
But i rub my root, my luck will never fail
When i rub my root, my John the Conquer root
Aww, you know there ain't nothin' she can do, Lord,
I rub my John the Conquer root
The judge's wife cried, "Let the man go free!"
I was rubbin' my root, my John the Conquer root
Aww, you know there ain't nothin' she can do, Lord,
I rub my John the Conquer root
All i have to do is rub my root, i win every time
When i rub my root, my John the Conquer root
Aww, you know there ain't nothin' she can do, Lord,
I rub my John the Conquer root
Muddy Waters, vcl; J.T. Brown, ten sax; James Cotton, hca; Otis Spann, pno;
Pee Wee Madison, gtr; Milton Rector, bs; S.P. Leary, dms
Recorded: Chicago, Ill., Oct 1964
Released: Chess 1914 [45], Chess (UK) 8001 [45], Chess (UK) CD RED BOX 3
copyright © 1995-2003 catherine yronwode. All rights reserved.
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