This web page is a supplement to my research into the folk-lore field work conducted among African-Americans by Harry M. Hyatt in the late 1930s. For a description of his work, see my introduction to Hyatt's five-volume collection of oral histories.
Hyatt did not attach the names of his informants to their statements, but some information about their identities and where they lived can be gleaned from his introduction and reminiscences in Volume One, and supplemented by internal references throughout the five volumes.
The information on this page is ***not complete*** and is being updated as i have free time. I am posting it on the web in this form for the benefit of those interested in hoodoo and also for the many people pursuing the subject of African-American genealogy, the latter because several people have expressed curiosity about whether their relatives were ever interviewed or mentioned by Harry M. Hyatt. If you have any data to ADD, it would be gratefully accepted and credited here. Primarily, if, you own a copy of Hyatt's 5-volume set and happen to run across names of individuals in their interviews or the magical works they describe, send them along to me and i will insert them in the appropriate place in the list.
My grateful thanks to Shaun O'Neill for contributing to this work. In 2015 he became the first volunteer to have joined me in this venture since it went online in 1996 -- and in 3 months, he made 100 transcription summaries! In 2017, Miss Aida became my second helper when she annoted several dozen spells that she drew upon in preparing her book, "Destroying Relationships." I was able to add her notes here, and i recommend her book highly.
SORTING SYSTEM
LOCATION
sample: Snow Hill, MD
If Hyatt gave a location, it is stated, with his selected comments about the place,
who his driver and/or "contact man" was, and where the interviews were conducted.
DATES
sample: February 22, 1937
Harry Hyatt's field work began March 12, 1936 and ended February 28, 1940. Most dates
given here are from Hyatt's introduction in Volume One. Where dates are not given,
there is no dating information known, but i have interpolated some approximate dates
in [brackets]
INFORMANT NUMBER (AND NAME IF KNOWN)
sample: #106 - Mr. Melvin White (a cooper), husband of #105.
A number preceded by the hash-mark or pound-sign # indicates an informant's number;
when this number is followed by [-], the hyphen in brackets indicates that part or
all of the name of the informant is not known. Informant numbers run sequentially
from #1 - #1,602. The names given are taken from Hyatt's introduction, occasionally
bolstered by internal evidence i have gleaned from the informant's interview.
ENTRY NUMBER
sample: (entry 22)
Entry numbers indicate the number of an entry for a spell, charm, belief, or recipe.
Entry numbers run sequentially from (1) to (13,458), and Hyatt organized them by
topic, not by informant, location, or cylinder recording number.
When an informant gave more than one entry, i place the entries in the order of their cylinder recording numbers, to approximate the way the interview actually was conducted.
INTERVIEWS WITH PROFESSIONALS (PAGE NUMBERS)
sample: pages 2222 - 2222
Page number citations most often refer to interviews with professional root doctors,
which were not entry-numbered but are designated by page numbers.
CYLINDER RECORDING NUMBERS
sample: (cylinder 2222:2)
Cylinder recording numbers run sequentially through several series of numbering
schemes. Cylinder numbers can be used to help date entries and interviews.
Hyatt used two recording machines from 1936 - 1940, an Edison cylinder cutter, which he deemed unsatisfactory and soon replaced, and a Telediphone cylinder cutter, which proved reliable.
Edison cylinder transcriptions are marked ED and are not numbered, nor is the informant's regional speech pattern preserved. There were 85 Edison cylinder recordings. All are marked ED.
Telediphone cylinders were transcribed phonetically. They ran in five "series," A through E, and had numbers in their respective series, but they were also double-numbered sequentially, without reference to series, from [1] through [3016]. Thus a cylinder may be referred to as [1503] or as [B45 = 1503]. The cylinder number is generally given in two parts, separated by a colon -- e.g. [1130:7]. In this example, 1130 is the cylinder number and 7 indicates the 7th interview or section on that cylinder.
THE ROLE OF THE "CONTACT MAN"
I believe that very few, if any, interviews were conducted with people whom Hyatt
believed to be mentally ill or blatantly drunk, and that the de-selection of such
impaired informants was the business of Hyatt's series of "contact men," that is, his
African American employees who pre-interviewed and sometimes also chauffered Hyatt
and the candidates selected for recording. These "contact men" (and note that the
one was a woman) were as follows, from 1936 - 1940:
The work of these "contact men" as gate-keepers and pre-interviewers was vital to the success of Hyatt's project, and therefore worthy of note in this compilation.* Julia [-] #1, Alma Hyatt's housekeeper in New York City, NY. * Jerry Williams #13 of Ocean City, MD, a relative of Julia [-] * Walter J. Maddox #125 of Princess Anne, MD, head waiter at a hotel. * Mr. [-] Gavin #??? of Wilmington, NC, husband of Carrie Gavin #???, brother-in-law of Julia [-] #1, and relative of Jerry Williams #13. * "Carter" #???? of Norfolk or Fredericksburg, VA, who drove Hyatt down into SC. * Edward Bufford Jr. #??? of Mobile, AL, an auto mechanic. * Mack Berryhill #??? of New Orleans, LA, a taxi driver, and * "Marshall" of New Orleans, LA (Who may be the same as Mack Berryhill)
THE DENNIS-WILSON-WILLIAMS-GAVIN FAMILY
Three of Harry Hyatt's contact people were members of the same family -- the
Dennis-Wilson-Williams-Gavin family of Maryland and New York City. They were
* Julia [-] #1, Alma Hyatt's housekeeper in New York City, NY. * Jerry Williams #13 of Ocean City, MD, a relative of Julia [-] * Mr. [-] Gavin #??? of Wilmington, NC, husband of Carrie Gavin #???, brother-in-law of Julia [-] #1, and relative of Jerry Williams #13.
The generous and willing help of at least eight members of this large family of professional conjure doctors and home practitioners of rootwork -- and especially the help of Mary [-] Williams, who carried the family history from as long ago as 1830 in her head, and shared many conjure tales, folk magic remedies, and side-lights on life in the Pocomoke area with Hyatt -- is an inspiration to folklorists everywhere and has been a personal inspiration to me. Because the family connections are scattered throughout this "Informants" page, under the listings for individual interview contributors, they are obscured and blurred, so i have created a subsidiary page just to honour and bring forth what is known and what i have been able to uncover through genealogical research about the family. This material is on the
Hyatt Dennis-Wilson-Williams-Gavin Family Tree page.
And now, let us begin ...
New York City, NY
March 12, 1936 -
#1 - Julia [-], Alma Hyatt's household manager.
The story of how Julia [-], whose family was from Maryland's Eastern Shore,
came to live in New York and work as a "household manager" (arranging the
employment of domestic servants and overseeing financial management of the
household) is not yet known, but there are some hints scattered among the
interviews that Hyatt conducted in Worcester County, Maryland among members
of the Dennis, Wilson, Williams, and Gavin family. In addition to the
family members who were famed conjure doctors, several other members of
this family as well as their neighbors whom Hyatt interviewed in the area were
oystermen, or were employed in oyster packing plants, or were coopers who
hand-crafted the wooden barrels then used to transport fresh oysters to market.
According "Worcester County's AFrican American Heritage" by Paul Touart at
http://www.visitworcester.org/printables/Worcester_African-American_Heritage.pdf
there were two waves of black northern emigration from the Snow Hill -
Princess Anne - Pocomoke region of Maryland to New York City:
1) "Several families residing near Snow Hill around 1830 relocated to a
watermens' community known as Sandy Ground on New York's Staten Island.
Members of the Hinman, Lambden, Bishop, Purnell, Robins and Johnson families
established new homes along the island's south coast, engaging primarily in
the oyster business they had known on the Eastern Shore." (The surname Purnell
is of interest here because it is a slave-owner surname, and one of Julia [-]'s
relatives was Purnell Dennis, whose name would seem to indicate a connection
to the Purnell family as well as to the Dennis family.)
2) "As the Civil War drew near the numbers of manumitted or freed slaves grew
significantly in Worcester County. Several of these former slaves, as well as
some free blacks, left Worcester County in an effort to escape the hostilities
common before the war. [...] Snow Hill blacks are credited with establishing
the town of Snow Hill, New Jersey, later changed to Lawnside in 1907."
#2 [-] "brought in by Julia"
#3 [-] "brought in by Julia"
#4 [-] "brought in by Julia"
#5 [-] "brought in by Julia"
#6 [-] "brought in by Julia"
They used to say, when you met a spirit and they knew who it was, they didn't say anything
to them. When you got home where this party lives at, they are there. They say, "That was
their spirit I met then." They say, "Have you been away from home tonight?" "I haven't been
away. Why do you ask?" "Oh well, I didn't know whether you were out tonight or not."
(entry 64, cylinder [ED])
#7 - Mrs. [-] Baker, brought in by Julia [-].
4072. One fellow was telling me about it an' he claimed he was. They get some
of your water in a bottle and cork it up, dig a hole in the corner of the chimney
and bury this upside down; and when this water would boil, you die. [New York City,
(7, informant's last address, McDonald, Pa., though born and brought up in Albermarle Co.,
Va.), by Ediphone.]
#8 - #11 Four people brought in by Julia [-].
#12 - Samuel Forman, an old man.
Ocean City, MD
At this point, with Julia as a guide, Hyatt and ALma took a trip to Maryland.
In Ocean City the contact man was Jerry Williams (#13), a younger relative of
Julia's, probably her nephew; some of the entries from this trip were not recorded
by machine but taken "by hand" on the streets of MD, probably in April, 1936.
In December, 1936, after having discarded the Edison machine, Hyatt returned with
the new recording device, the Telediphone, and made a second interview with Jerry
Williams #13, his helper; hence this is the one "cylinder" recording in this
section.
April, 1936
#13 Jerry Williams, contact man, a relative of the deceased root doctor George
Jackson Dennis; his mother was Mary Williams and his father was Elijah Williams.
See also informants #102, #103, and #139, all in his family; the most
complete information is at #139.
"I had interviewed him that summer (1936) at Ocean City, Md."
(entry ?, [ED?])
Later, testing the new Telediphone at Snow Hill, MD (see below): An account of George
Jackson Dennis (originally told to Jerry by his "grandmother aunt" [great-aunt]) of
how George Jackson cured Jerry's great-uncle Purnell Dennis of "live things" which
Purnell got when poisoned in milk by a woman named Bettie. The spell involved a
cathartic decoction taken orally, which George Jackson sang to as it boiled.
Although Purnell was cured of this trick by his own brother, Jerry doesn't
bother to mention that to Hyatt in his interview; presumably Hyatt already
understood their family connections. Jerry's "grandmother aunt" would have
been the first sister of Purnell and George Jackson, who married a Mr. Wilson,
because otherwise she would have been his own grandmother, their second
sister, who married Mr. Williams.
(entry 3094, cylinder 1:1)
#14 [-] gives a crossroads story
(entry 349, cylinder [ED])
#15 - #20
#21 - [-]
To rid a house of a ghost: If a person comes back, they get some new lumber, put an addition
to the house with the new lumber. And if that don't stop them [ghost], you get sweet milk
and dress all the rooms with the sweet milk. You take the sweet milk and put it on and boil.
Then you take something like a little broom, something that will sprinkle, and sprinkle all
the rooms good with milk. That's supposed to stop 'em.
(entry 1199, cylinder [BY HAND])
#22
Old Point Comfort, VA
#??? Informant number not recorded. A man; the head waiter at the Hotel
Chamberlain."
5095. When I was a boy I was hunting a job here [at the Chamberlain
Hotel] as bellboy and I had my mother to see a so-called fortuneteller. And he
told her to burn some shoes and to get a few of the ashes , and sprinkle some of
these ashes around Richmond's [the manager s] feet when I came to apply for
the job. [This was the old Chamberlain, not the new one of 1936, when I interviewed
informant, the head waiter there.] [Old Point Comfort, Va., by Ediphone.]
#??? Number not recorded, only location and entry number
3635. I have heard that when a man goes to work or on a journey, and if he
believes it himself that his wife is crooked on him, not treating him
right, and he desires to catch her; I have been told he can ketch a snail.
I don't mean a shell snail, but a slick snail. Well, you take that snail
when you have sexual intercourse with her, and you are about to leave her
now - and you take this snail and mash it in your hand, and unbeknownt to
her, you are loving and kind to her, you rub it over her stomach, and any
man will have difficulty in bothering her in your ab sence. Now if he's a
stiff stout man and he goes in, he will be caught there until you come
back, and there can't nobody remove him but you. If you love the woman, I
don't know what would be the result. You have to come home to release them.
As a rule any man that takes to bother her, no sooner than he starts, his
tool will fall - he can't raise a heart for her, not to save his soul. In
case he do, and go with her, he'll get stuck and nobody can remove him
unless this man remove him. You can send for any doctor in the universe
and you can' t move them except killing one or the other. [For killing
the man or woman, usually the lat ter, see No.3460f.]
[This was the first time I heard the snail rite, the summer of 1936. I thought the man was lying.]
[Old Point Comfort, Va. , by Ediphone.]
#23 [-] "a man of 60," resident of Hampton, Virgina, but recorded in Old Point Comfort, VA.
I know about my father. He was an oysterman. He used to go oystering and to keep people
from stealing his tongs, he would tie a piece of red flannel on his tongs and saturate it
with coal oil, and he wouldn't lose them. And I have known him to leave bushels of oysters
in his boat and put these tongs right over them, with a red flannel rag on each end, and
go back the next morning and the oysters were there.
[The father, a young man in slavery, became an oysterman at Hampton, Virginia,
immediately after he was freed and remained one until death some 30 years later {c. 1895}.
The son, a man of 60, {born c. 1876} has also lived at Hampton all his life.]
(entry 2197, cylinder [ED])
#24 - [-] This is going to be confusing. #23 and #24 are both interviewed in two places; they
may have been on a boat on the Old Dominion Line at the time, because it did sail between
Old Point Comfort and Hampton.
If that spirit goes out somewhere and gets killed or drownded, it will not return and the
body lays dead.
(entry 23, cylinder [ED])
Hampton, VA
#23 CONTINUED (Now interviewed in Hampton, VA) BUT NOTE: I believe this is actually INFORMANT 24
See below, and you may agree; informant #24 was a SAILOR, while #23 "lived at Hampton all
his life.".
On the Old Dominion Lines {steamships} a boy, a room steward, stopped a passenger and told
him to go forward, for what reason I don't know, and the captain met him on the starboard
side and asked him what did he want. And the man that [was] told to go forward said he was
looking for a room. The captain sent the boy back with the passenger and he went down to the
second deck and opened the room, left the passenger outside, put the baggage in, locked the
door and left the key in. The passenger stopped and was talking to someone right near there.
When he went to the door the door was locked and the key gone. They never did find that key.
They accused the boy of taking it. They sent for the chief engineer to open the door. When
they opened the door the baggage was scattered all over the room and the beds unmade and
everything upside down. And everything was all right when the boy left the room. Here's what
the boys thought about it. That was the Jamestown under Captain Tapley. She got into a big
storm and around Boston Light, before they got to Boston, this was several trips before this
[the present story] happened, and they lost two passengers and they were in this room. And
they thought the ghost of those people done it. {"about 1895" is how Hyatt dated the story.}
(entry 93, cylinder [ED])
{The Old Dominion Line was founded in 1867 by the Old Dominion Steamship Co. "engaged in the
transportation of passengers and freight on the Atlantic Ocean and communicating navigable
waters between the City of New York, in the State of New York, and Norfolk, and certain
other ports within the State of Virginia." It operated until well into the 1920s, when it
merged in the Eastern Steamship Co.}.
#24 -[-] A man who Lived on a farm outside of town. Hyatt noted "speaker 8 when Civil War began"
-- hence he was born c. 1853 and was 83 years old when interviewd. As his stories indicate,
he ran away from slavery in 1860. After that, and at least from 1867 - 1895, he was a sailor
on various steamships. Because there are no cylinder numbers for Ediphone entries, i have
attempted to put his entries into the chronological order of his own life.
You take salt and put it down on the ground at your door and that would keep all evil
spirits away. That's what the colored people used to do to overcome master and mistress.
After the master and mistress walks over it, it scatters their mind.
(entry 1462, cylinder [ED])
When I was a little boy [in 1860] I was praying an old-fashioned prayer the colored people
used to pray. They went to the graveyard to get their souls converted. I went and prayed on
a man's grave that was buried that day and I heard him moving and knocking on the coffin.
I never paid no attention.
(entry 89, cylinder [ED])
I have heard of a class of people who would get a hold of your blood. They get that from
any part they can get it: from your finger, your feet or your head. And they would bury it
on the shore at ebb tide, an' when the tide came in, that would flow with the tide and make
them crazy.
(entry 3848, cylinder [ED])
I was aboard a ship where [at another date] all the crew had been taken off and no account
could be given, and I was on the lookout one morning between four and five o'clock on the
fore stage. And there came five pigeons and sat on that stage and what they were I never
could tell. I thought those five pigeons were the spirits of those dead.
They said a sea serpent took those five men off that boat down in
the Caribbean Sea. And that was in 1867. That brig was from New York, the
Mary Celeste. [This man in 1860 was old enough to travel from Yorktown to
Hampton by himself, sleeping one night out in the open. Without claiming
anything or boasting, he said he had been a sailor on the ship just after
the five men were lost in 1867. The loss of the complete crew to which he
refers would have been later and is here mentioned for comparison. The Mary
Celeste left New York for Genoa on November 7, 1872, and four weeks later was
found abandoned in the Atlantic; no one aboard
ever being heard from again.]
(entry 207, cylinder [ED])
I was on board of a ship that the mate was a kind of mean man and he hung his clothes upon
the line to be brushed. And the steward brushed them and every time the steward brushed them
he [the mate] hollered. The steward had him a witchcraft hand. He carried it in his pocket
and every time he hit these clothes on the line, the mate would holler. That was 50 years
ago (1886). That was the S.S. Lizzie (?) Scofield. We were off the coast of West Africa.
(entry 2389, cylinder [ED])
{Okay, go back and read that entry marked as #23 CONTINUED-- see? It fits right here! -- cat}
Now, about two years ago [1934], up here to my place [farm near Hampton, Virginia] , an
automobile driv [drove] in with five men into it and I knew them every one. They driv
through my yard and went out and never did come back. When I got after them [later] they
disowned it. It was their evil spirits, and they were just as natural, and they were
trying to do me out of my place. [Hyatt listed this under "Wraith"]
(entry 63, cylinder [ED])
#25 -
They claim that a witch-hag would go to a stable and get a horse and get on his back
backwards and come to your house and go through the keyhole while you were sleeping and
ride you to death. That is [now] called stagnation of the blood.
(entry 462, cylinder [ED])
#26
#27
#28 [-] Like #23, #24, and #31, interviewed BOTH in Old Point COmfort and Hampton
I have seen men's spirits, one night. I went to visit an old woman ten o'clock. When I was
going home a man was standing on the street. I knowed it was the man's spirit and when I
got over a little drain of water and looked back he was gone. I knowed that was a spirit -
the man was living, he wasn't dead, he isn't dead yet.
(entry 65, cylinder [ED])
I heard a man say he was coming along one night and there was a little bit of a dog corne
trotting along behind him. He said he hollered at the little dog and asked him where he was
going. And the little dog still kept trotting out after him and he turned around and kicked
the little dog. He said the little dog rose up high, as high as his shoulder was, and liked
to scared him to death. He ran until he fell. The dog was supposed to be an evil spirit.
(entry 227, cylinder [ED])
They get ahold of some of your hair and get some of your water with it, and put that in a bottle,
and they get ahold of nine new needles and nine new pins, and cork the bottle up, and they
bury that anywhere where you walk along, and that will run you crazy.
(entry 4203, cylinder [ED])
4304. I know this for myself. A man was in my home town in my neighborhood
and his wife she was a woman who wanted to run around and have a good time. And she didn't want him
to say anything to her so she got two pieces of his clothes
and some of his water1 and put in a bottle and
buried that at the center of the door he would come in at. And one day he decided to move that door
from where it was and digging up the steps. He found this bottle and saved it until
she came and asked her if she knew anything about the bottle. She didn't want to own [up to it].
He told her he was going to throw it away in running water. She begged him not to do it. I don't
think he ever throwed it away. He didn't let her get a hold of the bottle any more. They are getting
along now very well together. [Old Point Comfort Va. or Hampton Va. (28) by Ediphone;
story occurred about 1916 in Charles City Co . Va . ]
#29
#30 [-] A married man
My wife was sick all the time and she {a root doctor} came there to the house and when I
came in she wanted to sell me a hand. She said I could get a job any time. So I bought the
hand from her. It was nothing more than a piece of red flannel made in a bag and some kind
of hair. It wasn't no count. I paid a dollar and a half for it. She told me to carry that
in my pocket and if I wanted a job to ask for it and I would always get it. That's what
she told me. I didn't do it.
(entry 2129, cylinder [ED])
#31 - [-] Like #23, 24, and #28, interviewed BOTH in Old Point Comfort and in Hampton.
4275. I know bottles: One was one time, a woman had some [urine] in a
bottle. She had six about two inches full, another was about three
inches full, another about half full, another half full, and another almost
full, and another all full. And [all] stopped up tight. The bottles had
needles and pins in them and hair in it. And he couldn't pass his water
until some of those bottles were opened. He husband, she didn't like him,
and she was going with another man. It was
his water she stopped up. It killed him. He actually died. [The magic rite
of increasing amounts - as well as of decreasing amounts - is fairly
common, but this one is rather elaborate, unusual.] [Old Point Comfort,
Va., (31), by Ediphone; happened in adjoining Hampton, Va., 1908.]
They say when a jack-a-ma-lantern gets after you you either have to turn one of your pockets
wrongside outwards of it. You got a two-blade knife you can open that and they won't lead
you nowhere.
(entry 136, cylinder [ED])
Use graveyard dirt of deceased mother to stop her haunting her children. "That happened
down on Vine Street here in town"
(entry 1307, cylinder [ED])
Graveyard dirt in box under house; use sinner's dirt for house protection.
(entry 1318, cylinder [ED])
I used to go to an old man's house and he had a bag and he called that bag Jack. It was long
and big at one end and kinda small at the other end. The string was tied to the small end -
red flannel covered the bag. And then when you would ask him any questions he would take
this bag and hold it up [by the string] and stand still and let it strike the question you
asked. If you asked him if this person was hurt, this bag would spin around like a top; if
he wasn't hurt, it would stand still. You asked the question, he didn't say anything at all.
(entry 582, cylinder [ED])
#32 -
4041. It was a woman that had a fuss with another woman. Having this fuss with her she crossed her
water [made in the liquid a cross mark or letter X] and stopped it up tight. This woman could not urinate. She got on her bed and swelling up,
she kept swelling up. And after awhile the doctor [M.D.] couldn't do nothing for her. So this
woman goes to her and told her that she would turn her loose, if she would only give her a job. She
said, "I will." So she goes home and takes this cork out this bottle, and just laid it on the side
and turn it down, and this water commenced to running and this woman commenced to urinating in the
bed, and when the last of the water was out of the bottle she got up.
[Old Point Comfort, Va., (32), by Ediphone.]
#33 - #35
# Informant # Not Recorded - [-] Probably a woman
If you take "a lady's difficulty" (her soiled menstrual cloth) and put it under a
man's nose while he sleeps, he won't wake up until she removes it, and she can get
his money and do anything.
(entry 7172, cylinder [ED])
Warrenton, VA
April, 1936
#36 - [-] discusses powdered serpents' heads
(entry 668, cylinder [ED])
Fredricksburg, King George Co, VA
May, 1936
#37 - [-] "man on train"; was a Pullman Porter encountered en route to
Fredericksburg, VA.
Man plagued by evil and restless spirits reads Bible backwards and prays to get rid of
the spirit.
(entry 1118, cylinder 1906)
(entry 2108)
#40 - [Jim O.] A man.
Jim O. told how he had consulted with Mother Jones in Washington, DC; he had suffered pain
for 18 months and the doctors in Fredricksburg could not help him, but a man told him to
go see Mother Jones and Mother Jones took a snake out of his belly. The snake had been
put into him through something in a glass of water. Mother Jones kept preserved reptiles
that she had removed from previous clients in jars. Jim O. stayed with Mother Jones under
her care for 10 days and was charged $12.00 for a course of laxatives and a scalp treatment.
He recovered and he later sent another client, John N., to Mother Jones. He also mentioned
that Mother Jones was originally from North Carolina.
(entry 2746, ED)
#?? - [-] wet shoes at noon, carry back to river at Full Moon to cause people to
drown themselves.
(entry 5299, cylinder [ED])
#38 - #80 - unaccounted for; MD or VA
#81 - [-] French (Surname or nickname?)
#82
this sequence ends Hyatt's recording with the Ediphone and cylinders marked [ED].
-----
XXXXX confusing -- i will check and rework this section!!!
Virginia (?): a man named Carter was the contact man
------
Snow Hill, MD
Hyatt began recording with the Telediphone, a much heavier cylinder-cutting machine.
Telediphone recordings have their own numbering system for cylinders. (See above.)
December 4, 1936 (cited in Introduction) or December 14, 1936, Friday (cited on
page 915) was the date of the first test recording, cylinder 1:1, a brief statement
by Jerry Williams #13, the contact man. See informant #13 for the specifics of what
Jerry said.
#83 - [-] informant from Nansemond Co., Va.
gives recipe for goofer dust
(entry 666, cylinder 1:8)
black pepper in shoe keeps footprint from registering
(entry 1123, cylinder 2:22)
#84 - #85
#86 - Mr. [-] Douglas, relative of #87, #88, #89, and #92
#87 - Mr. John A. Douglas
#88 - Mrs. [-] Douglas, wife of #87
#89 - Mrs. Laura Mills, the adult daughter of Mr. John A. Douglas #87 and Mrs. [-]
Douglas, #88.
My research indicates that Laura F. Douglas Mills, born c. 1881 (55 years
old when she was interviewed) was married to Joseph J. Mills, born c. 1880.
At the time of the 1930 Federal Census, they had three children of their
own in the home: Orphus R. Mills, Ella M. Mills, and James L. Mills; also
with them was their granddaughter, Gwendolyn D. Annis. Joseph was an
oysterman in a packing house; 19 year old Orphus worked in a barrel factory
as a cooper.
#90 -
#91 - Miss [-] Steele.
#92 - Mr. [-] Douglas, a relative of Mr. [-] Douglas #86, Mr. John A. Douglas #87,
Mrs. [-] Douglas #88, and Mrs. Laura Mills #89
To protect from evil spirits take a horseshoe and hang it over your front door.
Then take a gourd, hollow it out and hang it over your bed.
(entry 1299, cylinder 7:1)
#93 - [-] [or #92, according to Hyatt, who may have have made a transcription error.]
#94 - #96
#97 - [-]
Women gets her husband back by taking black cloth doll and pinning it at the front door
to her house and cursing at it whenever she walks through the door. She sends dressed
letters to her husband. On the night of full moon a women goes to a crossroads and pays
the "evil spirits." When the doll falls from over the door the husband returns seven or
nine days later.
(entry 197, cylinder 13:6)
#98
Saint James, MD
"A Negro settlement on Easter Shore, 5 miles from Pocomoke City, Md."
#99 - [-] informant tells of a woman he knows who for 25 years, that is, since
1911, has sprinkled graveyard dirt toward people to protect herself and ward
off racial prejudice.
(entry 1316, by hand)
#100 - #101
#102 - Mr. Purnell Dennis, in his 70s, the great-uncle of Jerry Williams #13,
the brother of George Jackson Dennis, the deceased root worker (mentioned in
entry 3092 etc.), and also related somehow (possibly through marriage) to
Julia [-] #1, ALma Hyatt's household manager. George Jackson Dennis and
Purnell Dennis were both born in slavery. Their owner was "John Hugh Dennis,
father of Samuel Dennis, the former [pre-1936] Chief Justice of Baltimore."
George Jackson Dennis died circa 1900 (entries 3093, 3104). For more detailed
family ties, see informant #139 (Purnell's niece by marriage, Mary Williams).
US Census records give Purnell Dennis' birth year as 1864, making him
about 30 years younger than his brother George Jackson Dennis. His occupation
was given as general farmer. He was listed in various reports as being
either "Negro" or "Mulatto," meaning he was lighter-skinned than most blacks
of his time and place. It is very likely that his father was the owner or
another white member of the household that owned his mother. Today we would
call him "biracial."
#103 - Mrs. Delia Dennis, in her 70s, wife of Purnell Dennis #102.
Hyatt did not record Mrs. Denis's first name, but my research in US Census
records reveals her to be Delia or Delie Dennis. she was born c. 1871.
Purnell and Delia Denis had several children: Moses Dennis, Willie Dennis,
Calvin Dennis, Louisa Dennis, Beulah Dennis, Pauline Dennis, and Fred
Dennis. All members of this family were listed as of the "Mulatto" race,
meaning that they were what we now called "biracial."
#104 - Mrs. [-] Ward ("elderly").
#105 - Mrs. [Gladys] White, wife of Melvin White #106. See under #109.
#106 - Mr. Melvin White (a cooper), husband of #105. See under #109.
#107 - Albert White (15 year old son of #105 and #106).See under #109.
#108 - George White (data is confused; he is related to #105-#109,
but #108 is elsewhere stated to be F. Milburne [Hyatt's typo?]).
#109 - Melvin White, Jr.; son of #105 and #106. See under #109.
My attempts to research the White family have been moderately successful. The
1940 Federal Census, taken 4 years after Hyatt's visit, does record a "Negro"
family near Crisfield or Somer's Cove, Maryland, about 5 miles west of
Pocomoke City, consisting of Melvin W. White (39 years old, born c. 1901),
his wife Gladys C. White (39 years old, born c. 1901), their son Melvin White
Jr. (14 years old, born c. 1926). There was also a daughter in the home,
Doris E. White (16 years old, born c. 1924), and two younger sons, Elvin
White (11 years old, born c. 1929) and Osborne White (9 years old, born c.
1931). Of Albert White, who would have been 19 years old by this time (born
c. 1921), there is no trace. He had either moved away or died by 1940. There
is also no George White in the house by 1940. All members of the household
had been living in the "same house" in 1935. They owned the home. In 1940,
Melvin W. White was no longer a cooper; he was a bus driver for the public
school system, as was his neighbor, Homer Harris, also listed as a "Negro."
#110 - #124
Princess Anne, MD
#125 - Mr. Walter J. Maddox, a waiter in the town hotel who became a contact man;
he brought in #127, #129, #130, #133, and others in Princess Anne, MD.
"Two years before becoming the priest of her [informant #825's] dream [in
1938], I had been seen as a spirit of some sort in the dream of a man at
Princess Anne, Md. I had appeared to tell him where he could find a
treasure. (For the importance of dreams in treasure-hunting, see 418,
p.125.) I did show him treasure - I made him my contact man for the town."
(This note in Vol. 2, appended to the interview with informant #825, would
seem to refer to Mr. Maddox, as he was the contact man for Princess Anne, MD.)
How a local conjure from Deal's island "specialized" in the "slobber"
from the mouth of a corpse and got Maddox to help him dig for corpse slobber
for use in luck-working tricks.
(entry 821, cylinder 24:7)
Tale of a conjure whose power came from his brother's skull and who was also
a travelling stage-magician and hypnotist.
(entry 820, cylinder 25:1)
A crossroads story
(entry 347, cylinder 38.1)
Hyatt did not give Mr. Maddox's first name, but my research found him in
the 1940 Federal Census, his occupation given as "head waiter, hotel." He was
born c. 1889 and was about 47 years old when Hyatt hired him. His wife was
Laura C. Maddox, born c. 1892. Their daughter was Charlotte or Charlotta Maddox,
born c. 1927. They lived at 253 Beckford Avenue and owned their own home. Their
race was "Negro."
#126
#127 - George Tilmer or Tilman, born 1850; 86 years old in 1936 (born c. 1850)
(entry 3102).
My research did not locate any black men named George Tilmer born in 1850 in
any Federal Census, however, there were several black men named George Tilman
born circa 1848-1859 in various places who were recorded in numerous Federal
Census reports. There were too many for me to determine the correct one.`
#128
#129 - Mr. J. Shrieve, the only white man interviewed
(entry 8).
(Just a side-note: My research indicates that, according to the 1940 Federal
Census, a white couple, Leonard and Daisy Shrieves, lived next door to
Joshua Wilson, the next entry.)
#130 - Mr. Joshua Wilson, "age 65" (born c. 1871).
He was a member of the Dennis - Wilson - Williams - Gavin family.
bury woman's nature at doorstep to keep other men away
(entry 1767, cylinder 34:1)
bury rival's urine at his own doorstep in dripping bottle; keep him away
from your woman: "crossing a man from a woman"
(entry 1768, cylinder 33:3)
Jack made from a magnet (loadstone?) and woman's hair, kept by a man to
forestall other men having sex with her
(entry 3095, cylinder 34.3)
All three entries relate to the work of the deceased root doctor George
Jackson Dennis, whom Wilson calls his "Uncle." Wilson also relates that prior
to George Jackson's death (in 1900) he acted as a chauffeur or taxi-man who
drove clients out to see George Jackson). See informant #139 for more on
George Jackson Dennis.
My research indicates that a black landscape gardener named Joshua Wilson,
along with his wife Leah Wilson, appear in the 1900, 1920, 1930, and 1940
Federal Censuses for Princess Anne, MD. Joshua was born circa 1871, as
indicated by Hyatt. He and Leah married in 1893 and by 1900 they had two
children, Martha Wilson (born March, 1894) and Caleb Wilson (born April,
1898). Joshua's and Leah's parents were born in Maryland. In 1900, Joshua
gave his occupation as a day laborer and Leah was a cook. By 1930, both
Joshua and Leah gave their occupations as servants in a private household.
The couple had a large family; their other children were Rose Wilson, Walter
Wilson, Grace Wilson, Henry Wilson, Arthur Wilson, and Louise Wilson. Also
living with them was Hallie Wilson (Henry's wife). Walter did auto repair,
Henry worked in a general merchandise store, and Arthur worked in a hardware
store; the daughters were unemployed. By 1940, only Walter and Rose remained
in the home with their parents. Joshua was stil a landscape gardener, Leahwas a
cook in a private home, and Walter was a laborer in a canning factory, probably
canning oysters.
#131 - #132
#133 - Joe Dorman
(entry 8221)
According to my research, the only black Joseph Dorman in Princess Anne,
Maryland, who was listed in the 1930 Federal Census, was 47 years old (born
in 1883 and 53 years old when Hyatt interviewed him). His wife was Susan
Dorman (46 years old, born 1884). Their children were Albert Dorman, 27
(born in 1903), and Lulu Dorman, 14 (born in 1916), and they also had two
other children in their home -- Langston Jones, 13 (born in 1917) and
Rebecca Stocker, 6 (born in 1924). Joe Dorman was a farm laborer; his
family rented their home at 137 Main Street.
Interviews were conducted in the church and in the home of
Rev. and Mrs. John Burke and the home of Mrs. Mary Williams, #139.
#134 - #138
#139 - Mrs. Mary Williams, widow of Elijah Williams, mother of contact man and
chauffeur Jerry Williams #13, and niece by marriage of the deceased root
worker George Jackson Dennis and his brother Purnell Dennis #102.
The history of George Jackson Dennis and his family, told by Mary Williams:
George Jackson Dennis, Purnell Dennis #102, and their sister (who married a
Mr. Williams and was the mother of Elijah Williams) were born in slavery at
Cedar Hall farm near Pocomoke City, Md. Their owner, as noted by Hyatt, had
been "John Hugh Dennis, father of Samuel Dennis, the former [pre-1936] Chief
Justice of Baltimore." The rootworker and former slave George Jackson Dennis
was born circa 1830 and died circa 1900 at age 70, but "youngified" in
appearance; he was buried in Fairmount, Md. No children, no photographs
extant in the family; he was gifted and could read the Bible.
(entry 3092, cylinder 38.1)
Hyatt's "John Hugh Dennis" is a mistranscription of "John Upshur Dennis."
The Dennis slave owners were descendents of Littleton Dennis Esq. (1728 -
May 6, 1774). John Upshur Dennis (April 10, 1793 - December 23, 1851), the
father of Chief Justice Samuel Dennis, owned 160 slaves in Worcester County,
Maryland. See http://www.visitworcester.org/printables/Worcester_African-American_Heritage.pdf for
pictures of some Dennis family slaves and the veve-like wrought iron work
that they installed at the Dennis home to keep away evil spirits.
A story about the 19th century root worker Zippy Tull, told by Mary Williams:
The story begins with the enmity between Harriet Henderson and Emma Henderson;
Harriet, a hoodoo practitioner, told Mrs. Williams' grandmother Liza [-] not
to give Emma any food. When Liza disobeyed and fed Emma, Harriet cut a
coffin-shaped piece out of Liza's underwear and took the measure of her foot
and put it in a graveyard. Liza fell sick in April, barking like a dog. By
August her husband James [-] (Mary's grandfather) decided to see the root
doctor Zippy Tull at Drummondtown, Virginia. James borrowed a horse from the
woman he worked for, Miss Liza Marle. Zippy Tull told him to find the cloth,
almost rotted (if it had rotted, Liza would have died), and she would "do
the balance." The cure worked; by September, Liza was picking apples in the
orchard. According to Mrs. Williams, Zippy Tull was deceased by 1936.
(entry 3104, cylinder 38:2)
As with the Dennis family, i have found a lot of information online about
both the white Tull family and descendants of the African American Tull
slaves in the DelMarVa area. There is no doubt in my mind that Zippy Tull
existed, but her birth name was probably something more formal or Biblical.
I suspect it was Zipporah. A far different account of Zippy Tull, painting
her as a witch who was much feared and who performed evil works of magic and
poisoning, appears in the journal of Etha Parsons Yohe (1875 - ?) of
Parsonsburg, Wicomico County, Maryland, which was online as of October 2003
at http://members.tripod.com/~astral/yohe.html. In the extracted portion of
the journal, Etha, recalling events when she was 8 years old (that is, in
1883) refers to Zippy Tull as "Old Zippy Tull," suggesting a birthdate for
her in 1830 or earlier, contemporaneous with George Jackson Dennis.
Drummundtown, VA, Zippy Tull's home town, is now known as Accomac, VA. The
Tull Farm Slave Quarter is still extant in Pocomoke City, MD. The 1930 and
1940 census records show dozens of people with the surname Tull in the same
area whose race was identified as "Negro."
Circa 1896, Mary Williams' mother, name unknown, then 40 years old, walked
by a chimney and got a pain in her toe that led to paralysis, Doctor Quinn
(an MD) could not cure her, so Elijah Williams and Mary Williams walked from
Pocomoke to Fairmount to find Elijah's uncle, George Jackson Dennis. He said
the trick was done by a short woman of light colour who had made a cut-tin
effigy of Mary Williams' mother, with the foot cut off. and laid it at the
base of the chimney, where the victim stepped over it. He told Elijah to
return to Pocomoke, dig up the effigy before sunrise and bring it to him and
he would "do the balance." Elijah found the mutilated cut-tin effigy, took
it to George Jackson. His mother-in-law was cured and lived another 10 years.
(entry 3093, cylinder 40:1)
According to my research, Elijah Williams was born c. 1841 in Maryland. He,
or someone of the same name, is listed in a Maryland slave schedule of 1850
(it is an index-only record, so the name of his owner cannot be found). His
much younger wife, Mary, who was 18 years his junior, was born in Maryland
in 1869. They lived in Delaware in 1910. The difference in their ages would
explain why Mary was able to tell Hyatt the stories of George Jackson Dennis
and Zippy Tull, who had been born c. 1830.
#??? - [-] (# lost) A woman who consulted Aunt Dinah in Chattanooga, Tennessee;
to capture a man, measure string around penis, bury in graveyard, dug up after
two days, gave back to client wrapped in red flannel and stuck with needles,
told her to hide it in the bed tick; man would stay with her and leave his wife.
(entry 10237, cylinder 42:2)
Wilmington, NC
#173 - [-] [This man is an oysterman from Wrightsville Sound . ]
To keep 'em from comin' down de Sound stea1in' 'em? You make a roun ' ring , put some
sulphur roun' it. Make a roun' ring, I say about twenty yards long roun' de oysters.
Can't come ovah dat ring. [Another oysterman hand was given in No. 1767, p.534.]
(entry 2198, cylinder 140:3)
Elizabeth City, NC
#182 - [-] gives a crossroads story
(entry 333, no cylinder number noted)
Wilmington, NC
Mr. [-] (Benjamin) Gavin acted as contact man. Hyatt had met him through his
wife's household manager Julia [-] #1, who was Mr. Gavin's sister-in-law. "I
Interviewed in the Gavin home and had lunch there every day" (page 902). Here
Hyatt commenced the hiding of the microphone in his "old black hat." Also "the
dialect trouble began in Wilmington"; as he travelled farther south and
eventually west, Hyatt and his transcribers began having increasing difficulties
understanding their informants' speech. Burying the microphone under a hat
probably didn't help the clarity of the recordings, either!
#183 - #189
#190 - [-]
A woman was tricked when a female rootworker was paid by a man to make her marry him.
After the marriage she got pains so bad she couldn't walk, so she went to a male rootwoker
who diagnosed her condition and the cured her. He poured medicine on her head three times,
and each time he knocked her head, closed his eyes, and blew on her. Then knocked on her
back three times and she was cured. He told her to not go barefoot, to protect from conjure.
(entry 1052, 92:6+85)
#191 - #197, and among these were
#??? - Carrie Gavin, sister of Julia [-] #1; interviews held in her house.
I am not certain, but Wilmington is the county seat of New Hanover County, NC,
so she may be this Carrie Gavin, who died in 1938:
NAME: Carrie Gavin
RACE: Negro (Black)
AGE: 54
DATE OF BIRTH: 1884
DATE OF DEATH: 3 Aug 1938
DEATH COUNTY: New Hanover
DEATH STATE: North Carolina
SOURCE: NC State Archives. North Carolina Deaths, 1908-67
#??? - Mr. [-] Gavin, "her husband, first name unremembered," (Benjamin)
the Wilmington, NC contact man, brother-in-law of Julia [-] #1.
#193 - [-]
Woman dies from burning a doll that was fixed for her. She came home and found the doll in
her doorway and threw it the fire; three weeks later she caught fire herself and died.
(entry 1084, cylinder 98:1+850)
#198 - [-] Probably a woman (says she cooked dinner); she lived on Campbell Street in
Wilmington, NC ("Twus my gate on Campbell Street where I lives at, right in Wilmington.
At ten 'clock - I'm talkin' about mah ownself, at what I know on Campbell Street.")
Bluestone, sulphur, unspecified roots, victim's hair, buried at gate; causes victim to
have weakness and to lay down every night at the same time; disposed of by burning in
fire; victim cured, but woman who fixed it had to go to hospital to have her leg cut off.
(entry 929, cylinder104:3)
#199 - #201
#292 - [-]
Bury a piece of someone's underwear in a gaveyard; as it rots, they die.
(entry 4758, cylinder 108:2)
#293 - #213
#214 - [-]
Break stick on mother's grave to stop her haunting her children.
(entry 1305, cylinder 205:4) [cylinder number seems wrong, out of order]
#215 - #216
#217 - [-]
If you want to get a man back who truly loves you. You take a nail and drive it in above
the door the person left out of and every time before you go to bed you have to call the
person's name nine times. Say it like this, "Come back (name), I want you to come back."
(entry 8664, cylinder 126:3+85)
Write psalm 23 on a piece of paper and tie it up in a cloth; wear it on your skin and no
one can hurt you.
(entry 1262, cylinder 127:2+85)
#218 - #223
#? - [-] filed in order of cylinder number.
Take a photo and drive a nail through the center of the photo on the west side a tree and
when the sun goes down, the person's picture will fade away.
(entry 8379, cylinder 156:5+85)
February 12, 1937
#224 - Ethel Waters, born in Willard, NC, self-described as "a wise woman" or
healer. Excerpt from interview in Volume Two, pages 1294 - 1295 Numbers Book
136-317; Cylinder 215.
(also entry 714, cylinder 215)
My research indicates that she may be the same "colored" Ethel Waters living
in Wilmington, NC, whose occupation was given as "laundress" in a 1930 city
directory.
#225 - #228
#229 - Eddie [-] Surname unknown
#230 - #240
#241 - [-]
gives a crossroads story
(entry 363, cylinder 239.4)
nine grains of bluestone in each corner to keep out witches
(entry 488, cylinder 239:7)
graveyard dirt and mockingbird nest to bring back lost lover
(entry 7835, cylinder 164:4+85) [cylinder number seems wrong, out of order]
#242 - #244
#245 - [-]
To bring a person home, nail a picture of them upside down to a tree.
(entry 8375, cylinder 167:1+85)
#246 - #247
#248 - [-]
"You've seen decks of cards? Well you take the Joker out of the cards, and under
the head of that Joker you draw that man's body. The man you want to come on back home.
And then you get a little can (like a Tobacco tin), and fill it up with Corn Meal. You mix
some Corn Meal and Red Pepper and Salt together, and fill the can. Then you take that man,
take the Joker that you have drawn the man's body under the Joker's head on, stick it down
in that can, and then stop it up, and carry it, and put it somewhere in your room about
your bed. That'll bring him back home. Just like if he was going with another woman, then
that trick will bust them up and brings him home to you."
(entry 2211, cylinder 244:2)
#249 - [-] Informant gave account of uncle who was institutionalized in Goldsboro, NC,
after 3 years of insanity at home, and who, upon release, was cured by a rootworker from
the "South" who charged $25.00 and performed a spell involving graveyard dirt in a buried
threshold bottle, salty water from Wrightville Sound, rocks, two dimes to be worn on the
legs, and a belt to be worn, The cure was effective.
(entry 896, cylinder 245:9.
Location "Two miles on this side of Hempstead, a place (Negro community) they call Browntown."
#250 - 266
#267 - [-]
To make a person love you, take a picture of the person and a piece of your hair from behind
your right ear and place the hair on top of the picture and wrap it up good; carry it near
your heart and the person will love you. Only works if there's no water between you two.
(entry 8466, cylinder:1+85)
#268 - #285
#286 - [-]
To attract man back to you, place his picture over a glass of water with a heavy weight on
the picture and he will return to you.
(entry 8423, cylinder 203:1+85)
#287 - #291
#292 - Lewis [-] Surname unknown; see page 300.
#293 - #308
#309 - [-]
To turn a trick back on someone take a dressed nail and on the west facing part of the tree
you drive the nail in with seven hits.
(entry 1045, cylinder 235:7+85)
#310 -
#311 - Willie Jones - "A Negro from Wrightsville Sound." Hyatt and his contact man, Mr. Gavin,
felt sorry for him. "After informant had left room, my contact man Mr. Gavin came in to express
his sorrow for him. He had never seen anyone quite so inexperienced and isolated from
simple forms of normal life."
entry 893
Pepper in shoe, a hug, a love spell.
(entry 5193, cylinder 238:3+ 86)
#314 - #315
#316 - [-] a bootlegger who tells a long, sad story about his "crazy" wife and
his legal troubles; many root doctors are named, because he consulted many,
including one of the Doctor Buzzards. Their uncrossing cures varied in style and
efficacy and will eventually be logged here.
(entry 3082, cylinder 244.1+85, hand transcription)
#317 - #345
#346 - Eugene Love, who bet his interview number, won $4.00 and came back to
split his winnings with Hyatt and get another "lucky number." Hyatt therefore
changed to recording the interviewee's number *after* he or she left the room.
#347 - #360
February - April, 1937
Richmond, VA
From this point on, some people thought Hyatt was an FBI agent, or "the law."
#361 - [-] discussion of goofer dust and graveyard dirt
(entry 664, cylinder 296:8)
#371
#372 - E. W. Lindsay, first professional root doctor interviewed;
his biography is in Volume One, page XXVIII, his interview is
in Volume Two, pages 943-8.
#375 - [-]
"a hopeful client" who believed Hyatt was a root doctor; "NG" (no good)
#? - "Humpadee", a female root doctor.
#? - [-] King, who disappeared.
April 21, 1937
#385 - "Root Doctor" Johnson, a 65 year old man of mixed Native American and
African-American ethnicity, born in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and brought
to Bristol, VA when he was young. He carried in a sack of roots he had freshly
dug to show Hyatt.
Interview Volume Two pages 1620 -1624, cylinders [329:1 - 332:7]
#386 - #388
#389 - [-]
graveyard dirt in shoes and around home for protection
(entry 1313, cylinder 338:2)
#390
#391 - [-]
This person waited 5 hours (paid) to be interviewed, the longest wait of all.
#392 - #403
#404 - [-]
If you want keep a person in trouble, place a photo of them facing down, place half a glass
of whiskey over the photo with three pennies. The three pennies symbolize Three Holy Men.
(no entry number, no cylinder number)
#405 -
#406 - [-]
graveyard dirt, salt, pepper, and sulphur keeps visitors off
(entry 9605, cylinder 361:5)
#407 - #430
#431 - [-] Probably a woman due to the nature of the spell: If your husband leaves, run the
cards until you get the first King or Jack, then nail it behind the headboard of the
bed on the side he sleeps on, face side out. Get a new broom and take nine straws from
it. Talk to the King every morning for nine mornings; say sweet things and apologize,
and every time you eat or drink, offer some to the King on the tip of a broom straw,
using a fresh straw each day. Do this for nine mornings and he will return. A man who
wants his wife back can run the cards until the first Queen comes out and do the same.
(entry 10,832, cylinder 385:3 & 5+85)
#432 - #437 unaccounted for; either Richmond VA or Elizabeth City, NC
Elizabeth City, NC
May, 1937
"Never in my life did I interview a black person in a white person's home except my
own (which includes my own hotels)" etc. (Volume One, page XIX). This is an
important note on technique: Hyatt explains that except for five occasions
detailed, all interviews were conducted in the homes or hotels of black people.
#438 - [-]
successive Moon phases: wear salt and Red Pepper seeds in your shoes on last quarter
Waning Moon then, on the growing of the New Moon the man you want will come to you
(entry 9586, cylinder 391:4)
A man should get a coffin nail from a woman's coffin, and a woman from a man's; wrap
it in red flannel and dress it with Hoyt's Cologne. Wear it next to your skin for love.
(entry 1806, cylinder 403:11 + 85)
goofer dust contains graveyard dirt; it gives you a lingering cough.
(entry 662, cylinder 558:5) [this cylinder number seems far wrong.]
#439 - #481 unaccounted for; either Elizabeth City NC or Norfolk, VA
[Petersburg, Va., (--), 423:4.] 10975. Write name on black hen egg, throw into running water, runs out of town.
Norfolk, VA
May, 1937
Hyatt drove to Norfolk with [-] Carter, his new contact man, in Carter's "family
car" (co-owned with other family members).
#456 - Doctor English, professional root doctor
Professor English told Hyatt that he was born in Chicago, IL, and had 35 years experience
as a root worker all over the nation, as well as having travelled in South America, Africa,
and South Asia. Hyatt called him "a first-class craftsman" and kept a photo of him wearing
a turban. He noted that he thought the old man was an alcoholic, but he recorded him and
respected his work. Doctor English was very articulate and precise in speech and took time
to explain many facets of his craft. He employed roots and commercial spiritual supplies and
described them. For instance, "You may take different classes of incense. These is so many
different incense. I find into the class of incense what I use my own self into returning
people home, it's a most oriental incense. It's Hindu or a Chinaman's -- it's the very best
of clairvoyant incense you can get from them." A folk magic collector himself, he described
the contents of a gambling hand made by Uncle Charlie Jackson "down in Alabama" and related
a spell to return a person home in nine day's time that came from Doctor Gorse who "was out
Chicago way for some time." He also told how he scared a man named Rogers Wheel, "the worst
man in Berkley [Virgina] who "had a vow made wih the Devil" and was given the "authority of
killing people with these square-head nails." His interview is jam-packed with such details.
Volume Two, page 1386 - 1401, cylinders 432:2-445:2)
#466 - Doctor Paul Bowles, professional root doctor
("No. 466 - Paul Bowe [[I have spelled his name several ways]] - 713 Henry Street -
Norfolk [Virginia] - R.D. [ [Root Doctor] ) - very good" - Numbers Book 442-621. Several
things from his broken-up interview are in the preceding text - see p . 89 , No.300.
Somewhere in the text I believe I have recorded one of those little gems lost and found
several times (see Preface), the saying that "snakes in Currituck (County, N. Car.) have
no tails because Conjures have cut all of them off." Instead of Madam Griffin (p.l309f.)
giving me this, I am now certain the saying came from Doctor Bowles, a native of nearby
county of Pasquotank.")
Go to a white oak tree where the lightnin' have hit it. And if you find anyone who you
think they did something to you, and you kin get nine of his tracks and nine of those
splintahs and put one in each one of his tracks,and make a wish that if he did it, this
thing will turn back on him and nobody can take it off of him. If he did it, he will
finally get down and die.
You kin take nine needles and put them under the door block or at the gate, or under the
house - somewhere where you stay. And you get sick, and if you don't find dem needles,
they'll pin you right down to the bed -- can't get up yourself, unless someone help you.
But if you wise enough to locate these needles and find 'em, and take 'em to de river and
throw 'em overboard in running water, The fellow that did that will soon run crazy. You
turn this trick back on him.
(Interview Volume Two, pages 1733-1738, cylinders 458-463)
Pick hole in egg, take out inside, put person's hair in, write name on [egg shell], seal
[hole], throw into running water, runs person crazy. (entry 10978; Informant number cited
only as (-) [lost], but this should be Doctor Bowles, as the cylinder number is 460:2.]
"We did well in Norfolk. Then, Doctor Bowles (see 1733-1738) having recommended his cousin
Bowles as a root doctor in Newport News, we worked that city for a few days while continuing
to live in Norfolk."
#482 - Mrs. [-] Graham, former wife of Vander Graham
(entry 888).
Vander Graham is not as rare a name as one might think. Several black men of
that name were recorded in various public documents during the early 20th
century. For instance, it is possible that Mrs. Graham was Jane Graham, if
her husband was the Vander Graham who was a farmer on Loke City Road in
Indian, Williamsburg County, South Carolina; Vander was born in 1876 and
Jane was born in 1878, making her around 59 years old at the time of this
interview. It is also possible that Mrs. Graham's former husband was the
Vander Graham born May 26, 1899, who was 18 years old, living in Warwick,
Virginia, and employed in the Hampton Avenue coal yard on the C&O Railroad
when he registered for the WWI draft in 1918. He was "Negro," of "medium"
height and "stout" build, with brown eyes and black hair. He would have been
38 years old when Hyatt was interviewing, and we might suppose that his
former wife was about the same age, if she was the woman who was interviewed.
(entry 1460 "They was working at the new shipyard,,,"
untranscribed here -- pages 476-474- cylinders 504:1-505:1) desribed as an old lady and a
widow qith an adult son, named Miz Davis who ran a boarding house.
#483 - #486
#487 - [-]
Steal an Irish potato, wrap it in something, and carry it in your pocket; as
it ferments, the rheumatism will leave.
(entry 1423, cylinder 518:6)
#488 - #489
#490 - [-]
Buy a new box of salt amd every day, throw a handful of it into a fire while calling
your enemy's name as you angrily demand that he leaves your life and never returns.
(entry 9458, cylinder 525:4)
#491
#492 - [-]
To make someone do what you will of them, take a photo of the person and place it bottoms
up on a glass of whisky and leave it in a dark closet.
(entry 8471, cylinder 529:1)
#493 - #494
"Twice Carter and I visited a shack in a public dump searching for a doctor called Dogface
or Doghead (See lines 30-32, p.175).
Suffolk, VA ("Out in the county from Suffolk, Nansemond Co., Va.")
After resuming work in Norfolk, we [Hyatt and Carter] on two separate days
sought and found Doctor Frank Harris (See 1958, p.573) near Suffolk, a remarkable person;
and Madam Griffin (see pp.1309-l3l4) out in the country from Berkly.
At this point my wife came down from New York City and she and I went to a hotel
in Virginia Beach - The Cavalier.
#??? - Doctor Frank Hall
[misremembered as Frank Harris at Vol 1, page XXIX, but corrected at Vol. 4, page 3729]
(entry 8471, cylinder 529:1)
(entry 1958), Volume One, page 573.
If a man comes to your house and you want to run him away from your woman, you get a
coal-black Hen's egg and you write his name on the egg, and then you turn around and get
a pinch of dirt out of the hollow of his right foot track, and write his name on a piece
of paper, and put that egg and that dirt in that paper, and carry it and throw it in strong
running water that all runs one way [meaning not a tidal river], and make your wishes. Then
go back to your house, walk through your doorway and turn your face out of the door and
wish him from your house, and he'll go away.
(entry 9242, taken down by hand)
Berkly, VA ("near Norfolk, VA") [Actually spelled Berkley, VA]
June, 1937
#494A - Mrs. [Mary L.] Griffin, professional root worker.
Resident in Berkley, VA; originally from Bertie Co., NC); born in slavery; she was in her
80s at the time of the interview, and she had lived in Virginia about 50 years. Hyatt does
not list her first name, but her nickname, "Lenny," is given by her in a story she tells
on herself about events during the Civil War, when she was a child, living near Powell's
Crossroads (now Powellsvile). She was one of a number of slaves owned by a white man who
was a Confederate soldier and his white wife, whose first name was Emmy. Her interview is
six pages long. In the interview title, Hyatt calls her "Madam" Griffin, but at the end of
the interview he calls her "Mrs. Griffin" -- and the latter was probably her actual
working name. Hyatt's propensity for calling root worker women "Madam" is demonstrated
elsewhere: he called Mrs. Myrtle Collins "Madam Collins" even though she specifically told
him she was "not a madam" and her business card read "Myrtle Collins."
On one entry Hyatt spelled her surname Griffen.
Tea of silkweed, snake root, black master root, gourd, and cedar berries cures conjuration
inside a person.
(entry 1122, cylinder 533:1)
Flip foot tracks to send people away.
She was gifted with clairaudience
at a well when she was a child, but, interestingly, she said she did not deal
with "dead spirits," only with "living spirits." She could summon and dismiss the spirits
of living people through prayer and in the name of the Lord.
Write the names of the 12 disciples on Sage leaves (rather than the more common Bay or
Plantain leaves) for job-getting.
Use gunpowder on a red brick to blow someone out of where they live.
Burn commercial hoodoo Love Powder incense, which is obtained by mail order or in stores.
She cured a woman of blocked intestines by discovering who was driving her "litter" into a
hole in a fir tree every day, and saved the woman's life.
She described frog and fish killing death spells.
She told the story of Sim Moore of Bertie County, North Carolina, whom she knew prior to
1887. Sim used a dead man's bone to put people to sleep so he could steal from them. (He
was dead by 1937.)
Fix shoes with nine drops of turpentine and one drop of quicksilver to keep from being hurt.
She could diagnose by reading cups into which she had put snuff.
To keep a person home, take a new file and drive it half into the ground at one corner of
the house, break it off and drive the other half in the same way at the diagonal opposite
corner of the house.
Take a new string and tie knots in it while calling the person's name to give them chills.
If it is buried, the person can only be cured by digging it up.
She cured a woman in Blackstone, Virginia, who had been hurt by someone who got her hair
and a cloth she had worn and put it in a hollow stick and buried it at her door where she
had to walk over it. The cure consisted of digging up the stick and burning it in a ring
of trash sprinkled with 3 cents each of sulphur, kerosene, salt, saltpeter, and gunpowder,
and the woman who had done the work against the client came running and screaming all
evening long.
In a similar case, the curse had been cast with two glass jars filled with snakes and
water buried at the doorstep. Taking them up and casting the water out cured the female
client and the man who had done the work came running and screaming.
10976. Write name on black hen egg, throw in running water, sends away. [Norfolk, Va., (--), 533:6.]
(Numbers Book 422-621; Cylinders 533:2 - 536:5.
Interview Volume Two, pages 1309-14.)
My research indicates that her given name was Mary L. Griffin and that she was
also a midwife by profession. Here she is in the 1920 Federal Census, 17 years
before Hyatt interviewed her:
NAME: Mary L Griffin
AGE: 62
BIRTH YEAR: abt 1858
BIRTHPLACE: North Carolina
HOME IN 1920: Deep Creek, Norfolk, Virginia
STREET: (Part of) Deep Creek Road
RACE: Black
GENDER: Female
RELATION TO HEAD OF HOUSE: Wife
MARITAL STATUS: Married
SPOUSE'S NAME: Levis G Griffin
FATHER'S BIRTHPLACE: North Carolina
MOTHER'S BIRTHPLACE: North Carolina
ABLE TO SPEAK ENGLISH: Yes
OCCUPATION: midwife
INDUSTRY: private families
EMPLOYMENT FIELD: Wage or Salary
ABLE TO READ: Yes
ABLE TO WRITE: Yes
HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS:
NAME AGE
Levis G Griffin 67
Mary L Griffin 62
John E Griffin 24
Ethel Griffin 21
Regarding her self-applied nickname "Lenny": There are several black women
named Lenora Griffin in the census records of the early 20th century, but
only this Mary L. Griffin was born in the right decade in North Carolina and
lived in Norfolk County, Virginia; in addition, the formal occupation of
midwife in "private family" service (that is, not employed by a hospital) was
a common one for a healer, root doctor, and spiritual worker, and Mrs. Griffin
was listed by Hyatt as a "professional," not just a small- time practitioner.
At the time of the 1930 Federal Census she was living in the same place, now
73 years old and widowed; her occupation was "nurse, obstetric," in other
words a midwife, and she lived alone, with no other household members.
She was 80 years old when Harry Hyatt interviewed her at length in 1937.
She did not appear in the 1940 Federal Census.
Charleston, SC
June 25, 1937
#495 - Mrs. [-] Clayborne, Carter's landlady in Charleston.
#??? - Carrie Clark [mentioned in introduction]
(entry 944)
#497 - [-]
throw salt behind and curse to keep folks away
(entry 9447, cylinder 539:4)
#503 - "Toby" Cason, a root doctor who made tobies.
#504 - #508
#509 - "Doctor" Washington
says goofer dust is powdered insects
(entry 673, cylinder 570:3)
fairly lengthy interview on treasure hunting can be found in Volume 1, pages 132 - 135
(entry 428, cylinder 570:5)
#510 - #511
#512 - [-]
To keep a hag from riding you in your sleep wear all black to bed.
(entry 484, cylinder 585:1)
#513 - Marcus Brown / William Brown / Peter Brown
This profession root doctor's several names were explained by Hyatt as
follows: "[Many an athlete has worn No. 13 to defy superstition, but what
person except our informant has ever named himself after a graveyard - after
Marcus Brown, the Negro cemetery in Charleston! But this could have been a
temporary act of daring - induced by the spirits within - because I later
learned he was known to others as William or Peter. Besides, I am almost
certain it was he who had the fight with Doctor Washington in the court of
the house where I was interviewing: "I must add - to emphasize the danger -
that Washington had come to me in a treasure-seeking mood, having taken a
few drinks of moonshine whiskey from his screw-top jar. After he left me,
he and a doctor waiting for me got into the altercation described elsewhere"
(quotation from p.134, line 35f.) DOCTOR WASHINGTON OF CHARLESTON,
pp.132-135, is quite a story. At a later date, after another fight between
two doctors, I refer to the Charleston fight (p.337, lines 5-17). [...] The
material of informant 513 was difficult, badly recorded, and not completely
transcribed; these selections coming from cylinders 744-751.]"
New Moon bottle spell to get laid-off employee re-hired; capture spirit of
boss in bottle with Devil's Shoe String root, Horehound root, Dogwood Root,
and liquid germicide; pay graveyard spirits while working with it in a
cemetary for eleven hours, then use it to control the boss; when client is
re-hired, bury the bottle under client's front door steps; this is good for
12 months and must be renewed on the New Moon.
(Vol. 2, p.1291, cylinders 744-751)
#514 - #517
#518 - Doctor Samuel Nelson whom Hyatt called "important." He began his professional
career in Florence, South Carolina, on April 3, 1909, when he officially became
the student of "a white man named Doctor Harris" to whom he paid the fee of
$60.00 for lessons. He then trained others in turn, sending them as far away as
Chicago and Kentucky, while he himself had travelled and worked as far North as
New York. These men probably sold root tonics in medicine shows as well as
casting hoodoo spells for clients while on the road. Dr. Nelson's age was not
given, but if he started at age 22 in 1909, he would have been around the age of
50 in 1937, and he may have been as old as 60 when he was interviewed. Hyatt
asked Dr. Nelson the perplexing question he asked many profesionals: whether
there is any such thing as an "initiation" in hoodoo (as fancifully described by
Zora Neale Hurston, whose information Hyatt apparently distrusted as fictional).
Dr. Nelson said no, that he had received his understanding of the work "from de
Spirit. God give it to me, you know." Thus, with the instructions he received
from the white Dr. Harris of Florence, SC, and his own guidance from God and
Spirit, Dr. Nelson had launched a rootwork career that had spanned almost 30
years. Among other things, Dr. Nelson also noted that the original Doctor Buzzard
had been dead for "about ten years" (since 1927) and that other practitioners
were now using that name. Dr. Nelson described how to go into the woods to dig
"Indian Potato" and make a decoction to rid clients of "live things." Hyatt
speculated that this plant was Jerusalem Artichoke, but it could as well have
been Jalap, from the description Dr. Nelson gave, and its use as a laxative.
Dr. Nelson also learned his craft from his grandafther, as noted at entry 7231:
"Dat, mah grandfathah told me dat too, yo' know. (Did he learn that down in the West
Indies or up here?) Right here. (Where did he practice?) He practice in Sumter, S. Car.,
all de time - all around [that part of the country]. (What was his name?) Samuel Ozias
[Isaiah?] Weathahspoon {Weatherspoon}. Yes, ah named aftah him, see, but mah mothah
married a Nelson." [607:7.]
Dr. Nelson's office was at "No. 10 Antler Street" in Charleston.
My research shows that Antler Drive still exists in North Charleston, but the
once wooded area has been renumbered.
(Vol. 2, p.1599, cylinders 610:2-612:8)
Also entry 7231 . "[Doator Nelson we have already met in the following:
No. 2226, p. 632; No. 2503, p. 693; pp. l599-1600; and 2260- 2261.]"
#519 - Doctor [-] Maguin ("he pronounced it Mongain (?)")
A wash-water cure for a captured foot track.
(entry 1221, cylinder 613.1)
To keep the law away: Take a Jack from every suit in a playing card deck and place them at
the four corners of the door. Place a penny at the foot of the door and put nine needles
across the door and burn Dragon's Blood incense.
(entry 2209, cylinder 616:4)
#520 - [-]
graveyard dirt tied "crosstownways" and penny throwed "overboard" for protection.
(entry 1315, cylinder 620:2)
#521 - #522
#523 - [-]
Sprinkle grave yard dirt around house to keep spirits from annoying you.
(entry 1305, cylinder 624:5)
Dirt from mother's grave sprinkled at door stops her spirit from haunting her children.
(entry 1306, cylinder 624:5)
#524 -
#525 - [-]
"There's a fish; he's got two stones in his head. Out of them two stones, you want to be
sure when you open him to get the right-hand stone. There's two white stones. You'll take
that right-hand stone and you'll put it in yur pocket and put some Red Pepper with it --
put Red Pepper with that right-hand stone. And take the left-hand stone and take a handful
of Sulphur, nothing but Sulphur, and you'll wrap that up good and hide it and put it down
by your bed -- on the left corner of your bed, or the north corner of your bed, inside of
your mattress. But the right-hand stone, you want to tote that -- it gains everything you
want and everything you go after. Actually, you got to get it."
(entry 1859, cylinder 630:2)
#526 - #534
#??? - [-] devil's shoe string, salt, copper wire around waist
for protection
(entry 1832, cylinder 640:2)
June 28, 1937
#??? - [-], cylinder [646:5]
#535 - William Scott
Tale of a root doctor named Dr. Williams who told fortunes in coffee.
(entry 555, cylinder 649:1)
Beaufort, SC
[July], 1937
"Doctor Buzzard entry" (not numbered in Hyatt's introduction --
# to be inserted here when I find it XXXXX).
#536 - 538 here or in Savannah GA
Savannah, GA
Interviews held at the house of Mrs. [-] Louis, where Carter the contact
man stayed.
[July], 1937
#539 - [-]
Sew up person's foot track dirt and throw it into
ebbing tide and they will go away and never return.
(entry 5783, cylinder 659:2)
If dey could git holt of dat - an' if dey git holt of dat, why dey'll
scorch it, see. (These fingernails or?)
Or toenails, see, in ordah if dey wants tuh trick yo'. Dat's if a person is
sellin' whiskey or somepin lak dat an' dey wants de customah tub eontinue or tuh
e0111e on tub love dem, why'dey'll burn dat.
Dey ll seorch it. yo' see. An' aftah dey
scorchin' it, den dey put de spice wit it, see. An' dey tie it in a li'le bag, see.
An' maybe, if it's a woman an' she wants tuh use it, she'll [put] her dis charges in it.
An' den she'll jis' put it in a li'le whiskey an' soak in dere. See. An' aftah soakin' it well,
she'll take de juice from dat an' den she'll po' it in dis whiskey. An' she'll shake it an' if yo'
drink it, yo' ll continue tuh go back. [Savannah, Ga. ,
(emtry 6481, cylinder 659:6)
#540 - #542
#543 - [-]
Dry a toad, crush it up, and mix it into food. Every time the tide rises the person's
body will swell and every time it falls, their body will fall.
(entry 963, cylindr 678:5)
Jacksonville, FL
Interviews held in a black-owned hotel "under noisy hotel conditions and during intense July heat."
[July], 1937
#550 - [-]
NO ENTRY #; used as an example in Vol. 1 Preface.
THESE FOREIGNERS HAVE A JESUS THAT THEY PRAY TO
"They burn different incent [incense]. There lots of liquor houses right now, they selling
moonshine right on and you go in and smell that -- just a little pot like that, with one of
these Jesus on it. And he's setting up there and it just look like he's smoking and it
smells terrible. Incent they call it. And the law come by -- never stop."
"(Has what! Jesus on it?) "
"Has something like a Jesus -- something. This fellow -- these foreigners have a Jesus that
they pray to. Well, they have made in a little pot like that, and that Jesus setting up over
it [demonstrates], and they lighted that there."
"(With his hands on his belly.)" {Probably a Vantines-style Buddha incense burner -- cat}
(no entry number, cylinder 689:5.]
#554
#555 - [-]
An informant who discussed goofer dust.
(entry 660, cylinder 691:18)
#556 - [-]
"Your enemies can bring salt from their home and put it into your place, cooking salt, see.
Salt can be bad luck or good luck. And the same salt they say that they would give you hard
luck with, is also a means of good luck, by you putting it in the four corners. If you find
salt in your corners -- or if you put down your own salt -- you name each pile the kind of
luck that you'd like to run in. For instance you'd like to have this as the 'Money' pile,
this other is some 'Prosperity,' this one is 'Love,' and this is 'Bigger Business.'"
(entry 9483, cylinder 691:17)
#557 - #589
#590 - [-] Woman; Hyatt called her "Agent for Curios," she took orders for supply houses.
Hyatt wrote this about her: "[Curios at the date of this interview was a legal term
covering the following articles: Lucky Candles, Get Together Powder, Never Part Oil,
Black Cat Ashes, Devil's Stone, Deadman's Bones and other merchandise similarly labeled.
The company or companies distributing these goods through mail-order house or door-to-door
agent stated in a circular, "We make no preternatural claims on any of these products and
sell them all merely for curios." Our AGENT FOR CURIOS - an intelligent woman, informant
590 - first explains her work and then I read the preceding circular. This interview is
interesting for three reasons: first, the quite obvious one; second, the agent's faith in
her products; and third, at the very end, the remarkable story of her customer with heart
trouble -- a M.D. (Doctor of Medicine) and a R.D. (Root Doctor) being involved.
Unfortunately, the recording is bad here and there. As I explained in the INTRODUCTION, my
work in Jacksonville was done under noisy hotel conditions and during intense July heat.
The material is on cylinders 923-928.]" The woman was an agent for the Keystone Company,
the Lucky Heart Company, and High Hat cosmetics. She was aware that these companies had
recently split apart (there had been a falling out among the partners) and that her name
had been given to each new company as a prospective agent.
(Her interview is in Vol.2, pp.1075 - 1076, cylinders 923-928)
#591 -
#592 - [-]
You get you a little bit of saltpeter and a little table salt and a little tiny bit of
lodestone and you put that together. Get you a piece of red flannel, just a red, little
chamois-cloth like. Roll it up in a piece of red flannel and make a knot out of it. You
take you a string and tie it up and wear it around your waist. And you feed that thing
with Hoyt's Cologne for nine days, and that breaks it up. They can't come there. If they
trying do something to you that will keep it away.
(entry 1376, cylinder 763:3)
#593 - #596
#597 - [-]
A man who said, "There nothing too low for some women to do" and described how women wear
raw liver in their menstrual pads all morning and then cook the liver up with onions and
feed it to their men to capture them for life.
(entry 3880, cylinder 769:8)
#598 - #620 unaccounted for: Jacksonville FL or Washington DC
Washington, DC
July 29, 1937, Thursday
#621A - Rev. A. C. Foster
Arthur C Foster in the 1930 United States Federal Census
Name: Arthur C Foster
Birth Year: abt 1896
Gender: Male
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: Kentucky
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Roomer
Home in 1930: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia
Street address: First St. NW.
Ward of City: 6th Precinct
Block: 571
House Number in Cities or Towns: 404
Dwelling Number: 38
Family Number: 57
Lives on Farm: No
Age at First Marriage: 24
Attended School: No
Able to Read and Write: Yes
Father's Birthplace: United States
Mother's Birthplace: United States
Able to Speak English: Yes
Occupation: Minister Gospel
Industry: Church
Class of Worker: Wage or salary worker
Employment: Yes
Name Age
Richard Frazer 50
Lilia Frazer 48
Arthur C Foster 34
James E Thomas 26
Walter Russel 26
Pearl Russel 22
Nine alligator beans (unknown species) broken and thrown for nine days at the doorstep
of someone you wish to have move.
(entry 2255, cylinder 797:2)
#622 - 626
#627 - [-] Spiritualist Minister, probably a man. Born in Washngton, D.C.
This interviewee was born in Washington, D.C. and had lived in New York for a while.
He (?) worked for clients and conducted spiritual meetings in his home thrice weekly.
The interview was mostly on spiritual topics, including how to purify the altar with
Holy Oil, Holy Incense, and Holy Water, then light 7 candles laid out in the form of
a cross, plus some smaller votive candles.
How to recite the 23rd Psalm in four parts, facing in turn East, West, North, and South.
How to say the 91st Psalm "to keep out evil."
How to work with the Moon phases when setting lights with incense.
How to use one's powers of concentration and a Bible verse to affect a third party on
behalf of a client.
When asked by Hyatt about Zora Neale Hurston tales of exotic initiations, he said that one
would have to be born gifted, "have to have someone to instruct you, teach you," then,
"after a meeting, after you accepted in a class, [...] they [the teacher] will tell you,
explain it to you." In other words, he conducted no exotic ceremonies of initation.
He concluded by honestly telling Hyatt that not all people who believe they have been hurt
by magic have indeed been cursed and that he, personally, did not believe in the concept
of Live Things In You.
(entry 2743, cylinder 802:5 - 803:2)
#??? - Informant number was lost, but cylinder number and location of Wadhington, D.C.
places this informant at about #632.
If an unwanted person visits your home and you wish him gone forever, then as the person
leaves, make one throw of salt behind him, "In the Name of the Father," a second throw,
"In the Name of the Son," and a third throw, "In the Name of the Holy Ghost." He won't come
back. This same type of prayer performed at another person's house will make him move out.
(entry 9539, cylinder 806:12)
#638 - [-]
Burn 6-8 chicken feathers and inhale the smoke to cure misery in your head (headache).
(entry 1173, cylinder 625:3) [THIS IS A TYPO; should be cylinder 825:3]
#639 - Dr. [-] Sims, A spiritual church member, formerly of New Orleans.
He was agreeable when Hyatt asked if Zora Neale Hurston's accounts of exotic initiations
in New Orleans were factual, but when asked to describe such an initiation, he explained
that he taught his pupils to study certain portions of the Bible, "and den ah write down
to de Temple an' git a diploma and give 'em, see. Den dey can use de Temple's name." In
other words, they were not given a Haitian style initiation as described by Hurston, but
were presented with a certificate or diploma from a Spiritual Church. He named this as
"Saint John's Temple" and said that "They have more white [members] than they do colored."
He described his pictures of saints, the use of Guinea Grains, Live Things in You
(entry 2742, cylinder 827:8 - 829:9)
How to use Holy Water to quell evil spirits.
(entry 34, cylinder 828:13)
"In gambling, we say you can take a little piece of High John the Conker, you take three
Guinea Grain seeds, you take a piece of lodestone, you take magic sand, and you sew these
in a piece of cloth. Upon your hands you would use Oil of Van Van. Then you would hold this
lucky charm in your hand whilst you are playing with a piece of money and you will be lucky."
"What is magic sand?" asked Hyatt.
"Magic sand is a thing that is made to go with this lodestone. It looks like black dust, but
it comes with lodestone. You buy lodestone and they give you this sand with it," said Doctor
Sims, perfectly describing magnetic sand.
(entry 2091, cylinder 829:8)
#640 - #641
#642 - [-] "A Washington Spiritualist" is what Hyatt called him; that is, a member of a
Spiritualist church. His home town was Richmond, Virginia.
Adam and Eve Root in front of door draws congregation or business.
For increased trade for 30 days: Place purchased Louisiana Hoodoo Dust under door sill,
burn a Good and Evil Candle (reversing candle) at midnight inside the closed front door,
burn Egyptian Incense, and read the 37th Psalm three times a week.
"Well, ah know at mah home town - Richmond, Virginia - there were an' ole lady by
the name of Mary Moody lived on Green Street. That's in the east end. (I've heard
of her.) [Her name is somewhere in the text.] Mary Moody. In other words there was
a woman lived in my neighborhood by the name of Lucy Williams. I leave
Coatesville, Pa., an' I goes home and she becomes jealous or envious of me because
I wouldn't go or keep company with her daughters. She goes to work, she did, an'
taken one of those square half a pint whiskey bottles used to be [before
Prohibition] - Sherwood bottles. Comes to my father's house and my mother used to
be fond of her, used to let her do all of her washing at times, and she'd taken
a part of my underclothes, the seat of them, and a part of my left sock and
carried it off with some different roots. Ah don't know what de roots was, but
those different roots she packed in that bottle and she dressed it with still
water - poured it in this bottle. (What do you mean by still water?) Water that
she had let stand fer a certain length of time. And she dressed that nine days
before she buried it, and when she buried it, she buried it in the pathway that
leads from my mother's house to her well, that I might walk over it. And I
become - begin to go over towards my left side and dwindling away to nothing
without a ache or pain. An' mah father he'd taken me to Mary Moody. Mary Moody
wanted her pichure and mah father happened to have one the pichures on a tintype
in the home. An' he'd taken that and she said to him, says, "Now, you go back home
and plow up your pathway from your house to your well and when you find this
bottle," she said, "bring it to me." An' he did so. An' when he did that, why
she'd taken it and drew that Lucy Williams pichure from de other one a sheet and put
this bottle behind it and shot it. She said, "Now, when yo' git back home, the
same thing that yore son have on him, she will have on her and she can't git rid
of it." An' that happened. (What did she shoot this bottle with? ) With a pistol
- a real pistol. (She drew this picture on a piece of paper and put it up before
this bottle and shot through the paper and broke the bottle?) Yes. (How long
ago did that happen?) That's been - that was in 1916.
He also describes a bootlegger at 606 Eighth Avenue in Beaver Falls, PA who, due
to his spiritual protection with wooden sewing spools and needles, "doesn't care if you
give a policeman his address." This address is in a historically African American
neighborhood in Beaver Falls.
(entry 754, ED)
He tells what happened in 1923 while living with his first wife at 217 E Street NW,
Washington: his wife was taken sick suddenly and died, and her female friend
confessed that she had skinned a frog, fried the skin up crisp, powdered it, and given it
to his wife. She got sick on a Saturday and died on Sunday. He saw "the figures of frogs"
in her skin as she lay on her deathbed in the hospital, under the care of Dr. Fowler.
After her death, an autopsy was performed but no cause of death could be determined and
all her organs were normal.
Ths got him interested in such work and he went to Alexandria, Virginia, and met
with Cely Coles, who told him that had he mixed sulphur, table salt, and alum into water
and given her 9 tablespoons to drink, the evil of the frog skin powder would have passed
from his wife and she would have lived.
Cely or Celia Coles in the 1930 United States Federal Census
Name: Celia Coles
Birth Year: abt 1880
Gender: Female
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: Virginia
Marital Status: Single
Relation to Head of House: Head
Homemaker?: Yes
Home in 1930: Williamsburg, Williamsburg (Independent City), Virginia
Street address: South Henry Street
House Number in Cities or Towns: 411
Dwelling Number: 186
Family Number: 215
Home Owned or Rented: Owned
Home Value: 2000
Radio Set: No
Lives on Farm: No
Attended School: No
Able to Read and Write: Yes
Father's Birthplace: Virginia
Mother's Birthplace: Virginia
Able to Speak English: Yes
Occupation: Cleaning
Industry: Houses
Class of Worker: Wage or salary worker
Employment: Yes
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
Celia Coles 50
After this he went to a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey party for the benefit of the Saint Paul
Baptist Church and he bought lemonade there and 9 days later he had "hairy worms" in his
stomach. A man on 10th street in Washington told him that this too had been caused by
powdered frog skin given in the drink.
Tale of Mary Moody, Green Street, Richmond, Virgina
Name: Mary Moody
Residence Year: 1915
Street address: Lady's Mile rd
Residence Place: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Publication Title: Richmond, Virginia, City Directory, 1915
Name: Mary Moody
Residence Year: 1917
Street address: Ladies Mile rd nr Bower
Residence Place: Richmond, Virginia, USA
Occupation: Domestic
Publication Title: Richmond, Virginia, City Directory, 1917
#643 - #649 unaccounted for; Washington, DC or Mobile, AL
New York City, NY
Hyatt returned home to New York City, NY for the autumn and winter.
Mobile, AL
Hyatt felt that the beliefs in this area were "strongly influenced by New Orleans"
-- that is, presumably there was more than the average mention of candle-spells,
saints, altars, and other accoutrements of Catholic folk-magic. The contact man and
driver was Edward Bufford, Jr. (whom Hyatt never told that he was a minister).
EDWARD BUFFORD, JR.
1 (1936) Name: Edward Bufford
Gender: Male
Residence Year: 1936
Address: 505 Congress, Mobile, Alabama, USA
Occupation: Auto Mechanic
Spouse: Beatrice Bufford
Publication Title: Mobile, Alabama, City Directory, 1936
2 (1976) Name: Edward Bufford Jr
Address: 1662 Robert E Lee St, Mobile, AL, 36605-2033 (1976)
1976 city directory
3 (1993-94) Name: Edward Bufford
Address: 1662 Robert E Lee St, Mobile, Alabama, 36605-2033 (1993-94)
Phone Number: 205-473-5703
Residence Years: 1993 1994
4 (1995) Name: Edward Bufford
Address: 1662 Robert E Lee St, Mobile, Alabama, 36605-2033 (1995)
Phone Number: 334-473-5703
Residence Years: 1995
interviews were held at the home of Daisy Edwards.
DAISY EDWARDS
1 (1930)
Name: Daisy Edwards 29 N. Cedar Street
Birth Year: abt 1903
Gender: Female
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: Alabama
Marital Status: Widowed
Relation to Head of House: Head
Homemaker?: Yes
Home in 1930: Mobile, Mobile, Alabama
Street address: N. Cedar Street
Ward of City: 7. Pt
House Number in Cities or Towns: 556
Dwelling Number: 29
Family Number: 30
Home Owned or Rented: Rented
Home Value: 16
Radio Set: No
Lives on Farm: No
Attending School: No
Able to Read and Write: Yes
Father's Birthplace: Alabama
Mother's Birthplace: Alabama
Able to Speak English: Yes
Class of Worker: Wage or salary worker
Employment: No
Household Members:
Name Age
Daisy Edwards 27
William Maull 27
Eugene J Altice 34
2 (1940)
Name: Daisy M Edwards, 504 Monday Street
Age: 37
Estimated birth year: abt 1903
Gender: Female
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: Alabama
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Head
Home in 1940: Mobile, Mobile, Alabama
Street: Monday
House Number: 504
Farm: No
Inferred Residence in 1935: Mobile, Mobile, Alabama
Residence in 1935: Same House
House Owned or Rented: Rented
Value of Home or Monthly Rental if Rented: 20
Attended School or College: No
Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 5th grade
Weeks Worked in 1939: 0
Income: 0
Income Other Sources: Yes
Household Members:
Name Age
Daisy M Edwards 37
Earl Rayford 42
Fred Johnson 30
Robert Brown 45
Frank Willis 26
Cles Samuel 35
Note that both in 1930 and 1940 she is a "homemaker" with income: as Hyatt had noted, she ran a
boarding house, supplying room and board to the men listed as living in her household.
February 26, 1938
[NOTE: Mobile, Alabama ran from cylinder 844 - cylinder 980; there are some in this run in which
either the cylinder numbers are in error or mistranscribed or the informant numbers are in error.]
#650 - [-]
Goofer dust is mud dauber wasp nest powder.
(entry 679, cylinder 844:2)
"Well, you get a small piece of Rattlesnake Master and a small piece of High John the Conker
root and a new dime and a piece of lodestone, and you sew this into a little bag called a
toby. Sew it up and you can either put it in a piece of red flannel or chamois skin. Sew
that up in it and keep it into your left pocket always and never let anyone touch it. If you
do that, that is a wonderful thing. That will prevent anyone from harming you."
(entry 1436, cylinder 964:3)
[NOTE: Cylinder is out of sequence or misnumbered, or the informant is misnumbered.]
#651 - #654
#655 - [-] Root seller, former truant officer, probably a man
A former herb shop owner, called "Root Seller" by Hyatt, who mentioned that
both black and white people believe in hoodoo. This informant was once a
truant officer for a Catholic school, and ran a "root store" that was "in
Pinship" [Pritchard, AL] ... "down there next to Davis street."
(entry 12, cylinder 858:1)
#656 - [-]
Gave a crossroads story
(entry 356, cylinder 937.3 [cylinder number is obviously out of order; error?]
#657 - #660
#661 - [-] A man, by the style of his speech; he mentions a "girl" he was living with.
He describes going to see a worker whom he calls "Madam Jackson, across the creek."
(entry 2749, cylinder 865:2)
Now for gambling, you take three playing cards; take the Ace of Spades, the Jack
of Clubs, and the King of Diamonds. You tear just a small tip [the index] off
those three cards. Take the small tip off those three cards, and after you do
that, get you a file. You take this file and file a silver dime in half. You
take this dust now, from the dime, and you save it. Then get you a piece of
Lodestone, and get you a piece of red flannel. You put the pinch of card from
the Ace of Spades on the flannel, and then you place the first half of the dime
on the flannel. After you put the one half on the red flannel, you place a pinch
of card from the Jack of Clubs, and the other half of the dime, like a sandwich.
Then you put the other piece on top, from the King of Diamonds, and put this
dust, the filings from the silver dime, on top of that. You put a piece of
Lodestone in there with that on this piece of flannel. Put it in there with
that, and you dress it with Hoyt's Cologne; just a little Hoyt's Cologne, and
you dampen this, you see. And after you dampen this, you fold it. But before you
sew it up, you take a pin, a straight pin, and cut the head off it. Cut the head
off the pin, and put the head inside of the flannel. When you fold it up, pin
this other part of the pin in the flannel. Then you sew it up. After you sew it
up, then you wear it, and when your luck seems to be changing a little, you
dress it with Hoyt's Cologne. That's to keep the Lodestone growing.
(entry 2210, cylinder 865:2)
#662 - #665
#666 - [-]
Said goofer dust contains graveyard dirt
(entry 663, cylinder 876:9)
#667 - [-] A 72 year old woman, born in 1866; a former prostitute.
Black pepper, salt, cinnamon and cloves mixed with War Water and poured on a front step to
get a person to move away.
(entry 2374, cylinder 878:15)
(Were you born down here and have you always lived right around here?)
In Mobile - all my life been right here - been here 72 years.
(Are there many professional people here - where you can go to get spells taken off?
Are there as many now as there used to be?)
There more here now than there ever was .
(Do people believe more of it than they used to or are they sort of forgetting it?)
No sir, they worser now than they ever was in my life.
(How many white people go to these root doctors?)
Oh, I don't know - pretty some - biggest majority of them goes.
(The white people?)
Uh-hmm, they go, biggest majority of them, 'cause they believe in that; see, they goes
sometimes to hold their servants down, all like that.
(To hold their servants down?)
And pay you as little money as they can.
[Only time I ever heard this purpose!]
(Are the root doctor and the conjurer the same thing or are they different?)
Well, there's a root doctor and then there's some call theyse1f hoodoos and some call
theyself sleight-of-hand workers; but when you come down to the whole thing, they all
about the same thing. But a root doctor - now there a whole lotta roots and things like
that. I know - I go out in the woods and get 'em.
(Well, the root doctor cures you of just ordinary sickness?)
Yes, such as curing people of bad disease, you know - now, I know how to do that .
[So far as I know, informant was not a doctor. "667 - woman 72 [years old; born in 1866]
worked in a whore-house in Mobile [Alabamma] - very good" - Numbers Book 647-822.]
(entry 802, cylinder 881:6)
#668 - #670
#671 - [-]
You can cross someone up with War Water. Make a mark, the sign of the cross, on your
enemy's house door. Then go buy a bottle of War Water and come back directly and pour it on
the cross-mark and it will cause disagreeableness, confusion, and fighting in the house. If
it continues, they will move out.
(entry 2377, cylinder 884:2
To get somebody to come to you, write name 7 times, fold toward you, place under blue
candle at 6:00 a.m, burn candle straight through, after one hour call name, after 2nd
hour call name, after 3rd hour call name; they will come.
(entry 2903, cylinder 885:5)
#672 -
#673 - [-]
#674 - [-]
I hear that you can get a piece of lodestone and take a needle and break it in three parts
and on a Friday morning -- be sure it's on a Friday morning -- and lay each part of that needle
along the side of that lodestone. Sew it up in a red piece of flannel and wear it and they
can't do you no harm.
(entry 1375, cylinder 890:6)
#675 - [-]
#676 - [-]
The Twelve Discples are the twelve jury members. Write the names of six Disciples on one
piece of paper and six on another, and put one paper in each of your shoes. Before you
leave home to go to court, turn everything in the house over, from your cups to your chairs.
(entry 9162, cylinder 897:4)
#677 - [-]
#678 - [-]
Graveyard dirt, crawfishes, and snake dust with the toenails and fingernails of victim
to kill him slowly.
(entry 6454, cylinder 901:4)
#679 - [-] Probably a woman as one spell is to rid yourself of a mate who is holding you
back in life ("is a knock to you") but by the end of the spell, it is clear that the
one being dismissed is a husband.
Salt and saltpeter bath as a cure for tricks.
(entry 1457, cylinder 905.2)
Instructions for bathing downward from forehead to floor with saltpeter and mates urine
to cause him to leave; noted that bathing upward would make him come back; the used
bathwater is kept sealed up for nine days, then disposed of in a running stream.
(entry 1718, cylinder 973:2)
[NOTE: Cylinder is out of sequence or is misnumbered, or the informant is misnumbered.]
#680 - #690
#691 - [-]
Bury clothes at doorstep so you can't be driven out and place devil's shoe string
powder over mantelpiece to preserve sanity and keep your home.
(entry 742, cylinder 920:5)
#692 - #695
#696 - [-]
Confusion Powder dusted at a house causes dissatisfaction among those who live there.
(entry 1809, cylinder 945:5)
#697 - #713 unaccounted for; Mobile, AL or Vicksburg, MS (up to cylinder 980)
Vicksburg, MS
As in Mobile, AL, the beliefs in this area were "strongly influenced by New Orleans."
The contact man and driver was Edward Bufford, Jr.
March 2, 1938
#714 - Miss C. [-],
cylinder [981:1]
#715 -
#716 - [-]
Keeping Red Pepper in your shoes keeps the law off your back.
(entry 2249, cylinder 985:2)
#717 - #718
#720 - [-]
Just as you come in your door, wherever you sit, or wherever you want to in the house,
sprinkle salt there, making the sign of the cross. If people step over the salt, it
brings misfortune with the mind, and they just forget about everything and they won't
come back. This will work on a husband, a wife, or even a friend.
(entry 9471, cylinder 989:3)
#721 - #729
#730 - [-]
Graveyard dirt sprinkled on person causes sleep.
(entry 7168, cylinder 1000:11)
#731 - #737
#738 - [-]
Said goofer dust is brick dust and charcoal.
(entry 678, cylinder 1009:8).
Note: the entry number includes a typographical error; the informant is listed as #538,
which is impossible due to location and cylinder number; i believe he or she was #738.
#739 - #751
#752 - [-] Daughter of a pastry cook who worked for the "S. family" who were Jews who
lived "on Cherry Street." Another woman who worked there was "Tuley S." who hoodood the
informant's mother. Mother was cured by a Dr. Robey, using beef gall and dried cow manure.
(entry 1202, cylinder 1029:2)
#753 - #754
#755 - [-]
Sang root (ginseng root) kept in bottle of holy oil, called "erectus root" -- used
by a woman to anoint a man so he will be able to get an erection and follow her
(entry 10236, cylinder 1032:11)
#756 - [-] Probably a man, due to the type of spell
To keep your wife faithful, bury toe of her stocking or piece from the seat of her bloomers
under doorstep; man can't cross over to come see her and she can't leave to go see him.
(entry 10230, cylinder 1037:1)
#757 - #761
#762 - [-]
Take a bath with saltpeter for cleansing; after you've taken that bath use
the wash cloth for that bath to cleans yourself after have sex with someone.
(entry 969, cylinder 1042:10)
#763 - #766
#767 - [-]
Women takes frog out of another women by bathing her in peach leaves, salt, saltpeter tea,
adding 20 drops of Turpentine. The women who suffers from the "sickness" was given the
mixture to drink as well.
(entry 1411, cylinder 1057:2)
#768 -
#769 - [-] A woman, based on the situation she described.
In 1928 she was going with a married man. The man's wife found out and sent a bottle to
her house. Her brother found it. Her mother told her not to open it. Inside were what
looked like water, needles, and a stopper with a cord-string to hold the stopper out of
the water. Her mother too it to "a woman what, you know, knew." A fear came over her. The
woman told her mother to empty it in a bayou or a stream of water. The informant went to
Tallulah, Louisiana (25 miles from Vicksburg) to work. In Tallulah she reevied an envelope
from the man's wife. It contained a smaller envelope filled with some kind of "sand" (it
was probably graveyard dirt) on which was written, "Six months from today, your grave
number wil be 65 -- six months from tody." She didn't believe in it but commenced to
pining away and then she was lost her mind. A female friend recommended that she consult
Mr. B. B. told in Algiers, Lousiana, near New Orleans. She wrote to him about it
and he sent her back a letter describing a dream she had had about a house that had hidden
money in it. No one knew of the dream but her close family, so she was convinced that
Mr. McConnick (whose race she did not know) was a true psychic. Also in the letter he sent,
he instructed her to send him $5.75 for supplies. He sent her black candles aand the
instructions on how to use them by sticking them into a plain jelly glass half-filled
with sugar, and to burn them at 6:00 AM, 12:00 noon, and 6:00 PM for 15 minutes at a time.
He told her to never blow the candle out but to wet her middle finger and thumb, saying,
"I wish you would leave me alone," then put the light out. He sent her a self-addressed
stamped envelope for possible future orders, but also told her that she could buy more
candles locally; they did not to come from him. She burned quite a few candles, and the
sickness went right back to the married mans wife, who became sick, just as the informant
had been. She knew she was wrong, gave up the married man and stopped burning the candles
in order o avoid causing further trouble to his wife. "I'm ecplaining you something I
experienced my own dear self."
(entry 2751,cylinder 1058:1)
I have been unable to locacte any McConnick family in New Orleans or environs during this
time-period, but there were several people with the surname McConnico in the area from
the 19th to 20th centuries. The intiatials "B. B." may stand for Robert (Bob), William
(Bill), may be a nickname, or may be a way of coding client names or ad campaigns.
One example -- and it is by no means conclusive -- is this listing from 1928.
NAME: W B McConnico
RESIDENCE YEAR: 1928
STREET ADDRESS: 2626-Joseph
RESIDENCE PLACE: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
OCCUPATION: Clerk
PUBLICATION TITLE: New Orleans, Louisiana, City Directory, 1928
#770 - #776
#777 - George Larkin
A long story by George Larkin, 39 years old in 1938 (born in 1899). He was
the son of Leona Larkin (who was dead before 1938) and lived with her at the
time he was hoodooed. His penis shrank and he got abscesses on his head so
bad that he had to wear a woman's hat; he went to a medical doctor, Dr.
Podesky, but was not cured. Meanwhile Mr. Ramsdale, who lived in Beechwood,
ten miles away, with his wife Lou Ramsdale, had had a dream about George
Larkin's illness and came to the house where George lived with Leona to warn
them that George had nine months to live. Ramsdale was "burning his
witchcraft" and reading cards, and he diagnosed George's condition as having
been caused by by a girl who got his intercourse (semen) and carried it to a
woman on Jackson Street who fixed him. They sent for an old man, a root
doctor named Mr. Radley, who knew Miss Florence Hopkins, who was, at the
time of the interview, living in the house with George Larkin. Mr. Radley
told George to sleep crosswise in the bed and he bathed his head with a tea
of "yellow tops" (goldenrod) and he took some of the sickness into himself.
After this, George Larkin, wearing white trousers and a white crepe de chine
shirt, took the streetcar out to see Elder Bowes, "a worthy grey-head
preacher," at 1660 Jackson Street, at the corner of a street whose first
letter is an "F." (Farmer Street?). Elder Bowes thought he was a spirit at
first, but soon recognized him as being in a "bad critical condition" and
prayed over him, anointing his head with a Holy Oil that smelled of
cinnamon. Prayer was paid by voluntary donation, but Elder Bowes also
prescribed and charged $1.25 per quart for a mineral-oil-base liquid
medicine, and he took "little bones" out of "the slop jar" after dosing
George with it. George was cured after three quarts, although during the
course of his illness he lost his hearing in his left ear.
(entry 796, cylinder 1070:0) (Volume One, page 270)
My research shows that the Beechwood community is located along Highway 27,
outside of Vicksburg. 1600 Jackson Street in Vicksburg is situated between
two churches with black congregations: Jackson Street Missionary Baptist
Church at 2nd Street, and Mount Zion Baptist Church at 5th Street. The
Jackson Street Missionary Baptist Church is a beautiful brick edifice on a
brick street, worthy of historic landmark status and on 3rd steet, just off
Jackson Street, there is an equally lovely brick Catholic church. I have not
yet found any records pertaining to George Larkin, Leona Larkin, Dr. Podesky,
Mr. Ramsdale, Mr. Radley, or Elder Bowes.
#778 - #781
New Orleans, LA
Edward Bufford, Jr. got Hyatt a taxi driver, Mack Berryhill, to act as his contact
man and chauffeur in New Orleans.
According to my research, Mack Berryhill was about 50 years old when Hyatt hied him.
MACK BERRYHILL, 55 Willow [Drive?]
1 (1930) Name: Mack Berryhill
Birth Year: abt 1890 [abt 1887]
Gender: Male
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: Louisiana
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Head
Home in 1930: New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana
Street address: Willow St
Ward of City: 11th
Block: 59
Dwelling Number: 55
Family Number: 62
Home Owned or Rented: Rented
Home Value: 14
Radio Set: No
Lives on Farm: No
Age at First Marriage: 30
Attending School: No
Able to Read and Write: Yes
Father's Birthplace: Louisiana
Mother's Birthplace: Louisiana
Able to Speak English: Yes
Occupation: Chauffeur
Industry: Private Hse
Class of Worker: Wage or salary worker
Employment: No
Household Members:
Name Age
Mack Berryhill 40 [43]
Virginia Berryhill 45
Mary Johnson 25
#782 - [-]
"The room had candles and it had an altar. They had about twenty different candles; some red,
some blue, black, and green."
(Anything on the walls?)
"No they didn't have anything on the walls...She had a hat, like a cap on, a silk cap and a
big robe. It was a purple robe with a big key - a chain with a big key like the oldtime door
key hanging in front of her."
(cylinder 1083:1) Page 780
#783 - [-] Hyatt noted her as "a woman spiritualist" and commented (on page 871) that her way
of working was "religious syncretism," a mixture of Catholicism and Spiritualism. He also
wrote, "Listed '35' [years old] and 'good' in Numbers Book 647-822, and advanced to the
mark 'excellent' on the transcription."
Saint Raymond, green candles, Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays, say prayers nine times.
(novena), for money
(entry 3042, cylinder 1086:10)
Saint Michael is used to protect against those who don't like you and undermine your
success. He'll force your enemies down like he forced the Devil down. Burn a read candle
to him on Friday before 6:30 A.M.
(entry 3012, cylinder 1087:1)
The Virgin Mary will help in any matter; light a pink candle to her and say the Lord's
Prayer once.
(entry 3027, cylinder 1087:2)
"The altar is a table and on it she's got all different candles, you know, the table is
shaped like a pulpit. They have all different kinds of candles, white candles, green
candles, they got pink ones, they got red ones...."
(cylinder 1089:2) Page 772
#784 - #785
#786 - [-]
Hang a picture of Saint Raymond over the door to your business; feed it with whiskey
and holy water to protect the business and keep the law away.
(entry 3045, cylinder 1090:108)
#787 - #796
#797 - [-] Apparently a woman, since she only mentions women,
Buy a packet of Guinea Grains (Grains of Paradise) and a bottle of War Water. Grind the
Guinea Grains to powder and put it all into the War Water. Go to your enemy's house when
she is not there and stand with your back turned to the house, then throw the bottle
backwards and break it against the wall and walk away from it, and she will move. out.
(entry 2376, cylinder 1110:2)
If you want a man to love you, write his name backwards nine times on brown paper. Put the
paper in a bottle of holy water and place in where no one will find it.
(entry 2158, cylinder 1110:4)
#798 - #809
#810 - [-]
You put a little hole in the shell of a raw chicken egg and draw that raw egg out. Take
a person's name and write it nine times, put the name in that egg shell and stop it up.
Throw it in the river, and as long as that egg will float and drift down river, that
person will drag, they will drift. (entry 10974, cylinder 1140:3)
#812
#813? - Recordings here begin with
cylinder [1144:8]
#814 - [-]
Fumigate self with Dragon's Blood resin, wash steps with salt and own urine for protection.
(entry 6786, cylinder 1145:10)
Friday, March 11, 1938
#815 - [-]
Gambling hand: Ring finger bone of left hand, ground to dust, ass Lodestone and a silver
dime; sew it into a sack, place in saucer of honey, turn to soak well, carry while at play.
(entry 8040, cylinder 1151:1)
#816 - [-]
Using your right hand, take a pinch of dirt from the heel to the toe of a person's right
foot track and put it into a bottle of War Water, then seal the bottle and throw it into
the Mississippi River and the person will not be stationary; they will not be able to hold
a job, they will go from town to town, they will have a roving mind.
(entry 2378, cylinder 1154:2)
To ruin a competitor's business: You take nine penny nails, said to represent the 9 hours
Christ hung on the cross, and nail them at the center above or below the door. For every
two people that walk into the business three will walk out.
(entry 9757, cylinder 1154:5)
#817 - #819
#820 - [-]
People can stuff a lemon with salt and rice and dig a hole and plant it under the doorstep
And ever time you walk over that and go back and forth, it'll always keep you in some kind
of confusion in that house, and you won't never feel so very well right in that house,
As long as that salt and lemon sours the rice things get sourer and sourer towards you
in that house.
(entry 12296, cylinder 1180:1)
To draw customers to your business mix steel dust, cinnamon, sugar and Van Van and wash
your place of business before it opens in the morning.
(entry 2717, cylinder 1183:1)
#821 = #??? - [-] (Hyatt lost the informant # but the cylinder # and location place this here.)
Take a fresh yard-egg [very common name on lower Mississippi River for an egg laid
naturally by a free-living chicken, not by a chicken living its whole life in a
one-cubic-foot wire cage prison], not a grocery egg [says my informant, who could have
added that a grocery egg was also an unfertilized and unnatural egg] ... write the
person's name on that egg three times. Cross the Mississippi River and when you gets
in the middle, throw that egg over your left shoulder and you curse it; that break them up.
(entry 10973, cylinder 1185:6)
#822 - [-]
A man, from his talk of attracting women to himself, he also had quite a bit of
astrological knowledge.
Any powder is goofer dust.
(entry 676, cylinder 1187:7)
Like, if I got a woman and she's living with another man and I want her to break up with
him. Well, I take some hair from a Dog and from a Cat and I get me a Lemon. I cut this
lemon open and I put them two party's names in there -- this woman and this man -- their
names down in this Lemon and this Dog and Cat hair. And I taks a candle and I light it,
and I close it back up, you know, close that right up in the Lemon and seal that Lemon
back up with this wax that drips from the candle, so the names and the hairs won't fall
from it. Close it right up, and I bury it. I just take and bury it anywhere in my yard.
On the dark of the moon, I do that. And they won't get along."
(entry 10915, cylinder 1188:6)
Four examples of how to work with the New Moon in Air signs: the first uses the
Moon in Libra to draw a woman's love, the second uses the Moon in Genmini to gain
someone's friendship, the third uses the Moon in Libra again, for justice or justified
death spells, and the fourth removes unwanted conditions or people with river water
gathered when the Moon is in Aquarius -- after which the informant returns to Hyatt's
original question, how to draw a woman to you and hold her, for which he recommends Myrrh,
Aloeswood, and Cinnamon to perfume your bed.
(entry 12462, cylinder 1188:9)
#823 -
#824 [-]
Get War Water from the drug store, pass by your enemy's house at night and throw it at the
porch as you say a curse for them to move out or go to jail; they will move or go to jail.
(entry 2375, cylinder 1193:3)
Boil sweet basil in a pot to make tea, use a wash cloth and wash your body with it. Do
this for nine mornings then no one can do harm to you. Every morning you should make a
new batch of sweet basil water, and after every washing you should throw it out.
(entry 1116, cylinder 1193:5)
Saturday, March 12, 1938
Recorded "in the Patterson Hotel, a Negro hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana"
#825 (?) - [-] "A Consolidated-Minded Woman"
This is a woman with twelve toes and a "rainbow arm" (deformed or bent like a
rainbow) who is gifted in dreams. She shocked and surprised Hyatt by revealing to him
that she had dreamed he was a priest -- something he kept hidden from all his informants.
Her interview is in Vol.2, pp.1093-1097
The (?) beside her informant # is Hyatt's. He lists her as
Informant #825 (?); cylinder A382:4-A388:9 = 1198-1203
The cylinder numbers accord with the informant number; unclear why he appended the (?).
#826 - [-] Hyatt refers to the informant as "she" -- a woman.
Pick up the dirt of your enemy's foot track, and put it in a dish or glass, then pour a
whole bottle of War Water onto it. Let the War Water evaporate until the foor track dirt is
dry, then take the dirt to the Mississippi River and throw it over your left shoulder into
the channel of the river and that will cause your enemy to keep drifting all his life.
(entry 2379, cylinder 1205:3)
To make a person miss you, place a picture of them on top of a glass of sugar water.
(entry 8434, cylinder 1205:9)
#826a - [a woman] (Apparently Hyatt gave two successive women the same informant # by mistake)
Take a bottle of water, add sugar until no more sugar will dissolve, put your boss's name
in water with your name and shake up. Keep in your poke and shake it whenever you're
talking to your boss.
(entry 2150, cylinder 1211:1)
#827 -
#828 - [-]
Salt and black pepper cleaning.
(entry 1459, cylinder 1214:4)
Any powder is goofer dust.
(entry 675, cylinder 1218:1)
#829 - #831
#832 - [-]
Saint Peter can do all things because he owns the keys to the kingdom. Put a key on
a piece of blue ribbon and string it around his neck. It is very important that you
understand that a saint is an extension of God.
(entry 3028, cylinder 1244:2)
If you are leaving your home and you don't want anything stolen while your gone, take 9
pieces of Sassafras root and put them at the 4 outside corners of your house. Open the a
Bible to random section and leave that open under your house. Leave a white candle burning
where no one can see and sprinkle sugar as you leave the house.
(entry 10208, cylinder 1249:2)
#833 -
To keep the law away take 9 new needles and 9 new nails, put them in a white cloth that was
only cut once and bury under your front door steps.
(entry 9764, cylinder 1253:2)
To win a court case or have you charges dropped to take a he and she Lodestone and wrap it
in a dollar bill and keep it in your pocket.
(entry 2071, 1253:3)
#834 - [-]
Informant described rattlesnake dust mixed with Moving Powder.
(entry 667, cylinder 1130:7) (NOTE cylinder number is a typo and should be cylinder 1230:7)
#835 - #837
#838 -
(entry 7836, cylinder 1260:10)
#839 - #843
#844 - Ida Bates, a professional root doctor [also a professional dreessmaker; see my notes],
She was 50 years old at the time of her interview, thus born in 1888.
My research has turned up quite a bit of information about her in the 1940 Federal Census:
IDA BATES
Age: 52, born 1888
Birthplace: Louisiana
Gender: Female
Race: Negro
Home in 1940: 405 South Saratoga (Ward 3), New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana
Household Members:
Head: Ida Bates, Age 52, Widow, Dressmaker in Private Home, Highest grade of education: 0
Daughter: Christina Bates, Age 33. Widow, Maid in Private Home, Highest grade of education: 4
Daughter: Iola Bates, Age 21, Widow, Cook in Private Home, Highest grade of education: 4
Granddaughter: Darcina Jannequin, Age 6, Attending School, Highest grade of education: 1
Note that the 1940 census-taker spelled Darcina's surname phonetically as "Jonnoquin," and some
researchers have interpreted the handwriting as "Ionnaqine," but it is probably "Jannequin." The
French surname Jannequin can be found in the rolls of Confederate soldiers in the French Brigade
of the Louisiana Militia during the Civil War -- for instance "F. Jannequin, Surgeon, 3rd Regt.
French Brig. La. Mil." in 1862 and "L. Jannequin, Pvt. 1st Co. 4th Regt. French Brig. La. Mil."
All four members of the household had all lived in the "Same Place" in 1935.
All three women were unemployed at the time of the 1940 census and all were seeking work, not
taking public assistance, and had been unemployed 13 weeks (one quarter year).
Regarding their employment in the previous year, 1939:
* Ida Bates reported having had 20 weeks of full-time work as a Dressmaker, but her total
income for 1939 was left blank and so was her reply to the question of whether she had had
sources of income other than wages. Such blanks were unusual on that census page.
* Christina Bates reported having had zero weeks of full-time work as a Maid and zero wages
in 1939, but reported that she had income from sources other than wages.
* Iola Bates had had 3 weeks of full-time work as a Cook and reported $65.00 total income
from wages in 1939, with no source of income other than wages.
I am confident that the dressmaker Ida Bates is the same woman whom Hyatt interviewed as a
professional root doctor at the Patterson Hotel because not only is the year of birth an exact
match, but as a rootworker she went out of her way to specify the precise weight and colour of
thread to be used in a spell for loading an onion for evil, and then she took off on a long
digression to complain about how spools of thread in 1938 contained fewer yards of thread than
they had in "olden times." Her conclusion -- "They cheats you on spools of thread" -- is
something only a professional dressmaker would be likely to notice.
"That red onion, you cut around and down into it, pull the navel out, and
load it with Bluestone [Copperas], Cayenne powder, and Dirt Dauber dirt. It's
a Wasp; it makes a daub on a wall or a fence board. You takes one cell from
the nest. You powder these and load them into this onion. You put in the party's
name. If it's one person you want to be evil against, you put in that one name;
if it's two, for separation, you put in the two names. Set the onion under the
dirt dauber nest. And just the way that Wasp hums, wanders around, circles
around all day, that's just the way those people mind will be.
"Then at sunset you takes White Peppercorn, Black Peppercorn, and a small
pod of hot Red Pepper, the size of a finger. Open that pod and get the seeds
out of it and you mix those three, and you put those in the onion.
"That piece you cut off the onion to get into it, you put that navel back
in the onion; that's to hold the packing in. Use a candle of blue wax, and wax
that onion round and round before you puts that navel in. And put it in there
whilst the wax is wet; then it will dry and that stuffing will never come out.
"Now, you takes a spool of black No. 8 thread and wrap that onion; make a
whole cover. While you are wrapping you are making your wish. You wrap that
round, to you, to you. You may get tired. You rest up on the thread and you
put it down. See, you fixing some other things or have another case on
hand. You take a recess on it. You go back to it and you wrap every bit of
the thread off of the spool. It's a hard task, but they ain't filling the
spools of thread as much now as they used to in the olden times. They don't
put as many yards on the spools as they used to. They cheats you on spools
of thread. You wrap every bit of thread on that onion. Leave enough space
on the thread to make three loops to knot it, to keep it from working loose.
"Put that onion on the apron of the oven, or in the ashes of the stove. You
might not have a stove in the home, so you put it in a grate of the fire
hearth, where the ashes falls. Whosomever takes the ashes out have to be
careful; it have to be somebody that know the onion's there, to keep from
throwing it out with the ashes. The thread will hold the heat until the
onion dries and withers. And that's just the way the people be -- wandering
away, drying up, and will never know what's the matter with 'em. And
finally it'll be nothing but a carcass. Then that thread will waste and
wither away, and commence breaking. Finally, it'll come to ashes. Well,
then, that's the end of that case."
(NOTE: entry number and cylinder number to be added later by me!)
#845 - #849
#850 - [-]
Gambling hand: Take the four tip joints off the four fingers of the right hand of a
fleshless skeleton, chip them up (do not grind them), and put them into a packet with
Lodestone, Magnetic Sand, and six gold-eye needles
(entry 8044, cyinder 1313:9)
#851 - [-]
Feet cleansing: Take Earth-worms, about a hand full, buy some hog lard, render the hod lard
with saltpeter and red pepper, make it into a salve and clean feet with it.
Cleansing bath: Take quart of the "hurt" person's urine, mix with nine pods of red pepper,
saltpeter, and salt; boil it. Bath in this mixture for nine mornings; on the ninth morning
you take the bath water, throw it over you shoulder, walk away, and don't look back.
(entry 978, cylinder 1319:6)
#852 - Charlie Wilson, aka Alfred.
March 16, 1938
Recorded in the Patterson Hotel.
#853 - [-], cylinder [1343:2]
#853 - #854
#855 - [-] (probably a woman, based on the way she talked and what she said.)
if a woman has a man who runs around, she can take his dirty stockings and wash the toe
and the heel -- not the whole stocking, just the toe and heel -- in two ounces of water.
She can then take that dirty water, pour it in a bottle, stop it up, bury it underneath
the steps, and he will break off with his other woman and stay home all the time.
(entry 13137, cylinder 1348:2)
Saint Rita was beaten by her husband, thus she is bad luck to women with husbands.
She helps single women, but she will not do anything to help a women get a man.
(entry 3052, cylinder 1348:10)
For money-luck: Give Saint Raymond a green candle or a green oil lamp, let it burn
for nine days (a novena).
(entry 3044, cylinder 1349:10)
Throw that salt behind an enemy and curse to keep them away.
(entry 9448, cylinder 1350:2)
#856 -
#857 - [-]
Saint Jewel [Saint Jule, Saint Jude] is boss of all saints; when all other
saints have turned their backs on you; yellow candle.
(entry 10204, cylinder 1364:9)
#858 - Lewis [-] Male; his mother was named Ida. He had a stepfather.
This story takes place when "I lived with mah mothah. I lived in Castel
[North Carolina]." The story involves Lewis, Ida, Carrie, Carrie's aunt,
Dr. Williams ("a country doctor"), Ole Man Stuckey (a white "faith doctor,"
deceased by 1938), and old man Frank Bethe (a black "root doctor" of Dunn,
North Carolina, who had a daughter).
The informant liked two girls in school and wished to marry one of them. The
aunt of the rejected girl hurt Lewis, saying that if he wouldn't marry Carrie
(her niece), he would not marry at all. She fixed his drink. He would "have
spells right around eight an' nine o'clock at night." He would commence getting
dizzy an' funny an' sort of shaky." He went to a "country doctor," Dr. Williams,
to no avail. Dr. Williams suggested a hospital, but along came "Ole Man Stuckey
- he's dead, he's a white fellah called a faith doctor" and "Mr. Stuckey [told
Ida] somebody have put a spell on [the informant]" and "recommended ole man
Frank Bethe, [of] Dunn, North Carolina, which is not quite a hundred miles from
here. [...] He's a old man who wears his pants backwards - the front part of his
pants is backward. That's a'showing, the sign, that he's a root doctor, and
different from anybody else. Not all of 'em will do that." Five people made the
trip to Dunn. Frank Bethe identified the informant as the one who was had been
hurt and also told his stepfather how many punctures he'd had in his tires.
Frank Bethe had three rooms, and in the third, "he had a long bench and a nice
line of chairs on the left-hand side." There were "big letters all around the
wall - F-R-A-N-K B-E-T-H-E, Frank Bethe." The family sat on the bench. They had
come at dusk, and as darkness fell, the room lit up without a lamp. Frank then
entered and truthfully accused one of the men in the party of "talking slack"
about his (Frank's) daughter, which he could not have heard, as they were in the
car passing through the field when it happened. He berated them for their lack
of "respect." He then sat the informant in a chair, asked him if he could read,
and, told that he could, gave him a book to read out loud. All members of the
party then fell asleep. The informant was awakened while the others snored, and
Frank Bethe told him that "a black woman [...] put a spell on you [...] it's two
girls you was going with, one of them's daughter [niece] and she just put a
spell on you." Bethe said, "I'm gonna fix it for you. [...] I'll fix what I'm
gonna use." As far as payment went, he told the informant, "You just take my
money and carry it on the back of your house [in Castel], on the east end, and
put it in a piece of paper - don't bury it - a piece of newspaper - and wrap it
up [...and...] I'll get it." Bethe put his hand over (on) the informant's
forehead and the light grew bright again, and he said, "Well, I think everything
will be all right." Hyatt believed that this tale indicated collusion between
Mr. Stuckey, the white "faith doctor" of Castel, NC and Frank Bethe, the black
"root doctor" of Dunn, NC. In my opinion, that is unsupportable conjecture.
However, if conjecture is to be permitted, i would like to make note of my own
notion that Frank Bethe was a hypnotist, and the entire series of events -- from
the reading aloud of the book to the private consultation and the awakening by a
touch on the forehead and an affirmation that everything would be all right --
could be explained as well-managed hypnotism.
(entry ???, cylinder ???) <-- my error-- but i can find it if requested! cat
#859 - #862
#863 - "The Unkus Man" so-called because he apparently tried
to tell Hyatt about the Nkisi ("Unkus"), Congolese deities -- which Hyatt
did not understand. (Thanks to Eoghan Craig Ballard for bringing this to my
attention!) He also told Hyatt that much of his information came from books
published by "Doctor DeLong" of Chicago -- actually L. W. DeLaurence of
Chicago, whose most famous magical tome, "The Great Book of Magic and Hindu
Spirit Art" was cited by The Unkus Man as "The Great Book of Magic -- Hindu
Studies." The Unkus Man apparently owned an early edition (pre-WW I) of
DeLaurence's book because he described its leather talisman case and
parchment talismans, which were not included in later editions. His
Interview is in Volume Two, pages 1296 - 1309.
(cylinders A568 - A574 = 1379 - 1385)
The Unkus Man mentioned a fellow root worker then in New Orleans, "Jughead"
Johnson, but Hyatt was unable to locate him.
According to my own research, i believe that this informant, "The Unkus
Man," may be Jamaican. He references "The English colony" and Jamaica was
an English colony. He references Logwood and Logwood grows in Jamaica. He
references Dibby-Dibby and Dibby-dibby is a Jamaican slang term that has
many meanings, one of which is "of no account or worthless." Also, this is
the man who bought books on occultism and a scrying mirror from L. W.
deLaurence in Chicago -- and de Laurence sold extensively in Jamaica. Plus,
the man seems to worry about the legality of owning books by de Laurence or
working with Moses -- and it so happens that the old grimoire called "The
6th and 7th Books of Moses" -- which de Laurence sold -- was at one time
outlawed in Jamaica and was illegal to possess. To this day i get phone
calls from folks in Jamaica wanting me to ship the book to their friends in
the US who will hand-carry it into Jamaica for them.
#864 - [-] "The Boy-Girl". A person of ambiguous gender, born c. 1913.
It is unknown whether this interviewee, the Boy-Girl, was an effeminate homosexual or an
anatomical intersexual, but Hyatt believed the latter. In social terms, the "Boy-Girl"
readily explained that he-she was a "freak" as a result of his-her mother having been
"fixed" (hoodooed) during pregnancy. He-she was 25 years old at the time of the interview,
lived with a "dago" (Italian) man, and was unusually articulate about sexuality,
inter-racial relations in NOLA, and details of the "hustling" life. He-she was also an
excellent rootworker, having learned many tricks from a grandmother, Henrietta Joseph, who
practiced in the Girard Park Drive area of New Orleans under the professional name Madame
Joseph. Unlike some of Hyatt's other informants, the "Boy-Girl" was aware both of the
sociological importance of the interview and Hyatt's status as an outsider, and strove to
give explicated and enhanced replies to simple questions so that Hyatt could understand.
In addition to relating many conjure tricks, the "Boy-Girl" spoke about the lives of gay,
lesbian, transsexual, and intersexed African-Americans in the context of the times and
provided a cross-cultural linguistic exegesis on the terms "hustling," "sporting,"
"jazzing" and "throwing down white men." The latter, for those whose curiosity is piqued,
was a local term for a criminal rootwork practice engaged in by teamed pairs of African
American prostitutes: one of them would jazz the trick, while the other robbed his pockets
and then ensured a magically safe getaway for the pair by throwing holy water stolen from
a Catholic church on the victim so that he would not be able to report them to the police.
("Holy water keeps the law away. No man in high positions today can come where holy water
is and do evil.")
The interview is in Volume Two, pages 1675 - 1689.
(cylinders A5574 - A5580:5 = 1390 - 1396)
#865 - #872
#873 - "The Candle Diviner of New Orleans" a man who read candle wax. Hyatt called him "a
competent practitioner of his craft" and rated his spells as "excellent."
He read candles by lightly dressing them with holy water, lighting them, and dripping
the wax into a ddrinking glass filled with about an inch of Linseed oil; the resultant
wax-shapes were read as customery in ceromancy or melted lead readings.
#874 - #876
#877 - [-]
To heal someone you make a doll baby and tie pink ribbon around it, and for every time
you've had that disease you put a knot in the ribbon. The person that picks up the doll
now has the disease.
(entry 1049, cylinder 1442:2)
Mix dirt from a sinner's grave with vinegar and water to make mud, then dry
it hard and cut into 4 small bricks; place at front and back doors and both
sides of the house for protection.
(entry 1311, cylinder 1438:3)
#878 - #895?
Little Rock, AR
April or May, 1938
Hyatt mentions Albert Pike in introduction, Volume One, page
XXXIII.
#883 - [-]
Saint Joseph, Saint Peter, Saint Theresa.
(entry 10205, cylinder 456:3)
#??? - [-]
Informant tells how Aunt Caroline Dye cured her "crazy" female cousin from
Oil Trough, Arkansas at Newport, Arkansas, in 1929 using Adam-and-Eve root
and rattlesnake dust, plus a turpentine face wash. Informant's number was
lost by Hyatt.
(entry 1092, cylinder 1460:13)
#891 - #896
#897 - [-]
informant gives recipe for goofer dust
(entry 665, cylinder 1468:12)
#898 - [-] An old man who had "been in the witchcraft business for 60 years;"
"Born in Louisiana -- raised in Saint Louis, Missouri." Hyatt called him
"Divine Healer." He offered to do a trance reading for Hyatt, but Hyatt
refused (!), saying, "[This elderly man, informant 898, accepts hoodooism
because he says the Bible proves the existence of witchcraft. Some of
his experiences with the evil are described. I had had doctors tell me
about my business, but this old fellah's "meditation" -- I didn't want
him passing out in my presence. His estimation of the number of white
and colored believers in this mess, I discuss at the proper place in the
text. The two cylinders used are important beyond their number --
B12:6 - B13:5 = 1470 - 1471.]" Among others, this man said that he had
healed "Miss Alice W., in Prescott, Arkansas," and the wife of "David M.,"
for which "White folks given me a write-up" (newspaper article?). He also
cured an unnamed married woman in Warren, Arkansas. He did no bad work,
only spiritual work, for both "white and colored." He described how to
produce live things with snake blood in whiskey, and how to take them off
with an emetic root tea which would cause the victim to vomit them up.
(Vol. 2, pp. p.1057 - 1058 etc. cylinders B12:6-B13:5 = 1470 - 1471)
#899 -
#900
If you want peace in your house sprinkle table salt on the floor, not so much that
people can se but just a little.
(entry 9482, cylinder 1473:18)
(entry 4292, cylinder 1472:12)
#901 - #902
#903 - [-]
graveyard dirt with saltpeter for protection of house
(entry 1319, cylinder 1475:4)
#904 - #913
May 18, 1938 Wednesday
#914 - Doctor [-] Cunningham.
"[Doctor Cunningham, Informant 914, had refused to visit me, therefore I went to him at
his request. He is the only doctor I personally ever called on, except for those few
out in country districts like Madam Griffin and Frank Harris [Frank Hall] - see
INTRODUCTION. My contact man Edward, our local automobile man and I arrived with the
equipment. A woman who opened the door said the patient then with the doctor would soon
leave. I had expected a line of patients and a long wait, but the doctor had a better
trick waiting for me. I do not remember the interview except for three indications in
the text: the departure of the patient, the brief and truthful note the spirit wrote
to me before my very eyes, and the woman calling out to the doctor during interview -
this latter a prearranged signal meaning; hers 'Is everything all right,' and his
'Everything is O.K.' Though the spirit-note you will read is true, the spirit writer
rather downgrades my intelligence and experience."
Little Rock, Ark., May 18, 1938 - 914 - Cunningham - doctor."
Numbers Book 885-977. This material is on cylinders B13:1-B22:5 = 1476-1480.]
Memphis, TN
May 24 ,1938 (Tuesday)
#915 - [-]
Goofer dust comes from an "order house" and is placed "in the mattress"
(entry 680, cylinder 1482:8)
A dead man's right middle finger bone is carried in the pocket for gambling luck
(entry 8038), cylinder 1842:9)
(NOTE: In the introduction this informant number is assigned to cylinder 1418:1; the
numbers are not reconcilable and one of them, probably 1418, must be a typographical
error, perhaps for 1481).
#916 - [-]
Devil's Powder, purchased out of a catalogue from Saint Louis, keeps away the law.
(entry 1828, cylinder 1485:6)
#917 -
#918 [-]
Mix graveyrd dirt and Hot Foot Powder, sprinkle around their house, they will have ill-luck
and move.
(entry 2015, cylinder 1486:7)
#919
#920 - [-], "The landlady at the Eureka Hotel."
Write your enemy's name 9 times every which way on a hen's egg, take it to a river,
make an evil wish ("that son-of-a-bitch leave town"), and throw it in to give him
the Walking Blues.
(entry 1848, cylinder 1487:7)
#921 - #923
#924 - [-] A 25 year old woman; Hyatt paid her $5.00. He explained: "This is the young
woman in Memphis who came in without saying a word, pulled out a deck of cards, ran a few
of them on my interviewing table, and began to tell my fortune. Meanwhile, except for my
greeting as she entered the door, I sat there like a bump on a log, forgetting to turn on
my recording machine. Immediately after laying out the first row of cards, she started to
interpret them. As I looked back upon this experience later I wondered whether her silence
was a stage prop or a magic act, the latter conferring success upon her venture or
increasing her interpretative power. She had been brought up by and among older people;
once again a craft being handed down through a family. What she says about more hoodoo than
formerly among the old-timers is true. She also could have added the craft changed slower
in country districts than in cities. Commercialism changed and is still changing the old
witchcraft and conjuration. [Memphis, Tuesday, May 24, 1938, #924 - $5.00 - girl, 25 -
excelltmt - from Numbers Book 885-911. $5.00 was money during the Great Depression. Her
material came from cylinders B39:2-B43:12 = 1497-1501)
(Volune II, pages 2179- 2189)
To put the jinx on an enemy, scoop up his foot-track dirt and sprinkle it around his house.
To give him bad luck but keep him near, pee in his foot-track without moving it.
To make him go astray, collect his footprint, bury it at the forks of the road, and pee on it;
he will be forced to wander to different places.
#925 - [-],
(entry 2281, cylinder 1502:1) [I think this is the Jack-Ball man mis-noted as #825?
(entry 4042, cylinder 1502:4)
"The Gaspergou -- you know there's two rocks in his head. That's a fish. You get that fish
anywhere out the river. It looks like the Buffalo [Buffalo Fish]. You have to look close to
see it's not Buffalo. Some people sell them for Buffaloes that don't know the difference.
It's a Gaspergou. The rock out of -- those two rocks out of his head, wearing them in the
pocket is supposed to be lucky." [This is the fresh-water Drumfish (Aplodinatus grunniens)
of the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley. weight up to 50 lbs. Gaspergou, similar to the
French Gasparot (a kind of Herring), is the local name in Louisiana.]
(entry 1854, cylinder 1503:13)
#926 - Mrs. Myrtle Collins / Madam Collins of 651 Stephens Street (now Stephens Place), a
professional root worker, was interviewed here for the first time, cylinders [B45:19 -
B51:1 = 1503 - 1509]; she was the only person interviewed twice. Her later interview was
as informant #1538 on cylinders [D96:1 - D110-2 = 2779 - 2793]. See Volume Two, pages
992-1024. Her business card appears in the unnumbered pages at the end of Volume Two.
Myrtle Collins told Hyatt that she had studied spiritual work by mail order and had
received a diploma from the Rociscrucians (AMORC) in San Jose, California ("de White
Brothers"). She had travelled to San Jose, and she bought herbs and other spiritual
supplies from the Rosicrucians, both in person and by mail. She offered to teach rootwork
for a fee and she described paying for teachings and buying formulas from other root
doctors (including Doctor Cicero Reed, a white doctor of San Jose, California (deceased by
1938), to whom she had paid $25.00 for the recipe for a three-ingredient bath to restore
men's lost nature.)
See "Notes on the Memphis hoodoo root worker Madam Myrtle Collins"
for further details and maps of her neighborhood.
#927 -
#928 - [-] Female proprietor of a boarding house.
"I run a boarding house. I got Oil of Bergamine [Bergamot], Oil of Cinnamon, Oil of Rose,
and Oil of Wintergreen. I pour it in, a ten-cent bottle [a very small perfume bottle's worth
of the combined oils], and I would put it into as much water, the size [of bucket] that I
was going to [use to] mop my house, and then add Ivory Soap chips or either a brand-new bar
of Ivory Soap [that] haven't been used anywheres. I'd start from my front steps and mop
straight back, and mop [inward] all over my house back to the back step, to the very bottom
step. And it would bring a crowd and bring just whatever you would want for the purpose.
And I'd do that on Mondays and Fridays early in the morning.
"When I wanted men transient trade, I would let a man urinate in my scrub water. Get enough
of it to mop my house through with that other, you see -- Oil of Cinnamon and Oil of Rose,
Oil of Bergamine and Oil of Wintergreen [and Ivory Soap] -- and I usually wanted male trade m
ore than I did the female, so I just, I might get a young half-grown boy or something, and
just let him, when I fix my water bucket, he use it."
(Get any male water?)
"That's it."
(Well, what about women customers? What do you bring them in with? How do you do that?)
"Well, most times [men] is what I worked with. 'Course, if you wanted female roomers, you'd
get a woman to urinate in the water."
(entry 2486, cylinder 1510:12)
For protection: Read psalms 37 for three days straight, point the Bible facing the east
and leave it open to the Psalms.
(entry 1119, cylinder 1510:14)
#929 - #931
May 26, 1938 Thursday
#932 - [-], cylinder [1512:15]
#933 - [-]
#934 - [-]
#935 - [-]
#936 - [-] A man, as he describes carrying his mojo in his watch pocket on his hip.
Get lodestone, Cayenne Pepper, and sugar -- not salt, sugar. Get genuine lodestone from the
drugstore and you get you some sugar and Cayenne Pepper, not Black Pepper, and sew it into
a flannel and wear it right in your hip pocket where your watch go in at. And that opposes
your enemies. They can't harm you.
(entry 1374, cylinder 1514:9)
#937 - [-]
#938 - [-]
Graveyard dirt, sugar, and red pepper sprinkled on the ground for protection.
(entry 1314, cylinder 1517:13)
Working with the zodiacal signs and with the waxing and waning moon.
(entry 942. Vol. I, pg. 357, (cylinder #1518:8)
#939 - 966
#947 - [-] A business owner.
White candle for money when first going into business; mop with chamber lye and sugar in
water, to draw trade. When bidding [inviting] customers, burn incense and light a yellow
candle soon in the morning, around five or six o'clock in the morning for success.
(entry 2789, cylinder 1526:13)
#948 - #949
#950 - [-] "A Hustling Woman From a Professional House" Hyatt described her as an inytelligent,
attractive young women who had graduated from high school, but was riven by the poor
economy of the Great Depression into work as a prostitute. She gave him many spells for
use in the sporting life, and an equal number of regular "domestic" type conjure tricks
for love, luck, and happiness.
Clothes inside out, incense ashes in scrub water with urine, sugar, essential oils, burn
red candle, turn clothes back right, to change bad luck in a brothel.
(Volume II, pp. 1335- 1344)
#952 - [-]
cylinder [1538:10]
#953 - #956
#957 - [-]
Tack the King, Queen, Jack, and 10 of Diamonds over the door, burn incense, and clean
with lye; this will help you win at gambling and sell illegal whiskey.
(entry 2208, cylinder 1541:1)
#958 - [-]
"Get you some lump [briquet or dhoop] incense. Some people don't use red flannel; you can
use chamois skin and you make you a little luck bag. You put you a little silver dime in
there. and you put you about three pieces of that lump incense in there and you put you
some Guinea Pepper [Grains of Paradise] in there, and if you got a fishhead rock, you put
that in there. Then you sew it up with a piece of garlic. (Fishhead rock?) Yeah, that only
comes in a Drumhead. There be's two little rocks in a Drumhead. (Drumhead fish? ) Yes,
perfume. You have to keep it oiled up [fed] like that. That's for your luck. You can wear
it in your pocket. Gambling luck."
(entry 1853, cylinder 1541:12)
#959 - [-]
A bath before gambling: bluestone, saltpeter, sugar, and your own urine; bathe downward
and say the Lord's Prayer three times [to cleanse], then dress your playing cards with
"any kind of oil that you believe in" [to draw luck]; asked which oil, informant said
Rose Oil from the drugstore.
(entry 1719 cylinder 1542:12)
May 27, 1938 Friday"
#960 - [-] Hyatt said, "excellent hoodoo woman, my rapid hand transcription of cylinder
missed by my trasnscriber."
If they're burning a candle on you, you burn - now this is the same thing you kin do. You
kin burn this same red candle. You burn this red candle, you stick it in 3 pins. See, you
fightin' against them. You says, "I wish my enemy would leave me alone." An' then you go
an' throw you a handful of salt in the fire an' you says, "I wish my enemies quit working
after me an' leave me alone In the Name of the Lord." An' take you a bath in some
saltpeter, bluestone an' sugar, an' repeat the Lord's prayer 3 times, see. You see, you
burn this candle, that would set them down. Or else, you kin put 'em down sick. You kin
git a purple candle an' you light it an' you make your wish an' put some salt in there an'
spit in it, see. An' you burn it on 'em again an' you says, I wish whosomever this is
that's workin' after me will leave me alone," an' spit in it. You see, that'll drop 'em.
That'll drop 'em. That'll put 'em down sick. That'll make 'em drop. An' continue to burn
brimstone [not mentioned previously in this rite but surely in some previous part of the
interview]. See, that brimstone is the best thing in the world, that brimstone. An' sugar.
Continue with that sugar in the fire, see; Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
(entry 10183, 1544:9.)
Write names of 12 Apostles, pin them on you, and also write Psalm 70. Write them every
time the moon changes. Take off the old one and put on the new ones for protection.
(entry 10663, cylinder 1546:10)
#961 -
#962 - [-]
Take a tissue or a piece of paper put menstrual blood on it. Wrap money in this paper or
tissue and no one will win against you.
(entry 2284, cylinder 1552:4)
#963 - [-]
"Long rite missed by transcriber": Woman wipes man with new handkerchief, rolls it in tube
(phallus), ties a hard knot in it, unrolls, and spreads under bed tick, kills his nature.
(entry 10240, cylinder 1556:1)
#964
#965 - [-]
Graveyard dirt at-four-corners of house to move people out
(entry 7638, cylinder 1557:1)
#966 -
#967 - [-] woman, 55-60 years old, born in Saltsville, NC, who says of herself:
"Now, ah'll tell yuh tuh show yuh dat ah kin know somepin. Ah were born in dis world feet
foremost. Ah wuz wrapped in a veil three times. [This means] yuh talk tuh anyone in three
tongues an' yuh kin sing ole-time songs, mah mothah said. Mah parents an' both mah
gran'parents said ah had plenty hair on me befo' dey had dern [theirs]. Well, ah wuz born
between de legs [of my mother] as a woman. Yes sir, ah wuz born wit mah teeth. Ah'd [I
had] it [them] pulled an' nevah shed a tooth in mah life. Ah wuz de seventh chile outa
seven daughtahs, born on de third day of de new moon. An' yuh know, mahself as a virgin
should be wise [a woman of 55-60 years old]. Ah kin rub [you] if anybody did anythin' tuh
yuh an' it'll all go away. Ah know ah wuz born tuh work [hoodoo]. No one taught me. Ah wuz
born in North Carolina, in Saltsville [lake?] where's dere nuthin but Geechees [ge'che,
singular]. Mah fathah wuz a full-blooded Geechee, mah mothah wuz a Amasha woman, black
Creek Indian, etc., etc." Hyatt added, "[This woman, quite eccentric, was a professional
worker and excellent. Unfortunately, except for the preceding account and No.2328, p.652,
I lost all of her material. She claimed to be a Geechee (gi'che, word from Ogeechee, a
dialect originally of Negro slaves on the Ogeechee River, Georgia, formed of English and
native African words. I found it difficult to understand either the Geechee or the Gullah,
the latter along the lowlands and off-shore islands of South Carolina, Georgia and the
northern coastal tip of Florida. A black man I interviewed at Ocean City, Md., in 1926, he
working for his M.A. at Howard University, had spent several weeks in Charleston, S. Car.
His opinion to me was: Those people down there are not Americans, they are Africans. I
could scarcely understand a word they said.]"
(entry 7190, cylinder 1564:5)
#968 - [-]
Throw salt towards the sunrise three times and say, "White folks go and don't come back.
And they [the police] will stay away from you. Say, "Go your way and leave me alone"
[and anyone else whose name or social position is called will do likewise].
(entry 9509, cylinder 1567:2)
#969
#970
#971 - [-] Probably a woman
If your man is a heavy drinker, wait until the thrid day of your period, and
collect three drops of menses and put it in whiskey. On the fourth day of your
period, collect four more drops and add them to the whiskey. Put two needles into
the whiskey bottle, and shake well, saying, "I'm putting this here to stick you
in your whiskey drinking, to stop you from drinking," Remove the needles and
serve him the whiskey and it will make him sick.
(entry 7041, cylinder 1571:4)
#972 - #974
#975 - [-]
Graveyard dirt and sulphur buried at crossroads in cross form for protection.
(entry 1317, cylinder 1578:11)
#976 - [-]
Love spell: your own hair in printed newspaper in your shoes.
(entry 6119, cylinder 1579:11)
May 28, 1938 Saturday
#977 - [-] A man.
If you are playing poker and catch the Queen of Diamonds, secretly rub Hoyt's Cologne on it
(from a mini-bottle in your pocket) and keep it turned toward you in your hand, not putting
it in the discards, and as long as you have her, you will keep on winning.
(entry 2207, cylinder 1582:3)
While this man was being interviewed, the police came in to throw Hyatt out. They called
him a son-of-a-bitch and although he went limp (he called it "comatose") they beat him.
This took place on a Saturday, prsesumeably May 28. The police took him back to the Pabody
Hotel, where he cnvinced them he had police permission "to work in the district" (that is,
in the Negro section of the city). This event almost brought the work of tis collection to
a halt. Hyatt was so shaken by the police that there were 539 informants before he returned
to Memphis, with informant #1516. See Volume One, page XXXIV for full details.
See Volume Two, pages 1556-67 (Madam Wiley).
Hyatt took a trip with Alma across Canada, down the Pacific Coast to Mexico, and home by way of
the Grand Canyon.
New York City, NY
January 23, 1939
Hyatt sent a letter to Edward Bufford, Jr., contact man from Mobile, AL. Bufford agreed to be
his driver in FL.
"Numbers Book #11," containing the records about informants #977-#1290 was later lost by
Hyatt. Therefore information about the period from February 10 through April 1, 1939 is
uncharacteristicly vague and sketchy.
Saint Petersburg, FL
Hyatt stayed at the white-owned Vinoy Park Hotel and conducted interviews at the black-owned
Clark Hotel.
February 10, 1939
Hyatt began work but without good results
#978 - #982
#983 - [-]
If someone is staying at your home and you can't ask them to leave, but you want them out,
then every time they leave the house, sneak into their bedroom and turn their mattress
over, then sprinkle salt on the mattress, and make a wish for them to go. Also, every time
you do this, while you are in the room, quietly move something from where it was to a new
place in the room or exchange the positions of two objects in the room. By turning and
salting the mattress repeatedly, and changing their things around, you will introduce a
kind of torment to the room and they will finally leave.
(entry 9540, cylinder 1591:12)
#984 - #987
Hyatt interviewed the female manager of the Clark Hotel:
#988 - [-] "[Informant is woman who managed hotel in which I interviewed. I questioned her, as
I did all landladys and landlords, to give an idea of my work.]"
Now, I have heard of them in this way, if they wanted their husband to leave town or wife,
either sex, why they would go and get someone to come with the same kind of difftrent
ingredients in a bag of some kind. (What do you call this sort of thing?)
Witchcraft. (Around here do they ever use the word hoodoo?)
Hoodoo and witchcraft. (They are all the same thing? )
First cousins.
(entry 2394, cylinder 1594:3)
#989 - #993
#994 [-]
"You know salt gives them bad luck if you bring it from your own house. Throw salt on the
door or on the porch, and they will be apt to leave. They won't stay there in peace and
they'll finally move out."
(entry 9476. cylinder 1606:4)
#995 - [-] A root doctor's client and apparently a semi-professional rootworker, probably a man.
"A man learnt me, a hoodoo man, to take a Crocus Fish -- it's a little fish called Crocus
Fish [Croaker Fish; Fresh-water Drumfish], and you take that head off, and you take a knife
and split that head open and there's two rocks in there. Well, you get them two rocks out
and you put them two rocks in a little bag and you sew that bag up. Well, when you sew that
bag up, then, you give it to the party [your client] and then he goes to the man and reports
for a job, and he can't hardly be turned down. And I have seen that and he [the hoodoo man]
have done me thataway, the reason I know. and that's the way he said and that was the end
of that."
(entry 1857, cylinder 1606:12)
"You take a penny and cut that penny half in two, if you wanta be lucky with money. You
put one-half in your left pocket and leave the other half home, and you're going to be
lucky in getting money in any kind of business you go into. That's luck. I've tested
that out. That's extreme luck."
(entry 2124, cylinder 1609:8)
#996 - #1003
#1004 - [-]
A rising tide trick: throw left foot print dirt into ocean as tide is rising to draw them
back, "when the tide is going up."
(entry 5782, cylinder 1620:3)
#1005 - [-]
To become a witch, sell youself to the devil at the crossroads at midnight on a young
(newly waxing) Moon.
(entry 10496, cylinder 1621:2)
#1006 - Janey May [-] Surname unknown
#1007 - [-]
Raw egg stirred into ginger ale, taken 3 times a day to restore sexual potency
(entry 10234, cylinder 1628:11)
#1008 - John Bidgood
"What did they call it when you were a boy?" asked Hyatt. "Dey call it hoodoo. Yeah, dey
called it de hoodoo man, de cunjure." John Bidgood then tells a story about his cousin
(his father's brother's son), Bill Bidgood of Blacksburg, South Carolina, who lived 12
miles from John's home. (Bill died in 1906 in Cincinatti; he was older than John.) One
year, Bill owed the white man whom he rented from about $300.00 and he could not pay the
debt. He "was in a strain to keep the white man from taking all hs cotton." He went to a
cunjure man in Charleston, who lived way out in the country and had a beard so long it
hung down and covered his stomach. The man told him he would fix the problem: If Bill was
willing to trade some pigs for the debt, the white man would call it even. He said he
would accept no payment in advance for doing the job, but that if it went as planned, Bill
was to wrap the payment up in a cloth and place it above his door at home. Bill met the
white man and, as predicted, he accepted a few pigs for the debt and called it even. Bill
wrapped the conjure man's payment in cloth, placed it over the door at night, and the next
morning it was gone.
(entry 849, cylinder 1629:4)
John T. Bidgood was easy for me to research online. He is listed as "negro" or "colored"
in a number of Saint Petersburg census reports and city directories from 1926 to 1948,
the year he died. He gave two different ages, resulting in two different birth years
(1871 and 1978) to census-takers, and so did his wife Sallie (1882 and 1885). These
may have been transcription errors by the census taker or deliberate attempts to present
a false age to government agents. John was born in North Carolina, and Sallie was born
in South Carolina. Once in Florida, he was employed for many years as a janitor at the
American Bank and Trust Co., but in 1935, in the wake of the bank crashes of the Great
Depression, he was enrolled in the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A) for
supplementary income. When the economy improved, he worked as a "yardman" (gardener).
Sallie was a laundress, working at home. The couple owned their own home at 2220 7th
Avene S., Saint Petersburg, Pinellas County, Florida, right down the street from the
Soul's Harvest Fellowship Church.
#1009 - 1018
#1019 - [-]
"I have tried this when I first came to St. Petersburg. Go and look me round, couldn't get
me a job nowhere. One feller tells me, says, 'Now you go and take you a dime,' he say,
'and buy you a Crocus Fish [Croaker; Fresh-water Drumfish].' After you get that fish, you
cut the head off that fish and you can do what you wish. You can eat the fish or you can
throw it away. But be sure you get the head of that fish and cut it open and get them two
rocks out of there and put it in a sack and wear it in your pocket. There can't nobody turn
you down for a job."
(entry 1856, cylinder 1650:2)
#1020 - #1030 [my approximation]
February 13, 1939
In testing the recording stylus on this date, Hyatt commented that the past few days
had not gone well because "the people here don't seem to know as much [about hoodoo]
as [in] some of the other places."
(cylinder 1677:9)
#1031 - #1038 [my approximation]
#1039 - [-]
To make someone come home scrape the inside of their shoe toe out with a knife and place
the scrapings in a bottle and bury it facing the east.
(entry 5221, cylinder 1685)
#1040 -
#1041
#1042 - [-]
Don't play the numbers on the New Moon; you'll get only unanticipated and low numbers;
play on the Full Moon for high number winnings.
(entry 958, cylinder 1627:6)
Get away spell: throw foot track in water
(entry 5778, cylinder 1687:2)
If you want to get a job and won't be able to unless someone else is put out, mix your own
chamber lye, borax, and Cayenne Pepper, and pour it at the front and back doors by day .
(Entry 4244, cylinder 1688:1)
#1043
#1044
#1045
#1046 - [-]
Let the north wind blow graveyard dirt to carry your troubles away
(entry 1323, cylinder 1701:6)
Palm Beach, FL
February 23, 1939
#1047 - #1051 (my approximation)
#???? - [-],
cylinder [1717:1] (? -- but see below for Saint Petersburg entries at cylinder 1697:6)
Saint Petersburg, FL
February 24, 1939 (my approximation)
#(1052?) - [-] Informant number lost; all that remains is the location and cylinder number]
Black candle curse with focussed visual or mental image meditation, "To Hell, to Hell,
you go. Drift forever. No contentment. There's no rest for the weary."
(entry 2897, cylinder 1697:6)
#1053 [-] Hyatt called this male professional root doctor "Publicity and Healing" because
"informant does say the lack of publicity for his fellow workers causes suffering among
persons who have been hoodooed -- these latter not knowing where to find someone like
himself,qualified to remove spells."
Described methods of working with the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, eclipses, and Zodiacal signs.
(Vol. 2, p. 1243, cylinders C126:10-C134:6 = 1707:10-1714:6)
#1054 - #1057 (my approximation)
New York City, NY
Hyatt briefly returned home, then sent Edward Bufford, Jr. ahead to Waycross, GA, where
Bufford found two contact men whose names and numbers were lost with "Numbers Book #11"
Waycross, GA
The Waycross collection began approximately March 2, 1939 and ran until around March 9 or
10 (about one week), during which time approximately 100 root workers were interviewed
(about 12 - 15 per day).
At least some interviews conducted at the Cooper Hotel.
(see note to cylinder 1855:1)
March 5, 1939 ("The date of this interview is March 5, 1939.")
#1058 - [-] Professional root doctor, Vol. 2, pp.1210-14
If a woman gets live things in her, she can menstruate to death, whereas a man will
defecate to death. Use of Solomonic seals and astrological information for timing with
lunar Zodiac, from almanac, and from tides at river's mouth. Spirits of L.L. Young and
O.L. Young.
(C320:3-C346:1 = 1091-1927)
#1061 - [-]
Throw salt after person suspected of witchcraft as they leave your house and if they are a
witch, they won't return.
(entry 9446, cylinder 1720:5)
#1065 - [-]
If a witch is coming to you by night, put a handful of sand by the bed and he will have to
count every grain and can't mess with you.
(entry 10464, cylinder 1723:17)
#1066 - [-]
Burn brimstone (sulphur), fat-lighter pine splinters, buzzard feathers, and tar around
your place to kill all poison.
(entry 1152, cylinder 1724:7)
Carry "the dog finger" or bone from index or first finger of either hand in the pocket
for gambling luck.
(entry 8045, cylinder 1724:16)
#1067 - [-]
To take off witchcraft, steal an Irish potato and carry it in your pocket until it gets
hard like a brick, then eat it.
(entry 1424, cylinder 1728:7)
#1068 - [-]
After intercourse if a woman wipes herself (and/or the man? -- unclear) with her soiled
monthly period rag, when he goes with another woman, "it'll fall" -- no erection.
(entry 3123, cylinder 1728:11)
#1069 -
#1071 - [-]
Go to crossroads at midnight with your guitar, sell yourself to the devil, don't be afraid
of all sorts of devils who will appear, and you will be able to become a musician;
informant says that he or she has never tried it, though.
(entry 10512, cylinder 1731:5)
#1072 - [-] A woman who used Hyatt as a stand-in for her husband in describing a trick ("just
like you and I, your wife...")
Wife's urine in bread for 9 mornings makes husband stay home
(entry 4120, cylinder 1733:5)
Nail horseshoes over front and back doors and never be troubled with witchcraft or evil
spirits.
(entry 1344, cylinder 1733:6)
#1073 - [-] Probably a woman; refers to practitioner as "she."
Gave her [?] mother's spell to carry foot track of unwanted person to crossroad and throw
it in.
(entry 5428, cylinder 1733:11)
To cure asthma, catch a frog, hold his mouth open and breathe into it three times; this
transfers the asthma to the frog; similar to asthma cure by informant 1166, also of
Waycross.
(entry 1282, cylinder 1735:7)
#1074 - [-]
To make someone stay in a house, get some of their clothes and dust from around the house,
bottle both together and fasten the bottle (hidden) to the house; they won't leave; this
(entry 4760, cylinder 1736:6)
Powdered rattlesnake head as goofer dust.
(entry 669, cylinder 1737:9)
Fix a mockingbird egg and feed it to a pregnant woman in tea and her child will be a
tattletale; see #1149, also from Waycross.
(entry 1391, cylinder 1740:1)
Split a frog open and tie it on a person to stop spasms and fits.
(entry 1265, cylinder 1740:5)
#1075 -
#1076 - [-] probably a man, due to type of spell.
Take a live snail and kill it in alcohol to dry it up, put this on hand, wipe woman's leg
and she can't have intercourse with another man.
(entry 3638, cylinder 1742:11)
Take a live frog and kill it in alcohol until it is petrified and carry it in your pocket
for good luck socializing or getting and keeping a job.
(entry 9970, cylinder 1743:5)
#1077 - [-] probably a woman, due to the nature of the trick.
If a woman's partner is running around and she wants to break it up, she can steal the
woman's dishrag and let a live snail crawl on it, then let the man wipe himself with that
dishrag after sex with her and he can't have connection with the other woman.
(entry 3362, cylinder 1743:6)
#1078 - #1079
#1080 - [-]
Put salt on a man to cut off his gambling luck
(entry 9498, cylinder 1749.) (1749. is correct, no other #)
#1081 - [-]
To move a person away, write the name on an egg and tell the egg and ants what you want
them to do. Poke a hole into the egg and stick that end into the ant mound. As the egg
drips out and the ants eat it, the person will leave.
(entry 9180, cylinder 1751:1)
#1082 - 1083
#1084 - [-]
Mix cat hair and enemy hair in a bottle of vinegar, shaken, placed under enemy's doorstep,
enemy goes crazy.
(entry 5836, cylinder 1752:11)
To cure impotence, bathe downward with milk 9 mornings and each day throw the used milk
toward the rising sun.
(entry 10261, cylinder 1753:5)
#1085 -
#1086 - [-] Speech sounds like a woman; most spells begin with the phrase "here's another
one" and she [?] carefully restates some dialect terms in mainstream English for Hyatt's
sake (e.g. "a small hoecake of bread which we say"); she only uses the word "witchcraft,"
never "hoodoo" and she refers to an older root doctor as an a "master craftman" in echo of
Freemasonic terminology.
To take off witchcraft, get a gourd and grind it up, then heat in water with saltpeter,
sulphur, and salt; bathe downward in this and carry the used bath water to a river and
throw it in.
(entry 1303, cylinder 1754:2)
"Now here's something that is known. This is rather modern, too." Write the names of any
7 of the 12 apostles on an egg plus the name(s) of those you wish to move, and break the
egg against the wall of their house, saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ, you shall go."
They won't be able to stay there.
(entry 9181, cylinder 1754:3)
To turn back witchcraft, make a hoecake (bread) with 2 cups of meal, a cup of salt, and
your own chamber lye (urine); clear a space on the hearth ashes, lay down a piece of
homespun cloth, pat out the hoecake, and let it dry, then turn it toward the fire by
lifting the edge of the cloth and flipping it, and when it burns up, that turns the spell
back on the person who sent it; this spell was learned "from a ole master craftman"
(entry 1330, cylinder 1754:4)
To bring luck, protect from being witchcrafted, and also keep away evil spirits, grind
dirt dauber nest dirt with "sweet spices" [kitchen spices] and sprinkle or throw the
powder up into the air.
(entry 1219, cylinder 1754:5)
#???? - [-],
(cylinder 1757:5)
#1089 - [-]
person says he or she has been lucky in cards after peeing on own hands
(entry 3995, cylinder 1757:7)
#1093 - [-]
Woman puts a man's hat bow in her own chamber-lye urine and he goes crazy for her and
can't quit her.
(entry 4686, cylinder 1760:12)
Kill and cook a bullbat (whippoorwill or nighthawk bird) and feed to someone; they will
die if not magically cured.
(entry 10599, cylinder 1762:9)
Kill snake, scorpion or spider and name for enemy, turn dead animal over daily for 9 days
calling enemy's name, then parch animal dry, powder it, put the powder in whiskey or tea
and feed to enemy; nine days later they get live things in them.
(entry 6606, cylinder 1762:10)
#1094 -
#1095 - [-]
"[Go] to the forks of de road 'bout twelve or one o'clock in the night and get some sand ...
and put it in a bag ... and put it over your mantlepiece. Go to the graveyard. ... and get
some dirt and sew it up with that. And that would make you lucky -- good a jomo as you'd want."
(entry 2039, cylinder 1764:6)
9 drops of toad frog blood in a half pint of whiskey will cure a drunkard.
(entry 9922, cylinder 1765:15)
To make a fellow unlucky, stick a needle in his coattail, point down.
(entry 9779, cylinder 1765:16)
#1096 -
#1097 - [-]
Recipe for goofer dust with snake shed.
(cylinder 1769:1)
Buzzard grease rubbed on to cure rheumatism, also allows witches to slip through a keyhole.
(entry 1150, cylinder 1773:2)
#1098 - #1101
#1102 -
Split open a live frog as a poultice for poison.
(entry 9926, cylinder 1776:17)
#1102 -
#1103 -
#1104 - [-]
Tie Adam and Eve Root, Queen Elizabeth Root, and Five Finger Grass together and soak in
whiskey seven days, bathe or anoint yourself with this to reunite with lover
(entry 10629, cylinder 1778:1)
Wash bald head with dog's milk to restore hair growth.
(entry 1232, cylinder 1778:14)
#1105 - #1109
#1110 - [-] (apparently a man engaged in "runnin' a bad house" or other illegal activities,
as per the spells he gave)
Sell yourself to the devil at the crossroads at midnight to learn to pick guitar.
(entry 10506, cylinder 1783:6)
To protect illegal ventures, get a new pincushion and 2 packs of needles and stick the
needles in everywhere, hang it over the door; you won't get pulled (in); it you are,
you'll get clear.
(entry 9853 (1783:11)
Throw the bloodhounds off your scent with graveyard dirt.
(entry 7319, cylinder 1784:5)
#1111 - #1112
#1114 - #1115 (my approximation)
March 3, 1939 (Friday)
#1116 - [-] Hyatt called her a "root doctor and woman, good")
unknown data at (cylinder 1787:3)
I've heard tell of 'em using lodestone. Lodestone is supposed to be a drawing power with
your money. You place it with your money and you wear it around your waist with a dime or
any silver piece of money. You put that lodestone around your waist and wear it and it
will bring you luck; you'll always have money.
(entry 2063, cylinder 1791:3)
If antipating a court case, begin 9 days before the case comes to court, and tie a
knot each day in a long string as you say, "Let me win this case," and each morning dip
the string into Hoyt's Cologne and wear it around your waist (9 days, 9 knots).
(entry 2047, cylinder 1792:5)
Kill a bat, cut the heart out, sew it into a red silk bag, and tie it to your left arm
for gambling luck; this is a variant of a German folk-magic spell printed in
"Pow-Wows or the Long Lost Friend" by John George Hohman;
see also informant #1134
(entry 10587, cylinder 1793:1)
Sprinkle salt on a frog's head, shut him in a can, place under a gambler's chair to
make him or her lose (unusual reversal of the general frog-torture for gambling luck)
(entry 9960, cylinder 1793:2)
#1117 -
#1118 - [-] Hyatt called her a "small-time root woman."
Sugar, sulphur, and Heart Perfume (Hoyt's Cologne). Mix those three things and burn
them at six o'clock and read Psalm 47. After the reading of Psalm 47, say "May my crowd
gather thick, may my crowd gather thick tonight. In the name of the Father, in the name of
the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit."
(entry 2420, cylinder 1795:5)
Salt and saltpeter bath as cure for tricks.
(entry 1458, cylinder 1796:1)
#1119 - #1120
#1121 - [-] may be a woman due to nature of spells and speech.
tie a fresh chicken egg and hang over the door so child will cut teeth without pain.
(entry 1167, cylinder 1803:3)
to cure yellow jaundice, cook and eat an entire chicken.
(entry 1159, cylinder 1803:5)
get 9 goldhead (goldeye) needles and stick them in the ground at the front gate, five
heads (eyes) up and four down, and nothing in the world can harm you.
(entry 9836, cylinder 1803:8)
#1122 - [-] probably a man, as he describes the tricker as a man ("he").
To poison or hurt through the feet with rheumatism or dropsy, get the enemy's shoes and fix
them with his own excrement, plus salt and red pepper.
(entry 4401, cylinder 1803:1)
To run a "good business" in your home and attract customers, get two horseshoes
and buy new red cloth, new Red Devil lye, and new salt at the store; cut the cloth in long
strips and wrap the horseshoes with it; put one horseshoe over the front door and one over
the back door; bury the Red Devil lye and salt at the doorsteps (informant does not state,
but usually these would be buried in their store boxes); then circle the house just before
dawn, sprinkling a mixture of your own chamber lye (urine) in which is dissolved a handful
each of sugar and salt; (Hyatt calls this "perhaps the largest hand ever wrapped in red"
and was apparently unaware that this form of winding red cloth, ribbon, or thread around a
horseshoe is exactly the same as a Mexican and Guatemalan package amulet hung on the wall
for good luck and called El Secreto de la Virtuousa Herradura (Secret of the Virtuous Horseshoe)
(entry 22518, cylinder 1804:11)
#1123 - #1124
#1125 - "The Laughing Doctor," "a woman of large size" who was the landlady of the contact man
Edward Bufford, Jr. in Waycross. Hyatt described her as "an able person" much given to
laughter, hence the nickname he gave her. "(The last woman [No. ll25] that came in
yesterday was almost as good as anyone I've talked to - she was almost as good as several
of those people [professional root doctors] over in New Orleans. In fact, I almost exhausted
my questions on her and then she had to go - she's a janitress of a s hool and she had to go
to clean out the school. Said she might be back tomorrow - that is today - to tell me a few
more things.)" Her lengthy interview was conducted on two separate days and took a total of
24 cylinders to record; cylinders
C235:4 - C250:1 = 1816 - 1831 (part one) and
C384:1 - C392:5 = 1965 - 1973 (part two).
The complete interview: Volume Two, on pages 1470 - 1500.
March 6, 1939 (Monday, informant # is my approximation)
#1126 - [-]
woman prepares a bath for man and swirls a snail around in it;
when he washes with the snail water he is fixed and can't go
with another woman outside her because "he will fall"
(entry 3692, cylinder 1832:9)
throw down salt and sweep out after unwanted person
(entry 9457, cylinder 1832:12)
#1127 - [-] Informant is a married woman, mentions "my husband" and tells funny story of
ex-friend who wanted her husband, tried to take her foot track but got her own track by
mistake, threw it into running water, and 3 days later tried to drown herself
(entry 5781, cylinder 1833:4)
#1128 - [-] probably a man due to the nature of the trick
get 3 hairs of a woman and 3 Camel cigarettes; thread each hair into one of the cigarettes;
smoke them on three successive days; the woman will be "took in" (tricked for love)
(entry 6169, cylinder 1833:6)
#1129 - [-]
to move a family, find a big red ants' bed near their house, then get crumbs from their
cooking and carry them to the ants' bed
(entry 10650, cylinder 1835:3)
snail and earthworm "wax" (mucus) mixed and rubbed on woman causes penis captivus if she
has sex with another man; you'll catch him
(entry 10267, cylinder 1836:1)
#1130 - #1132
#1133 - Miss Carter (she self-identifies by this name during the course of her interview)
3 to 6 brand new pins or needles fixed in bed to keep you from resting or sleeping
(entry 9795, cylinder 1839:7)
To break up a lover's engagement to another woman, as prescribed by a male Fortune Teller:
Catch a toad frog and put it in a tin, carry it to an ant's nest and check it every day
until the ants strip the flesh off it and carry it back to the worker, and he makes a
package of it for you to wear. She did this and the couple did break up, but Miss Carter
did not marry him, because the Fortune Teller said that the man would sicken and die --
and he did sicken and die.
(entry 9906, cylinder 1839:14)
#1134 - [-] probably a woman due to nature of tricks and wording used.
Cut the heart from a living bat, wrap it in red flannel, and tie it under your right arm
for luck; except for the substitution of red flannel for red silk, this is a direct copy
of a German folk-magic spell printed in
"Pow-Wows or the Long Lost Friend" by John George Hohman, first published in German
in Pennsylvania in 1820 and translated into English in 1848; by the early 20th century this
book was widely available in the African-American community both in the South and the North
through weekly ads in the nationally-distributed black-owned Chicago Defender newspaper;
note also that although many informants in Waycross Georgia gave variants of this spell,
informant 1134 is the only one who gives it virtually "by the book;" others tie the charm
to the left arm or left wrist, carry it in the pocket, etc.
See informants #1116, #1136, #1159, #1166, #1167
(entry 10551, cylinder 1841:3)
To rule or command someone or drive them away, put Devil's Shoe String and Adam and Eve
Root over your door and let them walk under, then tell (or think) what you want them to do.
(entry 10616, cylinder 1842:1)
gambling mojo: bluestone, silver dime, alum
(entry 13000, cylinder 1842:9)
Devil's Shoe Strings around legs for breaking a trick; informant's friend, a woman from
"Fairfax [?]" cured by Uncle Tom Williams, a root doctor from "Sappville [?]"
[Hyatt was unsure, hence his "[?]" but there is a town called Sappville, GA,]
(entry 1208, cylinder 1843:1)
Under your parch get 9 wood lice (pill bugs, sow bugs) and rub them in the seat of a man's
britches and he won't mess with anyone else.
(entry 10281, cylinder 1843:6)
#1135 - [-] Informant knew how to treat prolapsed uterus; probably a female midwife.
To keep the law away, use a tiny hammer and tack 18 straight pins in a line at your front
door and 7 at your back door.
(entry 9852, cylinder 1844.11)
Make a couple move by putting a tablespoon of newly bought salt at each outside corner
and each inside corner in the house.
(entry 9484, cylinder 1845:3)
To restore falled (prolapsed) uterus, have woman get dog feces ("they didn't specify a
black dog" says informant, who perhaps thought they ought to have?) and pour hot water
and sit over [not in] it to "a-stape" (steam-steap) herself; similar to informant 1166
and retained afterbirth treatment with hen feathers.
(entry 1130, cylinder 1846:2)
To break up a married couple, hold an egg by the narrow end and bust the head of it upside
of their house to bust them up and separate them.
(entry 9238, cylinder 1845:7)
To get someone back, call their name 3 times at sunrise at a big red ants' nest and tell
the ants that you want the person back.
(entry 10644, cylinder 1846:5)
#1136 - [-]
Kill a bat, cut the heart out and dry it, then sew it into a rag with salt,
black pepper, and bluestone; keep it in your pocket for gambling luck; this
is a variant of a German spell printed in "Pow-Wows or the Long Lost Friend" by John George Hohman;
see also informant #1134
(entry 10595, cylinder 1850:5)
To cure rheumatism in the leg, carry an Irish potato in your pocket until
it shrivels to the size of a marble; as it shrinks, so will your leg pain.
(entry 1422, cylinder 1850:7)
#1137 -
#1138 - [-], Devil's Shoe Strings around legs protects from tricks; tie nine knots,
wear for nine days.
(entry 1208, cylinder 1852:1)
(entry 7767, cylinder 1852:6)
#???? - [-], interview at the Cooper Hotel
(cylinder 1855:1)
#1139 - #1140
#1141 - [-] informant knew how to induce abortions and assist fertility and
conception; probably a female midwife.
To learn to pick guitar or dance, go to the crossroads at midnight,
something will appear, imitate them, and you'll "sell yourself to the devil
for an infidel."
(entry 10523, cylinder 1855:09) (odd "09" there)
Run a pin through the heart of a live bat, keep it in a bottle of Hearts
(Hoyt's) Cologne, rub hands with cologne before betting; specifically used
when playing the Georgia skin game.
(entry 10597, cylinder 1857:3)
To cause a woman to bleed to death (from the vagina), get her period blood
and stop it up in a bottle, then hide the bottle in a water pump or spigot
where there is a continual flow of water; no medical doctor can cure her
unless you empty out the bottle.
(entry 3968, cylinder 1857:10)
Ambiguous spell: cut neck of domestic animal (any species) and insert hair
of enemy; when that heals. "they say that long as they go, say you'll go"
(go away, go crazy, continue to live?).
(entry 5855, cylinder 1858:2)
Two medical herbal remedies plus a trick in one entry:
To "miscarry a kid" [induce abortion] take [ingest?] calomel powder,
bluestone [copperas, copper sulphate], nine buckshots [gunpowder from nine
shotgun shells?] and with pencil lead or your finger cause a miscarriage.
To increase fertility and bring on a pregnancy, boil together devil's
shoestring, blackroot [black master, Culver's physic, Leptandra], quinsy
light [?], life everlasting [cudweed], lowbush myrtle, redshank [red root
pigweed or red paint blood root?], and dog-tongue weed [horehound? deer's
tongue?] and drink a wineglassful of this tea three times a day.
Also put dog-tongue herb in the four corners of people's houses to make
them argue and fight; they will quarrel as long as it is in the house.
(entry 1234, cylinder 1858:6)
#1142 - [-]
To cure cataract or stye in eye, get nine needles in a bunch and stick
them over the door, walk in and out under them nine times per day for
nine days, then throw them away and you can see again.
(entry 1400, cylinder 1860:1)
#1143 - [-]
Four years ago (1934) in Jacksonville, Florida, a girl was sick; folks
thought she was witchcrafted, but she had tuberculosis, like the doctor
said. Her mother, Delia [-]. had carried her inland to a spring to be
cured, to no avail. She could not eat any food, not even peaches, but she
could eat gruel soup. The informant told Delia [-] to attempt a remedy
that had been told by someone years before, but not yet tried by the
informant: Draw blood from a dog (not enough to kill him) and get a hen
egg; add 3 or 4 drops of dog blood to the egg and beat it, add 2 or 3 drops
of kerosene and one drop of turpentine and continue beating, pour in half a
pint of real good whiskey ("not moonshine") and give it to the patient in
doses (by the spoonful). Outcome was not related by informant.
(entry 1223, cylinder 1866:1)
#1144 -
#1145 - [-] A man, due to his self-description of how he used this trick.
If you have been fixed to be impotent, urinate into a red ants' nest.
("Ah've lost mah nature mahself dat way an' ah've gained it back dat way.")
(entry 10271, cylinder 1869:6)
#1146 - [-]
If you want a man and a woman to be driven from love or to separate, you take their tracks
and bury them under the doorstep with red pepper and let it stay there for nine days.
(entry 5742, cylinder 1869:11)
#1148 - [-]
To cure shingles, wash affected area with black cow's milk.
(entry 1197, cylinder 1874:2)
To cure shingles, cut the head off a black chicken and let it bleed on
the affected area; informant stated he or she had done this successfully.
(entry 1163, cylinder 1874:3)
March 6, 1939 (my approximation)
Cold, rainy weather, under the entry for informant #1157, Hyatt commented on the
fire in his hotel room on this day: "Fire in grate cracks, a cold rainy day. ...
That fire in the grate cracked all day and I wore a long overcoat all day while
interviewing! The rosin in the pinewood did the cracking."
#1149 - {-} A 28 year old [presumably male] bootlegger and professional gambler
(born c. 1911) who had been using roots for 18 years (since c. 1921).
Cook a mockingbird egg and feed it to a man and he will always tell lies
and be untruthful; see #1074, also from Waycross.
(entry 1391, cylinder 1740:1)
This man did not make his own hands, but, with his uncle, consulted the
ame "root man" twice. The first time he wanted help with the Bolito, an
illegal Policy-like lottery game wih connections to Cuba. In the narrtive
it is implied that he was not looking for luck in winning but was working
as a gambler, possibly as a Policy writer or runner for the numbers
racket. The root worker and his wife were located in Florida. The doctor
read palms and the couple seemingly performed an act of prestidigitation
with a live snake, after which the doctor made up a root bag for gambling
for $8.00; a rite of circumambulation and recital of the 23rd Psalm set it
working. Later, due to the police giving him trouble over his bootlegging
and gambling activities, the man sought out the same worker again and, for
another $8.00 was given a "law keep away" type hand, a jomo or "jomoo."
Said the informant, "During de time dey [the police] supposed to travel dat
beat, jes' roll mah jomoo an' dey'd pass on by ... ah tried it an' it worked."
(entry 249, cylinder 1874:9)
#1150 -
#1151 - [-] Hyatt named this professional root doctor "Dr. Heard" because he repeatedly said,
"I heard," when describing spells. He himself used the terms Wise Man, Wise Woman, and
Wise-Head Woman to refer to conjure workers.
Vol 3, pages 1949 - 1967 (cylinders 1876-1888)
#1152 - [-]
(entry 1086, cylinder 1937:10)
#1153
#1154 - [-]
Burn black chicken feathers to drive away evil spirits.
(entry 1175, cylinder 1892:4)
A new shingle will keep a witch or evil spirit away.
(entry 10466, cylinder 1892:9)
#1157 - [-]
Tie 7 or 9 or any odd number of knots to cause a man to be impotent with other woman.
(entry 10245, cylinder 1928:4)
Mistletoe dressed with Hearts [Hoyt's] Cologne protects against enemies.
(entry 1387, cylinder 1928:7)
March 6 - March 7, 1939
In the middle of the next root doctor's lengthy interview, Hyatt noted the date;
however, he spoke the informant's number wrong; it was #1158, "Dr. Yousee" -- not
#1156. Hyatt said:
(My cylinders ran out.) [This comment at end of cylinder.]
[He continues next day.]
(Testing the stylus, Waycross, Georgia, Tuesday, March 7, 1939.)
(Last night I sent No.1156 home before he had finished, because I had run
out of material [cylinders], and told him to come back this morning. Edward
Bufford Jr.] tells me that he is waiting outside and we shall begin with
the story about burying the egg - probably will have him tell it over again.
That means a continuation of No. 1156.)
#1158 - [-] "Dr. Yousee"
A professional male root doctor; Hyatt referred to him as "Dr Yousee"
because he often interjected "you see" into his speech. Hyatt believed him
to have been a preacher, because he quoted scripture often. He worked with
the spirits of O. L. Young and L. L. Young (probably graveyard spirits). He
worked extensively with plants, and he also told Hyatt that he ordered
spiritual supplies from the Keystone Company. He is given a full interview
in Vol. 2 1171 - 1220 that runs from C320:3-C346:1 = 1091-1927 and some
of his spells were broken out and used in other portions of HCWR.
Two of these latter entries utilize living plants.
To draw man back, you take a photo lay it across a glass of water and place a mirror on top
of the picture with its reflecting side down.
(entry 8420, cylinder 1929:1)
To run an enemy off, put a green leaf in a bottle, then go where he is and
call his name; when he answers, stop up the bottle, carry it to running
water and throw it in; the green leaf is "to hold his voice."
(entry 10414, cylinder 1929:2)
Get roots from three sides of a fig tree, east, south, and north [not from
the west as that would "carry you down"] and carry it in your pocketbook
for luck and protection; some will say to add Hearts [Hoyt's] Cologne, but
that is not necessary; the fig roots are enough.
(entry 1247, cylinder 1929:4)
#1159 - [-]
Tie a knot in the bed rags after he get through with them; he can't run out
after no other woman.
(entry 10239, cylinder 1934:3)
Kill a bat, cut the heart out and dry it, then sew it into pure red silk
cloth and keep it in your pocket for gambling luck; this is a variant of a
German spell printed in "Pow-Wows or the Long Lost
Friend" by John George Hohman;
see also informant #1134
(entry 10584, cylinder 1934:2)
#1160 -
#1161 - [-]
Devil's shoe string and Hoyt's Cologne in gambling mojo.
(entry 1829, cylinder 1936:8)
#1162 - [-]
Mix black hen feathers with sulphur and bury under doorstep for protection
and to run off trouble and harm.
entry 1180, cylinder 1938:3)
#1163 - [-]
To cure a person who is poisoned and hopping like a frog, capture a young buzzard from a
nest and keep it in a secret place, feed it, and collect both its excrement and its vomit;
combine these in a cloth sack affixed to a belt for the patient to wear; as the material
hardens, the poison will go into it and he will be cured.
(entry 1154, cylinder 1941:3)
#1164 (my approximation)
March 8, 1939
#1165 - [-], "the Patient Doctor", a man with a wooden leg who came 9 miles from
the country to see Hyatt and waited from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., thus his
nickname, because he was so patient. He stood up and acted out or demonstrated
much of his work, and his acting ability "impressed" Hyatt greatly.
To control, draw for love, or to harm, use human hair, handkerchief, hair
from horse's tail, "Hearthorn cahlum" [Hoyt's Cologne], name paper,
gold-eye needle, blood from root worker's thumb, buried at crossroad where
victim walks;
To control woman's nature use handkerchief, spit, sexual fluid, Mercury
dime, wrapped, buried or hidden in floor crack.
To end relationship with a woman, get lizard root (long black root that
grows straight down and looks like a lizard), wrap unwashed menstrual piece
or soiled underwear around it and tie with cotton string, tying away, and
abusing her name as you wrap, bury flat in dirt where she will step over.
To stop a woman from running around and keep peace in the home, use scorpion
root and her hair tied with nine knots in silk thread.
To control a woman and keep her at home, stick two new gold-eye needles
into her incoming foot track, eye up so they cross like and X, then
surround the track with nine new straight pins driven straight down to move
someone, stick nine goldeye needles in the dirt point up where the enemy
will walk over.
Recurrent New Moon trick in well water to cause stomache pain, loss of
appetite, and vomiting.
Described Volume One, page 969;
Interview Volume Two, pages 970 - 992,
cylinders C362:1 - C375:2a = 1943:1 - 1956.
#1166 - [-] A literate female midwife who read books on occultism, as evidenced by
both spells and speech.
Kill a bat, cut the heart out, tie it up in silk cloth, and tie a silk
string to it; bind it to your left wrist for gambling luck; this is a
variant of a German spell printed in "Pow-Wows or the Long Lost Friend" by John George Hohman;
see also informant #1134 of Waycross, Ga., for similar reference to Hohman's book.
(entry 10589, cylinder 1959:1)
Using a needle, pin, or nail, scratch the Psalm containing the Hebrew letter
Vau (vav) in a brand new tin pan and keep it hidden to control someone.
Hyatt was unclear, but this is an adaptation of a Jewish spell from The Secrets of the Psalms by Godfrey Selig
This book was sold by Jewish mail order houses to African American conjure
workers from about 1910 onward.
(entry 9783, cylinder 1959:8)
If a woman can't pass her afterbirth, set her over [not in] a pan
containing hot water and chicken feathers; similar to treating a prolapsed
uterus with dog feces as given by informant 1135, who was also living in
Waycross, Ga.
(entry 1179, cylinder 1960:7)
To restore nature, mop floors with dilute bluestone water, bathe in sweet milk.
(entry 3701, cylinder 1961:7)
To cure disease and take off witchcraft, catch a frog and have the sick
person spit three times and blow three times into the frog's mouth, then
throw the frog over the left shoulder and say the 23rd Psalm; don't let the
frog return toward the person; similar to asthma cure by informant 1073,
who was also living in Waycross, Ga.
(entry 1283, cylinder 1961:13)
#1167 - [-]
Take the heart from a live bat and sew it in new Sea Island [cotton] cloth,
making each stitch toward yourself; carry for luck; this is a variant of a
German spell printed in "Pow-Wows or the Long Lost Friend"
by John George Hohman; see also informant #1134, another resident of
Waycross, Ga.
(entry 10582, cylinder 1964:2)
#1125 - [-] "The Laughing Doctor" part two (see above); her
second session sandwiched in between informants #1167 and #1168
(cylinders C384:1 - C392:5 = 1965 - 1973)
#1168 - [-]
Run a person crazy by threading their hair in a catfish's gill and turning the catfish
loose in the water.
(entry 5872, cylinder 1974:1)
Another way to run a person crazy: make an upward slice in a green growing oak tree, insert
person's hair; when tree grows over and heals itself, person goes crazy and the spell can't
be undone because the hair is sealed in the tree.
(entry 6241, cylinder 1974:3)
March 9 or 10 (my approximation)
#1169 - 1173 unaccounted for; probably Waycross, GA
Brunswick, GA
March 11, 1939 (Saturday)
#1174 - [-]
Take a woman's discharge, spread it on a padlock, then close the lock to keep the woman
from cheating.
(entry 1766, cylinder 1984:5)
#1175 - #1182
March 13, 1939 (Monday)
#1183 - [-],
(entry 916)
#1184 - #1185
#1186 - [-]
To win at poker or other games, go at midnight to the grave of a woman or a man who was a
gambler, open a small hole, take out a pinch of dirt, and pay the spirit in advance by
filling the hole with coins, then closing it back up. Wrap the dirt up in a small piece
of cloth and place it where you keep your money when you go to play.
(entry 7766, cylinder 2000:6)
#1187 - #1188
#1189 - [-]
Clean, dry, and grind up the gizzards of chicken and they can be used to heal a poison.
(entry 1183, cylinder 2009:5)
#1191 -
#1192 - [-]
(entry 9463, cylinder 1948:16) [THIS IS A TYPO. Cylinder 1948 goes with "The Patient Doctor"
in Waycross, Georgia, whose interview was not broken up, but was given whole in Vol. II.
If this is actually informant #1192 in Brunswick, Georgia, which i believe it is, the
cylinder number would be circa 2010 - 2012.]
#1193 - #1197
#1198 - [-]
Luck hand: Go to a willow tree before dawn and take a piece of the root from the east side
of the tree. Put it in a red flannel bag, feed it with Hoyt's cologne, and name it after the
person for whom it was made. It should always be carried by the person for goodluck.
(entry 2384, cylinder 2015:9)
#1199 - #1204
March 14, 1939 (Tuesday)
Hyatt found "the hotel more conducive" for interviewing; see Volume One, page XXXVI.
#1205 - [-]
#1206 - [-] Male informant, professional root doctor, well spoken and an organized thinker.
Told how to collect graveyard dirt from various spirits.
(entry 1308, cylinder 2033:5)
Mentioned having read books on occultism.
(entry xxx, cylinder 2034:2)
[Many examples have been given of payment to the dead for their graveyard dirt. Here, a
doctor, a man, offers a rare healing principle about roots:]
The dime - some people uses a dime and wears it around their leg, so if they walk over
anything it'll turn black and it'll take it {the curse}.
And then, take a person, they take a dime - same as if - like, if they in the woods digging
a root. Well, you supposed to pay off for that root; if you don't pay off for it, it ain't
going do you no good. When you digging John de Conker or de Chew Root - see, it's a root
that grows in the woods they call the Chew Root {Little John to Chew; Little John the
Conqueror}. Well, you can take that and you can chew and go before court. Why, anywhere you
want to borrow anything, why just go ahead and chew it and spit it around there and they'll
take sides with you. But when you digging these roots and things you should pay off in silver.
(Why is that?)
Well, that's the sacrifice.
(entry 1083, cylinder 2039:3)
#1207 -
#1207a - [-] (I have no idea why there is an "a" informant here; perhaps a numbering error.
"It's a commonest thing, a piece of root you call Rattlesnake Master. Well, you can get hold
of a piece of Rattlesnake Master and you could cut it up, a piece of it, and put it into a
bottle, see. You pour a bottle of cologne on it, see, and you stop it up and you set it one
side in your corner. After nine days you can take that stuff, you take it if you're going out
'round anywheres. You just -- every time you go out, well, you just pour some of that in your
hand and you take it and rub it all over your face. And then you take another piece of
Rattlesnake Master and sew it into a bag. Take string then, and let it tie 'round your waist
and wear that, see. And that keeps down all evil. That's protection -- that's your protection."
(entry 1438, cylinder 2041:10)
#1208
#1209 -
#1210
#1211 - [-]
#1213 - [-] "Tomb of de Babe of Bethlehem" (elderly ex-clergyman)
An elderly ex-clergyman, born in Goldsboro, NC, but iving in Brunswick, GA.
Hyatt called this interview "Tomb of de Babe of Bethlehem" after one
of the religious spells he related. (The name refers to a Mud Dauber nest.)
Hyatt called him "long-winded" and "sincere" -- and he accidentally re-recorded
over his cylinders, losing a portion of the interview. The ex-clergyman did not
do any sort of evil work, but described it when Hyatt requested:
To make people move, that's jomoo work. That's the jomoo work[er] that does
that. He does that with snake charms. The snake charms are made by workers
who go to the woods, kill snakes, take three drops of their blood and some
of their bones, parch the mixture to dust and sprinkle it under the
doorstep or inside the rooms to force people to move out. If a man has a
wife and another fellow wants her and he goes to a jomoo man, that will
result in a court case, due to the actions of "evil jomoo man" and his
"poison dust." In the old days this was called cunjure or cunjering.
There is a great deal more in this interview.
Interview Volume Two, pages 1325 - 1335,
cylinders C469:3 - C478:5 = 2050 - 2059.
#1214 - [-]
Gave three egg spells: (1) Black Hen's Egg thrown on porch to make a person move,
(2) any kind of freshly-laid egg with a person's name written on it, carried to
the woods and buried, don't look back, and come home to run them out of town,
(3) any kind of egg is soaked in blueing overnight and hidden under a bad neighbor's
house, and they will tire of living there ("be tire-nated") and will move away.
(entry 9191, cylinder 2010.1)
#1215 - #1223
#1224 - [-]
Told a graveyard dirt spell to move people out.
(entry 7897, cylinder 2030:3) (cylinder # out of order)
#1225 - #1229
Savannah, GA ???
March 18, 1939
#1230 - [-]
(cylinder C506 = 2087)
In the introduction, Hyatt labelled this as the first cylinder in Savannah, but there are
problems with the ordering of cylinders at #1224 (above), 1249, and #1236 (below). The
latter two are identified as interviewed in Brunswick, not Savannah. This section requires
more checking. Hyatt may have misremembered.
Brunswick, GA
March 19, 1939
#1231 - #1235
#1236 - [-] Male informant, a professional root doctor who swore Hyatt to secrecy regarding
tricks and methods. He read the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, he had lived in New
Orleans previously, and he had been tricked into staying with and marrying his late wife,
who was the sister of a man named Johnny Pierce.
Two-part spell with three playing cards (Ace of Spades, King of Spades, Jack of Spades),
wrapped in cotton batting and sewn into a pillow, plus a bottle spell containing a man's
urine, hairs, finger and toe nails, name paper drawn in a heart, pins, and needles. When
she wants to control the man she shakes the bottle; if she wants to be rid of him, she
empties it out at a running fire hydrant. His own late wife had captured him like this.
(Vol.2, pp.1126-1127 - Interview is said to have taken place in Brunswick, not Savannah.
-- cylinders C509:7 - C519:1 = 2090:7 - 2100:1)
#1237 - #1240
March 20, 1939
#???? - [-]
(cylinder C519=2100)
#1239 - [-] Probably a woman
If you hide your soiled menstrual pad under the matress, then lightly throw your nightgown
over your man's face while he is asleep, you can go out and stay all night long and he will
not wake up until you come home in the morning.
Interview is said to have taken place in Savannah.
(entry 7173, cylinder 2109 : 3)
#1240 - [-] probably a man, and likely a fisherman
"The Catfish head -- the rock out the head, you know. I always see these women in these loose
houses get them and put them in their pocketbooks -- says it draws the men and keeps luck to
them. I've caught Catfish for them for that business."
(entry 1858, cylinder 2111:7)
{not yet entered here -- my mitake -- cat}
(entry 9454. cylinder 2119:2)
#1241
#1242 - [-]
If a person turns your photo upside down, it puts you in a state of unease.
(entry 2202, cylinder 2112:1)
#1249 - [-] [probably a man, due to subject matter and way it is described]
Wrap from one to three right-side wings of a bat in a packet and moisten with
Hoyt's Cologne for gambling luck; variant of German spell from Pow Wows.
Interview is said to have taken place in Brunswick, not Savannah.
(entry 1717, cylinder 2123:7)
#1250 - #1251
Savannah, GA (second trip)
March 21, 1939
#1252 - [-]
(cylinder C543=2124)
#1253 - #1255
#1256 - [-] Probably a woman.
Put nine drops of mentrual fluid in whiskey and save it; when your sweetheart
comes to visit, serve him some of the doctored whisky to cause him to love you.
(entry 2570, cylinder 2131:2)
#1257 - [-] "A Woman of Substance," a 250 lb. female root doctor.
She was also the contct man Edward Bufford's landlady in Savannah, GA.
Interview Volume Two, pages 1268 - 1276,
(cylinders C550:3 - C555:1 = 2131 - 2136)
#1258
#1259 - [-], cylinder [C558:1 = 2139]
#1260 - [-]
To get a job: Carry salt in bag and sprinkle loose salt in tracks of bossman.
(entry 1260, cylinder 2140:4]
#1261 - [-]
Goofer dust is brick powder, pepper, and salt.
(entry 677, cylinder 2144:5)
#1262 - #1263
#1264 - [-]
Graveyard dirt spell for the coercive return of a lost lover.
(entry 7819, cylinder 2145:11)
#1265
#1266 - [-]
Wipe black hen egg with wet new cloth, ball cloth up, sew inside man's pillow, he can't go
with another woman
(entry 10235, cylinder 2146:9)
#1267 - #1270
#1271 - [-]
Take a photo of someone you're interested in and place it in a pan of water. If the picture
floats you have chance with the person, if sinks you don't waste your time.
(entry 8437, 2151:3)
#1273 -
#1274 - Pauline [-] "Madam Pauline" a well-known and respected professional root worker.
According to Hyatt, she was a "country-born woman" from the coastal region of Georgia,
and "before the Depression" (that is, before 1932 or so), she had been primarily "a
reader and seer, with white trade." She gave Hyatt many spells, including one that uses
a playing card as a personal concern:
In order to keep down a man's gambling luck, you take a playing card -- the Deuce, 10,
Jack, or King -- from a deck he has touched, roll it into a tube, tie it with No, 8 pearl
cotton, and force it down into the hole of a Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus). The
tortoise will push it down further into the hole and as long as the card remains down there,
the man's luck will stay down.
C575:1 - C586:10 = 2156 - 2167.
The complete interview: Volume Two, on pages 1536 - 1556.
#1275 -
#1276 - [probably a woman, based on the spell and the way she described it]
If a woman is holding your man but he still comes home at night, you can break them up by
putting three flax seeds into the toe end of a brand new pair of man's stockings or socks.
Put the pair of socks somewhere for him to put on. Let him wear them only one day. When he
pulls them off that night, you get the fixed sock, turn it wrongside outwards and let it
remain that way under the bed. The flax seed counters the witchcraft of the other woman.
(entry 11652, cylinder 2170:6)
"Start this right with a dime. You can do this with any coin from a dime to a dollar.
[Silver money; neither a nickel nor a penny]. To do the work, you get a half pint of the
very best gin liquor that you can buy. Take a sewing thimble and you pour a sewing thimble
full of Hoyt's Cologne into that half pint of gin liquor, and that amount of money, from a
dime on up to a dollar, you let it soak there over night in that half pint of gin liquor.
And you put that into your right pocket and you go before the boss [for your interview] the
next morning. The real fact about it, sir, you may have to make three trips. You may make
three trips before he makes any oath [or promise], before he gives you the job." {As I
understand this, if the first interview goes well, you can increase the denomination of
the coin that is soaked overnight, for each successive interview until you are hired.}
(entry 2131, cylinder 2171:5)
#1277 - #1281
#???? - Edward Bufford, Jr.; "conversation";
(cylinder C594:1 = 2175:1)
New York City, NY
Hyatt briefly returned to his home in New York City, NY.
Florence, SC
Interviews were conducted at the home of a man whom Hyatt recollected as Henry Tillins or Timmins,
aka H. L. Timmons. (The confusion was Hyatt's, not his host's!) He said that he also Informant
#1291 -- but he also assigned that informant number to another man, and mentioned that this man
was being interviewed in the home of H.L. Timmons. I have chosen to place the information on
Mr. Timmons here and assign the informant number 1291 to the other man until further information
turns up, if it does.
Henry L. Timmons, at whose home the interviews were being conducted.
cylinder [C639=2220]
Henry Timmons in the 1920 United States Federal Census - Boarding at East Cheeves Street
NAME: Henry Timmons
AGE: 30
BIRTH YEAR: abt 1890
BIRTHPLACE: South Carolina
HOME IN 1920: Florence, Florence, South Carolina
STREET: East Cheeves St
RACE: Black
GENDER: Male
RELATION TO HEAD OF HOUSE: Boarder
MARITAL STATUS: Married
FATHER'S BIRTHPLACE: South Carolina
MOTHER'S BIRTHPLACE: South Carolina
ABLE TO SPEAK ENGLISH: Yes
OCCUPATION: Laborer
INDUSTRY: Ry Company (Railroad Company)
EMPLOYMENT FIELD: Wage or Salary
ABLE TO READ: No
ABLE TO WRITE: No
HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS:
NAME AGE
Joseph Jackson 49 (Laborer on Railroad; probably the Seaboard Line)
Movelia Jackson 30
Sonie Jackson 11
Anna Jackson 7
Oscar Jackson 4 [4 3/12]
Margerite Jackson 12
Annie Timmons 23 (Wife, not employed)
Henry Timmons 30 (Laborer on the Raiilroad; probably the Seaboard Line)
Major Timmons 23 (Brother of Henry; Fireman on the Railroad; probably the Seaboard Line)
Alsase Timmons 22 (Brother of Henry; Fireman on the Railroad; probably the Seaboard Line)
Henry L Timmons in the 1930 United States Federal Census - 1108 Cox Street, Florence, SC
Name: Henry L Timmons
Birth Year: abt 1891
Gender: Male
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: South Carolina
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Head
Home in 1930: Florence, Florence, South Carolina
Map of Home: View Map
Street address: Cox Street
Ward of City: Part of Ward 2
House Number in Cities or Towns: 1108
Dwelling Number: 196
Family Number: 232
Home Owned or Rented: Owned
Home Value: 1800
Radio Set: Yes
Lives on Farm: No
Age at First Marriage: 22
Able to Read and Write: Yes
Father's Birthplace: South Carolina
Mother's Birthplace: South Carolina
Able to Speak English: Yes
Occupation: Chauffeur
Industry: Taxi
Class of Worker: Working on own account
Employment: Yes
Household Members:
Name Age
Henry L Timmons 39
Annie Timmons 35
James Timmons 15 [13]
James Monson 7
Henry L Timmons in the 1940 United States Federal Census - 1108 Cox Street, Florence, SC
Name: Henry Timmons
Age: 50
Estimated birth year: abt 1890
Gender: Male
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: South Carolina
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Head
Home in 1940: Florence, Florence, South Carolina
Map of Home in 1940: View Map
Street: Cox Street
House Number: 1108
Farm: No
Inferred Residence in 1935: Florence, Florence, South Carolina
Residence in 1935: Same Place
Number of Household in Order of Visitation: 139
Occupation: Taxi Driver
House Owned or Rented: Owned
Value of Home or Monthly Rental if Rented: 500
Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 3rd grade
Hours Worked Week Prior to Census: 70
Class of Worker: Working on own account
Weeks Worked in 1939: 52
Income: 0
Income Other Sources: Yes
Household Members:
Name Age
Henry Timmons 50
Anna Timmons 40 [note she now claims to be born 5 years later than she claimed in 1930)
Mary Pass 30
Henry Timmons in the U.S., Social Security Death Index
NAME: Henry Timmons
SSN: 247-84-6171
LAST RESIDENCE: 29501 Florence, Florence, South Carolina, USA
BORN: 12 Sep 1889
DIED: Nov 1966
STATE (YEAR) SSN ISSUED: South Carolina (1964)
March 31, 1939 (Friday)
#1282 - [-],
cylinder [C599=2194]
#1283 - (see #1293)
#1284 - #1285
#1286 [-]
Cure snake dust poisoning through the feet with graveyard dirt
(entry 1322, cylinder 2185:8)
#1287 - #1290
April 1, 1939 (still in the home of Henry L. Timmons, the chauffer and taxi driver)
#1291 - [-]
To win at shooting dice, yay money at the head of the grave and tote it with your dice.
(entry 7765, cylinder 2189:2)
#1292 - [-]
Get away spell: Curse and sweep away foot tracks,
(entry 5778, cylinder 2191:10)
#1293 - [-]
Mojo bag for luck: 3 Devil's shoe strings, 9 shell shots, 1 lodestone in a bag for luck,
dressed with perfume.
(entry 1830, cylinder 2194:7)
#1294 - [-]
How to use graveyard dirt to make someone sleep.
(entry 7167, cylinder 2195:3)
#1295 - [-]
How to collect graveyard dirt
(entry 1309, cylinder 2196:5)
Now this salt and brimstone and graveyard dirt is used for many things. See, that salt and
brimstone. Take table salt and sulphur -- brimstone -- and burn it together, see, burn it
together. Then make a sack of those three things: salt and brimstone and graveyard dirt.
See, that is called a bodyguard, body protection -- make a sack of that. And every nine days
saturate that good and well with camphorated oil.) That will keep -- not sin -- but will
keep the evil spirits off you, using a little graveyard dust in that. They can't harm you.
(entry 1485, cylinder 2196:4.]
#1296 - #1304
#1303 - [-] Probably a man
To tie a woman's nature, measure the length of the first joint of her dog finger
(left index finger) and cut nine pieces of straw out of your broom to that exact
length, Then obtain her left glove, and cut the dog finger of the glove off. Stuff
the nine straws into the glove-finger and add nine sewing pins. Tie the bottom end
of the glove-finger closed, wear it in your pocket, and she will not go with another.
(entry 2099, cylinder 2202:6)
#1305 -
#1306 - [-] Probably a man
Wearing seven pennies round your neck; that's good luck to bring folks money.
You can take and bore a hole -- drill a hole in them.
(entry 2121, cylinder 2209:10)
Identified goofer dust as "graveyard clay"
(entry 661, cylinder 2211:1)
To heal rheumatism take the bark of red oak from the south side, boil it, and drink the tea.
(entry 1442, cylinder 2211:6)
#1307 - #1311
#1312 - [-} "A Doctor at Ease" -- he was quite comfortable telling Hyatt his tricks and
assumed that Hyatt was interested in learning. He gave hundreds of tricks in rapid
succession ("Now you listen good, now") and often used the formula "By the help of the
Lord" in his petitions. At the end of his interview he mentioned a local white conjure
named Doctor Harris and he also told Hyatt that "all" the Doctor Buzzards were now dead.
Hyatt pronounced him "pretty good" as an informant. He gave information on the use of Moon
signs and Moon phases.
Vol. 2 pg. 1024 (cylinders C644:2-C655:2 = 2225-2236)
#???? - [-], funeral (end of "Doctor at Ease" or unnumbered person?)
(cylinder C655 = 2236)
April 6, 1939 (Wednesday)
#1313 - [-], the funeral is over,
(cylinder C655 = 2236)
Discussion of the numbers racket or Policy, a local name for
which was "the Cotton Exchange," see Volume One, page XXXVII.
(cylinder C708 = 2289) [must put on the web!]
#1314 - [-] A former bootlegger
#1315 - #1317
#1318 - [-]
If you have it in for a person you go to a tree and into the east side of the tree you
drive a nail with three blows and every time you drive the nail in you call the person's
name. In nine day's time the person will die.
(entry 8665, cylinder 2263:3)
#1320 -
#1321 - [-]
Graveyard dirt, dirt dauber wasp nest, cooking salt, and sulphur in a blown-out egg under
house for protection.
(entry 1218, cylinder 2265:7)
#1322 - #1325
#1326 - [-]
To cure a person who has been poisoned: Get a green or dried gourd, clean out the insides
and boil them. Take one tablespoon of this to clear out the poison. If the poison in the
foot or leg use the mixture as a salve.
(entry 1301, cylinder 935:2; cylinder is out of order.)
#1327 - 1333
#1334 - [-]
For restoral of health: He rubbed his wife with Black Cat Oil for 9 mornings and gave her
7 High John Tablets. He purchased them from "King Neverson" (King Novelty Company) of
Chicago. (High John Tablets were a commercial laxative; active ingredient: Impomoea jalapa.)
(entry 1121, cylinder 2302:4)
Sumter, SC
c. April- May, 1939
#1348 - [-] graveyard dirt for protection
(entry 1310, cylinder 2330:8)
#1349 - #1356
Florence, SC
c. April- May, 1939
#??? -[-] The informant's number was lost. The only clue left is the location (Florence, SC)
and the cylinder number (2342). Many of the cylinder numbers -- or the informant numbers --
in this section are incorrect or out of order.
I have placed the informant in the Florence, SC section.
To bring costumers to your business sprinkle sulphur and sugar in your shoes every Thursday
and sing
Jesus invites you here,
Angel is lingering near,
Prayers come from hearts so dear
O, won't you come?
Almost persuaded - come - come today.
Almost persuaded, turn not away.
(entry 1032, cylinder 2342)
This is a variation of verse 2 of the popular old Baptist altar call "Almost Persuaded,"
by Philip P. Bliss, published in 1871:
"Almost persuaded," come, come today;
"Almost persuaded," turn not away;
Jesus invites you here,
Angels are ling'ring near,
Prayers rise from hearts so dear;
O wand'rer, come!
Sumter, SC
c. April- May, 1939
#1357 - [-] 65 year old man, rootworker, former medicine show performer.
Among many other things, he told how to create live things in a victim with fried tadpoles
in whiskey and also related how he had seen "the old original Dr. Buzzard" (a "big, fat
black man") remove frogs from the legs of a Sumter resident named Peter Blake. He is a
coherent and well-spoken informant. About him Hyatt wrote "[Informant 1357, like ZORRO
later in INTERVIEWS, was a former member of a two-man medicine show. The old-fashioned
medicine show, now for years illegal, was a travelling person or persons, colored or
white, giving a free entertainment to promote the sale of a cure-all. These performers --
depending on speed, surprise and suggestion -- never stayed, could not stay long anywhere.
No wonder informant advises me not to take too long tuh find de black cat, but tuh ketch
any cat and paint it black -- his shoe-polish suggestion reminding me of OPERATION SHOE
POLISH in INTERVIEWS. How daring and effective an act can be at or near the beginning of
the show has already been described in 749, p.251. To start the show in this fashion was
the work of my informant, a magician. I must also include here a show during which
medicine was not sold, but private consultations were offered afterward -- see POWER FROM
BROTHER'S SKULL, p.283. That whiskey quotation I consider memorable. At least he explains
why whiskey has a way of disappearing from a bottle. His material is on cylinders
C795:1-C807 = 2376-2388.] (Vol. 2, page 1097, cylinders C795:1 - C807 = 2376 - 2388.)
I would only note that although the FDA sought to curtail medicine shows after passage of
the Pure Food and Drug Act 1906, such medicine shows were still ongoing for years
following; a number of 1920s - 30s Memphis musicians played in medicine shows when not
performing in town, and i am sure the same applied in South Carolina.
#1358 -
#1359 - [probably a woman by her language use and the type of spell]
(entry 8731, cylinder 2395:3)
#1360 - #1363
#1364 - [-]
To bust up a man and a woman, write their names on an egg, tell the egg hat to do, take it
to the forks of a roadand leave it there. When it busts, they will bust up too.
(entry 9243, cylinder 2408:10)
#1365 - #1366
#1367 - [-]
If a man is visiting your woman, you can write his name on a fresh-laid black Hen's egg,
bust it against the woman's door, and it will keep him from visiting her.
(entry 9215, cylinder 2420:4)
#1370
#1371 - [-]
To kill a man's courage take his urine and put in a bottle and place the bottle in a tree.
(entry 3318, cylinder 2429:6)
#1372 -
#1373 - [-] A professional female doctor whom Hyatt called "Cautious Healer."
She made her own medicines. Hyatt remarked that she was "nervous" and disturbed about
being interviewed, and that she knew "quite a lot of stuff but didn't want to tell it all
today." He also described her as "a huge fat woman, something like Humpadee up at
Richmond, Virginia. [Also the Laughing Doctor at Waycross, Georgia]."
She began wih a foot track death spell; then gave a fidelity-controlling spell, protection
spell; house protection, breaking up a friendship; return of estranged lover; undoing
hoodooed nature; job getting; crossroads ritual ("sellling yurself to the devil"); how
whirlwinds were created (a story she said she heard from a man while she herself was in
"Bronx Park, [Manhattan], New York"); using a parched frog to "dwindle" and kill someone;
how to get rid of live things and fits by burning patient's clothing (unusual live things
cure); told of living in Raleigh, North Carolina two years earlier (1937) and attending a
sick client in Wilmington, North Carolina; told of a person with a "scrimp" (shrimp) in
them as live thing (unusual); an African-retention rite of nailing 9 nails in a board,
urinating on it and letting the sun rise on it to draw a wandering family member or friend
home ("that's slow comin', but it'll come"); how to dream of the dead by means of a
handkerchief and urine; how to kill a man with his measure and nine knots; how to run a
man to the insane asylum by stuffing his hat in a stove pipe; killing people with
menstrual blood; making a man financially compliant with menstrual blood; using a
graveyard egg to kill so a man; how to cure alcoholism with Epsom Salts, Sage leaves, and
Spicewood (the latter purchased from New York, Washington, or Philadelphia); how to use
Snake sheds to make lightning and Rain Frogs to throw thunder; described "an Italian Fish"
(a Squid) seen in New York; and how a woman can make a man separate from herself by
feeding him her boiled underwear-water, thus killing his sexual interest in her, but
causing him to remain friendly.
Her material is on cylinders C850:1-C8854:8 = 2331-2335.] (Vol. 2, pages 1344 - 1351)
Note that these cylinder numbers are far out of order. They should logically fall around
Informant #1349.)
#1374 - #1380
#1381 - [-]
Spell to force a murderer to confess by twisting 16 knots in his shirt.
(entry 7395, cylinder 2453:6)
#1382 - #1384
#1385 [-] a man,
Armpit sweat in drink, made an enemy boy follow him for 40 years, taught to him by his
"Indian" mother.
#1386
#1387 - A middle-aged male professional root doctor; Hyatt called him "Courtroom Specialist."
Hyatt wrote: "[Perhaps I do this middle-aged man an injustice, limit his talents by calling
him a courtroom specialist, but my reason for the label -- he is one of the few doctors I
met or heard about who actually attended trials. The legendary Doctor Buzzard of Beaufort
[Bu'fert], South Carolina, never appeared before a judge; instead, he sent a dressed
animal to do the work -- so it is said. My informant claimed no such ability; he merely
dressed the animal and turned it loose in the courtroom - so he admitted. Our conversation
ends with his account of the amazing Doctor Buzzard -- read this, if nothing else. [For
Doctor Buzzard see p. 1414 and references there.]
This interview of informant 1387 fills cylinders C885:1-C902:4 = 2366-2383.]
{This very long Interview runs in Vol.2, pp.1423 - 1449 -- a full 18 cylinders or
27 jam-packed pages! The man spoke rapidly and knew hundreds of spells.}
To hurt someone: Put their hair in a bottle with 9 pins, 9 needles, their name name written
9 times, and Ammonia; bury in a grave 6" deep calling your desire.
To run a person crazy: Catch a Pike or other fish, stuff their hair in its mouth and turn
it loose in the water.
To send someone away crazy: their hair, dog hair, cat hair, horse tail hair folded together
and thrown into running water.
For desire; head hair, public hair, sugar, wrapped in chewing gum; or pull out public hair
and tie together with four 4" pieces of Devil's Shoe String; carry in pocket.
To keep them hanging around: Bury their picture under the steps head down (or tack to step).
Call absent person to you: Silver dollar in warm water, stand their picture upside down
(head down) and call them.
Drive people away: Take their photo, 9 matches, 9 pinches graveyard dirt, 9 pinches
Sulphur, their name, bundle and throw into running water.
Call what you want on a person: Pierce their photograph with 9 pins at North, West, and
South portions (not to East); bury 6" deep in a murdered an's grave and call your wish.
Draw person in 9 days: Dip their picture in your urine 9 times and call their name.
Kill within 9 days: Shoot shotgun shell loaded with a (silver) dime at picture of victim
stuck in forks of a Hickory tree at sunrise.
Court case win: On any egg except from a Black hen, write prosecutor's name 9 times, with
letter "J" on each name, break at crossroads at 3:00 am.
Win court case: Draw a cross in a crossroads, dig a 3" deep trench, bury prosecutor's name
in 3" of Salt, stamping on it.
Uncross client: Camphor, Cornmeal, Salt rub-down, discard at crossroads at midnight.
Attract someone: Burn your left shoe with Dragon's Blood and Sulphur at a crossroads.
Trouble a person: Write their name 9 times and the letter "J" on a black Hen's egg, place at
crossroad; when it gets broken, their troubles begin.
Protecion: salt and ashes from burned old clothes in shoes; with dime and stone from fish
head in each shoe.
Protection dressing for feet: Water from running stream over which 119th Psalm is said,
then mixed with Olive oil; anoint feet.
Water from a running stream can also be used to run an enemy crazy, like the running stream.
Jinx Killer Powder made from ashes from burning your old clothes mixed with Salt.
Cure live things with 14th chapter of the Book of Job recited in a graveyard, switching
head and foot boards of grave, and asking spirit for help.
To control someone, burn your fingernail or toenail clippings, reduce to powder, and feed
to victim.
Ruin someone with their fingernail and toenail clippings plus dirt from 3 graves; bury in
a wicked grave.
Use your foot-scrapings or under-fingernail dirt in their food to control them.
Hot foot with their fingernails and toenails, dirt they walked in, Black pepper, Salt,
Dog hair, Cat hair, thrown in running water at sunrise.
Hot foot with person's foot track, Dog manure, white Dog hair, Cat rump hair, graveyard
dirt, in a box with matches, (sulphur) thrown into running water.
Drive someone crazy with dirt from 7 graves, Dragon;s Blood,
Horse Hair, two kinds of Dog hair (Fox Terrier and German Shepherd), place on victim's
clothing or where they will step over it.
Use a long stick to sound a grave, ask spirit to help you, then leave stick for person to
pick up to drive them insane; control someone with similar stick or stone at the crossroads
by staying up all night and telling spirit what you want.
Controllong bottle spell: 9 needles, 9 nails, 9 other nails head-for-tail, add your urine;
call them by shaking bottle, control them by burying bottle in grave and calling on spirit
to do the work.
Attract someone with Poke root boiled and dressed with your urine and Hoyt's Cologne.
Tie their nature with a salted snail.
Several ways to tie a man's nature with cloth or towel.
Attact and/or tie man's nature with dishcloth; you can then place it in his left elbow-pit
and rub it and you can mock his impotence.
Untie nature with stolen dishcloth.
Untie nature by each day for 9 days cooking a red onion, salt, pepper, lard, and an egg,
and rubbing up to the navel [from the genitals]; then steal a red onion and carry for luck
until it wears out.
Break a couple up with man's name on Black Hen's egg 9 times, woman's name over it 9 times,
letter "J" on each name, and circles on ends of egg.
Make them fight and quarrel with graveyard dirt and dog and cat hair thrown at their door.
Break them up with dog and cat hair and letter "J" on paper buried in graveyard.
Break them up with a shotgun blast packed with dog and cat hair and "bad" graveyard dirt.
Keep husband asleep by hanging your underpants over his head.
Keep husband asleep by putting his left shoe in a basin of water under the bed.
Keep husband asleep by standing his shoes upside down.
Keep husband away while lover is in the house by standing lover's shoes upright against
the door.
Stick two people together like dogs [to catch them in flagrante delicto] by use of dried
dog's liver.
Separate people who are stuck like dogs (from hoodoo) by throwing water on them or by
touching their left feet with a needle.
Tie a man's nature with left-shoe dust or hat-band sweat and a snail.
Tie a man's nature with his hat-bow and body-measure.
Rising-and-falling tidal water for alternating calm and "raging" insanity utilizes a hat
bow, fragment of grave headboard, and devil's shoe string, pegged into the river bottom
and allowed to float up and down.
Cause blindness by poisonous insect, parched, powdered, put in hat band or on pillow; as they
pass by cut their initials in the windowsill and the mess gets in their eyes.
Cause blindness by Rattlesnake dust used likewise.
Cause blindness by dried and powdered Dog bitch milk usd as above.
Hair grower pomade made with Toad Frog grease scented with any perfume.
To return your luck at the New Year, bury a mirror under the eaves where rain will fall,
with a penny on each corner, plus John the Conqueror Root, Adam and Eve Root, and Dragon's
Blood Resin.
Bring back good luck with Salt and Sulphur in face-washing water for 9 days.
To make a person stay, take their socks or stockings, fill with 9 pins, 9 needles, 9 nails,
turn sole side up and hide it in the bed or in the house.
To make a person stay, wrap socks or stockings around 3 small files and bury the bundle
under the steps.
To make a person stay, wrap socks or stockings around 3 small files, draw a coffin in the
dirt in front of your door, then bury the sock and files within the coffin-drawing and have
them to walk over it.
To make a person come to you, put their sock in whiskey and salt; place this in the grave
of one known to you and ask the spirit to make them come to you.
Cause someone to lose their teeth by feeding them burned and powdered tooth of a dead
person in candy or food.
Sicken a woman to death with her menstrual cloth in a bottle with 9 pins, 9 needles, 9
nails, calling her name as you add each item; add her name written 9 times on paper, fill
with water, bury 7" deep in a grave and tell the spirit what you want done.
Make a woman feeble and homebound by burying her menstrual cloth under the eaves where
rain will fall on it.
Make a woman go crazy with incurable abdominal pain by burying her menstrual cloth under
a horse trough in a stable or put it in a Sweet Gum tree in the woods (by boring a hole;
see next trick for instructions).
Drive someone crazy or to death in 9 days by boring a hole on the West side of a Sycamore,
Cypress, or Oak tree, putting in their personal concerns, adding graveyard dirt, and
tapping hole closed with a peg from the same tree for 9 days.
Use the diuretic plant called Stone Grass [unknown species; possibly the diuretic Couch
Grass / Dog Grass, here called Stone Grass because it helps one to pass kidney stones]
to lock up urination or bowels by placing some of it in a copper pipe with the victim's
urine and stopping it up.
Stone Grass [see immediately above] can also be used medicinally to cure stopped urine.
Court case: Cut an upward-pointing stick from near the top of a Willow tree, push it into
a grave down to the coffin 3 times, wipe off dirt with a silk handkerchief; go to court
with the stick as a walking cane and a handkerchief scented with perfume with any scent;
when they speak against you, wipe your face with the handkerchief and everyone will become
sleepy and unable to listen to opposing arguments; when you are about to speak, take the
stick outside the court house and they will wake back up and listen to you.
To win in court: Wear clothing inside out, carry Salt in right pocket, turn other pockets
inside out; or pray to Jesus, saying, "As Jesus went down to Jordan, i am going down to
court today," and ask for help, because God said, "This is my beloved son, I am well
pleased, hear ye him," so they will listen to you in court. Also carry Devil's Shoe
String and chew it.
To cause a house to be struck by lightning: Take a chip of wood from a lightning-struck
tree, plus chips from 3 different wooden grave headboards, and a steel file, and throw
them close to the house; this works best in Summer.
Put lightning struck wood behind a target and no one can hit it unless he has a piece of
lightning struck wood in his own pocket.
A thief can put house residents into magical sleep in order to rob them if he makes a
cross of lightning-struck wood and a stick from a wooden grave headboard, first
circumambulating the house, then entering.
Short account of hags riding and whipping sleeping people in the old "antique" days.
Call the spirts at a fork in the road (crossroads) at 3:00 am, and offer them salt in
whiskey, which they like, and they will help you; if you are scared of the crossroads,
you can do this at your own house.
Boil a thief's handwriting to force him to return stolen items.
Ejaculate on a person's handwriting, fold the paper toward you and hide it; they will
always give you a helping hand.
To make a person fail in everything, take a letter they wrote, burn off the four
corners, mix ash with burned black Horse tail hair, graveyard dirt, Dog hair and Cat hair.
To return a death spell to the sender after the victim dies, take the clothes the victim
wore at death, fold them tight and place them in the coffin before the corpse is buried;
likewise, to return a death spell after the victim has died, wash the corpse, save the
wash water, put into a bottle with 9 pins and 9 needles, cut a groove in the cork to allow
the water to slowly leak out; when it has finished leaking the murderer will die, even if
the police cannot find him; or put a brand new open knife in the victim's left hand before
burial to kill the murderer; another way is to get a 1 oz. bottle of Iodine, add 9
needles, 9 pins (laid head-to-tail), and 9 drops of Black hen's blood, bury the bottle
with the murder victim and the murderer will die. To make a murderer confess, turn the
victim on his face before burial; or take a needle that has been used to sew shrouds and
pass it through the dean personson;s clothes, calling the murderer to come back. To stop
dogs from tracking you, rub the soles of your feet with Turpentine, Cow manure, or
Ammonia. A murderer can elude capture by going to the grave of his victim, walking around
it 3 times, and swtiching the wooden headboard and footboard. Gambling luck: Toad Frog,
Dragon;s Blood, John the Conquer root, 3 pinches of dirt from the grave of a businessman,
whose spirit you talk to, collected in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
at 12 noon or 12 midnight, wrap in chamois cloth, sew all around, carry in left pocket;
this breaks others' tricks and brings luck. Gambling hand: Mercury (Quicksilver),
Lodestones, stone from the head of a Shad fish. Lodestones keep away evil; different
kinds: from Eagle's nest, from Raven's head, and the one from the Eagle's nest is finest
for gambling. Gambling hand: pay 30 pennies for dirt from a beggar's grave, head, chest,
and foot. But needles and wrap three of them with red thread into a cross shape, then sew
in chomois cloth; this charm can be sold for 50 cents each. Business drawing sprinkle:
Jasmine vine boiled, to which is added Cinnamon Oil; bottle it and sprinkle around
bulding; alternatively, Cinnamon Oil and Sweet Fennel Oil in a quart of water, stoppered.
Business drawing and anti-jinx sprinkle: Sulphur and Cinnamon in water; also burn Sulphur
to draw customers. Law keep away: Dragon's Blood, Flax Seed, camphor, Salt, manure from a
white Horse, graveyard dirt from the foot of a grave; sprinkle around premises. Story of a
bootlegger whose house and Dog were fixed; she was forced to move, and the Dog became a
roamer. To overcome prosecutor in a court case, bind to young Hickory bushes together,
call the accusor's name, and stamp down (do not cut down) the bushes, then throw a pinch
of Salt on them; throw Salt in the direction of the prosecutor before leaving home for
court, invoking Lot's wife, who was turned into a pillar of Salt because she looked back;
mix Dirt Dauber nest with Love powders, Salt, and Pepper, and sprinkle where the jurors
will walk, and when the janitors sweep up, they will throw this out and the case will be
thrown out because Dirt Daubers, once the young are grown, they leave the nest and never
return. To make a man stay, mix Dirt Dauber nest, Dragon's Blood, and Adam and Eve Root;
carry in a bag; dirt from an empty nest will cause him to favour you; dirt from a full
nest will cause him to love you (and have a family?). Ashes from burned female public hair
mixed with Love Powder, served in milk or soft drink holds a man. Goofer is greyard dirt
mixed with dust from a poisonous insect. Imerfectly related a job security or Boss Fix spell
with Devil's Shoe String, John the Conqueror Root, Eve and Adam Root, Saint John Root (St.
John's Wort), and John Peace root, which gows in the woods and looks like Garlic. Mix
those with perhume, use on your hands, talk to boss while also having Devil's Shoe String
piece in mouth, look him in the eye.
Plus about 50-60 more i don't have time for right now, and
concluding with tales of various people calling themselves
Dr. Buzzard, including that the first Doctor Buzzard was a white man:
He was ovah there. Ah know him from 1908.
[We talk while my machine was stopped, and then.]
(And he was the real Doctor Buzzard?)
De - he de real Doctor Buzzard.
(At Florence?)
Yessuh.
(I talked with one of the men that worked for Harrison.) [Harris.]
Yeah, he was de real Doctor Buzzard - in Florence, yo' know.
(He was a white man?)
[He had said this while machine stopped.]
A white man - a white man lived three mile outa Florence.
Have you talked with many white people who do this kind of work?
Round in this part of the country? Doing this sort of thing? Root
working and things of that sort?)
A good many, a good many. A good many won't tell it, yo' know.
(End of 1387.)
[For Doctor Buzzard, see also p.891, especially the amazing story in
No. 3069; and p. 1255, line 7.]
Vol.2, pp.1423 - 1449 (cylinders C885:1-C902:4 = 2366-2383) Note that cylinders are again
out of order -- and Hyatt mentions Florence, SC, not Sumter, SC.)
Fayetteville, NC
c. May - June 1939
#1391 - [-]
Goofering for love
(entry 659, cylinder 2496:8)
#1392 - 1394
#1395 - [-] a "root doctor"
Discussed goofer dust
(entry 657, cylinder 2506:12)
#1396 - [-]
Use the wing of a bullbat (whippoorwill) to bring confusion to a household (bullbats fly
erratically)
(entry 10600, cylinder 2514:3)
Goofer dust as snake heads
(entry 670, cylinder 2532:4) (this c. number seems wrong.
Bury cloth man wiped self with under eaves to keep him home.
(entry 10233, cylinder 2977:13) (this c. number seems wrong; either that or the informant #
is wrong or out of order)
#1397 - [-]
Graveyard dirt, red pepper powder, sulphur powder, and table salt in a packet in shoe
protects from jinxing.
(entry 9604, cylinder 2515:5)
#1398 -
"If you want to cause confusion in a neighbor's house, send over to your neighbor to borrow
some salt. After you get the salt, put some of your own Cayenne Pepper with it and sprinkle
it around their house and it will cause confusion there. There won't be any agreements at
all. They'll just be in an uproar all the time around there, because you borrowed their
table salt."
(entry 9545, cylinder 2518:1)
#1399
#1400 - [-]
#1401
#1402 - [-]
To kill a woman's nature: Tear the front out of dress and bury it.
(entry 10231, cylinder 2524:1)
#1403 - #1411
#1412 - [-]
A foot-track spell to keep the police away.
(entry 2224, cylinder 2539:5)
Gambling hand: bone of the the joint nearest to the hand of the middle finger of the
left hand, dried, ground to a powder, mixed with the ashes obtained by burning a Dove's
left leg. These added to a small Lodestone, and the whole topped off with powder made
by grinding silver to dust (probably from a silver coin, although that was not stated).
Could be used either as a dusting powder or carried to dominate over other gamblers.
(entry 8039, cylinder 2540:1)
#1413 - [-]
A story about a preacher who used goofer dust.
(entry 658, cylinder 2541:1)
To get a man to return: If he writes you a letter, cut the four corners off of the letter
to make a square diamond shape. Get some of your menstrual blood on a small square of red
flannel and place it in the middle of the corner-cut letter, then fold one of the newly-made
corners to the opposite corner, to make a triangle. Repeat this to make a smaller triangle,
and again repeat it to make a very small triangle. After it is folded, wear it in your
underear, in contact with your genitals.
(entry 8826, cylinder 2541:5)
#1414
#1415 - [-]
Crossroads stories, which Hyatt broke into two parts
(entry 340, cylinder 2528:3)
(entry 354, cylinder 2547:3)
#1416 - #1424
#1425 - [-]
Dime at ankle plus graveyard dirt, red pepper, and sulphur in your shoes protects from tricks.
(entry 1321, cylinder 2570:10)
#1426 - [-] (Probably a woman, based on the spells given)
To see the future husband: Place three unlighted matches in each of a pair of his shoes,
cross the shoes like a letter "t" and then sleep on them to divine through a dream if he
will marry you.
(entry 591, cylinder 2572;13)
Wipe man after sex with handkerchief 3 times upward, then place handkerchief on floor
overnight, pick it up in morning; do this nine nights (27 upward wipes), then hide
handkerchief; man cannot have other women, but she can have other men.
(entry 10238, cylinder 2459:1) (this c. number wrong or out of order)
#1427 -
#1428 [-]
Gambling Hand and Cologne: Dig from the grave of a woman her two smallest toe bones and her
two middle finger bones -- all the joints of each -- and slip these into a bottle of cologne.
The bottle with the bones may be carried in the purse as a gambling hand and the cologne
can be worn or used to scent a handkerchief while gambling.
(entry 8053, cylinder 2577:1)
#1429
#1430
#1431 - [-] 79 year old man (born c. 1860), known as a "See-er," born gifted; nicknamed "Dad"
due to his age. He referred to hoodoo as "witchcraft" or "'craft work" and described
hands-on methods to break up 'craft work.
Interview at Vol. 2, pg.1048, cylinder C1001:1-C1008:1 = 2482-2489.
(This c. number wrong or out of order.)
#1432 - #1437
#1438 - [-]
Gave a crossroads story
(entry 341, cylinder 2581:1)
#1439 -
#1450 - [-] Professional root doctor, a man
A jomo for gambling luck: At midnight take fresh (new) graveyard dirt from the breast of
the grave of a man who was not a Christian, but "a real gambler or some wicked man." Bring
it home, add nine drops of Apple cider vinegar and a pinch of sulphur. Wrap and tie it in a
piece of paper until it dries, then rub it to powder. This powder is used to fix up a
"joomoo" for a client by adding it to a piece of John the Conquer root, a piece of lodestone,
and a piece of Adam and Eve Root, sewn into a red flannel bag. This will work as a gambling
hand as long as for every $500.00 won, the user gives $5.00 to an indigent old person.
(entry 2040, cylinder 2633:1 -- here his informant number was given as lost ("???"), but it
has been reconstructed by cylinder number and the continuation of the jomo interview. )
The way you do that - you know that a person is real sick, but let it be a man. This is is
another thing for a joomoo, too. Well, yoy cuts that off -- like you have anybody real sick,
you go and cut off this one fingernail, just' one of them. (Of the sick person?) Yeah, that
you knows expecting to die. And you take that fingernail and you keep it until they bury
that person. And when they bury that person, you take that fingernail and just do 1ike this,
you know - just double it one time, just lik that and let the two points shut good. Just
have it 1ike that and keep that for twelve days before you're gonna use it. And' you take
that and hit good for most anything. When you keep it, get you a little bit of alcohol and
put it in there [in the small bottle of alcohol] and everytime you go to gambling, you just
take a little bit and poour it right between them two bones [demonstrates]. (Between these
two bones on the wrist; these two knobs that are on the wrist.) Just drop the least bit of
alcohol with that [finger] nail in it -- right between there, just drop it right on there
as you going out to gamble. That's good for luck in gambling.
(entry 1817, cylinder 2633:3)
#1451 - [-]
Make a ball of black cat hair, black dog hair, gunpowder, graveyard dirt, a Paper Wasp nest,
and Dirt Dauber nest mud. "Shoot" it toward them by putting it in a shovel and throwing it
toward their house at night to break them up.
#1452 - #1454
Wilson, NC
c. May - June 1939
#1455 - [-] A man who told how women capture men by feeding them menstrual blood in coffee or
mollasses bread.
(entry 3881, cylinder 2645:5.]
#1456 - 1466
#1467 - [-] put graveyard dirt on the wound where a person bit you and their teeth will rot out
(entry 1320, cylinder 2651:14)
#1468 - #472
#1473 - [-]
You can take the dirt up out of their foot track. You take that up and put it in a
cloth and then take Salt and Red Pepper and either Sampson Snake Root or Black Snake
Root. You take that up and put it all together, and then wrap that up, and bury that.
Put it in a bottle and stop it up right airtight, and bury that. That'll make you stay.
(entry 5640, cylinder 2653:12)
#1474 -
#1475 - [-]
#1476 - [-]
#1477 - [-]
#1478 - [-]
#1479 - [-]
#1480 - [-]
#1481 - [-]
#1482 - [-]
#1483 - #1495
#1496 - [-]
#1497 - [-]
(entry 877, cylinder 2665:13)
#1498
#1499 - [-]
waning moon spell: "Take de snail an' put it on a corn,
an' jes' rub it on de corn when de moon's a shrinkin', an' dat corn will leave dat foot."
(entry 1563, cylinder 2667:22.)
#1500 - #1502
#1503 - [-]
“You take your knife and [from your aching tooth] get a drop or two
of blood on that knife, and then you take it to the Black Gum (Tupelo)
tree. You take that bloody knife and chip that tree, and stick that knife
in there and then put the chip back over it and leave it there. That cure
your toothache."
#1504 -#1505
#1506 - [-] "... take your old shoes and burn 'em so no one can jomo
work you. You always have good luck at your home."
(entry 1505, cylinder 2673:9)
#1507 - [-]
[I have already given some hands called Jack, divining hands (pp.190- 193 and Index) , but
in the following example Jack does not divine, he does something else:] I have heard in
times past that a fellow gambling - 'course he would take his money and he would take it
and put it with sulphur and red pepper, alum, and table salt, and wear it next to him, see,
for so many days before he start to gambling, nine days. And theb when he goes in and
gambles, why he would be lucky. And then, if he would happen to have a little bad luck, he
would take and put a little Hoyt's Cologne on it. And of course he would name it Jack. He
would name that hand Jack - that would be a hand. He would name it Jack. And if he would
begin to fall [to lose] he would take it off and say, "Jack, Jack," three times, and he
would go back again and he start again. But he supposed to keep it loaded with this here
cologne, on his body.
(entry 2020 cylinder 2673:22)
recipe for goofer dust
(entry 671, cylinder 2675:6)
#1508 - #1512
#1513 - [-]
graveyard dirt from over the heart of a sinner's grave, red pepper,
sulphur, salt; sew into red flannel, lay it away in the east corner
of the yard -- that will drive someone away. To cure the condition,
the victim would make a tea of the same ingredients and drink it.
The same mixture thrown into a well kill live things that were put
there by a root doctor to harm anyone drinking from the well.
(entry 705, cylinder 2679:13)
Memphis, TN (second trip)
Interviews were conducted at the home of Mrs. [-] Jones. Hyatt's driver
and contact man, Edward Bufford, Jr., stayed at her house too.
October 24, 1939
#1516 - Madam Wiley - first recording in this location began with this informant #.
Ah been doin' it evah since ah wuz a baby .... it jes' comes to me
Ah kin jes' lay down an' jes' anything yo' start wit me, git ready to do it - ah'll see it
An' whut ah tell yo' ah work .... ah work ....
Yo' kin go all up an' down de street an' jes' ask anybody
an' dey tell yo' dat's de way ah make mah livin'
One half de wimmin comin' in heah right now
yo' goin' see dey goin' have somepin belongin' to a man
Mah trade is white - ask eve'body yo' see
["Memphis, Tenn., Oct., Wed. 24, 1939 - [No. 1516 - Madam Wiley - good" -
Numbers Book 1516 - 1557. Madam Wiley was the first person I interviewed on my
return to Memphis. Her title quotation about "one half de wimmin comin' in heah"
agrees with the title quotation of the Florence doctor who was "bawn blind", "De
whole hist'ry of de witchcraft business is woman trouble" - page 1526 The
material fills cylinders D1:1-D5:14 = 2683-2688.]
(Volume II, pp. 1556 - 1567)
#1517 [Mrs. SImpson?] Hyatt called her "The Nation Sack Woman." "a hoodoo woman ... a small-time
worker or occasional worker ... I have called her 'The Nation Sack Woman' because at the end
of theinterview she gave me an excellent account of the nation sack or nation bag -- a fetish
to some women and worn by them." The interviewee mentions that her husband's mother, who
was deceased, had ben married to "Mr. Simpson." for years, and her husband called Mr.
Simpson "daddy."
The interview runs from page 1449 to page 1459 of Vol. Two.
The nation sack material is all on page 1458.}
#1518
#1519
#1520 [-] "This woman is a professional." ("I was born with this")
Hyatt wrote: "This woman, informant 1520, could express her emotions and probably do a fair
killing job-- magically. Later, she will go to work with a pistol, brand-new knife and axe,
even benedicting a prayer."
"If I wanted something to happen to you, I'd take a splinter out of a tree that lightning
has struck and put some of that Goofer Dust on it, and I'd stick it down in the ground by y
our house, and you will be tormented until you move from there or your house will be hit by
lightning."
Yo' use de bird nest fo' plantin' thin's in it, jes' lak yo' want somebody tuh die. Yo' take
dat black hen's aig an' yo' use it an' put it up in dere an' when de sun dries it up, why
dat kills 'em. Well, yo' take dat black hen's aig an' yo' write de peoples name on dat aig
wit ink, an' den aftah writin' it in dat aig, yo' run yo's needles through dat - two needles
through disaway, two needles through disaway [demonstrates]. (Here's the length of the egg.
You put one needle through one end and one through the other, lengthwise of the egg . )
Yeah, dat's right, jes' cross 'em in dere jes' lak dat. Den yo' go de othah way an' yo' run
de same through dis way, an' yo' turn it ovah an' yo' cross it through dataway. An' yo'
wrap dat up nine times an' good so dat nobody kin tell it's a aig, an' put dat bird nest up
on top of dat. When dat aig dries up dey will die. (You put this in the bird nest in the tree?)
Up in de tree. When yo' do dat chew waverin' a person's mind - yo' runnin' a person crazy.
Jes' lak ah come in heah an' maybe steal yore drawers or yo' ole hat or somepin or othah,
an' ah put dat hoodoo dust as yo' call it into dat. {She means goofer dust] Ah write chure
name into dat an' ah'll cross dem black needles into dat an put it up dere, an' as de wind
blow dat yo' lose yore mind. Put dat up in de tree, way up where nobody see it chew know.
We11, jes' lak yore mad at me - me an yo' done had a big argument an' ah wants tuh git rid
of yo' but ah wants tuh put chew in a slow death. Yo' go tuh de - ah don't [know]
whethah yo' kin git 'em at de grocery sto' - anyhow, where ' dey kill beef. Yo' git chew a
ole beef tongue meat, let de cow be old, old as yo' kin - one dem long tongues. An' in
gittin' dem long tongues, yo' lay dat tongue down jes' lak dis is now [demonstrates] - [like]
someone layin' down daid chere. Yo' git chew a brand-new pocketknife ain't nevah been used.
Yo' git hold of dat knife an' say, "Son-of-bitch, die, die" - drive de knife in an' say,
"Son of-a-bitch, die, die - dwindle away - can't stay heah, cain't stay nowhere, until yo'
daid." Yo' cut it in half an' yo' go to yore front gate an' yo' dig a hole dere an' yo'
bury it jes' lak a grave, an' yo' build it lak a grave [mound and tombstone ] ovah i t. An'
when dat tongue rots , he eithah fall from a stroke or dwindle away , but dey gone .
(lts more in this interview)
(cylinders D23:7 - D29:7 = 2706 - 2713 . ]
(Volume II, pp. 1721 - 1733)
#1521 - #1523
#1524 - [-]
If I got silver money, I counts my silver, but I hardly ever counts my pennies. I keeps my
silver money specially separate from my pennies. Well now, I go to trade if I got pennies.
Why, I'll take my pennies and use them all as far as I has to go, but I never mix my pennies
with my silver money.
(entry 2106, cylinder 2718:5)
To keep the police away, sprinkle salt in front of your door and scrub the floor with lye.
Scrub the floor every friday morning.
(entry 2645, cylinder 2721:3)
#1525 [-] (Probably a woman, based on the spells given)
Measurement of Man Worn In Bottle: Or, dey say, if yo' take de measure of
yo', dat will stop him. He cain't go wit anyone else. (In a small bottle.)
(cylinder 2723:18).
#1526 - 1528
#1529 [-] (Probably a man, based on the spells given)
if you pour your urine on a woman's porch, it will cause her to move.
(entry 4227, cylinder 2732:3)
If you have a wife that won't stay home, always ready to run off. Well, now if you can cut
the hair off a dogs tail and get you some hair out of her head, and put that hair together
and wrap it up in a flannel rag, and you bury that at the doorstep, and then all of them
stay there. They won't leave.
(entry 5853, cylinder 2733:10).
#1529a [-] (Unknown to me why this informant was given the designation"a")
Their urine mixed with their hair and Cayenne Pepper is buried to run them out of town.
(entry 4154, cylinder 2734:15)
#1530 - 1531
October 30, 1939 (Monday)
#1532 - [-] A 50 year old woman, professional rootworker.
Hyatt wrote of her:
[Informant 1532 says, "Ah wus troubled an' worried ovah life." What she means, her
allegory of the three rooms will illustrate. Eventually, realizing that she could "Go no
further than God have given power tuh go," a new choice is made in the forks-of-the-road
parable. She then reenforces her lesson to me by telling "de sweetest story most evah
heard."] ["Memphis, Tenn., Mon., Oct. 30, 1939 - 1532 - woman 50 - professional - fair to
good [[later I raised her rating]] - [[brought by]] new man & Chicken" - Numbers Book
1516-1557. The new man is unremembered but Chicken is a small-time hand-maker or root
doctor. Ready Money, another professional worker, who always had a little "ready money" on
hand, first appears two numbers later, 1534. For these nicknames given to doctors, see
pp.293-294 and Doctor in Index.
The material is on cylinders D61:3 - D65:3 = 2744 - 2750.]
This woman gave Hyatt one unusual recipe that Myrtle Collins #926/#1538 also gave
him (and charged him $10.00 for). The presumption is that the two womeny knew one another.
The recipe involves a bath in Baking Soda, powdered Mustard, and another mineral (Salt in
the case of #1532; Saltpeter in the case of Mrs. Collins #926/#1538). I believe that the
minor difference between the two versions is that Informant #1532 was prescribing a general
or all-over uncrossing bath for anyone and chose salt, but Myrtle Collins was prescribing
a bath to untie a man's nature -- his peter -- and thus chose saltpeter.
See Volume Two, pages 992-1024.
#1533 -
#1534 - [-] A man, professional rootworker, nicknamed "Ready Money"
[See notes to #1532: "Ready Money, another professional worker, who always had a little
"ready money" on hand, first appears two numbers later, 1534." Also called "Mojo Expert"
by Hyatt in his introduction. The man knew Hyatt had nearly been arrested the last time he
was in Memphis, and advised him how to work without a license, and without business cards.
Said Hyatt, "Do not miss his masterful account of the Jack-Ball or Jack or Samuel with its
channel de worl' - roll, roll - all addressed to the spirit dwelling in this fetish."
"Yo' heah today an' yo' wants people tuh come heah an' yo' workin' secretly. Maybe yo'
hasn't got on yore wall whut's on mine an' yo' wants people tuh come heah wit'out puttin'
out cards. Yo' don't put any cards out - don't advertise at all. Yo' sit heah an' have 'em
tuh come, see whut ah mean? Dat's a man yo' supposed tuh be, a 'herb doctor,' a
'spiritual,' an' a 'herb doctor.'"
See Volume Two, page 1248
(cylinders D68:5-D90:3 = 2751-2763)
#1535 - [-]
#1536 - [-] Madame of a brothel who did professional rootwork on the side: Hyatt called her
"an older woman, No.l536, the landlord of hustlin' women, the keeper of a house... some of
these keepers also engage in other activities such as a little hoodoo work, bootlegging and
gambling."
See Volume Three, page 2019
(cylinders D85-D91= 2768-2774)
#1537 - [-]
#1538 - Mrs. Myrtle Collins / Madam Collins of 651 Stephens Street (now Stephens Place),
a professional root worker, was interviewed here for the second time (cylinders
[D96:1 - D110-2 = 2779 - 2793). She was the only person interviewed twice and given
two informant #s.
Her earlier interview was as informant #926;
(cylinders B45:19 - B51:1 = 1503 - 1509])
See the entry at #926 for further details.
See Volume Two, pages 992-1024.
See "Notes on the Memphis hoodoo root worker Madam Myrtle Collins"
for further details and maps of her neighborhood.
#1539
#1540
While in Memphis, Hyatt learned of the WPA work, then ongoing, of interviewing elderly
African-Americans for the "Ex-Slave Narratives." He discussed this on
(cylinder 2786:5) See Volume One, page ????? XXX
#1541 - [-]
Well, you take the gunpowder and lodestone and nine seeds of red pepper and sew it up in a
rag. That's for to draw luck to you, for money. You know, if you's a gambler, why you can
win, and if you're a policy player, why, you win like that. Or if you a busi ness man, why,
you know, your business will be more urgent.
(entry 1953, cylinder 2787:13)
[The preceding informant {#925} was correct about Gaspergou and Buffalo being confused.]
"Take a fish, a Buffalo fish, and inside of that Buffalo Fish's head is two little pearls
about like that. You get them little pearls out of there and tote them in your pocket and
that'll draw money to you, too."
(entry 1855, cylinder 2787:15)
[NOTE: All entries from 1542 - 1557 have either entry number or cylinder number errors.
I am noting them as is, but this is the only batch that is so messed up. They are shuffled
somehow and until they are all located and accounted for, this section is not very useful.
Cylinder number should have been expected to run sequentially from 2788 - 2832.]
#1542 -
#1543 - [-]
Cause an enemy to move out: Write enemy's name on a piece of paper and soak it in
chamber lye (urine) until dissolved, then throw on their porch in the dead of night.
(entry 4179, cylinder 2993:3) [cylinder number is out of order]
#1544 - [-] A woman
"If you want him to give you his money, ask him for money. If he hands you a silver
dime, don't you spend that dime. You wrap it in woollen cloth with two needles, a
short one and a long one, and you make a wish for to rule him and for to have him
bring you that money. And you get you some Anise Oil and keep it anointed with oil
and put it in the bottom of your trunk and he'll bring his money to you."
(entry 12994, cylinder 2804:2) [cylinder number is NOT out of order]
#1545 - [-] "a first-class hoodoo doctor; a person free from routine and sensitive to changing
social conditions." She mentions that she has children and that she also runs a house:
"I got a house I runs, peoples in there, girls hustling, you understand, and I does what I
can for luck and peace." "This woman, informant 1545, was among those professional workers
who greeted my RETURN TO MEMPHIS. see v. l, INTR0. p. XXXVIII"
She mentions "Good Luck Teasin' Brown Powder" -- Hyatt
calls this a long name. He is aware that Teasin'-Brown is the decription of a certain shade
of complexion, but seems unaware that Good Luck is the brand and Teasin' Brown is the colour
of the face powder, and that the same Good Luck brand would also come in Cocoa Brown, Nut
Brown, Rachel, and so forth. (Some brands gave this shade as Teazem Brown. The name comes
from song lyrics.)
Well, I hate to tell that. You know, just like you got a wife or lady, something; you
carry, fifty cent [piece] to her or a silver dollar, and let her take some of her ministrate
and paint that over twice, just like paint, you see, just on top on half of it. (Just the
whole side of one dollar?) No, half of it. (Here's a dollar. You only paint half of this
side?) [Evidently I had a silver dollar, or perhaps I used a quarter.] Uh-huh, and turn it
over and paint another half. That gives a two-corner. (Opposite halves of the dollar?) Yes,
and so let it dry. Paint it over twice, you know - twice good, you know, where it'll have a
good coat. And he can put it in his pocket with all kinds of money, and go in any kind of
gambling game and won't never lose no money."
(Vol. 2, starts on page 2004, cylinders Dll3-Dl20 = 2796-2803)
#1546 - [-]
#1547 - [-]
(entry 1733, cylinder 2808:2) [possibly cylinder number is NOT out of order]
#1548 - [-] a woman
"You get a silver dime from him and you take that dime and put it in a glass and
put two teaspoonfuls of sugar on that dime and set it back in a corner. If he makes
any money, he'll bring it to you."
(entry 12995, cylinder 2801:8) [possibly cylinder number is out of order]
#1549 - [-] a woman
"If a woman has a friend or something and he is able to give her, and can give her
money, and it looks like he doesn't just want to use her for his convenience, she
can get a dime from him and she kan take that dime and put it in a brand new
piece of domestic (uncleached muslin fabric) and fold it and sew next to her and
that's good. That'll help out a whole lot in peace with him and he'll provide for
her better. Yeah, just pin it right inside her clothes on the right side; wear that
down there, next to the skin."
(entry 12996, cylinder 2807:1) [possibly cylinder number is out of order]
#1550
#1551
#1552 - [-] Elderly "Jack Ball Man."
Hyatt's notes to informant #825: "To determine whether he should visit me, this
elderly rootman - informant 1552 - consulted his Jack-ball. Fortunately for me the
spirit of this fetish had sense enough to answer that I could be trusted" (my
introductory comment for JACK-BALL MAN interview not yet paginated, which contains
the rite)"
#1553
#1554 - [-]
#1555 - [-]
#1556
#1557 [NOTE: cylinder number (2905:5) and location (Algiers, LA) are out of order for entry
30655, and i believe that #1557 is a mis-transcription for informant #1575 and have placed
it there, where it fits perfectly. There may, therefore, be a second informant #1557.)
#???
"You use black stars and oil of cinnamon and oil of bergamot and mix that together, and
rub it in my hand. Just like I'm going out for good luck now, and put a drop or two in my
hands and head - I'm going out for luck. I put them three things - mix them togther. (That
is for luck in gambling?) Yessuh. (What is black star?) That's - it's black but it's incense."
(entry xxx. cylinder 2811:8) [my mistake -- i failed to note enry number and informant
number, but it is marked Memphis -- i will fix late.]
After leaving Memphis in November of 1939, Hyatt probably spent the Holidays at home in NYC.
New Orleans, LA (second trip)
This begins the "E-series" numbering of the recordings.
February 14, 1940 (Wednesday)
Hyatt stayed at the Hotel Saint Charles and recorded interviews at the Patterson Hotel which
"had moved down the street" since his first visit and was now a "transient hotel." There was
a lot of reverberation in the rooms, making recording conditions "just about impossible."
#1558 - [-], the wife of "Pegleg," who had been interviewed in New Orleans two years earlier,
was the first interviewee in New Orleans on this trip.
(cylinder E1 = 2833)
Mother of Perpetual Help can be petitioned for getting a job, keeping peace in your
home, and helps to heal the sick. Her offering is a pink candle.
(entry 3022, cylinder 2838:7)
#1559 - [-] The "Gifted Medium," a Catholic Spiritualist woman who repeatedly used the phrase
"according to a form" and gave many, many spells employing saints as well as regular hoodoo
tricks. She distinguished between working with saints or "medium work" (her specialties)
and "hoodoo work [where] they have cards [for fortune telling] ... diff'rent kinda herbs
an' roots an' things of de sort, an' people brings ole underclothes or ole stockin's or
ole forms of things" -- but she was very well versed in hoodoo nonetheless. She called
hoodoo "contact work" because it utilizes physical magical links (contacts) to the parties.
She called the usual method of re-tipping candles and burning them upside down, "butting
the light." She gave two harmful spells for work with doll babies, one of which included a
coffin burial rite. She also described in detail the practices and the distinctive garments
worn by members of the Spiritualist churches in New Orleans and told how to work by the Moon.
Vol. 2, pg. 962. (cylinders E6:7-E19:3 = 2839-2852)
#1560 - [-]
For luck in gambling you use the John the Conker. You take that and you can put it in a bag
and you put you a little steel dust in there and put you 45 cents - two dimes and a 25 cents
piece, nothing with even money. See. And put that in a bag and wear it in your pocket. And
you take any high [smelling] perfume and you anoint that with that, with that perfume. It
seems like you would give the man ambition, and give him those silver [pieces], and when he
bet, he bet always right until the other fellow that is playing with you - understand, he
beats him so many times until he lose ambition, see. And he be a certain amount loser
thataway and he will always play. When he first start losing, he plays to win; when he find
out he's losing, he plays to catch back. And he gets so far around the fellow, he beat him
so much, until he just loses all ambition.
(entry 2136, cylinder 2854:5)
Get a bone from the grave of a gambler, dry it, grind it to powder, then blend it with
equal amounts of Controlling Powder, Cinnamon powder, and sugar. This powder is used when
playing bingo or entering raffles in a church. The people operating the game will hand you
your winnings "with a smile."
(entry 8033, cylinder 2855:7)
#1561
February 15, 1940 (Thursday)
#1562 - [-], "a man who worked at the Crackerjack Drug Store" and talked about "powders,"
hence in Hyatt's terms "NG" (no good). A missed opportunity to gather information about
urban-style hoodoo.
#1563 - [-]
(cylinder E6:2 = 2839)
#1564 -
#1565
#1566 - [-]
Said that any powder is goofer dust!
(entry 674, cylinder 2871:7)
#1567
February 19, 1940 (Monday)
The weather was "horrible." Recording was conducted in the
Patterson Hotel. Hyatt caught a cold and had a fever.
#1568 - [-]
(cylinder E45 = 2878)
#1569
Algiers, LA
A man named Marshall was hired as a chauffeur and contact man. This man is also
referred to as Mack. I consider it likely that Marshall is the proper first
name of Mack Berryhill, the taxi driver whom Hyatt had hired the first time he was
in NOLA, two years earlier) He picked Hyatt up in New Orleans every morning and took
the ferry with him across the river to Algiers. There is also reference to a
contact man named Moses who apparently lived in Algiers.
February 21, 1940 (Wednesday)
It was Hyatt's birthday. His wife phoned him. He still had a cold and fever and was
seeing a doctor. Recordings were made at the Eagle Eye Hall, 1700 Nunez Street,
Algiers, La.
#1570 - [-] A woman; Spiritual Church minister and professional worker, 50 years old.
["Algiers, La., Feb. 21, 1940, Weds. - woman 50 - good - brought by Moses - paid" -
Numbers Book 1558 to 1605. Moses, our contact man in Algiers, brings me a birthday present -
the following woman. She, a professional worker, answers my unrecorded question with an
extemporaneous prayer, opening and closing with a triform petition.]
"St. Anthony, open this door. St. Anthony, please open the door. And dear St. Anthony, who lives in
Jesus' love, open this door. St. Anthony, I consecrate mahself to you and use you as my patron saint,
and I ask you to keep my door open. I ask you to send me customers, St. Anthony, and I'll always
use you, through Our Lord, giving you the power and strength to send me customers and give you the
lights on your [altar]. St. Anthony open this door - St. Anthony open this door - St. Anthony
open this door."
"And you give lights to St. Raymond, he's for luck and success. St. Raymond, you give him lights
today. Git you a red light. And you use lights for him on Mondays and on Thursdays and positively
everything red. And they give you a prayer with getting it [when you purchase the candle a prayer
is included] ; and I'll guarantee that you ll have more luck then you want.
In 24 days. {hours; she misspoke but corrected herself. - cat}
But you must give him your offerings. He's guaranteed 24 hours - 24 hours to a day.
He gives you jes' what you want. He's first-class.
(entry 2991, cylinder 2884:8)
#1571 -
#1572
#1573
#1574 - [-]
They tell you about the tree that's struck by lightning. You take the bark from that tree
and you take that bark and you burn that bark into ashes and you take them ashes and you
get you some Epsom salts and put it with that. You can take the Epsom salts and the ashes
from that tree and you put it in a flannel rag with lodestone and you sew it up, and you
take that and use it as a toby for all the time. If you want to go your way, just go on and
go your way. Long as you got that with you, you can't never be disappointed, nobody will
ever refuse you no way, and you'll never have no fusses.
(entry 2340, cylinder 2897:3)
#1575
#1576
February 22, 1940 (Thursday)
The sun came out for the first time since Hyatt had arrived.
#1577 - [-] first recording of the day DUPLICATE RECORDING INFORMATION TO BE CHECKED
#1577 - [-] A professional herbalist and rotworker, probably a woman,
by the type of spells given.
Boil cinnamon bark and sugar in a pot, strain out the bark, and use the water for
scrubbing the sidewalk, the door, and inside the business to bring customers.
(entry 2457, cylinder 2904:1)
St. Espidee {Expedite} is for gamblers. You take St. Espidee and you gives him anything green,
candle or flowers - green flowers or green vegetable. Anything that is green, you give it
to St. Espidee for [green] money. He's for gamblers. You prays when you go to him and you'd
ask him, say, "St. Espidee I want you to help me to get some money. I'm goin' out and gamble
and if I be successful and get this money, I will give you a bunch of flowers. Or give you
so much and so much of something green. I take the money and buy it and give it to you."
When you gets this money you go to some church, or if you got him in your house, you buys
the stuff and you puts it in front of him for a sacrifice.
(entry 3002, cylinder 2905:2)
Gambling hand: blacksnake root, devil's shoe string, John the Conqueror, cinnamon,
Van Van perfume, silver dime, in chamois cloth
(entry 1831, cylinder 2905:5) DUPLICATE INFORMANT, DUPLICATE CYLINDER NUMBER TO BE CHECKED
Red candle offering to the Sacred Heart of Jesus on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday for
peace in your home.
(entry 30655, cylinder 2905:5) DUPLICATE CYLINDER NUMBER TO BE CHECKED
Saint Anthony is for children and for the poor. You pray to St. Anthony for work or for
bread. Use brown candles, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You make him a promise. If you're out
of a job, you pray to him to help you to get a job. If you have children and you want bread
in your home, you pray to him for that bread and you make him a promise. You promise that
when you get what you asked for, you ll go to a Catholic church where they have a St.
Anthony's box and put money in his box for the poor. But you mustn't promise him that and
not give it to him.
(entry 2992, cylinder 2905:6)
#1578 -
#1579 - [-], A woman, "Beer for St. Peter - Cigar and Whiskey for St. Anthony"
first recording of the day DUPLICATE RECORDING INFORMATION TO BE CHECKED
(Volume II pp. 1221 - 1236)
(cylinder E75 = 2908)
#1580 - [-], A professional rootworker, probably a woman, from her tone and techniques,
To separate anyone: Graveyard dirt, Dirt Dauber nests with the holes
in (signifying that the larvae have left), nine red pepper pods, Cayenne
pepper powder, roll together (wth a rolling pin), add vinegar, and pour it
into a black glass bottle, and turn it upside down in any corner of their
yard. If you are working for a client, and cannot get to the people's yard,
you can bury it in the client's yard, if you know the names of the people
to be separated.
(entry 1727, cylinder 2916.6)
Put nine tablespoons of sugar in a glass of water as an offering to the Sacred
Heart of Jesus. Place a picture of the person you are interested in under the glass and
this will attract their attention to you.
(entry 3064, cylinder 2916:7)
#1581 -
#1582 - Madame Lindsey, self-styled "Old-time Conjure", also worked with Catholic saints
(cylinders E85:4-E94:1 = 2918-2927)
(Volume II pp. 1500 - 1515
#1583 - Nahnee, Boss of Algiers, a professional female rootworker.
"If you want to sweeten a man towards them, or something of the kind,
take nine loaf sugars and orange water. And you take the name of the individual.
And if it's a white person, you write it on white paper with red ink; a coloured
person, brown paper with black ink. You write their name three times with your
name on top of the name -- you're the party that wants this person to be closer
to you, so write your name on top of their name. You fold it and you pin it onto
the wick of this lamp and your oil, and you keep that lamp burning day and night
low, but it must be a tin lamp where it can't be detected what's in it."
"Well, now, at de fo'k of a road, if it's somethin' tedious dat yo' want
a undertake tuh do an' yo' jes' feel dat chew cain't accomplish it or somekind,
yo' read de Psalms in de Bible dat yo' reads. Yo' read de 91 Psalms. Yo' read
dat 91 Psalm but chew have tuh read it fo' nine days. Yo' read de 91 Psalms fo'
nine days an' at de same hour of de day. An' now, goin' to de fo'k of dis road,
yo' have tuh be at de fo'k of dis road at twelve a'clock in de night. Dat is, it
no partic'lar rule, but jes' anywhere where a fo'k is, yo' see. An' yo' read dis
91 Psalms an' yo' have tuh pray an' yo' have tuh axe God tuh send dis spirit
dere tuh meet chew dere, tuh meet chew dere at de fo'k of dis road. Now, when yo'
git to de fo'k of dis road, yo' gonna see all kinda thing. Yo' may git frightened.
Yo' read dis Psalms. (You read that for nine days but you don't go out to the
fork of the road?) No, yo' don't go dere, yo' readin' dis Psalms an' yo'
preparin' yo'self tuh go dere - yo' preparing tuh go dere. Now, yo' read dis fo'
nine days now. Today is de ninth day, see. Now, yo' goin' dere tonight. Yo'
goin' dere at twelve a'clock tonight. See. Now yo' readin' dis Psalm, preparin'
yo'self tuh go dere tuh meet de one dat chure gonna meet dere. Now, yo' ain't
gotta go tuh bed, yo' gotta set up. Now, nine a'clock tuhnight dere gotta be
somebody gonna come there an'tell yo' somethin' - dey gonna tell yo' lotsa
things. It's gonna be somebody goin' tuh come dere an' dey gonna talk to yo'
jes' lak ah'm talkin' to yo',an' now dey gonna tell yo', "Yo' git a pencil an'
papah," or "Yo' git a type[writer] an' yo' take whut ah'm tellin' yo', whut ah'm
givin' yo' - [here's another person interested in my machine] - yo' take whut
ah'm givin' yo' an'yo' meet me at twelve a'clock." Yo' see. An' all yo' have tuh
do, yo' jis' be big-hearted an' yo' do as dey say an' dey'll work wit yo' wonderful.
Den yo' take all whut dey give yo' an'tell yo' how tuh do an' whut tuh do an'
now yo' meet 'em dere at twelvea'clock. (At the fork of the road?) Yessuh.
[I don't want to read anything into the preceding rite - it's there.
THIS WOMAN IS A MASTER CRAFTSMAN who knows every aspect of her work - the most
important aspect of all, human nature, how far she can go. Instead of offering
me her variant or variants of the devil meeting a person at the fork or
crossroad, she throws a good-spirit atmosphere over everything, then tells me
she and I are performing the fork-of-the-road rite!] ["Yo' git [[got]] a type
[[writer - my Telediphone on which I pretended to write]] an' yo' take [[are
taking down]] what ah'm tellin' yo', whut ah'm givin' yo'...all yo' have tuh do,
yo' jis' be big-hearted an'.....dey'll [[I'll]] work wit yo' wonderful."] [My
reply to her is quite ordinary. Or is it?] [Without detracting from Nahnee's
insight or subtracting any glamour from my big-heartedness, the reader should be
informed that a person of her ability and reputation, despite the Great Depression
and scarcity of money, rarely takes chances. Preceding her appearance a confederate
of hers, man or woman, had made inquiries and had actually interviewed me.
Neither my contact man nor I could ever identify these persons - we never tried,
it was a waste of time, though occasionally we spotted a stoolpigeon.]
(Vol.2, pp.1357-58, cylinders E94:2-E119:1 = 2927-2952.)
#1584 - [-] "Small-Time Worker" -- a elderly woman.
Saint John's Water, Marie Baptists, and Marie Laveau.
[Algiers, La., (1584), 2955:1; elderly woman, small-time worker, who
could remember people filling bottles with Saint John's water. She
also gave the information in margin-title Marie Baptists and Marie
LeVeau.]
(cylinder 2955:1)
February 23, 1940 (Friday)
#1585 - [-] A 60 year old woman who wore dark sun glasses.
Hyatt called her "Dark Lady, Dark Glasses, Dark Deeds." In his introduction to her
interview, he wrote: "[Dark glasses wore this dark lady who recounted dark deeds.
They were the large, old-fashioned, inexpensive colored glasses - very dark indeed.
She also had tied about her head a kerchief to complete the disguise. Did I see her
as she appeared before patients in the consultation room? For dark glasses and
kerchief, see my concluding comment; for dark deed, read. This elderly woman,
informant 1585, filled cylinders E122:11 - E132:1 = 2955:11 - 2965:1. For location
and description of Algiers, see ALGIERS in INTRODUCTION.]"
At the end of the interview transcription, Hyatt described this informant as "Woman,
60 [years old] - excellent - colored eyeglasses" (End of 1585.)"
He also mentioned her sun glasses while testing his equipment the next day, February
24. recorded on cylinders E122:11-E132:1 = 2955 - 2965 (see below).
(Her interview is in Vol. 2, pp. 1059 - 1075,
cylinders 2955 - 2965)
#1586 - [-] As this interview was conducted, a "colored
funeral" comprising 2,000 marchers went by, playing
Chopin's Funeral March.
#1587 -
February 24, 1940 (Saturday)
"Testing the stylus [of Telediphone], Algiers, Louisiana, Saturday, February 24,
1940. One woman who came here yesterday, No. 1585, wore sun glasses and had a
handkerchief tied around her head in sort of a disguise. Next 1588."
#1588 -
#1589 - Mrs. [-] Murray; Hyatt called her "Madam" Murray, but she clearly refers to herself
as "Mrs." Murray.
(Her interview is in Vol. 2, pp. page 1276 - 1289,
cylinders E1245:1 - E1252:2 = 2827:1 - 2834:2)
#1590 - #1595
#1596 - [-] Mix cinnamon, brown sugar, and reddening (red brick dust) in scrub water for luck
(entry 2580, cylinder 3002:6)
#1597 -
February 27, 1940 (Tuesday)
"We are having our old difficulty again -- great crowds of
people rushing in but none of them really knowing anything."
#1598 - [-] ("actually #1597A") First recording of the day
#1599 - Mack / Marshall; Hyatt's chauffeur in New Orleans.
The use of May water to remove "burdens" (troubles).
(entry 986, cylinder 2915:1)
February 28, 1940 (Wednesday) (Leap Year Day)
The day began with cylinder E183:1 = 3016
#1600 - [-] Liza Moore was her birth name: "I Come To Tell You About My Father"
Long, tragic story about her family, 1918 to 1940; the names identified by her are
Liza Moore Smith, herself, with 8 children born and 6 at home at the time of the interview.
June Moore, her mother, who had 6 children when the tragedies first struck.
Alec Moore, her father, a mule driver, a large, heavy man, killed in a drayage accident
Salina (Lena) Wallace, stout, with glasses; she wanted Alec Moore; she poisoned Florence.
Joe Wallace, the husband of Lena Wallace destined to be the next on his wife's hit-list
Florence Moore, little sister, died age 8, circa 1917-18 foaming at the mouth after 9 days
Unidentified sister Moore, older than Florence, who reported that Florence had eaten something.
Dr. Burris (Burrus), the "colored doctor," plus "two white doctors" who could not save Forence.
June Moore's aunt, who witnessed the autopsy of Florence, held in the home after her death.
Small brother Moore, hassled by the police for no reason.
George Gales, Undertaker; a family friend as well as a mortician, "light-skinned"
Miz Jenkins, lodger #1, who fixed the Dominick egg that killed Alec, "a right-jet-black woman."
Young boy Jenkins, son of Miz Jenkins, who buried the fixed hen egg so Alec would step over it.
Older brother Jenkins, who worked on a derrick down by the river
Oldest brother Jenkins, who ran into the night with no clothes and caught a (fatal?) chill
Daughter Jenkins, who called the Police on her mother when Miz Jenkins went insane
Miz Allen, lodger #2, "a brown-skin woman" who did not reveal the trick until after Papa died
Morris Moore, a brother old enough to go visit the undertaker alone and return.
Another brother Moore, who could not get off duty to attend Alec's funeral due to the war.
Mrs Dalkin, a neighbor, "a right-black woman - red eyes" - a truth-teller
Mr. Jarvis, a neighbor, who told the women to talk and accused Miz Allen of silent complicity
Mrs. Jarvis, a neighbor, who revealed where the egg was hidden.
The young Jarvis boy, who helped look for the hidden fixed egg under the porch and found it
Undoing the trick. It was too late to save Papa, but Mr. Jarvis instructed June to
put the egg in yeast powder and add a small lodestone to it, wrap and tie it, catch the ferry
and drop it overboard. However, June sought revenge, She fixed the egg to fix Miz Jenkins
and her son who buried the egg. As a result, her oldest son ran into the night naked and
caught a (fatal?) chill, she went crazy and was put into the detention center and died there,
her youngest son (the one who had buried the egg) went down to play by the derricks where
his older brother worked and a derrick turned and knocked him into the river and he drowned.
The "old colored lady that told fortunes, "round the corner on Sixth Street."
The fortunetellers granddaughter, Mayme (Mamie?)
The rite of hydromancy conducted by the fortune teller and Mayme to determine the cause
of Florence's death: plain cut-up cards in water, producing black foam for scrying.
Lena Wallace was identified as the culprit; her picture formed on the card. The
fortune teller said that she had put strychnine in an apple. This was independently
confired by June's aunt, who witnessed the autopsy and saw the damage to Florence's
internal organs. She predicted that Lena would kill her husband Joe for his death s
benefit and get caught at it; she also foretold all of Liza's children.
Joe's lodge brother, visitng while Joe had diptheria, who raised an alarm about the medicine
Mr. White, old, tall, "bright" lodge president, lived at the corner, confirmed glass in the medicine
When the glass was discovered in Joe's medicine, Lena Wallace bolted and ran. She
did not come back. Joe died of diptheria anyway, but he had time to leave everything
to one sister and his mother, and Lena inherited nothing. Moving forward to the present:
Mr. Smith, Liza's husband. He drinks hard and works for the WPA. Life is tough.
The twins live across the river with June now, the other 6 children are with Liza.
Charlie Smith, one of the twins, was visitng; his friend Jimmy gave him white port wine to drink.
The other twin Smith reported that Jimmy had given Charlie the wine.
Jimmy; he gave Charlie the bottle of white port wine that killed him.
Charlie was sick for weeks, and then began to vomit. Liza wanted to take him to the
hospital, but before she could, he passed "something that looked like guts." He
said something had been in the wine and that he was dying. She ran to get a doctor,
but before she reached the door, he died. He was a Catholic, and he was buried in
the McDonnellville graveyard.
Mr. Martins, the white undertaker for whom Charlie had worked, buried him.
Jimmy swore he was not the one who gave Charlie the wine. He offered to carry Liza
to a fortune teller across the river to have the truth found out, but she declined.
He tried to give her 50 cents to mollify her, but in the end he revelaed that "it
was a man" who brought a quart of the wine, put half in a flask and half in a
bottle, and gave Jimmy the bottle and told him to take it to Charlie.
A white man; he was the one who sent Jimmy to deliver the wine that killed Charlie
Miz Gladys Short, for whom Charlie used to work; a white woman; at least her son is white.
Mr. Short, the son of Gladys, a lawyer; he said he could convict Jimmy to hang
Liza refused to pursue the case because she still has 6 children to care for and
the implication is that getting a white man arrested would be too dangerous. She
believes that God will punish the man who sent the wine that killed Charlie.
(Vol. 3, starts on p. 2210, cylinders El84:4-El88:10 = 3017-3021) .
#1601 - [-] Probably a woman
A moving candle spell with nine candles to return a man who has left.
(entry 2901, cylinder 3022:8)
#1602 - [-]
A graveyard dirt, egg yolk, and black candle spell to move someone out.
(entry 10161, cylinder 3024:1)
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