The cover picture of Allen Toussaint’s The Bright Mississippi
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Today's Document
YOU ARE THE REASON

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One Nice Bug Per Day
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@mamaruehh
The cover picture of Allen Toussaint’s The Bright Mississippi
Hi again, I hope I’m not bothering you with another ask, but you wouldn’t happen to know any resources on the Kongo cosmogram (resources provided by black authors)? It seems pretty interesting and cool. All I know is that it's related to the crossroads in rootwork :)
Flash of the Spirit by Robert Farris Thompson and African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo by Kimbwandènde Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau are two books to start with. Thompson is white but his knowledge is solid.
On this last day of Hoodoo Heritage Month, we bring you “Walking the Dikenga”, and audiovisual that illustrates the Afrikan continuum that is the foundation of Hoodoo culture. Thank you all for participating in the inaugural Hoodoo Heritage Month, and have a wonderful and festive Man of the Crossroads Day! ❤️🖤❤️
Anti-Black American racism is at the core of why outsiders to Hoodoo assume our Ancestors didn’t come here with their own Spirits and their own ways to call them, but our Diaspora cousins who landed elsewhere did... Yet we share the same Ancestors😏#hoodooheritagemonth #hoodootruth
Hi, I'm 16 and black, I want to begin rootwork (I'm from the south: Texas) and I'd like to get to know more. I was told that my Grandmother's aunts were card readers (not Tarot, but playing cards). I'd love to read cards (both playing and tarot). When the time comes for me to begin rootwork, is it possible to for me to communicate with any rootworkers in my family that've died before my birth so that I can have them guide me on my journey?
Peace! You’ve already started by acknowledging your Ancestors. HONOR THEM. Be present and active for that.. consistently.
❗️ATTN: The lies that have been told and perpetuated about our Ancestral traditions ENDS TODAY. #tribeUP #hoodoo #hoodooheritagemonth
BLACK PEOPLE NEVER STOPPED PRACTICING HOODOO TRADITIONS, PART ONE
That we did is one of the biggest misconceptions that exists about Root Culture aka Black Culture aka HOODOO. In the #HoodooHeritageMonth post about love binding work, I mentioned a period where Black people began throwing at (cursing) one another to survive the times, which were desperate. This gave the words “Hoodoo”, “rootworking” and “conjure” negative associations and turned into the stuff only the ill-intentioned, mean-spirited or downright evil would endeavor. Meanwhile at a time when racism and terrorism were at their heights in the 20th Century, Black churches proliferated, despite horrific attacks against them. Black churches were anchors within Black communities all over the United States. And for many, going to church was more about community than it was about being beholden to a foreign religious indoctrination.
However, most churchgoers were careful about calling what they did to help themselves or others “hoodoo” etc. Instead, they called it “Work”, “The Lawd’s Work”, or “Spirit Work”— if it was called anything at all. What must be understood here is that THE WORK ITSELF NO MATTER WHAT OR HOW IT WAS REFERRED TO DID NOT CHANGE. A more profound example of this is the fact that most men who became preachers were themselves rootdoctors, rootworkers and conjurers of Hoodoo tradition. One such man would found one of the largest Black church denominations in the country. For more information about that, please read Yvonne Chireau’s book Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition.
During slavery, most enslaved were not allowed to read but were exposed to Christianity and if they had access to a Bible, used it as nkisi (“spirit object”, KiKongo). In some instances, Black men were chosen to minister to the slaves by their owners, and taught to read the Bible. Slave church services were often held on Sundays outside on plantation lawns, in full view of whites. Outside of this contrived, performative practice, the slave preacher would gather with his people in secret, and teach them Bible verses to use for spiritual work. Slaves were widely illiterate and therefore had to commit the verses to memory in order to utilize them. The shorter the verses, the easier to commit to memory. I’d like to add here that by and large Christian-leaning Black people who use the Bible for spiritual work utilize the New Testament more than the Old Testament. The emphasis on working Psalms was most likely a by-product of Jewish shop owners (whose own faith does not acknowledge Christ) catering to Black communities during and after the Great Migration. This is not to say that Black people didn’t or do not work with Psalms. We just didn’t use them exclusively or in their entirety as outsiders of Hoodoo like to assume, perpetuate and profit off of to this day. THIS POST TO BE CONTINUED.
#HoodooHeritageMonth
Art: “The Upper Room”, John Biggers, 1934
HOODOO LOVE BINDING WORK— A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
One of the most common reasons people turn to rootworking and conjure in the Hoodoo tradition is love binding work. The practice of love binding work raises eyebrows with many folks, who consider it an unethical endeavor with selfish motivations. While this may or may not be true, it would help to understand the history of how such things came about. Let’s take a look at the history and evolution of love binding work within the Hoodoo tradition.
During slavery, separation of Afrikan families was one of the cruelest things whites did to inflict torment and pain upon the enslaved, harsher than any physical beating or other form of corporeal punishment for many of our Ancestors. Besides it breaking so many of our Ancestors’ hearts, it also contributed to the breaking up their traditions. Here in the United States, particularly among the Cotton Belt, transmission of oral history and tradition was interrupted due to the constant breaking up of families and slave communities, contributing to losses of culture, language and identity that Afrikan slaves in other regions, and especially among the Diaspora, were able to reasonably maintain.
To counter such losses, enslaved Afrikans worked different forms of binding tricks to keep their loved ones close. Utilizing personal taglocks such as hair, teeth, nail clippings, cloth and foot track dirt with other things like urine, blood (including menses), semen, sweat and tears, our Ancestors utilized their knowledge from the Motherland to work against the threat of forced separation. Additionally, certain works were done to protect loved ones from sexual assault by whites. Mothers utilized their first urine and/or menstrual blood to make items that would shield their husbands, sons and daughters from the sexual advances of both white men and women on plantations.
During the Post-Emancipation and Jim Crow periods, life for many Black people was harsher than it was on plantations. Our Ancestors have spoken on this in some of the WPA Ex-Slave Narratives, saying that plantation life afforded them regular meals, a roof over their heads and more safety than they’d experience in freedom.
Opportunities to earn a living were few, and many resorted to share-cropping for this reason. Others saw this practice too close to slavery and tried their odds out into the world only to be met with the brutality of racism, dire poverty, the rise of the KKK and its terrorism along with the regular formations of white lynching mobs who kidnapped, tortured and murdered Black people with abandon and impunity. In small enclaves of Black folks, opportunities to earn money were few and far in-between and women, especially women with children, were often on their own due to their men and older sons being kidnapped and murdered by white terrorists, and without their men, were often victims of rape and assault. As a result, Black women who lived alone would resort to some of the same tricks they’d seen or learned about on the plantations that would attract Black men to them and bind them— for self-preservation purposes. Sometimes these men would already be settled down with women and work would be done to break up those unions and bind the men to them. Again, for self-preservation and protection rather than romantic inclination.
Due to the scarcity of work near the home, women also did love binding and protection workings on their men, should they have to travel far distances to earn money to support their families. The practice of burying a man’s drawers in the yard, or preparing food and/or drink with small amounts of their urine or menstrual blood were just some of the ways women could make sure their men would not succumb to the advances (or love juju) of other women while in other towns and counties for work, and would return home to them and their families safely. This was especially important for Black men who would have to navigate spaces shared with white women, since false accusations of rape or flirtations by white women against innocent Black men were often used to incite white rage, resulting in Black death. The Black man, having been covered by his woman’s love binding work, would be rendered virtually invisible to all other women, white or Black.
As opportunities for Black people would increase over time, these practices would become less about safety and self-preservation, and more about the affairs of the heart. Regardless of one’s reasons to resort to love binding work, it is important that we consider the utilization of these types of works both historically, and *ancestrally*.
#HoodooHeritageMonth
Here is my family’s altar done up for our John de Konker Day 2019 ritual and celebration. We had a powerful day and night, and enjoyed participating in this inaugural Hoodoo holiday with people all over the country. Much love to everyone who committed to restoring our Ancestors’ beloved Hoodoo Spirit. Happy Hoodoo Heritage Month!
Save a Black life. We are worth it. Check on your people at all times. Even if you don’t fuck wittem.
❗️Mark your calendars— OCTOBER 31st is the inaugural MAN OF THE CROSSROADS DAY❗️On this day Hoodoos all across the country will honor and celebrate “Him what mek straight licks wit de crooked stick” 👊🏿 Our Hoodoo Ancestors have been waiting for us reclaim our Spirits for over 400 years and they are tired of waiting 💛❤️🖤 #hoodooheritagemonth #hoodooholydays #hoodoo #blackamericanspirituality #blackamericanspirits #crossroadsspirit #reclaimingourtradition
This #HoodooHeritageMonth the spirit of JOHN DE KONKER (High John the Conqueror) will be honored on Thursday, October 17th 2019 and every third Thursday of the month of October from here on.
How will YOU be celebrating John de Konker Day?
“I GOT MY MOJO WORKIN”
Today in HOODOO HERITAGE we will focus on one of the most well-known spiritual objects in Root Culture, the “mojo bag”. This type of object is also known in Black American history as the toby, trick, hand, trick-hand, spirit hand, wanga, gris-gris and others, depending on the region.
The word “mojo” is derived from the KiKongo word “moyo”, meaning “spirit” and “soul”. In Swahili it means “heart”.
In the Kongo spiritual tradition, small bags filled with “bilongo” or medicine were carried by the priests or ngangas, among others, and were also tied to wooden carvings that represented certain spirits with specific tasks. The medicine consisted of a variety of items that included powders, animal parts, a person’s hair, fingernails or toenails, roots, barks and bits of wood, small stones, fossils or crystals, resins, shells, metals, white clay, etc. Certain prayers, songs and movements in ritual brought the objects to life and would confer specific powers to their owners.
PH: a medicine bag from the Kongo, stolen and placed in a British museum during the 1800’s
#hoodooheritagemonth
Happy Hoodoo Heritage Month!
How to spot a fake rootworker:
* Ask them about John de Konker root and which botanical species our enslaved ancestors had access to that rootworkers still use today and they tell you jalapa
* Ask them about devils shoestring and see if they show you a bunch of twigs instead of the actual DSS which is a GRASS
* Ask them about making sweetnin jars and see if the first/only thing they mention is 'honey'
* Ask them about the usage of animals' parts in rootwork and conjure and they will list about 10 or so things and blood/offal will NOT be among them
* Ask them about goofer dust and they will only refer to it as something used to harm or kill
* Ask them about graveyard dirt and they will only refer to it as something used to harm or kill
* Ask them what songs are sung during prep, during and after a work and they will not know what tf you are talking about
* Ask them about what types of works involve the usage of grease and they will not know what you're talking about
* Ask them how our people worked the Bible and they will only talk about Psalms
* Ask them why they talmbout working a mammy jar and they will respond with something called "La Madama"
* Ask them what it means when you see a crow in the east versus one in the west, they will not know
* Ask them to explain the significance of using brown paper and they will tell you some rubbish about it having to do with a person's skin color
* Ask them about the roads and they will only mention crossroads and speak on it as some sort of spiritual dumpsite
* Ask them who initiated them and they will say that there is no initiation
* Ask them to cite the differences between styles of working and they will not know how to answer because they only know one way and it is FAKE
Romare Bearden. Ritual. 1965.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988), Mecklenburg Bather, circa 1980-81. Mixed media and collage on board, 13 x 8¼ in. (33 x 21 cm.). .
Outsiders to Root Culture aka Black American culture aka HOODOO love to tell the lie that our Ancestral traditions are not solely ours. I reckon they feel if they keep repeating the lie somehow they can get it to become the truth so they’ll feel less guilty about the cultural appropriation and revisionist history they are so dogged about perpetuating. Which itself is anti-Blackness and racism, no different from the attitudes of their white Ancestors toward ours. Because truly non-racist whites would respect us and our culture and stop trying to claim it for themselves, and instead, study their own Ancestors’ cultures and traditions. But that’s too much like right, ain’t it?
Po thangs.
What they don’t understand is that Black people’s enslaved Ancestors were forced to assimilate. That meant silencing our natural mother tongues to make room for English, replacing the beat of the Ancestor drums with foot stomps and handclaps and more importantly, hiding our Afrikan Ancestral spiritual traditions inside of a hybridized version of Christianity. But even there, they could not kill that which can never die: Our Ancestors. Them who live inside our very DNA. As a result, we can’t help but move the way They moved. That’s why when we go inside the forests we instinctively know the plants that will work for us. Because the divine forces of plants know the scent of our Ancestral essence and respond accordingly. There were no Native American tour guides nor benevolent English whites with us in the woods during Walking The Dikenga 2019. We were a group of Afrikan American Black people who relied on what we have in our blood, to help us seek out the plants that would help us in our work. And the plants responded. Our Afrikan Ancestors did this same exact thing during slavery, post-Emancipation, during Jim Crow, the CRM, all the way on to today. That’s why I’ve said we put our juju in everything we do. We might not have always called it “Hoodoo” (we’re forever inventing new words to describe the root of it— Jazz, funk, jam, mojo, swag, fleek, vibe, etc) but that’s exactly what it is. It’s how we as a people always manage to “hit a straight lick with a crooked stick” no matter what society throws our way... and still we keep on keepin on. How? Because Hoodoo just isn’t about what we do. It’s who we be.