Hoodoo (folk magic) Facts for Kids

A Hoodoo candle

Hoodoo is a traditional African-American spirituality. It developed from many West African, Native American and European spiritual traditions.

It is also known as "conjure" and sometimes mistakenly as "Voodoo".

Images for kids

A map of the transatlantic slave trade
Kongo Yowa Cosmogram
Slave dance and music
A crossroads is where two roads meet to form an X. The significance of crossroads in Hoodoo originates from Central Africa's Kongo cosmogram. "It is at the crossroads where many Africans believe one will witness the powers of God and emerge from the waters spiritually renewed."
Archeologists found an intact nkisi nkondi inside a slave cabin in Brazoria, Texas.
Brooklyn Museum 22.198 Cane / This cane is from the Arts of Africa collection. Bantu-Kongo people in Central Africa and African Americans in the United States crafted similar canes. Historians noted similar meanings and religious use of canes between African and African-American people as they carved animals and human figures onto canes to conjure illness. The difference with African-American canes is North American animals are carved onto canes and historical events are carved about sharecropping and lynchings.
An example of an African-American face jug from Edgefield District of South Carolina. Historians suggests face jugs may have functioned like an nkisi, a spirit container. African-Americans called face jugs "voodoo pots" and "ugly jugs." African-American face jugs are similar in appearance to face jugs made by Bantu people in the Kongo region.
A West African gris-gris bag, the origin of the mojo bag (conjure bag) in Hoodoo
Blacksmiths are respected in black communities because of their knowledge in the mysteries of metal and its spiritual properties.
Some African Americans prayed to African water spirits when they baptized church members.
Hoodoo artifacts and evidence of Hoodoo rituals were found inside slave cabins in the United States.
A Hoodoo stick was found in between the walls of the Bennehan House to curse (hex) the family.
A Sankofa Symbol was etched onto the memorial wall at the African Burial Ground National Monument.
Bible Quilt 1898 / Harriet Powers sewed biblical imagery and African symbols into her quilts.
An example of one of Ms. Hunter's quilts on John's Island, South Carolina.
During the slave trade, the majority of Central Africans imported to New Orleans, Louisiana were Bakongo (Bantu people). This image was painted in 1886 and shows African Americans in New Orleans performing dances from Africa in Congo Square. Congo Square was where African Americans practiced Voodoo and Hoodoo.
James Hopkinsons plantation slaves planting sweet potatoes
African American root doctors developed a variety of herbal cures in the American South.
Hoodoo and root work provided medical care for enslaved and free blacks, and a feeling of community as they practiced their rituals in secret away from the watchful eyes of their enslavers.
Edisto Island National Scenic Byway - Sweetgrass Baskets - A Gullah Tradition - NARA - 7718281 - Sweetgrass baskets designs and styles are similar to the ones made in West Africa.
African American farmer in corn field, Alachua County, Florida in 1913
African American midwife with a newborn infant
Some rootworkers use Christian imagery on their Hoodoo altars
A seal from the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses
Gutenberg Bible, Lenox Copy, New York Public Library, 2009. Pic 01
Enslaved and free conjurers were leaders of slave revolts in the African Diaspora.
West African water-spirit figure (MIA)
Pouring of libation in West Africa is also practiced in Hoodoo.
Coffin Point Praise House
A bottle tree
Chicken feet are used in Hoodoo as a charm for protection and to conjure a curse on someone.
Honey jars or sweetening jars are a tradition in Hoodoo to sweeten a person or a situation in a person's favor. The practice is appropriated and its meaning is misunderstood outside the African-American community. Traditionally sugar water is used.
Animal sacrifice is now a concealed practice in Hoodoo in African-American communities because spiritual merchants and others appropriated the tradition and changed and replaced practices.
William Wells Brown wrote in his autobiography he spoke with an enslaved fortune-teller named Frank to know if his escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad would be successful.
A bone reading
Conjure doctor Dr. Jim Jordan used a crystal ball to divine situations.
During slavery, enslaved Africans in America did not use colored candles and glass encased candles as these were not available during the time period. Enslaved people probably used oil lamps for their conjure and rootwork; however, the use of oil lamps was rare on plantations. By the twentieth century, the emergence of metaphysical and New Age stores began selling candles and African Americans incorporated different candles into their spiritual practice.
Freedom seekers relied on Hoodoo and conjure to prevent slave catchers from capturing them.
Paschal Beverly Randolph
Black Herman magician
Protesters with signs in Ferguson
This photo shows church members praising the Lord. African American conjurers and rootworkers identified as Christian and incorporated the Bible into Hoodoo.
Bishop Charles Harrison Mason and other Pentecostal pastors were rootworkers.
Zora Neale Hurston's first book published about African-American folklore and Hoodoo was Mules and Men. Hurston published Tell My Horse a book about the practice of Obeah in Jamaica and the practice of Vodou in Haiti. (Image Library of Congress)
Minkisi (Kongo), World Museum Liverpool - Minkisi cloth bundles were found on slave plantations in the United States in the Deep South.
Bessie Smith wrote and performed several blues songs that reference Hoodoo.

Hoodoo (folk magic) facts for kids

Images for kids

See also