introduction | 19th century hoodoo | 20th century hoodoo | 21st century hoodoo
This bibliography catalogues material about
hoodoo that is not influenced in any way by modern
popularizations or new attempts to "reconstruct" or
"reclaim" hoodoo or to meld it with New Age or Voodoo
or Wicca or other belief-systems. Most of the sources
date to the era before World War Two (although, in the
case of Harry Hyatt's books, the publication date came
30 years after the collection of the material). Both
19th century rural hoodoo and 20th century urban hoodoo
are referenced.
The bulk of these entries are extracted from a lengthier
bibliography at the end of my book "Hoodoo Herb and
Root Magic" (Lucky Mojo Curio Co., 2002). The
added notes [in brackets] are new and deal with the
provenance of the material.
Additional entries consist of material that was not used
as references in my book on herbs but is of general
interest to those studying conjure history and practice.
In addition to the books and articles cited below, many
further extracts concerning hoodoo, taken from longer
works, can be found online at southern-spirits.com.
Many of the magazine and journal articles on hoodoo,
rootwork, and conjure published during the 19th and
early 20th centuries were written by African-American
authors. An author's racial or cultural background
would not be evident to the casual browser of the
bibliography, but i mention it because i wish to make
it clear that from the earliest post-Civil War period
onward, African-Americans were deeply involved in the
documentation of their own culture and did not need to
rely on European-Americans to do it for them.
Anderson, Jeffrey. Conjure in African American Society
2005; reprinted in paperback, 2007
[Note: The author's excellent doctoral thesis, published
in book form; and excellent introduction to the subject.]
[Anon.]. "Folklore and Ethnology" Southern Workmen and Hampton School
Record. Volume 28, March, 1899.
[Note: All Hampton School students were African-American.]
[Anon.]. "Folklore and Ethnology" Southern Workmen and Hampton
School Record. Volume 28, August, 1899.
[Note: All Hampton School students were African-American.]
[Anon.] "The Religious Life of the Negro Slave" Harper's New Monthly.
September, October, November, 1863.
[Note: Good, factual observations embedded in a racist
context; author was European-American; this is the
earliest publication containing a lengthy treatment of
that i have located to date.]
[Anon.] "Cures By Conjure Doctors." Journal of American Folk-Lore
Vol. 12, 1899. Pages 288-289.
[Note: Authorship credited to the "Editors" of the JAF.]
[Anon.] "Voudooism -- African Fetich Worship Among The Memphis Negroes"
The Memphis Appeal" [newspaper] (circa 1865 - 1867, cited by
P. B. Randolph, 1870).
[Note: An annotated version of this article is online at
southern-spirits.com.]
Bacon, Miss A[lice]. M. "Folklore and Ethnology: Conjuring and
Conjure Doctors in the Southern United States" Southern Workmen
and Hampton School Record. Volume 24, December, 1895.
[Note: All Hampton School students were African-American.]
Bivens, N. D. P. [Thomas, George A.?]. The Life and Works of Marie
Laveau. [n.p., George A. Thomas, dba Crackerjack Drugstore?],
[n.d., prior to 1927]. Reprinted in facsimile as Marie Laveau's
Old and New Black and White Magic [Fulton Religious Supply /
Dorene Publishing], [n.d., c. 1963]; reprinted in facsimile as
Black and White Magic by Marie Laveau, International Imports,
1991.
[Note: Marie Laveau did not write this book; it is an
account of how urban hoodoo was practiced in New Orleans
in the early 1920s; if George Thomas wrote it, the author
was a European-American pharmacist who learned what he
knew from his African-American customers. Portions of this
book were quoted without credit or attribution by Zora Neale
Hirston in the article "Hoodoo in America" and in turn
reprinted in Hurston's book Mules and Men (see below).]
Brendle, Thomas R. and Unger, Claude W. "Folk Medicine of the
Pennsylvania Germans: The Non-Occult Cures" Proceedings of the
Pennsylvania German Society. Volume XLV, Part II, 1935. [The
title is a misnomer; many "occult cures" are indeed included.]
[Note: Useful for comparison and sourcing of Germanic
inclusions in hoodoo.]
Cappick, Marie. "The Key West Story, 1818-1950" The Coral Tribune. May
2, 16, 23, 1958.
[Note: This is but a short portion of the lengthy,
serialized autobiography of an elderly white woman who, in
this portion of the work, recalled hoodoo-associated events
she had witnessed as a young women in the 19th century.]
Chestnutt, Charles Wadell. The Conjure Woman. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1899.
[Note: Stories by this African-American author are fictional
but contain much casual and authentic data about hoodoo in
pre-Civil War era.]
Chireau, Yvonne. Black Magic
[Note: An overview of the practice of magic in the African
Diaspora.]
Clayton, Edward T. "The Truth About Voodoo" Ebony Magazine. Volume 6,
April 1951.
[Note: This African-American author seeks to debunk hoodoo
as "superstition" but inadvertently documents it thoroughly.]
Culin, Stewart. "Concerning Negro Sorcery in the United States."
Journal of American Folklore. Volume 3, 1890.
[Note: Author probably a white folklorist; data accurate but
generally duplicated elsewhere; however, this is an early
cite for much material that Hyatt collected in greater detail
40 years later.]
Culin, Stewart and Bryan, Dr. H. N. "Voodooism in Philadelphia"
Journal of American Folklore, Volume 2, No. 5, April - June, 1889.
Pages 233-234.
[Note: An annotated version of this article is online at
southern-spirits.com.]
Davis, Daniel Webster. "Folklore and Ethnology: Conjuration" Southern
Workmen and Hampton School Record. Volume 27, December, 1898.
[Note: All Hampton School students were African-American.]
de Claremont, Lewis [pseudonym of [-] Young]. Legends of Incense,
Herb, and Oil Magic. Oracle Publishing Co., 1936.
[Note: Author was not African-American; he is said to have
been Jewish Amrican; he operated one of the earliest
mail-order hoodoo supply companies, and this book became
a strong influence on urban hoodoo.]
Deveney, John Patrick. Paschal Beverly Randolph, A Nineteenth-Century
African-American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician.
State University of New York Press, 1997.
[Note: This biography of an African-American novelist,
spiritualist, and Abolition lecturer contains only a few
tangential references to hoodoo, which the Anglo-American
author does not fully perceive or identify as such; however,
the early date of Randolph's life (1825-1875) with respect to
other printed sources make even the few allusions to hoodoo
to be found in his papers extremely significant.]
[Dream Number Books for Policy and Lottery Gambling]
Aunt Sally's Policy Players Dream Book and others
Billy Bing's Dream Book
Kansas City Kitty Dream Book
Madam Fu-Fu's Lucky Number Dream Book
Pick'Em Dream Book by Rajah Rabo (Carl Z. Talbot)
Professor Konje, Professor De Herbert (Herbert G. Parris)
Rajah Rabo's 5-Star Mutuel Dream Book by Rajah Rabo (Carl Z. Talbot)
Rajah's Lucky Number Dream Book by Rajah Stanley
Stella's Lucky Seven Star Dream Book
Stella's Success From Dreams: Number Interpretations
True Fortune Teller by The Gypsy King (Ralph Anderson)
Fogel, Edwin Miller. Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania
Germans. American Germanica Press, 1913.
[Note: Useful for comparison and sourcing of Germanic
inclusions in hoodoo.]
Gamache, Henri [pseudonym of [-] Young?]. The Magic of Herbs
Throughout the Ages. Sheldon Publications, 1942.
[Note: Author may have been African-American and/or Jewish
American; in any case, this book and his others, especially
The Master Book of Candle Burning, became a strong
influence on post World War Two urban hoodoo.]
Hall, Julien A. "Negro Conjuring and Tricking"
Journal of American Folk-Lore Vol. 10, 1897.
[Note: "tricking" in African-American hoodoo parlance means
casting a spell; it does not mean fooling someone. -cat]
Harris, Bernice Kelly, ed., Creative Writing Group of Chowan College.
Southern Home Remedies. Johnson Publishing Co., 1968.
[Note: Author was an African-American novelist; this is a
non-fiction book she compiled with contributions from
others, most of them elderly, as was she too at the time
of this work.]
Harris, Joel Chandler. The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus. Houghton
Mifflin, 1955. [Written 1876 - 1908, the stories were first
published in the Atlanta Constitution, then in several book
collections, 1880 - 1948.]
[Note: Author was European-American; scant reference
to hoodoo throughout the tales; as with Randolph (see
Deveney, above) it is the early date of the material,
not its depth, that recommends it.]
Haskins, Jim. Voodoo and Hoodoo. Scarborough House Publishers, 1978;
Stein and Day, 1978.
[Note: Author was a prolific African-American non-fiction
writer; he had a generally negative attitude toward hoodoo
as "superstition" -- despite this, he documented a lot of
material, much of it from his grandmother and other elders.
Voodoo and Hoodoo by Jim Haskins is for sale by the
Lucky Mojo Curio Co. Occult Shop.]
Hearn, Lafcadio. "New Orleans Superstitions," Harper's Weekly [magazine],
December, 1886.
[Note: An annotated version of this article is online at
southern-spirits.com.]
Herrick, James W. Iroquois Medical Botany. Syracuse Press, 1995.
[Note: Author was European-American; this book is
useful for comparison and sourcing of Native American
inclusions in hoodoo.]
Herron, Leonora. "Folklore and Ethnology: Conjuring and Conjure Doctors
in the Southern United States," Southern Workmen and Hampton
School Record. Volume 24 [in two parts], July and November,
1895.
[Note: All Hampton School students were African-American;
aside from glancing references in 19th century slave
narratives this is the earliest published material on hoodoo
by an African-American person that i have located to date;
Chestnutt's fictional writings on hoodoo describe events
that took place earlier, but he published four years after
Leonora Herron and Alice Bacon did.]
Herron, Miss [Leonora] and Bacon, Miss A[lice]. M. "Folklore Scrapbook" Journal
of American Folklore. Volume 9, 1896. [A "reprint in extenso" of
the 1895 three-part "Conjuring and Conjure Doctors in the
Southern United States," by Herron (two parts) and Bacon (one
part) originally published in a lengthier form in Southern Workman
and Hampton School Record; listed here for the sake of completion
only.]
[Note: All Hampton School students were African-American. The
information published by Misses Herron and Bacon, collected from
students at the all-black Hampton Institute in Virginia, is especially
valuable. Among other things, the authors describe a clear instance of
the use of what some today call a "voodoo doll" -- but made during the
time before these were manufactured of cloth ("something all wrapped up
in hair and all kinds of other queer-looking things"). They also make
frequent references to footprint magic.]
Hohman, John George [Johann Georg]. Pow-Wows or The Long Lost Friend.
Stein, c. 1935; Dorene, c. 1960.[These variant 3rd editions
derive from the 1st and 2nd English editions of The Long-
Secreted Friend or A True and Christian Information for
Everybody; Containing Wonderful and Approved Remedies and Arts
for Men and Beast. John G. Hohman, 1846; T. F. Scheffer, 1856.
The 1846 edition was translated by the author from the 1824 2nd
edition of his 1820 German book. The 1856 translator is
uncredited.]
[Note: Useful for comparison and sourcing of German
inclusions in hoodoo. There is a more complete article
on Pow Wows or the Long Lost Friend by John
George Hohman in "Hoodoo =in Theory and Practice
by catherine yronwode.]
Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules and Men. J. B. Lippincott, 1935. Reprinted,
Harper Collins, 1990.
[Note: Author was an African-American novelist; this
non-fiction book is based on her earlier work as a
folklorist, some of it published in J.A.F. cited below.
Mules and Men by Zora Neale Huston is for sale by the
Lucky Mojo Curio Co. Occult Shop]
---------. "Hoodoo in America"
Journal of American Folklore. Volume 44, 1931.
[Note: Much of this material went into the book "Mules
and Men".]
---------, The Federal Writers Project in Florida. The Negro in Florida,
1528-1940. [unpublished incomplete ms.] [n.d., circa 1940.]
[Note: This does not duplicate any of Hurston's published
material.]
Hyatt, Harry Middleton. Hoodoo - Conjuration - Witchcraft -
Rootwork. [Five Vols.] Memoirs of the Alma Egan Hyatt
Foundation, 1970-1978.
[Note: Author was a European-American Anglican priest whose
hobbies were folklore and genealogy; material consists of
transcriptions from cylinder field recordings of interviews
with 1,599 African Americans and 1 Anglo-American; the bulk
of the interviews were conducted between 1936 and 1940.
See article on The Writings of Harry Hyatt and
article on Identifying Harry Hyatt's informants
in Hoodoo in Theory and Practice by catherine yronwode.]
---------. Folklore from Adams County Illinois. Memoirs of the Alma Egan
Hyatt Foundation, 1935. [and the rewritten Revised 2nd Edition,
Memoirs of the Alma Egan Hyatt Foundation, 1965.]
[Note: Spells are grouped by type; data is partially identified
by the ethnicity of the informant; e.g. "German," "Irish,"
"Negro," etc.; contains a lengthy section on hoodoo.
See article on The Writings of Harry Hyatt and
article on Identifying Harry Hyatt's informants
in Hoodoo in Theory and Practice by catherine yronwode.]
Johnson, F. Roy. The Fabled Dr. Jim Jordan, A Story of Conjure. Johnson
Publishing Co., 1963; revised ed. 1968.
[Note: Author was a European-American small-town
journalist who wrote and published books about the South,
including several on Native American and African-American
culture (he published the Bernice Harris book cited above,
for instance); this book is in essence a lengthy obituary
for the locally famed African-American root doctor Jim
Jordan of Como, North Carolina (practicing circa 1905-1962),
it contains contributions from his family members, several
of whom were also professional root workers; it includes the
family's herb lists, as well as a list of occult books Jim
Jordan owned, consulted, and sold in the general store /
conjure shop he operated from 1927-1962.]
Leland, Charles Godfrey. Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition.
Scribners, 1892. [Note: Author was a European-American folklorist;
the book is of interest primarily due to its inclusion
of correspondence between Leland and Mary Alicia Owen. q.v.]
Linton, Ralph. Purification of the Sacred Bundles: A Ceremony of the Pawnee.
Leaflet No. 7, Field Museum of Natural History, 1923.
[Note: Useful for comparison and sourcing of Native
American inclusions in hoodoo, particularly the sacred
nature of the raccoon penis bone.]
Long, Carolyn Morrow. Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce.
University of Tennesee Press, 2001.
[Note: Author is European-American; book details the
history of the mass distribution of hoodoo herbs and
manufactured spiritual supplies during the 20th century.]
McLean, Patricia S. "Conjure Doctors in Eastern North Carolina."
North Carolina Folklore, Vol. 20, 1972. Pages 21-29.
[Meyer, Joseph E; Meyer, Clarence; Meyer, David.] The Herbalist Almanac.
Calumet Herb Co., 1920 - 1970.
[Note: Authors were a trio of three generations of
European-American herb-growers and hobby folklorists
who supplied herbs to companies that distributed to
pharmacies, private mail order customers, and Southern
African-American conjure shops of the 1920s-50s; their
yearly catalogues contained much historical and
contemporary magical herb-lore; the contemporary data
they collected during world travels and from their own
customers; not merely a good source for hoodoo material but
also rich with anecdotes about Afro-Caribbean herb-magic.]
Moore, Ruby Andrews. "Superstitions of Georgia" [I]
Journal of American Folk-Lore Vol. 5, 1892.
---------. "Superstitions From Georgia" [II]
Journal of American Folklore. Volume 7, 1894.
---------. "Superstitions of Georgia" [III]
Journal of American Folk-Lore Vol. 9, 1896.
[Note: Author was a European-American folklorist.]
Norris, Thaddeus. "Negro Superstitions" Lippincott's Magazine. July
1870.
[Note: Good, factual observations embedded in a racist
context; author was European-American; this piece was
arguably the source from which Joel Chandler Harris (see
above) drew his first published account of Negro tales.
Also contains a good account of hag-riding folklore.
An annotated version of this article is online at
southern-spirits.com.]
Owen, Mary Alicia. Voodoo Tales as Told Among the Negroes of the
Southwest, Collected from Original Sources. Putnam, 1893.
[Note: Author was a European-American folklorist who
grew up with many African-Americans around her and,
like the earlier Joel Chandler Harris, wrote down
the tales, folklore, and magical information that
were related to her; as with Joel Chandler Harris (but
not Newbell Niles Puckett), any racialist tinges in
her work were naive rather than mean-spirited. One of
the pieces in this collection, Hoodoo Luck-Balls,
is online at southern-spirits.com.]
Park, Sallie M. "Voodooism in Tennessee" Atlantic Monthly, September
1889.
[Note: Good, factual observations embedded in a racist
context; author was a European-American slave-owner.
An annotated version of this article is online at
southern-spirits.com.]
Pendleton, Louis. "Negro Folk-Lore and Witchcraft in the South"
Journal of American Folk-Lore Vol. 3, 1890.
Puckett, Newbell Niles. Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro. University
of North Carolina Press, 1926.
[Note: Good, factual observations embedded in a racist
context; author was a European-American folklorist.]
Steiner, Roland. "Observations of the Practice of Conjuring in Georgia"
Journal of American Folklore. Volume 14, 1901. Pages 173-180.
[Note: Author was a European-American folklorist.]
Weeks, John H. "The Congo Medicine-Man and His Black and White Magic."
Folk-Lore 21, 1910. Pages 445-471.
Wicker, Christine. "Not In Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic Is Trasforming America"
HarperCollins, 2005.
[Note: A tour of magical America, with visits to vampires,
hermetic occultists, elves, and several hoodoo rootwork
practitioners, including catherine yronwode and
nagasiva yronwode, the co-owners of The Lucky Mojo
Curio Co.; and Dr. Christos Kioni, co-host and producer
of The Lucky Mojo Hoodoo Rootwork Hour Radio Show.
See also the Free Online Subject Index to
Not In Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic Is
Transforming America by Christine Wicker.
Yates, Irene. "Conjures and Cures in the Novels of Julia Peterkin."
Southern Folklore Quarterly 10, 1946. Pages 137-149.
[Note: This deals with conjure in fiction.]
Many of these books and articles can be had through
interlibrary loan or via a large university library.
Good luck,
cat yronwode
Lucky Mojo Curio Co. Occult Shop http://www.luckymojo.com/catalogue
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Eoghan Ballard, Jeff Anderson, and Carolyn Morrow Long for bringing some of these materials to my attention.
The material collected at this site is in the public domain,
but the format, editing, illustrations, annotations, html,
and layout are protected by copyright and may not be
mirrored to another site. Please respect the time it took to
create this archive and do not copy the pages; rather,
please link your own site to
Southern Spirits -- http://www.southern-spirits.com
Thank you.
