Draft:Hoodoo divination

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The Yowa Cross, Kongo Cosmogram, or dikenga dia Kongo

Various methods of divination have been used by African-American rootworkers within the Hoodoo tradition throughout the history of the USA.

Methods of divination

William Wells Brown wrote in his autobiography that he spoke with an enslaved fortune-teller named Frank to learn if his escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad would be successful.[1]

Divination in Hoodoo originated from African practices. In West-Central Africa, divination was (and is) used to determine what an individual or a community should know that is important for survival and spiritual balance. In Africa and American Hoodoo, people turn to divination, seeking guidance from an elder or a skilled diviner about major changes in their lives. Conjure doctors diagnose illnesses and determine treatments using divination.[2] This practice was brought to the United States during the transatlantic slave trade and was later influenced by other divination systems.[3] There are several forms of divination traditionally used in Hoodoo.[4]

Astrology

Practitioners sometimes incorporate planetary and elemental energies in their spiritual work (spells). Numerology is also used in Hoodoo and combined with astrology for spiritual works. African Americans in Indiana have combined numerology, astrology, African mysticism, Voodoo, and Hoodoo to create a new spiritual divination practice and system of magic unique to African Americans. Rootworkers there trained under African American astrologers in Black communities.[5][6][7] Blacks in the United States have historically looked to astrology for guidance. For example, Nat Turner took the sign of an eclipse of the sun as a sign from God to start his slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.[8]

Augury

The practice of Augury is deciphering phenomena (omens) that are believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. Before his rebellion, Nat Turner had visions and omens from spirits to free the enslaved through armed resistance.[9] In African American communities, a child born with a caul over their face is believed to have psychic gifts to see spirits and see into the future. This belief in the caul bringing psychic gifts was found in West Africa, particularly in Benin (Dahomey). After the baby is born, the caul is removed, preserved, and used to drive away or banish ghosts.[10][11] It is believed that a child born at midnight will have second sight or extrasensory perception of events.[12]

Cartomancy

Cartomancy is the practice of using Tarot and poker playing cards to receive messages from spirits. This form of divination was added later in Hoodoo. Some Hoodoo practitioners use both.[13]

Cleromancy

Cleromancy is casting small objects such as shells, bones, stalks, coins, nuts, stones, dice, and sticks for an answer from spirits. The use of such items is a form of divination used in Africa and Hoodoo in the United States.[14][15]

Dominoes

Rootworkers also divine with dominoes.[16]

Dancing dime

A dancing dime is a device meant to diagnose maladies caused by Hoodoo. The root doctor would boil an object which was typically a coin, but preferably a silver dime. Slugs and other coin-like objects were also used.[a] Upon movement of the object, the meaning of the movement is discerned by the root doctor.[17]

Destiny

In traditional African religions, people are given a destiny from the Supreme God. It is believed that someone can alter parts of their destiny through rituals and conjure. This is true in religions such as Ifá, where a skilled conjurer can alter a person's destiny through divinities or evil forces. This means a conjurer can shorten someone's life by conjuring death onto them. A conjurer can protect a person's destiny from another conjurer trying to change it. To know a person's destiny, divination is used. Divination is also used to know what rituals should be performed and what charms should be worn to protect or alter a person's destiny.[18]

Oneiromancy

Oneiromancy is a form of divination based on dreams. Formerly enslaved people talked about receiving messages from ancestors and spirits concerning imminent danger or receiving advice on how to save money.[19] Harriet Tubman believed her dreams were given to her by God to inform her how to rescue her family from slavery on the Underground Railroad. Tubman told biographers she had dreams of flying over fields, which let her know where to go and where the safe places were to hide freedom seekers.[20]

Walking boy

The walking boy was a traditional form of divination practiced by African Americans on slave plantations, and the practice continued after chattel slavery. A conjurer would take a bottle, tie a string, and place a bug inside it. The conjurer pulled the bottle as the bug moved. The direction in which the bug moved inside the bottle revealed to the conjurer where a spell bottle was buried that caused misfortune or where the person who buried the bottle lived.[21]

Enslaved African Americans held diviners in high respect, believing that they knew about unknown events and that, using divination, conjurers could tell if an enslaved person would be whipped, sold, or escape to freedom. Autobiographies of formerly enslaved people tell about enslaved people seeking counsel from enslaved diviners.[22]

See also

Notes

  1. Substitutions occured due to the difficulty of acquiring silver dimes by enslaved people.[17]

References

  1. Brown, William Wells (1847). Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave. Written by Himself. Boston: Published at the Anti-Slavery Office, No. 25 Cornhill. pp. 91–93.
  2. Joyner (1985). Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. University of Illinois Press. pp. 148–149. ISBN 9780252013058.
  3. Hazzard-Donald 2013, p. 1–2.
  4. Hazzard-Donald 2013, p. 22, 27, 31, 92.
  5. Kulii (1982). "A Look at Hoodoo in Three Urban Areas of Indiana: Folklore and Change". ProQuest Dissertations Publishing / Indiana University: 4–11, 23, 36–40, 298–299. ProQuest 303215632. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  6. Peek (1991). African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 9780253343093.
  7. Parsons (2011). Teaching Mysticism. Oxford University Press. pp. 138–151. ISBN 9780199751198.
  8. Newman, Chris. "African Spirituality's Influence on the Slave Experience in America Introduction: Nat Turner and the Fear of African Spirituality" (PDF). Ohio State University Graduate School. Ohio State University. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  9. Newman. "Nat Turner and the Fear of African Spirituality" (PDF). Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  10. National Park Service Staff. Low Country Gullah Culture Special Resource Study and Final Environmental Impact Statement (PDF). pp. D21, D33, F19. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 1, 2014.
  11. Peek (1991). African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 9780253343093.
  12. Pyatt (1999). A Dictionary and Catalog of African American Folklife of the South. Greenwood Publishing. p. 4. ISBN 9780313279997.
  13. Hazzard-Donald 2013, p. 56, 162.
  14. Hazzard-Donald 2013, p. 5, 24, 200.
  15. Peek (1991). African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. Georgetown University Press. pp. 5, 24, 200. ISBN 9780253343093.
  16. Hazzard-Donald 2013, p. 56, 92.
  17. Hazzard-Donald 2013, p. 206.
  18. Pollitzer (2005). The Gullah People and Their African Heritage. University of Georgia Press. p. 138. ISBN 9780820327839.
  19. Yetman, Norman (2012). Voices from Slavery: 100 Authentic Slave Narratives. Dover Publications. pp. 110, 139, 162. ISBN 9780486131016.
  20. Larson (2009). Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero. Random House Publishing Group. pp. 43–44. ISBN 9780307514769.
  21. Hazzard-Donald 2013, p. 55–56, 92, 127–128, 210.
  22. Archer (2009). Antebellum Slave Narratives: Cultural and Political Expressions of Africa. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135855130.

Bibliography

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