FOLK MAGIC & CHARMS · LESSON 5 OF 6 · 14 MIN
Hoodoo and Conjure
The African American tradition of rootwork — its Kongo and West African roots, Native plant knowledge and European books, its place in resistance to slavery, Zora Neale Hurston's fieldwork — and how to learn about it with respect.
Hoodoo — also called conjure, rootwork or simply "roots" — is a body of spiritual practice developed by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States. Its practitioners are rootworkers, root doctors, conjure men and conjure women. It is not a single religion with a creed but a set of traditions, usually practised alongside a faith — most often Protestant Christianity, but also Catholicism, Islam or Spiritualism. It is above all a living Black tradition, and this lesson is an introduction to its history, not a book of spells.