Crossing and Uncrossing

“Yo’ don’t rest well, an’ yo’ don’t have no success, an’ jis’ lak feelin’ down all de time.” That is how a Memphis informant described being crossed (Hyatt 2947 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 925).

Crossed was one of the most useful words in the hoodoo of Hyatt’s informants. It covered a whole condition rather than a single trick: luck gone, business gone, health and mind out of order, a house no one could live in. Taking the cross off was as large a body of work as putting it on.

What it is

To cross someone is to set a spiritual block across their road. The word is literal. Much crossing work was done with things laid in an X: needles, pins, nails, broomstraws, marks.

A person, a house, a business or a job could all be crossed. Uncrossing is the counter-work that breaks the block and sends it away, very often by a reversal: bathing downwards, walking away without looking back, throwing the used water towards the sunrise.

How the cross was put on

Hyatt’s informants described crossing in many forms:

• Nails in the floor. Nine nails, six driven straight and three across them, where the victim had to walk. That, a New Orleans informant said, was crossing the house (Hyatt 9744 · New Orleans, La. · informant 879).
• Corners of an empty house. Red onion, red pepper and salt pushed into every corner, so anyone who moved in would never be satisfied there (Hyatt 12541 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1548).
• The hat bow. Nine needles and nine pins stuck every which way, crossed up, in the bow of a man’s hat, then stopped up in a bottle. A woman could fix it for a man “an’ run ‘im crazy” (Hyatt 4578 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 692).
• Crossed broomstraws in the road, to cross a worker with his boss (Hyatt 1758 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1509).

What Hyatt’s informants said about uncrossing

Water carried the cross away. In Waycross, a man whose luck had been crossed through witchcraft boiled a broken gourd with saltpetre, sulphur and cooking salt and bathed in it, with one rule: “dey don’t bathe up – dey bathe down , see.” The water then went into the middle of a running stream (Hyatt 1303 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1086).

In Algiers, the crossed person crossed water, threw three pieces of money over the left shoulder halfway across, and came back by a different way (Hyatt 1654 · Algiers, La. · informant 1577).

At a New Orleans crossroads, an informant marked a cross in the road and spat in the middle of it: “He say that’ll uncross me – like somebody got me crossed.” (Hyatt 855 · New Orleans, La. · informant 850).

The variations

• The crab. A live crab burned to dust, mixed with sugar, hot water, cayenne and salt for a bath, then the dust rubbed on dry. Hyatt noted it as a reversing rite: the crab walks backwards (Hyatt 1204 · New Orleans, La. · informant 829).
• The stolen dishrag. Taken damp from someone’s house, wiped down and across the body three times facing the sunrise, thrown over the head, and walked away from without a word (Hyatt 3745 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 977).
• Ammonia, sugar and bluing. Added to the used bath water and thrown towards the sunrise (Hyatt 10759 · New Orleans, La. · informant 804).
• Uncrossing the house. Pulling the nails, keeping them in the house overnight, throwing them out before sunrise and washing the floor with saltpetre (Hyatt 9744 · New Orleans, La. · informant 879), or mopping with garlic, oil of cinnamon and red pepper (Hyatt 12541 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1548).

In their own words

“dat keeps de cross off yo’ – keep it from ‘im.”

(Hyatt 6696 · New Orleans, La. · informant 857)

“But dat’ll uncross yuh.”

(Hyatt 3745 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 977)

“that will uncross your bad luck”

(Hyatt 10759 · New Orleans, La. · informant 804)

How it’s worked today

Crossing and uncrossing remain at the centre of hoodoo practice. Uncrossing baths, washes and candles are among the most requested services, and the rules Hyatt recorded still apply: bathe downwards, dispose of the water at a crossroads, in running water or towards the sunrise, and do not look back.

Crossing work is also still done, with crossed pins and needles, crossing powders and work laid where the target walks. Commercial Crossing and Uncrossing oils sit side by side in every spiritual supply shop, as they did in the drug stores of the 1930s.

Learn the work

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Source: Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork, 5 vols., 1970-1978. Numbers refer to Hyatt’s own item numbers; the town and informant number follow. Written by Hoodoo Witch in our own words, with short quotations from Hyatt’s informants for reference.