Dirt Dauber Nests

“Yo’ know a dirt dauber makes his nest up high.” A Waycross informant explained to Hyatt that the wasp takes its dirt from the ground and carries it into the air, and that is where its power comes from (Hyatt 2472 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1148).

The dirt dauber is the mud wasp that plasters tube-shaped nests under eaves, porch roofs and the sides of houses. Hyatt gave it its own heading. In his informants’ hands the nest was midwife’s medicine, a luck charm, and one of the commonest bases for confusion and moving work.

What it is

The nest is dried mud, sometimes with the young wasps still inside. Informants used it whole, crumbled, boiled into tea, mixed with vinegar, or pounded into powder.

A Florence man sent by a root doctor to fetch one with the young inside found it “mighty nasty, all right ’nuff”, and mashed it up with saltpetre (Hyatt 1216 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1319).

A Waycross informant gave the reason it worked both ways: a dirt dauber flies high and low, so it covers everything (Hyatt 1219 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1086).

Women’s medicine

The nest was known first to midwives.

• A tea of the nest was given to young girls to bring on their periods (Hyatt 1210 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1384).
• For a woman who could not bring her baby, the whole nest was thrown in boiling water and steeped (Hyatt 1211 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1419).
• For a slow birth, the young daubers were picked out and only the nest material was steeped (Hyatt 1212 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1368).
• The same tea, in a smaller dose for a woman less than two months gone, was used to end a pregnancy (Hyatt 6768 · New Orleans, La. · informant 809).

Curing the body

• Rubbed on a teething child’s gums (Hyatt 1213 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1241)
• Boiled for measles and whooping cough (Hyatt 1215 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1566)
• Powdered and bandaged on a person bleeding to death (Hyatt 1217 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1558)
• Drunk as tea against poison a man had given you (Hyatt 6767 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1361)
• Mixed with vinegar as a poultice for a sprain (Hyatt 6775 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1454) or for swelling (Hyatt 6777 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1455)
• Used as a vinegar plaster on a part of the body hit by somebody’s work (Hyatt 6774 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1374)

Luck and protection

Beaten up with whole spice and thrown into the air, the nest brought luck and kept evil spirits off the premises (Hyatt 1219 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1086). Sprinkled round a place of business and under the door, it drew customers (Hyatt 2472 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1148).

Other uses:

• A Waycross informant called it awful lucky to women, used with Hearts Cologne, alum and chamber lye (Hyatt 2688 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1135).
• Powdered with rattlesnake master and shame brier root, it was carried for gambling (Hyatt 2324 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1382).
• Worn on the body, it kept someone who had your sock from harming you (Hyatt 1220 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 937).

Confusion, moving and harm

Hyatt noted that because dirt dauber dirt causes confusion, it turns up in many confusion rites: family quarrels, moving a person out, and the like (Hyatt 1837 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1414).

• Pounded and thrown where a man had to walk at his workplace, it lost him his job (Hyatt 1837 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1414).
• Mixed with pepper it made goofer dust (Hyatt 679 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 650).
• With graveyard dirt, cooking salt and sulphur under the steps, it ran people away (Hyatt 1218 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1321).
• With cayenne, Epsom salts, sulphur, powdered asafetida and snuff thrown inside a house, it moved the people living there (Hyatt 11202 · Algiers, La. · informant 1584).
• With dirt from a baby’s grave hidden in a corner, the baby’s spirit would cry and frighten you out of the room (Hyatt 7580 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1365).
• With graveyard dirt, red pepper pods, cayenne and vinegar in a black bottle turned upside down, it separated people (Hyatt 1727 · Algiers, La. · informant 1580).

Fed to a victim, it was said to plant the wasps inside them. In Waycross, the eggs would hatch in the body’s warmth (Hyatt 6540 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1097).

In their own words

“What they mean is to make you goofy.”

(Hyatt 679 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 650)

“an’ dat makes de lil’ one come right out”

(Hyatt 1211 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1419)

“It’s one de best teethin’ medicines yo’ kin git in de country.”

(Hyatt 1213 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1241)

“Den de boss an’ deyself will fall out.”

(Hyatt 1837 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1414)

How it’s worked today

Dirt dauber nest is still collected from porches and outbuildings and sold by some suppliers. It is used mainly in confusion powders, crossing work and break-ups, often ground with graveyard dirt, sulphur and peppers.

Some workers also keep the old luck side, carrying a piece of the nest or mixing it into drawing powders for business. The folk-medicine uses survive mostly as family memory in the rural South.

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.