Doctor Buzzard and the Root Doctors

“Dey tell me he kin fix buzzards so he make them row a boat .” That is how one Charleston man explained the name of the most famous root doctor on the Atlantic coast (Hyatt 3072 · Charleston, S. Car. · informant 506).

Hyatt’s informants did not only talk about tricks. They talked about the people who laid and lifted them: the professional doctors, who had names, reputations, offices, rivals, successors and prices.

What it is

In the South the professional rootworker was called a doctor, a two-headed doctor, a conjure doctor, a root doctor, or by a title such as Madam or Mother. The doctor read the case, named the enemy, made the hand, took off the trick, and went to court on behalf of clients.

Hyatt interviewed many of these practitioners himself, and his lay informants told him about many more.

Doctor Buzzard of Beaufort

Hyatt calls him “the fabulous Doctor Buzzard” and places him at Beaufort, South Carolina. In Hyatt’s own reading he was a symbolic scavenger of rotten conditions, and he set the fashion for the title doctor, the strange professional name, the odd appearance and the house set apart.

The legend his clients told was of a boat rowed across the water by a buzzard. A Sumter doctor Hyatt called Courtroom Specialist gave the fullest version: the buzzard rowed clients over to the doctor’s side, and turned back with the wrong ones (Hyatt 3070 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1387).

A Brunswick man said simply that “he could see yo’ befo’ yo’ came .” (Hyatt 3071 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1216)

Court work was his speciality in the stories. In St. Petersburg an informant told how a boy jailed over a few apples was sent home free after his sister crossed the sound to Beaufort (Hyatt 3074 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1039).

The many Buzzards

The name became a brand. Informants disagreed over whether he was alive or dead, Black or white, and whether the doctor working at Beaufort was the real one.

• One Charleston informant said the old man was dead and that the office now ran under the name Buzzard Rowboat (Hyatt 3073 · Charleston, S. Car. · informant 512).
• A Waycross man said he left a son and two daughters, and that the son was said to be about as good as his father (Hyatt 3077 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1074).
• A Florence informant said the man at Beaufort was really a Doctor Robertson, who would not answer to the name Buzzard (Hyatt 3078 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1331).

Hyatt himself interviewed a Doctor Buzzard in Norfolk, Virginia, one of the “little black Buzzards” who took up the name after the original.

Doctor Harris and the other names

Hyatt pairs Buzzard with Doctor Harris near Florence, South Carolina, a white man who was famous for decades and was succeeded, after his death in 1926-1927, by another man using the same name. A Florence doctor said of Harris’s sons: “Ah don’t think dey do know much. Dey drinks too bad.” (Hyatt 3080 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1332)

Taking a famous predecessor’s name was common practice. Hyatt notes that New Orleans had more than one Marie Laveau, and across the river in Algiers clients went to Madam Helen, also called Miss Helen.

How they charged

The doctors were paid, and the informants remembered exactly how much.

• Five dollars for taking off a snake spell in Wilmington (Hyatt 244 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 253).
• Fifty dollars for a luck hand that worked for about three weeks (Hyatt 2128 · Fredericksburg, Va. · informant 38).
• Twelve dollars for ten days’ treatment with Mother Jones (Hyatt 2746 · Fredericksburg, Va. · informant 40).
• Fifty dollars, with twenty-five down, from Miss Helen in Algiers (Hyatt 2762 · New Orleans, La. · informant 782).
• A fifty-dollar fee in advance demanded for curing paralysis; the patient’s offer of half down and half on recovery was refused (Hyatt 1007 · New York City · informant 9).

Money on deposit, with the balance due on results, was the common pattern. So were complaints of being cheated.

In their own words

“dey say yo’ bettah git off , ‘ cause yo ‘ de wrong man – de buzzard gotta tuh drown yo’ .”

(Hyatt 3070 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1387)

“dere’s several of Doctor Buzzards – goin’ undah Doctor Buzzard name so dey make money.”

(Hyatt 3079 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1283)

“He signs his name Buzzard Rowboat.”

(Hyatt 3073 · Charleston, S. Car. · informant 512)

How it’s worked today

The professional rootworker is still the centre of the tradition. Workers still take titles such as Doctor, Mother, Madam, Reverend or Rootworker, and many still build a name on one speciality, above all court cases.

Beaufort County remembers Dr. Buzzard as Stephaney Robinson, a root doctor famous for court work who died in 1947, and the name is still used there. Fees are still taken partly in advance, and consultations now run by phone and online as well as in person.

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.