Keeping a Lover Home

“And I’ll betcha she’ll never run off from dat house no more.” A Vicksburg man said it after describing how he would nail a runaway wife’s shoe into the ground under his front step. Hyatt’s informants did not leave a straying partner to chance.

Keeping a lover home was among the commonest jobs Hyatt recorded. Husbands ran round, wives ran off, sons wandered. The work aimed to fix the person to the house, stop them with anyone else, and bring them back if they had already gone.

What it is

This is staying work, binding work and drawing-back work. It relies on the partner’s personal concerns, above all shoes, socks, underwear and foot tracks, and on the house itself: its steps, its foundations, its bed.

The informants spoke of fixing a man to stay home and stopping him from wandering.

What Hyatt’s informants said

The house was made to hold the person. In Florence a woman whose man ran round with other women was told to push a common bird nest as near the centre under the house as she could. If he still strayed, “it because dat bird nest ain’t under dat house” (Hyatt 1721 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1331).

The Vicksburg man’s runaway-wife rite used her left-foot shoe and nine nails driven through it in the shape of a coffin, buried under the bottom step (Hyatt 1802 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 747).

In Petersburg a wife would “tie him to herself with footsteps; her footsteps and yours”, tacking both tracks under the carpet or at the foot of the door (Hyatt 1866 · Petersburg, Va. · informant 449).

Binding him from others

Staying home was not enough. The work also aimed to make him useless anywhere else.

• In Wilson, North Carolina, a wife boiled her husband’s underwear with cross vine from the woods, because “dat cross vine keeps him cross from her” (Hyatt 1810 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1492).
• The same Vicksburg informant said a wife fastens the rag she wiped her husband with after sex to the middle of the mattress, where he sleeps (Hyatt 3120 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 747).

Shoes and socks

• To stop a man running about at night, “all yo’ gotta do is jes’ blow yore breath in de right shoe three times an’ turn it up”, then put it under the bed (Hyatt 2300 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 1276).
• A left-foot shoe with a candle burned over it for nine days, then buried under the step of the house where he lived (Hyatt 2851 · New Orleans, La. · informant 828).
• His dirty left sock buried in front of the door between three and four in the morning, then a black candle burned over his name written nine times (Hyatt 2934 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1544).

Bringing him back

When the partner had already gone, the work turned to drawing. A New Orleans worker wrote his name seven times on a blue candle rolled in Jockey Club perfume and burned it three times a day (Hyatt 2809 · New Orleans, La. · informant 783).

Saints were called on too. A New Orleans woman whose husband had been taken by another woman prayed to St. Rita and burned and scrubbed incense through the house (Hyatt 3060 · New Orleans, La. · informant 841).

In their own words

“I’ll guarantee dat yo’ can’t have no othah wimmin.”

(Hyatt 3120 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 747)

“No, jis’ throw it undah de house – don’t cover it up ‘tall, jes’ push it undah de house. He’ll stay.”

(Hyatt 1721 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1331)

How it’s worked today

Staying work remains one of the most requested jobs in rootwork. Workers still nail or bury a partner’s shoe under the step, lay foot-track dirt under the doormat, and fix the bed with the partner’s concerns.

Name papers under red, pink or blue candles, bound with the partner’s hair or worn clothing, are still worked to draw back someone who has gone. Many workers still pair the job with saints, St. Rita and St. Joseph above all.

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.