Knots and Knot Magick

“I snap dat string and I’ve got yore spirit.” A Charleston worker said that about a single loose knot in a piece of cotton string, pulled tight the moment a man answered to his name.

Knots run all through Hyatt’s volumes. A knot holds. Whatever goes into it, a sickness, a spirit, a man’s mind or his nature, stays caught until the knot is untied or the string is thrown away.

What it is

Knot work needs almost nothing: a cotton string, a cord, a strip of cloth, a ribbon, a pocket handkerchief or a garter. What gives it force is the number of knots, the way they are tied, and what the knot is named for.

• Nine knots is the standard count, with three and seven close behind.
• A knot per thing: one knot for every chill a sick person has had, or for every inch of a man’s measure.
• Direction: knots jerked away from you to drive off, pulled towards you to draw in.
• Naming: a name called, or a wish made, over each knot as it is tied.

What Hyatt’s informants said

The commonest knot of all was a healing one. Across Georgia, the Carolinas, Mississippi and Louisiana, a string with nine knots, often soaked in turpentine, was tied round the waist for chills and fever, round the head for headache, or round the wrist or leg for cramps (Hyatt 1020 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1407; Hyatt 1370 · New Orleans, La. · informant 855).

Some tied the knots one a day rather than all at once (Hyatt 1022 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1174). Others matched the knots to the number of chills already suffered (Hyatt 1368 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 536).

Then the sickness had to go somewhere. One Brunswick informant slept in the string and in the morning would “go an’ tie it round a tree – jes’ any kinda tree an’ leave it wit ‘out lookin’ back.” (Hyatt 1373 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1226).

Knots were just as often turned on enemies. A Mobile informant tied nine knots in new cloth, jerking each one away: “If you got an enemy and you calls his name, you won’t never be worried with him no more.” (Hyatt 1018 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 666).

Tying a man’s nature

The darkest and most widely known knot work was done by women on men. She measured him while he slept, tied a knot for each inch, and kept the string on her body, in her purse or round her leg. He was then useless with any other woman (Hyatt 3468 · Baltimore, Md. · informant 148).

A Memphis informant had the string wrapped round a nail on the side of the house, and was blunt about the result: “he kin git ready fo’ a woman, but when he git up on ‘er – well, he gits down.” (Hyatt 3471 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1544).

A garter she wore herself did the same job. As long as the knot stayed tied in it, his nature for anyone else was gone (Hyatt 3486 · Norfolk, Va. · informant 470).

Other uses

• A knot tied in the middle of a cord that loosened on its own, however tight she pulled it, told a woman he had been with someone else (Hyatt 3493 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1403).
• Nine knots in a ball of thread, each named for a great liar, for protection when someone meant you harm (Hyatt 1619 · Charleston, S. Car. · informant 519).
• A red handkerchief tied in knots and thrown into the river to carry the work downstream (Hyatt 279 · Richmond, Va. · informant 340).
• A handkerchief in nine knots carried into a whirlwind to meet the devil (Hyatt 180 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1422).

In their own words

“git in that whirlwind an’ the devil will come an’ talk with yo’.”

(Hyatt 180 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1422)

“An’ he cain’t do nuthin but wit dat woman.”

(Hyatt 3470 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1527)

“if you done have five chills, you put five knots in that string there and tie it round yo’ waist.”

(Hyatt 1368 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 536)

How it’s worked today

Knot work is still everyday rootwork. Nine knots in a cord or a strip of the target’s clothing are used to bind a lover, hold a job, or tie up an enemy’s plans, with a prayer or the person’s name said over every knot.

Measuring a partner with string and knotting it to his length is still practised for fidelity and to tie his nature. Knotted cords also go into mojo bags and bottles, and knots are cut, burned or thrown into running water to release whatever they hold.

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.