Lemons

“A lemon is a sour thing, ‘vided [provided] whut chew wanta do wit it.” The Memphis worker who said that to Hyatt summed up the lemon in one line (Hyatt 8628 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1556).

Sour where sugar is sweet, the lemon was hoodoo’s vessel for souring a life. Hyatt’s informants hollowed it, filled it, stabbed it, burned candles in it and buried it. A smaller body of lore used its juice to cleanse and to cut bad luck.

What it is

In most lemon tricks the fruit is a container. The top is cut off or the fruit is halved, the pulp is dug out, and a name paper goes inside with whatever the work needs.

Common fillings in Hyatt’s lemon section:

• Cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt
• Graveyard dirt and Epsom salts
• Steel dust, gunpowder and vinegar
• Nine needles and nine pins

The lemon was then sewn shut with black thread, corked, buried, or thrown overboard. One Algiers informant even called the lemon an aig, which Hyatt glosses as meaning lemon (Hyatt 8631 · Algiers, La. · informant 1597).

What Hyatt’s informants said

The rotting fruit carried the curse. A New Orleans informant had heard that a name could be shut up in a lemon and buried: “An’ when dat lemon rots, yo’ll rot” (Hyatt 8625 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1588).

A Charleston doctor needed nothing but a new lemon and a brand-new knife. The work was meant to give the victim heart trouble: “Stobb [stab] it like yo’ stobbin’ a person, an’ call dey name.” (Hyatt 8637 · Charleston, S. Car. · informant 518).

In Memphis, the lemon was emptied, packed with table salt and carried to a crossroad. The victim’s name was called in the names of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the work was spoken, and the worker turned and left it there (Hyatt 8628 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1556).

Breaking up, moving out, holding down

• A Mobile worker halved a lemon, put in the names of a man and woman living well together, sewed it with black thread and buried it to confuse them (Hyatt 8635 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 668).
• A New Orleans woman stood a black candle in a lemon in a can of beer with her rival’s name written backwards nine times. In ten days, she said, the woman could not stay (Hyatt 8624 · New Orleans, La. · informant 848).
• A lemon holding a name written nine times, put under the house, would make the people move (Hyatt 8634 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 695).
• A lemon burned with a blue light called Uncle kept a person down, so they could not prosper or get a job (Hyatt 2757 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1587).
• A candle burned bottom upwards in a lemon set on someone’s photograph gave them a headache or other misery (Hyatt 2982 · Algiers, La. · informant 1577).

The body and the dead

Some lemon work went straight to the body. In New Orleans, hair from a black dog’s tail went into a bottle with lemon juice, and the bottle was buried to stop the victim passing water (Hyatt 4378 · New Orleans, La. · informant 803).

Lemon also went to a killing. A Washington informant buried a lemon holding the murderer’s name, written over the murdered person’s name and topped with salt, at the place of the crime so that he would not leave (Hyatt 8638 · Washington, D.C. · informant 639).

Cleansing and cutting bad luck

The juice had its clean side too. In Jacksonville, red sand dug at the four forks of a road was boiled with lemons and drunk to cut bad luck that someone had put on you (Hyatt 1205 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 596).

Several informants gave lemon juice as a test or guard against venereal disease. Squeezed on a woman, it showed whether she was diseased (Hyatt 3226 · Little Rock, Ark. · informant 902). A Memphis informant bathed with it after being with a partner (Hyatt 3227 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1524).

In Algiers, lemon juice and white sugar in a quart of water went with the judge’s name in a court case: sour and sweet in one bottle (Hyatt 2930 · Algiers, La. · informant 1590).

In their own words

“Dey put dat candle in a lemon an’ set dat lemon on yore pitchure”

(Hyatt 2982 · Algiers, La. · informant 1577)

“dat is supposed to cut de bad luck off yo'”

(Hyatt 1205 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 596)

“If she got any kinda disease, well she’ll holler.”

(Hyatt 3226 · Little Rock, Ark. · informant 902)

“yo’ take a lemon an’ squeeze de juice an’ bathe yo’self wit it”

(Hyatt 3227 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1524)

How it’s worked today

The stuffed lemon is still a standard souring and separation trick. Workers cut the fruit, load it with the target’s name, peppers, salt and pins, sew or pin it shut and leave it to rot or bury it. The rotting is the point: as the lemon withers, so does the target.

Lemons are also still cut and pierced for breakups, and halved lemons are put in jars of vinegar for sour jars.

On the clean side, lemon juice and lemon peel go into floor washes and spiritual baths to cut through crossed conditions, much as the Jacksonville informant used it.

Learn the work

← Back to The Hyatt Files

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.