Live Things in You
One of the most feared tricks in old conjure was having live things put inside you: snakes, frogs, lizards, spiders or scorpions moving under the skin or in the stomach.
Hyatt gave it a margin title of its own, “Live Things in You,” and cross-referenced it throughout the volumes.
How it was done
Hyatt’s own explanation: live things were usually put in a person through the blood or powdered body of the animal, slipped into food or drink (Hyatt 343 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1066).
- Blood from a snake, reptile, scorpion or lizard (Hyatt 684 · Richmond, Va. · informant 346).
- A frog tied “hog-fashion,” all four feet bound, and laid where the person would walk over it. In nine days the things come alive inside them (Hyatt 967 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 706).
- A spider in the food (Hyatt 770 · Fredericksburg, Va. · informant 39).
- Roots buried for you to walk over could also cause pains and troubles (Hyatt 716).
How it felt
- Movement under the skin, swelling, pain in the legs and arms.
- Behaving like the animal itself. With a snake spirit, Hyatt records, a patient might crawl, dart the tongue out, run it round the lips, and sleep for long stretches like a snake in hibernation (Hyatt 1000).
- Live things could even be put into a well. One woman found her well full of wigglers “big as mah fingah” (Hyatt 705 · Wilson, N.C. · informant 1513).
How it was cured
- A doctor promised three scorpions would come out of the legs, and said where each would come out (Hyatt 876 · Wilmington, N.C. · informant 241).
- Asafoetida and silver scraped from a dime, in milk, for nine days, “got the frogs out of her stomach” (Hyatt 701 · New Orleans, La. · informant 832).
- An old woman who could tell “somepin wrong wit chew” before being told anything (Hyatt 869).
- Purges of bitter herbs in whiskey, after which the thing was passed (Hyatt 689 · New Orleans, La. · informant 802).
Hyatt notes, without judgement, that some of the cures he recorded were tricks sold by the hoodoo trade itself (Hyatt 794).
How it’s worked today
Workers today still recognise the signs: crawling sensations, sudden swellings, animal-like behaviour, and dreams of snakes.
The cures follow the old pattern: diagnosis first, often with a silver dime or a reading, then purging, uncrossing baths, and a counter-working sent back down the line.
Learn the work
Module Seven covers the signs of magical attack; the Certification Course teaches the cures.
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 for reference.