The Mojo Hand, Toby and Nation Sack

The little bag is the best known object in hoodoo. Worn at the neck, carried in the pocket, tied at the waist or hidden in the wall, it is a working kept close to the body.

Hyatt’s informants called it by many names, and what it held changed from town to town. What did not change was the idea: the bag is alive, and it has to be kept alive.

What it is

A hand is a small packet of roots, minerals, coins, personal concerns and perfume, sewn or tied in cloth, usually red flannel or chamois.

Hyatt listed the names he heard for it: hand, toby, guide, shield, roots, mojo, jomo and hoodoo bag (Hyatt, Vol. 1 · note to Hands). The words were regional:

• Toby belonged to New Orleans and was little known on the Atlantic coast (Hyatt 2339 · Algiers, La. · informant 1592).
• Nation sack was a Memphis word, a bag women wore at the waist to hold money and “lucky stuff”. It was unknown from Maryland to Florida (Hyatt 2159 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 962).
• Mojo was used for the bag, and also, by some, for a perfume or incense sold under that name (Hyatt 2102 · New Orleans, La. · informant 789).

What Hyatt’s informants put in them

• Protection. Rattlesnake master, High John the Conqueror, a new dime and lodestone, sewn in red flannel or chamois and kept in the left pocket. Never let anyone touch it (Hyatt 1436 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 650).
• Keeping a job. High John, ladyfinger root and a piece of lodestone no bigger than a butter bean, with three drops of oil of cinnamon (Hyatt 2053 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 650).
• Customers. High John, lodestone and a silver dime in flannel, kept damp with alcohol and hung over the door. “One will bring the other and everyone pays his own way” (Hyatt 2072 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 756).
• Gambling. High John, black lodestone and Adam and Eve root with violet incense powder, in red flannel (Hyatt 2101 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1529a).
• A harder hand. Fifteen cents in silver, nine needles and nine pins, cinnamon powder and perfume, with names written inside (Hyatt 1741 · New Orleans, La. · informant 879).
• Luck. Red onion peelings carried in the nation sack (Hyatt 2161 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 954).

One Memphis informant killed a frog, dried it, sewed it in chamois and fed it whiskey as a gambling toby (Hyatt 1887 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 948).

Feeding the hand

Hyatt called these battery hands. They lose strength and die unless they are recharged, and the recharging is called feeding (Hyatt, Vol. 1 · note to Hands).

The food is liquid: whiskey, gin, alcohol, perfume, cologne and urine. A St. Petersburg man kept a bone in a sack wet with Hearts cologne once or twice a week, and it broke up every skin game he went into (Hyatt 315 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1019). The Memphis gambling mojo was fed Jockey Club perfume (Hyatt 2101).

The hand turned against you

The same bag can be made to harm. Hair sewn into a toby and buried in the graveyard “will run yo’ crazy” (Hyatt 2341 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1568).

A plasterer in Ocean City found a ball of red flannel in a wall crevice, soaked in Hearts cologne with about twenty-five needles stuck through it. His helper called it a mojo (Hyatt 2100 · Ocean City, Md. · informant 14).

In Memphis a woman could keep a man’s shoe insole in her nation sack, and he could not leave her (Hyatt 5179 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1522).

Taking a woman’s hand

Hyatt warned that snatching a woman’s nation sack was dangerous. A Jacksonville man pulled one from a woman by its string and burned it in the stove. The moment it burned she fell into a fit and ran all over the house (Hyatt 3814 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 562).

How it’s worked today

Mojo bags are still made for one purpose at a time, with an odd number of ingredients, in red flannel or chamois. They are carried out of sight and kept from other people’s hands.

They are fed on a schedule with whiskey, oils or cologne, and spoken to by name. When a hand has done its work, or been touched, it is taken apart, disposed of and made new.

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 for reference.