The Rabbit Foot

“ah took de rabbit an’ cut de lef’ foot off an’ lef’ ‘im still livin’”. A Florida gambler told Hyatt he did this the day before a skin game, went in with one nickel, and came out with the money (Hyatt 7241 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 995).

The rabbit foot is the best-known luck piece in America, but in hoodoo it was never a trinket. It was a hand: chosen foot by foot, dressed, fed and put to work.

What it is

A rabbit foot hand is the foot of a rabbit, usually cut from a particular leg, often sewn into red flannel, and kept fed with cologne or perfume. It was carried for gambling, jobs, love and keeping the law away, and buried for harm.

Which foot mattered, and informants did not agree.

• Left hind foot: the most common choice, and the one tied to the graveyard rabbit.
• Left front foot: for gambling luck, sewn in flannel with needles.
• Right front foot: for finding work.
• Right hind leg: boiled, dried and buried before use.

What Hyatt’s informants said

The name could cover more than the foot. One Maryland man paid a fortune teller five dollars for protection and got a small packet in red flannel, kept in his vest pocket. “She called it a rabbit foot, but I don’t know what was in it” (Hyatt 1966 · Princess Anne, Md. · informant 128).

The graveyard rabbit was the prize. A Fayetteville informant held that “de left-hin’ foot of a graveyard rabbit is lucky” for almost anything, and could only explain that such a rabbit lived in the graveyard all the time (Hyatt 7862 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1394).

Some feet were made to move. In Mobile a worker fed the left hind foot on Hearts Perfume and dragon’s blood, and pulled the tendon left in it when touching the person wanted, so that the foot seemed alive in the hand (Hyatt 12714 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 688).

Variations

• The left front foot sewn into red flannel with three needles, carried at all times for luck in games (Hyatt 2228 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 1269).
• The left front leg cut at the knee joint, kept in a bottle of Hearts Cologne until dry, then rubbed in the hand at the game (Hyatt 12723 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1303).
• The right hind leg boiled in milk, dried six days in the sun, buried two nights, then tied on the arm and talked to (Hyatt 2223 · Fredericksburg, Va. · informant 50).
• A live frog, a rabbit foot, lodestone, steel dust and red pepper sewn together in red flannel for gambling (Hyatt 9988 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 536).
• A rabbit foot with graveyard sand in a little bag, worn on a belt to break a man of being scared (Hyatt 16 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 249).

What it was used for

Gambling came first. After that, work: a North Carolina man was told to tie a rabbit’s right front foot in red flannel, wet it with Heartshorn Cologne and his own urine, and go door to door asking for jobs (Hyatt 2221 · Newport News, Va. · informant 483).

Bootleggers used it against the law. A Savannah man soaked the left back foot of a live-caught rabbit in Hearts Cologne for a day before opening a liquor joint (Hyatt 12715 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 1273). In Fayetteville the left hind foot was used to mark an X at the front and back doors, with dirt from the law’s tracks planted under the house corners, to keep the police away (Hyatt 2224 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1412).

It held a lover too. A man found a bag in his woman’s purse holding hair, a penny and a rabbit’s foot, tied with a string of nine knots, and after that he could not be with another woman (Hyatt 3617 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1039).

And it killed. In Vicksburg the left hind foot of a graveyard rabbit went into a sack with graveyard dust and three drops of the rabbit’s blood. The instruction was plain: “Bury it at the person’s doorstep.” The victim would go crazy and be buried in that same graveyard (Hyatt 12718 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 745).

In their own words

“And I have got jobs like that, and that luck did me some good.”

(Hyatt 2221 · Newport News, Va. · informant 483)

“tell it what you want and you are more than apt to get it.”

(Hyatt 2223 · Fredericksburg, Va. · informant 50)

“yo’ kin pull it an’ it seem like it’s alive”

(Hyatt 12714 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 688)

How it’s worked today

The rabbit foot is still carried in conjure as a gambling and luck hand. Workers still argue over which foot, and the left hind foot remains the usual choice.

Most feet sold today come from rabbits raised for meat and fur, with dyed key-ring novelties at the cheap end of the trade. Serious workers want a natural foot, and dress and feed it with cologne, oil or whiskey, as Hyatt’s informants did with Hearts Cologne.

It is often sewn into a mojo bag with lodestone, John the Conqueror or a lucky coin, rather than carried bare.

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.