Red Pepper

A Richmond informant put a whole red pepper pod in each shoe, covered it with a sole cut from newspaper, and walked out protected, because “that will be too hot for anything they put down.” (Hyatt 1445 · Richmond, Va. · informant 431)

Pepper is the heat of hoodoo. Hyatt’s informants used red pepper, cayenne, black pepper and guinea pepper to burn off tricks, to drive people out, to start fights and to heat up luck. Hyatt gave red pepper its own heading in his first volume.

What it is

• Red pepper. Whole dried pods, the seeds, or ground. Informants often counted them: nine pods was the common number.
• Cayenne. Red pepper ground fine, as a New Orleans informant explained (Hyatt 1069 · New Orleans, La. · informant 855).
• Black pepper. Used much like red, often with salt and sulphur.
• Guinea pepper. Grains of paradise, the pungent seeds of a West African plant, which Hyatt identified. Informants also called them guinea seeds and seeds of paradise.

The partners were nearly always the same: salt, sulphur, saltpeter and graveyard dirt.

What Hyatt’s informants said

Pepper’s first use was defence. Put down in the shoes, it burned up whatever had been laid down to walk over. A Memphis worker crossed four pins into a star in the bottom of each shoe, with hot pepper pods (Hyatt 1421 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 932).

Laid across a path, it stopped enemies dead. In Charleston, a little of your urine, pot salt and hot cayenne were sprinkled across the road to the house: “Why dey couldn’t come no farther than that.” (Hyatt 2679 · Charleston, S. Car. · informant 511)

It also turned on people. In Mobile, a woman sprinkled salt and cayenne through a house from front to back for nine mornings, and “it would cause a confusion , you know, in the house and they all wouldn’t live so good” (Hyatt 2750 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 688).

Protection and turning back

• Cayenne, salt and sulphur in a thin bag over the door, so anyone coming in would brush it (Hyatt 542 · Elizabeth City, N. Car. · informant 438).
• Black pepper, salt and sulphur sprinkled and swept out behind unwanted visitors, which stopped them coming and cut off their prosperity (Hyatt 1061 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1129).
• Black pepper in the shoe so your footprint will not hold in the sand for anyone to take up (Hyatt 1123 · Snow Hill, Md. · informant 83).
• Lodestone, cayenne and sugar sewn in flannel and carried in the hip pocket to cross your enemies (Hyatt 1374 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 936).
• Lye, sulphur, red pepper and gunpowder boiled dry and carried to running water, turning the trick back on the one who did it (Hyatt 600 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 221).
• Salt and pepper in a witch’s shed skin, so it burns when she returns to it (Hyatt 442 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1381). See The Hag.

Driving out and crossing

• Red pepper seed, sulphur and salt in the shoes to run you away (Hyatt 5214 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1419a). See Hot Foot Powder.
• Chamber lye, cayenne and sulphur crossed three times on a doorstep at night to make the people fight and move (Hyatt 4044 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 966).
• A foot track dressed with black pepper, red pepper, turpentine and Sloan’s Liniment, anything hot that burns (Hyatt 5617 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1014).
• Nine guinea peppers with a woman’s hair hidden in a corner of her bedroom to cause confusion in the home (Hyatt 5917 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1028).
• Guinea pepper seeds and black candles in the four corners of a house to keep it from being rented (Hyatt 2867 · New Orleans, La. · informant 845).

Killing work

• Graveyard dirt taken from over a sinner’s heart, with red pepper, sulphur and salt, sewn in red flannel and laid in the east corner of the yard to kill or run a person off (Hyatt 705 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1513).
• Toenails and fingernails with cayenne, war water and devil dust, sealed in a tin and buried so the owner’s hands draw up (Hyatt 26 · New Orleans, La. · informant 798).
• Goofer dust described as graveyard dirt, red pepper and black pepper (Hyatt 665 · Little Rock, Ark. · informant 897).

Heat for luck and nature

Pepper also heated good things up. Nine pods of red pepper went into a business lamp with six copper pennies (Hyatt 806 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 1261). A tea of nine pepper pods with whiskey was part of a rite to restore a man’s nature (Hyatt 3812 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1206).

In their own words

“make it so hot yo’ cain’t stay where yo’ are.”

(Hyatt 5214 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1419a)

“say dat ‘ll make ’em move. Dat ‘ll make ’em have a big fuss”

(Hyatt 4044 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 966)

“chew dat once in awhile an’ spit in mah han’ an’ rub it an’ throw mah dice or play mah cards.”

(Hyatt 1949 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 958)

“Skin , skin , do yo’ know me?”

(Hyatt 442 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1381)

How it’s worked today

Red pepper and cayenne remain the base of hot foot powder, crossing powders and many jinx and enemy formulas. Black pepper is standard in protection salts and in powders to drive people off.

Guinea pepper, sold as grains of paradise, is still chewed and spat for luck and favour, carried in gambling and job hands, and used to drive out unwanted tenants or neighbours. Pepper laid across a threshold or in the shoes for protection is still common across the South.

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.