Salt

“And they throw salt and shake an apron after the person is gone.” That is how one Maryland family saw a suspect visitor off the premises, and it is salt in hoodoo in a single line: cheap, kept in every kitchen, and thrown with intent.

Hyatt’s informants reached for salt more often than almost anything else. It guarded the doorstep and the bed, killed a rival’s gambling hand, ran the law away from a house, and lifted a fix off the body. Most of the time it worked in partnership with pepper.

What it is

Plain table salt, cooking salt or the coarse ice-cream salt sold for the churn. Nothing grander. Some informants wanted it fresh and unused, from a box nobody else in the house had touched.

Its job was to stop, sever and send away. Salt kills a working, breaks a link between two people, and closes a door behind someone you never want back.

What Hyatt’s informants said

The Maryland family who threw salt after every caller believed a visitor who came with ill intent would never return (Hyatt 1468 · Snow Hill, Md. · informant 13).

In Washington, D.C., a woman whose hand had been fixed bathed in salt and pepper and said the Lord’s Prayer over it, because “nothing kin go against salt and pepper” (Hyatt 1609 · Washington, D.C. · informant 644).

At the gambling table, salt was a weapon. A Florida informant said you step round behind a lucky player and sprinkle table salt on his head. What does it do? “That kills his hand.” (Hyatt 2264 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 991). A Waycross woman sprinkled salt on her husband’s opponents so they would fall and he would win (Hyatt 2265 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1141).

Counting and sprinkling

Salt was rarely thrown loosely. It was measured, counted and repeated:

• Three handfuls of table salt thrown behind an unwanted visitor, then the stick broom turned up at the door (Hyatt 1064 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1118).
• Salt from a box nobody else may use, thrown into the visitor’s right or left track every time he leaves, nine times over (Hyatt 2601 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1380).
• Salt scattered round the building three mornings a week, before sunrise, Monday to Wednesday (Hyatt 1637 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1224).
• A whole level peck of salt, struck off the old way and mixed with sulphur (Hyatt 1470 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1183).

Salt and pepper

Together, salt and pepper turned from protection into attack. A Mobile informant rolled ice-cream salt, cayenne and a woman’s door key into a paper with names on it, cursed it and buried it in the forks of the road (Hyatt 198 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 692).

In Snow Hill, salt and pepper mixed with sand and laid across the road in a cross was said to cripple whoever stepped over it (Hyatt 760 · Snow Hill, Md. · informant 97).

The same pair answered the witch. Salt and pepper rubbed into a shed skin made it burn the witch when she tried to climb back in (Hyatt 455 · Norfolk, Va. · informant 466).

Salt against the law

Bootleggers and women running houses used salt to keep officers out. Throw it behind the policeman as he leaves, and he will hardly come back, or will not arrest you for whiskey if he does (Hyatt 2598 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 298).

Cures and counter-work

Salt took the trick back off. A Baltimore informant sprinkled salt and pepper over suspicious dust on the floor, swept it up and threw it in running water to send it home to the sender (Hyatt 1488 · Baltimore, Md. · informant 148).

A Newport News woman washed her door and steps with warm salt water day after day until her rival moved away (Hyatt 1459 · Newport News, Va. · informant 482).

In their own words

“Baby, get some salt and throw behind him and sweep it right on out.”

(Hyatt 2478 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 749)

“People say dat yo’ could take salt, fresh salt in de shoes – weah it in de shoes.”

(Hyatt 9520 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1394)

“take some table salt an’ go roun’ an’ roun’ mah buildin’ three time a week”

(Hyatt 1637 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1224)

“She say if’en you step acrost it, why it would cripple yeh.”

(Hyatt 760 · Snow Hill, Md. · informant 97)

How it’s worked today

Salt remains the first line of protection in rootwork. Workers lay it across thresholds and window sills, keep it in the shoes, and sprinkle it behind a visitor who is not wanted back.

Salt and pepper is still mixed for crossing and for sending people away. Salt water is still the standard wash for steps, doors and floors after a fix is suspected, and salt baths remain a common opening to uncrossing work.

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.