Snakes and Snake Sheds

“yo’ kin take a rattlesnake an’ dry his haid up, pound it up, an’ den yo’ kin go to work an’ use dat as goofer dust. Kill anybody.” That was a Waycross informant’s whole answer when Hyatt asked what goofer dust was (Hyatt 669 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1074).

The snake runs right through Hyatt’s volumes. Its body, its head, its blood, its rattles and above all the skin it sheds each year were gathered, dried, pounded and worked, for harm, for strength, for luck and for cures.

What it is

Informants worked with the whole animal and every part of it. The most common material was the shed, the papery skin a snake leaves behind, which they also called the hide or the shell.

• Snake shed. Dried and pounded to a powder, or kept whole.
• Dried snake. A whole blacksnake dried and ground, skin and all, which Richmond root doctors called goofer dust (Hyatt 845 · Richmond, Va. · informant 428).
• Head and blood. Dried, ground or buried.
• Rattles. Dried and shaken out as dust, or carried whole.
• Fresh skin. Taken from a blacksnake for belts and knots.

Snake dust was also the classic way to put live snakes in a person. That work has its own entry, Live Things in You. Here we look at the snake as a material.

What Hyatt’s informants said

To a Waycross man, goofer dust was simply snake shed dried until it was good and dry, then pounded and sprinkled over anything a person would eat or drink (Hyatt 672 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1097).

The head was buried. In Charleston, a man killed a rattlesnake, took its blood, and buried the head under a doorstep for a woman to step over. The informant’s aunt was left bent: “her foot fastened up in her back and she still go about in dat position.” (Hyatt 1127 · Charleston, S. Car. · informant 506)

The skin was also protection. A Jacksonville root doctor said to catch a blacksnake, skin it while alive, tie the wet skin in a bowknot and sleep on it always: “let it stay dere no matter how stinking” (Hyatt 2052 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 562).

The tricks

• Blinding. Shed powder under the sweatband of a hat, so the sweat runs it into the eyes (Hyatt 6653 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1063). In Wilson, devil grass root and snake’s head were ground together for the same hatband trick (Hyatt 671 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1507).
• Sleep. Shed powder sprinkled in the hat to make a man sleep all the time (Hyatt 7176 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1037).
• Madness. Hair, rattlesnake shed, five pins, five needles and Epsom salts, bottled in water and buried upside down (Hyatt 6009 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 692).
• Losing hair. Hair bottled with snake bones and an herb and set floating; if the bottle broke, the victim died (Hyatt 922 · Richmond, Va. · informant 341).
• Moving. Rattlesnake dust sprinkled all around as a moving powder (Hyatt 667 · New Orleans, La. · informant 804).
• Livestock. Pounded shed in three drops of a man’s blood, poured into his water trough so the animal would sicken and die (Hyatt 6655 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1097).

Strength, luck and cures

• Blacksnake belts. Skin dressed with vaseline and High John and worn round the waist so no one could throw the wearer in a fight.
• Hands. A snake shed added to a hand to make it stronger (Hyatt 2469 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1433).
• Home. A toadfrog and a blacksnake shed kept in the house so a wife stays home (Hyatt 9949 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 667).
• Nature. A snail worked into a blacksnake shed and rubbed round a man’s waist to restore his nature (Hyatt 3805 · New Orleans, La. · informant 812).
• Nerves. A shed rubbed between the hands until it crumbles fine (Hyatt 1564 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1175).
• Bleeding. A wet rattle pressed to the place to stop a haemorrhage (Hyatt 1434 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1343).
• Snake cures. A rattlesnake hide tied above the knee of a man with snakes in his leg. Hyatt read this as like curing like (Hyatt 713 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 291).

In their own words

“Don’t care who dey wrastlin’ wit. Dey say dey can’t throw ’em.”

(Hyatt 2398 · Petersburg, Va. · informant 444)

“Can’t no man hole [hold] yo’ – slick”

(Hyatt 13087 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1074)

“Put it where he kin git it an’ it will run him jes’ as blind as…”

(Hyatt 13102 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1024)

“Ain’t no one can’t do nuthin to yo’.”

(Hyatt 1435 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1021)

How it’s worked today

Snake shed is still a staple in conjure. Workers collect found sheds, keep them whole in hands and wallets for money, protection and slipperiness in the law, or grind them for powders and goofer dust blends.

Rattles, dried heads and shed rattlesnake skin are sold by curio dealers and used much as Hyatt’s informants used them. The blacksnake remains the snake of choice in the older Southern recipes.

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.