Sulphur

Sulphur was brimstone, the fire of the Bible, and Hyatt’s informants used it as a weapon against everything that had been laid down against them. It went in the shoe, in the fire, on the trash pile, in the bath and in the mouth.

No other mineral turns up so often in the protective work Hyatt recorded. Where a trick had been planted, sulphur was what killed it.

What it is

Sulphur, often called brimstone, was bought cheaply as flowers of sulphur from the drug store. Informants named “brimstone an’ sulphur” together as if they were two things, and often used both.

Its jobs fell into three groups:

• Protection of the feet – worn in the shoes against foot-track tricks and poison.
• Fumigation – burnt in the house, in the yard or on old shoes to drive out spirits, witchcraft and unwanted people.
• Killing work inside the body – taken by mouth to kill live things and poison.

What Hyatt’s informants said

The shoe was the commonest place for it. A Sumter informant said you could “use brimstone an’ sulphur in de bottom of yore shoes an’ walk ovah anything” (Hyatt 1576 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1340).

It was mixed with other killers: red pepper (Hyatt 1479 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1063), graveyard dirt and red pepper seed (Hyatt 1321 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1425), stove ashes, bluestone and table salt (Hyatt 1484 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 992). In Savannah a dime’s worth of sulphur was laid in the shoe under a silver dime (Hyatt 1519 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 1271).

One Savannah cure for a spell went further: whiskey poured over sulphur in the right shoe, then drunk, “drink dat whiskey an’ sulphur right out dat shoe , see.” (Hyatt 1663 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 1262)

Burning sulphur

Burnt, sulphur cleared a place. Its uses ranged from the house to the hearth to the yard:

• A new house was smoked with old shoes, rags and sulphur, then swept with a green pine bush (Hyatt 1572 · Ocean City, Md. · informant 21).
• Sulphur was burnt on an old shoe sole, and sprinkled with sugar around a scrubbed porch, to dispel witchcraft put down (Hyatt 1377 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 650).
• Three teaspoons burnt on the trash pile kept enemies away (Hyatt 1571 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1117).
• For a haunted house, old shoes with brimstone and sulphur were burnt in a bucket in all four corners (Hyatt 1503 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1355).
• In Jacksonville a family was told to burn sulphur in every room at night, windows shut tight, for a month (Hyatt 541 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 562).

The burning shoe could also put someone out. A Wilson man threw old shoes with sulphur and cayenne on the fire to send a troublemaker away for good (Hyatt 1509 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1504). A Brunswick doctor burnt a man’s and a woman’s shoe together with sulphur, saltpetre, bluestone, gunpowder and salt, with the wearer’s wishes (Hyatt 1508 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1206).

A Fayetteville professional burnt sulphur on water to raise a cloud for conquering a ghost (Hyatt 638 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1395).

Inside the body and on the head

For live things put inside a person, a New Orleans informant gave sulphur because it would reach them (Hyatt 1088 · New Orleans, La. · informant 820). Against poison it was worn in the shoes and taken as well (Hyatt 1574 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1495).

If an enemy had got hold of your hair, a Mobile informant put sulphur in the crown, the “mole” of the head (Hyatt 1698 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 710).

Luck and love

Sulphur was not only for war. Burnt with onion peelings, it drew men with money to the house (Hyatt 2174 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1063). In Sumter, sulphur and urine were thrown round the house to gain love (Hyatt 4284 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1348).

In their own words

“This sulphur it’ll get in you and help to kill it.”

(Hyatt 1088 · New Orleans, La. · informant 820)

“an’ de fellah go to de do’ an’ he stan’ an’ look at de smoke come out de chimley.”

(Hyatt 1509 · Wilson, N. Car. · informant 1504)

“that is called a bodyguard , body protection”

(Hyatt 1485 · Florence, S. Car. · informant 1295)

“we’d burn it on de watah, somepin tuh form a little cloud on de watah.”

(Hyatt 638 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1395)

How it’s worked today

Sulphur remains a staple. It is still sprinkled in shoes and across thresholds for protection, and still burnt on charcoal to clear a house or to drive out a person or spirit.

It is a standard ingredient in uncrossing, protection and jinx-killing mixtures, and in harder formulas such as hot foot, crossing and war powders, where its smell and its biblical fire are the point.

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.