Hoodoo Timing: Days, Hours, Moons and Numbers
When to do the work, and how many times, mattered as much to the old workers as what went into it. This table gathers the days, hours, moons and numbers that Hyatt’s informants tied to their work, from Monday scrubbing to midnight at the crossroads, each with the informant’s own words.
To a rootworker, time and count were ingredients. A job laid at the wrong hour, or stopped one morning short, was a job not done.
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| When or how many | Used for | From the old workers |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Sweeping and scrubbing the house with lye (mixed with sugar and chamber lye) on Monday and Friday mornings, given as work for women drawing money from men. | “on Monday morning and Friday morning you get up , sweep and scrub your house with this lye what I’m talking about now .” (Hyatt 2694 · New Orleans, La. · informant 791) |
| Tuesday | Baneful egg work: nine eggs soaked in chamber lye, one broken against the victim before day, every Tuesday for nine weeks. | “Yo’ start ’fo’ day in de mawnin’, on a Tuesday, evah Tuesday.” (Hyatt 9333 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 747) |
| Wednesday | Each day had its own candle colour for the saints and luck: white Monday, green Tuesday, yellow or blue Wednesday. Red and black went to undermining work, any day. | “Wednesday you burns a yellow candle or blue candle .” (Hyatt 2779 · New Orleans, La. · informant 845) |
| Thursday | Red lights for St. Raymond, for luck and success, burned on Mondays and Thursdays. | “An’ yo’ use lights fo’ him on Mondays an’ on Thursdays an’ positively everything red .” (Hyatt 2991 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1570) |
| Friday | Burning a man’s old shoes with sugar on a Friday morning, at seven and eleven, for house luck and money coming in. | “Put sugah in ‘ em an’ burn ’em on a Friday mawnin’ , burn ’em at seven a’ clock an’ ‘leven .” (Hyatt 2632 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1548) |
| First Friday of the month | Scrub the house with lye water, then burn sugar and cinnamon in the four corners to rent it. | “Wait until the first Friday of the month – the first Friday of each month – you get you some cinnamon and sugar” (Hyatt 2485 · New Orleans, La. · informant 839) |
| Saturday | A woman burns men’s old shoes on Friday so the men come to her house with money on Saturday, payday. | “on Friday burn ‘ em an’ on Saturday dey’d all come dere an’.” (Hyatt 2631 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1223) |
| Sunday morning | Nine Sunday mornings at the fork of the road before sunup, to learn the work. | “Yo’ go to de fo’ks of de road nine Sunday mornings befo’ sunup – ah guess yo’ heard.” (Hyatt 2390 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1131) |
| Noon | A person’s shoes run under the river at noontime; later, called by the river on a full moon, the wearer walks in and drowns. | “You can take their shoes and carry them down to the river at noontime and let the water run over them.” (Hyatt 952 · Fredericksburg, Va. · informant 50) |
| Twelve o’clock in the day | Old shoes burned in the centre of the floor every Friday. The fire is lit a little early so it is burning on the stroke of twelve. | “burn yore ole shoes evah Friday at twelve a ’clock.” (Hyatt 5141 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1249) |
| Nine, twelve and three o’clock | Lucky Hearts incense burned at three set hours, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. | “Yo’ kin buy these Lucky Hearts an’ burn them at nine a’clock, twelve a’clock an’ three a’clock in de evenin’.” (Hyatt 2540 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1541) |
| Sundown | Bathe in your own water for nine mornings and throw it toward the sunset to throw off a spell. | “yo’ make watah and bath in it fer nine mawnin’ s an’ po’ dat watah toward de sunset.” (Hyatt 1278 · Jacksonville, Fla. · informant 597) |
| Midnight | A gambler goes to a dead drunkard’s grave at midnight and calls his name. | “yo’ go there to his grave at midnight, yo’ call his name twice .” (Hyatt 1929 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1045) |
| Twelve o’clock at night | The four forks of the road at midnight, to sell your soul to the devil. | “At night, twelve o’clock at night; but you have to be in de four fork of de road.” (Hyatt 10500 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 731) |
| New moon | Start any work you want to succeed, or to bring someone back, on the new moon. | “Jis’ lak if yo’ wanted somethin’ tuh work good, see – yo’ work on de new moon.” (Hyatt 948 · Little Rock, Ark. · informant 897) |
| Growing (young) moon | The growing moon is for prospects and success; the moon wasting away is for work meant to bring no success. | “A growin’ moon is fo’ prospects an’ when de moon’s ’bout on de waste away, dat’s de time den dat yo’ do fo’ not a good success” (Hyatt 942 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 938) |
| Full moon | Playing the numbers by the moon: the new moon brings low numbers, the full moon high ones. | “Full moon brings a high number, like 80’s or 90’s.” (Hyatt 958 · St. Petersburg, Fla. · informant 1007) |
| Old moon (last quarter) | Work laid down on the last quarter, with results looked for as the next moon grows. | “You do that on the last quarter of the moon and then you see results for it on the growing of the next moon or the new moon.” (Hyatt 943 · Elizabeth City, N. Car. · informant 438) |
| Dark of the moon | A lemon packed with the couple’s names and cat and dog hair, sealed with wax and buried, to split them up. | “On the dark of the moon, I do that.” (Hyatt 10915 · New Orleans, La. · informant 822) |
| Three mornings | Three swallows of your own urine for three mornings when you think something bad is inside you. | “fo’ three mornin’s yo’ take three swallows of yore own urine .” (Hyatt 1614 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1167) |
| Seven mornings | Chamber lye sprinkled every morning for seven mornings to pack a business with people. | “Sprinkle that chamber lye every morning for seven mornings and you will have so many people at your place” (Hyatt 2684 · Vicksburg, Miss. · informant 733) |
| Nine mornings | Sucking the black cat bones each morning for nine mornings at the forks of the road, to be made a ruler over black arts. | “suck one of them bones each morning for nine mornings and go to the forks of the road” (Hyatt 283 · Elizabeth City, N. Car. · informant 441) |
| Three, nine or fifteen days | Graveyard dust taken three, nine or fifteen days after a death, to harm or kill. | “Yuh kin [go] tuh de graveyard three or nine or fifteen days aftah any- body is dead, an’ git some of dat graveyard dust” (Hyatt 7604 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 673) |
| Five or seven days | Calling a husband home over his photograph and candles; he is expected back in five or seven days. | “in about five or seven days [odd numbers] he will be back.” (Hyatt 2891 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 692) |
| Nine times, nine nights | Calling a man home from the four corners of the world: twice if he is in town, nine nights if he is away. | “if he’s out dat town, you gotta do it nine times, nine nights.” (Hyatt 106 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 223) |
| Nine knots | Nine knots tied in a new strip of cloth, each jerked away from the body. | “You take a new strip of cloth and tie nine knots in it – jerk ’em from you and you tie ’em, snatch ’em from you.” (Hyatt 1018 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 666) |
| Thirteen | A name written thirteen ways one way and nine the other, in work to drive a man out of town. | “yo’ git chew de indelibin [indelible] pencil an’ write his name thirteen ways that way, an’ nine thisaway” (Hyatt 1728 · New Orleans, La. · informant 1566) |
| Odd numbers | Nine pins and nine needles in flannel, bottled with sweepings from the house, to break up a home. | “Take so many pins and so many needles – about nine [each] – so it’s a odd number.” (Hyatt 9825 · Norfolk, Va. · informant 470) |
| Three times, sunrise and sunset | The 30th Psalm read three times before sunrise and three times before sunset, for wisdom and spiritual power in the work. | “Yo’ read de 30th Psalm fo’ dat three times befc/ sunrise an’ three times befo’ sunset.” (Hyatt 1427 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1206) |
| Three ingredients | Salt, sulphur and pepper sprinkled round a store so people flock in to buy. | “Take some salt an’ sulphah an’ peppah [three ingredients] – that’s whut chew goin’ take an’ just sprinkle dat round” (Hyatt 2588 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1435) |
Why counting and timing mattered
Hyatt noticed the numbers early and kept marking them. Again and again he flags a recipe in the text as “three ingredients”, and he says plainly that the ones he marks are only a few of the many. Three things together, three actions each done three times, three swallows on three mornings: the count itself was part of the formula.
He treats time the same way. Where an informant says a cure healed in nine days, or that a trip took three days when two would have done, Hyatt names it magic time. He also points to a “magic delay” before a charm is taken up, and to set runs of hours, such as six in the morning, twelve noon and six at night, that turn up across candle and sweeping rites.
He records rites of increasing and decreasing amounts too: a tea boiled down from a pint to half a pint, needles added square by square. The amount rising or falling carried the work with it, just as a growing moon carried prospects and a wasting moon carried loss.
Odd numbers ran through all of it. Three, five, seven, nine and thirteen recur far more than any even count, in mornings, knots, pins, days and names. For the old workers, counting right and keeping the hour were not superstition layered on top of the work. They were the work.
Learn the work
Hoodoo Witch Certification Course
The course teaches how to time your work by day, hour and moon, and how to count it out the way the old rootworkers did.
Quotes from Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork, 5 vols., 1970-1978, kept exactly as recorded. Numbers are Hyatt’s own item numbers.