Hoodoo Minerals and Curios: Stones, Metals, Bones and Animal Parts
This table gathers the minerals, metals, bones and animal parts that turn up again and again in Hyatt’s interviews with rootworkers across the South. Each row gives what the thing was used for, as the informants told it, and one line in their own words.
The old workers did not treat these as symbols. A lodestone drew because it was a drawing thing; a dime turned black because silver answers to harm; a frog hung in the chimney dried up and took its sender with it. The power was in the material itself.
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| Mineral or curio | Used for | From the old workers |
|---|---|---|
| Alum | Drawing. Mixed into foot-track dirt to pull a straying man back home; also carried with bluestone, saltpeter and a silver dime. | “Dat alum is a drawin’ somepin.” (Hyatt 8913 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 948) |
| Beef tongue | Court work. Stuck with nine pins and nine needles, often with the names of judge, jury or witnesses, to tie their tongues. | “They take that beef tongue and they put them nine pins in ’em, nine pins and nine needles.” (Hyatt 8971 · New Orleans, La. · informant 826) |
| Black cat bone | Invisibility and luck. The one bone from a boiled black cat that floats upstream, carried to go unseen. | “Ah’ve heard of people havin’ black cat bones an’ they could walk in banks – jest like walkin’ in dis house heah an’ yo’ couldn’t see ’em.” (Hyatt 259 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1175) |
| Bluestone | A staple of the buried bottle and the trick bag, with sulphur, hair and roots; also used to test for and break conjure. | “it had bluestone in it, an’ it had some kind of roots in it.” (Hyatt 929 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 198) |
| Bone of the dead | Luck in any venture. A bone from a corpse, sewn in a rag and dressed with whiskey and oil of cinnamon. | “dress it ovah wit whiskey an* oil of cinnamon an’ yo’ be lucky fo’ anything that chew be’s trying tuh run.” (Hyatt 1814 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 949) |
| Brimstone | Purging conjure from the body. Taken by the dose to throw out what was put in you. | “if yo’ take a dose of brimstone, it couldn’t stay in yo’ – yo’d have to throw it up.” (Hyatt 1133 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1347) |
| Buzzard feathers | Burned for luck and prosperity; also used to run people off a place. | “Now buzzard feathers is de luckiest kind of feathers – dat’s something dat’s very prosperous to a person tuh do, jest to bum de buzzard feathers.” (Hyatt 2443 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1086) |
| Chicken feet | Keeping the law away. Buried by the front and back doorsteps; the protection lasts while the feet stay whole. | “An’ dey say yo’ won’ have no trouble wit de law as long as dem feets is solid.” (Hyatt 12710 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1438) |
| Coffin nails | All-purpose power. Pulled from a coffin, a woman’s coffin for a man, and used for whatever the worker intends. | “You can take a coffin nail and do anything that chew wish to do as long as you use that coffin nail.” (Hyatt 1806 · Elizabeth City, N. Car. · informant 438) |
| Dirt dauber nest | Doctoring. Brewed as a tea to speed a slow childbirth, rubbed on a teething child’s gums. | “If a woman’s in birth an’ pain, it seems to be slow, well yo’ kin git dat dirt dauber nest – git dem lil’ daubers out of it.” (Hyatt 1212 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1368) |
| Eggshell | A lucky piece, from the egg of a hen that never went with a rooster; parched shell also goes on a person’s doorstep with dirt from a baby’s grave. | “some folks dat want a lucky piece , dey goes to work an’ take a eggshell” (Hyatt 1771 · Brunswick, Ga. · informant 1183) |
| Goofer dust | Killing and laying tricks. The dried, powdered heads of snake, scorpion and lizard. | “Goofer dust is snake haid, scorpion haid, lizard haid – listen, snake haid dust, scorpion dust an’ lizard dust.” (Hyatt 670 · Fayetteville, N. Car. · informant 1396) |
| Graveyard dirt | Death work above all, mixed with salts and a written name; also gambling luck, love and crossing. | “You use graveyard dirt to kill people .” (Hyatt 2854 · New Orleans, La. · informant 815) |
| Gunpowder | Breaking a laid spell. Burned with brimstone and red pepper and stood over for nine nights; also drunk with whiskey and worn. | “to remove that spell you use brimstone, red cayenne pepper and then you put gunpowder in it.” (Hyatt 1451 · Savannah, Ga. · informant 539) |
| Horseshoe | Luck for the house and business, and a bar against witches and hags. Points up for luck. | “take a horseshoe off a grey horse an’ turn it up, de p’int up ovah yore do’, an’ yo’ll be lucky an’ de home will be lucky.” (Hyatt 12189 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1365) |
| Lodestone | Drawing and holding: a lover, trade and luck. Carried with hair and graveyard dirt to keep a partner. | “lodestone is suppose to draw yeh – he say dat would make me stay wit ‘im, jes’ draw me to ‘im.” (Hyatt 780 · Wilmington, N. Car. · informant 267) |
| Nails and needles | Witch traps. Nine new nails or needles bottled to catch the witch that rides you at night. | “Take nine new nails an’ put ’em in a bottle or nine new needles , either one, to ketch a thing dey call a witch at night when dey ride yo’.” (Hyatt 491 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1377) |
| Quicksilver | Holding a man, and luck in gambling. Often tinfoil or mirror-back scrapings stood in for the real metal. | “A woman use quicksilver when she wants tuh keep a man.” (Hyatt 8691 · Algiers, La. · informant 1577) |
| Rabbit foot | Gambling luck. Kept soaked in oil of cedar and worn in the bosom or pocket. | “Ah use dis oil of cedar fo’ luck in gamblin’ an’ rabbit foots.” (Hyatt 1972 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 932) |
| Rattlesnake rattles | Doctoring and wealth. Wetted and pressed to a bleed; kept in a trunk away from the air to bring money. | “Ah heard of ’em usin’ de rattlesnake rattles fo’ a hemorrhage.” (Hyatt 1434 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1343) |
| Red brick dust | Clearing hoodoo from the doorstep. Scrubbed on the step with chamber lye to move a trick away. | “Red brick all around – scrub your step with red brick.” (Hyatt 1441 · New Orleans, La. · informant 823) |
| Salt | Keeping evil out. Laid at the door or thrown after unwanted visitors; also used to scatter the mind of whoever walks over it. | “You take salt and put it down on the ground at your door and that would keep all evil spirits away.” (Hyatt 1462 · Hampton, Va. · informant 24) |
| Saltpeter | Protection in the shoe against what is laid down for you; with red pepper, a cross of it kills the trick. Also used in love and nature work. | “Den yo’ kin take some cayenne peppah an’ saltpeter, jes’ about a quarter or halfa teaspoon, an’ make a cross an’ put hit in his shoe.” (Hyatt 1553 · Memphis, Tenn. · informant 1542) |
| Silver dime | Warning and protection. Worn pierced at the ankle, neck or waist; it turns black when someone is working against you. | “Well, yo’ kin tell if they trying to throw at chew or do anything by that dime turning black .” (Hyatt 605 · Mobile, Ala. · informant 688) |
| Snake hide | Strength for the wasting. A blacksnake hide worn round the waist, alongside root medicine. | “dere’s somepin ’bout a blacksnake hide dat yo’ git fo’ dat person tuh weah it roun’ ‘is waist or anythin’.” (Hyatt 6831 · Sumter, S. Car. · informant 1374) |
| Steel dust | Drawing, paired with lodestone to feed it; also gambling luck and house scrubs. | “yuh git cheh some steel dust – dat’s drawin’ – an’ lodestone, dat’s drawin’ .” (Hyatt 4972 · New Orleans, La. · informant 798) |
| Sulphur | Driving off enemies and ghosts. Burned on the trash pile or round the house; also a common ingredient in buried tricks. | “Sulphur, dey tell me, if yo’ burn three teaspoonsful on yore trash pile dat ‘ll keep yo’ enemies away.” (Hyatt 1571 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1117) |
| Toadfrog | Wasting an enemy. Hung up in the chimney to dry; the one who sent it dries up with it. | “’long as dat frog hang dere dey ‘ll come dere an’ dey ‘ll begin tuh fade away lak dat frog do.” (Hyatt 252 · Waycross, Ga. · informant 1134) |
Drugstore and backyard
Most of the minerals came over the counter. Informants tell of going to the drug store for a nickel’s worth of saltpeter, bluestone, alum or brimstone.
The animal curios came from the yard, the woods and the slaughterhouse: a black hen, a toadfrog, a buzzard, a fresh beef tongue. The graveyard supplied the rest.
Substitutes were common. Hyatt notes that “quicksilver” was often tinfoil or the silvering scraped from the back of a mirror.
Learn the work
Hoodoo Witch Certification Course
The course teaches how the old workers chose, dressed and combined these curios in mojo hands, bottles, powders and doorstep work.
Quotes from Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork, 5 vols., 1970-1978, kept exactly as recorded. Numbers are Hyatt’s own item numbers.