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The Invisible Culture: Hoodoo in Georgia and South Carolina
Legends of spirits, root doctors, charms and hexes flourish throughout Georgia and South Carolina. According to Blue Roots: African-American Folk Magic of the Gullah People, by Roger Pinckney, the hoodoo stories that widen eyes and cause arm hairs to stand on end are not fictional narratives told around campfires, but factual accounts that turn skeptics into believers. Those who believe in and practice hoodoo understand that there are numerous differences between hoodoo and voodoo.
According to Dr. Michael Gomez’s book, Exchanging Our Country’s Marks, a hoodoo root doctor must have the power to negotiate with spirits in order to deal with situations in the physical world. The root doctor’s power can be used for good or evil, depending on the doctor and the issue at hand.
Pinckney’s Blue Roots explains that "traditional African medicine taught that much sickness had its origins in spiritual evil and drugs alone would not guarantee physical health. The spirit can be sent by an enemy or can come of its own volition."
Root doctors are herbalists who use various plant and animal parts to cure or create ailments. Rarely administered in their raw forms, the herbs are ground into powders or liquids and combined with other plants to form concoctions. Like the drug store pharmacist, the root doctor provides specific directions for its use, saying, for example, to bathe in the solution for nine days.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of her white-carpeted den, Hakim tells about herself, her family, her gift and even her father’s death. Her father was dying and had one final request from Hakim. He handed her a book and asked her to soak it in oil and to burn it in the backyard. She did as her father asked and he died soon after.
She later received a telephone call from a woman asking for her help. Seeing Hakim on the Arts and Entertainment Network’s cable special, "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," the woman tracked Hakim down through the network. The woman, who remains nameless, had the charred book Hakim had burnt that day. Realizing the value of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abranelin the Magi, the woman kept the burnt copy and ordered a paper back copy for Hakim.
With wide, brown eyes and a serious tone, Hakim describes the book’s contents. She tells how it was related to two other books and how each book was a key to the other, unlocking knowledge of the Old World phenomena. "Hoodoo filters back to ancient Africa and the Bible," says Hakim. "All the things that I am doing and learning—the knowledge of herbs and how to use my psychic gift—are the same things that kings and Jewish people were doing and learning during biblical times."
Hakim, like her father, only uses her power to do good. She is a psychic and a spiritual analyst and consultant who uses her gift as well as tarot cards to help her customers. "I can take these tarot cards and get into anybody’s head. The spirits talk to me during readings and they place cards where they are supposed to be." Hakim strolls into her office and says, "Like the other night, I was doing a tarot reading by myself and a spirit popped up in the corner over there. They look like shadows. But if they want to, they can describe themselves to you. Sometimes they even scare me."
She stands proudly before her altar dedicated to the spirits that guide her. There is an indention in the wall, like a book shelf without shelves. Fighting for space, angel figurines, candles, incense and scattered odds and ends cover the surface of the altar. In the left corner Hakim has fanned a deck of beautifully illustrated tarot cards and in the right corner she has placed a jewelry box filled with a gold necklace and silver bracelets. "All the stuff on the altar, including the jewelry, is for the spirits. It is not mine. It is not for me to have," she says as she walks over toward the opposite cornerof the chamber.
Root doctors, spiritualists and conjurers are not easy to find. "It is an invisible culture," says Pinckney. "You have to have an inside track, someone in the African-American community who you trust and who trusts you." Pinckney says that there are quite a lot of root doctors still, but they hide themselves, living in remote areas. "If some white guy goes poking around asking for a root doctor, no one is going to tell him anything. They do not want to get the law onto them saying that they are practicing medicine without a license."
Considering that Pinckney grew up in Beaufort, South Carolina, he had quite a few inside tracks in the African-American community. His father was the coroner of Beaufort County and the woman who raised him, Elvira Mike, was an African-American who believed in hoodoo. Pinckney, however, still had a difficult time finding root doctors and getting them to talk to him. "I have written books on marijuana smuggling and on root doctors," he says. "Pot smugglers were more willing to talk to me than root doctors."
Throughout Blue Roots, Pinckney writes of the legendary Dr. Buzzard, who is known as the most powerful root doctor in the Southeast. Dr. Buzzard was especially known for his aid in court cases. Lincoln sedans and Ford trucks with license plates reading Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida could be seen at any time parked in Dr. Buzzard’s driveway.
After hearing his clients describe their situations, Dr. Buzzard would silently write down a monetary amount on a piece of paper and the clients would pay him, trusting their problems would be eliminated. He would then prepare clients with a charm to wear around their necks, powders to sprinkle around their doorsteps or promises that he would take care of the situation himself.
When Dr. Buzzard died in 1947, his son took over. After his son died, the business continued but only a select few know who has taken over. These few are the only ones who know where Dr. Buzzard is buried. Some rumors say he is buried near a small Baptist church on St. Helena’s Island in Beaufort. Others claim Dr. Buzzard was cut up and divided among local root doctors because his remains would be powerful medicine.
Local Beaufort artist Jonathan Green adds to Pinckney’s theory: "Can you imagine being a conjureman in possession of a boxful of Dr. Buzzard’s metacarpals? You could be elected mayor of Savannah."
Pinckney found many assumptions, many leads and the supposed grave of Dr. Buzzard. One thing, however, is apparent to Pinckney, Hakim and numerous others: hoodoo lives, pulsating through the hearts of communities and the minds of hoodoo believers.
Traveling to the New World in the minds of enslaved Africans, hoodoo made its way to the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, planting itself in tall marshes, dunes, riverbeds and souls of African-Americans and Caucasians throughout the region. These believers may have had a series of bad luck or suddenly become ill with high fevers and coughs. They may have feared an enemy sent these troubles through a root doctor. Even today, disciples believe root doctors use their psychic minds to summon spirits, resulting in good or evil in the physical world. Maybe they would agree with Pinckney: "The mind can make you do everything but fly."
-Nicole McCleod
*Article (no longer available online) obtained and re-published from Vintage Magazine
All graphics and background paper property of the intellectual estate of Mama Zogbé
