i am flowers of the delta clan flowers and the line of o killens i am a conjureman

mganga maua, this is a text

there are as many paths to the hoodoo way
as there are roads to timbuktu

depending on who you are, what you looking for

what the hoodoo way will do to you

HOODOO IS

been most interesting trying to be true hoodoo in these contemporary times.

most folks arent certain hoodoo really exist. if they are conscious of the hoodoo tradition they generally thinking slaverytime hoodoo - spells, hells and black cat bones.

but as african americans have evolved as a people so too has their indigenous spiritual tradition. (well magical but whose quibbling)

comparing contemporary hoodoo to slaverytime hoodoo is kinda like comparing the space shuttle to an oxdrawn cart.

HOODOO HISTORY

my understanding is that the word hoodoo is a linguistic riff on voodoo,
itself a riff on vodou, a fon word meaning spirit or deity. hoodoo is often confused with voodoo. they are, though, two different systems.

voodoo, like most afrospiritual systems in the americas, is a conventional religious system (based in haiti) whose primary concern, in spite of western sensationalizing, is interface with the Divine,

whereas hoodoo has traditionally been a magical system based in the african american communities of the South. when african captives were brought to the americas they were strategically dispersed as part of the acculturation & pacification process and not allowed to practice their religions or adhere to their respective cultures

where the african way was heavily repressed, as it was in the US, it became magical. where allowed, it planted syncretic roots. In haiti, fon blended with catholicism and became vodou.

in cuba, yoruba blended with catholicism and became santeria. down in brazil, conongo and yoruba bred macumba and condomble. when the coramantee took root in jamaica, anansi the spider become ms. nancy and down trinidad way the ashanti words obayifo (magic) and obi o komfo (priest) became obeah. the african way took rocky but solid root in the americas.

my understanding is that the word hoodoo came into being when the vodou of haiti was imported into french louisiana by planters and slaves fleeing the haitian revolution. when voodoo was proscribed in new orleans as "insurrectionary," it went underground and mythopoetic figures such as dr. john and marie laveau shaped its american manifestation.

it became hoodoo when it dispersed out of new orleans into the southern black experience and became the term for a variety of african magical/religious practices that had survived among assimilated slaves.

race and culture(THIS JUST NOTES, WILL HAVE TO FIX LATER)

a bastard tradition reflecting multiethnic social trends
hoodoo has always been a sponge soaking up cultural influences

some tension between new practitioners and culturally based practitioners

who say that hoodoo is more than witchery and spells, it has a responsibility6 for the community that says nothing to folk who passing through

cultural practitioners having to adjust to new realities, probably be multiple strands, hoodoo already eclectic system that has incorporated elements of most systems it comes in contact with, now its come into contact ith folk who have practiced some of everything else, folk picvk and chose these days

and i have too many folk claiming what i do aint true hoodoo for me to try to claim what other folk do wont do

im willing to live and let live

but when folk start trying to make me feel guilty for being a black voice i have to back them up right away, cant come into my world and start telling me what i can and cannot do

folk in the tradition wary of other folk stealing our licks and making them farcical when they become the acknowledged authorities

there some definite tensions being worked out in the tradition, thats one of themost salient but there are others

hoodoo ethics

the ethics of magic raise a couple of questions, good and bad magic: spells that hurt people, for instance death, or breaking up a happy home. there are hoodoos who are constrained by various ethics and those who feel that ethics have no place in magic

i myself tend to strive toward the ethical in everything i do, including my hoodoo, but this is probably a minority position in hoodoo circles

hoodoo evolution: what will the future of hoodoo look like

its multiethic character vs africanamerican cultural instrument
the eclectic nature of hoodoo digesting wicca and atr influences while retaining hoodoo primacy

magical vs the religious approach
atr and wiccan influence

one of the big issues facing hoodoo today is its relationship to atr
hoodoo has traditionally been a magical system rather than, as most in the atr family, a religious system

in the past hoodoo has been something o a step child, indulged but not really considered part of the family, the lost children of legba. this has been aggravated by the magial approach which is skeptical and the religious approach built of unquesting faith

recently as the afrospiritual community in the americas has become more knowledgeable about the various aspects of the afrospiritual family hoodoo has become more afrospiritually religious. the question is whether it will ascribe to religious constraints or whether it will continue to be a magical system,

because so many contemporary hoodoos are pratitioners of various initatiory paths, this question becomes something of an internal dynamic - the question of afrospiritual colonization as exampled by what happened to the rootworker list and its recent takeover by mambo racine

the opposite is the case with wicca influence, the pressure to be stripped of cultural significance and turned primarily to witchery w/o the shamnistic thread of hoodoo as responsibility for tribe and community (however community defined)

literary hoodoo: mystically inclined african american literary school manifesting the hoodoo tradition in their lives and works - cultural custodians in the griotic line - taking care of the tribal soul

the artist as shaman. every book a spell. every draft a divination.

consultation as individual guidance - classic hoodoo role of helping folk address the challenges of life and be greater than they are. souleasery.

conjuration as destinic guidance - destinic orchestrations conjuring reality into being and shaping the future of humanity. souleasery