Amulet, charm object, and more often the belief-practice system of voodoo as known by
a significant portion of modernday African Americans. Scholars and members of the folk
community use numerous terms to refer to mojo. The latter group especially, refer to
mojo the following terms: “hoodoo,” “voodoo,” “witchcraft,” “conjuration,” “fixing,”
“tricking,” and “root working.” Similarly, occult practitioners may be called “hoodoo
doctors,” “mojo doctors,” “voodoo doctors,” “witch doctors,” “conjure doctors,” or “root
doctors.” While the basic belief core of this system has a definite African origin, the
etymology of the term “mojo” is uncertain. Norman Whitten (1962) even asserts that the
word “mojo” has a North Carolina birth.
The system of mojo tends to encompass almost every facet and institution of African
American life. If the husband of an occult believer strays from the path of fidelity, the
wife attributes this behavior to mojo (either the magical object or the supernatural
system). Likewise, people who are ill and who do not show progress after being treated
with scientific medicine are under the influence of root working. Persons involved in
games of chance and gambling seek the advice of, and direction from, the renowned mojo
doctor. Moreover, the defendant who wants to influence the outcome of his trial wears his
mojo (charm) into the courtroom. Mojo especially permeates the blues tradition. Sam
“Lightning” Hopkins sings in one of his popular songs:
I’m going to Louisiana to buy me a Mojo hand
I’m going to Louisiana to buy me a Mojo hand
I’m going to fix my woman so she can’t have no other
man.
Although earlier researchers thought that the mojo tradition was specifically a Southern
Black phenomenon, later scholars have dispelled that concept. In fact, folklorists now
acknowledge that African Americans who migrated from the rural South into the
urbanized cities of the United States carried with them their mojo beliefs, practices, and
stories. Practitioners in the urban North continue to cure supernatural illnesses and gain
occult revenge for ill deeds in traditional ways, but with adaptive modifications. Also,
nomenclature for the mojo doctor has changed to avoid possible conflicts with the law.
The hoodoo doctor of the South has become a “psychic,” a “spiritualist,” or a “reader”
who is much more commercial than his counterpart.
Elon A.Kulii
References
Cooley, Gilbert E. (Elon A.Kulii). 1975. Root Stories. North Carolina Folklore Journal 23:34–36.
——. 1977. Root Doctors and Psychics in the Region. Indiana Folklore 10:191–215.
Hurston, Zora Neale. 1931. Hoodoo in America. Journal of American Folklore 44:317–417.
Hyatt, Harry M. 1970–1975. Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, Rootwork. 5 vols. Hannibal, MO:
Western.
Puckett, Niles Newbell. 1926. Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.
Snow, Loudell. 1978. Sorcerers, Saints, and Charlatans: Black Folk Healers in Urban America.
Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 2:60–106.
Whitten, Norman E. 1962. Contemporary Patterns of Malign Occultism among Negroes in North
Carolina. Journal of American Folklore 75:311–325.