My grandmother (Mammie) was from Newport News, Virginia; she grew up a hoodoo practicing Pentecostal under the leadership of Bishop “Sweet Daddy Grace”. My great great grandmother actually died in the church during a tea healing ritual; she was having a heart attack and needed a real doctor is the way my grandmother used to tell the story. After that my grandmother switched from her mostly pagan background to full blown religion - Jehovah Witness to be exact. I believe what she witnessed as a young woman with her big mama was just too much to bear.
Even amongst her drastic change, she still kept a lot of her old ways. Before, during and after Slavery we all practiced “hoodoo” in our own ways. It was our way to practice our rituals and preserve the history that was taken from us. You see hoodoo isn’t like a lot of other practices, when you practice hoodoo it is a part of your everyday life. My grandma often spent a lot of time teaching me about spiritual warfare, protection and cleansing work. She was constantly helping church members, family members to rid themselves of evil spirits and demonic forces.
On Saturday mornings we would clean. The broom was a staple, it did everything from cleaning to making a floor wash, securing a marriage, cleansing your home and body, even keeping your ear holes open after you got them pierced. Saturday evenings when the sun was going down, we often made huge fires and burned unsavory items. I didn’t find out she was actually teaching me what I now know as a fire ‘burning ceremony, or release ceremony’ until I was about 33 years old. She would always say “if it’s evil the best way to rid yourself of it is to burn it”. Then we would spend our Saturday night cleansing ourselves and practicing self care so we would be ready for Sunday mornings.
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My Mammie told me about dark so much I never even feared it. However in telling me, she also taught me how to fight these entities. She would teach me things such as what psalms to pray; what key words would free me if attacked. By the time I was a teenager, demonic forces and evil spirits, were like second nature to me.
Not only did she teach about darkness, she showed me much light. She taught me how to heal and bring joy with food. She was always abundant because she shared abundance. Once a month she would cook and feed sometimes up to 400 young men and women that were attending our church. They couldn’t wait and would come from all over New York the days Mammie cooked.
If you were sick, she was making you a pot of soup and a hot toddy. Most southerners believe there’s no cold that can go against a pot of homemade chicken soup. For good reason the chicken is known to be a protector, to scratch up harm and malice. She taught me which foods to eat to build my blood. She made teas with catnip, ginger etc. She taught me how to cleanse my system from the inside out using things like castor oil (which happens to be good for protecting) cascara sagrada (road opening, clearing out yuck) and other roots, barks and herbs.
Growing up grandma always had some sort of badgering lecture. As I’ve grown older learned to appreciate her talks. I sometimes yearn for them now, as I see she was dropping so many jewels. You see hoodoo is in you, it’s everyday life. My whole life I was a hoodoo but didn’t really know it. What are some traditions that you were raised with? When practicing folk magick, granny magick etc. it is thread into our everyday life. Some things you were raised “just doing” really may have been a form of folk magick or ritualistic practice?