What is (a) hoodoo?
OK, back to geography and language and history and stuff... ;-) Let's consult Wikipedia and do some googling.
Hoodoo is a form of predominantly African-American traditional folk magic. Also known as conjure, it is a tradition of magical practice that developed from the creolization of a number of separate cultures and magical traditions.
Hoodoo incorporates practices from African and Native American traditions, as well as some European magical practices and grimoires. While folk practices like hoodoo are trans-cultural phenomena, what is particularly innovative in this tradition is the remarkably efficacious use of biblical figures in its practices and in the lives of its practitioners.
The word hoodoo first was documented in American English in 1875 and was listed as a noun or a transitive verb. It is often used to describe a magic spell or potion, but it may also be used as an adjective for a practitioner. Regional synonyms for hoodoo include conjuration, conjure, witchcraft, or rootwork.
(Further) Not only is God's providence a factor in hoodoo practice, but hoodoo thought understands God, himself, as the archetypal hoodoo doctor. "The way we tell it, hoodoo started way back there before everything. Six days of magic spells and mighty words and the world with its elements above and below was made." From this perspective, biblical figures are often recast as hoodoo doctors and the Bible becomes a source of conjurational spells and is, itself, used as a protective talisman.
The goal of hoodoo is to allow people access to supernatural forces to improve their daily lives by gaining power in many areas of life, including luck, money, love, divination, revenge, health, employment, and necromancy. As in many other folk religious, magical, and medical practices, extensive use is made of herbs, minerals, parts of animals' bodies, an individual's possessions, and bodily fluids, especially menstrual blood, urine and semen. Contact with ancestors or other spirits of the dead is an important practice within the conjure tradition, and the recitation of Psalms from the Bible is also considered magically effective in hoodoo. Due to hoodoo's great emphasis on an individual's magical power, its basic principles of working are generally felt to be easily adapted for use based on one's desires, inclination and habits.
In geology, hoodoos are tall thin spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of arid basins and badlands. They are composed of soft sedimentary rock and are topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column from the elements.
In common usage, the difference between hoodoos and pinnacles or spires is that hoodoos have a variable thickness often described as having a "totem pole-shaped body." A spire, on the other hand, has a smoother profile or uniform thickness that tapers from the ground upward.
A legend of the Paiute Indians, who inhabited the Bryce Canyon area for hundreds of years before the arrival of European Americans, claims the colorful hoodoos are "Legend People" who were turned to stone as punishment for bad deeds.
What is (a) hoodoo?
OK, back to geography and language and history and stuff... ;-) Let's consult Wikipedia and do some googling.
Hoodoo is a form of predominantly African-American traditional folk magic. Also known as conjure, it is a tradition of magical practice that developed from the creolization of a number of separate cultures and magical traditions.
Hoodoo incorporates practices from African and Native American traditions, as well as some European magical practices and grimoires. While folk practices like hoodoo are trans-cultural phenomena, what is particularly innovative in this tradition is the remarkably efficacious use of biblical figures in its practices and in the lives of its practitioners.
The word hoodoo first was documented in American English in 1875 and was listed as a noun or a transitive verb. It is often used to describe a magic spell or potion, but it may also be used as an adjective for a practitioner. Regional synonyms for hoodoo include conjuration, conjure, witchcraft, or rootwork.
(Further) Not only is God's providence a factor in hoodoo practice, but hoodoo thought understands God, himself, as the archetypal hoodoo doctor. "The way we tell it, hoodoo started way back there before everything. Six days of magic spells and mighty words and the world with its elements above and below was made." From this perspective, biblical figures are often recast as hoodoo doctors and the Bible becomes a source of conjurational spells and is, itself, used as a protective talisman.
The goal of hoodoo is to allow people access to supernatural forces to improve their daily lives by gaining power in many areas of life, including luck, money, love, divination, revenge, health, employment, and necromancy. As in many other folk religious, magical, and medical practices, extensive use is made of herbs, minerals, parts of animals' bodies, an individual's possessions, and bodily fluids, especially menstrual blood, urine and semen. Contact with ancestors or other spirits of the dead is an important practice within the conjure tradition, and the recitation of Psalms from the Bible is also considered magically effective in hoodoo. Due to hoodoo's great emphasis on an individual's magical power, its basic principles of working are generally felt to be easily adapted for use based on one's desires, inclination and habits.
In geology, hoodoos are tall thin spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of arid basins and badlands. They are composed of soft sedimentary rock and are topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column from the elements.
In common usage, the difference between hoodoos and pinnacles or spires is that hoodoos have a variable thickness often described as having a "totem pole-shaped body." A spire, on the other hand, has a smoother profile or uniform thickness that tapers from the ground upward.
A legend of the Paiute Indians, who inhabited the Bryce Canyon area for hundreds of years before the arrival of European Americans, claims the colorful hoodoos are "Legend People" who were turned to stone as punishment for bad deeds.