Talk:Hoodoo (spirituality)

message: I removed the reference which claimed that "I can still hear that old hound dog barking, chasin' down a hoodoo there" (from the Credence Clearwater Revival song) was an example of hoodoo used as an adjective. It isn't.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.91.43 (talk) 20:29, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Part of speech

message: The repeated use of the term "folkway" (a coinage which never entered the popular lexicon) is both pretentious and deleterious to this article. 74.127.90.179 (talk) 04:16, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not a "coinage" at random. It is a well-known and well-defined word in the lexicon of sociology. It has been in wide use in that field since 1907 when an entire book on the subject was published by an Ivy League professor, and there is an Encyclopaedia Brittanica article about both the word "folkway" and the book Folkways (1907). So what's the beef? Are we restricted to only the use of "coinage" which has "entered the popular lexicon"? I know of no such rule for Wikipedia articles, otherwise, the articles on Chemistry and Biology subjects would be scant and thin indeed. Moreover, the usage is not pretentious, it is accurate and precisely correct in the way in which it is used here IMO. And, in what way is it deleterious? Make your point, don't just let it dangle there unexpounded. How does the use of the term "folkway" cause "harm or damage" [definition of deleterious] to this article? JoGusto (talk) 11:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Folkways

message: Conversations over one year old have been archived.  To read these conversations, please see the archive box at the top of the page.  Thanks. GooferMan 21:10, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Archived Conversations

message: I deleted these sections because they do not contribute to our of blues singers in relation to Hoodoo.  However, this section needs work as well it needs to be flushed out with more detail that will explain the relevance of the the Hoodoo/Blues connection.
GooferMan 18:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted Other Artists and Folk Humor 

message: I have seen different etymologies for the word.  The most popular being it's either an Ewe influence related to Vodu, Voodoo, or it's a Hausa word related to hu'du'ba.  I'm not an African linquist but I've studied linguistics long enough to know that the latter is a stronger argument.  I don't mind seeing the reference to African etymology in the text but there needs to be some sort of documentation and references.  I don't have the sources that make these arguments so I can't quote them here and thus removed the reference in the article in order to conform with NPOV.  It's interesting to note that regarding the association of Hoodoo as linquistically related to Voodoo, Zora Neale Hurston contributed to this belief in her book Mules and Men by stating that Hoodoo was Voodoo according to white people.  However, Just because some white folk don't always understand the practices of other cultures doesn't mean that their misunderstandings determine the the true history of the word.
In short, I'd like to recommend that we not refer to the etymology at all since it contributes little to the article.  It doesn't reveal much about Hoodoo as a socio-cultural reality'.  Even a linquist will admit that there is a lot of guess work in etymologies of this sort.  GooferMan 18:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted references to etymological origins of Hoodoo

message: I have taken the liberty of breaking the books section into non-fiction and fiction. 
I have also deleted the reference to "Mama Zogbe" as an author, since i can find no books by her -- or, indeed, any mention of her outside of this wikipedia article and its various internet clones. 
A google search on the terms 
* < "mama zogbe" hoodoo > turns up only 25 pages  
-- and all of them are clones of this article. Just as a reality-check for notability, a google search on 
* < "emma bull" hoodoo > turns up 250 pages,
* < "harry middleton hyatt" hoodoo > turns up 425 pages
* < "newbell niles puckett" hoodoo > turns up 450 pages 
* < "jim haskins" hoodoo > turns up 1,150 pages, 
* < "ishmael reed" hoodoo > turns up 3,380 pages, 
* < "zora neale hurston" hoodoo > turns up 5,350 pages, 
* < "catherine yronwode" hoodoo > turns up 6,380 pages. 
I therefore have decided that either the Mama Zogbe reference was a spoof or Mama Zogbe is not a notable writer on hoodoo.
Sorry for interfering, but it was bugging me. 
cat yronwode (yes, me) Catherineyronwode 07:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books section revised -- and why i did it  

message: I added the above section and two subsections "Moses-as conjuror" and "bible-as-talisman".  My goal was to add some more description to what hoodoo is by discussing some of the underlying symbolism and worldview.  I'm missing a quote that I haven't been able to track down, in Hyatt's book vol 1 Hoodoo-Conjuration and soforth, there is an informant who says something along the lines of, "if I cross someone, and it works, then it happened with God's permission."  This isn't exact but just an approximation.  If any of you have access to this book and find it before I do, can you add it and the citation in the sentence marked (citation)?  I think Hyatt even mentions this quote in his introduction if I remember correctly.GooferMan 21:12, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: added section "Hoodoo Conceptual System"

message: I added a new section on cultural influences.  My thinking is that we need three sections to discuss each of the three regions that the article claims had an influence on Hoodoo: Africa, Europe, and Native America.  I am not versed enough in African or Native American influences to write those sections, so I just included Europe.  I have two other grimoires to talk about, I'll add them when I've finished them.GooferMan 02:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New Section, "Cultural Influences"

message: I can't find where it is explained in the article the exact etymology of "hoodoo." Badagnani 02:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Badagani . . . First, my apologies for the late reply on your comment.  Please see the explanation above on why the etymology of the word 'hoodoo' is absent.  In short, it is difficult to establish an exact etymology.  I think the old etymology deriving it from the word 'voodoo' has come into disfavor. Instead, the view that it is from the Hausa word related to hu'du'ba - "to arouse resentment, produce retribution" - has become more prominent. However, if you search the terms 'hoodoo', 'etymology', and 'Irish' you'll find an interesting argument for the Irish origins of the word.  There's too much guess work in etymology for my skills.  However, it would be nice to get some documentation and references on the subject.  As yet, no one has stepped up to provide a thorough case for the etymology.GooferMan (talk) 21:23, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: Are the quotations in this article word for word from their references? And how valid are the references? Quoting African Americans in this way seems pretty racist to me. If you were quoting a mexican american, you wouldn't write the quote with a mexican accent. These quotations do not fit within an educational article and should be replaced with something else. Meskarune10:11, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  The quotations are indeed word for word from their references.  Moreover, the references are entirely valid and arguably the most authoritative sources on the subject (Hyatt and Huston are at any rate).  These are direct quotes from a folklorists trying to document both the beliefs and the dialect of their informants.  Because of this, the quote as written is acceptable in an educational article. GooferMan (talk) 21:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotations

message: "Hoodoo shows obvious and evident links to the practices and beliefs of African folk magico-religious culture. The Hoodoo practiced in the U.S. by the enslaved Africans was brought from West and Central Africa, specifically, the area that is now known as the Congo and Angola, Togo, Nigeria and other West African regions."
OK, first of all - African folk magico-religious culture? What, pray tell, is this? Is there some kind of unitary religious/magical perspective which comes from being African? Also, the claim that Hoodoo comes from "specific" parts of "West and Central Africa" - not backed up with a citation, by the by - undermines itself by describing a vast stretch of the African coastline as being the "home" of Hoodoo, from the far southeast past the Bight of Benin, an area comprising a large number of cultures, languages, religious traditions, etc. This is a paragraph with pretensions to precision, but under the bluster it's pretty well devoid of content. So I'm deleting it. 99.245.254.91 (talk) 20:01, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  What on earth does this mean?

message: Although hoodoo draws on the Old Testament for many of its ideas, in many places the text of the Old Testament itself explicitly condemns use of some methods that hoodoo employs.  Take, for example, these excerpts from the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy (two of the five Biblical books received by Moses himself on Mount Sinai: History Crash Course #36: Timeline: From Abraham to Destruction of the Temple, by Rabbi Ken Spiro, Aish.com. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
:"...You shall not practice augury or witchcraft" (Leviticus 19:26).
:"Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God" (Leviticus 19:31).
:"If a person turns to mediums and wizards, playing the harlot after them, I will set my face against that person, and will cut him off from among his people" (Leviticus 20:6).
:"When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.  There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.  For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you.  You shall be blameless before the LORD your God.  For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do" (Deuteronomy 18:9-14). 
These are only some of the places in which hoodoo practices are Biblically condemned; in fact, these citations are all from books that Moses is believed to have written down himself.  Considering the weight that hoodoo believers give to Moses-as-conjuror, this is an important point to recognize.  These views are based on an ancient Jewish understanding of the laws that the Jews (then Israelites) believe were given to them by God through Moses.  If the Israelites believed that God gave them these laws through Moses and the laws contradict some aspects of hoodoo belief, it is therefore necessary that the hoodoo belief that Moses (and, by logical extension, God) is a conjuror (in the hoodoo sense) should be called into question as a Biblically supported idea.  This is even more necessary considering the explicit condemnation present in the Bible, the same source from which hoodoo believers draw their ideas of God- and Moses-as-conjuror.  Such a contradictory set of viewpoints stemming from the same source must be carefully scrutinized.
---END OF ADDITION---
Once again, please let me know what the issue(s) is/are... if there are no posts within 12 hours, I will re-post my addition.
Divineofficer (talk) 05:18, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Divineofficer, the works of Hoodoo involving Bibliomancy and Bible-as-Talisman are different from traditional definitions of 'mediums, wizards, augurs, sorcerers, witchcraft, divination, etc.' (I am trying to work out Leviticus 20:6 from the Ancient Hebrew to a better English understanding. The verse speaks of 'prostitution' towards mediums, etc. in the ancient Hebrew text which is a turn away from God. In Hoodoo reading, their is guidance asked from God himself for knowledge and clarity into a situation.) I state this because in these types of works, as stated in the original articlehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo_(folk_magic), God is always in control. The 'black arts' or 'black magic' that is spoken of refers to attempting to summon demonic forces or false gods for powerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_magic whereas Hoodoo, at least in all of the works I have studied, is sort of a physical representation of prayer. To state that these works in their entirety is considered an abomination would conflict with ideas such as holy water and annointing oils used in the Church to this day. These are actually practices used in Hoodoo as a petition to God and His angels who protect us. Do not confuse Hoodoo with the forms of witchcraft and sorcery that were used during the timeframe in which Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written (approx. 1450-1400 BC).http://www.trinity-ottumwa.com/leviticus.pdf128.221.224.57 (talk) 08:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

text: To summarize my reasoning for the above response, the addition of the section regarding "Moses & The Old Testament on Conjuring/Witchcraft/Wizards/Mediums" is:
(1)Not relative to the subject of Hoodoo as an academic article towards the subject, and;
(2)Biased based on perspective of the translation of the terms "wizard", "medium", "sorcerer", "divination", "soothsayer", "augur", "conjurer", etc. The definition of these terms, originally written in Hebrew from the timeframe of 1450-1400 BC, must not be skewed to represent a generalized idea of what the English language interprets the definition to mean almost three and a half millenia later.128.221.224.57 (talk) 08:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

text: Thanks Divineofficer. Please read WP:OR and then see if you can find a secondary source on Catholic/Hoodoo interelationship. Fainites barleyscribs 16:56, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Moses & The Old Testament on Conjuring/Witchcraft/Wizards/Mediums

message: OK Fainites, here's the thing: Wikipedia's WP:OR section says (and I quote), "...primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."
Here are some quotes directly from the current wiki article:
"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."
"Contact with ancestors or other spirits of the dead is an important practice within the conjure tradition..."
Here's the definition of necromancy according to dictionary.reference.com/browse/necromancy: "1. a method of divination through alleged communication with the dead; black art; 2. magic in general, esp. that practiced by a witch or sorcerer; sorcery; witchcraft; conjuration.
Now, after that small bit of critical thinking, here is a direct quote from a primary resource in its original context with no interpretation:
"There shall not be found among you any one who... practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you" (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).
Isn't that pretty cut and dry?  It doesn't seem that there is any need for a secondary resource.
P.S. I didn't mention Catholic teaching in this post at all because it is not called for.  I merely cited a primary resource and directly quoted from it to show a bit of ideological conflict (namely that Moses, the man who wrote Deuteronomy, from which this direct quote is taken, and who hoodoo teaches is a conjuror, explicitly condemns the very practices that hoodoo employs).  I'd say that's a pretty serious factual flaw in this article.
Divineofficer (talk) 18:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah but the article shouldn't argue with itself! The bit you quote describes Hoodoo. Hopefully that bit is properly sourced as a description of Hoodoo. The next point is - what if any is the relationship with Catholicism? There is material, apparently sourced, which claims Hoodoo borrowed a great deal from Catholicism and that many people comfortably practice Hoodoo and Catholicism side by side. The point I am making is - if you say the Catholic Church teaches differently - you need a secondary source about this subject - not quotes from the bible. There should be some sources as I believe the Catholic Church has spoken out on these matters and there have been issues about the state recognition of Vodou, for example, in Haiti. What you really can't do though is take bits of a primary religious text and use it to illustrate a current church's views on another religion.Fainites barleyscribs 20:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Another Explanation

message: Fainites, if the beliefs of hoodoo and those presented in the Bible are at odds, it is inevitable that the article will argue with itself!  On the other hand, one can take it as a balanced representation of hoodoo beliefs and the weak points of their belief system.  If they use the Bible as a source of teaching, they should understand what it actually says about their practices!  
This is even more dire when one considers that Moses, who they present as a conjuror, wrote down the first five books of the Bible (commonly called the Pentateuch).  Leviticus and Deuteronomy are two of those first five books.  If the content of those books condemns hoodoo practices (by name, no less!!!), then that must be made known as part of a balanced approach!  If this is done with direct quotes and without any interpretation necessary, then there is no reason to exclude it from the article... indeed, no interpretation is needed!  It is explicitly stated in the primary resource (which hoodoo believers themselves use today)!
Furthermore, in this hoodoo article, there is no previous mention of Catholicism anywhere that I could find.  If this is not present, I find it unnecessary and inappropriate to introduce the Catholic view on hoodoo.  
However, in the voodoo article, which infers strong connections between Catholicism and voodoo and additionally implies an acceptance of voodoo practices by the Catholic Church, there is a basis for speaking about Catholic teaching.  These are separate articles.
For this separate article on hoodoo, in which no mention of Catholicism is previously made, I cannot justify a mention of Catholic teaching or, therefore, any citation of Catholic thoughts.  This is about the primary resource.  They are citing it from ancient times, and so am I.  I'm doing no different than they are.
Do you see what I'm saying yet?  It's not about interpretation.  They say Moses is a conjuror.  Moses says not to conjure.  They are necromancers.  Moses wrote down that his people are not to allow necromancy.  It's right there in the same source they use... fair is fair!
Divineofficer (talk) 21:35, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: But this article is about Hoodoo. It's not about what the Bible says that can be interpreted as contrary to the practices of Hoodoo. Fainites barleyscribs 22:54, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply

message: What about Angel Heart? --BjKa (talk) 16:30, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Film 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This article cites a number of sources that may be unreliable (WP:RS) or questionable (WP:QUESTIONABLE). WP:SCHOLARSHIP states that, “Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable.” Some are self-published (WP:RSSELF, WP:SELFPUB).
The following are not scholarly works and may be unreliable or questionable sources not appropriate for an encyclopedia:
*McQuillar, Tayannah Lee, The Hoodoo Tarot. Destiny Books, 2020
*Zepke, Terrance. Lowcountry Voodoo: Beginner's Guide to Tales, Spells and Boo Hags. Pineapple Press, 2009
*Hyatt, Harry Middleton. Hoodoo—Conjuration—Witchcraft—Rootwork. 5 vols. Western Publishing, 1973  - possible self-published (WP:RSSELF, WP:SELFPUB)
*Alvarado, D. The Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook. Weiser Books, 2011.
*Felix, Talia, The Conjure Cookbook. Createspace, 2010 (WP:RSSELF, WP:SELFPUB)
*Felix, Talia, Voodoo Conjure. Createspace, 2010 (WP:RSSELF, WP:SELFPUB)
There may be more unreliable sources, but this is a start in cleaning up the references.
Unless someone can show that these works meet the Wikipedia guidelines for a reliable source, they will be deleted. - Epinoia (talk) 23:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable sources 

message: Any references to burning Hoodoo practitioners like those in Puritan New England ? A comparison would be something.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liberty5651 (talk • contribs) 15:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Witch Burning 

message: There had at some point been a great section about Hoodoo featured in popular culture.
This entire section was scrapped on 16 July 2017 by a user with the remark "removing unreferenced information".
Now, I don't want to start a silly edit war but I found this information quite interesting and useful. In fact, it's the reason I revisited the article.
Shouldn't this be reinstated? Despite this user's remark, many entries gave information where the hoodoo occurs, sometimes even citing song lyrics. How exactly should this information be referenced anyway? With a timestamp for songs and movies? With a page number for stories?
I could be wrong, of course, but I have the impression this user simply didn't like the section for whatever reason and removed it wholesale. This is not the approach I value with Wikipedia and I find this excision of good information regrettable.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jack L Rains (talk • contribs) 18:59, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Information that is not referenced can be removed at any time, without discussion.  Any items that are returned should have reliable, verifiable sources attached.  What this article does not need is more unreferenced or poorly sourced information.~TPW 18:27, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "In popular culture" 

message: The article states, "Approximately 388,000 enslaved Africans from various ethnic groups were transported to North America from the 17th to 19th centuries" - that number seems low - the article Atlantic slave trade states, "Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years." - not all of those went to North America - I don't have any reliable sources at hand to check how many were sent to North America - cheers - Epinoia (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: ok, thanks - Epinoia (talk) 21:50, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transatlantic slave trade 

message: It looks as if Black - meaning someone of African heritage - is sometimes capitalized and sometimes is lower case. It seems white is always lower case.
It would be great to have an approach that is consistent throughout the article.–CaroleHenson (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Carlstak (talk) 20:52, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalization of Black and white 

message: A lot of this article reads like an opinion piece rather than an objective overview of a spiritual/religious practice. Lots of links to non-academic, opinion articles from places like Cosmopolitan and Vice, particularly in the "Hoodoo vs. Marketeered Hoodoo" in the article. I feel like a section on the commercialization of hoodoo practices is fine to have in the article but it needs to have a more academic tone and not read like a personal essay. Passages like this particularly stand out to me as an example of this- 
"The New Age community is known for appropriating the spiritual traditions of people of color and spreading misinformation online about Hoodoo. To correct the narrative, some African American women created social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms to inform their communities what is and what is not Hoodoo. The African American women interviewed primarily use Hoodoo for healing."
"Many of the spells in the white witch community were appropriated from Hoodoo, such as honey jars, love spells, binding spells, and many hex (curse) spells come from Hoodoo.[339] White witches publish books about hexing and love spells as though they do not come from Hoodoo. These authors do not give credit to the origin of the spells they are writing about. This is problematic, because it is implying that African Americans do not have a culture rooted in spirituality, and that Hoodoo is all about how to use spells to get rich and harm people, making Hoodoo a trend. This furthers the stereotype that the practice of Hoodoo is a selfish form of magic. In addition, social media has become a hub for this kind of appropriation. These authors are making money on Hoodoo which is a tradition that has its beginnings in slavery."
These are very subjective statements and I'm not sure if the belong on Wikipedia. There are a lot of very definitive sounding statements that are unsourced and feel like personal speculation on the part of the author. There is a lot of serious, scholarly research on folk magic beliefs and practices, including hoodoo, out there, and I think this article would really benefit from consulting those resources. 
--Mothpriest (talk) 21:30, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone issues in article, needs more scholarly sources 

message: — Assignment last updated by Lbhatt6763 (talk) 04:37, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Contemporary Black Popular Culture

message: — Assignment last updated by Elizabethhawkins21315 (talk) 03:34, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: ARH 371_The TransAtlantic_Cross-Cultural Representations