Mules and Men

by Zora Neale Hurston

  She looked at me as if I was in the way and he read her eyes.

  “She’s alright, dear one. She’s one of us. I brought her in with me to assist and help.”

  I thought still I was in her way but she told her business just the same.

  “Too many women in my house. My husband’s mother is there and she hates me and always puttin’ my husband up to fight me. Look like I can’t get her out of my house no ways I try. So I done come to you.”

  “We can fix that up in no time, dear one. Now go take a flat onion. If it was a man, I’d say a sharp pointed onion. Core the onion out, and write her name five times on paper and stuff it into the hole in the onion and close it back with the cut-out piece of onion. Now you watch when she leaves the house and then you roll the onion behind her before anybody else crosses the door-sill. And you make a wish at the same time for her to leave your house. She won’t be there two weeks more.” The woman paid and left.

  That night we held a ceremony in the altar room on the case. We took a red candle and burnt it just enough to consume the tip. Then it was cut into three parts and the short lengths of candle were put into a glass of holy water. Then we took the glass and went at midnight to the door of the woman’s house and the Frizzly Rooster held the glass in his hands and said, “In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Ghost.” He shook the glass three times violently up and down, and the last time he threw the glass to the ground and broke it, and said, “Dismiss this woman from this place.” We scarcely paused as this was said and done and we kept going and went home by another way because that was part of the ceremony.

  Somebody came against a very popular preacher. “He’s getting too rich and big. I want something done to keep him down. They tell me he’s ’bout to get to be a bishop. I sho’ would hate for that to happen. I got forty dollars in my pocket right now for the work.”

  So that night the altar blazed with the blue light. We wrote the preacher’s name on a slip of paper with black ink. We took a small doll and ripped open its back and put in the paper with the name along with some bitter aloes and cayenne pepper and sewed the rip up again with the black thread. The hands of the doll were tied behind it and a black veil tied over the face and knotted behind it so that the man it represented would be blind and always do the things to keep himself from progressing. The doll was then placed in a kneeling position in a dark corner where it would not be disturbed. He would be frustrated as long as the doll was not disturbed.

  When several of my jobs had turned out satisfactorily to Father Watson, he said to me, “You will do well, but you need the Black Cat Bone. Sometimes you have to be able to walk invisible. Some things must be done in deep secret, so you have to walk out of the sight of man.”

  First I had to get ready even to try this most terrible of experiences—getting the Black Cat Bone.

  First we had to wait on the weather. When a big rain started, a new receptacle was set out in the yard. It could not be put out until the rain actually started for fear the sun might shine in it. The water must be brought inside before the weather faired off for the same reason. If lightning shone on it, it was ruined.

  We finally got the water for the bath and I had to fast and “seek,” shut in a room that had been purged by smoke. Twenty-four hours without food except a special wine that was fed to me every four hours. It did not make me drunk in the accepted sense of the word. I merely seemed to lose my body, my mind seemed very clear.

  When dark came, we went out to catch a black cat. I must catch him with my own hands. Finding and catching black cats is hard work, unless one has been released for you to find. Then we repaired to a prepared place in the woods and a circle drawn and “protected” with nine horseshoes. Then the fire and the pot were made ready. A roomy iron pot with a lid. When the water boiled I was to toss in the terrified, trembling cat.

  When he screamed, I was told to curse him. He screamed three times, the last time weak and resigned. The lid was clamped down, the fire kept vigorously alive. At midnight the lid was lifted. Here was the moment! The bones of the cat must be passed through my mouth until one tasted bitter.

  Suddenly, the Rooster and Mary rushed in close to the pot and he cried, “Look out! This is liable to kill you. Hold your nerve!” They both looked fearfully around the circle. They communicated some unearthly terror to me. Maybe I went off in a trance. Great beast-like creatures thundered up to the circle from all sides. Indescribable noises, sights, feelings. Death was at hand! Seemed unavoidable! I don’t know. Many times I have thought and felt, but I always have to say the same thing. I don’t know. I don’t know.

  Before day I was home, with a small white bone for me to carry.

  FIVE

  Dr. Duke is a member of a disappearing school of folk magic. He spends days and nights out in the woods and swamps and is therefore known as a “swamper.” A swamper is a root-and-conjure doctor who goes to the swamps and gathers his or her own herbs and roots. Most of the doctors buy their materials from regular supply houses.

  He took me to the woods with him many times in order that I might learn the herbs by sight and scent. Not only is it important to be able to identify the plant, but the swamper must know when and how to gather it. For instance, the most widely used root known as John de Conqueror must be gathered before September 21st. Wonder of the World Root must be spoken to with ceremony before it is disturbed, or forces will be released that will harm whoever handles it. Snakes guard other herbs and roots and must not be killed.

  He is a man past fifty but very active. He believes his power is unlimited and that nothing can stand against his medicine.

  His specialty is law cases. People come to him from a great distance, and I know that he received a fee of one hundred and eighty five dollars from James Beasley, who was in the Parish prison accused of assault with attempt to murder.

  For that particular case we went first to the cemetery. With his right hand he took dirt from the graves of nine children. I was not permitted to do any of this because I was only a beginner with him and had not the power to approach spirits directly. They might kill me for my audacity.

  The dirt was put in a new white bowl and carried back to the altar room and placed among the burning candles, facing the east. Then I was sent for sugar and sulphur. Three teaspoons each of sugar and sulphur were added to the graveyard dirt. Then he prayed over it, while I knelt opposite him. The spirits were asked to come with power more than equal to a man. Afterwards, I was sent out to buy a cheap suit of men’s underclothes. This we turned wrong side out and dressed with the prepared graveyard dust. I had been told to buy a new pair of tan socks also, and these were dressed in the same way.

  As soon as Dr. Duke had been retained, I had been sent to the prison with a “dressed” Bible and Beasley was instructed to read the Thirty-fifth Psalm every day until his case should be called.

  On the day he came up for trial, Dr. Duke took the new underclothes to the jail and put them on his client just before he started to march to the court room. The left sock was put on wrongside out.

  Dr. Duke, like all of the conjure masters, has more than one way of doing every job. People are different and what will win with one person has no effect upon another. We had occasion to use all of the other ways of winning law suits in the course of practice.

  In one hard case the prisoner had his shoes “dressed with the court.” That was to keep the court under his control.

  We wrote the judge’s name three times, the prisoner’s name three times, the district attorney’s name three times, and folded the paper small, and the prisoner was told to wear it in his shoe.

  Then we got some oil of rose geranium, lavender oil, verbena oil. Put three drops of oil of geranium in one-half ounce Jockey Club. Shook it and gave it to the client. He must use seven to nine drops on his person in court, but we had to dress his clothes, also. We went before court set to dress the court room and jury box and judge’s stand, and have ou
r client take perfume and rub it on his hand and rub from his face down his whole front.

  To silence opposing witnesses, we took a beef tongue, nine pins, nine needles, and split the beef tongue. We wrote the names of those against our man and cut the names out and crossed them up in slit of tongue with red pepper and beef gall, and pinned the slit up with crossed needles and pins. We hung the tongue up in a chimney, tip up, and smoked the tongue for thirty-six hours. Then we took it down and put it in ice and lit on it from three to four black candles stuck in ice. Our client read the Twenty-second Psalm and Thirty-fifth also, because it was for murder. Then we asked the spirits for power more than equal to man.

  So many people came to Dr. Duke to be uncrossed that he took great pains to teach me that routine. He never let me perform it, but allowed me to watch him do it many times.

  Take seven lumps of incense. Take three matches to light the incense. Wave the incense before the candles on the altar. Make client bow over the incense three times. Then circle him with a glass of water three times, and repeat this three times. Fan him with the incense smoke three times—each time he bows his head. Then sprinkle him seven times with water, then lead him to and from the door and turn him around three times over incense that has been placed at the door. Then seat the client and sprinkle every corner of the room with water, three times, and also three times down the middle of the room, then go to another room and do the same. Smoke his underclothes and dress them. Don’t turn the client’s hand loose as he steps over the incense. Smoke him once at the door and three times at each corner. The room must be thoroughly smoked—even under the furniture—before the client leaves the room. After the evil has been driven out of him, it must also be driven from the room so it cannot return to him.

  So much has been said and written about hoodoo doctors driving people away from a place that we cannot omit mentioning it. This was also one of Dr. Duke’s specialties.

  A woman was tired of a no-good husband; she told us about it.

  “He won’t work and make support for me, and he won’t git on out the way and leave somebody else do it. He spend up all my money playing coon-can and kotch and then expect me to buy him a suit of clothes, and then he all the time fighting me about my wages.”

  “You sure you don’t want him no more?” Dr. Duke asked her. “You know women get mad and say things they takes back over night.”

  “Lawd knows I means this. I don’t want to meet him riding nor walking.”

  So. Dr. Duke told her what to do. She must take the right foot track of her hateful husband and parch it in an old tin frying pan. When she picks it up she must have a dark bottle with her to put the track in. Then she must get a dirt dauber nest, some cayenne pepper and parch that together and add it to the track. Put all of this into a dirty sock and tie it up. She must turn the bundle from her always as she ties it. She must carry it to the river at twelve noon. When she gets within forty feet of the river, she must run fast to the edge of the water, whirl suddenly and hurl the sock over her left shoulder into the water and never look back, and say, “Go, and go quick in the name of the Lord.”

  So she went off and I never saw her again.

  Dr. Samuel Jenkins lives across the river in Marrero, Louisiana. He does some work, but his great specialty is reading the cards. I have seen him glance at people without being asked or without using his cards and making the most startling statements that all turned out to be true.

  A young matron went out with me to Dr. Jenkins’s one day just for the sake of the ride. He glanced at her and told her that she was deceiving her husband with a very worthless fellow. That she must stop at once or she would be found out. Her husband was most devoted, but once he mistrusted her he would accept no explanations. This was late in October, and her downfall came in December.

  Dr. Charles S. Johnson, the well-known Negro sociologist, came to New Orleans on business while I was there and since I had to see Dr. Jenkins, he went with me. Without being asked, Dr. Jenkins told him that he would receive a sudden notice to go on a long trip. The next day, Dr. Johnson received a wire sending him to West Africa.

  Once Dr. Jenkins put a light on a wish of mine that a certain influential white woman would help me, and assured me that she would never lose interest in me as long as she lived. The next morning at ten o’clock I received a wire from her stating that she would stand by me as long as she lived. He did this sort of thing day after day, and the faith in him is huge. Let me state here that most of his clients are white and upper-class people at that.

  In appearance he is a handsome robust dark-skinned man around forty.

  There are many superstitions concerning the dead.

  All over the South and in the Bahamas the spirits of the dead have great power which is used chiefly to harm. It will be noted how frequently graveyard dust is required in the practice of hoodoo, goofer dust as it is often called.

  It is to be noted that in nearly all of the killing ceremonies the cemetery is used.

  The Ewe-speaking peoples1 of the west coast of Africa all make offerings of food and drink—particularly libations of palm wine and banana beer upon the graves of the ancestor. It is to be noted in America that the spirit is always given a pint of good whiskey. He is frequently also paid for his labor in cash.

  It is well known that church members are buried with their feet to the east so that they will arise on that last day facing the rising sun. Sinners are buried facing the opposite direction. The theory is that sunlight will do them harm rather than good, as they will no doubt wish to hide their faces from an angry God.

  Ghosts cannot cross water—so that if a hoodoo doctor wishes to sic a dead spirit upon a man who lives across water, he must first hold the mirror ceremony to fetch the victim from across the water.

  People who die from the sick bed may walk any night, but Friday night is the night of the people who died in the dark—who were executed. These people have never been in the light. They died with the black cap over the face. Thus, they are blind. On Friday nights they visit the folks who died from sick beds and they lead the blind ones wherever they wish to visit.

  Ghosts feel hot and smell faintish. According to testimony all except those who died in the dark may visit their former homes every night at twelve o’clock. But they must be back in the cemetery at two o’clock sharp or they will be shut out by the watchman and must wander about for the rest of the night. That is why the living are frightened by seeing ghosts at times. Some spirit has lingered too long with the living person it still loves and has been shut out from home.

  Pop Drummond of Fernandina, Fla., says they are not asleep at all. They “Sings and has church and has a happy time, but some are spiteful and show themselves to scare folks.” Their voices are high and thin. Some ghosts grow very fat if they get plenty to eat. They are very fond of honey. Some who have been to the holy place wear seven-starred crowns and are very “suscautious” and sensible.

  Dirt from sinners’ graves is supposed to be very powerful, but some hoodoo doctors will use only that from the graves of infants. They say that the sinner’s grave is powerful to kill, but his spirit is likely to get unruly and kill others for the pleasure of killing. It is too dangerous to commission.

  The spirit newly released from the body is likely to be destructive. This is why a cloth is thrown over the face of a clock in the death chamber and the looking glass is covered over. The clock will never run again, nor will the mirror ever cast any more reflections if they are not covered so that the spirit cannot see them.

  When it rains at a funeral it is said that God wishes to wash their tracks off the face of the earth, they were so displeasing to him.

  If a murder victim is buried in a sitting position, the murderer will be speedily brought to justice. The victim sitting before the throne is able to demand that justice be done. If he is lying prone he cannot do this.

  A fresh egg in the hand of a murder victim will prevent the murderer’s going far from the scene. T
he egg represents life, and so the dead victim is holding the life of the murderer in his hand.

  Sometimes the dead are offended by acts of the living and slap the face of the living. When this happens, the head is slapped one-sided and the victim can never straighten his neck. Speak gently to ghosts, and do not abuse the children of the dead.

  It is not good to answer the first time that your name is called. It may be a spirit and if you answer it, you will die shortly. They never call more than once at a time, so by waiting you will miss probable death.2

  SIX

  Before telling of my experiences with Kitty Brown I want to relate the following conjure stories which illustrate the attitude of Negroes of the Deep South toward this subject.

  Old Lady Celestine went next door one day and asked her neighbor to lend her a quarter.

  “I want it all in nicels, please, yes.”

  “Ah don’t have five nickels, Tante Celestine, but Ah’ll send a boy to get them for you,” the obliging neighbor told her. So she did and Celestine took the money with a cold smile and went home.

  Soon after another neighbor came in and the talk came around to Celestine.

  “Celestine is not mad any more about the word we had last week. She was just in to pay me a visit.”

  “Humph"! snorted the neighbor, “maybe she come in to dust yo’ door step. You shouldn’t let people in that hate you. They come to do you harm.”

  “Oh no, she was very nice. She borrowed a quarter from me.”

  “Did she ask for small change?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she is still mad and means to harm you. They always try to get small change from the ones they wish to harm. Celestine always trying to hurt somebody.”

  “You think so? You make me very skeered.”

  “Go send your son to see what she is doing. Ah’ll bet she has a candle on yo’ money now.”