{"collection":"African","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/afr/vno/vno28.htm","path":"afr/vno/vno28.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/afr/vno/vno28.htm","text":"HENRY ALLEN, a Negro waiter at a New Orleans hotel, seemed glad of an opportunity to express his opinion about Voodoo. A serious, fairly well educated man, with intelligent eyes peering from behind gold-rimmed glasses, Henry's views were as representative as you are likely to find.\n\"My people all know about Voodoo,\" he said. \"You must always remember that. Whether they believe in it or not, whether they're rich or poor, educated or ignorant, black or yellow, it is important to them. When they deny knowing about it they're lying because they're scared. I have heard that two-thirds of all Voodoos belong to my race and that the other third is white. I don't know if that is true or not, but I know that two-thirds of my people believe in Voodoo to some extent and that the other third treat it with respect. Of course those that believe in it have their differences, but when trouble comes they start looking for help from Doctor So-and-so or Mother Somebody-or-other and they get a little bottle of oil or some powders or something like that.\n\"Why that's all my people talk about! When somebody gets sick and starts to lose weight you'll hear them say, 'Have you seen Mary? She sure looks bad! I think somebody's got\n{p. 250}\nher fixed. You know she and Mildred ain't been getting along lately.\n\"Among my people any time two friends fall out they are suspicious of each other. They might treat each other nice and all when they meet, but they both wonder if the other person is fixing them. Soon as one gets a little sick--just a headache or anything like that--everybody who comes to see her tells her the other person must be fixing her. Hoodoo is one of the things my people live by. It's religion. When they need help they use it. When they want to get even with somebody they use it. They are always watching for it and guarding against it.\n\"I'm a Catholic, and I don't believe in any of it, but I had a brother who did. He was crazy about a woman and she wasn't doing right. He began to feel bad all the time and his friends all said this woman had him fixed. He went to Mother Kate and she told him he had snakes in his stomach. Well, she made him stay at her house all day and she gave him some medicine that was supposed to be hoodoo medicine but was really a strong purgative. She told him to stay in a room she showed him and to call her when he was ready to have a passage. He called her after a while and she brought him a bucket. He used that and then she showed him what he had passed. Of course she had dropped a handful of worms and snakes into that bucket, and he thought they had come from his own body.\n\"After that he believed in all that stuff. I remember one night we were all in church. I had gone to the Baptist church with my family that night--all my folks are Baptist; I changed to Catholic after I was grown. My mother got up to testify this night, and you know when you testify you got to sing. My mother never was a good songstress, so my brother started to sing to help her out. That woman he was living with touched him on the knee and told him to stop. He stopped, and that burned my sister up. As soon as church was over and we got outside the woman and my sister started fighting with shoe heels. You know lots of women of my race fight\n{p. 251}\nthat way. They just pull off a shoe and go at each other, and those shoe heels are as bad as knives. My brother tried to grab his woman to protect her and I grabbed him, because I wanted my sister to give her a beating. When I grabbed his hand he screamed, 'Don't break my oil! Don't break my oil.' That stopped the fight because we were all so surprised. My brother had been holding a bottle of some kind of oil in one hand. He was going to rub this on his body to make his woman love him more.\n\"About a year after that my brother died. The doctor said he had ulcers of the stomach, but my sister always said that woman had him fixed. I don't know. I believe this: I believe if these hoodoo people can get to you they can put stuff in your drink or your food. That's why my people are always so careful where they eat. But I don't believe any hoodoo--or Voodoo, whatever you call it--can harm if the fixer lives across the river or ten miles away or anything like that. I think it's all poison. I've seen it kill people all my life. Of course I think lots of times a man is really sick of something else and people just say he's been hoodooed. But it ain't only the killings. I've seen people go crazy. I've seen 'em get down on the floor and bark like dogs. I've seen 'em waste away and get thinner and thinner, until they're skin and bones.\n\"Myself, I've never fooled with it. Sometimes I gamble a little, but I don't even carry a lodestone like most gamblers of my race do. The only thing I believe in is prayer. Lots of men, when they're playing dice, will say, 'Oh, Lord, help me make this pass!' but they're not really praying. When I say 'Oh, Lord, help me!' I'm praying!\n\"Like I said, Voodoo is part of my people. I think they need it. When white people mess with it, that's different They're just ignorant or they're after something--like white gamblers will always carry lodestones, or most of them, anyway--but with my race it's something else; it's something to turn to when they're in trouble and it's something to use to get even with people who have done them harm. Of course\n{p. 252}\nmaybe I just say this because I know more about my race. Maybe it's the same whether they're white or black.\n\"My grandpa used to always say something. I never did forget it. 'America,' he used to say, 'is just like a turkey. It's got white meat and it's got dark meat. They is different, but they is both important to the turkey.' I figure the turkey has more white meat than dark meat, but that don't make any difference. Both have nerves running through 'em. I guess Voodoo is a sort of nerve that runs mostly in the dark meat, but sometimes gets into the white meat, too.\n\"And it ain't only in New Orleans. I've been all over the country and I've seen signs of Voodoo almost everywhere, anywhere people of my race live. You can always find it. Of course lots of white people don't know anything about it, but we always know. Anywhere they go my people know the signs.\"\n{p. 253}","title":"27. The People Know the Signs","type":"page"}