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To: alt.religion.orisha,alt.lucky.w,alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick.folk From: catherine yronwodeSubject: Re: Fabled Dr. Jim Jordan Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 23:17:12 GMT Eoghan Ballard wrote: > > Hey Cat, > > Since it looked like a title I wanted to read anyway, It is, believe me! It's pretty great. I have Hurkey (the NOLA root worker i mentioned earlier, for whom i am trying to score a gift-computer) to thank for turning me onto this book. The fact that my copy is missing four pages has not diminished my enthusiasm for it. > I have placed an > InterLibrary Loan request for it. When it comes, I'll let you know. Thanks! In reply to trace bunker -- i live on the outskirts of a little rural town of 1,500 people with no access to Interlibrary Loan ... since there is no library. Thus i rely on the kindness of others. And Eighan, i'll send you some good stuff for this favour. Here's a bit more information -- The author, F. Roy Johnson, an amateur local history sleuth, wrote and self-published several books on North Carlina folklore. In this case he took notes around the Murfreesboro area for about 20 years and when Jim Jordan died in 1962, he wrote a 136 page biography of the celebrated conjure doctor. Jordan's family was of mixed race -- Native American and African. They were agricultural and household slaves prior to the Civil War and farmers and craftspeople after Emancipation. Jim Jordan was born in 1871 and died in 1962. He began work as a farmer and logger, was a member in good standing of a local Protestant church, and after the age of 50, as his fame as a conjure doctor grew, he became a land-owner, store proprietor, and a relatively wealthy man. In addtion to a family history of Jordan and his many relatives (who numbered among them two other conjure doctors and a mid-wife), and the socio-cultural reminiscences of his neighbors, the book contains a list of Harriet Jordan's (Jim's mother's) magico-medical uses for herbs (including your shame-weed, Eoghan!), lots of assimilated European-style witch-lore, a short list of European-style grimoires and Kabbalistic works ("6th, 7th, and 8th Books of Moses," "Secrets of the Psalms") and hoodoo books ("8th, 9th, and 10th Books of Moses," "Master Book of Candle Burning" -- both by Henri Gamache) that Jordan consulted, mention of some of the "drug store style" hoodoo formulas he bought from a mail order house in Chicago and stocked in his store (Follow Me Boy and Kiss me Again, both manufactured by King Novelty / Valmor of Chicago), and -- to my delight -- some unrecorded and otherwise un-logged blues songs mentioning conjure practices. Here's a song i found most intriguing. It was written to commemorate the death in 1900 of a local conjure doctor known as Old Edloe and was sung in the area for 25 years according to Johnson, who collected one verse of it from Mrs. Jennie Mae Eley (Jim Jordan's sister): I woke up this mornin, Old Edloe knockin' on my door I bet you five dollars he don' knock there no more An' I don't have to wear no salt and pepper in my shoes Since Old Edloe's gone Johnson gives no melody, but the form of this sole verse identifies the song as a member of four-line "Walking Blues" family, many of which begin with the line "woke up this morinin'" and mention "shoes" somewhere in the text. Placing salt and pepper (or just black pepper) in the shoes to keep safe from foot track magic was later noted by Harry Hyatt (in the 1930s) and can be found on my web page on foot track magic at http://www.luckymojo.com/foottrack.html -- but Old Edloe's death in 1900 marks this song both as a very early blues and as one of the earliest mentions of wearing salt and pepper in the shoes, even though Johnson did not collect it until the 1960s. Incidenetally, according to Rand Jordan, Doctor Jim Jordon's son, his father studied conjure under Old Edloe and learned many things from him. Compare the song with the Hyatt reference to wearing pepper in the shoes, extracted from the above URL: -------------------------------------------------------------------- Apotropaic Foot Track Spell: BLACK PEPPER IN SHOE KEEPS YOUR FOOTPRINT FROM "REGISTERING" SO IT CANNOT BE CAPTURED 1123. I've heard of them taking black pepper and putting it in the shoe to keep a person from getting the dirt out of their footprint. They said the footprint won't register in the sand if they have black pepper in the shoe. [Snow Hill, Md., (83), 2:22 (Nansemond Co., Va.) [Black pepper like red pepper usually occurs in combinations of ingredients {especially with salt}; it being less frequently used than red.] -------------------------------------------------------------------- So, anyway -- "The Fabled Doctor Jim Jordan" is a very interesting book and deserves wider recognition among scholars of folk-magic in general and of hoodooo in particular. Go for it! cat yronwode Hoodoo in Theory and Practice -- http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoo.html Hoodoo and Blues Lyrics --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/blues.html No personal e-mail, please; just catch me in usenet; i read it daily. Lucky Mojo Curio Co. http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html Send e-mail with your street address to catalogue@luckymojo.com and receive our free 32 page catalogue of hoodoo supplies and amulets This post copyright 2000 catherine yronwode. All rights reserved.
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