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To: alt.religion.orisha,alt.lucky.w,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick.folk,alt,magick,alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic From: catherine yronwodeSubject: (news article) 'HOODOO' ARTIFACTS IN ANNAPOLIS Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 03:16:15 GMT Thanks to nagasiva for typing this up from a fax i received today. The date was missing, but it was sometime in February, 2000. ================================================= Annapolis Evening Capital February [?], 2000; pp. A1, A16 --------------------------- MORE 'HOODOO' ARTIFACTS DISCOVERED IN ANNAPOLIS Historians in Annapolis have found one of the most extensive collections known of "Hoodoo" objects, common items such as coins and buttons used in 19th century black spiritual rituals. The items, found carefully placed beneath a brick kitchen floor of the Brice House at 42 East St. continue a pattern of similar finds in other stately homes in the city over the years. In 1990, archaeologists discovred caches of Hoodoo objects in the northeast corners of rooms in the Carroll House, now attached to St. Mary's Church on Duke of Gloucester Street. Acting on a hunch, teams then dug under the northeast corner of the kitchen of a 1776 tounhouse on Duke of Gloucester Street and found similar bundles of coins, buttons, pins, pieces of broken pottery and bent nails. The post-Civil War rituals were practiced by blacks, who believed the spirit world can be diverted, or controlled with the use of the objects. Although widely practiced at the end of the 19th century throughout the Deep South, the collection of more than 300 artifacts discovered at the Brice House is one of the most extensive in the country, historians said. The collection shows the mingling of African and American cultures, said Mark Leone, a University of Maryland history professor. The practice of burying items such as rocks, roots, and dirt for protection was brought from Africa. The use of manufactured items mixed with natural objects showed the American influence, he said. "It was African ritual that had become Americanized," Mr. Leone said. "there were American items used such as a perfume bottle and a military buckle. What is important here is the mix." The collection also includes pieces of roots, clusters of feathers and miature bottles, beads, coins and buttons. A piece of root is meant to anchor someone to a certain place, the feathers are for flight, and the bottles to contain evil spirits. "Hoodoo was a way for African Americans to get away from their troubles," Mr. Leone said. "It was an antidote to racism." The items were found beneath the kitchen floor of the five-sectioned Georgian building on East Street owned by the International Masonry Institute. City records show that a black servant, Sara Watkins, lived above the kitchen beginning in 1880, said Matthew Corcharan, Mr. Leone's assistant. Watkins, alone or with others, may have placed the items under the bricks, he said. The objects were found on each side of a doorway that connected a kitchen and a laundry and two fireplaces. The largest amount of items were found at the inter- section of an axis drawn by an imaginary line connecting two doorways and the two fireplaces, said achaeologist Jessica L. Neuwirth, of the Historic Annapolis Foundation, who worked with Mr. Leone on the excavation. Each quarter of the axis represents the voyage through life, from birth to peak to decline to death and the rebirth of the spirit, she said. "It forms a metaphorical crossroads," Ms. Neuwirth said. "If you connect the outer points, you have a cosmogram, a circle or oval or diamond, that is a symbolic representation of how the universe works and how human beings live in the universe." --------------------------------------- *The Associated Press and Staff Writer Jeff Nelson contributed to this story.* ================================================= I have since talked to Professor Mark Leone and he told me that the "perfume bottle" mentioned in the article was Hoyt's Cologne. (See http://www.luckymojo.com/hoyts.html .) Amazing though this might be to people who frequent usenet newsgroups, Professor Leone was actually unaware that ANYONE practices hoodoo in America at the present time. When i told him that i have a store dealing in these items, he about fell off his chair. I sent him a free "care" package of roots, herbs, oils, and powders and -- of course -- a bottle of Hoyt's Cologne, which he had no idea was still being manufactured. I also passed along Eoghan Ballard's email address, because i figure he'd be more comfortable talking to a fellow university academic than to a root woman like me. As far as what some of the items in this cache -- the pins, bent nails, buttons, "dirt," bottles, and military buckle -- were used for, well, i'll just say that the servant Sara Watkins seems to have been laying some hard-core tricks for someone in the house (probably her employer), and leave it at that. --cat
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