Prevención

The idea that hoodoo is a form of charlatanry has been present since colonial times as well. Not until after emancipation, however, did this view take prece- dence over the idea that conjure and Voodoo were dangerous. The new focus reflected the Jim Crow racial system in place by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With African Americans safely defined as segregated inferi- ors, conjurers and Voodoo priestesses were no longer as threatening figures as in the past. Increasing numbers of whites defined them as little more than mere con artists who cheated their supposedly simple-minded black clients.

In the eyes of whites—and many blacks as well—conjure and Voodoo might not be threats to society, but they were certainly vices. As such, they were to be suppressed. Few if any African Americans were prosecuted for practicing magic or being members of Voodoo congregations. Constitutional freedom of religion made laws against expressions of spirituality difficult to pass and enforce, espe- cially after ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments gave African Americans at least an illusion of equal standing as American citizens. Practitioners instead faced charges stemming from assumedly false representations of their abil- ities. Jean Montanée, the famed New Orleans hoodoo practitioner, occasionally

ran into legal trouble for fraud, usually because of dealings with whites who did not achieve the results they sought. One famous effort to prosecute a well-known conjurer was the work of High Sheriff James McTeer, who attempted to arrest Dr. Buzzard of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, on charges that he practiced medicine without a license. McTeer, himself an amateur conjurer, recorded his failures in Fifty Years as a Low Country Witch Doctor. Many other practitioners faced charges of mail fraud, violating local laws against selling charms or for- tune-telling, or simple vagrancy (Long, Voudou Priestess, 137–139; Long, Spiritual

Merchants, 131) .

An 1894 fictional account of a hoodoo-related prosecution clearly illustrates white viewpoints. Entitled “A Case of Hoodoo,” it tells of Washington Webb, a

A prominent Missouri hoodoo doctor, appearing as little more than a drunk charlatan in this illustration. Mary Alicia Owen, Old Rabbit, the Voodoo and Other

Sorcerers , with an Introduction by Charles Godfrey Le-

land, with Illustrations by Juliette A. Owen and Louis Wain (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1893; reprint, White- fish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2003), p. 172.

fortuneteller and dabbler in conjure, who is on trial for fraud. Webb is a distinctly unsympathetic figure. The author of the tale, William Cecil Elam, describes him in a manner calculated to elicit repulsion. Webb was “colored, a simple-looking fellow, of a dull, dead-black complexion, with staring pop-eyes, projecting and flapping ears that seemed to grow out of the corners of his wide mouth, and a profusion of reddish, sunburnt hair growing into tight little standing twists all over his head” (Elam, 138). Jefferson Hunks, a former client of Webb who is pressing charges against the conjurer, is none too admirable himself. His grounds for accusation are that he purchased charms and had his fortune told by Webb, only to convert to Christianity a few days later. In keeping with his new beliefs, he has eschewed supernaturalism as a work of Satan. Now, he wants the $1.39 he paid Webb returned. The judge refuses to return Hunks’s money, but he does determine that the conjurer is a swindler of the “ignorant and credulous” and a vagrant. Webb receives a jail term, designated to last until he can pay a $200 fine (Elam, 140–141). The author’s point was clear—conjurers are fakes, and those who patronize them are fools.

This take on hoodoo remained strong well into the twentieth century. An example of its power was an article by George J. McCall entitled, “Symbiosis: The Case of Hoodoo and the Numbers Racket.” The essay is an interesting look at how conjure and illegal lotteries interact. McCall’s conclusion is that they sup- port each other. Lottery players buy charms, candles, and dreambooks from hoo- doo doctors and shops to gain spiritual assistance with their gambling. Those running the numbers games likewise benefit. Many players become convinced that they can win against the odds, increasing the amount they bet (and usually lose). In addition, the widespread use of books that purport to predict one’s win- ning numbers based on the dream he or she had the night before placing a bet means that the wagers tend to cluster around certain numbers linked to common dreams. Those who run the lotteries commonly remove these numbers from the pool or lessen the payouts for those who chose them, helping the “bank” maxi- mize its profits by ensuring that a disproportionate number will lose.

McCall was likely correct when he wrote that hoodoo and illegal gaming are linked, or at least that they were at the time of his writing; however, he uncritically assumed that those conjurers and shops that catered to gamblers were charlatans. This assumption is abundantly clear in McCall’s comment that, “if a separation of clientele [of hoodoo practitioners and the operators of lotteries] could be ef- fected, both operations might be substantially weakened, possibly resulting in considerable saving of ill-spent cash for many Negro families” (McCall, 370).

Works defining conjure as charlatanry have been on the decline since at least the 1970s. One reason is a shift in outlook. Popular promotion of multiculturalism has helped lessen both white and black condemnation of hoodoo. Multiculturalist thinking makes it difficult to condemn Voodoo priestesses and conjurers because

the philosophy defines them as expressions of black culture, on par with spiritual specialists from any other society. Scholars’ adoption of postmodernism, which includes the denial of objectivity as one of its central tenets, has also weakened Americans’ belief in authoritative spirituality and their ability to deny the valid- ity of supernaturalism. For many Americans, condemning conjure or Voodoo as vice would mean violating deeply held beliefs in relativism (Anderson, Conjure, 18–24).

The belief that conjure and Voodoo are mere charlatanry will never entirely disappear, however. After all, examples of spells failing to achieve desired results abound. Refunds are rare in such cases, guaranteeing dissatisfied customers. As with any professional or amateur pursuit, one can safely assume that many prac- tice conjure because of a love for tradition. Some do so as an expression of their spirituality. Others do so for profit alone and do not particularly care whether or not they help their clients. Simply assuming that the belief system is itself a fraud and that believers are dupes is wholly unwarranted.