Free Book Friday - Folk-lore from Adams County Illinois by Harry Middleton Hyatt

Folk-lore from Adams County Illinois was the first book published by Harry Middleton Hyatt. It's written in roughly the same format as Hoodoo - Conjuration - Witchcraft - Rootwork, with informants identified only by numbers. FFACI's information is concise, and Hyatt does not converse with his informants. In some ways, I like this hands off approach better. Hyatt only occasionally makes notations, usually to point out that a certain statement is contrary to the general consensus, or that a certain belief is only held within a single ethnic group (you'll see what I mean).

By 1936, hoodoo had spread out of the south and curio catalogs, such as King Novelty Company (based in Chicago), were changing the nature of conjure. I think a lot of people look at the title, see that it's about "folk-lore" and folk-lore from a Midwestern state at that, and pass it by. FFACI is full of conjure, there's love and luck work, healing, hands/mojos, there's even entries on the infamous black cat bone. Give it a thorough read-though. There's also quite a bit similar to mountain folk lore/magic and powwow.

I've only been able to pick at Hyatt's HCWR series here and there, and the lucky bastard who owns the set no longer lives near me. Something that bothers me about Hyatt is that he puts conjure/hoodoo and witchcraft into the same category. They are opposed, it's witch-doctor vs witch.

Some informants don't come right out and say that they're talking about witches, not conjure workers, but they make it REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS that they mean OTHER PEOPLE. You know, THOSE OTHER PEOPLE, WINK. WINK. And Hyatt's all oblivious. And then other people do talk about witches, and they still get thrown together all the same. The people online who read Hyatt's work like it's some kind of conjure Bible see this and think it's ok to call jobs "spells" and to call conjure "witchcraft" just because of a modern redefinition of the word.

Anyway, just keep that in mind. Another thing I want to point out is that Hyatt makes note of three groups of people, "Irish", "German", and "Negro". All statements unattributed to one of these three groups are simply made by "white people". Basically, the Irish-Americans, German-Americans, and blacks he met had beliefs and practices unique enough that he felt their heritage should be made note of.

Free Book Friday!

Two of my favorite things, books and free stuff! Many great books are in the public domain or published online by the author. I will never link you to anything put up illegally, and I will only link to .pdfs, never files that must be downloaded. I don't know about you, but I care about my computer ;)

Without further adieu, this week's title is "Secrets of the Psalms" by Godfrey Selig

This is a great introduction to working with the Psalms and it's one of those book that has come to be a "conjure classic". The Psalms are so important to conjure work, sometimes just the earnest praying of a particular Psalm is all that is needed to do a job. Many of the healing Psalms include instructions to anoint with olive oil, proving that you don't need any fancy condition oils to work powerful magic.

Remember not to limit yourself by the "suggested use" of each Psalm. For example, Psalm 23 is listed only as an aid to receiving messages and omens in dreams. Other Psalms's ascribed uses leave me a little puzzled. Read each of the Psalms, learn and understand what they are saying, and their uses will become clear.

Some Psalms have instructions to copy them down on real parchment. While you could substitute parchment paper, a more traditional substitute is paper from a brown paper bag, torn on all sides.

Enjoy!