The following paper read at the April meeting of the Hampton Folk-Lore Society, was compiled from a series of essays on Conjure-Doctors written in 1878 by students at Hampton, some of which were then published in Southern Workman .
The Negro’s belief in conjuration and magic is very probably a relic of African days, though strange and incongruous growths rising from association with the white race, added to and distorted it from time to time, till it became a curious conglomerate of fetichism, divination, quackery, incantation and demonology.
Overt and natural means of obtaining justice being forbidden the Negro, was it sur- prising that, brought up in ignorance, and trained in superstition, he should invoke secret and supernatural powers to redress his wrongs and afford him vengeance on those of his fellows whom envy, jealousy or anger prompted him to injure?
The agent of this vengeance was usually the Conjure Doctor. This individual might be a man or a woman, white or colored, but was found in every large Negro commu- nity, where though held in fear and horror, his supernatural powers were still implicitly believed in. The source of these powers is but ill defined. One authority says: “I have always heard that those doctors sold themselves to the Devil before they were given this power.” Another, in speaking of a certain old woman who was a conjure doctor, says: “She said she had a special revelation from God, as do all the conjure doctors I have ever heard of.” One rather noted conjure doctor described by several of our writers, claimed his power in virtue of being the “seventh son of a seventh son,” and having been “born with seven cauls over his face.” It is said by some, however, that women who conjure sometimes give instruction in the art, and that if a conjure doctor is asked where he got his teaching, he will tell you of some old person who has been dead for years as having been his teacher.
The conjure doctor’s business was of two kinds: to conjure, or “trick,” a person, and to cure persons already “conjured.” They were appealed to upon the least pretext to exert their powers in the former way. Jealousy or envy of a more fortunate neighbor or associ- ate was a frequent cause for appealing to the conjure doctor, who would be requested to “trick” the object of ill feeling. A quarrel between the two neighbors, even over the merest trifle, would result in a visit to the conjure doctor and the subsequent illness, or death perhaps, of one of the parties. Love affairs gave plenty of employment to the conjure doc- tors, as they were believed to be able to “work their roots” so to make one person return another’s affection, and, if the affair resulted unhappily, the slighted party sought revenge in having the other “tricked” so that no rival should be more successful.
In slavery times, there are frequent records of the conjure doctor’s being appealed to save the slave from punishment, to enable him to escape the “patrollers” or, in the case of a runaway, to enable him to return home without suffering from his master’s anger.
In all these cases there was the most implicit faith in the conjure doctor’s power. Disliked and feared as these men and women were, gruesome as were the beliefs about them, the confidence in their abilities was unbounded; and deliberate open impostors as most of them evidently were, they were nevertheless able to wring from their victims the money they could so little spare from the needs of everyday life.
Some curious things are told of the personal appearance of these doctors. Almost all agree that they are usually tall and very dark; and a distinguishing mark seems to be extreme redness of the eyes. One describes them as “always on the lookout, full of super- stition, and long, exciting tales.” Another calls them “singular and queer, seeming always in a deep study, looking at some distant object,” and adds: “I have never seen one that could look a man straight in the eyes. They never sleep like any one else. It’s more like the sleep of a cat. At the slightest noise or pain they are up telling their fortunes to see if any one is trying to injure them.”
One conjure doctor is pictured as having the remarkable gift of “turning as green as grass most, and when he was just as black as a man could very well be: and his hair covered his neck, and around his neck he had a string, and he had lizards tied on it. He carried a crooked cane. He’d throw it down and he would pick it up and say something, and throw it down, and it would wriggle like a snake, and he would pick it up and it would be as stiff as any other cane.”
In one account, the conjure doctors are represented as “going along looking very sanc- tified, with leathern bags on their arms.[”] They are not called conjure doctors in their presence but are addressed as doctor. They seem to have exacted respectful treatment, for we have testimony that a conjure doctor meeting a person who refused to bow to him, would threaten to conjure the person.
Powers of all kinds are attributed to these doctors. The healing art in various degrees is their gift, and the so-called “diseases” which they possess exclusive power to cure are, as one of our informers puts it, these: tricks, spells and poisons.
Th e power of snake-charming seems to be quite generally attributed to them. One is told of who claimed that he could turn a horse to a cow, and kill a man or woman and bring them to life again by shaking up his little boxes. He could also whistle in the key- hole after the doors were locked, and make them fl y open. Others are told of who “can trick, put snakes, lizards, terrapins, scorpions and diff erent other things in you, fi x you so yon can’t walk, can’t sleep, or sleep all the time, and so you can’t have any use of your limbs. Th ey could put you in such a state that you would linger and pine away or so that you would go blind or crazy.”
Source: Leonora Herron, “Conjuring and Conjure Doctors,” Southern Workman 24 (1891): 117–118.
Commentary
This is one of the earliest treatments of conjure as a valid form of folklore. It was no coincidence that it appeared in the school newspaper of the Hampton Institute, a college founded to educate newly freed slaves and their children after the Civil War. Its author clearly continues to harbor a negative view of the prac- tice. Nevertheless, she went on to summarize and analyze the practice from an at least moderately sympathetic standpoint, determining that its survival was a consequence of the racism that doomed African Americans to life as second-class citizens.