Crossroads Work (Hoodoo)

In hoodoo the crossroads is a place where things are disposed of and where things are met. Work that is finished with - bath water, a trick, an object that has served - is carried to a crossroads and left, on the logic that a road carries what is put on it away from the person and disperses it where many feet will pass. The crossroads is also where the blues places the meeting with the devil, and that story - the guitarist who went down to the crossroads at midnight and came back able to play - is the most famous American magical narrative there is.

The common documented use is disposal: the remains of a bath, a packet, a candle stub or a trick are taken to a crossroads, left with a spoken word, and not looked back at. The second use is the meeting: a person goes to a crossroads at a set hour to encounter whatever keeps the crossroads and to trade something for a gift - the pattern behind the soul-selling legend. The two uses are different in kind: one is housekeeping, the other is a bargain, and the collections are much fuller on the first than on the second.

The crossroads bargain is the tradition's own image of a work that costs the worker something, and the collections treat it as a thing people say happened rather than a rite they performed. The soul-selling story has been attached to real musicians - Tommy Johnson told it about himself, and it was later told about Robert Johnson - and its circulation has more to do with the blues market and with white fascination than with a documented ceremony. It is recorded here as legend, not as method.