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.
The hoodoo crossroads and the Haitian crossroads are not the same idea, and conflating them is one of the commonest errors in popular writing. In hoodoo the crossroads is a place of disposal and, in legend, of a bargain made by a person on their own; in Vodou the crossroads belongs to a lwa who must be saluted before anything else is done. The first is a place put to use; the second is a power that is greeted.
Symbols and forms
- Alternate Names
- CrossroadsThe crossroads riteSelling your soul at the crossroads (legend)Crossing the road
Practice
- Purpose
- To disperse what has been taken off a person, and - in the bargain form - to obtain a gift at a price
- Tools
- Candle
- Magical Uses
- BanishingHex breakingLuck enhancementProtection
Nature and meaning
- Kind
- Practice
Details
- Region
- The southern United States, especially the Mississippi Delta and the blues country
- Era
- Twentieth century as documented; the crossroads as a magical place is older
- Background
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.
- Practice
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.
- Keywords
- CrossroadsDisposalDevilBluesDeltaSoul sellingLegendThrowing water
- Ethical Note
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.
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