Knowledge Library
The Red Clay Archive
What the elders knew, kept.
Tag: #african-american-folklore
2 entries
Folklore
Harry Middleton Hyatt: Hoodoo–Conjuration–Witchcraft–Rootwork
Harry Middleton Hyatt's Hoodoo–Conjuration–Witchcraft–Rootwork is an enormous collection of African American folk-magic testimony gathered primarily through interviews in the American South. The complete work spans five volumes and approximately 4,766 pages. Hyatt's fieldwork was conducted principally between 1936 and 1940 across states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The collection includes thousands of recorded beliefs and workings as well as extended interviews with people identified as root doctors, conjurers and Hoodoo practitioners. Arcane Archive For serious Hoodoo research, Hyatt is valuable because much of the material preserves the words and reported practices of African American informants living during the early twentieth century.
Hoodoo History
Zora Neale Hurston: Mules and Men
Published in 1935, Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men is a foundational work of African American folklore and an important resource for studying Hoodoo and Black Southern folk culture. Hurston was both a celebrated Black writer and a trained anthropologist. She returned to Black communities in Florida and traveled through the South collecting stories, songs, sermons, folklore and spiritual traditions. Unlike many early collections of African American folklore created entirely through an outsider's gaze, Hurston entered these communities with cultural familiarity and documented Black folk culture through both anthropological study and lived participation. Mules and Men explores African American folklore as well as Hoodoo traditions encountered during Hurston's fieldwork.