Browse:Hoodoo Dance (Volume 1, entries 2775)
Hoodoo Dance
Volume 1, entries 2775. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → SHRINES: ALTARS - CANDLES - SAINTS; NEW ORLEANS AREA → (1) ALTARS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2775
[This material should have been indexed under following sub-subdivision CANDLES, but preceding margin-title requires its indexing here.]
(Sing? Sing that hoodoo dance?) Yes. (Well, what would they do?)
She would just be staying like that [demonstrates] (clapping hands and singing).
[Parenthesis by transcriber who hears the clapping and singing.]
They'd then start to dance. (Will you sing that over for me again without clapping. See if I can under- stand a little of it. Sing it over again without clapping.) (She sings again - in French?) [Parenthesis by transcriber who guesses "in French?"] [Here is my penciled comment at time I checked original transcription against cylinder - "Mostly Marie Madelaine comme ca."]
(They dance and sing that?)
Yeah.
(What else do they do? At that hoodoo dance?)
Well, they'd just be dancing and be carrying around big switches - just like you would be dancing on somebody. [For an account of switches, see my experience at Tyree Church, Maryland, described in Introduction.] Then they got the lights [candles] all burning.
(Anything else?)
Yeah, they got all the lights burning, then they dancing. Well, the next night they comes in again and then they has a supper, you see.
(Well now, tell me - describe the supper to me.)
And then they have these people's names all on every place - they got their name down on every place [written on the floor?] - just like here they would be singing, and then - well, still and all, then when they'd get out, they'll come back and they'll go to the hall again - like where they dance at. See, that's on Thursday nights and Friday nights, when they got a big meeting. And then they'll dance on them people's heads [names chalked on floor?], and you see on the next day will go there to that house and they'll have something what they had [made] and they'll throw it all around them people house. See, something like make out they's a friend to you. Well, then they'll come to your house and throw that and put you in the worst luck they can and there ain't no way [where] you can go. And they'll move you clean out of that community.
(Well, do they have those dances any more?)
Yeah, downtown they has them - downtown.
(Not as many as they used to have?)
No, not like they used to have. ["New Orleans, La., Mon., Mar. 14, 1938 - No. 834 - woman 55+ by Mack" - Numbers Book 823-884.] [New Orleans, La., (834), 1256:3.] [Candles - whose spiritual smoke penetrates the hidden corner and rides the four winds and five waves - cannot be contained in this small sub-subdivision, CANDLES. To understand something about them one must include the preceding and following sub-subdivisions, ALTARS and SAINTS, as well as a few INTERVIEWS later. The two fundamental aspects of candles in hoodoo are color and power.] [Color value comes from three sources: (1) a psychology as old as history - black = darkness and evil, red = blood and danger, white = light and goodness; (2) the saint's color - meaning the predominant color in the saint's costume on picture or statue; and (3) hoodoo dealer - whatever he says the color is good for. The latter also includes pamphlets or printed instructions about candles.] [Power we can understand if we remember that a candle is a magic helper - a hand or toby (pp.519-669) - the magic helper, of course, being a spirit. If you do not believe this, turn back and read or reread THE PRIVATE SHRINE (p.773).]