Tag Archives: voodoo

The True Love’s Heart

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, New York City
Performance Date: 10 March 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Main Piece:

So there’s a famous Creole belief that the truest way to win over someone’s heart is to make them drink your blood. Some version says that it only works if it’s your period blood, but the one my grandma told me says that it works with any kind of blood. You just have to make sure that the other person somehow consumes your blood without them realizing, then that’ll make them fall in love with you without a doubt. In the movie “Midsommar” they had a similar tradition shown in it, so a lot of people just assume that this tradition is like only for Nordic/Norwegian stuff. But from what I know the drinking of blood dates way back in the Creole culture, and maybe this is a shared thing amongst other cultures too. Obviously I’ve never done this myself, nor do I know anyone who’s actually done it. I think at this point, it’s more like a story that elders tell to kids kinda as a fairy tale, I’m not sure if anyone would actually try to pursue this.

Background:

My informant is African American, with her father’s family coming from a Creole/Haitian heritage. She grew up in New York, where a large Haitian community exists. Even though she’s never personally visited Haiti, she was exposed to the culture through her family. She also explained that this story was told to her by her grandmother in French, so there are some mistranslations alongside phrases that couldn’t be remembered correctly.

Context:

I met up with my informant at her apartment in Los Angeles. During our talk about finding love and relationships, the topic eventually lead to her sharing this bit of interesting folklore. No other persons were present during our conversation.

Thoughts:

Drinking or consuming one’s blood is a sacred act that’s been practiced and upheld by various cultures. It’s an act that symbolically and literally unifies two persons, and it only made sense for me that there would be a folklore regarding drinking blood and associating that with attaining one’s love.

Menstrual Blood in the Food

Background

Location: Tarzana, CA

Informant: M.S. – Black, female hairstylist in her late 20’s, born and raised in Los Angeles but has family in New Orleans, LA

Context

Overheard in a hair salon in Tarzana, California. M.S. is a stylist that was working at the salon, speaking to her client. Told in the context of Louisiana witchcraft. The collector has heard this piece of folklore told many times before this encounter.

The Bayous of Louisiana are well known to the locals for being places of witchcraft practice and voodoo. Many local wives-tales revolve around the idea of this witchcraft having real effects. I have summarized the telling in my own words below

 Main Piece

The tale goes that if a woman wishes to “keep” a man, or ensure that she and the man will stay together romantically, she should put her menstrual blood in his food while she is cooking and serve it to him. This will create a mystical and unbreakable bond that influences the man to stay as her partner.

Thoughts

I have personally heard this wives tale told to me from members of my family that still reside in Louisiana. The folklore itself points to both an interest in Louisiana witchcraft and the belief that those methods can be employed by common folk to help them achieve certain goals, specifically when relating to other people and controlling them through supernatural means.  Stories like this circulate and are based in areas of Louisiana that are known for witchcraft, specifically Black, female witchcraft. The informant seemed to tell the story as though she believed there was some merit to the idea of witchcraft, as she expressed that it would be foolish to attempt witchcraft as it could have dangerous effects on the “caster.” It is a common held belief in Louisiana that witchcraft is not to be trusted and should be treated with caution.

Neighborhood Voodoo Tree

Nationality: American
Age: 51
Occupation: Dentist
Residence: Memphis, TN
Performance Date: March 15, 2019
Primary Language: English

Context: The informant is a 51-year-old man who has lived in Memphis, Tennessee for his entire life. When asking him about legends or stories that he was told as a child, he remembered this one. He does not remember who exactly told him about the lady who lived on his street, but he assumes it was one of the kids who lived near him in his neighborhood.

Piece: “There was a woman that lived in a house on my street growing up and, it was different from every house in the neighborhood. It was poorly kept. There was a tree in the corner of the yard, a small wider kinda, wild looking tree. There were these things hanging in the tree. I seem to recall them looking like crudely constructed ghost figures. They were made out of some sack material and they had small distorted faces drawn on them. There were strings tied around them.  I was told that they were voodoo dolls. That was the first time I heard about Voodoo dolls. People would say that if you went in her yard, she would make a voodoo doll for you that looked just like you, and she could control you with the doll. She could control you to perform tasks for her. If she stuck a pin in it, you would feel pain. If you lit them on fire, they would burn. There is something very strange about this house, and looking back on the events, I would not be surprised if the woman was actually a practitioner of voodoo. My perception is that most of the area where I lived around was new construction, but I could feel a distinction with this one house.”

Analysis: When I asked the informant what he thought about this story, he immediately responded by pointing out the fact that his neighborhood consisted almost entirely of white families. He remembers the woman being African-America and elderly and thinks this is what led many of the children in the neighborhood to believe she practiced voodoo, of course in addition to the mysterious tree. In much of the popular culture during the 1970s, the customs of voodoo were often presented through a prejudiced lens which deemed it a lesser, more primal practice as opposed to the more popular religions of the time. You would also rarely see a white person performing voodoo in film, tv, or literature. Oftentimes when a community or group is presented with something that they are unfamiliar with, they will create some explanation in order to fill the void of uncertainty. In this case, children may have seen the mysterious figures on the tree which did look very similar to the voodoo dolls presented in pop culture (confirmed by the informant) and immediately assumed that was what they were.

Annotation: For another version of voodoo dolls see:

Reuber, Alexandra. “Voodoo Dolls, Charms, And Spells In The Classroom: Teaching, Screening, And Deconstructing The Misrepresentation Of The African Religion.” Contemporary Issues in Education Research (CIER), vol. 4, no. 8, 2011, p. 7.

Haitian Voodoo

Nationality: Haitian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: New York, New York
Performance Date: 4/2/19
Primary Language: English

Context: Informant’s father is from Haiti and grew up in an area where Voodoo was practiced. Though it may not have been the majority, there was still a presence and the practice was perceived as dangerous. Because of this, he would need to come back into the house from playing at a certain time in order to avoid being caught up in any practices in his neighborhood area.

Informant:

“The thing that keeps coming to mind is like Voodoo… which isn’t like… I don’t know. I just remember my Dad saying that like… he would play stuff… he would like play outside, and at a certain time, you would like, have to go inside because like… the Voodoo people would just like, come around the corner and do their thing and leave at night. But one day, he was like playing too late and he could hear sounds like around the corner, around the mountain or whatever, from around his house and then he saw them and they were in all white… and like, yeah.”

KA: And what is the “Voodoo people” specifically? Like, this was in…

“In Haiti.”

KA: Okay.

“This was like, when he was a kid in Haiti. Um… I mean, for my family specifically, we don’t have to like… really do anything related to Voodoo, but you shouldn’t like… not believe in it just in case anything comes true. It’s like you shouldn’t… I don’t know… I guess like… speak against the gods or like Loa or something like that. I’ve also started researching Voodoo, ’cause I thought it was interesting, but I don’t know. It’s not something that… it’s not really a thing that a lot of Haitians like… do? But it’s also like… not a thing that a lot of Haitians DON’T believe in.”

KA: So why would your Dad have to run inside and not be out?

“Because they’re also like… I mean it can be dangerous.”

Introduction: The informant was introduced to Voodoo through their father.

Analysis: I found this extremely interesting. I feel like people acknowledge Voodoo but don’t fully understand it all of the way. Growing up, I’d hear about Voodoo a little bit from my dad, but it was never an overwhelming presence in my life. The interaction I did have from him was caution though. Through the years I feel as though I’ve been exposed to it the most through popular culture which can morph the reality of it in a way, so I think it would be extremely interesting and beneficial to learn more through a lens that isn’t just one meant to entertain.

Tokolosh

Nationality: Korean
Age: 19
Occupation: undergraduate student
Residence: Zimbabwe
Performance Date: 2017-3-20
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Main piece:

There is a little tiny elf-fairy called Tokolosh. It’s evil. its part of African witchcraft. In Zimbabwe, witchcraft is voodoo but it’s also Nigerian so it’s an African thing.

Background information (Why does the informant know or like this piece? Where or who did they learn it from? What does it mean to them?):

When informant was in Grade 10 or 11, she heard about Tokolosh after an action conference at a missions school. The christian speaker was talking about african wifchcraft to get rid of, which included Tokolosh.

As a foreigner living in Zimbabwe, she don’t know what the full story is and when she asked others to explain it, she didn’t understand.

Context (When or where would this be performed? Under what circumstance?):

Typically, it’s a part of African voodoo and witchcraft so the story would be shared with those in Africa who believe or practice voodoo. In this case, it was told in opposition of it through christians trying to bring faith into Africa. It seems like it is passed through word of mouth even to kids because the informant asked friends at school about it. It’s not a part of formal education.

Personal Analysis:

Witchcraft seems to be more integrated into African culture than in America. The tokolosh seems to be taken seriously if christians are working towards getting rid of it.