What is Hoodoo?

Hoodoo is a tradition, a generational heirloom that is simultaneously medicine, magic, and religion.

Born on North American soil to African parents, Hoodoo is a system of survival, adaptation, resistance and reclamation.

Hoodoo disrupts, uproots, holds tight, brings near and lets go.

Hoodoo lives and breathes where we do.

Foundational elements of African American life finds origin in Hoodoo.

• Hoodoo is the people, the religion, and the language.

• Hoodoo is found in lived experience.

Hoodoo is a living religion. We use blood, bones, spit, hair, plants, roots, love - and the air we breathe out - when using words to conjure up worlds beyond our current existence.

We believe that time is circular.

We believe that we are our ancestors returned, and that we, ourselves, will be returned in our descendants.

Although Hoodoo is forever, every generation is built to liberate us from the systemic conditions under which Hoodoo was born.

Hoodoo has universal elements with regional influences. Along with universal tenants and rituals, each region has something that makes it’s Hoodoo special.

The United States is a vast land with varying ecologies. Regional Hoodoo is influenced by the African ethnicities brought to the area (often determined by skill) and local ecology.

Hoodoo in the Chesapeake has particular influences from Igbo, ethnicities in Senegal & Gambia, and BaKongo traditions (as well as other traditions). Virginia brings much of the Igbo influences, Maryland brings much of the Senegambian influences, and Kongo influences are in both states. As many families have moved around the Chesapeake area (that includes Maryland, Virginia, DC, parts of Delaware, northern part of North Carolina, and the eastern part of West Virginia) the particular tradition of Chesapeake Hoodoo has flourished.

Chesapeake Hoodoo (also known as Tidewater Hoodoo) shares some sacred familiarity to Low Country (Gullah/Geechee) Hoodoo, in addition to links with Obeah in Jamaica & Barbados. Odinani/Odinala (Igbo) is this region’s mother religion, with the father religion being that of Senegalese, Gambian, and Kongo traditions broadly.