What is Regional Hoodoo?
Regional Hoodoo is an understanding of Hoodoo as a wide, earth based tradition that takes shape based on geography and people.
The regionality of Hoodoo practice is something that started gaining popular acceptance in the past few years. Before then, many would say that Hoodoo Conjure ONLY came from New Orleans and the Delta area.
The Chesapeake / Tidewater is one of the many regions that doesn’t get its due, and is still in the infancy of getting its due after the work of our co-founder and founding members bringing our regional ways to the surface.
Hoodoo has never been exclusive in practice or Genesis to any one region.
There are several regions.
What makes a region?
What makes a Hoodoo region?
What makes a Hoodoo region starts with the earth, not simply the major landmarks but the bioavailability of plants, animals and elements in each area. There’s a reason why we have both a soil+rootworker (Harold) and master naturalist+ environmental humanities scholar and (Hess) in our collective.
What comes second is the history, particularly the history of the African peoples brought to each region of the land. The selection and trafficking of Africans to be enslaved in the Americas was not random.
Colonists targeted groupings of Africans to traffick based on regional industry and agriculture in both the Americas and Africa. They chose what skills would translate best to which areas and their climates.
In the Chesapeake region, people were targeted for trafficking by way of the trans Atlantic slave trade for their iron working, maritime expertise, leafy plant harvesting, and more. We have a Black history / Africana studies scholar in our collective for this reason (Dr. Iyelli).
What comes third (not last) are contemporary practices in the region. What are people doing now, and how has that been influenced by the last 100 years? And the 100 years before that? That’s why we have a sociologist in our collective (Victoria), and artists (Alexis & Candy).
Ancestors, death rituals, and grieving practices also shape a region. This is why we have a cemetery explorer and health worker (Cherelle) and a Death Doula and Legacy Planner (Aisha) in our collective.
Celebration, ceremony, festivals and holidays also shape a region. Which is why we have a priestess of joy, celebration, adornment and libation in our collective (Toya).