Hoodoo and Conjuring; in literature, art and film

You can find “The Skeleton Key” trailer here.
In the film “The Skeleton Key” there are two African American characters who are slaves and go by the names Mama Cecile and Papa Justify. As stated in the movie, these two were known for practicing Hoodoo and using it to heal the sick and hurt their enemies. This film, because of its focus on Hoodoo and conjuring, reminds me of Charles W. Chesnutt’s “The Goophered Grapevine.” In a very similar way to Mama Cecile and Papa Justify, Julius McAdoo relies on the African American folklore tradition of Hoodoo in order to deceive white landowners.  Slaves were viewed as being uneducated and ignorant, and yet we see in both this movie and Chesnutt’s story how the white folks are outsmarted.  “The Skeleton Key” is set in present day, but there are flashbacks showing Papa Justify and Mama Cecile as slaves.  This is a fantastic film and I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to gain more insight into the world of Hoodoo.

This movie also reminds me of the Renee Stout exhibit, “Tales of the Conjure Woman,” at Halsey Gallery.  One of the terms defined in the exhibit was “goophered dust,” meaning graveyard dirt.  I really enjoy how the movie “The Skeleton Key,” Renee Stout’s exhibit, and Chesnutt’s story are all connected to such a mystical and magical tradition in African American culture; that of conjuring.  Unlike the movie and short story, Stout shows the audience that Hoodoo can be used for such things as matters of the heart.  I think this is important in order to convey how Hoodoo can be used to help someone as well as hurt them.

I think it is very interesting that the African American tradition of Hoodoo still exists, and can be found in a variety of different works as a mode of narrating blackness.