Con men and conjure men: a ghetto image

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Con men and conjure men: a ghetto image Loudell F. Snow Introduction His ad appears in a Harlem newspaper, in bold, eyecatching type: THE FAMOUS REV. DePRINCE King of the hoodoo workers one of the nations most powerful Prophet root worker. I have returned back to your city by popular demand to help you to overcome all your problems in life. One visit will convince you that I have the god-given power directly from above to remove all hard, evil conditions, jinx, and black art. I have the god-given power and the master root that I guarantee will make you lucky in all things. I have the black cat bone and crow feet and snap root that I have gotten myself from the snake pit and I have the marks on my arms to prove it. I also have something that I have prepared in the cemetery that will make you lucky. If you are suffering from luck problems, nature problems, legal, can't find a job and want to get what you want, no matter what it is; I want you to make it your business to see me. If you want to be lucky in cards, bingo, guaranteed numbers; If you truly want to hit and hit big, straight, with no phony baloney I guarantee that I will make you lucky in 24 hours or I will return every dime of your money back. If you have lost your faith and your money in these no good phony prophets and you want to meet the real thing, 46 CON MEN AND CONJURE MEN call me and make that appointment that will change your life completely. All work is 100% guaranteed.1 The Reverend DePrince has the power. The black cat bone and the power. The snap root and the crow feet and the power. He works in the cemetery, works in the snakepit. Has the, marks on his arms to prove it. Huckster? Obviously. A hustler? Of course. But he offers hope. Hope that evil times will vanish, that a job will turn up, that lost nature will return. Con man and conjure man, he represents a tradition unbroken since the first slaves arrived in the New World. He sells hope. It is hope in the form of magic, the resort of the weak and the powerless, of those who cannot change their lives by efforts more direct. It is superstition, of course, but superstition is found where desired outcomes are important and uncertain, and where rational means to obtain them are not available. Reverend DePrince with his master root and his snap root and his power—God-given—offers the supplicant those means. In psychological terms this may serve the positive function of giving an individual the feeling of some control over his or her life, illusory though that feeling may be.2 It does not get at the underlying causes of such feelings, however—poverty, unemployment, racism—although it allows the individual to fight back at how these are manifest in daily life. And it provides a fertile ground for exploitation and manipulation, and may drain away financial resources already too slim. The social environment of magical practice The belief that both fortune and misfortune could be caused by magical means was prominent in West African religions, supported by a worldview in which Man, Nature and the Gods were seen as inseparable; in which the line between good and evil was relative, not absolute; where the dead continued to be interested in and interact with the living; where events could be changed by ritual manipulations.3 The ritual specialist was a man or woman of special powers and high status, a status inherited from his or her forebears, or bestowed at a birth seen as unusual. And these were no ordinary mortals: they could call up spirits, render themselves invisible, turn men into animals, even fly. Loudell F. Snow 47 The slaves were brought to the New World and inevitably, "witchdoctors " and "conjurers" were among them. They functioned, as before, to influence the happenings of everyday life, and they helped the slaves to endure. As in Africa, they provided roots, and conjure bags and...

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