07/21/2026
And there you have it from The Hoodoo Culture By Mama Yana Herself….
Displaced enslaved people birthed Hoodoo, an ethno-religion, an ADR, and a spiritual practice that is inextricably tied to a specific ethnic group. Religion and ethnic identity are two sides of the same coin; you generally cannot separate the practice from the people who created it.
Hoodoo is fundamentally an African American ethno-religion for several vital reasons. The main reason is that at the absolute core of Hoodoo is the veneration of the ancestors. In Hoodoo, the ancestors specifically refer to the lineage of enslaved Africans who survived the Middle Passage and plantation slavery in the American South. Hence, according to Hoodoo lore, High John left his spirit in the root to help his people fight against oppression and enslavement.
ADRs (African Diaspora Religion) and ADT (African Diasporic Tradition), which are new, distinct spiritual systems created by enslaved Africans in the Western Hemisphere. Faced with the trauma of forced displacement and the strict prohibition of their native faiths, these traditions brilliantly adapted their traditions to survive. Hoodoo's identity is based on the happenings of this displacement.
Because Hoodoo was forged as a tool for physical survival, psychological liberation, and spiritual resistance against oppression, it is widely recognized by its practitioners as a closed tradition. Not for the sake of keeping people out with no real reason, but more so because of the reason why it was birthed and what it's designed to fight against, and whom Hoodoo is created to heal, and the reason the people have to heal. Hoodoo isn't just jars, workings, powders, and oils. Hoodoo is faith healing, survival, and culture. It does more than just exist. It is not what commercialized Hoodoo has reduced it to.
Also, it's not that no one can be adopted into a lineage and taught a few things, or that anyone can't go to a Hoodoo practitioner, because anyone absolutely can, as Hoodoo practitioners operate as practitioners to everyone just like any other tradition. Just as anyone can get consultation from the Babalawo of Nigeria, Thầy Dồng of Viatenam, or Mambo or Haiti. However the degree may vary. An example of which is famed Aunt Carolyn Dye, who would read for White American people but wouldn't participate in or read on politics, the very laws designed to reduce her people's existence. She refused to participate in anything like that. It's closed because it's written in it's design. In fact most ADRs are closed and require initiation to be devoted practioner. It is the same with ATRs. Like most respectable spiritual tradition or society it doesn't welcomes anyone at anytime to join it just because someone wants to. Hoodoo doesn't practice missionary work like most don't either. It should be respected and seen as precious.
During enslavement and the Jim Crow era, retaining specific African-derived worldviews was a form of psychological resistance. It allowed African Americans to define their own concepts of justice, healing, and boundaries on their own terms, completely independent of the dominant white power structure. The Hoodoo structure created customs, taboos, and omens. It created lore, proverbs, lessons, and a moral and ethical code among the people, amongst the "folk". This is why I push Hoodoo culture, because culture is the foundation and history of Hoodoo. This is why my page is geared towards awareness. I don't share secrets;, I correct the misconceptions of Hoodoo designed to paint it as childlike, not serious, and not respectable. My page is focused on awareness to preserve Hoodoo and to honor the ancestors of Hoodoo.
