Episode 5: Lisa Brown-Jones

In this episode we feature an unreleased 2024 interview with the late spiritual healer Lisa Brown-Jones. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

You are listening to Hoots Under Bill, the official podcast of the Bill Street Hodo History and Folk Life Museum.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Good morning from Bill History. This is Roots Under Bill, the official podcast of the Bill Street Hoodoo History and Folk Life Museum. I'm your curator, Tony Cale, and this week we wanted to bring you a special episode. You know, it was about a year ago today that we lost a friend, a family member, and a respectful leader in the local spiritual healing community. And that's Miss Lisa Brown Jones. And Lisa left us too early. And she is to be remembered and to be honored. And in fact, our museum is dedicated to her and her memory and her legacy. And she was very much a supporter of the museum and really wanted to see it come to fruition. And so I wanted to share with you today something special. This is an unreleased interview that I did with Lisa back in 2023. And this will give you some insight into her life and her focus on hoodoo as a survival mechanism. We'll check that out here in one moment. So as we were talking about Lisa, are you originally from the Memphis area?

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yes, I was born here, raised um the northern part of Memphis, which is now North Memphis, but back in the day they called it Smoky City, um, close to downtown. Um and I was actually born in a car, believe it or not. Going down to John Gaston Hospital, hospital that doesn't exist anymore.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

And I was considered a dirty baby because I was born outside of the hospital. Oh, so yeah, I'm born and and raised here. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

So um what would I understand you have some ties to Bill Street. What would be what what is that connection?

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Well, we live near Bill Street, off of Chelsea, in second. And so, you know, we ride our bikes down there. You know, as soon as you get a new bike with the little tassels, that's that's a destination point.

SPEAKER_05 6:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Uh because back then they had the cobblestone type streets, and you go down there and see the sights, and sometimes the fairground would be down there, and they have a park down there. You know, you can go down there, but we can't get too close to the river because we're, you know, told it'll sweep you away. But yeah, we go down to Bill Street because there's things to do. That is where my family shopped. Your grocery AP. Um, I'm aging myself right now, but yeah, a lot of people don't remember that store. Sears Crosstown was down there. Um, you had a lot of sundry type stores. Uh, you get your brooms and your goods and dry goods down there. Cheap. And so you didn't have lots of grocery stores like we do now, all over the place. Bill Street was an epicenter for getting things done because we were close by. I don't even think we were a mile from Bill Street. Yeah, downtown Memphis.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

Okay. So tell me a little bit about Miss Strickland.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Big Mom, oh Lord, okay. She was a teeny tiny little woman. Um I would say she's a five three Taurus. But she was nice and mean at the same time. She was my grandmom, so you know you kind of you you cannot get out of order with her. Her job is to feed you and correct you at the same time. Um, she would actually make you get switches if you were in trouble. Then she'd actually are you hungry. But she was full of wisdom. She'd sit on the porch all day and tell you what the trees are doing and the plants are doing and the neighbors are up to. But she was always qu quoting scripture. We remember that a lot. A lot. So we almost had to memorize stuff for Sunday school. Then we find out that she was a helper in the church. We don't know what a helper is when you're 10. All you know a helper is a person who everybody goes to for advice. Because at some point in the church, an African American woman is considered like the psychiatrist in the church. You know, you know, back in those days, 40s, 50s, 60s, where you gonna go? You don't have, you know, professional medical services back then. And so the village was raising the children. If you had a problem, you go to maybe an elder uh in your church. That's your first default when I was little.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

So I know at some point you had shared with me about how she would um she was able to help when someone was sick. Oh my goodness, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

I mean, I I don't know if it comes from her upbringing from the country where they ate from the ground because they grew their own food, first of all, and they raised their own animals. And so I don't know if it's more natural, but I know she learned how to boil things and cook things that I guess medicines or remedies or something. Let's say you get sick and it's just maybe your stomach is hurting. She would give you something called castoria. Now we know it's Cinnelief tea. And it's just stuff like that, corn circles and everything to sweeten it up because kids don't like bitter things. She was always picking roots, dandelions, mint out the ground. I said, What is she going to do with this stuff? You don't know what that is? No, we don't know what that is. And I didn't know that aspirin was a white willow tree. Bark. So if you had like a mild headache and you couldn't get a hold of some St. Joseph aspirin, she would boil some stuff and strain it, put a little sugar off in there, and you know, your whole body was like, okay, well, I'm I'm good. I don't know where these things came from. I think truthfully they came from not having access to commercialized medicine. And historically, you had to heal yourself from the ground anyway. And these people knew what berries were, which ones not to eat, which blackberries was the sweetest. I don't know how they knew, but they would tell you you squeeze it, and the juice would pop. Oh, it was dark purple. So that's the one that's sweet. And I know it comes from experience, but it had to come from her elders also. Because you're raised in an era where you do not have access to professional medical care. And so historically, if you have remedies already made up, of course your children would know about it because I think something that happened to her is she could not heal her own baby from a devastating infection called a whooping cough back then. And I was told by her sisters who are still alive now, that she became obsessed with being able to heal people because of that. And it devastated her to see her own child pass away, and there was nothing that she could do. And so I remember being a young girl, you know, maybe my teens, and you know, things happened when you're young, your hormones start changing. She would tell you how to make soap. You can make soap, yeah, we make a lot of soap. You know, it'll dry your skin out, but guess what? You're really clean. Okay, she would make hair grease for your hair to not fall out. And I didn't know that African-American beauticians put stuff in your hair like that, and your hair was really long back then and beautiful. But Big Mom had a plant for everything, and she grew them. She would tell us how watermelons can grow in black dirt. There was something about black dirt and eggshells and um things out of the kitchen. Don't throw that away. Why not? Because we're gonna put that back in the ground. Why? Because it beats the ground, and we didn't know that. We were just kids. But it comes from her having these things passed down to her on how to stay healthy, how to not get sick, um, how to cure things, especially stomach, headache, and maybe high blood pressure. And a lot of people get diabetes, you know, in our community. And they call it sugar. You know, you got the sugar, and they would have these little things you would do, stuff you would drink, like ginger root. Ginger root, and it's an ugly little root, and you drink it, and it allegedly lowers your blood pressure or stops your diabetes from getting really, really crazy, helping your insulin, hibiscus tea. It looks like pink tea. It'll lower your blood pressure. Now, knowing what I know now, it's absolutely true. But then you have to wonder how do these uneducated people know this? Because it's passed down constantly. Constantly. And if your chest is congested, oh, they got something for that too. If you have a fever, they got something for that too. And so that's how I came into what I do because it actually worked. And I remember a trip I took out to California a long time ago. I went up to the um, I think it's the Soho or Chinese district. They have stores in there of roots and herbs by the thousands. So if medicinal medicine comes from the root for them, of course it works for everybody else. And somehow our culture was lucky enough to have people show them how to use these roots from wherever they came from. But yes, my grandmama made stuff. She would make it before she would buy it. I remember my baby had a fever one day. And if you ever seen the movie The Godfather, that baby had pneumonia and they put a glass on his chest. She made me do that. I'm like, is she serious? You know, my baby is looking like she's having a seizure. I gotta go to the hospital. But she went in the kitchen and got a cast iron scullet, picked up some roots out of her root room, and fried them because it had iron in it. And she wrote it on the baby's chest, and she got a candle and put it on the baby's chest and was praying. Psalms 119 and 120. The baby started coughing. I said, You know what? Thank you, big mom, but I'm still gonna go to the hospital. But it was like nothing was really wrong with her at that point. This is where these things come from, tradition. And I imagine it worked because I was terrified as a new mom. I didn't know what to do. But it seems like she took over. You know, my baby was only three months old, and she panicked more than I did from that trauma she had once upon a time. But she made me fry flour in a skillet. Um I don't know what that's going to do, mom, but I I don't know, but I had to trust the process. And when the baby looked okay, I said, Well, we're still gonna go to the doctor. I mean, she looked okay. I don't know what she did outside of praying with a candle to bring this out of her chest. And she started making things like asphysita. Oh my god, it smells so bad. Um, but if a baby has an upset stomach, you can't really feed them anything because they can't eat solid food. But she would get asphysita and mix it with water and strain it with a little milk. And that baby would birth and be so happy. If they have a colic, she would give them um uh another root. Um, I forget what it is, but it smells horrible. All of them smell horrible, but they work. And even to this day, when I had my daughter, um, she was colic as you know what? Um, big mom, what I need to do. Well, baby, you go and mix her this right here, and it worked. These remedies never die. And every woman in my family has to default to her, you know, before she passed, because when you have a new baby, you don't know what to do. And then she's she knows how to heal stitches. Um, you gotta sit in a pot of pine salt. You're like, are you serious? And the stitches just disappear.

SPEAKER_06 16:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

They know these things from tradition. They really do. They can tell you what every plant in the yard is. They eat kzu, they eat popsalat. I'm not gonna eat it, but I mean, they say it will heal you. And just like um in Jamaica, it seems like every other flower these people touch is menacing. And that's how they treated it. Um, they were respectful of plants. She was respectful of trees. It would look like you were gonna cut a tree or injure a tree, she would get upset. Why are you messing with that tree? That tree ain't done nothing to you. And we were like, oh, it's just a tree. No, it's not just a tree. That tree has seen more than you know. And that's what she would tell us. Leave that tree alone. She would actually say things like that. And so now we respect nature in a completely different way. Because see, now as an adult, I know the earth is alive. That's what she respected because it provides, it feeds you, it nurtures you, it heals you in some way. So that's really what I learned from her, just from Ruth's alone, you know, and her wisdom outside of that.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Now, as far as um uh remedies and and healing, were there every were there ever any folks outside of your family that would come to see her? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Um I don't know what was going on between Sunday and Wednesday, but after Sunday church, you know, you would eat and you would go home and get your good clothes off. But later on in the evening, a couple of ladies would come by and they would come to the back part of the house. We're just taking her little root room. It was a back entrance. You know, you can walk in the back and go through the back side door. And it was a room we couldn't go in without her permission. But they would come in that room and I guess they would talk for a while, and I sometimes you would hear a mouse sobbing every now and then, and you know, she knew if you were looking through the keyhole or not. But they would come by for advice. And as a kid, I didn't know what the advice was, but as an adult, I do know what it is now. Yeah, it was they have a problem at home. Uh, maybe their husband or a physical condition, a missing kid, or something is going on with a kid, a financial issue or legal issue. They all came to the house with their big hats and white gloves on, and you know, singing back there. And sometimes I would see them light candles and hold hands through the peephole. And um I would hear her say, Um, I see you looking through that hole. And then the ladies would, she would give them something to do at home. Like she would scribble something for them to do, like, pray this, and you come back and see me next week. And so I believe she was doing something for the church, actually. That's actually what because they were all from the church. But then they were up the street. All the ladies up and down the street knew her. So if you walk down the street, it's not like you're gonna get away with doing something, you know, bad because they're gonna smit her. You know. But yeah, people would come by all the time. Sometimes you would have a couple of men come by. And um, for what we knew about them, it was really a personal, physical issue or a legal issue. Um, I guess with his, you know, male performance and some things like that. But it was mostly women. It involved relationships, um, something that's going on personally in the house or a kid or, you know, trying to get a hold of a job or somebody at their job is not doing right by then. And you could hear these things, but we were forbidden to, you know, say their names or what they were there for.

SPEAKER_06 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Some of them hid it, some of them didn't care. And they would bring her things like pies and slices of cake, and um, sometimes they would bring her a plate. You know, we gotta have that plate. And girl, I cook so-and-so for you. And something she wanted, some cornbread. So that was kind of the exchange back then. It was a meal or just a donation of some kind. And uh, but yeah, she had plenty of people coming to the house, and we're it we were not told to mind our business and go in there and sit out.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

With with her, I know you explained that there was a lot that was learned by experience. Uh-huh. Um would you say she had a gift or someone trained her, or a little bit of both?

SPEAKER_02 21:12

I think it's a little bit of both because her mother is part Indian, also.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

I've seen a picture of my great-grandmother. It was a black and white photo. She had long braids and black eyes. And so, and ha ha cheekbones. She was not fully there was something in there. You can just tell. And all of them have a ready-color skin and they're all short. And they all have black wavy hair when they were young. So, knowing that, it may have come from some type of culture in our past. But I know that from experience alone, she could tell you about people. And, you know, she died in our in her 70s. She could easily tell you a whole person's almost life just by looking at them. Just by looking at them. And sometimes she would share stories with us about some of the things that has happened to her when she was young. And then first we didn't believe her. But we found out that she would be less embellishing about it because she feared it would frighten us. Like her great-great uncle was hung on a tree. And so when she mentioned it, she would look at our you know horror and she would stop right there. She would tell us about stories that were told about how they would feed her elder's children because they were slaves or coming out of the slavery reconstruction era. They would say, Here, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga. Wow. Are you serious? And so I'm looking at her in disbelief, and then you find out these things are true. So these stories are handed down. And as far as her being a spiritual person, I know she believed in a divine creator because she spoke to Jesus. We believed Jesus lived in the house. You know, and she knew scripture by heart. And I'll tell you why that's unusual to us. My grandmother didn't have a 10th grade education, and but she couldn't write well that she could pick up a Bible and know every word. So this is strictly from habit and repetition. And when it comes to knowing herbs, I believe it's because something she started early doing. Yeah, I think she's born in 1924. In 1924, you didn't have access to a whole lot in our culture. So it had to be passed down. It had to be. You know, you needed to know what that root will do. Sure. You know, you needed to know that flower, you don't need to eat that now. Right. You need to wait until it turns a certain color.

SPEAKER_06 23:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

And so it's things like that over and over and over again, because they did pick cotton. They grew cotton. And they would tell me, do not throw away fish parts. Why? Now, here I am almost 60 and coming out. A fish is nitrogen, magnesium, and everything else. It's complete fertilizer. They didn't even throw away the fish gut. They would actually put it back in the ground and grow corn on top of it. And oh my God, it was sweet. Just like tomatoes. So knowing that they know how to plant gardens and they would save everything in the house and never throw anything away, because they're recycling it. Because her tomato does not taste like a tomato in the store. It didn't. And they really did not like commercial food. And you can tell they would look at it and say, why is it bitter? Why is it too sweet? Like animal flesh. A chicken out of the yard tastes like a chicken to them. A chicken from a grocery store, they would always complain about it. Because, see, that chicken has been modified somewhat. It did not run in the yard naturally. Because before my mother died, we baked her some chicken. She asked me why was this chicken's flesh sweet? And we had to think about that for a while. And then when my mother passed, she would tell us about how the chickens were just in the yard. You would go and catch them and kill them and eat them. They don't taste the same to an older person's tongue because that's what they're used to, it being in the backyard. So now you come to an urban center, oranges aren't the same. Apples don't taste the same. They're complaining a lot, and you think something's wrong with them, but they are comparing the origins of food, plants, flowers, to what we get mass-produced, modified, grown in labs. And they can detect that in their tongue and they don't like it. They would actually grow what they wanted from scratch and prefer that over store-bought. That's why you have farmers markets popping up everywhere because it tastes different. And I had to show my husband that.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Even the water. I have, for the life of me, have never been able to figure out how water came up cold from the ground back out in East Tennessee. How is it possible? It was ice cold in a bucket. Okay, where's the ice? We didn't have an ice maker or a freezer. How is this water cold? It's the best water on earth. But now, you know, we have to drink tap water and every onion bottle water that tastes like nothing. But I don't know what kept it cold. But they had a well. And they would go out to this well and pump it, and they had a big old wash tub thing with a big old metal ladle. And everybody would drink out of it because we weren't worried about being contaminated, but it was ice cold. I could not still I can't figure out how what kept it cold, but it was delicious. And so I look for stuff like that now.

SPEAKER_06 27:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Because it's a memory for me.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Did she ever use um materials or products that were were sold in stores as far as like uh uh a pre-made powder or candle or oil or anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Yes, sir, she did. Uh but some of the stuff she made herself too. Now, I remember her using bicycle cards to divine people's lives. Um, I think the number one question is does he love me? Um uh bicycle cars, you know, just a plain, you know, King Queen Jack. But now they use tarot. But I mean, she showed me how to use the little bicycle cards, and that was fascinating. She would also carry something called, well, here in the South they call it a titty bag. But I think professionally, or you know, in the you know, spiritual community it's called a nation sack, nature sack or donation sack. She taught me how to make them. And what it was, it's just a woman's juju bag. You wear it up high, you cannot touch it. And it's personal things in there. There is every every human being that knew her will tell you that bag was, you know, right at her at her top of her collar, pretty much inside. But she would put things like a piece of a root, a coin, a rock, even, a lobestone, a piece of paper that may have some kind of Solomon seal or something on it. I've seen her spit in it. I really have. I've seen her put strange things like a just a four-leaf clover in it. Then she would pray over it constantly, rubber rubber hands with some olive oil and burn her incense and put it next to a candle. And that bag is magical to her. She would say things like, We ain't gonna we gonna get these bills paid now. Oh, how is that, Mom? I just made me a juju bag. I got this mojo working, but I'm like, oh my God, this woman believes in that stuff. I'm just a kid. And I used to see her do it, and I thought it was a hobby. I did. She would get things like stockings, like women's panty holes. She would garlic in it, a slice of an onion, and put it in a mason jar. Then she would pour honey or molasses, K roll syrup, I think that's what they call it now. And guess what? It'll fix a sore throat. Are you serious? Yes, it would. It's disgusting. But I didn't know that was a recipe. But other tools she would have, she would, I mean, I was little, you know, when you get a bike, you can ride downtown. There's a store down there called A Schwab. Um, there was another one down there. It's sort of a um a drugstore. The drugstore had weird oils in there, like come to me, girl oil or some type of hair grease that she would want out of there. But down at A Schwab, when you walk in the front door when I was little, to the left was this table. It had these powders and these seals and little, you know, laminated looking seals. It had these broom straws, it had these weird incenses and sprays, it had a strange soap that looked like it was made out of lard. She would specifically want those seals. She would want the red powder called Devil Run powder or devil bigone powder or something. And so we would get on her bike with our little basket with flowers and go down to A Schwab and park the bike out there, run in there. I said, My big one wants this. And so we would get it, and nothing probably cost past 10 bucks, and get everything she wants, and we better get the one she wants, too. And some and I see what I would see her cut the seals out of a book, and she would put them on the table and put a candle on top of them. Then she would pray specific prayers out of her Bible. I still have her Bible, thank goodness. And um I don't know if it was for somebody, but I believe she did most of the things for the family to keep us together. You know, she had six kids. Um, and we're all intact right now, miraculously. But she, I think it was for our customers too, because she would wrap things and stuff. She couldn't write well, but she could write well enough, or she'd have them write it. You know, I see the cursive, how she tried to attempt to work writing cursive. And she would like Jesus would be here, a KJV would be right here, or a proverb P-R-O-V. We knew what that stood for. So she was doing something as far as prayer, and we honestly and truly thought it was part of something the church had her doing all the time. We didn't know what that was, hoodoo or whatever they call it, but she was serious. You know, she would get um things like chicken bones. Or everybody has this thing about a black cat bone. I had a black cat, his name was Sylvester. But we had a black, black cat that lived down the street owned by Miss Sawyer. Okay? That was her pet. She fed that cat. She talked to that cat. That cat was giant. Every cat that's ever been on her porch, you can ask anybody who's ever known her, they grow to be monstrous sizes. But when the black cat died, she read them on the side of the house. Oh, he had a little funeral going on. One day, we noticed that Gray was not there anymore. We don't know what happened to it. But I was told a little bit before she died that that's how you acquire an actual black cat phone. You don't crucify the poor thing. You take care of it on this side, talk to it, and it's going to pass away because that's part of living. You give it a burial, and one day you may be able to ask it a favor from the other side. I'm like, okay, big mama, that is just too much for me, you know. But I'm a young person, I don't know anything spiritual. You know, in my 20s and the 80s, my job is to, you know, become famous and you know get married and things like that. But this is, I am witnessing hoodoo and didn't even know it. And so when it comes to cats, she wasn't afraid of them. They lived on her porch. Why are all these cats on the porch? Oh my God, they're huge. I remember Tom. Tom looked like a coon cat. He was just that big. He was yellow, but it was a tabby. But her black cat, when it died, she buried him on the side of the house. That's the only one I knew she buried. She would put things on the ground, and she said, if you give it to the ground, the ground will return it the day you need it. And when I started practicing hulu, she would always take me to the backyard to do stuff, to bury stuff, to plant something, and wait. Because you have to be patient in hulu. And usually people come to a path such as hulu when you are confused. And I think if you're a Christian, it's called seeking. You don't you can't have answers to questions you thought should have been simple because life is not doing what you expected it to do. And they were waiting on me. They were always waiting on us if you want to be helped. But yeah, I would get on my little bite, run down the agewall, get her broom or some straw. I don't know why she just needed straw, but she would get a new broom and cut the straw. She would cut the straw and put it in stuff. What is she doing? She would wrap it and talk to it or pray over it. I guess somebody would pick it up later. But I know that she would hang brooms over the house. Sage was sacred to her. She wouldn't burn it. She would braid it. Because when her house caught on fire, I kid you not, I have a plaque that was over her bed and her braided sage. It's the only thing that didn't burn up in her room. And I still have those two items. Wow. I really do. That plaque behind you. It did not burn. Wow. And it was in her room when her house caught on fire. She was out of town and the house was old, so it was an electrical fire. And two of the most sacred things in her house, in her room, did not catch fire.

SPEAKER_06 36:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

That was amazing to us. I'm like, how come that didn't burn her? Do not touch her sage. We still don't know why she hung it over her bed, but we remember her alluding to that she would lose something if you touched it. So every time spring would come, in a section of the backyard, she would throw sage seeds out. And they're pretty. You can play them while they're growing. But when she picks them, she sits on the porch and braids them because she shelled peas and all that old good stuff, made us do it all day. But she would braid it and it would dry out. And then she would get a rusty nail and loop it over her pillow. And it would just be there forever. And you knew not to touch it. Then again, she did she sprung it to peppers together, too, and onions together, but that saves over her head. And we never knew why. We still don't know why. Um, I really wish I could ask maybe one of her sisters what it meant. But we believe it had something to do with a spiritual protection or something she has committed to do in her life that if you touch it, she would lose something. And I bless I guess it was secret to her or private to her because maybe she asked our creator for something specific and she promised to do something. So I feel like I'd be overstepping my bounds by you know digging so deep about it.

SPEAKER_03 37:55

Sure. Sure. Now you mentioned um your life is so how has what she did, her work, her experiences, how has that influenced you today?

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Today, well actually it happens because your life turns upside down and you realize that they've been here all along, right in front of you. And it's a healing process. Hudu to me is not, you know, what social media really portrays it to be. Hudu is a coping mechanism of doing things that you otherwise would not be able to cope with. And it always goes back to the creator, scripture, different types of scripture, understanding scripture as it should be, and not this little, you know, thing people do. And it's a mental thing, it's a spiritual thing to understand. You must spiritually grow up. You can't stay a spiritual child. You have to grow up this way and believe and trust in your gift and your power. Because you're gonna be here for a while. You gotta learn to make do. Now that we heard every day, learn to make do. What does that mean? And so when you're growing up in the 80s, like I did, learn to make do is almost ancient to us. Because, you know, we live in a new era. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, by the time you're 30 years old and your life is not falling in place as you think it should, which happens to most of us, there she is. She's ready to show you how to learn to make do with what you got and figure this out. So she learns, she teaches you scripture in a certain way, how to get your physical health back to, you know, a reset. Why are you eating that stuff? That stuff's not good for you. Let's do this. Let's eat these beans. Beans are healthy, believe it or not. Greens and things like that from the earth. So voodoo becomes a way to cope with everything that you know you need to deal with. It's actually what it is. Um, it is not a magical system out here portraying itself as a dark art.

SPEAKER_06 40:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

It is actually a coping mechanism of physical well-being, spiritual well-being, psychological well-being, all wrapped up in one. And it's just based on a tradition. Um, and it just works once you understand it. There's a lot of layers to it. You know, you've got to understand the sky the way they did. Now we go and seek an astrologer, but she told me things about the sky. The average astrologer would look at me sideways. But guess what? It is the absolute truth because she breaks down the Bible in a way to us. And she just believed in angelic prayer. Because, see, now we know Jehovah Jirah is an angelic name. I never I thought she was speaking another language when she was praying. Okay, Jehovah Jireh, my provider. So that's Hebrew for my provider. They just knew and it's passed down constantly. But it shows you how to do it, to reset yourself, learn how to grow up spiritually, not let things bother you, go back to Mother Earth and let her take care of you. Because that's what you're designed, that's what you're here for. Mother Earth is alive. She doesn't need us. We need her. And she showed me that in the simplest way. Trees take care of trees. There's a TV show called The Secret Life of Trees. That when a sapling needs light, the leaves actually blew out of the way. And I was flabbergasted when I saw that. That the entire root system of a forest is Mother Earth breathing and doing things up under the dirt. They're feeding, they're sending signals from miles away. Um, you see every other tree, every so many miles, is a mother tree. And the ones around her are her children. And they're speaking all the time. So if an insect attacks one, this one produces a chemical that attracts a bug that kills the insect. And it's amazing when you see these things, and they have always known them. That's why I look at my grandson, you just know everything, don't you? And you would think a person with no formal education would know anything. But they know nature, they know when it's gonna rain, they know when what baby you're gonna have. You're gonna have a boy. Well, how do you know that? Because that's what she did. It's sitting up high. You know, they know the prayer that when you have a baby, they're gonna put this on your chest, this ointment. You know, it almost knocks you out. And so I guess that's a bird version of, you know, a muscle relaxant. I don't know. They know that certain roots will make your labor easier. They have done these things over and over. Oh my goodness. If we could just sit and speak with a person like them, you wouldn't even have to go to school, really. They would teach you everything. And so that's what Hulu is to me. It is just actually a system to use to learn how to cope with just being a human being. You know, that you're a human being, but sometimes we don't know how to be because we're inundated with things outside of our naturalness. You know, TV, you know, gossip columns, things that has nothing to do with you being a human, just being. Animals just be. They don't know when they're gonna die, they don't know why they're here. They just come here with instincts and do what they gotta do. So do you. You're just conscious of the awareness and you get distracted from being a human. So you go back to Hulu, you just learn how to. Be for a while that things aren't as important as you thought they were. Like your money. Well, you didn't ask certain scriptures, you know, you can ask the creator for some money. And the old woman always had a lot of money. We don't know how. We honestly thought Big Mama was up to something one time. Big Mama, did you come into an insurance policy or something? Well, you know, she probably, you know, had Big Mama Big Daddy's um, you know, his beneficiary to everything, but she always had money. And she didn't die from anything. Nothing. Her birth certificate I mean, her death certificate says just death. Septic shock? Okay, so it wasn't a heart attack, it wasn't this, it wasn't that. Oh, she just got an infection and died. Are you serious? And she had no wrinkles. And so I believe that's just genetic Indian part, you know, we're lucky for that part. But she lived a very, very full life. And we were always in awe of crazy things she would say to us. Because, hey, we didn't believe her until a certain point in our lives. But then when we look go back and look at it, she had no reason to lie to us. She was actually trying to assist us and starting to pay attention that you're gonna be here for a while. So you need to start doing things a different way. And that's when Hulu showed up for me. You know, you're going through a divorce, and you know, you don't know if you want to be a school teacher, you don't know what job you want, you don't know anything. Why am I confused? I've done everything everybody told me to do. Went to college, got married, it's not working out. Well, we've been waiting on you. What? What do you mean we've been waiting on you? You're in a bad place in your heart right now, Lisa. Oh, okay, what does that mean? You just you're just not good. You start working it out. And she showed me how. She would show me that your ancestors have plans for you. We got plans for you. You're the firstborn of a firstborn of a firstborn of a firstborn. We're not having this. We've been waiting on you. So I remember I think I started with her by going on a visit. We gotta go out to the country. Oh no, not no country visit, you know. God, it's gonna be hot. We gotta stop at a cemetery. We're gonna be there all night. Okay. So I had moved back in the house with my mother and I mean one baby and toll. Um, a divorce possibly coming up, and I'm just miserable. She takes me to a cemetery way out. But I remember it. But it's covered now. It's got weeds and trees and behind a tree line. You have to walk through something to get to it now. I remember this cemetery. Oh, God, not this place. Because she's gonna be there 15, 20 minutes talking to somebody. And it's embarrassing when you're little that your granny is talking to people in a cemetery. But guess what? Come with me. Mama ain't finna mess up my shoes going uh through all these weeds. No, you getting out the car and you're coming with me. We go to the cemetery. I had never been that far in. Her first baby's there. The one that died from whooping calls. Her aunt's there. Her brother is there, a cousin is there. This is a sacred spot for her. She is actually having conversations spiritually with these people. Look who I brought out here with me, y'all. I'm like, are you serious? Yes. And she went to her favorite aunt's location. She had to, she was a little upset because she had to clean the weeds off of it. This hair glory daughter. And she's just having a conversation from her heart from somebody who raised her. And so I stepped back and let her have this. You know, this is it's actually beautiful to me. She was actually talking about, ooh, I got you some water, Gary. You know I was gonna bring you some cool water. And she throws some blackout peas and pours some water next to the grave site. And she's upset that it's covered in weeds. Oh my god. And she puts a little crushed eggs or something over there. Baby, nobody gonna mess with your little place no more. They know better than this. Then she goes over to her uncle. Her uncle. My mother was his favorite. I brought Glover down, baby. I guess even Oh wow. You know, I'm just sitting here observing this. She is speaking to him. She knows him. I don't know him. And she responds to me like she's a nice looking lady. And she turns to me and says, He's gonna like you, baby. Okay. Thank you so much. I actually sit there and answer because this is something she's feeling. And I have to respect that. And she's cleaning off his life. We're gonna get you a mock out here one day, boy. We're gonna get it out here for you. But I noticed when she gets to the section where the baby was, she didn't speak a word. She couldn't. She was just quiet, pulling the leaves. As old as she was, she bent over and pulled those. She snatched them. She was offended. She couldn't, she almost couldn't find it. And she said a prayer and she just turned around and walked away. This is what you always would come and do. Baby, you know you can't pass your folks when you come out to visit them like that. Okay, because I remember old people are offended if they know you're in the neighborhood and you don't stop by and see them. You can't walk by your people like that. Oh, okay. Thank you for reminding me. So now if I drive out to Williston, Tennessee, I gotta stop and say to my big mama. I do. I may have to take a flower or something, because she'll be offended if I don't take a flower out there and place it next to where she is interred. And say, Hey, Big Mama, I am still here and thank you so much. That's that's how Hulu starts going back and saying hello to an ancestor and kind of asking permission and help. Can you help me figure out what's going on? And you start getting these what would Jesus do moments all of a sudden. Because they got you on the spiritual side. I'm convinced of that. I know biblically we're not allowed to speak to the dead. But here's the thing my granny taught me. Your ancestors cannot die. They never die, they live in your heart if you knew them. They cannot disappear. You cannot forget what her breath, her hands, her skin, her voice, her eyes, her cooking. You cannot forget these things. And that is what venerating an ancestor is. And when you do all that, you can actually feel their presence momentarily at your altar in Hood. And you invite them to come. And it's a beautiful thing. And it's a pure coping mechanism because you feel safe when you feel them near you, physically here or not. And that's part of that's the basis of Huguenot, really learning how to cope. And so we go to you know the creator, God, Jesus, what have you, all the time. But your ancestors are powerful, and sometimes when you're trained in some cultures or some people in our community, forbid it for a reason. It's demonic to talk to your dead ancestors. No, you know, that's a source of power for us. So that's why it's demonic. Because, see, I'm not talking to the dead, but in the same token, to be absent of the bodies to be in the presence of the Lord. I might want to say, okay, other cultures do the same thing. The Hispanic community has Day of the Dead. They honor them. Some cultures in Africa actually dig up the deceased and have a birthday party. Why am I not allowed to remember my own legacy? And use that and go forward. And who do you have to know how to do that? Because thousands of people died for you to be here and were born for you to be here. You can't forget what you know. It's more tangible, even so, than biblical references. They fed you, they cooked you, they nurtured, they hugged you, they bathed you, they healed you. You can't forget all that. And for a lot of people, it hurts when they leave. Because when I remember my granny died, I think months later, something that said, girl, if you don't get up and stop that foolishness, snap out of it. You know, I am good. And when I felt that, I didn't sit here having a pity party because that was beneath her. You don't have pity parties. You keep pushing, you keep moving, you keep going forward. And that's what they do. And that is the absolute basis of hoodoo as a coping mechanism. Sometimes you may not have the other answers from other sources.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Thank you. Because that's how it started for all of us, really. We have to go out there to the hot-ass cemetery or hot ass off.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Looking for traditional hoodoo spiritual supplies, need some ingredients for your mojo bag, look no further than HWAP. Located at 163 Bill Street. We have a selection of traditional herbs and roots, such as John the Conqueror, Horus Root, and that Lucky Hand route. We also carry an array of candles, powders, oils, and incense. Don't forget about those old-time dream books, like the classic Kansas City Kitty. We've got them. So come see us at HWAP and keep that mojo working.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

This week's hoodoo herb of the month is five fingergrass. Also called zinc foil. The herb is used in the hoodoo tradition for luck, gambling, money drawing, employment, and special requests. It can also be used in the creation of spiritual oils and placed in a mojo bag. And that is the Beale Street Hoodoo History and Folk Life Museum's Herb of the Month.