[Ads-l] Further Antedating of "Hoodoo"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Hoodoo (OED 1868)

1849 Mississippi Free Trader and Natchez Gazette 25 Aug. 2/4 (Newspapers.com)

This is the negroe's holiday resort, and here may be found the remnants of barbarism, mingled with civilization, crude and undigested, the believers in and practitioners of quaint devices and superstitious charms, — and here, a close and knowing observer may detect the members of the Hoodoo club, who believe themselves capable of performing all things, and without the limits of the Devil's kingdom. ... To this club the colored damsels apply for charms, &c., as a dernier resort, to secure their fickle swains or entrap new ones.  If they succeed, it was by favor of Hoodoo; if they fail, it was because they had greatly offended and not sufficiently propitiated the Deity of their creed.

Fred Shapiro

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