"That Silver Dime Stuff"
catherine yronwode
In reading an account of the life of the famous Mississippi Delta blues
musician Robert Johnson, i ran across a comment made by one of his
friends and musicians, who stated that Robert Johnson "knew all that
silver dime stuff, that hoodoo stuff."
This makes sense in terms of Johnson's lyrics -- for, as an example, he
routinely mentions magic, conjuration, and hoodoo in his songs. Here's
just one sample, from "Little Queen of Spades," a song in praise of "a
gambling woman":
Everybody says she's got a mojo
'cause she's been using that stuff
A "mojo" or "lucky hand" is an amulet or charm kept in a bag and worn on
the person...but what is that "silver dime stuff" Son House was talking
about?
So far -- gathering data from conversations and from books (notably Jim
Haskins' "Hoodo and Voodoo"), i have learned that silver dimes were and
still are a popular component in African-American mojo bags, just as
silver coins have been popular in European magic rituals from medieval
times onward. Because they are coins, their most common use is in the
making of money-drawing or gambling "hands" -- and according to some
folks, a silver Mercury dime with a leap-year date (e.g. 1940) is
especially propitious.
The use of the dime rather than another silver coin as a gambler's charm
makes a lot of sense when one recognizes that Mercury was the Roman god
who ruled crossroads, games of chance, and sleight of hand tricks -- and
as such he was equivalent to the African gambling and crossroads gods
familiar to the black slaves who synthesised American hoodoo practices
during the 18th and 19th centuries. In fact, Mercury notably resembles
the Yoruban god Ellegua (Legba) who had the same domain of influence and
was known as the keeper of crossroads. I suspect that when the figure
engraved on the dime was changed to that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
these coins were perceived as no longer having the same power they used
to -- and in fact, one person i talked to confirmed this when he said
that "you need a Mercury dime to do you any good at all."
As for why a leap-year date on the coin is luckier than another date, i
suspect that it is the rarity or unusualness of a leap-day (one day out
of 1461) that recommends the leap-year coin to long-shot gamblers. In
making gambling charms, some practitioners combine the leap-year dime
with the added unusualness of a two dollar bill, also of a leap-year
date, if possible. Again, it is the comparative rasrity of this bill
that suggests winning over long-shot odds.
Mojo hands vary with the inclinations of their makers, but a typical
silver dime gambling charm might consist of a Mercury dime, a small John
the Conqueror root (Ipomoea jalapa, a wild member of the sweet potato
family), a lucky hand root (a wild orchid root that has several
finger-shaped protrusions and thus evokes the idea of manual dexterity
when playing dice), all wrapped in a leap-year two dollar bill and
placed in a red flannel bag. To activate the mojo, its contents would
be anointed with some sort of good-luck oil, perhaps Red Fast Luck or
Van Van -- or, as some folks have done, with the urine or menstrual
blood of their beloved.
Such a silver dime mojo hand would be worn at or below the waist, not
around the neck as American Indians wear their medicine pouches, and
there would be a strong inclination to conceal it from sight. The hiding
of the mojo bag is a theme that occurs repeatedly in blues lyrics of the
1920s. Because it is worn under the clothes below the waist, there is a
sexual double entndre involved in "finding the mojo" of a female lover.
Here's a sample of this from Blind Willie McTell's "Scary Day Blues"
(recorded under the pseudonym "Georgia Bill"):
my good gal got a mojo;
she's tryin' to keep it hid --
but Georgia Bill got something
to find that mojo with
I said she got that mojo
and she won't let me see,
and every time i start to love her
she tries to put the jinx on me
Any further information on "that silver dime stuff" in African-American
culture -- whether anecdotal or scholarly -- would be much appreciated.
I am also looking for information on the use of silver coins in the folk
magic of Europe.
catherine yronwode ------------------------- mailto:yron...@sonic.net
news:alt.lucky.w - discussion of folkloric amulets, charms, & talismans
LUCKY W AMULET ARCHIVE ------ http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/LuckyW.html
mailto:sp...@intuition.org --- sacred sites, geometry, archaeoastronomy
THE SACRED LANDSCAPE ---- http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/sacredland.html
Skip Floyd
catherine yronwode wrote:
>
> The use of the dime rather than another silver coin as a gambler's charm
> makes a lot of sense when one recognizes that Mercury was the Roman god
> who ruled crossroads, games of chance, and sleight of hand tricks -- and
> as such he was equivalent to the African gambling and crossroads gods
> familiar to the black slaves who synthesised American hoodoo practices
> during the 18th and 19th centuries. In fact, Mercury notably resembles
> the Yoruban god Ellegua (Legba) who had the same domain of influence and
> was known as the keeper of crossroads.
This popular misconception of the Winged Cap Liberty Dime is similar to the same type of
misconception that the United States Mint produces Pennies... Both concepts are false..
The date was March 3, 1916... The US Treasury adopted the Winged Cap design of Adolph A.
Weinman from a public competition... He also won the award for the Half Dollar design...
Not only is the face Not Hermes or Mercury... It is NOT MALE... The portrait of Ms
Liberty is of Elsie Stevens... Mrs. Wallace Stevens... She is wearing a cap, presumably
of a design in use at the time of the sculpture...
The incorporation of the Winged Cap Liberty Dime into the VooDoo practices as
Mythological Good Luck was done in error...
My informational source is Breen's Encyclopedia...
Question : Where do you suppose that the Black Americans would have acquired the
knowledge of Greek and Roman Mythology during the 18th and 19th centuries.???
I may be misunderstanding that point... And, of course, dimes in general as a MoJo
device are not in dispute... Only the Mercury concept...
SKIP
Skip Floyd
I am always interested in MORE Knowledge...
Please write to me when you get your paper organized... I will appreciate reading it...
SKIP
catherine yronwode
catherine yronwode wrote:
> > The use of the dime rather than another silver coin as a gambler's charm
> > makes a lot of sense when one recognizes that Mercury was the Roman god
> > who ruled crossroads, games of chance, and sleight of hand tricks -- and
> > as such he was equivalent to the African gambling and crossroads gods
> > familiar to the black slaves who synthesised American hoodoo practices
> > during the 18th and 19th centuries. In fact, Mercury notably resembles
> > the Yoruban god Ellegua (Legba) who had the same domain of influence and
> > was known as the keeper of crossroads.
John Montierth <jmmon...@ucdavis.edu> wrote:
> I find it interesting that the coin in question was
> officially designed as winged liberty, but everyone looks at it and
> thinks Mercury.
and Skip Floyd <Skip...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> This popular misconception of the Winged Cap Liberty Dime is similar to the same type of
> misconception that the United States Mint produces Pennies... Both concepts are false..
>
> The date was March 3, 1916... The US Treasury adopted the Winged Cap design of Adolph A.
> Weinman from a public competition... He also won the award for the Half Dollar design...
>
> Not only is the face Not Hermes or Mercury... It is NOT MALE... The portrait of Ms
> Liberty is of Elsie Stevens... Mrs. Wallace Stevens... She is wearing a cap, presumably
> of a design in use at the time of the sculpture...
>
> The incorporation of the Winged Cap Liberty Dime into the VooDoo practices as
> Mythological Good Luck was done in error...
Wonderful information -- and thanks for the details -- i was aware that the
coin is a Liberty dime, but as you know, the common name for it is Mercury
dime, and that's how people who use them in mojo work refer to them.
> Question : Where do you suppose that the Black Americans would have acquired the
> knowledge of Greek and Roman Mythology during the 18th and 19th centuries.???
From books. A great deal of African-American hoodoo is derived from European
and Euro-American books of magic like the "Albertus Magnus," compilation,
"Pow-Wows or The Long-Lost Friend," "The Black Pullet," and so forth. This
Europeanization of the Yoruba tradition is why it is not really correct to
refer to African American hoodoo as "Voodoo." "Voodoo" is a Haitian
synthesized religion that is much more African (Dahomean) and less European
than hoodoo. Likewise, the African-Cuban religion called Santeria is a blend
of African (Yoruban) and Spanish Catholic concepts, with the Yoruba gods
replaced by equivalent Catholic saints. The only place voodoo has been
popular in the U. S. is New Orleans, where Haitian slaves (and their refugee
masters) settled after the Haitian slave rebellion of 1803. The rest of the
African-American populace generally practices the African-European-American
conflation called hoodoo, which is the least African of the lot.
> I may be misunderstanding that point... And, of course, dimes in general as a MoJo
> device are not in dispute... Only the Mercury concept...
When i write up a final version of this text for my Lucky W Amulet Archive
web site, i will make sure to note that the "Mercury dime" concept is an
error -- and i thank you for the full background, which will be added to the
text, with credit to you.
Columbine
ham...@students.uiuc.edu (Jon Hamkins) writes:
>I don't know very much about blues. The only reference I have heard to
>mojo has been of the double entendre sort. There is a popular Doors
>song with the line "Mr. mojo rising. Got to keep on rising. Rising,
>rising," etc. Sorry, I don't know anything about how it relates to the
>Mercury dime, either.
MR MOJO RISIN is an anagram for JIM MORRISON
Sorry about that!
--
Burden me not with pity's scorn / Columbine
Weep for yourself, but not for me /
Enrapt in petals, dancing free / hi...@apocalypse.org
While others vie for thorns / http://apocalypse.org/pub/u/hilda/index.html
Jon Hamkins
catherine yronwode <yron...@sonic.net> writes:
> Because it is worn under the clothes below the waist, there is a
>sexual double entndre involved in "finding the mojo" of a female lover.
>Here's a sample of this from Blind Willie McTell's "Scary Day Blues"
>(recorded under the pseudonym "Georgia Bill"):
> my good gal got a mojo;
> she's tryin' to keep it hid --
> but Georgia Bill got something
> to find that mojo with
> I said she got that mojo
> and she won't let me see,
> and every time i start to love her
> she tries to put the jinx on me
I don't know very much about blues. The only reference I have heard to
mojo has been of the double entendre sort. There is a popular Doors
song with the line "Mr. mojo rising. Got to keep on rising. Rising,
rising," etc. Sorry, I don't know anything about how it relates to the
Mercury dime, either.
----Jon Hamkins
John Stone
The Doors song with "Mr Mojo rising" is the song "LA Woman"
I just heard that on the radio coming to work this morning.
Its a small world. John S.
catherine yronwode
Jon Hamkins wrote:
>
> The only reference I have heard to
> mojo has been of the double entendre sort. There is a popular Doors
> song with the line "Mr. mojo rising. Got to keep on rising. Rising,
> rising," etc.
The phrase "Mr. Mojo risin'" [no terminal "g"] is an anagram of the
singer's name, "Jim Morrison." (He had probably ehard the word mojo in a
blues song, since he liked blues music.) Once Morrison discovered the
anagram, he wrote a song featuring it and ignored the fact that he was
using the word mojo incorrectly. Because of him, many white people think
the word mojo refers to a phallus, which it does not.
Aram H. Haroutunian
catherine yronwode <yron...@sonic.net> wrote:
>Mike Kurtz wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> A check on the theory that the actual picture on the Mercury dime is
>> what made dimes lucky (as opposed to the obvious alternative, that the
>> dime is the smallest silver coin) would be to see if the use of dimes in
>> mojo bags started (or increased substantially) following the
>> introduction of Mercury dimes in 1916. Before 1916 all US silver coins
>> (save silver dollars, which did not circulate much) had the same design
>> on them, so the popularity of the dime (if it was popular) in 1915 could
>> only have been due to its size.
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>> --
>> Michael Kurtz
>This is a good point -- and, unfortunately, i don't know how to test it
>as my primary sources for mojo-making are all post- World War One. The
>blues as a song form dates from that era; the recording of blues a
>little later. The rise of mail order "spiritual supply" companies dates
>from the same time period, which happens to be the period of Northern
>migration of Southern blacks. Prior to that migration, hoodoo
>practioners bought their amulets and charms locally, from "root doctors"
>and "conjure women" who did not leave printed records behind.
>You may be correct that the dime's SILVER make-up is as important to the
>practitioner as the image of "Mercury" it bears and that it being the
>smallest denomination of silver coin makes it the cheapest to use. In
>Europe, many charms are specified to be made of silver, which
>folklorists believe derives from pre-Christian polytheistic religious
>practice in which silver was sacred to the moon goddess. I think, on the
>other hand, that the idea of using these dimes as gambling charms is
>related to the idea of "quicksilver" (e.g. Mercury) -- for i have some
>oral history documentation from 20th century conjure-makers that
>indicates that they consider quicksilver (metallic Mercury) and silver
>to be magically equivalent.
>I will add your notes to my final work-up on the matter. Thanks a lot
>for your input.
>catherine yronwode ------------------------- mailto:yron...@sonic.net
>news:alt.lucky.w - discussion of folkloric amulets, charms, & talismans
>LUCKY W AMULET ARCHIVE ------ http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/LuckyW.html
>mailto:sp...@intuition.org --- sacred sites, geometry, archaeoastronomy
>THE SACRED LANDSCAPE ---- http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/sacredland.html
Hi, Catherine. Is it possible to check out something else about
silver coins in the U.S.? I have heard that two things were done to
coins (Maybe not only silver ones) to ward off the devil or evil
spells. One was to bend the coin. The other was to scratch an "X" or
two in the fields of the coin. Have you run across anything in your
research which supports or refutes these "rumors?" Aram H.
Haroutunian(Bustpoet)
catherine yronwode
catherine yronwode
Aram H. Haroutunian wrote:
> Hi, Catherine. Is it possible to check out something else about
> silver coins in the U.S.? I have heard that two things were done to
> coins (Maybe not only silver ones) to ward off the devil or evil
> spells. One was to bend the coin. The other was to scratch an "X" or
> two in the fields of the coin. Have you run across anything in your
> research which supports or refutes these "rumors?" Aram H.
> Haroutunian(Bustpoet)
I believe i recently saw printed reference to both those practices being
done among Euro-Americans -- but i can't recall the citations. If i find
them, i'll let you know. The one about bending the silver coin
definitely was said to be European in origin. I'm sorry my mind is blank
on this at the moment. My mother also has an old book on German folklore
(written in German in the 1930s) in which it was said that carving the
"sator formula" on a silver coin renders it usful in putting out fires.
One simply throws the coin on the fire and the fire goes out. The sator
formula is a square of letters which read the same up, down, back, and
forth. It looks like this:
S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S
There are also two other ways to make "lucky" coins from actual
currency: one is to encase them in aluminum and the other is to roll
(elongate) them in a machine that imparts a new image to them. For
illustrated samples of both encased and elongated cents used as lucky
coins, see my web page on same:
http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/GoodLuckCoins.html
Daniel Goodman
Something from Anglo-Scottish folksongs: The aristocrats of faerie often
rode horses shod with silver, and decorated with silver bells.
Dan Goodman
--
Dan Goodman
MPLS, MN, USA
"The only peace is that interior in us."