House of Roots and Bones - Roots Department

I. ROOTS — HISTORY, TRADITION & BLACK SOUTHERN FOLK CULTURE
 
HORB HIS 101 — Introduction to Black American Hoodoo
This foundational course introduces Hoodoo as a distinct Black American folk spiritual, healing, protective, and practical tradition developed within Black American communities. Students study essential terminology, historical context, community functions, regional variation, and common misconceptions. Successful completion establishes the primary foundation for all further study at the House of Roots and Bones.
 
HORB HIS 102 — History of Hoodoo in the American South
Traces documented Hoodoo and conjure traditions throughout the American South from slavery through emancipation, Reconstruction, segregation, migration, and the twentieth century. Students examine key people, places, events, and historical sources. The course shows how Hoodoo developed within changing Black American social worlds.
 
HORB HIS 103 — Enslavement, Survival & the Making of Southern Conjure
Examines how enslavement shaped Black American spiritual survival practices concerning protection, secrecy, escape, resistance, healing, and personal agency. Students study material realities, historical accounts, and testimony from formerly enslaved people. The course explains why the history of Hoodoo cannot be separated from the lived circumstances of Black people.
 
HORB HIS 104 — Hoodoo After Emancipation
Follows Hoodoo into emancipation, Reconstruction, segregation, migration, and the building of independent Black communities. Students examine how freedom changed the conditions of conjure and the ongoing need for spiritual work. The course highlights rootworkers as healers, advisers, and community authorities within newly developing Black institutions.
 
HORB HIS 105 — Jim Crow, Protection & Spiritual Survival
Examines conjure within the violent political, legal, economic, and social realities of Jim Crow America. Students study spiritual responses to racial terror, employment vulnerability, hostile authorities, and economic exploitation. The course establishes the historical context for later studies in protection, justice, retaliation, correction, and spiritual jurisdiction.
 
HORB HIS 106 — Black Southern Folk Belief & Superstition
Introduces the larger world of Black Southern folk belief surrounding Hoodoo. Students study signs, warnings, dreams, taboos, luck beliefs, household customs, birth and death traditions, and everyday spiritual interpretation. The course explains how ordinary observations became part of a practical folk worldview that still influences conjure practice today.
 
HORB HIS 107 — The Black Church, Praise House & Conjure
Examines the complex relationship between Black Christianity, praise houses, churches, Biblical belief, folk spirituality, and Hoodoo. Students study prayer, Scripture, testimony, spiritual gifts, and how they could coexist with conjure practice. The course explores differences among congregations, families, ministers, healers, and communities.
 
HORB HIS 108 — Conjure Doctors, Root Doctors & Two-Headed Workers
Studies the historical community roles of conjure doctors, root doctors, healers, readers, and workers. Students examine how reputation, knowledge, apprenticeship, and results established authority. The course distinguishes knowing tricks from true diagnostic and professional responsibility.
 
HORB HIS 109 — Oral Tradition & the Transmission of Hoodoo
Examines how Hoodoo knowledge traditionally moved through families, communities, observation, apprenticeship, stories, and lived experience. Students study why some knowledge was openly shared while other knowledge remained restricted. The course prepares students to evaluate claims of lineage, tradition, and inherited knowledge more carefully.
 
HORB HIS 110 — Hoodoo in Black American Folklore & Historical Sources
Trains students to investigate Hoodoo through folklore collections, WPA narratives, interviews, newspapers, ethnographies, and archival testimony. Students learn to distinguish a practitioner's testimony from an outsider's interpretation and to recognize bias, sensationalism, and limitations in historical records. The course provides the research discipline required for responsible scholarship and preservation.