Grave Decorations 201automobile parts, and bed frames. Graves are sometimes
ornamented with seashells and outlined with bottles driven
neck-down into the earth. Dishes and medicine bottles, in
particular, are oft en selected as grave decorations because
they were the items used by the deceased during their last
illness, and they must be cracked so that the spirit of the
vessel is released to serve its owner in the next world.
Such practices have an African origin. Th e Kongo peo-
ple of Central Africa, a great many of whom were imported
to North America as slaves, placed metal cooking pots,
crockery, and glass bottles on graves to ensure that the
spirit would not return in search of these necessary items.
Earth from a grave was oft en an ingredient in Kongo nkisi
charms, as were white objects, representing the “white realm
of the dead,” and seashells, which symbolize the water from
whence the spirits came and to which they will return. Just
as Africans sought spiritual aid from the ancestors, African
Americans use the cemetery and the spirits of the dead for
supernatural power.
Researchers such as author Zora Neale Hurston, the
independent folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt, and fi eld-
workers for the Federal Writers’ Project documented
such practices in the late 1920s through early 1940s. Th ey
found a wide variety of graveyard customs in the Upper
South and Atlantic coastal regions in particular: graveyard
dirt and bits of bone were incorporated into magical charms;
an image of the intended target of the charm or a bottle
containing his or her bodily products might be buried in
the cemetery; a silver dime or a handful of rice was left to
pay the dead for their assistance. In New Orleans, where
most interments are in above-ground tombs, the spirits of
the dead were solicited by leaving cooked food, fruit, can-
dies, fl owers, whiskey, and coins; by burning a candle; and
by drawing a cross mark (the “Kongo cosmogram”) on the
tomb of persons believed to possess great spiritual power.
From the late 19th century until the present, the tomb of
Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau and a wall vault in St. Louis
Cemetery No. 2, also associated with Laveau, have been the
recipients of off erings and cross marks.
See also: Africanisms; Black Folk Culture; Hurston, Zora
Neale; Kongo Cosmogram; Laveau, Marie; Slave CultureCarolyn Morrow Long
Bibliography
Fenn, Elizabeth. “Honoring the Ancestors: Kongo-American
Graves in the American South.” Southern Exposure 13 (Sep-
tember/October 1985):42–47.spiritual practice known as hoodoo. Th e term “goofer” may
have evolved from the Kikongo word kufwa, meaning “to
die.” Grave dirt has been popular since at least antebellum
days, and users have employed it for diverse purposes, rang-
ing from winning love to killing enemies. Its power comes
from the spirit of the person from whose burial place it is
taken. Th us, the choice of graves could be very important.
For instance, hoodoo practitioners oft en seek plots fi lled
with the remains of beloved family members when their
object is obtaining protection from evil. On the other hand,
if one wants to harm an enemy, the graves of the wicked are
preferable. Most collect the dirt in rituals that culminate in
payments of small change to the spirits of the deceased.
By the 20th century, goofer dust did not always liter-
ally come from graves. Some unethical hoodoo supply
manufacturers have obtained soil from more convenient
sources or substituted colored minerals for grave dirt. In
other cases, goofer dust has developed into a compound
of multiple ingredients. According to one modern hoodoo
manual, goofer dust is a mixture that should incorporate
graveyard dirt, sulphur, powdered snails, snake skins, and
powdered herbs.
See also: Africanisms; Grave Dirt; Hoodoo; New York Con-
spiracy of 1741; Slave Culture
Jeff rey Elton AndersonBibliography
Anderson, Jeff rey Elton. Conjure in African American Society.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007.
Long, Carolyn Morrow. Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and
Commerce. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001.
Yronwode, Catherine. Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia
Magica of African American Conjure and Traditional Formu-
lary Giving the Spiritual Uses of Natural Herbs, Roots, Min-
erals, and Zoological Curios. Forestville, CA: Lucky Mojo
Curio, 2002.
Grave Decorations
African Americans have a unique tradition of gravesite
decoration, most oft en found in rural Southern cemeteries,
in which family and friends leave personal objects belong-
ing to the dead for their subsequent use in the spirit world.
Th ese “grave goods” may include cups and saucers, candy
dishes, pitchers, medicine bottles, fi gurines, clocks, lanterns,