Customer Reviews

Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo & Conjuring with Herbs

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

After reading through Bird's second book, "Four Seasons of Mojo", and seeing how bad that one was I read through this book hoping it might be better; no such luck. This isn't real Hoodoo and any practitioner who is trained in the tradition would either be highly annoyed, or laugh themselves silly, by what is being passed off as Hoodoo.
The problems with the book start right at the beginning. Bird gives the reader the ingredients for a "Fast Luck" Mojo without explaining that "Fast Luck" isn't a generic term for luck. It is a term used in Hoodoo to describe a hand made for luck with money or love. I'll also add that the number of ingredients included don't work to strengthen the spell.
On the very next page the author gives the list of curios/ingredients for a "Stay Away From Me" mojo, but includes Senna Pods and Dragonsblood resin. Interesting, if illogical, choices considering the fact that in Hoodoo, Senna Pods and Dragonsblood resin are used to draw people to you! I didn't analyze all of her recipes, but I'm not hopeful that the book gets any better if it starts off this bad. The mistakes I found in the book are the type you might expect a novice student to make, but not those of someone who deems themselves knowledgeable enough to write a book on the topic.
SSRB reminds of Ray Malborough's Hoodoo Mysteries, and is just as full of misinformation and misdirection. If you are looking for real, authentic Hoodoo stick with Hyatt, if you can afford to collect Hyatt's work; Cat Yronwode, Jim Haskins, or even Henri Gamache. I also have a Listmania, "Hoodoo/Rootwork/Conjure and nothing but", which lists other reputable authors, but do yourself a big favor and pass on this one.

Really now. Do we have to associate everything with the four elements? Do we have to constantly refer to deities and energies and chi and every other chunk of cheese from the word salad of new-age nonsense? This book is capitalizing on the increasing popularity of Hoodoo and packaging it up nice and neat for an audience of the most irritating global-spiritual-buffet-practice neo-pagans and neo-wiccans. When I purchased this book, I was hoping to find insights into Hoodoo practice; instead I got heaps of lore about practices Hoodoo does not use, nonsense about the amount of chi in some plants, a huge pepperings of "Blessed Be"s and a ridiculous invocation to Ra!

Utter nonsense. I understand that Hoodoo is eclectic, but let's not scrape from the bottom of the barrel for stuff to add to the practice. That is what this book does. Toss it.

It is a HUGE disappointment to anyone already familiar with hoodoo, rootwork and conjure. Ugh! I was really looking forward to this book based on the claims that she was of hoodoo ancestry etc..but upon perusing this classically Lllewellyn-esque bastardization I felt totally ripped off. Here is an african american woman of hoodoo lineage referring to the wiccan king Scott Cunningham in regards to herbalism etc...saying she follows his tradition of this and that. What happen to her own family traditions? Thats what I wanted to hear about! Instead, the book is chockful of cutesy pootsie "potions" , the bulk regarding the ever popular money generating angles of love and money like most mass produced fluff titles coming out of Llewellyn. For examples, her rose water recipe is nothing more than the ever popular/fake water with rose EO added, not actual rosewater from rose petals,she also uses distilled water throughout which is thought by some spiritualist to be void of any spiritual essence as all minerals etc have been removed. Stick with Original publications or your local botanicas to have better books. Don't waste your money on this one unless you buy one of the 50(now 51!) copies available here for only $5.00. And thats still too high in my book!

When we hear the words Hoodoo, or Voodoo, most people automatically think of Zombies and Voodoo Dolls. And while many people try to hide it, "Yes these things do exist" these things are not what Hoodoo or Voodoo is completely about. I have been initiated into Santeria. But all my life I was raised and grew up in Puerto Rican Brujeria and Espiritismo. There is one thing that is common with Brujeria and Hoodoo. The practitioners of both paths come from various religious traditions, but both Los Brujos and the Hoodooists are consulted on things both Good and Bad. This is one thing that is greatly missing in this book.

I enjoyed the book immensely, but I felt there was so much missing, when I saw who the publisher was, "LLewelyn" it all came clear. Stephanie Rose Bird is a good author, and the book read well. It is a combination of Luisah Tesh's great book Jambalaya and the various Ray Malbrough books,

I felt she could have taken the book some place else. The recipes for making oils, and Four Thieve Vinegar, have been published before. There is so much more to Hoodoo than just these typical things, which Llewelynn allows its authors to write about.

Although I am not giving the book five stars, because most of the stuff is written elsewhere, I have to give Stephanie some credit for being informative, and I learned a few things, that I had not known.

This book is defiantly not only about Hoodoo, it is a mixture of Vodou, Santeria, Candomble, Brujeria and so forth. But unlike other authors who have done a messy job in trying to put the four-mentioned together, Stephanie really places them together nicely. In a way that is Very Brujeria, and yes we can even say, "Modern Day-Hoodoo."

For those who are interested in adding some Hoodoo into their practices, and have little knowledge, this is a good start. But my advice to Stephanie.

"Girl the way you write, has an honest feel, and I know you have more to teach than what your Current Publishers allow. Go to Original Publications, or another company, where you can really let people know what Hoodoo is truly about."

I have to agree with those who wrote in saying that this is a work of nonsense. It is typical that Llywellyn would publish a book like this, and it smacks of the "fluffy bunny" style of most every other Llywellyn book. In keeping with the same tradition of Ray Malbrough's epic failure, "Hoodoo Mysteries" this book by Bird is just another waste of paper. If you are looking for books on the subject of Hoodoo and Rootwork, read Cat Yronwode's excellent book, Jim Haskin's work, and the Hyatt materials.

...but perhaps not the most accurate source. I noted several mistakes and/or questionable interpretations, for example:

*she says in one place that Robert Johnson himself claimed that he sold his soul to the devil

* she says Scorpio, which is of course a water sign, is most closely aligned with FIRE-- and she doesn't explain the connection, if any, to any African source

* she's concerned about how the word "mojo" is used in a silly movie, but seems to have no idea of any other metaphorical and/or erroneous use of the word, nor does she give much useful information about nomenclature in response to the errors of others

* she has some discordant ingredients in some recipes (her "War Water" is very sweet-- is it for killing with kindness?)

* she ignores the European herbal tradition behind recipes such as Four Thieves Vinegar in favor of implying a deliberate connection to African heritage and deities (a "coincidental" connection to a certain African God or Goddess or an orisha would be a different type of claim...)

* finally, although she insists that rootwork doesn't require fancy expensive ingredients, she's "all the time" listing such in her recipes, and doesn't provide guidance in making substitutions... very annoying.

On the other hand, many of her recipes and ideas are quite usable, and my copy has many pages marked to designate recipes I plan to try. I bought the book because 3 different people interested in folk magic recommended it (perhaps it's relevant that none of them were African-American.) If you'd like to flavor your spiritual practices with some African-American style work, I'd recommend this book. If, like myself, you were looking for something that would give authentic practices without having to constantly struggle with old-fashioned or pedantic language of folklore books-- keep looking. Further steps might be: Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure and Mules and Men (P.S.), which I have been acquainted with for much longer.

Stephanie Rose Bird is a visual artist, a brilliant herbalist and an evocative writer. In "Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones" she has crafted a beautifully written, clear, lucid and inclusive book of folk magic based on various African traditions.
An extremely high percentage of books on the magical arts focus solely on Northern or Western European traditions; Bird's book, a course in eclectic, practical magic based on an African framework, is thus very refreshing, crucial and important.


"Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones" is a book of functional, practical Earth-centered magic containing LOTS of spells, potions, recipes and rituals. It is a vivid description of one woman's magical journey as well as her generous effort to share her experiences and knowledge with us. It is not intended as a history book: I sense that some of the disappointment expressed by other reviewers is because they anticipated a book detailing historical Hoodoo practices. There are other sources for that sort of information. Instead, Bird offers, in her own words, "a guide to a magical life."

Bird is not a new-comer to the traditions; she relates her experiences growing up amidst the tenets of Hoodoo. Following in the steps of the earliest Hoodoo practitioners, Bird has a questing mind. She is not a strict traditionalist but like both those earliest Hoodoo practitioners and the most modern, urban, eclectic practitioners, she inventively and effectively incorporates new influences. Thus her Hoodoo is laced with Yoruba orishas, Brazilian magic and the work of Scott Cunningham.

The recipes and formulas in this book are clear and easy-to-follow. A source guide for obtaining materials is included. Lending the book a personal touch are the many blues lyrics and Bird's own lovely illustrations that are interspersed through the text. Reading this book, one clearly senses the presence of the author guiding you and communing with you.

Bird offers her versions of various traditional formulas and gives explicit instructions for crafting a mojo hand. "Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones" also offers candle rituals, spiritual cleansings, rituals for luck, love and blessings, psychic warfare, peace,important rites of passage, workings with brooms and the construction of altars.

"Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones" is a book to be used and treasured. It is fresh and does not regurgitate material found in other books. I recommend it highly.

The book started out wonderful. Bird is a fantastic writer with a lot to offer. The problem I had with it was after the first few chapters it took a nose dive into the typical Llewellyn cutsie style. It is easy to tell the author was bound to a certian "formula" for the publisher.
If she publishes another book at a different publishing house I would get it. If you love Llewellyn's stuff this is the book for you. If you want history, folklore and a real sense of the work only the first few chapters are for you. I do commend her on sourcing the organizations trying to save the Gullah/Geechie way of life. I just wish she had been free to continue her style through the whole book. To tell the truth it would be impossible to take a formula from the end of this book and tell it apart from any other author in the stable.
I wish Bird the best of luck in this effort and hope she finds another publisher very soon so she is free to teach what she obviously knows.

Stephanie's knowledge of her recipes and her herbs seems sound, and that's good. She gives a lot of them, and that's good. Her interpretations of European gods go a little queer in places, based on my own knowledge, but if you know about it it's not too bad - you can certainly, Gods preserve us, do worse in any number of Llewellyn publications, including many that purport to be mainly about European-style practice.

But what really sets this book above the cut, in my opinion, is that something about her style makes me actually want to get out all my herbs and oils and MAKE these things, and use them all over my house and my life. I have a slew of other herbals on my shelf, and not one of them has this power to infect me with the writer's enthusiasm. Stephanie does it. After years of having these things and theoretically knowing how to use them, it is only since reading this book that I have made a practice of concocting my own oils, leaving out scented water on my altar as an offering and anointing daily with it, taking herbal washes and using them on the floors.

Good stuff.

The caption for my review about sais it all. This is yet another "new age" fluff bunny attempt at sterilizing a tried and true folk practice into some modern hip thing for anyone to go to Barnes and Noble to pick up. If you are looking for an authentic guide to african american conjure, I reccomend Mules and Men by Zora Nele Hurston and Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic by Cat Yronwode. If you want to still use this book too I suppose it would make a good substitute for toilet paper or perhaps kindling.