"Hoodoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many of these superhuman agencies relating to disease, such as the spirits of the dead, either human or animal, independent disease demons, or individuals who might act by controlling the spirits or agencies of disease. We see this today among the negroes of the Southern States. A Hoodoo put upon a negro may, if he knows of it, work upon him so powerfully through the imagination that he becomes very ill indeed, and only through a more powerful magic exercised by someone else can the ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... the river where the current is bad (there are many such places, and, in fact, the whole of the Snake River is a perfect hoodoo) Harshaw stopped one day to drink. The wagon had struck a streak of heavy sand, and we were all walking. We stood and watched him, because he drank with such deep enjoyment, stooping bareheaded on his ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Big Race, several unfortunate things happened in the Kennel to make Allan believe it was, as the "Wonder Workers" solemnly declared it, a "Hoodoo" year for the dogs. Rover wrenched his shoulder in a friendly tussle with one of the Mego pups, Tom cut his foot badly on a bit of broken glass, and Baldy developed a severe cold that made him ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... boardroom traders and plungers, together with many of the semi-professional gamblers, who operated through commission houses, were selling out their long stock and going short over the opening of the Wall Street hoodoo-day, Friday, the thirteenth of the month. But it was also evident, with the heavy selling at the close and the stiffness of the price, which had never wavered as block after block was thrown on the market, that some powerful interest as well had taken cognisance of the fact that ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... the worn benches of the Silver Dollar or the Same Old Luck like beached vessels, and their talk ran on endlessly of "strike" and "contact" and "mother lode," and worked around to fights and hold-ups, villainy, haunts, and the hoodoo of the ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... "Hoodoo. Don't grin, kid. If you were in the profession you'd understand that a fellow values a charm that has carried him safe over Fridays, thirteenths, rotten trapezes and cyclones. We're a superstitious bunch, you know, and I'm no wiser than the rest. Why see here, of course you want ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... he reached his room he threw his letters on the table, his coat and hat on the bed, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he walked rapidly up and down the room, saying to himself in a savage whisper, "Confound that Putnam girl; she is a hoodoo." ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... Ohio was a hoodoo for the circus business, and Kentucky got the whole bunch ready for a long stay at Dwight, Ill., but the agent routed us into Pennsylvania, and pa has had nothing but a series of disasters since ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... was God's curse on this Klondike gold," he said; "now I'm sure of it. There's a hoodoo on it. What it's a-goin' to cost, what hearts it's goin' to break, what homes it's goin' to wreck no man'll ever know. God only knows what it's cost already. But this last is the ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... impetuously and listed on the ways, ripping the scaffolding to pieces like a whale thrashing a raft apart. Suppose she careened and stuck or rolled over in the mud. Such things had happened and might happen again. The Mamise had suffered so many mishaps that the other ship crews called her a hoodoo. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the slang of the day, "73" being well known as a telegrapher's expression of compliments or good wishes, while "23" is an accident or death message, and has been given broader popular significance as a general synonym for "hoodoo." All of this came easily to Edison, who had, moreover, as his Herald showed, an unusual familiarity with train movement along that portion of the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... in hoodoo and witches. Heard them talking lots about witches. They said if they found anybody was a witch they would kill them. Witches took on other forms and went out to do meaness. They said sometimes some of them got through latch holes. They used buttons and door ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... superstitions, for diseases are supposed to be cured by charms and incantations of the shaman or priest; and everything in the way of hunting, fishing, cooking, or of clothing themselves must be done in a prescribed way or it is "taboo" or "hoodoo" as the negroes say. When you read "The Baby Eskimo" you will see just a tiny bit of the hardships, but I should not like to tell you how much more terrible a time he might have had, if he had happened to ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... I a turnip? On the strict Q.T., Why do my Trilbys get so ossified? Why am I minus when it's up to me To brace my Paris Pansy for a glide? Once more my hoodoo's thrown the game and scored A flock of zeros on ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... "I don't buy no hoodoo and I don't believe in none, but a seventh child can more or less tell you things that are a long way off. If you want to beat the devil you got to do right. God's got to be in the plan. I tries to do right. I am not perfect but I do the best I can. I ain't ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... said old Cato to me as he gave a low bow of very great courtesy. Then he looked with eyes of great keenness into my stormy face. "Make a cross on the floor with that hoodoo in your shoe, little mas', ef you git in danger or need of luck," he whispered to me, coming very close. And as he directed I so performed at the very entrance of the audience chamber of the great Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth. Then, with a fine relief on his face, ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... tracked him to his lair at last, and now, unless that infernal hoodoo looms upon the scene, I can get in my work in good shape. I would have had my game weeks ago, but for ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... this laboratory, you hoodoo," shrilled Berry, "or I swear I'll kill you! I'll not give you the chance to ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... Tom, until it's in good running shape. I don't want to 'hoodoo' it. I worked as hard as I could, and never got more than two feet off the ground. Now I'm really ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... spokesman. "We haven't come here without posting ourselves. We know how you have talked to the others. But you can't bluff us. You propose to steal our plant, such of it as we have been able to build to date. One word from you to the money gang takes the hoodoo off us. Now talk business! Do you propose to pot us like ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... our trip," resumed the young inventor. "Maybe there's a hoodoo around here, and it will do us good to get away a few days. Come on, we'll have breakfast, ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... Prob'ly they surmise Brown is in league with us to show us a short cut to what we're after. If that's how they work it out, then they wouldn't need think much to conclude that putting Brown on the blink would hoodoo us. Maybe they allow that that much bad luck to begin with would unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us. Anyway—somebody bought the mules—somebody stole the cattle—cattle are somewhere ahead. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... always been king of all Glendale barbecue-pits and he had had them dug the day before and filled with dry hickory fires all night, and his mien was so haughty that I trembled for the slaves under his command. His basket of "yarbs" was under the side of the rock in hoodoo-like shadows and the wagons of poor, innocent, sacrificed lambs and turkeys and sucking-pigs were backed up by the largest infernal pit. Petunia was already elbow deep in a cedar tub of corn meal for the pones, and another minion was shucking late roasting-ears and washing ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... That will break the hoodoo, and the others will come back to work. Then we'll get on the trail of Waddington, or Blakeson & Grinder, and put a stop to this business. ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton |
