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From: catherine yronwodeSubject: Gris-Gris (was: Come to Me Oil) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 13:25:58 -0700 Cat (cat@hotmail.com) wrote: > > I have a question...a friend > wants to attract a lover/love and insists she heard of using a powder > called Gris-Gris in an amulet bag to procure results. I thought Gris > Gris was used in banishing rituals...(?) What do you recommend? > Thanks again! Gris-gris is a term i have only encountered among the Frech-Creole and Caribbean people. It crops up in the U.S.A. in New Orleans, where Haitian refugees settled after the slave revolt in Haiti in the early 19th century. Until recently, when it was popularlized through music and other mass-media, the term gris-gris was not encountered in the general practice of conjure or hoodoo among African-Americans in the U.S.A. I have been told that gris-gris means "grey-grey" in French, although i suspect it may derive from a sound-alike word in some African language, for there is nothing about it that is "grey." Perhaps a scholar of African languaes has an opinion???? As for what the word refers to -- modern French-Creole wannabes sometimes use the phrase "gris-gris bag" to refer to a mojo hand, conjure bag, toby, or the like. This would imply that it could be used for luck-drawing or for protection, because hands like those can work either way, depending on the contents -- but this usage is new and not encountered in older folkloric tradition. Actually, as described by one of Harry Hyatt's 1930s informants (from New Orleans, of course) gris-gris is a FOOD MIXTURE that was served as part of a possibly Haitian Vodoun initiation rite! Hyatt transcribes the term phonetically as "gree-gree" and it appears in a lengthy attempt on his part to learn about the putative survival of Voodoun rituals in New Orleans during the 1930s, a time when the religion had almost entirely died out there. -------------- From interview with "Cousin of Julius P. Caesar," New Orleans, Lousiana, pages 1640-1650 [on cylinders A356:1-A361:2 = 1172-1177] page 1643: (Now, you learned your work from your cousin?) From my cousin. (Well, now, after you learned your work, did he initiate you in any particular way? Was there any sort of ceremony or initiation or what?) Oh, yeah -- oh, yeah. (What did they do when they performed the ceremony? They don't do that any more, do they?) [The second question is leading, but it did not matter -- I was being a little uncertain about some of his testimony.] Well, no. That's the last hoodoo of all our old people. Me and Miss Murray was talking about it yesterday. That the last hoodoo of all our old [something?]. Now, when the firm is agreed upon one of the co-workers, why they'll have a chicken, what you might call gree-gree out of -- fixed up with tomatoes, macaroni, raisins. You know these raisin what you eat, kind of a raisin-like, a little small thing comes from Central America. (From grapes?) Yeah, looks like a grape, yeah. (Dried grapes?) Yeah, yeah. And they take that and they mix all that. That's gree-gree -- you know, it's a mixture and they mix all that up together. Mix all that up together and they'll put that table -- set that table right out there. Then whensomeever that person -- he takes a book and he reads a ceremony to 'em, and when she swears that she'll never divulge any secret of the hoodooism, why then they swears her in. And sometimes they ask them this question -- whether they want the good side or the bad side {rada loa or petra loa? -- cat}, whether they want to deal with the astral plane or deal with Lucifer work. There's two sides to everything. Well, you'll find a good deal of 'em will say, "Well, I want to do the devil's work." Well, after they start to marching around, they call Lucifer. (And he comes?) Yeah. Now, whensomever he comes, he comes with a chain. You can hear that chain -- look like he's coming -- I don't know where [whther] he's coming, but you hear that chain. When that chain come, well, then they all sit right down there and eat {they eat the "gree-gree" --cat} and drink and have a good time, sing these different hoodoo songs, and eat and drink. {end of excerpt} -------------- So, according to this informant, gree-gree is a mixture -- a special food mixture consisting of chicken cooked up with tomatoes, macaroni, and raisins -- that was formerly served at Vodoun ceremonies when an initiate was asked whether she wished to follow the "good" path or the "bad" path. What i am driving at here is that, through ignorance and possibly a venal desire to exploit "exotic" religions, the term gris-gris, which possibly means "mixture" in an African language, has become a brand name for all sorts of inappropriate things, and it would seem that Gris-Gris Love Powder would be one such. That is, unless the idea is to gain the love of a man by serving him tomato-raisin-macaroni-chicken stew! :-) Comments on this from Vodoun practiioners and folklore scholars would be GREATLY appreciated, and thus this has been cross-posted to alt.religion.orisha. catherine yronwode Lucky Mojo Curio Co. http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html Lucky W Amulet Archive --------- http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html news:alt.lucky.w --- discussions on folk magic, luck, amulets, charms
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