RSS
Home
The Mystery of Hoodoo Corner (part three)
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
When you look up the word “hoodoo” in the dictionary, you will usually find a list of definitions, none of which seem necessarily related to one another. This is not so remarkable, perhaps, it often the case with dictionary entries. In most dictionaries, the “hoodoo” entry is a combination of three basic definitions, along the following lines: 1) a geologic formation of rocks, especially a natural column of rock formed by weathering, often in fantastic shapes, 2) a folkloric magical practice, especially among African Americans in the South, and 3) something that brings bad luck.
Clearly, the reference toHoodoo Corner in the newspaper that day carried the last meaning—the connotation of bad luck, a jinx—but that still left the much larger and more interesting question of why this particular corner in Rochester would be believed to carry a curse. The first two definitions did not seem, at first glance, to apply at all. Rochester is not, of course, in the American South, and the center of the city boasts no dramatic geological formations.
But I would find, as I researched the question that the answer turns out to be an amalgamation of these meanings, an accretion deposited by layers of history, and meanings, that can only be arrived at by examining these things in turn. In the end, this means that the answer is necessarily speculative, but pursuing it offers numerous rewards and insights into our past. First, one cannot help but be reminded that the period of time in which Rochester has existed is but the blink of an eye. Europeans began arriving in the area that would become Rochester in the late 17th century. And there is intriguing evidence that those who inhabited the area long before Europeans arrived may have attributed particular significance to that location that would become Hoodoo Corner.
Rochester does not now boast any geological formations that would be described as hoodoos, but places that carry this name today suggests one way the term became bound up in the area. There is, for example, a Hoodoo Mountain in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, which is the namesake for Castle Rock Hoodoos Provincial Park. The mountain gets its name from the needle-like lava spines (aka hoodoos) that give the volcano its strange appearance. In northern Oregon, Hoodoo Butte is a cinder cone (hill made of volcanic eruption fragments) in the Cascade Range. In Idaho, the Hoodoo District is a mining region in Latah County, Idaho, and is the name of a nearby ski area as well. In northern Minnesota, Hoodoo Point Campground lies on a peninsula that is now publicly-owned, but once belonged to the Ojibwe.
It is impossible to tease out the direct etymological relationships here, but it seems that term began to take on more than its purely geological meaning with the arrival of European settlers into Indian lands in the New World. It appears that the distinctive geological formations and the presence of Indians became bound up with one another. Use of the term is wide and deep: It is attached to areas in the deep South, such as New Orleans, to the Rocky Mountain West, and to the Great Lakes. Many of the spots which now carry the name once were—or were believed to be—used by Indians for sacred or ceremonial purposes, and especially for burial purposes.
There is no evidence that there was ever a large-scale geological formation known as a “hoodoo” in the Rochester area, or even a particularly distinctive smaller formation, though the geography of the area has changed considerably over time, so we do not know for sure. But we do know that there was Indian presence on the land for tens of thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. And in order to tell the story of the origins of hoodoo corner, we must start with the area’s original inhabitants.
To be continued http://www.examiner.com/x-18525-Rochester-Crime-History-Examiner~y2009m9d7-The-Mystery-of-Hoodoo-Corner-part-two
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
Native American women experience the highest rate of violence of any group in the United States. A report released by the Department of Justice, …
It has been known by many names over the years, from the Great Sioux Uprising to the Dakota Conflict to the U.S.-Dakota War. It is one of …
