MOJO HAND and ROOT BAG

Everybody in America seems to have heard the word "mojo," but darned few white folks know what it means. Cecil Adams, author of "The Straight Dope" series that purports to give truthful answers to often-asked trivial questions, mumbled his way through theories that "mojo" means the sex act or a male sexual organ, even giving space to the drug-addled white singer Jim Morrison's self-applied sobriquet of "Mr. Mojo Risin'" as an indication that a mojo may be a penis. By the end of the 20th century, the second Austin Powers movie, steeped in white retro-culture, reinforced the idea of the mojo as a sex organ, but other white people took the idea in different directions, giving rise to a brand of mountain bike called a Mojo, a brand of cookies called Mojos, and numerous pets (especially cats) named "Mojo" by their loving owners.



For the record, "Mr. Mojo Risin'" is nothing more than an anagram for "Jim Morrison" and it came about because during the 1960s, Morrison apparently heard the word "mojo" on a recording by the Mississippi-born Chicag-style blues singer Muddy Waters [McKinley Morganfield], shown at right, one of whose most popular songs was "I Got My Mojo Working." Here are the lyrics which so impressed Mr. Morrison:

I GOT MY MOJO WORKING
by Preston Foster
Recorded by Ann Cole, Muddy Waters, et al

I got my mojo workin' but it just don't work on you
I got my mojo workin' but it just don't work on you
I wanna love you so bad, child, but i don't know what to do

I'm going down to Louisiana, gonna get me a mojo hand
Going down to Louisiana, gonna get me a mojo hand.
Gonna have all you women under my command.

Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin', but it just don't work on you!

I got a Gypsy woman giving me advice.
I got a Gypsy woman giving me advice.
I got a whole lot of tricks keeping our love on ice

Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin'!
(Got my mojo workin'!)
Got my mojo workin', but it just don't work on you!
How the failure of Morganfield's mojo was cast into the phantasy of a male sex organ is a tale only white musicians and newspaper columnists can unravel; after all, the first recording of "Got My Mojo Working" was made by Ann Cole, a woman, and the famous blues singer Robert Johnson had written about a woman's mojo in "Little Queen of Spades," way back in the 1930s. The truth is, the word has nothing to do with the sex organs of either gender and never has.

So what is a mojo? It is, in short, the staple amulet of African-American hoodoo practice, a flannel bag containing one or more magical items. The word is thought by some to be a corruption of the English word "magic" but it more likely is related to the West African word "mojuba," meaning a prayer of praise and homage. It is a "prayer in a bag" -- a spell you can carry.