Entry · catalog no. 1190
black cat bone
/ /blæk kæt boʊn/ /BLAK kat BOHN
noun · the Black South, with Sea Islands and Mississippi Delta variants · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
In hoodoo, a single bone taken from a black cat and held to confer invisibility, along with luck, protection from being crossed, and power in love and in gambling. The rite for obtaining it is elaborate and deliberately terrible, which is part of its standing: the worker who has one is understood to have paid for it. Puckett in 1926 and Hurston in 1935 both record the tests for identifying the right bone — the one that shows no reflection in a mirror, or the one that tastes bitter.
“He told everybody he was carrying a black cat bone, and nobody at that table would deal to him.”
2.
By extension, an emblem of unbeatable personal power, invoked far outside actual practice. This is the sense that carries it in the blues, where naming the charm is a way of naming what the singer claims to be.
“I got a black cat bone, I got a mojo too.”
Origin & Attribution
Black Southern hoodoo, documented from at least the 1920s and certainly older. Newbell Niles Puckett recorded the boiling rite and the mirror test in 1926, including a Sea Islands variant; Zora Neale Hurston described the fast beforehand and the bitter-taste test in 1935; Harry Middleton Hyatt's fieldwork from 1936 to 1940 across twelve Southern and border states gathered the fullest body of accounts. Dyed chicken bones are still sold under the name in spiritual supply shops.
1926
Newbell Niles Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, documents the boiling rite, the mirror test, and a Sea Islands variant
1935
Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men, records the fast beforehand and the bitter-taste identification of the bone
1954
Muddy Waters records Hoochie Coochie Man, written by Willie Dixon, for Chess — I got a black cat bone, I got a mojo too
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
the Black South, with Sea Islands and Mississippi Delta variants · 1920s
Spoken by
Black Southerners; hoodoo workers and their clients, and the blues singers who borrowed the language
$BLACKCThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady100 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
52/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1926
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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By region — how it actually sounds
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New Orleans, LA
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Houston, TX
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Citations & Sources
■
Newbell Niles Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, 1926
book · printed
■
Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men, 1935
book · printed
■
Harry Middleton Hyatt, Hoodoo–Conjuration–Witchcraft–Rootwork, vol. 1, 1970, from fieldwork 1936–1940
book · printed
■
+ Cite a sourceMuddy Waters, (I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man, written by Willie Dixon, recorded 7 January 1954, Chess Records
song · recorded
See also