In most of the old “before-the-war” towns of Missouri there is an ancient negro who is regarded with superstitious reverence by a good many more people than will confess it. This individual is known as the “Conjure Man,” and many of the darkies who smile when they talk about him will slip around and invoke his aid in cases of distress.
The Conjure Man always professes the deepest piety. Were he in league with evil spirits, no negro would go within a mile of him. It is only the good spirits he calls upon. In nearly every case the Conjure Man is ignorant, but wonderfully cunning. He is generally honest, however, in supposing that he has some sort of a gift that will ward off evil influences. You can find in Missouri a great many old white people who will, in a somewhat backward way, admit that they have the same sort of influence.
The Conjure Man labors to create the impression that nothing is impossible for him. He will sell, for a moderate consideration, good-luck charms to bring lovers together. He will visit a home where there has been domestic trouble for the purpose of locating and driving out evil influences. When anything goes wrong, it is always the devil sowing seeds of discord, and it is the Conjure Man’s province to find where these seeds are planted and to yank them out by the roots.
There perambulates about some northern Missouri towns a distinguished member of the profession known as “Blue Jacket.” He is nigh on to eighty, but will cheerfully admit to one hundred if pressed. You might call Blue Jacket the dean of the Conjure Men, for his years and reputed cures well entitle him to the distinction.
One evil day doubts crept into the mind of a Macon negro regarding his wife’s fidelity, and he sent an urgent message to Blue Jacket to come a-runnin’ and remove the baleful influence. Blue Jacket came promptly and after sniffing about the yard, told his client that in a board buried in the yard was an old rusty nail which kept a house vine from growing; that in order to relieve the domestic turmoil it would be necessary to find and remove that nail, and that it would cost—after a deal of calculation—twenty-nine dollars and six bits. The distressed client produced the money and Blue Jacket pulled out a bottle and attached a fishing line. Then he went about the yard, holding the thing up, and talking in a queer lingo. Presently the “diviner” began to oscillate, and Blue Jacket asked for a spade. In a few minutes he found an old board, near the wall, and, sure enough, there was a rusty nail in it, which had been touching the roots of the house vine.
It looked like a gilt-edged conjure job, and the client would have been entirely satisfied had not his wife eloped that night with the man of whom he was jealous. The prosecuting attorney was appealed to the next day for a warrant against Blue Jacket, but the officer told the troubled husband that according to his own story, Blue Jacket was only agreeing to find a board with a rusty nail in it, and he had done it.
Blue Jacket was once commissioned to find out who was stealing coal from a colored Baptist church in Macon County. Inside of twelve hours he had a confession from the janitor. It was looked upon as a most miraculous case for a while, and then somebody found how it was done. Blue Jacket went at the job in a commonsense way. He examined the church coal bin and saw steps leading from it to the janitor’s home, and alongside the footprints were small particles of coal which had sifted through the leaky bucket.
“It is a remarkable thing how strong a hold the Conjure Man has upon some of the negroes, particularly in the South,” remarked the Reverend A.F. Jenkins, who was formerly pastor of the African M.E. Church at Keota, another mining town of Macon County. “One of the most noted of whom I recall just now was known as ‘Doctor’ George Jones. He practiced all through Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. A Conjure Man with a reputation gets calls from a wider territory than the most noted of physicians. And he charges just what he wants, and generally gets his money down before he turns a peg. The president is impressed with no greater dignity than the Conjure Man with a reputation. And once he turns a trick which gives him standing, it is mighty hard to discredit him.
“I was in charge of the church at Vicksburg when I first had the pleasure of meeting the renowned ‘Doctor’ Jones. He was about fifty years of age, but over one hundred in impressiveness and dignity. From somewhere he had collected a lot of big, grandly sounding words and scientific terms with which he paralyzed his more ignorant constituents, which they took for inspired utterance. I begged my people to let him alone. He sent word if I didn’t quit interfering with his business he would set the witches on me. When I heard of that threat I resolved to give him a chance. One day when some of my members were talking with me, Doctor Jones came along, walking very stately down the street.
“‘Doctor,’ said I, ‘I’ve just been telling these people you were a humbug, and that I wasn’t afraid of all the witches you could turn loose. Now, if you’ve got any about you anywhere, I wish you’d call ’em up. I won’t run.’