practicesFeeding the charm

Hoodoo states it outright. A mojo bag is first fixed — filled and, in the cited account's words, awakened to life, by smoking it over incense and candles, or breathing on it, with prayers said over it. Once prepared it is dressed or fed with a liquid: alcohol, perfume, water or bodily fluids. The reason given for feeding is that the bag is alive with spirit, and feeding keeps it working.

In Kongo practice the substances go in at the start and the object is kept in service by use. The bilongo or milongo packed into an nkisi are usually translated as medicine, though they are not applied to or swallowed by the sick; scholars of the tradition suggest therapeutic substances is closer, and note the ingredients are often chosen for metaphor — bird claws to catch a wrongdoer. In the aggressive subclass, nkondi, each nail or metal piece driven in stands for a vow, a signed agreement or an effort to abolish an evil, so the object accumulates its history in iron.

Haitian Vodou feeds the spirits rather than the object, and does it constantly. Offering rites are termed manje lwa, feeding the lwa, and offering food and drink is the most common ritual in the religion, done communally and at home; Danbala takes white foods, especially eggs, Legba's offerings are grilled on a fire, the Ogu and Nago lwa prefer raw rum or clairin, and Ayizan avoids alcohol.

The Andes feeds on a timetable. Ekeko figures are loaded with miniature goods, and banknotes are clipped to them as offerings; modern statues have a hole in the mouth for a cigarette, and the recent custom is that Ekeko smokes one lit cigarette a year to secure a year of prosperity. Grain is offered for good harvests. Japan feeds the household altar: the Association of Shinto Shrines recommends daily worship before the shinsatsu, with offerings of rice, salt, water or sake, and more food on special occasions. In Java, warriors made offerings to their kris at a shrine, because specific rites had to be completed to avoid calling down bad fates.

Inference — feeding is the clearest test of whether a tradition treats a charm as an object or as a resident. Nobody feeds a lucky coin. The traditions here that feed also say, in their own words, that something lives in the thing — and those are the same traditions whose objects a museum has the hardest time labelling, because a fed figure that stops being fed is, by its own tradition's account, not the same object on the shelf.

Pour, light, set down, or drive in. A liquid is poured or rubbed on a cloth bag. A cigarette is lit in a figure's mouth. Food and drink are set in front of an altar or a figure and left. A nail is hammered into a carved body to seal an agreement. Each has its own schedule, from daily to once a year.

Live. Conjure workers still fix and dress mojo bags commercially. Ekeko figures are sold loaded at the Alasitas fair in La Paz every January and smoke through the year in Bolivian houses. Japanese households keep kamidana and make the daily offerings the Association of Shinto Shrines recommends. Minkisi in European and American museums are not fed, and Kongo commentators and curators disagree about what that makes them.