Missing Witches - MW Harriet Tubman： Reach For The Stars To Change The World

00:00:00.160 Season 4 of the Missing Witches podcast is lovingly sponsored by our Patreon patrons, thank you.

00:00:06.580 And Foxglove Farm. Go to foxglovefarm.com and use offer code MISSINGWITCHES for 13% off your order.

00:00:13.580 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:16.740 Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! 1.00

00:00:20.280 You must be a witch. 0.99

00:00:22.560 Hello to the Missing Witches coven. 0.99

00:00:24.640 to all of you who are my safe space, your ears, the places outside my home, my temple where my

00:00:31.160 voice travels, through forests and thickets carried over these waves to find its home in

00:00:36.540 your heart. You hear me? I thank you. Today's episode is unlike most because you've almost

00:00:42.700 100% heard of our featured witch. But the missing part of missing witches comes in many forms.

00:00:48.500 In American history, Harriet Tubman's story is oft told.

00:00:52.100 A hero of civil rights, a literal trailblazer, railroad conductor, freedom fighter,

00:00:57.720 whose face was set to appear on the American $20 bill,

00:01:01.100 making her the only woman and the only black person to hold such a distinction.

00:01:05.580 It was supposed to happen in 2020, but has, unsurprisingly, been pushed to 2028.

00:01:11.480 Monuments, schools, museums, and libraries, even a U.S. military ship bear her name.

00:01:17.000 so for sure I'd heard of Harriet Tubman. What I had not heard was that she was a witch. 0.97

00:01:22.900 The missing part for me in Harriet's story is the witch part. So we'll be hitting some key

00:01:29.180 biographical points, but today we'll mostly go looking for the witch part we've been missing.

00:01:34.520 Born in Maryland. Born into slavery. Born to a mother who was born into slavery. Born 0.54

00:01:40.120 Araminta Ross. Harriet went by the nickname Minty. I'll be using this nickname from time to time

00:01:46.400 because like Pamela Coleman Smith and Pixie, the word Minty is just delightful to say.

00:01:51.980 Minty. So tasty. Invigorating. A cool burn. Refreshing. Plus, Minty was often the name

00:02:00.120 that appeared on Wanted posters. It reminds me that Harriet was an outlaw. She is of course 0.86

00:02:05.260 considered a hero now, but then there was a bounty on her head. Minty's grandmother had been stolen

00:02:11.520 from Africa and purchased by an Eastern Shore family named Pattison. Included in the price

00:02:16.960 were her next two generations. At one time, Minty prayed and prayed for her owner, and it's so hard

00:02:24.420 not to choke on the word owner here. Minty prayed and prayed for her owner to die, and he died.

00:02:32.140 The death of a slave owner provided no relief for the enslaved, though. Like any other object or

00:02:37.300 property, enslaved people were inherited by the next generation or given as gifts. 0.99

00:02:42.960 Children born to enslaved mothers became more property. As Minty found, even if a deceased's 0.75

00:02:48.700 will gave her her freedom, she still had little recourse to enforce these wishes.

00:02:53.880 It's repugnant to think that this hellscape was normal, but that's what normalization does.

00:03:00.180 To calibrate our moral compass, we must question the status quo and the ulterior motives behind

00:03:05.860 what we are told. Witches are outlaws. I hope I don't need to get into the horrific details of 0.95

00:03:15.040 slavery to stir your emotion, to paint bloody landscapes as backdrops for torture porn.

00:03:21.180 This is not a true crime podcast, though many have been killed for the crime of witchcraft,

00:03:26.560 and systemic slavery is, for certain, the truest crime. We know our history, y'all. We see it

00:03:32.780 echoing through American racism today. I'm not going to focus on the gory details of physical

00:03:38.840 violence here, because it seems like for Minty, the most abominable cruelty of slavery was the

00:03:44.440 physical and psychological violence of the separation of families. Her work as a conductor

00:03:49.920 on the Underground Railroad stemmed from her wanting to put her own family back together.

00:03:55.920 As I said, human beings were treated as objects, bought, sold, treated at will. Minty's sister was

00:04:01.360 old, Minty knew that she herself would be next. It's said that Minty had visions, prophetic dreams,

00:04:09.000 and nightmares that came true. Some will argue that these were mere hallucinations brought out

00:04:13.880 by a traumatic brain injury incurred at age 12 or 13 when a slaveholder cracked her skull with a pot.

00:04:20.600 Further goes the story that the pot hit her because she stepped between the projectile

00:04:24.820 and its intended victim. Even before the injury, she was willing to stick her neck out for the

00:04:30.220 protection of others. So I'll ask you, dear witches, did this braining make her crazy or did 0.59

00:04:36.620 it open up her mind to a gift? We could ask this question of many strong, powerful, determined

00:04:43.220 female leaders who were painted as hysterical or burned at the stake, visions chalked up to 0.99

00:04:48.280 psychosis or the devil. Joan of Arc comes to mind. So I'll leave it to you to decide for yourself.

00:04:55.380 Harriet Tubman had well-documented prophetic visions. 0.98

00:04:58.700 Was she insane or gifted?

00:05:01.600 Harriet is often called a conjure woman, which is great for the purposes of this podcast,

00:05:06.840 but was she?

00:05:07.840 And what does that mean?

00:05:09.400 In Working Conjure, Hudson Moise writes,

00:05:11.980 The short answer would be that conjure is an African-American-based magical practice

00:05:16.320 that contains influences from African spiritual practices,

00:05:20.060 Christianity, Jewish mysticism, and Native American practices,

00:05:23.020 as well as European folk magic. However, Moise continues, the primary influence derives from the

00:05:29.220 spiritual beliefs of Central and West Africa. If you'd like to know more about the African

00:05:34.300 origins of these traditions, check out our Mama Lola episode from Season 1, or better yet, pick

00:05:39.280 up a copy of Ona Agbani, The Ancient Path by Ayelosa Akalatunde, and follow Ayelosa on Instagram

00:05:46.180 at Got2BeOcean. Walter Rucker wrote,

00:05:50.180 Among slaves at least, conjurers were respected not solely because of the apprehension of their

00:05:55.620 powers inspired. In the words of W.E.B. Dubois, these spiritualists had multifaceted and

00:06:02.540 multidimensional functions in the slave community. At any given time, the conjurer could be the healer

00:06:08.460 of the sick, the interpreter of the unknown, the comforter of the sorrowing, the supernatural

00:06:13.900 avenger of the wrong. It would be through many of these roles that African conjurers helped to

00:06:19.660 encourage slave resistance throughout the Americas. So, let's go through the checklist. 0.97

00:06:26.340 Healer of the sick. Check. Harriet was a Civil War nurse who used her knowledge of plants to cure

00:06:32.140 or ease discomfort. Interpreter of the unknown. Check. Harriet spoke to God and had absolute 0.92

00:06:39.000 faith in the messages she received. Comforter of the Sorrowing, check. Supernatural Avenger of the

00:06:45.660 Wrong, check, check, check, check, check. In his book, Conjuring Harriet Mama Moses Tubman,

00:06:52.080 Witch Doctor Utu says, her seemingly supernatural powers, psychic visions, incantations, and unique

00:06:58.220 cures were the stuff of a conjure woman. She continued to be an almost ghost-like entity to

00:07:04.300 those in the slave states who feared her and her supernatural ways. She was known to come out of

00:07:10.280 her trances and dreams with knowledge of an ambush that lay in wait and change course, and they would

00:07:15.520 come to find out later that there had indeed been an ambush waiting. Divining by animal activity,

00:07:21.320 clouds, rocks, and bones, as well as her dreams and visions, she reputedly carried a gourd as a

00:07:27.140 container housing roots and herbs that she would shake in certain times of need. Utu wrote of

00:07:32.540 Harriot's lifetime, an entire continent was divided when it came to slavery. And I had to

00:07:38.900 stop here and lay the book down on the table when I read this line, because it reverberated in such

00:07:44.340 a contemporary way. I feel crazy when I look around and I see how polarized our society is.

00:07:50.580 Then I remember that in 1861, there were enough Americans against the abolition of slavery that

00:07:56.920 were willing to fight against their own countrymen to protect their right to own slaves to start a

00:08:02.400 civil war that would go on for years. Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th illustrates how,

00:08:08.460 with the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery in America did not end, but rather was renamed,

00:08:15.380 repackaged into mass incarceration. The New York Times podcast series 1619 examines the

00:08:22.800 long shadow of American slavery. Both are excellent resources to understand how this

00:08:28.200 history informs our present. In 2020, as we mourn George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, when we had not yet

00:08:35.740 finished mourning Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Fred Hampton, we still need to say Black

00:08:43.760 Lives Matter, and when we do, we are painted as radicals. When we point out injustice, we are

00:08:49.540 snowflakes. So let's conjure Minty, who just did what her gut told her was right, who helped people,

00:08:56.400 who was brave and never gave up hope or the fight. She used the North Star as a literal and

00:09:02.480 metaphorical guide. So when we witches need to snatch some hope from the baffling despair of

00:09:07.720 this twenty-fucking-twenty, we can look there too. Utu writes, 0.92

00:09:13.640 The North Star was sung to and wished upon as the great navigator those on the Underground Railroad

00:09:19.500 looked to to guide them out of bondage and point the way north. To stand beneath and draw the light

00:09:25.240 of the North Star down upon us is a central sacred work with the spirits of the Underground Railroad.

00:09:31.940 The North Star is a mirror that still reflects back to us the very eyes of those who gazed,

00:09:37.400 up toward it in prayer, vow, panic, and for some, eventual joy. For many who fled on the tracks of

00:09:45.020 freedom, this was the only aid they had. No other codes, mysteries, or promise of friends waiting

00:09:50.540 farther down the line was there for them to hold on to. Just the hope that somehow it would all

00:09:56.480 work out. The North Star was the encourager to keep going, the comforter from above. A devoted

00:10:03.660 eye of the ancestors looking down upon their people with love. This holiest celestial mystery,

00:10:11.460 definitive of the Underground Railroad and its legacy. The North Star's ability to house and

00:10:16.960 reflect back to us that which was conjured into it. Yes, the freedom seeker used it to navigate.

00:10:23.420 It was a symbol and code among friends and supporters, immortalized as a holy light for

00:10:28.220 those greatest achievements of self-emancipation ever known. But it was also a mirror, and a mirror

00:10:34.100 retains all that it captures. For every victorious moment of a freedom seeker standing upon his or

00:10:40.760 her metaphorical land of Canaan across the borderline of the River Jordan gazing upon her

00:10:46.700 with unfathomable joy, there is also sadness, too. How does one find words to describe the

00:10:53.560 level of sadness and tragedy retained and reflected back? We can look at the North Star

00:11:00.160 with dry eyes and praise its heavenly light and all that it stood for, but all her mysteries must

00:11:05.700 be grappled with for she also captures forever the last moments of those who were not successful

00:11:11.940 whose tear-filled eyes gazed one last time at their comforter before their life was stolen away

00:11:20.900 so there in the sky my witches the north star acknowledges pain and still encourages us to move

00:11:28.580 forward it was there before gender reveal party wildfires or covet 19 or racism it was there

00:11:35.060 before industry, war, or even greed. It is that self-same star that shone on Minty as she won the

00:11:42.420 freedom of her brethren that shines on us today. It is still there if we look up. When Minty had

00:11:49.520 first successfully fought and found her way to a form of freedom, so not like safety, of course,

00:11:55.300 but in less peril, when she had successfully done that, she decided to turn around, go back,

00:12:02.040 and show others the way. Human North Star that she was. I gotta ask, how many of us,

00:12:09.100 after a hard-fought battle, go straight back into danger?

00:12:13.720 I'm going to hop around on the timeline here, because while most of us picture Harriet skulking

00:12:18.600 through the woods by moonlight, which she did do, and there's definitely an air of witchcraft in

00:12:23.080 that, she also led military battles, earning the sobriquet General Tubman from freedom fighter

00:12:29.920 John Brown. When he needed to feel her presence, he would call out her name three times as invocation

00:12:35.960 Harriet Tubman, Harriet Tubman, Harriet Tubman. In one instance, Minty led a Union gunship's

00:12:43.380 successful Confederate raid on the Comhe River. As Erica Armstrong Dunbar describes in her book,

00:12:49.020 She Came to Slay the Life and Times of Harriet Tubman, eventually Minty came to liken her

00:12:54.280 rescuing of individuals to removing grains of sand from a beach. With the

00:12:59.020 Civil War, she saw an opportunity to clear the whole beach forever. Erika

00:13:03.740 Armstrong Dunbar wrote, and I'm just gonna read you this paragraph and let it

00:13:07.620 hang in the air for you to draw your own subtext. Erika wrote, Harriet's raid on

00:13:13.780 the Komuhi dealt a devastating blow to Confederacy, causing nearly two million

00:13:18.380 dollars in property damage and the loss of hundreds of slaves. Harriet became the 0.87

00:13:23.640 first woman, black or white, to plan and lead an armed military expedition during the Civil War.

00:13:29.740 Her strategy supported a form of combat new to the Civil War, a type of scorched earth warfare

00:13:35.240 that left nothing to chance. In Harriet's mind, everything about slavery needed to be destroyed,

00:13:41.360 and she felt no pity over the loss of property or Confederate life. Having come face to face

00:13:47.000 with their cruelty, she knew that Southern slaveholders would never voluntarily end human 0.94

00:13:51.900 bondage. They would need to be cancelled out. Black troops stared into the faces of Confederate 0.83

00:13:58.140 soldiers with a fierce preparedness, reminding everyone, from the cooks in the Union camps

00:14:03.920 up to Abraham Lincoln, that they were more than able to fight. They were hungry for victory,

00:14:10.680 and under Harriet's leadership, they would find it. Let's get back to Minty the Witch.

00:14:17.460 Harriet was a shapeshifter and a master of disguise. 0.98

00:14:21.080 To evade bounty hunters, she would dress as an old woman or farm laborer, in drag as a man. 1.00

00:14:26.280 She would hold a newspaper in front of her face, not just to shield her infamous visage, 0.99

00:14:30.720 but also because it was well known that the outlaw could not read. 1.00

00:14:34.980 Now, here's a great place to stop for a patented missing witches tangent to rage a little bit about intellectual superiority.

00:14:42.380 It's pretentious, obnoxious, and arrogant to think that you can determine a person's worth

00:14:47.040 by their level of fancy book learning, or determine their intelligence by their proper

00:14:51.780 or improper use of grammar. I'll go one step further. It's classist and racist and sexist.

00:14:58.400 Poor people, people of color, women have historically been kept out of formal education,

00:15:03.280 but this did not stop them from having knowledge of their own. And maybe more importantly,

00:15:07.760 ideas. Don't get me wrong, I'm a language junkie, and when I was a kid, I was a little shit and a 0.98

00:15:14.860 real stickler for proper grammar, a condescending nine-year-old brat who wanted to prove that I was 0.99

00:15:20.160 not only smart, but smarter than you. Thanks be to the great unknown, I grew out of that

00:15:26.580 pretentious way of thinking. But guess what? Some people never do. But guess what else? Emoji are

00:15:32.600 a language. Aave is a language. Oral traditions, obviously, the whole starting point. Language is 0.95

00:15:40.040 a living thing whose rules, beyond those of clear communication, are arbitrary. To think otherwise

00:15:47.020 is what fancy book learners call linguistic discrimination. So for me, if your ideas are

00:15:52.940 good, I don't give a fuck if your participle is dangling. I'd be crazy to care, because Harriet 0.97

00:15:58.840 tubman could not read and yet there is no doubt in my mind that she was smarter braver more

00:16:05.200 knowledgeable and more magical than i could ever hope to be no matter how many letters i acquire

00:16:09.940 after my name listen now witches if you ever think or dear lord forbid if anyone ever tells

00:16:16.940 you that you're not educated enough to make a difference that your vocabulary is not grand 0.99

00:16:21.820 enough for your voice to have value you know the type can be found dismissively saying shit like 0.99

00:16:26.680 oh, you've never read Dostoevsky, remind them and yourself that Harriet Tubman could not read. 0.96

00:16:35.860 And yet, ideas. Maybe you haven't read a ton of books. Maybe you're the next Harriet Tubman.

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00:17:57.060 Whether or not you believe in deities,

00:17:59.520 faith in something outside yourself can give you courage

00:18:02.220 that you might not otherwise be able to muster.

00:18:04.800 I've said before that faith is the opposite of anxiety.

00:18:07.600 The overarching sense that with faith, things will be okay.

00:18:11.160 Or conversely, with anxiety, definitely not okay.

00:18:15.580 But Minty's faith empowered her.

00:18:17.180 Friend and abolitionist Thomas Garrett said of her,

00:18:20.420 I never met any person of any color who had more confidence in the voice of God.

00:18:25.900 So her faith empowered her, and then she, in turn, empowered others.

00:18:29.520 As her story spread, and tales were spun and respun,

00:18:33.280 this renown grew her supernatural reputation,

00:18:36.360 inspiring other enslaved people to have capital F faith in her,

00:18:40.480 and hope for their freedom.

00:18:42.120 faith and hope are like that they spread and grow exponentially on the freedom trails of the

00:18:49.680 underground railroad minty found safe passageways through seemingly impenetrable forests and rivers

00:18:55.140 the old testament tells that god chose moses to lead the israelites out of slavery in egypt and

00:19:01.140 into the land of canaan the promised land one of moses most legendary acts was the parting of the

00:19:06.640 Red Sea, where he, and God, moved the waters to create a path for the Israelites to walk to

00:19:13.660 freedom. So you can see how easily Minty's friend, abolitionist, and suffragist William Lloyd Garrison

00:19:19.080 was able to draw parallels between these stories, giving Minty the nickname Moses. Mama Moses.

00:19:26.280 She was also sometimes known as Black Moses, but as we'll get into a little later, the OG Moses was

00:19:31.360 most likely also black, so I prefer Mama. As W. E. B. Dubois wrote, one of the characteristics of

00:19:37.940 Magical Mystical Conjure Women is to be a, quote, healer of the sick. Erika Armstrong Dunbar describes 0.90

00:19:44.460 how Minty used her knowledge of plants and roots to rise through the ranks of the Union Army.

00:19:49.880 Erika wrote, she gained trust by performing some of the most important work among the soldiers and

00:19:55.320 the freedmen. She was drafted to nurse the sick and console the dying. Harriet was assigned to

00:20:00.040 work with Dr. Henry K. Durant, a physician and medical director of the Freedman's Hospital in

00:20:06.060 Port Royal, where she witnessed unimaginable suffering. More men would die of disease than

00:20:11.540 bullets during the war, as yellow fever and cholera turned healthy men into mere shadows of themselves.

00:20:17.700 Dysentery wreaked havoc in the intestines of men who languished in unsanitary conditions,

00:20:22.920 as flies, feces, and food, carried germs that wiped out entire regiments and caused devastation

00:20:30.320 among the civilian population. There were only a handful of available medications that treated

00:20:35.260 diseases, so the sick depended on botanical concoctions. Harriet would have collected 0.97

00:20:40.840 blackberries and brewed chamomile tea to soothe inflamed bowels. She also remembered that

00:20:46.140 paragoric, which she used to drug fugitive babies, served as an antidiarrheal. Appreciated for her

00:20:52.620 knowledge of herbal remedies, Harriet continued to gain the trust and admiration of the freedmen

00:20:56.980 and freedwomen around the camp. Among the formerly enslaved, her knowledge carried more weight than

00:21:03.140 the advice of Dr. Durong. She was well known for her underground leadership, but in the camps,

00:21:09.220 she became legendary for her medical care. If you're particularly interested in this

00:21:14.500 relationship between witch and nurse, I, for probably the hundredth time on this podcast,

00:21:19.000 recommend Witches, Midwives, and Nurses by Deirdre English and Barbara Ironreich. Minty said,

00:21:24.640 I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that's what I've always prayed for

00:21:30.100 ever since. My family used to say, don't ask God for a lighter load, ask for a stronger back.

00:21:38.080 Because here's the thing, terrible stuff is probably going to happen and we can't control it.

00:21:42.420 what we can control is our faith in ourselves to withstand. A strong back will carry whatever load

00:21:49.140 and keep walking. As Harriet kept walking, her most major talisman was the Bible.

00:21:56.060 For those of you who are just learning about the craft through this podcast, a talisman is pretty

00:21:59.720 much just any object that you believe has special power. A good luck charm. Utu wrote, and I love

00:22:05.320 this so much, Tubman took most of her biblical inspiration from the Old Testament with its focus

00:22:12.000 on deliverance and was not fond of the narrative contained in the New Testament, feeling it

00:22:16.800 promoted obedience among the enslaved. Ah, very shrewd, Minty. Let's examine something from Jesus'

00:22:23.640 most famous speech, the Sermon on the Mount, where he said,

00:22:26.720 If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants

00:22:32.100 to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. So we can view this as a beautiful

00:22:38.420 statement of pacifism, non-violence, zen, and the absence of greed, but we also clearly see how

00:22:43.920 words like this could be easily manipulated by slave traders to imply that submission to

00:22:48.660 oppression is the only path to salvation. I grew up in the church. I was in the choir and the youth

00:22:54.700 group. I did the 40-hour famine on Christian retreats. I was lucky we were Presbyterian, 0.97

00:23:00.020 not fanatical. My mom is a Christian to the core, but she's progressive, feminist. But she's also 0.94

00:23:06.320 been brainwashed into a sense of christian superiority that muslims are good people but

00:23:11.140 sadly they won't get into heaven that hers is the way the truth and the light that the only way 0.90

00:23:17.260 into heaven is to formally accept jesus christ into your heart and so on and so on and so on

00:23:22.140 as she gets older and her memory fades and her body breaks down she clings more and more to her

00:23:27.980 faith she prays and prays and prays because according to her rules and regulations i'm not

00:23:33.920 going to heaven either. I ask how it could be heaven if your most loved loved ones can't be

00:23:40.060 there with you. For this, she has no answer. My mom understands that I didn't leave the church

00:23:46.860 because of Christ. I left because of Christians. I came of age during the AIDS crisis and found it 0.78

00:23:53.040 impossible to justify turning your back on your children or the sick because Leviticus kind of 0.98

00:23:57.840 hints that being gay is abomination. The Christ that lived in my heart was not this. I found it 0.97

00:24:04.180 impossible to justify an allegiance to anyone who would invoke his name to protest women's rights.

00:24:09.480 I began to see missionaries not as saviors, but as the frontline of colonialism, a Trojan horse

00:24:14.940 shaped like love and forgiveness with extermination hidden inside. So I quit the church

00:24:21.400 and joined Amnesty International and the local AIDS committee. The goal was to be less Christian, 1.00

00:24:27.840 and more Christ-like. My mother understands all this, but she still thinks I'm going to hell.

00:24:35.440 Nonetheless, because of my upbringing, Jesus is my default deity. When I'm in agony,

00:24:40.140 his is the name I instinctually beg for relief. It took some time, but I no longer feel conflicted

00:24:46.040 about my Christian heritage, having decided that Jesus was a witch, a conjureman who overturned 0.52

00:24:51.120 the moneylenders' tables in the temples and befriended outcasts. And yet, it remained difficult

00:24:56.300 for me to envision the Bible as anything more than a tool for white supremacy and religious 0.65

00:25:00.500 hegemony. And then I met Harriet Tubman, and through her, I met the Bible again. Because 0.67

00:25:08.280 Harriet had a direct line with God, she didn't need to believe the preachers who told her that

00:25:12.780 submission was the path to heaven. She spoke to God without the need for self-interested translators.

00:25:19.420 Still, there's a lot of Christian media that will tout Minty's image and quote her reverence for

00:25:23.960 the Lord, it got to the point where I wondered how Minty would feel about me placing her in

00:25:28.860 this pantheon of magical, mystical, powerful, missing witches. After all, Exodus 22.18 does

00:25:35.760 say, thou shalt not suffer, witch to live. And then I remembered something, and every bit of 0.92

00:25:41.000 this story fell into place. If you practice conjurer or hoodoo, maybe you've been listening

00:25:46.060 and thinking this all along. In Mules and Men, Zora Neale Hurston wrote,

00:25:50.320 all hold that the Bible is the great conjure book of the world. And there it was. I was looking

00:25:57.480 outside of her Christianity for Harriet's witchcraft, but it turns out that the Bible 0.85

00:26:01.300 was her spell book all along, as it is for many. So I went looking and found Sherry Shone,

00:26:08.660 aka That Hoodoo Lady, and her book, The Hoodoo Guide to the Bible. You'll meet Sherry on our

00:26:14.060 next episode in a couple days and fall in love with her like I did, I'm sure. So I'll keep the

00:26:19.060 discussion of her book somewhat brief here. I'll just read you a few choice excerpts that we'll

00:26:23.720 return to in our interview later this week. Sherry wrote, In the beginning, there was Africa.

00:26:30.100 According to historians, the cradle of civilization, Africa, began forming agriculture around 6,000

00:26:36.740 years before Common Era BCE. The book, The Africans Who Wrote the Bible, by author Nanabanchi

00:26:43.080 Darqua carefully guides the readers to understand that there are well-known fallacies of Bible

00:26:49.260 knowledge. The Bible that is known as Jewish Hebrew came from generations of Africans.

00:26:55.960 Systematic politics and racism caused 2,000 years of miseducation of our religious leaders because

00:27:01.680 they did not want the Bible origins to have started with African roots. However, if you

00:27:07.100 consider that even the names of biblical characters such as Adonai and Yahweh are African names,

00:27:12.660 you may see the truth. Even Adam, yes, that Adam, was African. His death is said to have occurred 0.99

00:27:20.560 in 3045 BCE. Can you imagine him having a European name of Adam 3,000 years ago in BCE Africa?

00:27:29.220 Neither can I. Sherry goes on. Noah's flood around 2300 BCE had to have occurred in Africa and with

00:27:38.100 Africans of darker color. King Solomon in the Bible is described in chapter 1, verse 5, Song of

00:27:44.820 Solomon. I am black. I am black because the sun hath looked upon me. Sherry says, if Solomon was

00:27:56.580 black, then all those before him were as well. And elsewhere, Sherry writes, I have come to

00:28:03.320 appreciate the magic of simplicity. I use common ingredients for uncommonly good results.

00:28:09.120 The slaves that held to the beliefs of their native land knew in their hearts and spirits

00:28:14.120 that their ancestors would provide them everything they needed. They looked for medicinal remedies

00:28:19.400 in trees, plants, seeds, roots, and animals. These same beliefs transferred to Africans who came to

00:28:26.560 America and began their path in the southern states. They brought the traditions of their

00:28:30.940 native religions and merged them with new belief systems of their owners. For the slaves on the

00:28:35.580 property, they used their knowledge of roots and herbs and combined them with chants, prayers,

00:28:40.420 and Bible verses. Sherry Shone, that hoodoo lady, also writes that the Bible is one of these common

00:28:47.140 ingredients, available in many homes, most hotel rooms, any bookshop. For those of you, and I'm

00:28:54.640 especially looking at our queer, slutty, or otherwise blasphemous Coven members here who 1.00

00:29:00.280 felt personally victimized by the Bible and rightfully cry out, fuck that Bible noise, 1.00

00:29:07.980 Sherry and her wife have something for you too. Sherry has a magic that she calls turning a 0.99

00:29:14.740 hurtful Bible verse into a helpful exercise. I'm all for reclaiming and recontextualizing

00:29:20.660 things that used to hurt us, so I hope you'll all come back for Wednesday's episode where I

00:29:24.180 speak to Sherry herself specifically about reframing and reclaiming this book that may

00:29:29.800 have hurt us. In her book, Black Magic, Évan Chirot, whom you heard in an interview with Risa

00:29:36.160 on the podcast earlier this season, reminds us that it was not unusual for practitioners of

00:29:41.420 Conjure to profess their simultaneous commitment to Christianity. One of my favorite rappers,

00:29:47.820 KRS-One, has his own take on the Bible. In a freestyle, he said, and don't worry, I'm not

00:29:53.600 going to wrap, but I did transcribe this from the audio, so definitely hit me up if I got something

00:29:58.420 wrong here. KRS-One said, listen to the lyric. We are the ones prophesied to return. My main

00:30:06.100 concern is for all of you to learn how to live. Yes, through the lyrics I give and send, my friend,

00:30:11.580 this age is coming to an end. Not the world, but the age is ending. Listen to the astrological

00:30:17.400 message I'm sending. Truth is truth, whether or not you like me. We are living now in the age of

00:30:22.760 Pisces, but Pisces is over at the year 2000 when the Son of God changes his house and enters the

00:30:28.440 age of Aquarius. The Son of God as man is hilarious. When you think of Jesus, think of the

00:30:35.400 sun. The flaming sun, that's where they stole this concept from. Stop believing and read your Bible

00:30:41.060 logically. The New Testament is really old astrology. Jesus is the Son of God, no lie, but

00:30:46.840 they might be talking about the sun up in the sky. The sun. It hangs on the cross of the zodiac,

00:30:53.480 the zodiac with 12 signs to be exact. Each sign is a house, and you should keep in mind,

00:30:59.440 each house equals a period of time. The time 2,000 years, and that's a fact, it's called an age or a

00:31:05.200 house in the zodiac. The 12 disciples are 12 months of reason. The four gospels signify the

00:31:10.720 four seasons. When Jesus fed the multitude with two fishes, it signified the age of Pisces,

00:31:15.940 not fish on dishes. If you read the Bible astrologically, it's clearer. The next age

00:31:21.940 will be the age of the water bearer. It's called the age of Aquarius, when logic and truth will

00:31:26.920 take care of us. So in this age of spiritual dignity, you'll see a rise in femininity and 0.86

00:31:33.180 creativity meshed with masculinity. You've got to get with me. This is your true herstory.

00:31:38.340 so that's what who knew he was a witch krs1 thinks you can find his vastly superior performance of

00:31:47.280 these words in the show notes for this episode or by searching fourth quarter free throws on youtube

00:31:52.400 back to harriet asked whether she would actually kill a reluctant escapee she replied yes if he

00:32:00.600 was weak enough to give out he'd be weak enough to betray us all and all who had helped us and

00:32:06.440 do you think I'd let so many die just for one coward man? According to her biographer Earl

00:32:12.500 Conrad, she said, you go on or you die. One way or another, you'll be free. That said, she never

00:32:21.100 lost a single freedom seeker. Not one person died or was lost on her watch. So I encourage you to be

00:32:28.100 the town bitch, which, if it's for a good cause, don't let politeness get in your way. There's a 1.00

00:32:33.520 great quote in the TV show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, I'm always amazed at what women will do 1.00

00:32:38.300 because they're afraid of being rude. So for the greater good, my witches, with Minty in mind, be 0.96

00:32:44.380 rude. Don't wait for the approval of cowards. Speaking of politeness, I'm Canadian, so sorry 1.00

00:32:52.240 about it. I can't let y'all get away before we talk about Minty's time in Canada. First thing,

00:32:57.580 Minty settled in a town called St. Catharines in Ontario. Now, I grew up just a couple hours drive

00:33:02.420 from St. Catharines, but I didn't know this. It's worth noting that Witch Doctor Utu, whose book

00:33:06.920 I've been quoting, lives in St. Catharines, so I want to thank him again for shouting all this

00:33:11.020 information from his St. Catharines rooftop. Now, imagine something. You're a freedom seeker.

00:33:18.440 You've walked hundreds of miles from the south, hunted and afraid. Finally, you reach Canada,

00:33:25.280 but instead of milk and honey, you find snow and ice. Erica Armstrong Dunbar wrote,

00:33:32.420 Many runaways eventually found work as labourers and servants for the affluent families or as

00:33:36.940 cooks and maids for local hotels. But getting their new lives on track would prove far from

00:33:41.680 easy. When Harriet and her followers arrived at St. Catharines, they were without proper food or

00:33:47.600 clothing to get them through the difficult winter. They struggled to find housing and security and

00:33:52.420 were relegated to the same kinds of difficult agriculture and manual labour that they had known

00:33:57.220 all too well. Except this time, they had to complete their tasks in blinding snowstorms

00:34:03.440 and frigid temperatures. They tried to ignore the prickling feeling in their fingers and toes as

00:34:08.480 they chopped wood in the icy forests of Ontario, but surviving the cold proved extremely challenging.

00:34:15.100 Their exposed faces left noses and cheeks vulnerable to frostbite as they chopped and

00:34:20.160 collected cords of wood to be sold at market. Frostbitten toes and ears turned white and

00:34:25.480 quickly developed fluid-filled blisters that burned like fire. The fugitives would have learned that

00:34:31.020 in severe cases, frostbite could turn the skin black and deaden the tissue. Toes and fingers

00:34:36.400 would simply fall off, leaving a person disabled for life. These were hard lessons to learn,

00:34:42.560 lessons that might have made the runaways reconsider the journey they'd made from the

00:34:47.120 eastern shore. Homesickness presented these new Canadians with another set of challenges,

00:34:51.640 memories of parents, children, spouses, and friends who remained in Maryland

00:34:55.840 haunted the men and women who took a chance with Harriet,

00:34:59.260 and they mourned their losses while balancing new survival strategies.

00:35:03.960 They also had to embrace the reality that they were free from slavery,

00:35:07.700 but still bound by racism,

00:35:09.260 which caused Harriet and her band of newcomers to tread lightly on their new land.

00:35:13.820 But here's how we know that they wouldn't trade anything for their journey.

00:35:18.700 No matter how homesick, tired, regretful, or hungry they may have been,

00:35:24.380 none of them ever returned to the farms that exploited their bodies as beasts of burden.

00:35:29.960 Harriet stated later in her life,

00:35:32.080 I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.

00:35:40.340 Harriet remained with her brother in St. Catharines during the winter of 1852,

00:35:44.200 too, surviving the season with the help of local friends and allies who were committed to helping

00:35:48.260 fugitives. Her niece, Kasaya, whom she had rescued, and Kasaya's husband, John Bowley, also left

00:35:55.420 Philadelphia and traveled north to resettle in Canada with their family members. By spring,

00:36:01.240 Harriet had recovered her energy and was ready to head back to the United States to make some money

00:36:05.620 and plan additional trips back to Maryland. Her network in Philadelphia helped her find work,

00:36:10.940 and she headed back down to the resort town of Cape May, New Jersey, to work as a cook for wealthy

00:36:16.640 white families. When she had saved enough money and the autumn leaves had started to fall, Harriet

00:36:21.980 planned her next rescue and returned to the eastern shore of Maryland yet again. We don't 0.96

00:36:29.160 know the names of those she helped, but Harriet returned to Canada with nine more fugitives.

00:36:34.340 This became a pattern for the conductor. She would work during the summer and save as much

00:36:38.360 money as possible. At some point during the fall, she would travel back to Maryland to save another

00:36:42.660 group of runaways. By 1854, Harriet had made at least five trips back to the eastern shore and

00:36:48.820 had rescued close to 30 enslaved people. During the winter, the conductor pulled off one of her

00:36:54.480 most daring rescues. She arranged to bring her brothers Henry, Benjamin, and Robert Ross out of

00:37:01.000 slavery and into the safety of Canada. Harriet the slave, the runaway, the savior, the nurse,

00:37:10.300 the soldier, the spy, the general, the legend, the witch, succumbed to pneumonia on March 10th,

00:37:17.760 1913, surrounded by friends and family. Shortly before her death, her final words,

00:37:23.560 as quoted by the Auburn citizen on March 11th, were, I go to prepare a place for you.

00:37:30.380 Mama Moses was buried with semi-military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York,

00:37:35.760 and her grave is a place of pilgrimage and a veritable shrine.

00:37:41.760 I go to prepare a place for you, she said.

00:37:46.040 We give praise and thanks to the ancestors a lot around here,

00:37:49.560 but Minty reminds us that as activists, as gardeners and artists and organizers,

00:37:54.800 we are giving thanks and praise and blessings to the descendants as well.

00:37:59.620 We are preparing a place, planting trees and ideas that we might not live to see fully bloomed.

00:38:06.180 We keep pushing, and if we can't score, hopefully we've inched the ball a little closer to the goal for our team.

00:38:14.640 In the movie version Harriet from 2019, Minty arrives in Philadelphia and is advised on how to blend in with the legally free people.

00:38:23.200 Don't be afraid. There are plenty of us here. Walk like you've got a right to.

00:38:28.060 And I think that's good advice for us too, my witches. Don't be afraid. There are plenty of

00:38:33.600 us here. Walk like you've got a right to. Harriet said, every great dream begins with a dreamer.

00:38:40.960 Always remember you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the

00:38:46.220 stars and change the world. As you go off about planning your future, dreaming your dreams,

00:38:52.180 and preparing a place, take a moment first, tonight, to find and reach for the North Star,

00:38:58.840 or put your face north into the sky. Whisper your hopes and goals to the stars, and let part of your

00:39:04.200 wish be to clear a path that makes the walk easier for everyone who comes after. If you pry open a

00:39:10.300 door, hold it ajar and go back for the next witch, or send a map and tell them how to get there.

00:39:15.800 As Amanda Yates Garcia wrote in our travels through the underworld, witches become map makers. 0.69

00:39:22.180 So make a map. Believe in yourself or believe in something else and let that faith empower you.

00:39:27.500 Strike a deal with the North Star. I'll shine if you will.

00:39:33.040 Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength,

00:39:38.740 the patience, and the passion. Reach for the stars to change the world.

00:39:46.680 You must be a witch.

00:39:48.180 This episode of the Missing Witches podcast was written and performed by Amy Torek.

00:39:53.340 Music and editing by Amy Torek.

00:39:55.580 Thanks again to our sponsor, Foxglove Farm.

00:39:57.700 Don't forget to use our offer code MISSINGWITCHES for 13% off your order.

00:40:02.460 Or make a contribution to their wildlife rescue, Out of the Woods.

00:40:06.920 Find your witchy wellness at Foxglove Farm.

00:40:08.960 That's farm like pharmacy with a PH dot com.

00:40:11.580 You can also support Missing Witches on Patreon at patreon.com slash missingwitches.

00:40:16.400 And, coming soon, Missing Witches t-shirts on TeePublic.

00:40:21.900 And please, please consider pre-ordering our upcoming book,

00:40:27.020 Missing Witches, by Risa Dickens and Amy Torek, published by North Atlantic Books.

Missing Witches - October 04, 2020

MW Harriet Tubman： Reach For The Stars To Change The World

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