Conjure
The older African American word for working magic, applied to the practitioner, the practice and the harm it could cause or cure.
Also: conjuration, conjure man, conjure woman, tricking
In African American speech, to conjure meant to work magic, and a conjure man or conjure woman was a practitioner trusted for protection and healing, and feared for the possibility of harm. In accounts from the nineteenth century, the descendants of enslaved people recalled such figures as advisers, healers and keepers of community justice. The scholar Yvonne Chireau has argued that conjure gave people a sense of power under extreme conditions. Words such as rootwork and hoodoo describe closely related traditions, and regional names vary: in the Gullah Lowcountry, people speak of root doctors. Writers treat it as an ethical system in which retribution and protection were central, as well as a set of techniques.