an unusual use of white cat hair in a breakup spell

There are plenty of spells in the Hyatt material that prescribe colors of materials based on the race of the person you’re working on. In honey jar work, for instance, some practitioners say to use dark honey or syrup for a dark-skinned person and light syrup for a light skinned person (think the difference between light and dark Karo syrup). Others say to vary the color of name papers depending on the target’s skin color, along the same lines.

This spell is the only one I’ve yet encountered (that doesn’t mean they’re not out there – just means I haven’t read everything!) that varies the color of animal curios used based on the person’s skin color. Using black cat hair for various reasons is pretty common — using WHITE cat hair for the same purposes, only for a white target, is not so common.

This is from Hyatt Vol.2, pp.1375-6.

Yo’ git de hair from a dog an’ a cat – dat’s tuh make confusement into a home, yo’ know, make people live disagreeable an’ fight.

Yo’ takes de hair from a dog – if it’s white people, yo’ take it from a white dog; an’ if it’s colored, yo’ take it from a jet black dog wit no mixed hair. Yo’ take it from right between de two ears from de back part of de haid, right between de two ears of de dog – yo’ clip de hair from it.

Yo’ take a black cat, if it’s colored people’ an’ if it’s white people, yo’ take a white cat. An’ yo’ take it [hair] right middleways of his back, from de cat – right middleways of de cat’s back, an’ from de dog yo’ take it right from between his two ears, yo’ take dat hair.

Now, yo’ take de names of dose parties dat chew wanta make a disturbment to live disagreeable. Yo’ take dere name an’ yo’ write dere names nine times – a white person, white papah an’ red ink; a colored person, brown papah an’ black ink. Yo’ write dere names nine times crossways of each othah.

Yo’ take dat dog hair an’ dat cat hair an’ yo’ takes disturbment powder, confusement powder, war powder an’ yo’ place all dat togethah.

Yo’ place dat into a bottle. See, if it’s a colored person, see, it be’s in a brown bottle. Yo’ stop it up. Fo’ a white person yo’ put it in a white bottle.

Yo’ stop dat up an’ yo’ place all dat an’ dese names into dis bottle an’ yo’ take dat bottle an’ yo’ bury it to sunrise – to anywhere evah, yo’ buries it, in a field or in a yard or anything.

Let it be in de cornah where de sun rise. Fo’ instance, if de sun rise dataway [demonstrates], it have tuh be in dis cornah of dat place wit dat upside down – dat is, wit de mouth down in de ground.

An’ dat party will jis’ fight an’ fuss an’ fret – jis’ lak a cat an’ a dog.