Hot foot powder is used in African American hoodoo folk magic to drive unwanted people away. It is a mixture of herbs and minerals, virtually always including cayenne pepper, and usually other ingredients such as sulfur, black pepper, graveyard dirt, bluestone, gunpowder or salt.
It shares certain common uses with the Mexican sal negro or "black salt." It also shows some overlapping uses with Goofer Dust, which also is known to create restlessness and drive people away.
Harry M. Hyatt collected several recipes and spells for hot foot powder. Some modes of deploying hot foot collected by him include secreting a small amount into the victim's shoes or clothing, mixing it with a victim's foottrack, or placing a paper with the victim's name into a bottle with hot foot powder and disposing of it in a river.
In the 1930s song "Hell-Hound on My Trail," the famous blues musician Robert Johnson said, "You sprinkled hot foot powder all around your daddy's door / it keep me with ramblin' mind, rider, every old place I go." In 2000, the British rock guitarist Peter Green released a CD called "Hot Foot Powder," containing 13 covers of songs written by Robert Johnson.
Famous quotes containing the words hot, foot and/or powder:
“They was givin’ me ten thousand watts a day, you know, and I’m hot to trot. Next woman takes me on gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars.”
—Laurence Hauben, U.S. screenwriter, Bo Goldman, and Milos Forman. Randall McMurphy (Jack Nicholson)
“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come out like gold. My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured in my bosom the words of his mouth.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 23:10-12.
Job, of God.
“Despite my asbestos gloves,
the cough is filling me with black,
and a red powder seeps through my veins....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)