The Power of Houdou

Hurston recorded a number of stories about the power of Houdou. A few have something else, a visceral, real-world tone that makes it really difficult to immediately dismiss them. And one of those stories is about a very bad man. John Wesley Roberts was what you might call a rake. He had been traveling around the country from New York to Chicago and onwards. Man had eventually arrived in Orange County, where he took a job at a hotel there. While he worked there, he played the field by using women for his own gain. When Janie got pregnant, she thought they would get married but soon realized how wrong she was. She went looking for Old Man Massey