Hot foot powder
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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."[citation needed] 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."[citation needed] In 2000, the British rock guitarist Peter Green released a CD called "Hot Foot Powder," containing 13 covers of songs written by Robert Johnson.
