Also called brick dust, red dust, reddening, red brick dust protection
Powdered red brick laid across a doorstep or around a property, a hoodoo protection meant to stop anyone with bad intentions, or any trick laid down for you, from crossing into the home.
TraditionAfrican American hoodoo
RegionSouthern United States, strongly associated with New Orleans
Era20th century to present
Moon◐ Any moon
DayMonday, Wednesday or Friday
ElementEarth
Difficulty●○○ Simple
Time30 minutes
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
The working
Put on the mask and glasses. Wrap the brick in the towel inside the bag and break it into small pieces with the hammer, outdoors.
Grind the pieces to a powder and sift out the grit. Store the fine red dust in the labeled jar.
Early in the morning, on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, before you speak to anyone, scrub your doorstep with the salted water, working from the inside outward.
When the step is dry, sprinkle a thin, unbroken line of brick dust across it from one side of the door frame to the other.
As you lay it, say what may not pass: no harm, no ill will and no trouble may cross this line.
For a stronger job, lay a thin line along the property edge or under windowsills too.
Renew the line after rain or heavy foot traffic. Sweep old dust outward, away from the house.
Take care: Grinding brick produces silica dust, which is harmful to breathe; wear a mask, work outdoors and dampen the dust if it starts to blow. Brick dust stains pale stone and fabric, so test a small spot first.
Versions across time and place
i
Dawn doorstep scrub
Hoodoo, as recorded by Catherine Yronwode · 20th century
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, rise before dawn without speaking to anyone, wash the doorstep with your own urine in a bucket of water, and when it dries sprinkle brick dust across the step. Urine was a common personal link in old protective magic; salt water is a cleaner modern substitute.
Uses: bucket of water, urine (historically), red brick dust
Recorded in: Catherine Yronwode, Red Brick Dust, Herb Magic (Lucky Mojo Curio Co.)
ii
Brick dust in a floor wash
Present-day New Orleans spiritual shops · Contemporary
Shops in the French Quarter describe an old custom of cleaning front steps with brick dust to keep out negative people, and suggest stirring a spoonful into a bucket of floor wash to cover a larger area. We could not find this New Orleans custom in an early printed source, so treat its age as uncertain.
Recorded in: Descriptions by New Orleans botanicas and voodoo shops; no early printed account found
History
Red brick dust is one of the cheapest and most local of hoodoo materials, made by grinding an ordinary fired clay brick. Catherine Yronwode, in her Herb Magic pages and her book Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic, connects it to the ancient sacred use of red ochre and lists it chiefly for protection: a red line across the door that enemies and their tricks cannot cross.
Today the practice is closely tied to New Orleans in popular writing and in local shops, and many people link it to Marie Laveau, though no documentary evidence connects her to it. The written record we could confirm is mostly 20th-century and later, so this is best seen as a living Southern custom whose earlier history is passed down orally rather than in print. It sits alongside other hoodoo doorstep washes using salt, pepper and herbs.
