After a black cat is caught, it is almost universally boiled alive in a pot of water at midnight, so that its bones may be more easily looked over by the practitioner. One particular bone, special to each individual cat, contains all the magical efficacy alone. This part of the ritual comes from the European magical text, the
Book of Saint Cyprian. A variety of rituals and methods are used to determine which bone is the right one, and preparation before the cat's slaughter can vary according to tradition. One method of obtaining a black cat bone, described in
Zora Neale Hurston's
Mules and Men, involves a period of
fasting before the actual catching of the animal. After the standard boiling of the cat's corpse, each bone is tasted by the hoodooist, who then selects the first
bitter-tasting bone as the correct one. Another way to determine the magical bone, though it is otherwise similar in procedure, involves a
mirror. When the reflection of the bone becomes dark, the hoodoo practitioner will know that it is the right one. A variation of this method is also practiced on the
Sea Islands, where the one bone that does not reflect in the mirror is believed to be magical. Yet another method of determining which bone is the correct one is to dump all the bones into a river. The bone that floats upstream is to be considered the bone of choice. == Sale of purported "black cat bones" ==