Why, honey, y'all are talking about an asaphoedita bag. Sure-fire cure for what ails ya. Children used to have an asaphoedita bag hung around their neck to ward off colds, chills, and the plague. Must have worked because a lot of children survived and we have a population explosion now!
It is pronounced (please excuse first syllable) Ass-a-fid-ah-tah. Every granny had her own "receipt" for the concoction that went into the bag, and it seems the ladies had a contest going on to see who could make up the worst smelling batch.
By the way, you are not a Yankee. I was born in S. Illinois and Yankees are from Chicago.

My mother wore one in Kansas during the 30's so not just a Southern thing. I recently saw seeds in the spice area of one of our local stores spelled the same way. Apparently used in some indian cooking.

I'm from south Texas and y'all are ALL yankees. The southern pronunciation is ever so slightly different: ass-a-FID-a-tee.

Well now I know he wasn't just having fun with me. He said they used to put it over wood shaving or what-have-you and hang it around the neck in a bag, or even simply soak a chunk of corncob with the stuff and then string that around your neck or tie to your person somewhere. He says there is a bottle of it in his garage and will send it up as soon as he gets back, which is pretty soon since he forgot and left a window open and there's storms coming in off the Gulf.

However, I have punched in just about every spelling I know and still come up emptyhanded on the web. Not even a stub on Wikipedia.

As far as the Yankee moniker goes, after spending many summers of my childhood with relatives in Hattiesburg, MS, Ozark, AL and other such southern locales, I used to think the Mason Dixon line was ground zero and anything from north of that was not to be trusted by good southern people (first cousins exempted). Since then, however, I have realized that it's more a mindset than a geographical location. And here in the good state of Illinois (if you leave out politics), from about Springfield south we tend to bristle when someone finds you are from the Land of Lincoln and immediately says "Chicago??" Might as well be its own commonwealth or something, it's so dissimilar. They refer to us as hicks and we call them Shikeegans.

Marlingardener...where at in S. Illinois?

I hadn't heard of it but did some googling. Wikipedia spells it "Asafoetida" and has some info.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wikipedia - Asafoetida

Christie,
Thanks for the correct spelling! When I wrote the word, it didn't look right, but we're redecorating our study and I couldn't find my dictionary. Never thought of Wikipedia. I now have the correct spelling written down, and if I ever need to make an asafoetida bag, I can label it right! I should have known the "foetid" part was like "fetid", which makes a lot of sense.

I DO appreciate the input-- I knew I could get some answers here! Yes, Wikipedia is fantastic, and although I went there right away, I was not close enough with my spelling attempts and could only come up with an extinct ammonite, which I knew had to be wrong.
I can only asume that the practice we know here in America must have traveled here by way of the slaves/immigration as this is not a native plant. Of course, maybe over the years there were variations on a theme and we added our own local ingredients, though I wonder what could be found here that smells as bad. RIght now I've got a cluster of stinkhorns in the walkway that come to mind...
Regardless of how I might be assured of its efficacy, I refuse to hang ANYTHING around my neck whose nickname is "devil's s--t"!

Maybe you should try it. It might clear out some of the other stuff in your head.