Sounds like goofering may be the same as, or similar to, "putting a root on" on some one. In the part of North Carolina where I live, some African Americans still refer to "Root Doctors", though most of the root doctors have died out now, and I don't hear references to them as much as I used to from elderly African-Americans. In the early years of my practice, I would occasionally have an elderly African-American client say they suspected some one had laid a root on them as an explanation for their psychiatric issues, but it has been 10 years or more, now, that I have heard that said.

My ex is an herbalist, and we used to occasionally visit a couple of elderly Root Doctors, both of whom died a numberof years ago, now. They had both knowledge of healing, medicinal herbs and of "spells" rooted in hoodoo, voodoo, or other lost traditions from their African heritage.