Browse:"CHANNEL DE WORLD" (Volume 5, entries 10604–13458)/Part 11
"CHANNEL DE WORLD"
Volume 5, entries 10604–13458. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
1 listed entry is unavailable here.
Entries
Entry 11404
They take your fingernails and that will stop you from stealin'. Stop 'em up in a bottle an' keep it fer nine days. [Richmond (365) 302:8.]
Entry 11405
Take 9 fingernails an' take an' put 'em in a han'kahchief an' keep 'em for 9 days. They say that kin keep policemen from comin' to your house.
Entry 11406
If parched toenails are dropped into your food, they will grow in you and kill you. [Charleston 620:3.]
The short account conditionally predicts that the described toenails will grow and 'kill you'; no actual result is established.
Entry 11408
Your dead foot skin in his food, 'he's under your feet.' [Mobile 945:10.]
The short account names dead foot skin. The surrounding under-your-feet assertion remains a claim, without an identified person, verified material or established effect.
Entry 11409
Scrape soles of feet, brown on stove, and serve in food for love.
[Mobile 883:13.]
Entry 11411
Entice to love by letting person drink left-foot scrapings and salt- peter from bottle. [Mobile 874:10.]
Entry 11412
Footskin in cologne bottled and worn for love. [Wilmington 238:2+85.]
The brief account describes footskin in cologne as bottled and worn for love. It establishes neither a particular bottle nor performed preparation, wearing or a relationship effect.
Entry 11413
Add dead footskin to dough for love when making bread. [Richmond 302:9.]
The brief account names bread making in a reported love-directed instruction. Neither preparation nor a relationship effect is established.
Entry 11414
Dead skin from left foot used in food is good for love. [Wilmington 237:8+85.]
The account explicitly names dead skin from the left foot. Its use and claimed benefit for love are not established events or effects.
Entry 11415
For love use footskin in food. [Norfolk 490:4.]
The account names footskin in a stated love aim. No source person, side, performed use or relationship effect is established.
Entry 11416
Footskin with alcohol or sulphur in food is good for love. [Charles- ton, S. Car., 607:4.]
The account names alcohol or sulphur as alternatives. It establishes neither an alcohol type or composition nor actual use or a love-related effect.
Entry 11417
Skin from the bottoms of your feet and salt tossed into running water hurts you in some way or runs you crazy. [Wilmington 270:8+85.]
Entry 11418
Left footskin in bottle with soda or salt or sulphur, throw into a creek "on a high spring current" and "always after dat you'll roam about de world." [Creek here is an inlet from the sea, in the British sense, and not the American creek = brook.] [Charleston 572:3.]
Entry 11419
"If a person get de skin offen de bottom of dey feet lak dat an' [they says it would put a person to walkin'. You know, bury it, can't stay in one place." [To bury something to keep a person walking seems like a misuse of magic here, but similar rites are common in HOODOO. Intention frequently contradicts symbolism.] [Vicksburg 987:9.]
Entry 11420
"Just like you wash your feet good, take and scrape good and hard and get plenty of that scraped off. Put in a bottle or a bag, take it to the grave- yard and bury it, that will MAKE YOU "WALKIFIED, " jes' walk all the time."
[Vicksburg 1007:6.]
Entry 11421
"Soak your feet an' git dat dead skin offa dere an' dey'll take dat an' carry it an' scattah it on de outskirt of a graveyard. Why yo' couldn't be in no peace, yo'll neah [near] about go crazy, have yuh haid addled all de time, yo'll jes' be nauseatin' an' be half crazy all de time." [Charleston 575:3.]
Entry 11423
Scrape fingernails and toenails and drop into drink for love. [Mem- phis 1570:2.]
Entry 11424
Either fingernails or toenails are mixed with food for love. [Jack- sonville, 691:9.]
Entry 11425
She parches fingernails and toenails and serves in food to hold man.
[Mobile 899:3.]
Entry 11426
Put man's own fingernails and toenails in tea to keep him home.
[Charleston, S. Car., 549:3.]
Entry 11427
If you parch fingernails and toenails, put them in bread dough and bake, some say you make friends, others say you harm. [Mobile 918:5.]
The conditional account names bread dough and preserves opposed claims of friendship and harm. Neither performance nor either effect is established.
Entry 11428
If you fasten person's fingernails and toenails in a bottle, that makes this man think of you and keeps him coming to your house. [Washington, D. C., 805:11.]
The conditional account names a bottle for the nails and alleges thoughts and visits. Neither a performed act nor those effects are established.
Entry 11429
Fingernails and toenails thrown into running water drives victim crazy. [Vicksburg 1012:10.]
The source calls the alleged outcome crazy. This is a reported characterization, not an observed condition, diagnosis or established causal effect.
Entry 11430
Throw his fingernails and toenails with graveyard dirt into running water to run him crazy. [Wilmington 270:7+85.]
The account states an aim of running him crazy. The source characterization establishes neither a diagnosis, actual condition nor a causal effect.
Entry 11431
Scrape person's fingernails or toenails, fasten up, and throw into running water to keep person going. [Richmond 385:1.]
The account gives fingernails or toenails as alternatives. Its keeping-going aim remains unresolved, without an identified person, performed act or established effect.
Entry 11432
"I've heard of their takin' 'em, fingernails and toenails, an' throwin' 'em in runnin' water to keep you from keepin' any money. [My original pencil transcription attached reads: doubtful, do not use unless par. (parallel). Non- sense! I merely had a lot to learn.] [Richmond 304:2.]
Entry 11433
"You could take that fingernails and toenails and bury it and that cause to give you misery in the head." [New Orleans 1366:2.]
Entry 11434
They bury your fingernails and toenails to keep you. [Petersburg, Va., 421:6.]
The statement names burial of fingernails and toenails with a keeping aim. The people, location and intended sense of keeping remain unresolved; no performance or effect is established.
Entry 11435
Wrap victim's fingernails or toenails in red flannel [a red coffin!], bury it, make a wish, and after nine days the person will take sick, die, or go crazy. [Richmond 367:1.]
The account directs burial of nail material wrapped in red flannel. Its claimed later harms are unverified.
Entry 11436
"Dey kin take dat [fingernails and toenails] and put it in de stove an' parch it...den take it an' tie it up in a piece of rag, an' put a piece of assafitadee in it an' a little sulphur, an' dey kin bury dat aroun' de house... dat will make yo' come to dat house all de time an' yo' can't stay away."
[Mobile 951:6.]
Entry 11437
Bury toenails and fingernails in the graveyard - 'will start choo to perishin' an' stayin' sickly an' unhealthy until yo' jis' perish away to nuthin."
[Mobile 945:9.]
The account directs graveyard burial of toenails and fingernails, followed by a separate quotation claiming wasting and illness. Those effects are unverified.
Entry 11438
Fingernails and toenails stopped up runs you crazy. [Vicksburg 1002:12.]
The brief statement claims that nails being stopped up runs a person crazy. The wording and alleged effect remain unverified.
Entry 11439
"If ah would git holt of yuh fingernails or yuh toenails an' ah stop- ped dat up, an' dat could kill yuh." [Charleston 640:4.]
The quoted account names fingernails or toenails in an if/would statement and says it 'could kill yuh'; no action or effect is established.
Entry 11440
Put person's fingernails an' toenails in salt; that controls person.
[Mobile 985:4.]
The account claims control over a person through placing their nails in salt. The kind of control and any actual effect remain unestablished.
Entry 11441
Put fingernails and toenails in bottle with 9 needles and 9 pins and bury. "You will dry up and vanish away." [Washington, D. C., 827:6.]
A bottle is named for holding nails, needles and pins in a burial instruction. The separately quoted harmful outcome is unverified.
Entry 11442
Soak fingernails and toenails in whiskey 'dat dey go down to nuthin, ' pour into slow-running water, to make you useless in your hands 'like yo' para- lized in de han's." [Washington, D. C., 822:7.]
Entry 11443
They bury fingernails and toenails under the steps to kill you. [New Orleans 1313:2.]
Entry 11444
Dey kin take yore fingernails an' yore toenails, if dey kin git 'em, an' dey kin take 'em an' carry 'em an' shet [dialect variety of shoot, not from a gun, but throw them into the water with as much force as you can] 'em in [into] watah an' yo' can't stop travelin'. [Florence 2269:10.]
Entry 11445
Parch fingernails and toenails and give in food or drink for love.
[Norfolk 535:7.]
Entry 11446
"They take a thing that grows in the woods you call a pigtail [see later], an' a heart leaf [see later], an' take de fingernails an' toenails an' put it [in] that an' boil it. That's suppose to cause your hands to be ill from it." [Is pigtail informant's name for a plant looking like or having something like the slender spike of small flowers belonging to the common plantain, Plant- ago major? The meaning of heart leaf is impossible to identify among hundreds of plants having cordate leaves.]
The informant quotation reports boiling in an account involving nails and named plants. Plant identities and the supposed harmful effect remain uncertain.
Entry 11447
Dey take yore fingernails an' plant 'em down by de do' an' people walk ovah dem an' den dey throw red peppah behin' yo', see, an' keep de windous down an' keep 'em from comin' back to harm yo'.
(If I were in the house, I would plant my own fingernails down there?)
Listen, if a person is tryin' tuh harm yo', understan', yo' kin take yore fingernails an' toenails an' cut 'em off an' put 'em down by yore do', an' as they come along, yo' kin sweep out an' throw dat red peppah behin' 'em. (But they walk over those fingernails? After they walk over them then I throw that stuff behind them?) Yes. [Memphis (959) 1542:5.]
Entry 11448
They take that and they bury it, these fingernails and the toenails - all wrapped up, you see. Get some, somepin that come out of the shell - gun- powder. Get some gunpowder and dirt out of the graveyard, and your fingernails and your toenails, either one, and go bore a hole in a tree, but you stop it up in a can or a bottle like that. And you bore a hole in the tree, and a nail, as long as you can find, to drive in to keep that drawing up, you see. You drive that can fastened up. Of course, you burn at the soles, you get funny feeling about your head, you see. [New Orleans (855) 1347:3.]
Entry 11449
You [they] kin take yore fingernails. They kin lead you or make you go anywhere that they want you to do [go]. Now, your toenails - well, that's all the same thing. But either one of your nails, or part about you - that's a person got you in their lead - they kin lead you and they can do anything they want. Just like if you was my landlord and I had some of your fingernails or toenails, I would stay in this room [interviewing room] from now on and every time I come in here you'd take sides with me.
(What would we do with those [finger and toe] nails?)
They have to put 'em in - just put a little idene [iodine] in a bottle and put a little vinegar in - about nine drops of vinegar.
(That all they do with it?)
That's all. They gotcha. Don't have to do a bit more than that. Couple of ways that other people try to do somepin, it kinda keeps them away for awhile. but that - you take that, that's the real way to do. [New Orleans (867) 1405:2.]
Entry 11450
Dey git chure fingernails an' yore toenails. Ah didn't hear how many yo' takes, jest so it yore fingernails an' yore toenails. Dey take dat an' dey parch it, dey go back dere an' parch 'em. Beat 'em up real fine an' put 'em in some water den an' boil 'em till dat makes - jes' makes kind of a medicine-lak out of it. Den dey'll take dat - make dis heah medicine out of it den dat's a poison-lak. Dey'll take den an' po' it - git chure hat or anything lak yo' got to wear. Lak dey be's around yo' an' dey'll po' it aroun' de rim of yore hat, an' dey puts some cologne in dis - some sweet-smelling cologne, an' put in dis, an' po' it roun' yore hat. An' dey says dat yo' smell dat, an' jest walk - dat'll run yo' crazy, give yo' a feeble mind. Jest half de time yo' won't know whut chew doin'.
(Then you get my fingernails and toenails and you put them on my hat?)
Yes, sir, anywhere dat chew git it. Put it in sompin where he [you] kin git de smell of dis, inhale dat. [St. Petersburg (lol4) 1640:2.]
Entry 11451
Use dirt from under fingernails and footskin in food for love.
[Mobile 878:3.]
Entry 11452
Cut several fingernails from left hand, scrape skin from left foot and piece of right inner sole, wear in bag, and you can control the person.
[Vicksburg 989:5.]
Entry 11453
MAN CUNJURED WOMAN IN FEET SO SHE COULDN'T COME TO SEE HIM GET MARRIED TO ANOTHER WOMAN! Not much of a story, but a remedy is given for a cure. Mix 3 ingredients: any liniment, sulphur and alum; rub down, never up, makes the swelling go down into the ground. [Wilmington (238) 161:4.]
Entry 11454
"Cut your toenails or your fingernails, or scrape that dead skin off [your feet]...bury it in a place where nobody walks...that will dry you up, YOU WILL DRAG." [New Orleans, La., 1193:6.]
The quoted account names fingernails as one cutting alternative; its later burial and drying/dragging claims remain attributed.
Entry 11455
The dirt off the bottom of your feet...bury that with your toenail and fingernail TO KEEP YOU ON THE GO TO THE GRAVEYARD... KEEP YOU ON A DRAG.
[New Orleans 1289:7.]
The account directs burial of dirt from feet with nail material. Its graveyard and drag outcome wording remains unresolved and unverified.
Entry 11456
Fingernails, toenails and footskin in food aids love. [Charleston, S. Car., 545:5.]
Fingernails are named with toenails and footskin in food in a claim about aiding love. Actual use and effect are unverified.
Entry 11457
Parched fingernails, toenails and footskin in food creates love.
[Mobile 943:6.]
Entry 11458
Serve fingernails, toenails and 'huff' [old skin from bottom of feet] in food for love. [Wilmington 271:1.]
The short account states 'for love' as its aim; the explanation of 'huff' is bracketed editorial wording.
Entry 11459
Fingernails, toenails and footskin in food or drink brings love.
[Ocean City, Md., by Ediphone.]
Entry 11460
Left fingernails and toenails, and left-foot skin parch, add sugar and give in food 9 mornings for love. [Mobile 865:5.]
Entry 11461
Take fingernails and toenails, wash feet and scrape and get dead skin, hair from under clothes, parch, put in food for love. [Memphis 1560:8.]
Entry 11462
Your toenails and your fingernails and the dead skin off your feet. And take that and tie it in...and a tencent [silver dime] and sew it up in a piece of red cloth and bury that underneath the doorstep, and they say he'll never come back here no more.
(Who won't come back?)
The person you wanta run away from dere.
(I see. Is that all you have to do?)
Yes, take it and put it in a red piece of cloth. Well, if you wanta keep him, you take your toenails - if you wanta keep a man or either a woman, you take your toe-nails and your fingernails and the dead skin off the bottom of your feet and put it in a piece of [red] cloth and sew it up and put a ten cent [silver dime] in dere with it and a piece of his hair, and he'll never leave you. [Norfolk 524:7.]
Entry 11463
"The bottom of the feet...scrape them...put that into a bottle...stop it up and bury that...you'll pine away." [New Orleans 1366:3.]
Entry 11464
"Scrape off the bottom of the feet, you know some women do, and they cooking or anything like that, wanta keep their husband." [Vicksburg 1000:10.]
Entry 11465
"A person kin take and wash their feet, just scrape that, get it off there; I mean that dead skin off the feet. And I've heard they say they take and parch it and put it in coffee, or a man's food that a man be eating, to take advantage of a man." [Vicksburg 1001:4.]
Entry 11466
"Take the dead skin out from under the bottom of your feet and parch it up and put it in a man's food, a woman kin, and give it to him. She kin do anything in de world she want. He kin come up and see her in de bed with another mao, he ain't goin' to say nothin' - he won't say a thing, just cry and go ahead on." [Vicksburg 994:3.].
Entry 11467
Scrape dead skin from bottom of feet, put in person's food to control or cause love. [Washington, D. C., 822:5.]
Control is one stated aim, alongside an alternative love aim, in the account involving scraped foot material and food. Neither outcome is verified.
Entry 11468
"Dey say you kin take de skin off de bottom of your feet and scrape it, you know, scrape it off; and put it in some whiskey and give it to him to drink, and he can't go nowhere." [Wilmington 257:2+85.]
Entry 11469
"scrape the hull [sometimes "huff"] off the bottom of your feet, and soak it in whiskey for their husbands, and they would keep 'em." [Vicksburg 986:2.]
The quotation describes scraping material from the bottom of feet and soaking it in whiskey in an account about keeping husbands. The editorial word variant and any actual effect remain separate.
Entry 11471
Take bath, scrape feet to you, let fall on paper, hair off privates and few fingernails and toenails, parch them, put in food for love.
Hair off privates is explicitly named. The described preparation and love aim remain source content, without a documented act or result.
Entry 11472
"You want somebody put under your feet." Wash feet toes to heel. Scrape dry skin. Put in whiskey or coffee. "Put 'em right under your feet and they'd do anything in world you said do." [Memphis 1568:8.]
Entry 11473
Scrape de bottom of yo' feet. But people don't hardly worries wit mathin like dat now wit people so wise, you know, wit dem things. (Well, what would they do if they scrape the bottom of your feet? What would they do with that, did you ever hear?) Well, dey jest buries it somewheres in a bottle and buries it somewhere. Dat's jest to keep you down. You know, you won't have no character, do nothing fer yourself. [Charleston 623:3.]
Entry 11474
Jest like I tole you about de other thing. Dey'll take dat and scrape it and put it in a little paper sack or tie it up in a cloth and they'll drop dat overboard. Dat'll hurtcha.
(What will that do to you?)
That will cause you to be down all de time and you'll go crazy. You go ovahbo'd, sompin like dat [foot] track will.
(That is with the scraping of your feet.)
Yes. [Charleston 653:7.]
Entry 11475
(What do they do with that?)
Well, they kin make you leave town with that. Just get that, what they scrape off the bottom of your feet, and take that and go to the drug store and get you some concentrated lye and put it into that. And then take it and tie it up in a handkerchief or something, and then leave it it set such a length of time.
(For a certain length of time?)
Well, about a week, about a week or six days. And then take that and go bury it under your doorstep. And you'll leave.
(Under the doorstep of a person that you want to move?)
Yes, sir, the same thing as that. [Vicksburg 1008:7.]
Entry 11476
"I [you] wash my [your] feet and take a knife and scrape the bottom of your feet, and you scrape from your heel up to the toes, then scrape from the toes back up to the heel. Then they say you put that in whiskey or wine and give that to a person and make 'em love yeh." [Elizabeth City 556:5.]
Entry 11477
They takes that scurve [obsolete for scurf, here flakes or scales of dead skin] off their feet after they take a bath. They scrapes a lot of it off. Like as if they are cooking some kind of meat, well they'll wear that piece of meat up on 'em - like if they buy a steak in the morning, well they wear that on their private, that piece of meat. Then they take this meat with that stuff off their feet, and they cook all that together, and they feed that to the man to eat. But dey [the woman] don't eat it.
(What will that do?)
Well, that makes a man be upstirred, makes him lazy, makes him trifling. That's occasion if a woman really likes a man and wants to keep him at home.
Entry 11478
FOOT TRACKS ALONE - for this special collection of hand-and-foot rites in CHANNEL DE WORLD - begins here. Foot track itself is an amazing part of HOODO0, occupying pages 2818-2937 in volume 4! Even this does not include those foot-track rites in the 1 1/2 volumes of interviews, or those rites where foot- track is not the principal ingredient. Finally, we must always remember that foot track originally was not the track of a shoe but a footprint of the bare foot containing perspiration and odor: "Take it [a person's foot track] and stop it up in a bottle and they tell me it'll kill you." [I would say this was a fast death rather than a slow death - these terms from HOODOO. A note of mine reads: After I asked (informant) which track, he said right. Do not use specification. In other words, if informant does not mention right or left, the choice is unimportant.] [Wilmington 202:3+ 85.]
Entry 11479
Take foot track to running water, near there walk backwards, turn your back, throw over shoulder into stream, runs person crazy. [Vicksburg 1000:1.]
Entry 11480
"They say they go out an' pick up their left track an' go down to the river and when they git near there they say they walk backwards an' they say they throw [it] in over their shoulder." [Wilmington 235:2+85.]
Entry 11481
Foot track in bottle thrown into running water "puts you to traveling."
[Wilmington 272:2+85.]
Entry 11482
Foot track in bottle into running Water, you'll go. [Vicksburg 1057:10.]
Entry 11483
Foot track in bottle throw into running water; lose mind. [Snow Hill 3:4.]