Browse:10 P.M. Sleeping Spell (Volume 1, entries 929)
10 P.M. Sleeping Spell
Volume 1, entries 929. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → TIME AND HOODOO SPELL → Time (1) Psychological. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 929
Twus my gate on Campbell Street where I lives at right in Wilmington. At ten 'clock - I'm talkin' about mah ownself, at what I know on Campbell Street. At ten 'clock at night I'd haf to lay down. If I didn't lay down, I would fall. But ten a'clock ev'ry night - I'd notice de clock. An' comp'ny would come to see me, an' when de comp'ny come, I say, "Now, you all set as long a' zhoo want to, because at ten a'clock I git so weak until I haf to lay down." An' I do that. One day when I come from work I met mah cousin on Fo'th Street, an' when I met 'im on Fo'th Street - mah gate fell first on.de side; too, mah fence fell. So I said to 'im, I said, "Joo come home an' help me fix up mah gate, an' alsc mah fence fell." I'm talkin' about mahself now, what I know. An' so he come home [by her house] Monday evening, he said, "Now, Cousin, two a'clock [tomorrow I got to go to work." I said, "Well, all right then; I'm gon'a cook dinnah an' you have your dinnah here [tomorrow] an' you help me fix the gate, fix mah fencei." An' we wus fixin' that fence, de time came fuh him to go. He went on. I had de shovel, I got right to mah gate, jis' as I got to come in the house, somepin say, "Dig." An' I dug, I got a bottle from mah gate, that long [demonstrates], where I'd been walkin' along. Dat wus de thing causin' me I had to lay down ten a'clock ev'ry night. An' it had sulphah in it, it had hah [hair] in it, it had bluestone in it, an' it had some kind of roots in it. An' when I took it up, I hold it right up, I says, "Oh, looka heah! Come an' see this! Somebody tryin' to cunjure me," I say. An' dey cunjured me too, beca' zhoo, zhoo know, ten a'clock at night I'd haf to lay down. An' de people come an' look at it, "Oh well, it's nothin' but childrun put that tharh." I said, "Childrun couldn't put hah." I said, "Childrun couldn't put all this kind of mess zhoo see in it; dey could not put in it." I said, "To banish it right, ah'm gon'a care [carry] it to a cunjure sure enough den dey did dat to do [to do that]." [She was going to take the bottle to a cunjure more powerful than the one who had prepared the bottle.] The people all said, "You ain't gon'a do that? I wouldn't touch it." I said, "Ah'm gon'a care it to a man that kin cunjure and cunjure right." I wus talkin' about takin' an' keepin' it - that's what I meant choo know, when I said that. I says, "No, I'm gon'a care it to cunjure right." An' so I kep' it. An' do you know that night, dat I could set up till 'leven an' twelve a'clock! I could set up till 'leven-twelve a'clock. An' so I kep' it till about on Friday evening. Dat Friday evening I made a fire in the pot in my back yard. An' I wouldn't git right over it, jis' like that [demonstrates]. I opened it like dat an' I burned it up. It wusn't long befo' de lady next do' had to go de hospital an' have her leg cut off.