Browse:A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT VERSION OF PRECEDING RITE (Volume 4, entries 8805)
A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT VERSION OF PRECEDING RITE
Volume 4, entries 8805. Source context: THE PHYSICAL HUMAN BODY ITSELF → DEATH AND BURIAL AND GRAVEYARD → THREE SUBSTITUTES FOR HUMAN BODY → LETTERS AND HANDWRITING. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 8805
If she write a lettah, yo' take dat lettah an' write chure name on it. Write her name [she has already written her name in the signature] an' take an' burn it. Take part of de ashes an' send it back to her an' yo' keep part of it, an' dat'll bring her back home. (That is, if this woman writes a letter to me - my wife's left and she writes a letter to me. I will write my name on that letter. Well, I will burn the letter and I will keep part of the ashes and send part to her. Then she would have to come back to me.)
The informant describes keeping and sending parts of the ashes. The parenthesized first-person version is interviewer paraphrase, and the predicted return is not established.