Browse:BUSINESS AND CUSTOMERS (Volume 1, entries 2398–2735)/Part 5
BUSINESS AND CUSTOMERS
Volume 1, entries 2398–2735. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2718
Ah heard that if a person sellin' whiskey an' yo' didn't want de law tuh come dere, say jes' fo' yo' jes' tuh keep alum an' vinegar. Yo' take dis alum an' vinegar - see, dey both sour together, an' yo' takes an' melts dis alum an' burns it first an' melt it, and den puts it in vinegar an' keep it spread down cross yore do'. Said 'long as yo' keep dat dere, said de law wouldn't bother yo'.
Entry 2719
I've heard that you take a little vinegar and a little short rug, and put a little vinegar on the rug and put it across the door, and they will come to the door but they won't come no further. That keeps them from coming across that rug.
Entry 2720
Take a east [yeast] powder bottle and put it full of vinegar, salt and 'pepper, and put it right down at your gate - you bury it in the ground - and this person that you don't want to come to your house, he won't come in then.
The printed instruction explicitly directs burying the bottle in the ground. The visitor-exclusion result remains an unverified source claim.
Entry 2721
Dey use what dey call down heah - dey use still watah. Yo' use still watah an' jes' go out dere at chure do' - 'sposed tuh be in de mawnin'time befo' yo' open yore sto' to offah yore business - go to yore do' an' yo' drop nine drops; 'sposed, at chure do' befo' de do' is opened in de mawnin', befo' yo' open yore place of business, nine drops at yore do'. Keep it airtight, de watah. Keep airtight an' take a eye-dropper an' drop yo' nine drops of still watah - de watah whut chew use tuh bath wit, or watah dat yo' ketch from de sky; yo' know, rain watah, ketch it in some glass or 'nothah befo'. [For luck in business that day.]
Entry 2722
For bootlegging or something like that, well you use cinnamon, rain water, or any water from any river.
(What do you do now?)
Get clear rain water and van-van - a oil you get from the drug store, they calls Van-van. You put three drops in there.
(In this rain water?)
Yes sir. And then scrub the place before the sun rise. You scrub it all round before the sun, but always scrub it coming in, not going out - see. And the law won't even trouble you, from my understandin'.
Entry 2723
Well, you have to take and - just like you scrub, you have to keep scrubbed up all the time. Then you take and write his name. You got to get the officer's on the beat, see, and write his name nine times. Put it into a bucket of water. You gotta throw - you throw eight buckets of water and scrub with that cinnamon and stuff, and then after that last bucket of water you have with his name, and talking to five people, and throw it in front of the door and that washes him away. (I see. Well, now, what do you put in those nine buckets of water? What solution do you put in that water, now?) The same things - cinnamon, steel dust, van-van, fast luck and white rum.
(White what?)
White rum.
(Is it liquor? The liquor rum?)
Well, it's rum. You can get that from the drug store. It's the white rum. I always bought it at the drug store.
(Is it [something]?)
It's licris [liquid]. Use that for drawing - it's for drawing [customers?].
(White rum?)
White rum.
(How do you spell that?)
R-O-N-E.
(It's made from sugar? Is that the liquor that's made from sugar cane?)
I don't know.
[He means white rum. White rum is used in candle rites later.]
(Eight buckets with this mixture - this water - and then you tear this offi- cer's name out and put it into?) Into that last bucket.
(Into the last bucket.)
[Talking to five people? After the eighth bucket, operator had to speak - good morning or something - to five persons passing by or within speaking dis- tance. If five were unavailable within reasonable time, an experienced operator would name five persons and pretend-talk to them. You tear this officer's name out? This can only mean the informant - either in a previous rite or while machine was turned off - pretended to write a name in an imaginary paper tablet and to tear out the sheet. Did my small Numbers Book with spiral binding in front of me suggest the idea?]
Entry 2724
[The preceding informant gives a similar rite as follows:]
Well, just you scrubs it. You gets van-van, steel dust, cinnamon, fast luck and scrub your house from front to back. Start at the front door and then you take and pour nine buckets of water and blueing, and throw that nine buckets of Water in front of your door, and that's to draw in a crowd.
(Either for bootlegging or [men for] women?)
Anything. It the same thing.
Entry 2725
We going to scrub the house out first with that Red Seal Lye. That's if anything is crossed in the house - the building is crossed before you occupy it. After scrubbing with that Red Seal Lye, you get you some cinnamon powder, you get you some oil of verbena, then you get you some granulated sugar. If you wants white and colored trade, you get that white syrup and you get that red syrup, mixing well, scrubbing from the front porch on to the rear, throwing a glassful in each direction of the globe after scrubbing, and I guarantee you burning cinnamon powder and burning incense in the building when you in there alone, leaving it smoke well, open up the door, and you can't keep the gang out of there.
(I see.)
[After machine stopped, I ask about keeping law away.]
The same though.
(The same thing will keep the law away from there?)
Absolutely.
Entry 2726
If yo' runnin' a place an' want luck fo' customers, yo'd git chew some cinnamon an' yo'd git some sugah an' git yo' some oil of verbena, an' take pars- ley - yo' know parsley whut chew season food with. Yo' put it in a bucket an' put it on de stove an' boil it well. Aftah it boil, yo' start tuh scrubbin' yo' business from de front to de back. When yo' git through scrubbin' it goin' to de back, dis same watah dat chew scrub wit, throw a glassful to each way - one tc de east, one to de west, one to de south. [Presumably, unlucky north purposely omitted.] All right. When yo' git through that, yo' take yo some cinnamon agin an' yo' take yo' three of those good incense, an' yo' let dat burn very slow. Take some sugah an' mix it up well, an' throw it right in front of de do', an' throw three buckets of watah on dat. Den de place won't be able tuh hold the people.
(What do you do with that incense?)
Burn it. Mix it wit de sugah. Have tuh sterilize de'sugah aftah yo' burn it, see. Well, throw it out an' throw three buckets of watah on it.
Entry 2727
Well, yo' git chew some incense from de drug store an' a bottle of Van-van and yo' burn de incense in de house and open de front do' where it will go in de street. Well, everybody dat pass, well dey takes a notion to stop by.
(What do you do with that van-van oil?)
Yo' take that van-van oil and yo' put it in yore scrubbing water and mop yore front porch with it. After yo' git through mopping yo' chunk de water out in de street an' it cause a congregation.... That van-van - po' it in yore scrubbing water, yo' mop yo' front porch an' steps with it, when yo' git through yo' take an' chunk it out in de street. Dey might pass de street, but dey ain't coming in de house.
(That will keep the law away?)
Yeah.
Entry 2728
Go to de drug sto' an' git some van-van, oil of clover, oil of winter- green an' Heart-horne Cologne, an' mix it together an' scrub with it, and always throw yore water at de gate. [Informant means Hearts Own Cologne; not Hawthorne Cologne or Hartshorn Cologne.]
(Throw the water at the gate?)
After yo' git through scrubbing an' dat will draw de crowd. (You told me about the oil of wintergreen and Van-van. You use that to get a job, too?) Yassuh, yo' use all that.
Entry 2729
Take one penny an' nail it down here [demonstrates].
(Under the doorsill.)
Under de do'sill. Won't put chew out cus he [Indian of penny] standing on it - he standin' on de do'sill. Ev'ry mornin' when you git up, take yore chamber lye an' throw it out dere. Dat's if you runnin' sportin' house an' men's comin' dere an' ev'rythin'. Take dat runnin' water [from the faucet] an' throw it out. Dat'll bring 'em all in an' den de customers will come an' de law ain't comin' dere. Dey can't come over dat. If you walk around Charleston, you wanta see dese pennies dere. (On the doorsills.) [For this use of penny, see p.6llf.]
Entry 2730
You can go to the east and make your wish, "In the Name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit," and throw three glasses of water and make your wish for anything you want - to make a success and get it.
(Do you face the east or turn your back to it?)
No, you face the east.
(And throw the water?)
And throw the water.
Entry 2731
Go to work and put on some bathwater in the morning.
(Bathwater?)
Bathwater. She go to work and she get her some saltpeter, just a little piece of saltpeter, put in that water and some red tape lye. (Red tape?) [Red Seal?] Yes, sir. You know, I mean concentrated lye, and she bath in that water. She don't dry at all. She just get out of the water wet and turn ev'ry piece of hern wrong side outwards, wear it from the morning until four o'clock in the evening and then she throw it off. Then she get the Book of Psalms and read the tenth verse and her luck'll come.
(Saltpeter mixed with lye. That'll bring in men for the night?)
Yes, sir.
Entry 2732
I've heard a man said once when he would get out of a job, he would take his shirt right next to his skin - that if he would turn it on the wrong side, he'd wear like that an' in the next two or three days he'd have plenty of work.
Entry 2733
If you own a house and you wanta get a renter for that house, you take you some, what they call yellow wash, sugar, and your urine [three ingredients], and you put that in a bucket and you scrub that house all over. Start from the front steps, scrub up, and scrub it plumb to the back, and leave that house open and just make a prayer. When you make that prayer, in less time than two or three days you will have that house rented.
Entry 2734
(Use what?)
Yellow wash.
(Yellow wash?)
Uh-huh, they scrub with that yellow wash.
(These hustling women do that?)
Absolutely. They burn that incense powder, see. It's a custom rule, after that they burn that incense powder - then after they use that incense powder and that yellow wash and - not no bay rum - what is this stuff called. Witch hazel.
(Witch hazel. What do they do with that?)
Put on 'em all here, you see [demonstrates, rubbing his chest].
(On their breast?)
Yes, put it on their breast, see. That's for kind of drawing - that's for a drawing sensation. Now, after a man once ever go with this woman.
(He what?)
After a man ever once go with this woman, getting that odor in his nose, an' smellin' that, and if he go with another woman and not getting that same odor, he don't be satisfied. It same as over in the European countries when they had that chlorine gas. That gas, if it was made with a stink scent to it, the moment you'd smell it, you would clamp your nose, but it had a scent like perfume, see, smelled sweet, and the more you smelt, the more you inhale. You see. And the first thing you know, down you'd go. Well, it's the same way, if a man would go with a woman and she'd have a bad scent, well, he wouldn't crave for that odor; but if she have a sweet scent, ev'ry time he go with her he expecting that scent. If he goes to one and don't get that scent, it won't be a comfort.
(I see.)
That's the way it goes. [New Orleans, La., (879), 1449:10.] [Our main title is one of the oldest elements of religion - shrines, private and public. I visited two of them in Baltimore; the one spiritualistic with colored lights, the other Christian and the place where I interviewed. What these shrines are, how custodians differ, we must learn from the material itself. Most important will be the actual words of shrine-keepers in later subsections: Custodian of a Shrine, A Woman and Her Three Saints, Beer for St. Peter and Cigar for St. Anthony, and other interviews. Moreover, we must not forget the doctor and the professor previously met, Nos. 14, P.15, and 427, p.128. At the begin- ning I did not rush to New Orleans, tempting though it was; I gradually worked towards the city for experience along the way. Some of this work pertaining to the New Orleans atmosphere now follows, ending with margin-title Public Shrine.]
Entry 2735
(They burn the candles in New Orleans and along the coast here. [I am repeating informant's words.] Do they do it in any other part of the country?) [I had not yet visited New Orleans.] No sir, it's more - it's founded on de Catholic super- stition. De Catholic Church burns a [good] deal of candles. (Then you think this candle burning is confined more or less to the colored people, who are more or less under the influence of the Catholic Church?) Yes sir. It's teaching dem because of dere religious ideas to my mind. On the other hand, of course, dey go off away from de teaching [of the Catholic Church] certainly. We understand dat de candles represent something in the life of Christ possibly, and among the praying [true believers] they use [them] in that way entirely: But the more illiterate and superstitious class of people aroun' New Orleans an' along de coast - along de Gulf of Mexico - where Spanish descent and French descent are Catholic people, their religious ideas influence that class of colored people and sometimes white people. They believe in candles an' people - de hoodoos dey use dat superstitious idea. They have a candle that they have manufactured in all colors - yo' kin git dem in all colors and dey usually have 'em in a room. [He describes altar but recording bad. For infor- mant's other contribution to this subject, see No. 427, p.128.]