Browse:Ball (Volume 1, entries 546)
Ball
Volume 1, entries 546. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → DIAGNOSIS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 546
This was in Caroline [County, Virginia]. This is a cunjuring thing. It Was two sisters. One sister took the other sister's husband. So this sister had a spell put on the sister who took the husband. So she became suddenly ill and sent for her son and he came. And she grew so ill they sent for the doctor and he came, but did not do any good. So finally, the son sent for a neighbor and the neighbor thought she was going to die so she sent for the older son. And when he came his suggestion was to send for an old colored woman who's supposed to be a cunjure. So they sent for her. And she came in a buggy with her grandson driving. And she called for the woman to come out to the buggy that was sick. And they said she could not come. So she insisted on her coming. But she said she could go anywhere in the house except to the front door. Every time she moved toward the front door she got worse. So this cunjure woman got out of her buggy and stood at de front gate opening her bag of fixtures, and she took out a ball about the size of a apple - a wood ball, and asked for a hoe, after which she talked to the ball and said, "Go where I send you and when you have found the spot stand still." So she tossed de ball. It went a few steps and stopped right in front of the front door. And she told the boy to dig two feet right under that ball and there that he would find a bottle and bring it to me, which he did. So she said to her [sick woman's] son, "Go, tell your mother to come to the front door." So she got up and came immediately. She didn't say what was in the bottle she found. And the cunjure said to her, "Let your sister'S husband alone." [Near Fredericksburg, Va., (71), by hand; in Caroline Co.,1886.]