Browse:Bath in Running May Water (Volume 1, entries 986)
Bath in Running May Water
Volume 1, entries 986. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → FOLK MEDICINE (1) PRINCIPLES OF HEALING. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 986
(Tell what you told me coming over on the ferry about the day in May.)
[While collecting hoodoo in Algiers, I lived in New Orleans where we had been working: Each day Edward, Marshall and his taxi and I went back and forth across the Mississippi River. After I had set up my Teledi- phone on reaching Algiers, I had Marshall repeat the story; as usual details being lost in the retelling.] Ah - ah dunno zactly. Ah think it's de first day of May. No, de first day of April. No, it's May. If yo' have any trouble, worry, any hard burden an' yo' couldn't git rid of it, jis' been worried all de yeah, jis' up an' down, sickness or anything. Well, yo' go tuh de rivah dat first day [of May]. An' yo' go an git down tuh de watah an' yo' wash yore han's an' yore feet good, an' face, an' let de watah drip from yo' lak dat - jis' throw de watah from yo' lak dat, shake it off. An' as dat watah hit's de stream an' - it carries it off.
(Do many people do that around here?)
Many folks still do - ah dunno heah lately, but ah know yeahs ago. Now, dis late generation, dey don't fool wit it so much. But ah remembah about eight or nine yeahs ago, an' yo' know, life an' people wus bettah den. Dey wait till May tuh git rid of dey troubles.
(You used to see them at the river?)
See 'em at de rivah - each fellah jump ovahbo'd. He [an ole felZah] stepped ovah yo' know an' ovah balanced, an' de rivah wus a little bit low dere an' de [young] fellah had tuh run lak anythin' tuh ketch de ole fellah. [The preceding rite was picked up on a Mississippi River ferry. Somewhere I have material collected from my Pullman porter on a Pennsylvania train near Baltimore, Maryland.] [At the end of an interview I often made a comment to my microphone, just in case my memory failed or my notes were lost:] (That was Marshall talking, who just told me about the first of May. He is the man that I hired as a chauffeur here and in New Orleans. End of 1599.)