Browse:Birds (Volume 1, entries 201–208)
Birds
Volume 1, entries 201–208. Source context: SPIRITS → SPIRITS AND ANIMALS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 201
I heard an old gentlemen say once during slavery times his master got after him to whip him and he ran away in the woods and after he was in the woods his master couldn't catch him. So then they set bloodhounds after him and they couldn't do anything with him. He went in the woods and transformed himself into a bird and sit on a fence and saw his master and the people pass by. I heard these words from the lips of the man himself about fifty years ago [1886]. The old man was born in a place called Halifax, Virginia. [For Shape-changing among white persons - a witch becoming a cat, deer, dog, fly, horse, pig, rabbit, snake, etc. - see FACI,2ed., pp.820-829, Nos.16124- 16160; for Zooanthrophy And Possession, Pp.829-831, Nos.16161-16166; for Live Things In You, Pp.831-834, Nos.16167-16177; for Bewitched Animals, Pp.834-850, Nos.16176-16241.]
Entry 202
A woman had some trained birds that would go and pick up a person's hair and bring it to her so she could dress it. The hair was put in a tree and the woman died.
Entry 203
I had a sister-in-law was fixed. It wusn't put down for 'er, it wus put down for 'er husband behind de chimley.
[Usually the fixed article hurts only the person for whom it is fixed.]
(What was put down?)
Dey said dey'd digged up a hole; it turn out [it was] somepin looked lak a root or somepin in a bottle or somepin. She'd [she would be] de firs' one to get up [in the morning] when she went out to do round in chimley cornah, you know, lak de country folks do [who are without toilets], why she step ovah it [the buried root] an' aftah dat her leg begin painin' 'er an' she went to de doctor. Dey thought at firs' it wus de rheumatism but it wusn't de rheumatism. She went to de [medical] doctor - I went wit 'er. I wus livin' not fah from 'er. Dat wus in 1917, dat wus de same year I get married. [The doctor as usual failed to help a hoodooed person.] An' dey tell 'er to get a root doctor an' den dey tell 'er - said she took real sick an' cared 'er dere [to the root doctor] in 'er Wagon - it wus about thirteen miles. An' so she come back [home]. Dey [root doctor] tellen 'er dat it will turn [happen] a buzzard will come and swum ovah 'er house. De [root doctor] tole 'em de nex' day - tell 'em de buzzard [next day] will swum ovah de house. [Root doctor] tell 'er she wus [will] commence to get frighten, but she mustn't get frighten. (When they went to the root doctor, the root doctor said that next day a buzzard would fly over the house?) Yes sir. An' it sure nuff it did. It turn [it turned out or happened that] a buzzard come an' fly all right, all on de barn an' stuff lak dat. An' she would get up ev'ry day - she'd get [upl an' go around behind dat barn an' she commence to losin' 'er min' [mind]. An' she'd get out in 'er nightgown an' she'd come ovah home to my house an' set down. Ve [we] had a little tree up against de chimley drawin' water [in folklore a tree leans toward water and here it would surely be leaning toward the chimney corner]. She said, "You all wan'a hang me." [The informant drops too much of her thought here. I am certain the bewitched woman pointed to the tree, having in mind either, "Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree" (Acts 5:30) or the fact that persons in her lifetime were lawlessly hanged on a tree.] "You all wan'a hang me," she say [this is her repetition not mine], but dat's all right. Dey didn't tree [treat] me right, dey didn't tree me right." An' dey had to hide all dere knives an' fo'ks - she would try to kill 'erself 'er husband tole - all de knive an' fo'k an' smoothin' rod [this I do not know - does she mean smoothing iron?] an' cared it out in a little outhouse an' locked it up. [I transcribed all the Wilmington cylinders by hand, though some of it was typed later by the professional transcriber I had to call in. Fortunately I could eliminate duplicates and doubtful material, but even so my note for this story indicates the task, "Not all copied." The end is unknown.]
Entry 204
Mah ole parents said that she was witchcraf' once by a buzzard, zhoo know. They had witchcraf' 'er so that buzzard follow 'er, follow 'er. An' she stuck [stunk = stank] jis' like de buzzard. Didn't care where she go, she could look up, why no buzzard would be ahnd [or 'oun = round] 'er, swimmin' ahnd ovah de house but that one buzzard. An' she went to a witchcraf' man. An' he tole 'er that that buzzard had been fixed to follow 'er, that she had been witchcraf' with graveyard dirt - she got it in likkah.
(Who was this person?)
Mah mother.
(Go on with your story.)
She said this ole fortune teller man [witchcraft man, who like most profes- sional workers was also a fortune teller] tole 'er she git it in graveyard dirt in likkah - she was a great likkah drinkah - an' they jis' fixed, got that grave- yard dirt, fixed it in likkah, an' give it ta 'er." They fixed it so that buzzard jis' follow 'er. She stuck [stunk = stank] like that buzzard.
(How did she get rid of that?)
Well, she was cured by yurts [= y-eart's? = earths? = roots] in de woods.
Entry 205
A woman once was livin' an' she had a son. Another lady had a daughter. Well, this daughter was much older than the son. This woman [who] had the son didn't want fer her child - it was too much - to marry this woman's daughter. But anyhow, they went on together an' courtin' an' got married. An' this woman was heart-mad about it. An' so she went down in Jacksonville, Florida - some'ere 'nother - to get somepin fo' these people. Well, these people was wise, you see. These people was already on to it, see. They could do things to save theyself, you know, to look fer theirself, protect theirself. An' so the [hoodoo] woman tole this woman [boy's mother] - she went dere - now I'm not any lyin' - she say, "If dey [girl's family] see dis chicken fo' [before] it get to the house an' kill it, you'll die."
(Did she get this chicken from the woman down there in Florida?)
I couldn't tell. Anyhow, they see this chicken come out on Sunday mornin', comin' up to the house -.it went over to the front. Well, she [the girl's mother] gon'a watch out, you know, an' see this chicken comin' aroun' there - a necked [naked] chicken, a fry-size chicken, jis' as necked, didn't have a bit of feather on it. [A naked chicken - a chicken dressed to kill - a chicken carrying so much poison it had lost all feathers - see margin-title Doctor Frizzly.] A fellah say, "Oh, look at that chicken yonder!" An' this woman run out an' she met the chicken, an' she took a stick an' killed it, an' say, "Father, Son and the Holy Ghos', an' Three in One, I kill yeh." An' she sailed on the chicken an' she killed it. An' soon after that this woman took sick an' she died - the boy's mother.
(What did she tell her to do to this chicken?)
I don't know, but she had the chicken dress an' sent it [to] this house, you know. The chicken was goin' to the house. She [the hoodoo woman] said that she [the boy's mother] couldn't go - you see, they was watchin' then an' none of then couldn't go. She sent that chicken. The woman tole her, "Now, you send this chicken, you can't git to her - you send this chicken." [The action here is quite clear. The hoodoo woman did not give the boy's mother a dressed chicken to carry back to Georgia or wherever she came from; she gave her a two-purpose powder to sprinkle on a chicken after she had returned home - one part of the powder propelling the chicken forward, the other part containing the spell to be cast. A scientific explanation is also possible - the God of Chance took care of the final result, some stray undressed chicken getting itself killed.]
Entry 206
Dis wus a woman done dis. She had some tame Woopin' [whipping] owls, had 'em tame - hawks we all call 'em, chicken hawks, an' dey could say mos' any- thing dat she would tell 'em tuh say. An' dere wus de time she had dis woman tuh pay her if she would git her clear of her chile [clear her child] dat day, an dey wus tuh, yo' know, destroy [hang] 'im dat day, an' dey had de owl tuh go way down in de branch [creek, run, brook] wit de voice an' de hawk up in de air outa sight, an' she had de hawk to say, "If dey kill dat man, Ah destroy de worl'" - an' de owl he must say, "De Lawd." An' all of dem heah de voice, an' jes' as dey fixin' tuh kill de man dey all stop, an' jes' he say "Lord" again fo' three times, an' dey thought sho' 'nuff it was somepin up in de air - de good Lord or somepin. Den ever'body to' [took] out 'way from dere an' dey nevah did hang dis fellah.
(This old cunjure woman had this fixed up?)
Dat's right.
(These two birds - that's an old story?)
Yes.
(Where did you hear that?)
In Albany, Georgia.
The Lord reference is the listeners' reported interpretation of a staged voice, with or somepin retained.
Entry 207
I was aboard a ship where [at a later date] all the crew had been taken off and no account could be given, and I was on the lookout one morning between four and five o'clock on the fore stage. And there came five pigeons and sat on that stage and what they were I never could tell. I thought those five pigeons were the spirits of those dead. They said a sea serpent took those five men off that boat down in the Caribbean Sea. And that was in 1867. That brig was from New York, the Mary Celeste. [This man in 1860 was old enough to travel from Yorktown to Hampton by him- self, sleeping one night out in the open. Without claiming anything or boasting he said he had been a sailor on the ship just after the five men were lost in 1867. The loss of the complete crew to which he refers - the Mary Celeste left New York for Genoa on November 7, 1872, and four weeks later was found abandoned in the Atlantic; no one aboard ever being heard from again.]
Entry 208
Ah heard of a man wus in trouble once, an' he went tuh see a wise man [rare term] to try tuh git some help. So dis man said to him, said, "Yo' go on back home an' yo' stay there an' yore bossman will go down dere an' stan' yore bond." So he went on back home, an' de law caught him an' put him in jail, an' de bossman went down an' stan' his bond. Well, aftah standin' his bond, den he [bonded man] went back to him [wise man], yo' know, aftah he got out. Den he went on back to dis man an' he said to him, said, "Yo' go on back home now an' yo' make yo'self satisfiable an' whenevah yo' in co't," say, "yo' look up ovah de judge's haid an' yo'll see a bird flyin." An' sho' 'nuff - ah heard he say he done it, an' he look up dere an' de bird flyed across, an' aftah de bird fly up, he go on an' win his case - de judge clear him. De bird wus a sparrow. [The bird, of course, was sent by the wise man or hoodoo man.]
The informant reports a bird identified as a sparrow; the editor separately supplies the explanation that it was sent.