Browse:Black Cat Bone Cures (Volume 1, entries 323–324)
Black Cat Bone Cures
Volume 1, entries 323–324. Source context: SPIRITS → BLACK CAT BONE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 323
This is a peculiar thing, I must say humorous thing, what chew may call witchcraft. Of course I don't have - I don't know anything about it, but I've heard about it. And so they said that if you take a cat, a black cat, and boil him down to get a black cat bone and just apply that bone to a certain part to your body or the affected part of your body, why that'll cure you. I've heard that.
(What do you mean by apply?)
Well, apply meant - I guess it means to massage the place where you're hurt, affected, your arm swollen I guess or your leg is swollen, why you just take this black cat bone and that'll have the power to drive those witches out, to drive -that condition out of your body. That's what I was told years ago by some of the old relatives.
Entry 324
Ah heard dat yo' could take a black cat at fo' a'clock on a Sunday mawnin' an' carry him at de fo'k of a road - carry a pot 'long wit chew or have yore pot dere. An' dey tells me now - ah don' know - dat yo' take dat cat an' put him in dat pot alive an' kiver him up airtight - boil him. An' after he's done, take dat pot an' go set down by a stream of runnin' watah an' yo' commence pullin' out bones from dat cat an' yo' pull dem till yo' git to de ninth bone. Yo' take dat ninth bone an' take keer of it.
(That ninth bone?)
Yes. Now, yo' got take ca' of it. Yo' take dat bone an' yo' carry it an' git good whiskey an' put it in a bottle an' drop dat bone down in dere, an' dat bone or dat whiskey offa dat bone, if a person is sick or poisoned, a teaspoonful of dat whiskey - sometimes, if he gwine git cured dey comes near tuh killin' him - give a teaspoonful of dat if he's poisoned.