Browse:Blacksnake Root (Volume 1, entries 1125–1127)
Blacksnake Root
Volume 1, entries 1125–1127. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → CURE AND PROTECTION. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1125
An' dere's a root dey call de blacksnake root. Yo' kin carry dat in yore pocket an' dere can't anything harm yo'. (Nothing could hurt you?) By walkin' ovah it.
Entry 1126
Heard dem say yo' go in de woods like dat an' git yo' some rattlesnake marster or blacksnake root, an' git a string an' tie it tight in so many knots.
(How many knots?)
About six knots - dat's a long string. Well, yo' wear that round yo'. If yo' don't yo' have to, yo' know, keep it in yore pocketbook - or either wear it round yo'. Dey say yo' holdin' dem den.
(By wearing that root - that's the way you do it?)
Yes sir, that's, yo' know, he pin de othah fellow. Yo' know, lak somebody wus goin' hurt chew an' yo' git dat root, why yo tyin' 'em up. See, yo' jes' tie dem knots - jes' as many kmots - why yo' tyin' den up.
(You don't mention anybody's name or anything?)
No sir, yo' jes' tyin' 'em up.
Entry 1127
[In the two preceding beliefs blacksnake root was a protection; here it is a crippling poison, which reminds us again that everything depends upon intention.1 My mother's sister was fixed like that. This guy went out in de woods and he got some blacksnake root, and he went and killed a rattlesnake and he got some blood off it and he cut off de rattlesnake's head, and buried it underneath the doorstep and de next morning when she step out - you know, she had to step right over it, her foot fastened up in her back and she still go about in dat position.
(It still fastened in her back?)
It still fastened in de back and she walk on crutches. (He got the rattlesnake and caught the blood and cut it up with this black- snake root.) With the blacksnake root and buried it under de steps. De first person that steps over that, that's the one goin' get it, see. [The first person that steps over that is sometimes heard, but it violates the widely accepted safety rule of It Warn't Put There For You, No. 653, p.220.]