Browse:Blood for the Spirit (Volume 1, entries 81)
Blood for the Spirit
Volume 1, entries 81. Source context: SPIRITS → GHOSTLORE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 81
Years ago in the days of my grandmother - my grandmother died before freedom was declared. I never saw her. I only heard her story from my mother. They built their houses out of logs. There was just a front door. They had nothing on the floor but the dirt. The logs were laid close together on top of each other to form the walls. They didn't even have shingles then. The logs were hewed on each side and laid close together for the roof so the water would run off. Then they made little beds in each corner, like a shelf, near the ground. We would call them bunks. In one corner they would have for a table. The chimney Was in the back of the house opposite the door. They had no windows. They [the chimneys] were made of clay. The clay was mixed up, pine straw put in it to make it stick. Just daub it. And they made the chimney like a pen with small sticks, two rows going this way and one in the back, and this [the fourth or front side] was left open. That was the fireplace. When they got up a cer- tain distance [above the fireplace opening left in the form] it was a pen with four corners. They made it as high as the house was. They filled it [the double walls of the pen] with clay and straw. In the fireplace was a iron oven and an iron pot. They had something in the middle of the fireplace [crane] they hung the pot on, with the fire under it. The oven had a iron door. The ovens were iron and made flat. They put bread in there and bake it, and potatoes. This house whenever it was completed they killed a calf. If they had sheep, they would kill a little lamb to let the blood go wherever it was killed, let the earth drink it up. This lamb was barbecued in front of the door. All of their friends and neighbors would come and have a feast there. They did that entering a new family to the house. They kill it right near the house. The blood wastes on the ground, the ground drinks it up, near the house they were dedicating to the family. Now that I have been reading the Bible, I can see that the olden people were taking that from the Bible. It was on the lines of the Bible but they didn't understand it as they do today. The Israelites were told to kill a certain lamb and put it on their door faces. The olden people were just doing it in their way the best they could. In our neighborhood [Orangeburg County, South Carolina] in erecting a home, building a new house to live in, you always are supposed in one of the front pillows [pillars] of the house to fold the Holy Bible, wrap it carefully in oil cloth, that will protect it, put it in a stiff pasteboard, and lay it in the holler [hollow] of the front pillow of the house. This is supposed to be a pro- tection sent from God on your home. And you are supposed to live happily there. This is one of the customs.