Browse:Burnt de Baby (Volume 1, entries 307)
Burnt de Baby
Volume 1, entries 307. Source context: SPIRITS → BLACK CAT BONE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 307
There's a man that could - you see, I guess he's sleight a' hand - did sleight-a'-hand work. An' he did a whole lots of things. So he said - mah brothers would get after him to tell them how he came to know how to do these things. He could do anything - jis' go an' take money or anything. An' when the officers went behind him an' taken an' locked him up in the jailhouse, he'd come on out an' say, "Well, come on, Captun, let's go togethah," and walk on away - now, that's the truth - an' walk on out, an' he would jis' turn into a grey horse an' jis' go on off. So mah brothers wanted to know whut did he do to get this way. So he told them he had to take a black cat an' go in de woods so many miles before day, an' put a pot out there a-boilin', an' put this cat in there an' boil all the flesh off the bones an' the bones all over jis' like you drvin' 'em. Then he had to go where's there's a newborn baby, take this baby, an' put this. baby right in there an' burnt de baby all up jis' like he did the cat. An' he would take the cat, the cat thigh - the first bone from the hip on the back. He'd take this bone from the hip an' take the baby's breastbone - an' throw ever'thing else away except these bones - an' take those two bones an' put 'em into fresh water, an' boil them until they boiled down like a lickrish [liquid a thick pot liquor]. Put it in a bottle an' rub yourself with it, grease your- self with it for nine mornings [at a crossroad], an' go right back to the cross- road the ninth morning, an' when you git there an' rub yourself, an' dance there, an' a black cat would cross it [the crossroad], you take that cat an' kill that cat, an' take this blood an' put in this bath an' take a bath. You grease your- self nine mornings into that blood an' stuff [cat-and baby salve] an' you could do anything you wanted to. [See also 375. Neither colored person nor white takes seriously rites like these two. Whether they start from a hoodoo manual or a tall tale, I do not know.]