Browse:Dead to Living (Volume 1, entries 1006)
Dead to Living
Volume 1, entries 1006. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → FOLK MEDICINE (1) PRINCIPLES OF HEALING. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1006
[Before leaving the subject of transference I must give here a remarkable case of disease transferred from the dead to the living:] Well, a man died with the T. B. An' another woman didn't like him [a living man]. She fell out with him because she like him an' he liked another woman. Well, she went to de graveyard [the grave of the man with T. B.] an' she got someone dat knew about dat stuff [graveyard dirt] an' on a certain moon dat bottom sand comes to de top. Well, they knew about dat. They knew jes' when those things would be, so she got this graveyard dirt an' she put it with something else an' she put it in a drink an' gave it to him. Then he begin to pine away jes' like he had de T. B. If yo' want a person to have heart trouble or something like dat, jes' like a person tuh die, why yo' go tuh de person that chew knew died wit dat, an' on a certain moon dat sand comes to de top - de top sand goes to de bottom an' de bottom sand comes to de top. An' yo' get dat sand an' put it in something - put it with something else an' yo' give it to them - an' they'll die with de same thing dat de person dat de sand come from died with. Dat's why lotsa people have such peculiar diseases an' we think it's one thing when it's another - it's not nachural. [Disease is not natural - see No. 647, p.218.]
(It's something that you put in some sort of food or drink.)
Yes sir.
(What do you mean by certain moon?)
Well, witchcraft mostly comes on a young moon.