Browse:Doll Baby or Snakehide No Nature Hand (Volume 1, entries 1841–1842)
Doll Baby or Snakehide No Nature Hand
Volume 1, entries 1841–1842. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1841
You know what they make that out of?
(No.)
Well, I'll tell you what they make that out of - that's made out of snake- hides. That's what they make that out of - they make that out of snakehides. What's sewed inside of it is ordinary sawdust - sawdust and brown sugar. And you can keep that under a person's bed and a man' 11 never have no nature for his wife. [While machine is off we talk about another hand.]
(Well, what shape would they fix it up?)
Fix it up just the shape of a person - two arms and two legs with the body made to it. And if you put that under a woman's bed, she ain't going to be much service to her husband - her and her husband be fussful all the time. (What did you say they make that out of?) [I am trying to pick up what was lost while machine silent.l Sawdust - take sawdust and alum. Take you a piece of alum, powdered alum. Take you a little piece of bluestone and powder it. Take a piece of garlic and tie the garlic around it. Understand? And put it under a woman's bed.
(Well, what do you use for the outside cover?)
Outside cover on it? Just tie it around with a string, you don't have to wrap it in anything - just put in, open her mattress and put it in a mattress.
(What did you say about a snakehide a moment ago?)
A snakehide? You could take a snakehide and use that - just clip a person's, a piece of a person's hair and burn it. You understand?
(In fixing this doll baby - how was that made, did you say?)
You takes ordinary sawdust - just take ordinary sawdust. If you want to make a woman disagreeable - things disagreeable in a home for a woman and her husband, take ordinary sawdust, a piece of garlic, a piece of alum and a piece of blue- stone, and powder that. And mix it in that sawdust and sew it up in that form of a person - see, like - just like a little small doll baby - a small piece of it.
(What kind of material would you use for that form?)
For Wrapping that in?
(Yes.)
Bed ticking.
(Any kind?)
No, not any kind, bed ticking - something that a mattress or pillow is made out of, not any kind of material.
(Oh, I see. Well, why is that?)
Because you wants to lay the stripes according to the rise and fall of the sun. That's why we do that. You want to make the stripes so that on the shape of that thing like a person it lays with the rise and fall of the sun. You lays it like you take a dead person is buried with their head to the east - I mean to the west and their feet to the east. You lay that thing with the head to the east and the feet to the west. That's against the life of any person it's under.
(Now, where do you put this little doll?)
You put it in - you put it under or in a mattress. But the best way you do, if you can open the mattress and put it in there, sew it in the mattress. Just know how you got it - lay it in the position and lay it right in that mattress where they lay on that. And that woman'll have trouble in her house with her husband as long as she sleeps on it.
Entry 1842
Dis whiskey an' sugah - fo' a man if he's runnin' round. Yo' cut dat yellah domestic - ah mention dat, an' yo' cut chew a little man out. Dat's right in de shape of a little man an' put it in dat bottle.
(What bottle?)
In de bottle whut chew put dat whiskey in, yore whiskey an' yore chamber lye an' de sugah. An' take dat an' set it back, if yo' want him tuh stay dere; an' set it in a cloth in a corner, jes' let it set down jes' lak de man do an' let it stay dere seven days. An' if he's out anywhere in town, he'll come back. But yo' got'a have de shape of de man altogethah.
(He doesn't drink that whiskey or anything? Just keep it in the bottle?)
No suh - dat's all.