Browse:Expelled into the Air (Volume 1, entries 998)
Expelled into the Air
Volume 1, entries 998. 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 998
[In the following whooping-cough cure a mean trick is played on the spirit causing the disease:] Everybody else in the family when they ben' ovah with they han's on each othah's back directly in front the first person, [each person] right behind a person put his hands on his back [the back of the person in front] and - go right behind each, put his hands on my [sick person's back] and the person won't cough no more and the whoop will go down the line to the last person and go. [This is my original transcription in pencil; a note on it reading, "Whooping cough cure - final transcription." The person with whooping cough bends over - behind him a line of bent-over persons forms, each laying his hands on the back of the person in front. The spirit of whooping cough is interested and enters into the spirit of the game. The diseased person whoops and the spirit makes his first mistake. Instead of reentering the diseased person, the spirit hops into the second person. Then the second person whoops and the spirit jumps into the third person and so on down the line. When the last person in line whoops, the spirit jumps backward into the air - he is homeless and the diseased person is cured.] [How can a spirit having power to change form and to go anywhere be so easily fooled? Why doesn't he quickly reenter the last person in line? As I previously remarked, a spirit is a simple-minded creature (No. 505, p.152). He had had a delightful experience playing the new game jumping-backwards; it would never occur to him suddenly to jump forwards. Besides, every' person in the bent-over line was intending and willing or wishing him out into space. Man's increasing ability to think has permitted him to trick the spirits, overcome the obstacles of the universe.]