Browse:GRAVE OF HIS OR HER RELATIVE (Volume 4, entries 7545)
GRAVE OF HIS OR HER RELATIVE
Volume 4, entries 7545. Source context: THE PHYSICAL HUMAN BODY ITSELF → DEATH AND BURIAL AND GRAVEYARD → HOW TO OBTAIN GRAVEYARD DIRT → DIRT FROM WHAT TYPE OF GRAVE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 7545
[Though this rite uses the grave footboard instead of graveyard dirt, the family relationship here is more important than material used. I wanted to keep these three examples of vicarious or substitute magic together.] Well, yuh go tuh de graveyard jis' like dese folks - yuh got a sistah or brothah, somepin like dat. Well, dey is dead an' dey is buried in de graveyard. Well, yuh know in places dey use wood haidbo'd an' wood footbo'ds, see. Now, well yuh goes dere an' yuh take up dis footbo'd, yuh don' 'sturb de haid[board] at all, see. Yuh git de footbo'd. Well, yuh take it home an' yuh cut it up. See, when yuh cut it up, yuh cut it up in fo' part, see. Yuh care [carry] it an' yuh care it intuh de house an' put it in de chimley. An' aftah yuh care it an' put it in de chimley, yuh let it stay dere 'bout fo' days, see. Let it stay about fo' days an' in de [end of] fo' days, yuh soak it wit oil; no not any kin', jis' plain kerosene oil. Soak it in kerosene oil. Well, yuh let it lay dere an' soak. Let dat oil soak intuh it about a hour, see. An' yuh go back an' reoil it an' den yuh stick a match tuh it - jis' stick tuh it an' dere yuh goes.
(Well, who goes?)
De same person yuh wants - not de dead, it be's a live person. (How do you make this person - what do you do with that footboard to show that it belongs to this person you want to hurt?) Dat's 'is family, yuh undahstan'. See, she will follah 'er. (If you want to do me that way, you go to my sister's grave or my brother's grave, or my father's, and get the headboard from their graves.)
[My headboard is corrected.]
Footboard, yes.
(From one of my family graves.)
Yes, like yore sistah, fathah, brothah, any relation tuh yuh.