Browse:Hand: Feeding (Volume 1, entries 1973–1977)
Hand: Feeding
Volume 1, entries 1973–1977. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1973
Go to a graveyard for a gambling hand, git dat graveyard dirt and sew it up into a bag, and puts dat lucky lodestone into hit - into that bag. Yo' feeds dat lodestone. If yo' went to de graveyard, yo' feed it with whiskey, yo' puts whiskey on it; an' if you didn't go to de graveyard an' uses de lucky lodestone, yo uses de Hearts perfume on it - it'll 'vaporate, it keeps that lodestone damp and it makes yo† lucky.
(In gambling?)
Shore.
(Well, why do you use whiskey when you use graveyard dirt?)
Well, dat's a wicked person - yo' git de graveyard dirt from a wicked person. Use dat Hearts Cologne on de lodestone. Dat's de diff'rence.
Entry 1974
Black master is supposed to be a root too. A lot of men keep it in a little bottle of whiskey, and women [keep it] in Hearts of Cologne and they carry it around in their pockets. That's to bring luck too.
Entry 1975
[Here, as so often, we have within one ceremony a combination of magic rites - feeding, rubbing and smelling. Smelling is important: fragrant odors for Court, Job and Love; unpleasant odors for evil spirits or persons. Examples of Rubbing are given in this subsection and elsewhere - see Index.] De main root, one of 'em ah called now - one of 'em ah done called, dis heah Eve-and-Adam. Dat's good. John de Conker is better dey say cause it don't - hit conker de worl'. Dat's whut dey say. If yo' go 'fore de jedge wit dat - an' dey say dey uses whut chew call dis heah Hearts Cologne on it to keep it alive. An' yo' keep it - it will keep 'live. It will keep it moist. Yo' rub it when yo' go dere - jest go close enough to de jedge fo' him to smell dat Hearts Cologne. Dey say it change his mind. (You would use Eve-and-Adam the same way that you would use John the Conquer root with Hearts Cologne in going before the judge?) Yes sir.
Entry 1976
Well, I bought one in Washington [D. C.] from a ole lady, she was blind in one eye, and I'd been gambling you see, had been losing everything dat I could beg, bahrry and steal. Now, this is jis' as true as I'm sitting here. And so I heard about this ole lady but I never had no confidence in her. So when I went to her, you understand, she told me, she says, "Uh huh," she says, "you lost everything you has and now you come here to me." She says, "No use me giving you nothing, cus you ain't gon'a believe in me nohow." Well, that jis' was mah min' when I walked in de house. I told her, "Oh yes, Miss Sarah, I believe in you." So. "Well, I can't fix you up today, she say, "you have to come back a couple few days from now." [Magic delay.] So I went back again and she wasn't fixed up then. I went back again. The next time I went back she was fixed up. She give me a little pale-blue book jest about dat square, jest like a square block, jest as wide as it was long. She told me, she says, "You go ahead and you wear that in your right-hand pocket," she says, "and whenever you go to gamble," she says, "ever once in awhile you put your hand in your pocket," she says, "den when your pocket begins to sweat," she says, "you bet everything dat joo can beg, bahrry and steal." Well now, whurther dat dis was right or whurther it wasn't, anyhow, I pays ten dollars for the Hand. Well, it was about a week before I could git hold any money, much together. Course I could gamble with a little game, but I was always wanting to git in a big game. So I gits in de game dis Sunday evening - de boys was shooting craps, plenty of money. So I gits in there. And I didn't have but a dollar and a half, all the money I had. So I gits in there. And de boys was shooting fer fifty cents. Well, you know my dollar and a half wouldn't lass long in that. Some boy shoots fifty cents worth, two or three of them faded in, you understand, and he hit 'em. I don't know whurther to fade dis dollar and a half or whurther to wait and shoot it. I didn't know what to do. I rubbed my hand in my pocket and it sweat. I take it out. So I gets some quarter bits, a couple of quarter bits, lost them. I lost them right out. "Guess I'd better stop now." So when de dice got to me I taken de dice, I don't know whurther to shoot a quarter or what to shoot. A mind comes to me shoot a dollah. Now dat's all I've got. So I says, "I'll shoot fifty cents." A fellah says, "You'll loose for a dollah." Oh, de game was bigl Money backed up you know for goodl And I wanted some of it so bad. I thought I'd shoot de dollah. And I roll de dice out. But dey got a fashion of gauging dem, you understan', ketching dem when dey come out. So I throwed de dice out and de fellah caught it. I throwed de dice out again, de fellah caught it. He caught 'em three times. With mah hand in mah pocket, my hand begin to git moist, after she told me my hand begin to sweat, I shot de dollah. I throwed a 'leven, I shot de two, I throwed a seven. I said [to myself], "I guess I'd better take down this time." So I taken down three dollahs. And shot de one, come out wid a ten. A fellah says to me, he says, "I'll bet two to one you don't ten." I says to myself, "Now dat'll bring me two dollahs." I drop right down, right straight back, jest as straight wid de ten as I could come, and I got ten for four shots and made one right after de other. Then my hand was jes' as wet inside dat ev'ry time I take hold de dice, you understand, dey'd be wet. I taken dat game. And when I come out dat night I had a hundred and forty-three dollahs. Now, whurther it was de hand or whurther it was just luck, my luck come to me, or what it was. That's right. Dat was de first hand I ever bought. De second hand I bought I was in Baltimore. I bought it from a blind man. This is a little bag, a little red flannel bag. He told me, he says when he give me this bag, he told me, he says, "Now you get some whiskey. And don't throw de whiskey on this, but put it in your mouth and spit it on it," he says, "and don't gamble with this, don't put no money much on this bag until you keep it a day or so." All right. That cost me ten dollars. Dat's in a place in Baltimore called Hollandtown. And I goes in a game in Hollandtown that night and breaks it. And the next one I bought was in Norfolk [Virginia]. Dat was a black cat's paw, de paw of a black cat. And I lost dat somewhere. I don't know where I lost dat.
(How do you carry that?)
In your pocket where your money is.
(What did you pay for the third hand?)
Ten dollars.
Entry 1977
Dere is dis garlic - gits dat garlic an' yo' takes some dis seven finger root an' de King of de Worl' [magic three ingredientsl, gits dat an yo' put dem together. Dat is to carry yo' through an' good luck. (What do you mean you put them together? How are you going to put then together?) Put dem three pieces into a vial together, or sew 'em up together into a seal- like [unusual use of word seal], an' den yo' feed dat - yo' feed dat with red whiskey. Yo' kin git red whiskey now [now that Prohibition has ended] - yo' feed dat wit red whiskey [instead of moonshine white whiskey]. But now yo' could jes' feed it wit rose perfume in de place of de red whiskey, if yo' can't git de red whiskey. But while usin' dat fo' yo'self yo' don't drink dat red whiskey. Whut chew feed dat on, don't drink it. Yo' kin drink any othah kind 'scusin' red whiskey. Dat's fo' luck, carry yo' through an' he'p yo' in trouble - plenty of fren's, yo' have mo' white friends den yo' do of any othah.