Browse:Hand: Handshaped (Volume 1, entries 1988–1990)
Hand: Handshaped
Volume 1, entries 1988–1990. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1988
I'll tell you of an experience that I have had. I heard of a lady who Was supposed to be able to issue a change of luck. She gave me a little red bag sewed very tightly. I never opened it to see what was in it. The process in which she went about making this bag was this. She had me to place my hand on a piece of paper and drew a print [an outline] of my hand. She wrote my name on one end and the man's name, from which I was pursuing a job, at the other end. And she was supposed to dress it in some way and put it in this bag with some other things. And my luck was supposed to have changed. However, I didn't see any change because I didn't carry this as a guard. [I never found an example of what would have been the most wonderful hand of all; an inkprint of a person's complete hand. Perhaps my imagination is too impractical, for such a hand would have been too much like taking fingerprints.]
Entry 1989
[The shape of a human hand has been stamped from metal and used as a hand (FACI,2ed., No. 15897, p.799); in the following we have the shape of a hand cut from paper.] If I need a job - if I want to come to you to get something to give me a job, to get something, you go to the drug store and you call fer dat. They don't sell dese often. We kin go dere and git it but chew can't. You kin git it but it ain't goin work yo' business. You call fer de little hands - ten cent fer five. Wal, any firm that need anyone - anybody that you know of, you send to the drug store and git chew 50c - spend 50c and git you 50c worth of hands, little hands.
(What do they look like?)
Jis' shape of a hand - are on paper - goin' to give you hands, somepin like a - it's in the shape of a hand. And you give the fellah one of those hands when you [he] coming fer a job [when he is coming to you for something to help him get a job.] [Informant considers his handing the paper hand to the client a sufficient dressing of the hand, or he did not know how the hand should be dressed, or he was unwilling to dress the hand for me. One of the most frequent dressings for a job hand is names - see margin-title Name, later.]
Entry 1990
Tell yo' whut ah know dey say - whut dey done tuh me. Ah had charge of a grove. De man is in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, an' he was coming down to find out to put somebody on de grove. Well, ah'd heard of a man in Louisville, Kentucky, an' ah sent there an' he sent me a little white thing about like a - had all knobs an' a thumb [he demonstrates] - jest as white as cotton.
(Something like a glove with fingers cut off.) [This is a hand hand.]
Yes. An' he tole me tuh put that on there an' wear ft till it died. When it died it was all black as yore hat. [See Author, black hat of, in Index.] Say, "When it dies, yo' make yore wish an' go to the fireplace" - an' when yo' jest make the last wish, says that ah'd be able tuh git this job - "den throw it in de fire." An' he says, "Yo' won't rest that night while yo' got it on yo' while yo' burn it up." An' ah had red flannen on it, and de flannen blue smoked [the smoke was blue], an' ah jest rolled an' tumbled all night long. In a few days or a few weeks ah got a letter from him.
(Got a letter from whom?)
Got a letter from de man ah wanted tuh git de job from. Yassuh, he was in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. A. S. R. [Man's name.]
(The grove was down here some place?)
The grove was at Sanford [Florida] an he write de letter, an' ah never have seen 'im but once in life, and ah worked it three times, an' de last time ah worked it, looked lak somepin spoke to me, "Yo' gwine be here long as he own it." Well, long as he owned de grove he kept me. (Well now, when this thing came it looked like a white glove with the fingers cut off - Just sort of like the knuckles. And the color of this piece Was white wasn't it?) Jest as white as the. (Well now, you didn't throw it into the fire until it got dead, you say. What did it look like when it. got dead?) Looked like a black hand.
(This thing turned black, this cloth. Was it a cloth or?)
No suh.
(What was it, paper?)
Ah don't know whut it was. Ah wrahpped it in red flannen, understand.
(Oh, he told you to wrap it up in red flannel.)
Wrahp it up in red flannen an' keep it till it turn black, and then when it turn black, that was the time fo' me to use it. An' ah looked an' seed that it was turned black, but ah wasn't satisfied - ah kept it a day longer, you know. Then ah unwropped it an' turn mah back and made mah wishes, an' bobbed [balled up or bunched] this thing and throw it in de fire an' nevah looked back at it till ah got to de bed, an' ah looked back at it a blue smoke. An' if yo' ever seed a man in trouble, ah was in trouble all night long. Ah couldn't rest while that thing dere.