Browse:Madam Jackson Across de Creek (Volume 1, entries 2748)
Madam Jackson Across de Creek
Volume 1, entries 2748. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → SHRINES: ALTARS - CANDLES - SAINTS; NEW ORLEANS AREA → (1) ALTARS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2748
Dere was a gurl fren' ah was livin' wit an' dere was another gurl ah Was puttin' in time with. Well, de girl ah was putting in de time with on de outside. (She wasn't living in the same house?) She wasn't living in the same house. Matter of fac' she was living maybe four-five blocks from me. But both liked me. An' de gurl ah was livin' with, me an' her went to church one night, and after we return from church, ah got ready to go to bed and found mah pajamas and pull on. De pressure, yo' understand, and ah turn over an' ah hit somethin' hard. Ah run mah hand in an' found out what it was. It was a candle - a white candle had never been burned. An' so ah takes de candle out and ask dis girl why Was de candle in dere - de girl ah was living with. Well, she didn't know anything about it, you see, and so ah got de candle and goes to Madam Jackson across de creek and consults wit her about dis candle. And so she fest tole me the girl initial, who put it dere. [Initiall Doctors rarely identify persons casting spells (see 907, p.332); but when they do, identification is couched in bague terms. This latter practice occurs in margin-title Zippy Tull, where the fortuneteller Zippy tells her young client that the culprit working against him is "a big dark woman...that don't like your mother and don't like your father, an' she poisoned your dog." I hope to collect all this material in Index under Doctor: identifies spell-caster.] No, fact she didn't put it dere, but she had it put dere. It was a girl, who was a fren' of de girl ah was living [with], put it dere. (You begin with two girls - the second girl didn't put there ~ she had a friend of hers put it there.) A fren' of hers put it there. That was tuh git to dis girl, see - co'se mah girl fren's friend - de one ah was living with. An' dis girl de Madam tole me - say dat dis girl whut had dis candle put dere, she was burning a candle on me fer nine days. An' dis candle had to be burnt at a odd hour, to be burnt from nine or eleven 'clock, which is a odd hour you see - either of two hours, yo' see. But by me finding dis candle and taking it out it was prevented.
(This candle had to be burnt at night.)
Well, de candle had been there three days when it was found - ah slept on it three nights before it was found. [A candle concealed in a bad mattress had beer worked into a feelable position by his tossing.]
(Well, did she say what would have happened to you, if you hadn't found it?)
Well, if ah hadn't found de candle it would mean de girl ah was living with - we couldn't of got along, yo' see. Dat's what dis other girl had it put there fo' - so we couldn't be anything to one another, see, or couldn't git along.