Browse:Magic Delay (Volume 1, entries 964)
Magic Delay
Volume 1, entries 964. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → TIME AND HOODOO SPELL → Time (3) Spiritual. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 964
Dere somepin did to mah sistah. She go fo' a ice cream sodee on a Friday night an' de othah girls dere didn't like her at all. So she went dere at night an' dey served her ice cream an' dey fixed her a saucer of it, an' after- wards she remembered dey speci'lly bring her saucerful. An' after- ward, purtty soon after she leave, de side of her laig all commence painin' her all de way up. An' purtty soon dey had taken an' carry her home, couldn't walk, where she got sick an' de doctah 'tended her [and could not help her]. An' dat laig had swole so, jes' to de knee - swole so dat it jes' be a bag of skin dere an' yo' see somepin like somepin wus crawlin' up an' down her laig. So mah father, he goes an' git him a ridge bass - a root worker, an' he looked at her an' he give her some tea, some kinda tea in a jar an' tole her she'd be all right in about eight or nine days. Didn't [give] her no 'tenshun an' she seem to be gittin' worse an' worse, an' in about a week an' a half he came dere - it wus in de mawnin', said, "Ah come tuh cure de girl." Father say, "Ah hope so - she didn't rest any last night an' she not restin' now." An' he give him three little tablets 'bout de size of an' aspirin tablet but they were black. He tole us, say, "Git the slop jar." She taken de three, an' in about five minutes time she commence gaggin' an' she gagged up a pure green frog: She re'lly did dere in de slop jar. Ah wus standin' right dere.
(End of 1429.)
(That story he told me about the envelope - throwing it up in the air and having it disappear - he said that the root doctor was old Doctor Harris down in Florence, S. Car.) [Fayetteville, N. Car., (1429), 2579:13.] [Folk Medicine I will divide into two subsections: (l) Principles of Healing, beginning here, and (2) Cure and Protection, which begins on page 410.] [A considerable amount of material about principles of healing, cures and protection has already been given. Here I would like to emphasize two things - folk cures about which we have heard little; and the fact that disease, sickness, pain, bad luck, everything in witchcraft and hoodoo is a spirit.] [The problems of health are many, difficult and expensive. It is unfortunate that they should also be encumbered with prejudice and superstition. Concerning the latter - believers in witchcraft, hoodoo and magic throw a halo about their heads, claiming as their authority the Bible, the Word of God: - (l)he [Manasseh] observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards (2 Ch.33:6) - (2) Saul had put away those that had faniliar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land (1 Sam.28:3)- (3) Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live (Ex.22:18).] [One informant expresses the attitude of witchcraft and hoodoo believers as well as the view of Biblical fundamentalists:]