Browse:Marks (Volume 1, entries 754–765)
Marks
Volume 1, entries 754–765. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → DOCTOR AND DOCTOR: TWO OPPOSING SYSTEMS OF THOUGHT. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 754
There was a man that had a farm and people would go backward and forth through this place. There was a public road and they wouldn't go around. He Wanted them not to go through here. So all he could do to them they continued. Well, he goes to work and an old colored man [a cunjure] came along and he said, "What seems to be the trouble that you are always worrying about these people?" And he says, "I can't stop them from going through here." And the old man said, "Well, give me ten dollars and I'll stop them." He said, "I'm going to give you ten dollars in the morning, you come here." He said the next morning he came there and he says, "Come on back and see what I am telling you to do. Now give me the ten dollars." He takes some flour, he takes some salt, and he goes to the path where they get over the gap and draws a mark, an O [the letter O - that is, a circle], and he steps off a little Ways and draws an X [the letter X - that is, a cross]. He sprinkles this salt, he sprinkles this flour on both of them - the X and the O. He goes back to him and says, "They won't cross over there any more." When the old lady came there to the fence, she crawled over, and when she crawled over she seen this salt and this flour. She crawled right back over the fence. She goes back to her husband and says, "Husband, don't go over there. They done trick us across there. "'
Entry 755
They take it pretty much for granted all of my race - if you're going along the street and you make a mark, they'll go way around yonder.
Entry 756
It was a man in Princess Anne County [Virginia]. He had lost a lot of chickens and they kept on stealing, and so he goes and gets a bulldog and chains him to the door [of the chicken house]. This dog Was a terrible dog. So when this man came there to steal, he taken a stick, put a scratch on it [perhaps a cross mark to cross up the dogl and stuck it down in the ground, and goes in there where this dog were. That dog laid right down and went to sleep. He taken every one of this man's chickens and he written a sign and put it upon the door. It said, "Raise some more, I'm coming again."
Entry 757
Old Mr. Ed., he's dead now. The children were playing hopscotch on the ground. When he started in his gate he saw these marks and jumped back and thought somebody Was going to fix him. He went around the back Way and gets over the fence and comes in the house. He made his wife go out and scrub those marks off.
Entry 758
I had an old lady draw a ring [on the ground] with a stick for me once. She spit in the ring and said I would never live to be a man. That worried my mother so, that I told my mother we had to go back and talk to the lady. So I went to her house that night and I said, "Martha, please mam, take that wish off of me that I would never live to be a man." She thought I was hollering and sassing her in the street - she thought I was giving her some sass. That's the reason she drawed that ring and spit in it. She told me if that Was the case, she'd take that wish off of me. I don't know what she did. But here I am. I Was nine years old.
Entry 759
If they were going down the road and they met someone who was supposed to be a cunjure, they'd go back down to the crossroad where they'd met them and make an X mark right in the middle of the cross [center of the crossroad] and that would keep away the bad luck. [Snow Hill, Md., (83), 2:7; informant from Nansemond, Co., Va.1
Entry 760
I've heerd mah mothah say dat you'd take some salt an' pepper sometime, then you could take an' mix it up with some sand, sprinkle it acrost de road, you know, an' cross it up [make a cross with it]. She say if'en you step acrost it, why it would cripple yeh.
Entry 761
I heard about a man onest, him and a woman had a fallen-out, and dey say she come out to de door that morning and make a cross mark right in front of de door. And dey said he walked out dere dat morning and he looked at it and didn't pay it no attention. As he walked acrost it he fell down. And dey taken him up and carried him on back in de house. And dey sent and got a root doctor. After he come dere he give him a belt to wear.
Entry 762
Yo' take an' ole broom an' yo' kin go in front of their place an' yo' sweep a little place; yo' know, jest a little place with the broom part. An' yo' take de handle an' yo' kin draw dat same cross with that broom handle, an' everywhere they move yo' do dat, dey'll move fast as yo' do that. Ah've seen that done several times.
Entry 763
Jes' like somebody got more den yo' and dey bigity wit cha and yo' want make dem git pore like yo'... yo' go to a fork of de road fore daylight and sit slap down on de ground jes' with yere foots streched out, an' call his name three times and drag cross dat road to de east - from de west to de east. Go, jes drag with yore hands and say, "I want chew to be" - jes' call dey name - "I want chew to be jis' like dis, ' and drag from de north to the south [thus dragging a cross] and git up and walk off and don't say nuthin'. But you got'a do dat fore day in de mawnin' do' [though]. They say you do it fer three time and dey say, jes' watch 'em and they goin' git that-a-way - goin' git raggety patchy and goin' git down jes' like you did.
Entry 764
Den if you wanta turn anybody around, keep 'em from coming in yore premises any way, take in de road an' makes a round ring like a wheel an' cross it; make two crosses in it like a wheel - dat make like a spoke in de wheel, an' take yo' some salt an' sulphah an' put in each one of dem places, each one of dem places where hit in de round of de wheel. Yo' see, jes' drop a little piece in each wheel - dat be about fo' places in de wheel yo' have [only one cross made in circle], an' dat will turn'em round, yo' see.
Entry 765
It's a vine - ah dunno whut chew call it - it's some kind of a vine dat dey call a cross vine. [Crossvine is a woody vine (Bignonia capreolata) in the southern United States; a transverse section of a stem often showing a cross mark.] It grows an' of cos' if yo' move that, why yo' won't have any luck an' yo' be troubled in every way - no prosper of no kind an' fin'lly yo'll jis' have it in yore mind tuh move.
(What do you do with that vine, now?)
Put it undah de ceiling of a house.
(Under the ceiling - like that up there?)
Yo' kin put it up ovah the do' or underneat' undah de steps. (You get two pieces of this cross vine and cross it, so that if anybody moves in there they can't stay - they'll have to move.) Yes.