Browse:Miss Mo' (Volume 1, entries 2771)
Miss Mo'
Volume 1, entries 2771. 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 2771
I had a pants taken from me oncet. (You had a pair of pants taken from you.) Had a pants taken from me oncet, and so I went to a lady to find out what become of my pants. So she told me that it was a friend of mine had my trousers, you understand. So I asked her what could I do to redeem them. She told me to go back home and she tell me that she'll cut the card on him. She'll set candles burning, for worrying him back at home. But then she said that he had never had did away with 'em, so far; but the time which he'll bring 'em back, that he'll have 'em on. Well, I goes on home and so she cuts the cards on him and she sets the candle, and she sets a black candle. She write his name down on it and she takes a piece of yellow paper and she wraps it around there, and she takes another candle, another black candle, and just like you are closing a letter - you know, all the way around, just like the way you got that paper curled around the candle. And just about [demonstrates]. (She seals this paper around the candle by using the wax from the second black candle.) With the black candle and leaves it burning. When this - she say when this candle burns out - see, I had to go and buy the candle myself. She said, "You set that candle and when that candle burns out and the paper burns down - but put it in a tub." You know, just like a tub where it wouldn't burn nothing, you know, around it. She say,. "When it burn out, he'll be back with the pants. Well, I did that and it was about a night and a day before that candle burns. Well, that candle burns slow. But it was about a night and day when that candle burns down, he was right back at the house 'cause he was rooming at the apartment where I was at. And he had the trousers on. I asked him why he happened to take my pants.
(Well, when you went to see this woman, did you see her here in New Orleans?)
Yes. I saw her - she was living down on [something] Street.
(You went into the room to see her? What did she have in that room?)
Yes. Well, it was just a ordinary room, just like anybody would have where they sleep. But then she had another little room there - you went in that till [after] you goes to her [she accepts you], where she used the cards. She had cards in there, you know, and diff'rent things around there. All kinds of saints and different things like that, but what they was for I didn't know.
(How was she dressed?)
Well, she just - several times I went down there she was dressed diff'rent ways, just like anybody else would wear; but she had on a black cap you know, just like a skull cap you know. And she was very old. But she was a woman that she could [do things].
(Can you tell me her name?)
Miss Mo.
(Miss Moe? How do you spell it?)
M-o-r-e.
(Miss More - she's dead?)
Yes, died a year ago.
(In 1937. I see.)