Browse:Needle (Volume 1, entries 2162–2167)
Needle
Volume 1, entries 2162–2167. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2162
Put nine needles round yore neck.
(Tell me the whole story. How would you do that?)
Well, now dey tells me - yo' know, they said dey git nine needles an' put 'em on a string an' then git a stopper an' stick 'em down in there, yo' know, tuh keep it from stickin'. They tell me that brings luck on in yore house. (Where do you keep this?) Let 'em hang down - let 'em extend from - put 'em on a string yo' know an' then take yo' a stopper an' stick de point of it down dere - let 'em extend right down dere [demonstrates].
(Hang down to the middle of your stomach. What do you do that for?)
That's to bring luck in yore house.
Entry 2163
I went to a man once - my husband went away - an' he fixed up a little red [flannel] ball, an' he tole me to go to the front door fis' before sunrise an' take nine needles jis' one at a time for nine mornin's, an' stick in that ball an' he'll return. He'd been gone away two years an' I hadn't heard from him, an' inside of six mont' time he did come back. [Red ball symbolizes heart.]
Entry 2164
Yo' kin take a needle - two needles, charcoals an' red flannel wit some other graveyard dust an' put whiskey on it an' dat will give you good luck.
[Three ingredients are in the sack; whiskey feeds it.]
(Good luck in what particularly?)
In gambling.
Entry 2165
Yo' kin take yo' nine eye needles an' iron nails, put it in a vial, bottle, an' put it up in de chimley corner - hang it up de chimley an' no law or nuthin wouldn't come dere to 'sturb yo' atall.
(What else do you put in that bottle? You said before.)
chamber lye, iron nails an' eye needles. Put in one dose vials about dat large. [Urine in chimney, needles and nails are well-known protective devices against witches. Eye needle - informant does not mean the normally used qoldeye needle of hoodoo - is very unusual, meaning it is not the eyeless needle for knitting.]
Entry 2166
They take two needles an' some black peppah an' put it in a bag an' put it under the front do', one in the front an' one in the back do', in a red flannel bag, an' that keeps the law from the front an' back.
Entry 2167
Ah've known 'em to take needles, if yo' got a case in co't. Yo' kin put a dime right dere right up in yore head dat - de dime right in de mole [mold] of yo' haid, an' yo' put a needle like dat [demonstrates], an' a needle heah, a needle dere, a needle dere.
(You put the needles around that dime.)
Around dat dime.
(Four needles.)
Uh-huh.
(Like a cross over that dime.)
Uh-huh.
(These four needles - each one is pointing to that dime.)
Yes.
(The needles in the shape of a cross.)
Uh-huh. An' dey ain't nuthin - dey couldn't handle de case to save dey life. [If the prisoner has hair enough to conceal this hand, the practical way of using it would be to sew a cloth cover over the dime, so that the needles could be held better in place. The four needles - over that dime or around that dime - form a tick-tack-toe figure either by chording the dime or by squaring the cir- cumference of the dime; in the former each needle is twice bisected by the dime, in the latter the dime is a circle inscribed in the central square. The needles are pointing toward and away from the dime at the same time. If the four needles points are staggered - point, head, point, head - they will point toward the four corners of the world, making a crown. A crown of thorns? A symbolist could find heaven and earth in this design. How many crosses are there?]