Browse:Protective Hand (Volume 1, entries 1091)
Protective Hand
Volume 1, entries 1091. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → FOLK MEDICINE (1) PRINCIPLES OF HEALING. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1091
A boy was livin' down our house and he was goin' wid a girl and he quit her, and she says she gon'a have him fixed. So about a week after dat his leg swoll up, you know, jes' a kin'a roun' place like. So dey taken him to de doctor and it look like de more de doctor do for him de worser he'd git. So they taken him to a root doctor and he taken and give 'im a package, you know a piece of cloth, about as long as his leg was, and put nine needles in it and told him to, you know, when you go to sleep to lay his leg on that. And so he got all right. [The preceding medical pad for the leg is actually a hand. Many of these protective hands will be found in the following two subsections - (l) Cure and Protection, (2) Hands - and see Index.] [Wilmington, N. Car., (258), 253:4.] FOLK MEDICINE (2) [In Part One of Folk Medicine, Principles of Healing (p.361), some of the principles were given. Also, as I previously summarized: To catch a spirit or to protect your spirit against the catching or to release your caught spirit - this is the complete theory and practice of hoodoo (No. 38, p.24). We have now reached a place where specific substances must be named for guarding the uncaught spirit as well as freeing the caught spirit. Some of these substances have been described - here is a further list.]