Browse:Smartweed (Volume 1, entries 1560)
Smartweed
Volume 1, entries 1560. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → CURE AND PROTECTION. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1560
My brother was sick for eleven years. And they say he were hoodooed but I say I don't think it such a thing as hoodoo, but he say, "Certainly it is such a thing as hoodoo. I've got it on me." (Wait a minute - talk a little bit slower.) I had a brother sick for eleven years and he went to every doctor and they couldn't cure him. He say, "Think it such a thing as hoodoo?" I say, "I don't think it is." All right, so I takes him, my mother and I, after the death of my father. He eats hardly anything and something came to me in the spirits, like me speaking to you and says, "Take and go to the rivah...and get some smart- weed and bathe him nine days with it." After bathing him with that smartweed nine days he get well. In nine days time he got well and he ain't been sick since. He living today. That's from smartweed. [A cure coming from the spirits is a frequent curing device. Does this come from the American Indian?]