Browse:Snuff (Volume 1, entries 621–623)
Snuff
Volume 1, entries 621–623. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → DIAGNOSIS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 621
I was in Norfolk, Virginia, an' a fellah was tricked by a girl with a fork, you know, while eatin'. I knew him, we worked together - we worked at the cap factory. An' he couldn't stay away from there [the girl's house] an' he couidn't stay with his wife. She [this girl] had him tricked. See, they'd been goin' together an' goin' together an' goin' together, but he got married on her. See, that's why she thought she'd do such a thing. An' he went to ever'body he knew [for advice] an' so he was told to go to a root worker an' ever'bodies don't like to go to a root worker, so he didn't jis' wan'a go. An' so he got so bad off an' his wife was goin' leave him so he jes' went on to a root worker. An' so dis place he went, she told him to take some snuff an' vinegar an' take this snuff - he soaked it in vinegar - put it under his girl's nose at night. An' she say if this woman wakes up, she hasn't got him fix - he jis' does his own ideas goin' there [he went there voluntarily]; an' if she don't wake up, he know she git somepin wrong [that he had been fixed]. So he did that. [She didn't wake up when the snuff was held under her nose.] An' whosomever he went to told him to bring it back to them [if the girl didn't wake up]. An' after he did [bring the snuff back] she kept it for three days an' nights. What she did, why he don't know, an' I don't know either. But she gave it back to him an' she told him to take it back [on his person] to this woman house ever' day he went there. An' ever' day he carried this snuff back there, she was goin' back an' forth to the store, back an' forth to the store. An' so he kept worryin' her an' kept worryin' her until she came clean with it. An' she told him what she had done. He didn't tell us exactly what she say she did to him, but she had tricked him in his food. She left Virginia.
Entry 622
Jes' lak if a person steal somepin from yo' an' yo' wanta find out who did it, yo' jes' take a cup an' po' some coffee in it an' yo' blows yore breath in it three times, and put some snuff in it an' po' de coffee out. Den turns de cup down till it gits dry an' whensomevah hit git dry, de picture of who stole it will be in de cup - regardless tuh who it 'tis, it be in de cup. An' de place dat dey at - if dey standin' by a tree or by a stump or a ditch or offa de road [you will see the person there]; or again, if dey daid yo' kin see dey coffin.
Entry 623
Had a old lady here - she's dead now - named of - used to live out chere in Moccasin Bottom, named Caroline Young, and ah never knowed how she did it.
(Explain that to me again, now.)
She would take the grounds and put in the cup - coffee grounds I guess it was, they look like coffee grounds, and then put it into the grounds out of the cup in the saucer. Then she would pour coffee in the cup, and pour that coffee out of the cup into the saucer. [I believe Caroline used not coffee grounds but snuff, as in the preceding rite.] Well, when she would do that then, you would see pitchures in the saucer, see. And then natch'ly if you would see a person's picture in that saucer that you knows - but you know, you wouldn't know it [was] him. But she would tell you, say, "Well, do you know this picture." And you say, "Well, sure I know that picture." 'Well, this is the one have your stuff."
[The seeker traps himself!]
(That stolen stuff.) [Vicksburg, Miss., (714), 983:6.] [See my interview with Madam Griffin (Griffith) for a reader of snuff.]