Browse:Spirits Fear Matches (Volume 1, entries 1695–1701)
Spirits Fear Matches
Volume 1, entries 1695–1701. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → FOLK MEDICINE → Wood. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 1695
If yo' walkin' by yo'self at night, jes' stick 'em back of yore ear - de matches. Dey say dat will keep anything from scarin' yo'. Dat's all ah hear about matches. (Just one back of each ear?) Yessuh, behin' each ear.
Entry 1696
See, lak de haid of de bed, takes de matches an' cross 'em, dey cross 'em jes' lak dat up undah de pillah an' go on tuh sleep. Dat supposed tuh drive spirits away if de spirits are worryin' yo' when yo' kilt someone.
Entry 1697
Yo' take de matches if yo' goin' anywhere in de night an' scared - jes' take dem matches, take two, an' stick one right in yo' haid. Put de strikin' part dis way [demonstrates]. (You take the sulphur part and set it in your head over your forehead - right up through your hair.) An' dat will cross [demonstrates]. (You make a cross.) [The match in the hair crosses the match held in the mouth.] An' put one in de mout' an' go anywhere yo' wants - yo' won't be scared atall an' nuthin won't bother yo', not a thing.
Entry 1698
If they gets holt of your hair and you want to prevent the misery and ev'ry what they have, you'll cross those matches in your haid. You wear that, or either put sulphur in the mole of your head, and it will kill that out. Wear the sulphur in the mole of your head.
(How do you cross those matches in your head?)
You'll put one this way and one this way - just make a cross through your hair, right in the mole of your head.
(Just use two matches?)
You kin use three. [This is the double-cross as well as the Trinity.]
(Three.)
Entry 1699
They take and cross three matches in the haid - that's if you got a headache.
Entry 1700
Ah heard of 'em takin' nine matches, if yo' have a severe headache. Yo' take nine matches an' yo' cross them nine matches an' yo' put 'em diff'rent places - jes' diff'rent places in yore home, an' if it's anyone causin' yo' tuh have that headache or that pain, or anything yo' might have, in nine hours or nine days dey'll appeah dere.
Entry 1701
Say, if you got headache and you done taken things to cure it and it don't cure it - so, you see, they got two color matches in a box. You see, you take a red match - you know them red p'ints, and you take a blue one. Well, you put one in your hair like this, and you put the other one like that - see, you cross 'em in your hair.
(Like an "x" - like a cross?)
Just like "x" - and you wear it in your hair for nine days and then your head- ache begin to pass off.