Browse:To Become a Doctor I Was Gifted (Volume 1, entries 797–799)
To Become a Doctor I Was Gifted
Volume 1, entries 797–799. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → THE DOCTORS THEMSELVES: BIRTH TO DEATH: DESCRIBED BY LAYMEN. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 797
(How did you happen to learn this work - did you pick it uP yourself or did someone teach you?) Naw sir, ah was gifted to dat. All ah'm talkin' about ah was gifted - took it up mah ownself. When ah was twelve years old ah was showed de spirit - diff'rent herbs jes' fer about twelve-thirteen nights, until ah could go to 'um and tell dem, go to 'em. De five-finger grass dat's one of de luckiest grasses in de world - jes' like yore han'. Juh evah seen dat? (No, I never saw it.) Wall, dat's in dis country - it's hard to find without yo' know dere's some at. An' ah kin go to it right now. (Well, you were shown in this spirit. Did you make any effort to let the spirit teach you these things or what?) It showed me. Den ah went anywhere in de woods to find the same stuff what ah seed in mah sleep and bring it back to de house and showed de people and de older people say, "Well, dat [boy] must goin' be a doctor [or] somepin." Wall, then another night ah lay down and them things arrive befo' me agin and ah see lest little things, but ah go in de woods and ah couldn't find them. Wall, de. same thing arrive befo' me de next night; ah go in de woods an ah keep ahuntin till ah find that thing - dig it up and carry it back to de house. Sell dem jes like he [spirit?] said untul a doctor [which kind?], a white man who Was a doctor, said, "Well," he said, "how old is he?" Said, "He is twelve years old gwine on thirteen." He said, "Well, I would like to have this boy wit me." Wal, ah did not have no mother an' no father. Ah was jest a motherless child, jes' like ah am now - ain't know mah mother and mah father, be's a step-baby. But he's mah step-daddy. So he raised me - ah wasn't no, but get de idea. They knowed mah father and mother when they died and vo' see mah mother and father was under slavery. So dese people have dere freedom dey just taken us and raised us after dey give us freedom. An' so dey didn't have nowhere to go and so fer several nights - ah kin remember as good, we slept in de woods until de lady, name some- thing or other, that they knowed, let 'em have a ole log house to sleep in. Ah remember ah was on de floor. An' so ah kept on selling dem herbs to de white party. So den de doctor tole 'em, said, "Let him stay with me, ah'll give him good wages." And then he'd taken de roots after ah showed him how and tested 'em out and made medicine out of 'em hisself. And yo' see, he wasn't -
(You were born in Como, Georgia?)
Yes. You've heard talk of dat? [I certainly said Como, unless while my machine was turned off he had said something like Comah - in either case, it must have been Comer, a village 75 miles northwest of Augusta. My following yes to his question shows me thinking of two things at once - Lake Como in the summer of 1923, and don't interrupt.] (Yes, but you spent your manhood mostly in Augusta - you went there after you started to grow up.) Mostly in Augusta and here.
Entry 798
People that puts spells on people, they claim they're born that way - they know these things anyway.