Browse:Triform Transference (Volume 1, entries 1000)
Triform Transference
Volume 1, entries 1000. 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 1000
It kinda makes me feel funny to tell it. It was at Norfolk [Virginia]. That was in 1917. This woman had been sick for quite some time. The doctors did not seem to understand what was the trouble with her. They did everything they could for her but nuthin seemed to do her no good. Finally they got a different kind of doctor. It was a woman who was supposed to understand all about it. When she came she looked at her and she said, "Can't you see this snake?" She meant she was tricked by a snake. "Why, the time is past when she should die. She should have been dead a month ago. It is only her vitality that kept her alive." She said she would try to do what she could for her. She [the sick woman] said she didn't want to make nobody else in the condition she was in. [She did not want her condition turned back on the person who had caused it.] So she [the doctor] got a chicken she could throw this disease on instead of throwing it on to a person. They kept it upstairs in the room next to the woman. "Keep it well fed [said the doctor]." She didn't want the chicken to die. "Don't let no one touch the chicken [said the doctor]." If anyone got a hold of that chicken they would kill it. They didn't want the people downstairs to kill it, for they knew what it was there for. They thought these people were causing that sickness. After they got this chicken, sure enough the girl began to get better. At that time they use to get at least a quart of bran every day from that bed. It came off of her skin. It looked like - you seen husks of the meal after corn [maize] is ground. After they used to take that up from the sheet they used to put it in a paper bag and carry it and throw it into the river. They said that would help to get her well. It came off of her body each day - the skin rubbed off. You have seen the scales rubbed off of a fish. Her skin looked just like that, just like people begin to peel around the nails in scarlet fever. The woman told her she would have to cross water. The doctors they didn't want them to bring her away. They didn't have a case like that. They wanted to follow the case to the end. She came on here [to New York City]. She didn't live long after she got here, her condition was so weak. I guess it was the change of climate, too. I don't know what happen after I left. home to the chicken. That chicken walking around, I tell you what it was like - it got on my nerves. The stuff from the bowels of that chicken would be just as green as grass - poison. [The doctor correctly diagnosed this severe case of desquamation as caused by a snake; correctly, hoodooically speaking. Doesn't a snake shed it's skin? Much more is involved. We have here a rare situation. A snake tricked into a patient fails to create; that is, fails to develop into a snake from a swallowed snake egg, or to reform the original snake body from dead-snake powder. Had the snake egg or powder created a body, the living body of this snake within the patient could have been removed easily (see margin-title Live Things in You, p.227, and Index). Instead of a living snake we have a snake spirit. How does a snake spirit display itself? A patient will act like a snake: crawl, dart out tongue or run it round lips [as a snake is supposed to do), have long sleep periods (hibernation), and peel off skin (ecdysis). Our doctor combines three rites, the magic three: if the healthy chicken fails to attract the snake spirit from the patient, the fish scales (snake scales) when thrown into running water will carry away a part of the snake spirit (Part of Spirit Equals Whole of Spirit, p.21); and if these two fail, the patient crossing water will loose the snake spirit - spirit cannot cross water.]