Browse:Trouble from Spirits (Volume 1, entries 393–397)
Trouble from Spirits
Volume 1, entries 393–397. Source context: SPIRITS → SPIRITS GUARD BURIED TREASURE. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 393
Now, another thing, in the fork of the road - for instance, we was going to a buried treasure, and when we got out to that buried treasure, the forces was so bad whensomever we would start making our surrounding round dere, why we couldn't get a chance to work on account of the evil force. Ev'ry time you'd turn around something would appear. Well, you would go to that point [fork] of the road and you'd make a real call - that is, to the astral force, to gather 'em together and then you'd make what you call a payday out there [pay off the spirits]. Well, some of 'em use what you call grigri [or greegree] out of candy and diff'rent things of that kind.
Entry 394
When they go to diggin' they say there's always something in the hole, a snake or a scorpion or something in there to try to scare them away; but if you keep on diggin' they'll go away and leave you be and you can continue to get the money.
Entry 395
(Who was this man?)
He wus a Powhatan - a mulatto, yo' know.
(That's down here near the water, isn't it?)
Dat's down heah cross de town.
(You say a Powhatan is a mulatto?)
[Momentarily, I do not understand him. A mulatto by dictionary definition is half Negro and half White. My informant calls this man - part Negro and part Powhatan (American Indian) - a mulatto.] Is a mulatto man. Someone killed him an' dey killed this man an' dey buried dis man an' at de head of his grave they buried $300 an' his cousin when he came from up in de country - he had found out about de money. He wus told dat de money wus buried there, which it wus. It wus said then that this man went there to dig up this man - dig up this grave an' git this money. He thought the money wus his'n. An' whatevah partic'lar time he goes there, an' when he got near to it, de place where de money wus buried - it wus silver money - dere jes' come a whirlwind or a storm an' about a dozen dogs, an' the wind blew an' he had tuh run away from dere immediately, with de hole open an' de money wus dere visible.
(He couldn't stand it?)
He couldn't stand it. De evil spirit or whut it wus, it wanted tuh git this money - he had to run off an' leave it.
Entry 396
They came by the house - I was working on a pile driver - they wanted me to go with them and I decided I would go with them. They put me on guard duty when I got out where the hole was. About a half hour more or less somebody came by there and hollered to them. We thought it was the owner of the property - I did, and another man came and he heard it. They were down in the hole digging, about seven or eight feet down in the hole. It must of been the spirit of the people that owned the money.
Entry 397
He and two men - there were three men together and they of course had located this money [informant did not know what method was used.] This man was telling my father. And when he went out and started to dig, they dug about an hour, and when they got a hole big enough for the three men to be down there, they heard these little heifers, these little calves; and they said they Was just jumping over the hole [in which the three men were] and making all kinds of noise. They Were not real - they was some kind of ghosts. Two of the men ran away and one stayed and dug until he got this little pot. He got it. And when he got up out of the hole, a woman appear in rags and tags. She was so ragged, and had no teeth, and her grey hair was standing all over her head. And she looked at the man and said, "Damn it to hell. You got it." And he said he walked on and he stumbled over a bag. one of those burlap [bagsl, and he said he picked it up and put [it] in the pot, and the woman disappeared. When he went home he opened the pot and there was five-hundred dollars in silver and gold. He gave the other men seventy-five dollars each. [New York City, (1), Ed., second interview, March 19, 1936; near Wilmington, N. Car.,1905.]