Browse:Turning Back Spell (Volume 1, entries 1043–1044)
Turning Back Spell
Volume 1, entries 1043–1044. 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 1043
They use snails jes' like they use wood lice to hurt people. Now you take, you get a snail, a wood lice and you take those things and cook 'em till they're jes' all to pieces. You put 'em in somepin and jes' rub 'em up, you know, through a cloth till they're jes' mush. Then you put 'em in some rainwater, jes' a small amount of rainwater and let it set there till - you know rainwater - those things will come when it sets there long enough. Then you take that stuff and strain it out and put it in either milk or whiskey and that'll make that person - they're supposed to after a period of time that scales will come in [on] their haid and they scratch it and those scales become little live things, either wood lice or little min'ature snails. [See Live Things in You, p.227; also Index.] They're so small you can't tell what they look like but you can discern the little shell on their back. They come right out of the skin, just first start like tetter. It'll itch and as you scratch it and people are supposed to have wood lice or snails like that in their haid the way they do that. You can turn the spell right back on them and they'll automatically leave.
(Well, how would you turn the spell back on them?)
Well, just get somebody else to do the same thing to them they did to you. Cook those snails up and give them to him in a drink and when the snails come in his head they disappear out of your head. [See Like Cures Like, p.394.] That's why they say you can't cure a person that's hoodooed if the person that hoodooed them is dead. There never is no cure for them but as long as the person is alive it can be reversed. [For turning back spell, see pp.333-334 and Index.]
Entry 1044
My own laig Was pizen oncest, an' dey had my laig pizened in a way dat I couldn't use it, see. And I went in a graveyard and I axt a fellah wat died and ah pay him a little bit, and I got dis same woman dat fix my laig up, pizened it. And I went to de same woman and she died, see. I got a piece of her dress - under pieces like and I went and got some of dat same [dirt] and I washed my laig in de water and that heal my laig up.
(You got some dirt from one grave.)
From one grave - a fellah wat died, and I paid him to use some of that dirt, see - and de lady wat dies, wat had my laig fixed, and I went and got a piece of de dress befo' she died, see, and I got de cloth and put 'em in dat water - in dat water with de graveyard dirt, understand, and I washed my laig in dat water about four or five times understand, and den my laig was well.