Browse:Turtle (Cooter) (Volume 1, entries 2348–2349)
Turtle (Cooter)
Volume 1, entries 2348–2349. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2348
Now, I tell you another thing, if you want anybody to - just like you had a woman - I mean, a man is running with your [qirl] friend, understand. And this is worth twenty dollars, understand. I don't gen'rally do it, but after all, the troopers come over here and I say, well maybe I [go over to see the man]. [Speaker calls my personal contact man Edward and our Vicksburg contact man, troopers! Medicine-show troopers?] Just like if you had a man, you know, and you don't wanta kill him, and he's running with your wife and I don' mean no harm. You know what you do? You see these [somethings] setting out on a log.
(These what?)
These coodahs sort - high-headed coodahs.
(Coodahs?)
[Transcriber transcribes this word coodels or coodles.]
Yeah - settin' out on a log in de river.
(Yes, what do they look like?)
You know, coodahs that jump off - ev'ry time you see 'em they jump off.
(Are they frogs or are they turtles or what?)
No, dey coodahs - call dem coodahs and dey soft just here, you understand.
(Soft-shell turtles aren't they?)
Yeah, and there is coodahs that is black - black as dis hat. [My old black hat, containing the concealed microphone, is mentioned so often I have had to include it in the Index - Black hat, author's. Informant's black coodah is probably the common snapping turtle.]
(Well, what does it look like? Does it look like a turtle?)
Yeah, it looks like a turtle - that's what it something like.
(A turtle. Oh, it's a turtle. All right, but they have a soft shell.)
No, dey don't - some of 'em have a soft shell and some of 'em don't.
(I see. All right. I understand.)
You know what you do. Now, you take this man name on there and print dis name in there [on the cooter's shell] - don't kill him now, you understand. Just you got anything, print anything on anything with that and put him in de river.
(And that will run him away? But you put the names of both of them on there?)
Both of them.
Entry 2349
The foot of a turtle, you see.
(The foot of a turtle?)
Yes. Take the foot of a turtle and they make hands out of 'em - luck hands out of 'em, see.
(How do they do that?)
Well, you see they cut that foot off the turtle and dry it out, you see. They dry it out and they takes and beat it up and put lodestone in and make a bag with it, see, and put a medal in that bag, you see.
(What kind of a medal?)
One of them holy you know, holy medals. They puts a medal in that bag and sew that bag up, see. And they sew that bag up and they puts perfume on it - oil of cinnamon perfume and they sells it.
(What is it supposed to do?)
It supposed to give you luck.