Subject:Fast
Entries
Entry 2899
Now, a black candle is fer enemies, a white candle is fo' luck. Yo' kin buy a 25c candle. Anything yo' want, yo' kin git down on yo' knees and pray and ask de Lord fo' it. Ah be's in de habit fo' sometime to fast and pray, an' you'll really git it. An' if you have enemies removed, you could get a black candle and put it in a dark place and burn it. Burn it fo' nine nights and ask de Lord to move them, and he'll move them.
Entry 8545
Like if I love anybody, I'd take his name and write it and put it in a glass of clear watah. Well ah don't eat anything all day long, just fastin' an' just prayin'. Pray to de Lord that he'll come back tuh me. (That's all you have to do?) That's all I ever heard them doin'. An' I've known girls that do so an' I knowed de boy come back. (Just his name on this piece of paper in a glass of water and then you fast and pray all day long.
Entry 10971
(What would you use that egg for?) Yo' fast all day on Thursday to turn [improve] yore mem- ory, dat chew will git de right understanding. You fast de entire day. And den you boil dat aig and remove de shell. After you remove de shell, den you write de 4th and 8th verse, I think it is, [of Psalm lO4] on dis aig. Anyhow you write as much as about ten or twelve verses on dis aig, and put de egg in yo' mouth whole, and dat will turn yore mem- ory, will help you to keep your memory and get some [knowledge] of things which you wanta do. Dat's one thing egg will do. Dat's de only thing I know about de egg, but chew must put de whole egg in de mouth, when you have wrote dis on dis egg: Remove de shell and write dis on dere. De egg must not be broken.
(What do you write that with?)
Ink. Dere's nothing else will write on it but ink, on a boiled egg.
(And what verses of what?)
De 104th Psalm.
Entry 11259
What happened to me, what I did is true. God in heaven.... [is my wit- ness]. So a fellow came to me one day and he said, "Bo" - his name was Willy Webb, Worked at de Wharf Hotel, chief engineer over there. He said, "Bo," said, "my wife is gone." He said, "We never had a cross word." I said, "What?" He say, "Yeah." He say, "They tells me you know so much." Ah don't know nothing [says Bowes]. "Course I'm 71 all right, but I don't know nothing.
(You're 71?) [Author's comment.]
Yeah, I'm 70 something....
(Oh, you are 75!) [Author's comment.]
And I said, "Ah don't know nothing. He says, "Yes, and I dreamed it - some- thing, someone told me to go to you." I said, "Now, what you. want?" He said, "Ah wants you to do something for me." I said, "Ah don't know what to do for you." He say, "Do something." I said, "Well, all right, give me until tomor- row and I'll do something for you." He said, "What you goin' do?" I said, "I'm goin' t' [going to] fast." He said, "Fast for what?" Ah said, "Don't eat no meat and don't eat nothing. I said, "Tomorrow I'll tell you." [Bowes] said, "I'm going to have a dream. So, de next day morning I got up out of de bed and someone knocked at the door; knocked at the door and was crying just like they was crazy. It was Webb. So Webb told me to do something for him, say, "Lord have mercy, I'm near crazy." I said, "What's all de trouble." He say, "Well, a lady and her daughter used to stay at my house 'fore I was married. And I went to work and married another girl up de country. And then we were on vacation, but I had confidence and let them stay at the house till we come back. So when I come back, in two or three weeks the trouble started." I said, "Oh, I see, now." I SAID, "DO YOU BELIEVE IN WITCHCRAFT AND CONJURATION AND SUCH?" HE SAID, "SURE.″ I SAID, "WELL, DE BIBLE SPEAKS OF IT." He said, "All right, what's does that mean?" I said, "I SEE A COUPLE OF BOTTLES." 'God in heaven, '' he said, "there's a couple of bot- tles!" I said, "There's a couple of bottles buried at your back steps and," I said, "the way you gotta do now to get - is to get them bottles. If you kin get dem bottles, you kin solve your trouble." You understand me [addressed to author]? So I went dere - [I'll] never forget. Dey was knee-high bottles and we dug at de back steps and dug 'em up.
(Well, how did they get there?)
Ah don't - after I looked, I figured they [mother and daughter] put 'em there. And there was some things working up in 'em like maggots - working stuff in 'em just like maggots. So he said, "What you goin' do?" I said, "Take 'em out in the back yard." So after We dug 'em uP, WE TOOK THEM OUT IN THE BACK YARD AND A BLACK CAT WAS JUMPING ALL OVER DE FENCE AT TWO O'CLOCK IN DE DAY! A BLACK CAT WAS FOLLOWING US DERE! AND WE FOUND SOMETHING SHINING! That black cat Was jumping all over de fence. So I looked and I said, "What is dis here, Webb?" He said, "When will my wife be back?" I said, "The third day. She'll be back the third day." I said, "Now you take that and carry it over town to the Warwick Hotel and throw them things in the furnace and you enemies, they will feel it and come over there." LOOK LIKE SOMETHING WAS DEALING IT TO ME WHAT TO TELL HIM. And SO then, I went and carried it over there and there was a big stout woman came over dere hunting for a job; claimed she was hungry, didn't have nothing to eat and asking for a job. So, I told him, be careful now. Well. [Here is the historic witchcraft theme, burn the witchcraft and the witch will appear usually to bor- row something, medicine for her pains, etc.: but here the theme is almost con- cealed, unrecognizable.] So that night, his wife hadn't come back. So then he went home. That lady and her daughter come there that night and when they come there that night, they took a fountain pen and put poison [hoodoo rather than actual] in it and opened it like that I reckon [he evidently demonstrates how. the pen was prepared], and stuck it in the door. After while - it was eleven o'clock in the night and he went to open the door and from the door rising -he struck a match and opened the door and that fountain pen was in there [door ris- ing or saddle of door] with them little prongs [divided pen points] like that. And there was snake blood [the poison] in there: snake blood and acid and some- thing else [3 ingredients!]. I reckon that acid was there so that [snake] blood would go in quick, you know. And so then on the third day, his wife come back as I done said. So, from this story, sometime I says I believe it and sometime I says [end of comment]. So Webb's wife died. Just like I told him, I said, "If you all letting people coming in your house eating and drinking" - and after while she swole up. No- body, the doctors [M.D.'s] didn't know what de trouble was. And they sent her everywhere.
(Something killed her.)