Subject:Footprints
Entries
Entry 12692
Yo' heard of de polecat - a skunk. [Informant assumes they are the same animal, but some comment later.] Yo' git dis polecat muss [musk]. Dis [this] muss of a pole- cat is lak a perfume [like the muskox] yo' know. It smell, yo' know - loud yo' know. Git dat an' when he [rent collector or some unwanted person] comes back to yore house de second time - he ben [been] up dere, been dere de first time but he came back de second time. Take dat polecat muss [from an animal's scent bag] an' jes' sprinkle it aroun' - sprinkle it to 'em [sprinkle it away from your house]. Yo' won't be bothered wit him no mo'. [Magically this tremendous odor falls into some of visitor's first-visit footprints, which are still a part of the visitor and will affect him, driving him away if he returns.] (You mean anybody that is bothering you, or collecting bills or anything of that sort?) Take de polecat [musk or scent] an' sprinkle on his [visitor's tracks], why den yo' through wit him fo'evah. [The names polecat (Mustela putorius) an European animal, and skunk (Mephitis mephitis) a North American animal, are frequently in general speech interchange- able in the United States of America. Our animal here is a skunk. I have in- dexed or located it here in the "P" rather than in the "s" division of CHANNEL DE WORLD because it will precede a somewhat similar rite, one about the drop- pings, not any musk scent from the porpoise. Yet to both informants both sub- stances are evacuations.]