Subject:Human
Related combinations
- Human blood
- Human body
- Human bone
- Human excrement
- Human hair
- Human milk
- Human urine
- Human-hair ashes
Entries
Entry 307
There's a man that could - you see, I guess he's sleight a' hand - did sleight-a'-hand work. An' he did a whole lots of things. So he said - mah brothers would get after him to tell them how he came to know how to do these things. He could do anything - jis' go an' take money or anything. An' when the officers went behind him an' taken an' locked him up in the jailhouse, he'd come on out an' say, "Well, come on, Captun, let's go togethah," and walk on away - now, that's the truth - an' walk on out, an' he would jis' turn into a grey horse an' jis' go on off. So mah brothers wanted to know whut did he do to get this way. So he told them he had to take a black cat an' go in de woods so many miles before day, an' put a pot out there a-boilin', an' put this cat in there an' boil all the flesh off the bones an' the bones all over jis' like you drvin' 'em. Then he had to go where's there's a newborn baby, take this baby, an' put this. baby right in there an' burnt de baby all up jis' like he did the cat. An' he would take the cat, the cat thigh - the first bone from the hip on the back. He'd take this bone from the hip an' take the baby's breastbone - an' throw ever'thing else away except these bones - an' take those two bones an' put 'em into fresh water, an' boil them until they boiled down like a lickrish [liquid a thick pot liquor]. Put it in a bottle an' rub yourself with it, grease your- self with it for nine mornings [at a crossroad], an' go right back to the cross- road the ninth morning, an' when you git there an' rub yourself, an' dance there, an' a black cat would cross it [the crossroad], you take that cat an' kill that cat, an' take this blood an' put in this bath an' take a bath. You grease your- self nine mornings into that blood an' stuff [cat-and baby salve] an' you could do anything you wanted to. [See also 375. Neither colored person nor white takes seriously rites like these two. Whether they start from a hoodoo manual or a tall tale, I do not know.]
Entry 463
I remember one night I was living on a farm all alone. Whilst being there, I had been told that this place was witchy, so I minded it not. So I went there to live. And after staying there for a period of time a witch came to my home. And I was told how to capture this witch. So I captured this witch. So after capturing this witch I had her on my way to the stable and she turned into a horse, a beautiful grey nag. After I put her in the stable, I was so delighted with my new horse that I hardly could sleep. I wanted day to come so bad so I could go down to the blacksmith shop and have my nag shod all round. So finally, the next morning - I stayed all night by her in the stable - and the next morning before breakfast I take my nag to the blacksmith shop and had her shod all round. After she had been shod I carried her back to the stable and put her up in the stable. One of the neighbors round there had taken violently ill. What was the trouble, nobody knowed. So they sent for the doctor. The doctor came. I told the doctor about my new pony. So I went to the stable to get my nag to show the doctor and when I got there de nag was gone. When I heard of this neighbor being so sick, deathly ill, I went to see her. And when I went to see her she refused to let me look at her hands and also her feet. I persisted on doing that and den I got help so I should examine her. After I examined her I found she had horse- shoes on each feet and on each hand. She was deathly tormented with those nails. She had den turned to a natural human form. (About 1886, near Hampton, Virginia. This is an example of a folktale told as a personal experience.) [This is my comment in 1936, after informant left room.]
Entry 9855
You make it like the sign of the cross down by your floor [see note later]. Take tacks, the steel tacks [not brass headed], and you make a sign just like a cross underneath your mattress [but on floor, see later]. That's to hold a man that you want. Well nine [tacks] you just put 'em like this:. that's a cross; this way and like that [demonstrates again by making cross on table or in air]. [In the original transcription our present word floor is door; the latter surely an error, which produces two crosses instead of one. Informant's word nine also indicates one cross. As you can see, the word door would produce two crosses. A cross on the floor under the bed - the fifth point in between the four legs of a bed - creates a quincunx. A bed quincunx is fairly common.]
Entry 10766
Gunpowder, bluestone, brimstone an' beat it up together an' burn it five days out on de edge of yore yard to kill yore stock. I'd do dat to kill yore stock - hogs, cows, chickens an' yo' people. Yo'd have a sick pile ovah dere, fast as one git sorta straight- en [out] de rest git down; all like dat, sompin happening all de time.