Subject:Scales
Entries
Entry 11628
Like someone you want to drift away, you write the name three times; ooman or man, three times. You go to running water, fresh water, and you ketch you a scale fish. (What kind?) A scale fish, any kind of fish that's got scales on it - a small fish. All right, you write her name down three times and you take that blood from that fish and you dot each one; you understand, dot them periods. You go to running water and turn your back on it and throw it away. Turn your back, don't look back at it - but turn your back until you get so many paces off from it and go. All right, they commence to drifting - you understand - they don't know. Just like you want 'em out of your way, you understand. They commence to drifting. (Now, look. You only put three drops - you put a drop on each one of these names - from the fish.) Yes, you know, just drop like that period; just like you writing a line, you know, you put a period on each one of them. Well, you dot a period.
(You dot each name with one drop of fish blood.)
Yes.
(Well, what do you do with the fish then?)
The fish? All right I fixin' to tell you. When you get through with that, you take that fish and stick that paper, that name in there and go to running water and throw it, and turn.your back. When you throw it, don't throw it with your face toward the water. Always when you walk there - if you [came] in your car or whatever you in, on the bridge, over the running water - you throw it backwards.
Entry 3083
A fellah tole me oncest - he said he was fixed in his haid. Something Was in his stomach. He said when it come to de bottom of his stomach, said some- thing would start to roarin'. An' he said when it got up here along about de breast-like, he said he couldn't hardly talk. And I asked him myself, I said, "Well, what was it?" He said it was a snake. "How do you know it was a snake?" He said, "My wife could even git a snake to grow like a [something]." Ah said, "Then what did you do?" He said, "Well, ah searched for a fellah in Hickory, S. Car., who was called Doctor Buzzard." And he told me that that Doctor Buzzard called to him, to that man, and he ["that man"] said he [Buzzard] scraped both feet, after having him put his feet in hot water, warm water, and git his feet hot. Doctor Buzzard came to see him and he had him to put both feet into a hot pan of water - all right, and let it got hot. And by taking his feet out de water, instead of washing dem, he jest take dem out de water and scrape 'em, both feet and - what he scrape from de water, de guy said, it looked like scales had come off his feet and practically other dirt. See, now. Den he said de ones dat dey got off his right foot, he said dey didn't use dat; but de one dat dey got off his left foot, he said he remembering him folding it into a pocket hand'chief good - fold it into a pocket hand'chief good. They ask fer a wet towel. Then taking de wet towel and dampen it and place it [left-foot scrapings] into de wet towel and place it [remainder of towel] across de stuff and let it lay [hidden] dere, he says, two hours. He says he [Buzzard] didn't leave. He say he stopped dere [in patient's house] and read [prayers or from the Bible]. And [after] de two hours, he said the snake come from de man's body. [This is a rare method for removing a live snake from the human body. Unfor- tunately informant did not remember or was not told how "the snake come from de man's body." But we can reconstruct this foot-skin operation. Live things like most hoodoo disease can be moved down through the body and out through the feet. Sometimes the live thing will go out through the big toe, leaving a small hole to prove they exist. Since the present patient evidently picked up his live snake by Walking over a snake preparation - dust or dried blood - the logical procedure was to scrape the bottoms of the patient's feet, using only the left or evil-side skin. Our operator could easily have pulled the live snake out through the left foot; instead he unfolds the towel and there is the small crawling snake he had taken from his pocket and had palmed into the towel. This trick is not so simple as it sounds. It demands a master of preparation and execution. Whoever this Doctor Buzzard was, he was also an original thinker. For this type of work, see LIVE THINGS IN YOU, Pp.227-239; and especially, "...lak a snake. Den he'll make lak dat'll come out of her haid," p.268, line 22; and then the snakes in preced- ing story.]
Entry 3098
[Molly Lee, a white doctor, had quite a reputation. I first heard about her while I was collecting in Richmond. Since I did not interview white doctors (see INTRODUCTION), I assumed she lived in or near Richmond - a false assumption. The following well-known and commonplace rite attributed to her does this doctor an injustice. Any woman who could receive her crystal ball from the spirits (561, p.178) must have been original and competent.] I knows once in my time, a woman had a man for her husband, and she lived over here in Suffolk. Maybe you heard something, too. There's a lady the other day, lady named Molly Lee, a white lady, she claims do it. She done something. She's a great woman for wrestlin' with young boys. She has a young boy down dere and she say, "Go ketch me a young frog - a toadfrog." And he get that frog and go put a board or something on him so that he can't get away - wouldn't kill him, fasten him down where he'd stay there and die, and the ants eat him up. Let de ants eat him up, you know, all to a skeleton. And in that frog's bones, find a little bone in 'em just exactly like fish scale. And there's another bone in 'em that is used, too, like a fishhook. You know, a little point to it - wasn't, see, all de way; but just more like a fishhook than any other bone. You kin take that bone - now, this has happened, this is not - but this is the bone that the boy had. She take that bone and hook it into a person's coat.
(Into what?)
Into somebody's clothes - just as you pass by, you know, just hook it into somebody's clothes and don't you pull it out, and he'll fall for you just as far as you'll let him. And at de same time this other little bone like a fish scale, see, when you get a chance to do it. Well, you see, if you can't get 'em to you, you can't drive them away. That's what they always says. And you come and just put dat bone just like a little fish scale, drop it on 'em, and just stay like you never seen 'em before. You'll never get dis bone out yourself. If you don't put dat fish scale on 'em, dat's finished - dey's gone and you'll never see 'em no more. He just gone from you just as free if he never been with you atall. (I see. If you want to keep them, you put this little hook; and if you want to drive them away, you put this fish scale on them.) Yes.
(And this is what that woman over in Suffolk did with these young boys?)
Well, she would have these boys ketch frogs for her.
(Oh! She had those boys catch frogs for her.)
Only little boys what is barefoot. Woman had children big as me. (I see. She did that though to get these other men, but she had that little boy catch the frogs for her. That was her way of getting a man and sending him away if she didn't want him - got tired of him.) Yes. And I mean, they ain't been back. That is what they used. I don't know whether there's anything else now that she did besides that, 'cause I've been there. I've gone over there in my automobile. That's what he carried on back. [Informant drove a client over to Molly and that is what she gave him to use for himself.]
(Is she supposed to be a root doctor or something?)
She is that.
(Molly Lee?)
Molly Lee.
(Is she still living?)
Yes sir, fur as I know. I have never heard of her being dead.
Entry 1000
It kinda makes me feel funny to tell it. It was at Norfolk [Virginia]. That was in 1917. This woman had been sick for quite some time. The doctors did not seem to understand what was the trouble with her. They did everything they could for her but nuthin seemed to do her no good. Finally they got a different kind of doctor. It was a woman who was supposed to understand all about it. When she came she looked at her and she said, "Can't you see this snake?" She meant she was tricked by a snake. "Why, the time is past when she should die. She should have been dead a month ago. It is only her vitality that kept her alive." She said she would try to do what she could for her. She [the sick woman] said she didn't want to make nobody else in the condition she was in. [She did not want her condition turned back on the person who had caused it.] So she [the doctor] got a chicken she could throw this disease on instead of throwing it on to a person. They kept it upstairs in the room next to the woman. "Keep it well fed [said the doctor]." She didn't want the chicken to die. "Don't let no one touch the chicken [said the doctor]." If anyone got a hold of that chicken they would kill it. They didn't want the people downstairs to kill it, for they knew what it was there for. They thought these people were causing that sickness. After they got this chicken, sure enough the girl began to get better. At that time they use to get at least a quart of bran every day from that bed. It came off of her skin. It looked like - you seen husks of the meal after corn [maize] is ground. After they used to take that up from the sheet they used to put it in a paper bag and carry it and throw it into the river. They said that would help to get her well. It came off of her body each day - the skin rubbed off. You have seen the scales rubbed off of a fish. Her skin looked just like that, just like people begin to peel around the nails in scarlet fever. The woman told her she would have to cross water. The doctors they didn't want them to bring her away. They didn't have a case like that. They wanted to follow the case to the end. She came on here [to New York City]. She didn't live long after she got here, her condition was so weak. I guess it was the change of climate, too. I don't know what happen after I left. home to the chicken. That chicken walking around, I tell you what it was like - it got on my nerves. The stuff from the bowels of that chicken would be just as green as grass - poison. [The doctor correctly diagnosed this severe case of desquamation as caused by a snake; correctly, hoodooically speaking. Doesn't a snake shed it's skin? Much more is involved. We have here a rare situation. A snake tricked into a patient fails to create; that is, fails to develop into a snake from a swallowed snake egg, or to reform the original snake body from dead-snake powder. Had the snake egg or powder created a body, the living body of this snake within the patient could have been removed easily (see margin-title Live Things in You, p.227, and Index). Instead of a living snake we have a snake spirit. How does a snake spirit display itself? A patient will act like a snake: crawl, dart out tongue or run it round lips [as a snake is supposed to do), have long sleep periods (hibernation), and peel off skin (ecdysis). Our doctor combines three rites, the magic three: if the healthy chicken fails to attract the snake spirit from the patient, the fish scales (snake scales) when thrown into running water will carry away a part of the snake spirit (Part of Spirit Equals Whole of Spirit, p.21); and if these two fail, the patient crossing water will loose the snake spirit - spirit cannot cross water.]
Entry 9911
Well, now, yo' take a frog. Hit's a bone in dat frog lak a fishhook an' dere's anothah one in dere's a scale. Yo' see a man an' yo' wanta use him jis' lak yo' wanta. Yo' ketch yo' a toadfrog an' yo' lay 'im up on de shelf. Well, yo' turn 'im on 'is back. Lay him ovah on de shelf where he cannot turn ovah an' he perish tuh death an' he rotten. An' yo' go dere an' yo' fin' dis fishhook an' yo' fin' dis scale. Well, yo' take dis scale an' yo' keep dis scale. De fishhook, yo' hook it intuh de man's coat, an' as long as he tote dat he stay wit yo'. An' when yo' git ready fo' him tuh go, yo' take dat fish- book out dere an' strike it on de back of dis scale an' he'll go.