Subject:Smartweed
Entries
Entry 1560
My brother was sick for eleven years. And they say he were hoodooed but I say I don't think it such a thing as hoodoo, but he say, "Certainly it is such a thing as hoodoo. I've got it on me." (Wait a minute - talk a little bit slower.) I had a brother sick for eleven years and he went to every doctor and they couldn't cure him. He say, "Think it such a thing as hoodoo?" I say, "I don't think it is." All right, so I takes him, my mother and I, after the death of my father. He eats hardly anything and something came to me in the spirits, like me speaking to you and says, "Take and go to the rivah...and get some smart- weed and bathe him nine days with it." After bathing him with that smartweed nine days he get well. In nine days time he got well and he ain't been sick since. He living today. That's from smartweed. [A cure coming from the spirits is a frequent curing device. Does this come from the American Indian?]
Entry 3804
Take de smartgrass weed [smartweed] an' take an' make a powdahs of it, an' take an' dry it an' powdah it, an' put love powdahs in it an' take an' use dat. Eat dat an' dat will give him all de nature he wants.
(Get back his nature.)