Backwoods witchcraft, p.13
Backwoods Witchcraft, page 13
Now, before I begin a relationship with the spirit of an animal, I always get their consent. Some animals have a huge distaste for humankind due to us destroying their habitats and the abuse they've endured at the hands of man. Some will never be forgiving. This reality is echoed in the Cherokee story of how and why medicine was created: At the start, man and animal had a covenant set between them. The animals would willingly give themselves up in the hunt, giving meat for food, horns for weapons, and fur for warmth, as long as man did the prescribed rituals of prayer and thanksgiving in return for the sacrifice. Man eventually abandoned this practice, hunting deer in large numbers, with no regard given to the beasts and always taking more than was needed. The animals banded together and realized that man can no longer be trusted. Man would no longer acknowledge the covenant between man and beast, so in retaliation the animals decided that for every hide stolen and for every beast killed without gratitude they would send a disease of some kind to the humans to make them suffer and die. In response to this, the plants of the forests and hills spoke and said for every disease the animals placed on man's back, they would offer a medicine to cure him. However, in Cherokee healing, some animals also assisted in healing certain diseases and ailments: the buzzard helped ward off all illnesses, the beaver aided with teething children because of its strong teeth, and the deer helped with frostbite because its hooves are immune to it.4 The wolf and fox were also called for help with frostbite.
This story is the reason so much care was taken in the hunting and handling of the body after the animal was killed. I do the same with any animal part I acquire. I will pray to their spirit, apologizing for any harm brought to them by man, and I will wash the bones or fur tenderly, trying my best to ease the pain of its soul. When I collect the fresh blood of an animal or fish, I will drain some of it first on the ground or in the water to “give it back.” The natives believed that by doing this and covering the blood up with fallen leaves, the animal would rise back up from the ground reborn and unharmed.
After washing and tending to the parts, I will tell the spirit how the fetish will be used. Sometimes, they wish to help a bit spiritually, while other times they wish to rest in peace. This is especially common with roadkill. Every piece of animal I use is always done with consent, because I wouldn't want just anybody taking anything they wanted from my dead body. I wouldn't care what it was for. They deserve the same respect. In Appalachia, hunters and fishers try to never waste anything. You can go to any flea market, antique store, or fair around here and you'll always find somebody selling hides and bones.
“Waste not, want not” is a strong saying here, which is why you always hear about “hillbillies” eating roadkill. Because most folks do—or they used to. They hate seeing a deer, possum, or something going to waste just rotting on the side of the road. However you collect the parts, do so ethically and with consent. I always offer tobacco leaves or smoke for them, which usually sells them on the whole thing. But sometimes even the most sacred plant in the mountains can't persuade them enough. They just want to rest. The animals I do work with only ask for a bit of tobacco and water every now and then. They are simple because they lived simple lives: eat, drink, survive. That's it. They didn't have taste for cakes, rum, or cornbread. Although raccoons may be a bit different and somewhat picky.
Sometimes your connection to an animal will grow stagnant or die out. I take this as a sign that they're ready to retire. That is when I'll take them out and bury them with tobacco and prayers, placing stones over the grave of fur, bones, or skin, and singing “Auld Lang Syne.”
Mind you, none of this is documented tradition; it's simply how I do things and how I grew into the work. I hate animal abuse and their deaths being in vain. I make sure that I source materials that have been ethically procured. Aside from the humane aspect, you don't want to work with a spirit that has trauma attached to it. Below is a list of animals and the assistance they can possibly bring.
Coyote/Wolf: Protection from enemies, witchcraft, and unwanted guests. A spiritual guard dog. The teeth and claws can be carried for protection. It is called for frostbite because it is among a number who stay out in the snow with no consequences.
Deer: Buck and doe parts can be used in works for fertility, love, lust, and spiritual communication. Smack deer antlers together while calling on their spirit or some other entity. “Buck's blood” was used in works of love, lust, and libido. (“Buck's blood” refers to the popular alcoholic drink Jägermeister, which is still believed to contain male deer blood in its recipe of roots. My father used to carry a shot of it with him when he was hunting. Later, I came to find out that the logo is inspired by Saint Hubertus, patron of hunting.) The Cherokee recognized the white deer as Little Deer, their chief, who would come to a hunted deer as it died and ask if the hunter prayed first. If not, Little Deer would strike the hunter with rheumatism.
Raccoon: Work with raccoons for prosperity, especially in times of financial trouble, by hiding a scrap of coonskin in a jar of beans, positioned so the skin cannot be seen. When you cash your first paycheck of the month, go get it in cash first. The last bill the teller lays down is the one you need. In all four corners and the center of the bill, right “fruits.” Add to the jar a pinch of salt, a piece of cornbread, and that money. Keep this hidden high up somewhere in the home, as long as it's secret and above your head, to keep your luck and money up.
Turkey: Although they're the ugliest bird in the forest, they're the most promiscuous. Turkey bones and beards, in Appalachia and the Ozarks, were hidden under truck seats and beds to gain the sexual affection of a person.
Vulture: As the scavenger who can consume anything, it was seen as the chief animal in guarding against disease and witchcraft. Hang the feathers above the door for protection.
Rabbit: This animal aids with fertility, clearing the evil eye, and promotes good fortune through the left hind foot.
Snake: Snake oil helps with arthritis, pain, and other general issues; and the bones or skin, powdered, are used to cross people up or bind them to something or someplace.
Cardinal: This bird's feathers are used for love, marriage, ancestor work, and to protect children.
Woodpecker: This bird's feathers are carried for luck and to attain your wishes.
Chicken: Black feathers from this bird are used for removing and placing tricks. The rooster's feathers will always triumph over anything done with a black hen's feathers because they're naturally dominant. Black rooster and hen blood was also used to cure shingles and other ailments. I take a bundle of black rooster tail feathers and bind them around a stick to make a “conjure duster,” as I call it, to sweep from head to toe while praying Psalm 23.
Bat: The heart, blood dried on a hankie, or the leather wing was carried for good luck, especialy in matters of employment and gambling.
The relationship between the animals and the mountaineer is deep. Aside from this, animal spirits aren't seen as being prone to guiding or giving individuals help, as if they were assigned to help in spiritual matters for the person throughout life. However, many people still believe that God and the angels use animals to give signs and omens based on their behavior and how they appear, either in person in a certain location or in the dream world. These symbolic and sometimes factual tales lead to certain parts of the beast being given authority and power in areas of life.
SAINTS AND PROPHETS
Religion in Appalachia is a paradox: some doctrines are treated loosely, while others are hard-and-fast rules to follow. I've known plenty of people who'd get drunk over the weekend and go to church on Sunday for forgiveness, although Nana always said the Lord quits forgiving after awhile.
Since I grew up in a Freewill Baptist home, I will speak from that viewpoint first. Saints aren't regarded in the same way as you may be used to with the Catholic Church. For Baptists, saints aren't believed to possess any more power than the living who have faith. A man calling to the Almighty and the one going to a prophet for specific advice or help are the same, because power comes from the Creator either way. In church, we were always taught in hacking and hollering preaching about the power invested in prophets such as Moses, Peter, and David. We were also reminded of the words of Christ when he said anyone with faith could do the same as he did and more so.
In the hooting and hollering, Papaw would kick his leg out in the Spirit, talking about the struggles that God put them through and how he calls upon the least of his own: the barren woman to give rise to a nation or a stuttering man to speak the Word. (When Papaw was in the Spirit he did stuff like that. Other people sometimes do similar things—roll on the floor, speaking in tongues, run around. It's kind of like being possessed by the Holy Ghost.) This belief is the basis behind such practices as faith healing, casting out evil spirits, using prayer cloths, praying down the Devil, and calling something from the Lord. The Appalachian Protestant and Baptist churches also teach that those born in the body of Christ are saints, but the mountaineer is too humble for that. We're always at the mercy of the Creator, always unworthy, which is reflected in the dying practices we spoke of in chapter 5 where you're to enter heaven with your eyes closed in an act of humility. Following is a list of saints and prophets. I encourage you to learn everything you can about them and develop a relationship with those that call to you.
Moses
Moses was a prophet who set his people free from Egypt, parted the Red Sea, turned wood into a serpent, and brought plagues over the land. People pray to him to set folks free from alcoholism and addiction, from the sins and struggles that hold them down, and to part the seas for their escape from circumstances “by the Blood.” Call upon Moses to remove conjurings, to set you free from unwanted situations or people, or to impose justice, since he was the vessel for God's commandments.
I remember one time a traveling preacher came to the church. I was maybe four or five years old, but I remember he was speaking about Moses using his staff to part the seas and beat his enemies. The man walked with a cane, and he equated his cane with the strength of the Lord, on which he can lean for assistance in rebuking spirits of pain that festered in his joints and in getting rid of folks who weren't good for nothing.
Moses enjoys offerings of whiskey, cornbread, and tobacco. In working with him, you can also set out a framed picture on your working space. Offerings and pictures of prophets and saints aren't traditional and are very rarely seen in Appalachia aside from Catholic households. However, I'm sure you are familiar already with the loose strings of Appalachian Christianity that place symbolic power on the backs of certain birds, beasts, and natural occurrences regardless of whether a biblical ground is present. It's all about faith, and sometimes it's better to have company.
Simon Peter
Peter, a former fisherman, was one of Jesus's first disciples. Peter was even freed from prison by an angel. The story goes that Herod the king arrested Peter, put him in prison, and assigned four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover. But the church prayed for him, and one night while Peter was sleeping, help arrived.
Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. “Get dressed and put on your sandals,” said the angel. Peter did so, and the angel told him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” (Acts 12:7–8)
In the Bible, Peter is found to be gentle yet firm. He was told by Christ that he held the keys of heaven and had the power to bind things on earth and in heaven. Because of this, he can be called upon for good fishing, healing, divination in the spirit, court work, to keep away the law, to have thieves return stolen goods, or to catch a criminal by praying to him to “bind him on earth and in heaven, Peter, bind it! Peter, bind it! Peter, bind it!”5 If you're not good at openly praying, recite this verse:
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:19)
Others may work with Peter for protection, but I never really got that feeling from Scripture, as he swings back and forth from one extreme to the next. He was a courageous soldier in battle who could take physical attacks well; however, he became cowardly in the face of persecution or ridicule and physical attacks from behind.
Since Peter keeps the Gates of Heaven, he is also associated with the crossroads that act as a gateway between the living and the dead. For this he can close or open the roads before you or another. To conjure him, get a glass of red wine or whiskey as an offering with a Bible, a candle, and two keys. Tie these keys together with red string to make a cross. Set these out on a table. Light the candle, and then make four knocks on the table in a cross pattern, going from top to bottom and then right to left, to open the space to him. Pray to him with your petitions or prayers. Once done, knock again four times in reverse, going from bottom to top, left to right to close the way. Tell him also to close the way to guard against any haints lurking around.
Saint John the Baptist
The Baptist Church is based on the teachings and practices of baptizing. Therefore, John the Baptist holds a special place in the Southern Baptist mind—even for those who aren't religious. John represents the end goal of a life of struggle and pain in the mountains, as foretold through Isaiah 40:3:
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
In the spirit of John the Baptist, folks were baptized in rivers and creeks, just as he had done long before baptismal pools were built in churches. If you ever lose faith in God, light a white candle and go to the river. Immerse your feet in the water, sit on the bank facing east while holding the lit candle, and pray to John to help you restore your faith. This is helpful especially when you just can't bring yourself to talk to God. In this way, you are speaking with someone who used to be human and went through trials just as you have. It makes it a little easier. For offerings, give corn, moonshine, Balm of Gilead (a bud of a flowering tree in the mountains used in remedies), and water.
Saint Jude
While most of Appalachia has historically been Baptist or Protestant, we do have a small, yet strong Catholic presence, with roots going back to the pilgrims. However, most of this population remains up north in upper Appalachia and has had a large influence in the development of Pennsylvania Dutch Powwow, remnants of which have trickled down into the Blue Ridge Mountains and surrounding areas.
Some traditional Catholic saints are known everywhere here, and Saint Jude, patron of lost causes and the desperate, is one of them. Saint Jude candles are everywhere in grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations. Grocery stores sell out of them often regardless of the small Catholic population in Appalachia.
Named the “patron of impossibility,” Saint Jude is a reminder that with the Creator all things are possible, even the resolution of the most hopeless of matters, which may explain his popularity among Appalachian Americans. Although he isn't recognized with this same power or status in the Baptist Church, his presence in moonshine country and globally cannot be expected to have kept its influence confined around the regional folk medicines and magic of Appalachia.
Saint Jude is called upon for help in dire situations and to protect you from your enemies. He will never do harm to anyone, but he will confuse your enemies possibly—because Saint Jude was bashed to death in the head with a club. A consequence of this: you will want to be very specific in your prayers to him. Don't tell him you need money for bills; give him an exact amount. He enjoys offerings of tobacco, chocolates, bread, pennies, and public thanks, such as an ad in the newspaper.
The Madonna
A couple of years ago, we lived down the road from Saint Mary's Catholic Church. It was situated on a huge piece of land occupied by wind-flowing fields and a few pine trees. You have to take a winding road going by some woods to get to the church, and along that road is a grove dedicated to the Blessed Mother with a large statue.
The mother of Christ holds importance for many people, even non-Catholics. She is included in many charms, especially those reigning from Germany that were recorded by John Hohman in The Long Lost Friend. Other times, Mary is simply used as a symbol, as in the case of this formula to ease arthritis: “As Mary will not bear another child, may this [body part] bear no more pain.”6 This draws a likeness between the eternal status of Mary (no longer bearing children) to the body doing the same: no longer bearing pain.
Most often, the Madonna is turned to in times of childbirth with remedies and formulas that seem to stem primarily from the West of Ireland. These formulas often told stories of the holy family or simply dialogues between Christ and His mother. An infamous amulet used by the Irish was a “Mary's bean” (Merremia discoidesperma). During times of struggling labor, the women would hold it in their hands while praying to the Virgin, “As you were delivered of Christ, and Anna was delivered of you; as Elizabeth was delivered of John the Baptist: deliver me of this child and let me be well.” Leave her offerings of water, flowers, chocolates, and tobacco.
My mother always preferred the Virgin of Guadeloupe, the most famous apparition of the Virgin from Mexico and the most common candle in our grocery stores here. I've prayed to her for everything from financial issues and blessings to protection from enemies and safe travel.
3 Pickering, Cassell Dictionary of Superstitions.
4 James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee: Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902).
