Backwoods witchcraft, p.5
Backwoods Witchcraft, page 5
My grandfather had a gift for stopping the flow of blood. Not many people can do this successfully or even as great as he could, in my opinion. Sometimes, he would indirectly stop a woman's flow. There are a couple methods I've heard of. One requires a rag that is dampened with holy water and left out overnight on Christmas Eve. This rag is used throughout the year to stop wounds from bleeding, much like an Irish brat being left out to be blessed by the Goddess Brigit on February 1.
The other method for stopping bleeding entails passing the left hand clockwise over the wound while reciting the following words, quiet enough so the patient cannot hear:
Jesus was born in Bethlehem,
Baptized in the Jordon River.
When the water was wild in the woods,
God spoke and the water stood,
And so shall thy blood.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Papaw told my mom he couldn't cross running water for twenty-four hours after performing this rite. To cross it would undo the charm and the blood would flow again. Another practice he did was he'd give the person a red string to tie around their neck or on their left wrist to stop the blood. It was believed the blood would be stopped by the knot in the yarn.
Water is another form of powerful medicine. Water collected at daybreak on Easter Morning, Good Friday, or Ash Wednesday is said to be a cure for multiple illnesses. Rainwater from the gutters is applied to rashes and the “water” (urine) collected from a cow is tossed onto someone's feet to change their luck around. The least known but most powerful of waters would be stump water. The old folks often called it spunk water because it sometimes has an odd smell; this is probably dependent on the tree it is collected from.
Water found in the grooves of boulders was given the same respect, as it had also never touched the soil. Likewise, in Ireland we find the noted healing belief in well water whose surface had never been touched or “broken” by man. (This will be covered more in chapter 10.)
Ocean water is known to help heal anything from deep wounds to rheumatoid arthritis. My grandmother had knee surgery and for months afterward was plagued by painful knees. Some cousins were vacationing at the beach, and she called them up and told them to fill a big jar with some ocean water. They brought back a five-gallon pickle jar of seawater, big enough that my grandmother put both her legs in and soaked them to relieve the pain. She did that for a week, and her knees have never bothered her as bad since.
Besides charms and magical waters, the people of Appalachia have relied on home remedies and herbal medicines for healing. For croup, we drink the juices of a baked onion. For rashes, we mash plantain into a paste and apply it generously. We had the common sense that herbs may not always work, so our remedies often included man's medicine or chemicals. Whether turpentine, cod liver oil, or lard, we tried different things and kept the ones that worked. When I was little. I personally despised the hot toddy my grandmother would make and give to us had she heard a pitch when we coughed. I now cherish it as one of my best cures!
For a common cold, Mama always said to get two cloves of garlic and cut them in half. Take a half from each and tie them to the person's feet, right on their soles. Within about an hour, their breath would smell like garlic, at which point Mama would take the tied cloves and chuck them out the back door. The other two halves were then replaced and the same process was repeated. After the second round of cloves had been thrown out, they'd soak their feet in warm saltwater to “pull the cold out.”
MARKING AND MIRRORING
I grew up hearing about children being marked by their mothers in the womb by things the mother did. I'm one example. When my mother was three months pregnant with me, she was thrown out of a moving truck going 75 miles per hour. Thankfully, we were both okay, but I was born with a birthmark on my back in the shape of a pickup truck. The belief is that if the mother is frightened by something, her baby could be marked with a birthmark the shape of what frightened her, or have a physical resemblance to the something or someone. On the other hand, the babe could be marked by someone the mother loved dearly. My godson, whose mother is my best friend, has a dimple on his upper cheek just like mine that shows when he smiles.
This also applies anytime the mother goes against a taboo, such as walking over a grave or going to a funeral. A baby born to a woman who does this will be born pale and ghostly, or with a deformity. Or if a pregnant woman has a major craving for something that can't be fully satisfied, her baby will be born with some kind of physical evidence of it. One of my cousins craved strawberries all the time while she was pregnant, and her son was born with a birthmark on his ankle shaped like a strawberry. There's no logic behind these sayings, but I've seen them be fulfilled enough times to believe it.
The behavior of the mother could also mark the baby. If she is whiny while pregnant, she will have a whiny kid. If she made fun of a disabled person, her child will be born with the same disability. The old folks didn't always render to these foreign powers. They developed their own formulas for having the child be a certain way. The marking or mirroring charms they developed mostly surround the care for a child after it is born, but not always.
The first cup of water a mother should carry after birth should be a thimble full of water. She's to carry it from the driveway up to the house and to the child without spilling a drop. This keeps the child from drooling a lot through infancy. She also shouldn't cross over running water until the child is one month old. Otherwise it's said to bring illness on both of them. The latter isn't very reasonable in today's age with concrete roads. We never know when we're traveling over a natural creek anymore.
BIRTH, LABOR, CHILDCARE
Besides those about the condition of the mother affecting her baby, there are a plethora of superstitions around divining if one is pregnant, and the birthing process. One my mother has always followed is placing an egg in a glass to determine if a woman is pregnant. First, the egg is rubbed over the woman's belly in a cross formation. The woman then blows on the egg and drops it into a clear glass of water. If the egg sinks, the woman is with child. If it floats, she is not.
This practice was often paired with a way to predict the sex of the child. A gold wedding ring was suspended from three hairs taken from the crown of the expectant mother's head. She is to lie down “as Christ was laid,” Nana says, meaning her head should be pointing west. The ring is dangled over her navel and Psalm 23 is recited:
A Psalm of David.
The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
for ever.
If the ring rotates in circles over her belly, it is a girl. If it swings back and forth, it is a boy.
If a woman wishes to be free from her pregnancy symptoms, especially morning sickness, all she's got to do is crawl over her lover to get out of bed in the morning. This will pass the symptoms on to him. I've seen this work multiple times. Not for the men, necessarily, but it still worked.
About 80 percent of the charms surrounding women have to do with the birthing process. This was old Appalachia, where a woman's role was to bear children. That role was very dangerous in that time. As with all things, the mountaineer took up faith and charm and used them together for aid.
To ease birthing pains, a Bible opened to the book of Matthew is placed on the woman's chest or stomach. The location depends on the necessity. If the child is in danger, the stomach; if the mother, the chest. A knife, arrowhead, or axe is also placed beneath the bed to cut the pains in pieces and render them harmless. In today's hospitals, these aren't acceptable, so make a “tea” with these boiled in water for the mother to drink.
In the case of possible hemorrhage during labor, chicken feathers were burned under the bed. A bundle of six feathers should be gathered by the father or another man of the house. If not the father, I've heard, it should be done by a graying man. It was best if the feathers were plucked straight from the chicken, but this wasn't a requirement at the time.
Birth came with sadness sometimes. Stillbirths were common in the hills. In the case of a stillborn child, the mother needed a way to dry her milk without that physical pain being added to her grief. A charm was devised for just that: camphor on a cotton wad was placed in the child's grave to dry up the mother's milk. If a woman continued to have stillborn children, Nana always said she should name the next boy Adam. He'll live and she won't have another stillborn. Typically, a child wasn't called by their birth name for much of their childhood, to keep them safe from the evil eye and haints. For most of my childhood, my family called me Bubba.
Childcare was a whole other story. Many times, charms were devised to aid the child's health, but also to ease the labor of the parents. A stuttering child was believed to be cured by drinking water from a church bell or baptism pool.
The teething phase can be hard for mother and child, but especially for a woman of old Appalachia with likely more than three children to care for and a house to clean, among other things. The child is given a dime with a hole put through it with a nail to wear around their neck. For a boy, the dime must come from an aunt, and for a girl it has to come from an uncle in order for it to have its “charm.” To ease the discomfort, Mama would also rub our gums with a silver thimble placed on her ring finger, said to be the best for applying medicine and prayer. A deer-tooth necklace also helps with teething, as does a necklace made of strung elderberries, dried and dipped in the creek on Easter morning.
These stories and tricks are passed down in families and communities, routinely offered as wives'-tale cures, or simple reminiscing of things that helped folks get along in their daily life. We have a good helping of these stories to tell should you ever make your way down to these mountains. The tea is always made and, Lord willing, it'll be a good day to sit on the porch in one of the wicker rocking chairs.
So now that you know how we think, how open we are to the presence of the unknown, and the bits of wisdom we continue to follow to this day, let's get to work on putting our hands (and feet) to use in doing and working with the forces that run up one side of these mountains and down the other. Go ahead and kick those shoes off: it's time to greet the land you're on. One cannot work the roots of the land, harvest herbs, or converse with the spirits if one is not first acquainted with the soil that's home to it all. The soil beneath your feet is the firmament of this work, and you need to know it.
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BAREFOOT WANDERING
Connecting with the Land
In this chapter, you will learn how to connect with the land in a down-home manner unique to this work. These teachings weren't learned or taught by the old folks. It was just what they did and how they lived that kept them close to the rhythms and seasons of these hills, often indirectly. As the Southern Highlands become more modernized with clinics and hospitals, fast-food joints, and grocery stores in every town, those growing up in the city often have a blurry connection to nature. Many people today go their whole lives without digging in the soil or playing in the creeks.
No longer do the cracks in the woodwork of homes need stuffing with newspaper in the winter to keep the cold out. No longer is timber needed to heat the home or boil water. As a culture we were born from this soil, and we have traded it over to the coal and oil companies. We sold our soil, our soul, for an industrial entertainment with the hopes of a growing economy. Most may not notice, but I do. Our seasons are off, our region-specific species of animals and plants are disappearing or leaving, and our mountains are being gutted for her coal.
Noticing, observing, and knowing one's land intimately also entails protecting it. We've heard the stories and know the history that has painted these hills, but we are not their author. In my lifetime, I have watched countryside be taken over by strip malls and highways. I've watched hills be decimated to make way for another interstate ramp. Some of my local readers may remember the giant beech trees, known as Robert Young's trees, planted by the man himself who played an important role in the Revolutionary War. Those trees have stood in Johnson City on the corner of West Market and State of Franklin since the nineteenth century. But as these hills became more modern, they were cut off at the knee to build something that never happened.
The trees were buried and forgotten. Where five or six giant beings once stood a grave hill was left. Over a decade went by before they built the current strip mall that consists of a grocery store, a Chick-fil-A, and a Walgreens. People were outraged when the trees were cut down; now barely anyone remembers them, let alone the one who planted them.
Knowing the land, and what goes on in it, means knowing the spirit of the place and the people who have lived there. These hills are filled with more history than books can hold; no matter where you stand, your feet rest where someone else's did more than two hundred years ago. Wherever you are, walk outside and ponder what occurred on the spot under your feet. Was someone born there? Did someone die? Maybe there was a reunion of lovers. In Appalachia, the mountains remember everything, and they'll show you how to also. As long as you listen. You may never know the names of those who walked where you do, but that connection lives on in the stones of the earth and the bones in your body. As Mamaw always said, “God gave you two ears and one mouth so you could listen twice as much as you speak.”
CONNECTING WITH THE LAND
Go somewhere you know well. Someplace that calls to your bones and stirs your blood, whether that's a forest clearing, a pasture, a churchyard, or a mountain trail. “Betwixt” places such as crossroads, the place where three creeks meet, a river between two mountains, the base of a tree grown into three, or a mountaintop are especially good spots to help bring you “between” times and places. Ponder what took place here. How many footprints do you now follow? How many forgotten graves lay beneath the red clay? How many bones has this soil devoured?
Feel the presence of the place. This is the spirit of the land. While few speak of the spirit as having form, it is likely to appear as an animal, a cluster of summer gnats in the sunlight, or a whisper on the breeze. Those with the sight are more inclined to see them; some have reported the spirit of the land lives in the trees themselves and is a simple voice that speaks from an unknown source, while others say it takes the form of giants that make their residence in the mountaintops or the rocks by the rivers. Many of them are left without a name because, much like this work, they're too old for those things or anyone living today.
When you find where your roots are nourished, give an offering to the land. The Cherokee gave corn, tobacco, and blood. The Irish gave bread, butter, and sweet things. Today's Appalachian workers give tobacco, food, hard candy, whiskey, coins, and old cheap jewelry. Sit with the land and feel your surroundings. Walk about and familiarize yourself with the hills and rocks and trees.
Don't expect them to be accepting of you right away, or at all, really. As with any other friendship, it takes time to become familiar with each other and sometimes it will never grow. Some of these land spirits simply wish to be left alone and unbothered by humans. Who could blame them, after the blood-drenched history they have witnessed in these hills? The spirit of a place is simply someone who has taken up residence on that land, meaning it could be a little person, or a haint, or it could simply be made up of the events that occurred there. For example, a bridge known for suicides wouldn't be a good place to start, as it would contain the spiritual traits of its distinguished events.
It will take many times of showing up, giving an offering, and simply presenting yourself before any presence will be shown. Because not all spirits have your best interest in mind, I'd reckon you ought to carry three used horseshoe nails on you: one around your neck and two under the soles of your shoes. It's quite an odd thing to try and do, but with a handy pocketknife you can pry the soles up just enough to slide a nail under it right at the heels. It may be a bit uncomfortable, but horses have always been regarded in Appalachia as being able to see and protect from haints.
In the spring, take a walk through the woods and note what is growing and flowering. Collect willow fronds and strip the leaves on the front porch. Place them in a jar of water, and set it in direct sunlight without the lid on. This is sun-brewed tea, and you can apply it to wounds and aches. Notice the first animals that are roused by the warming weather.
You'll begin to notice the wave created by the life of the forest. In early spring the first vegetative life returns at the forest floor, and this growth moves upward, from the bloodroot to the honeysuckle bush, from the vines into the trees. In summer, the leaves come to fruition and the flesh of the mountain covers the bones of yesteryear. When fall approaches, life retreats, starting in the treetops and exiting at the forest floor.
