Printed Friday the 30th of May 1890 in the Aberdeen Daily News out of Aberdeen, South Dakota
WITCHES IN THE SOUTH.
Dire Havoc Believed to Have Been Caused by Them Among Coon
Dogs.
In Wayne county, of which Goldsboro, N. C., is county seat,
many of the inhabitants believe in witchcraft.
The Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and other southern states
abound in so called “witch doctors,” who will cure your ails and kill the witch
that is troubling you. Some of these doctors actually believe in the personal
existence of witches and in their supernatural power, but many of them are
frauds, who make a living by imposing on credulity of their neighbors.
The negro race is naturally superstitions, but the poor
white “crackers” are also ignorant, and for believing in spooks, spirits,
hobgoblins, and other natural phenomena they can give the colored man cards,
spades and aces, and then beat him. The cracker is worse than the colored man,
because he fondly imagines that he is so much shrewder, and so he does not use
what brains he has, nor does he try to learn anything. He has thousands of
signs, omens, cures and beliefs that are a continual source of annoyance to
him, and perpetually keep him in a state of dread. The simplest incident is one
of sinister and occult meaning to him, and he is ever in a tremor lest ill look
and misfortune over take him.
The evil influences manifest themselves in various ways, and
each one seems worse than the other. His gun occasionally hangs fire and
refuses to “go off” properly, and at times is so badly deranged that it cannot
be discharged at all. At other times his favorite coon dog is bewitched by some
evil mined and envious person, and then the woe of the cracker is something
painful to witness. If his gun were not bewitched, why could he not kill a
squirrel with it! And why should his dog refuse to hunt coons, when to hunt
coons was his business? These are questions that he can answer only by assuming
that a witch had been influencing him and his property.
He employs a witch doctor, to whom he pours out his tale of
woe and yields up his hard earned cash. The doctor cares little for the woe,
but the cash is grateful and exhilarating. The doctor is sanguine, and declares
that he has a method of killing that is strictly original, copyrighted, and warranted
to be effectual.
In one case that I came across the doctor learned that an
old woman living several miles away was the suspected party, and he commenced a
campaign against her. He told the victim to go to her house some night and
stretch a white cotton string around the building and tie the ends together
with a “weaver’s knot.” The he was to walk around the house seven times each
way, recite a given sentence in front of each door while making mysterious
marks on it, and the cure would be completed. The directions were followed,
and, I am happy to say, were effectual as the next hunt resulted in the death
of three coons.
Another time a small powder was given, which must be
swallowed by the witch without her knowing it. The old lady was invited to
dinner the powder placed in er cup of coffee, and the cure was as complete as
could be desired. –Philadelphia Times.
