From A HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA CONTAINING SKETCHES OF PROMINENT FAMILIES AND DISTINGUISHED MEN WITH AN APPENDIX BY REV. JETHRO RUMPLE PUBLISHED BY J. J. BRUNER SALISBURY, N. C. 1881 Copyright DMK Heritage 2004 The following are excerpts from the above-mentioned book. Page 210-212 SPELLS AND CHARMS Intimately connected with this witchcraft was the beliefs in spells and charms. This was very common among the negroes, and perhaps continues to this day. Nothing was more common than to account for certain obscure diseases as the result of a “trick.” The sick person was said to be “tricked.” This was supposed to be done in various ways, but very frequently by making some mixture of roots, hair, parings of fingernails, and other ingredients, tying the compound up in a cloth, and laying it under a doorstep, or piece of wood or stone where the victim had to tread, or perhaps was put into the spring or well. In such emergencies the only refuge was a “trick 211 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY doctor” or conjurer, who knew how to brew a medicine, or repeat a charm more potent than the spell laid on. Such “trick doctors” were to be found in the memory of persons still living. They were generally men of a shrewd, unscrupulous character, who managed to delude the minds of the gullible victims of trickery. He who was weak enough to believe in the “trick,” was not hard to=2 0be persuaded and imposed upon by the conjurer. Marvelous stories were told of the skill of these conjurers. So potent was the skill of one of these that he needed no lock on his crib or smokehouse. All he did was to draw a circle in the dust or earth around his premises, and the thief who dared enter that magic circle would be found standing there next morning, with his bag of stolen meat or corn on his shoulder. One of these conjurers was believed to have the power of taking some straws and turning a thief’s track upside down, and compelling him to come and stand on the reversed track. The premises of a man with such a reputation were generally safe without lock or key. To do them justice, the conjurers were generally very moderate in their charges, seeming to find their reward in the reputation which they achieved among their neighbors. And their counter-charms and potions were generally innocent, and only calculated to work upon imagination. Sometimes they used real remedies, supplementing them with certain passes and motions. For instance, many years ago, a boy cut his foot badly with an ax. The wound was loosely and awkwardly bound up, and the blood continued to flow, until the lad was like to die. In this emergency a neighbor was sent for about midnight to staunch the blood by “using” for it. He came promptly, and carefully unbound the foot, washed off the clotted blood, adjusted the lips of the wound, and bound on it the fleshy scrapings of sole leather. After this, he took another sharp tool, a drawing knife, and made various passes over the foot, at the same time muttering some cabalistic words-perhaps a verse from the Bible. The remedy as a whole was eminently successful, but the patient was disposed to attribute the cure to the careful adjustment, and the astringent properties of oak bark absorbed in tanning by the scrapings of the leather, rather than to the magic “passes” and the muttered words. It was believed that if witch rabbits sucked the cows it would cause them to give bloody milk. The remedy for this was to milk the cow through a knothole of a piece of rich pine plank, and the reader may have seen, as the writer has, such pieces of plank, with a knothole in them, hanging up beside the kitchen, and ready for use at any time. In those days a worn horseshoe nailed over the door was regarded as a spell against witch power, and the cause of good 212 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY luck. At present it has become the fashion to form many ornaments after the horseshoe pattern as a symbol of good luck. Some persons believed that if a rabbit ran across the road from the right to the left hand, it foreboded bad luck, but if from the left to the right, good luck. To catch the first glimpse of the new moon through the branches of the trees was a token of trouble during the next month, but if seen in the open sky the first time it was the harbinger of a prosperous month. For a funeral procession to st op before getting off the premises or plantation was a sign that another funeral would soon take place from the same house. But the great embodiment of signs was the moon, and in many families scarcely anything of importance was undertaken without first inquiring whether it would be in the “dark” or the “light” of the moon. The Salem almanac was and is an institution that no prudent believer in the signs would think of dispensing with corn, potatoes, turnips, and beans, in fact everything, must be planted when the sign is right, in the head, or the feet, or the heart, in Leo or Taurus, in Aquarius or Pisces, in Gemini or Cancer, according as large vegetables or many vegetables are desired. Briars are to be cut and fence foundations laid exactly in the right sign, or success is not expected. In fact, attention to the signs frequently superseded attention to the seed and the soil, and the proper method of cultivation, and has probably done much to retard agricultural progress. There is a charm in the mysterious that fascinates the untutored mind; and many would rather be skillful in discerning the signs than prudent in bestowing productive labor. It would be an endless task to enumerate all the superstitious notions that have floated through the popular mind, and that have been the theme of serious conversation and meditation among the people, in the century and a half that has passed since this region was peopled. With many, these superstitions have been but a fancy, a curious20theme of discussion, not seriously believed. But others have been the slaves of these unfounded notions, and have been made miserable by the howling of a dog, or the ticking of a “death watch” in the wall. As the light of education and religion is more widely diffused, this slavery has passed away, and there are probably few today who are willing to confess their belief in the notions that still linger in their minds as traditions of their fathers.