Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1890-02-21
ABOUT WATER WITCHES.
sMALL PEACH TREE BRANCHES USED
! AS OWNING RODS.

Independently Rich.
The articles in The Times in relation
20 the extraordinary results obtained by
the use of the divining rod in finding
water and mineral deposits have had no
more interested or appreciative readers
than the people in the mountain ranges
of the Blue Ridge and Cumberland.
The doings of the water witches have
been part of the life of these people fur
ther back than any Que can remember.
1t is not every community that can boast
the possession of one of these gifted per-
sons. The respect in which they are
held is in inverse ratio to their numbers.
Families willingly deprive themselves of
comforts in order to provide them for
the water witches. In return they ex-
pect services in locating wells. If it may
not be quite true that every well in the
mountains was located through this kind
of agency, there is no doubt that the
majority were so located, and that the
faith of the people in the mystic power
of the witches is boundless.
A SIMPLE COMMUNITY.
So far as the natives are concerned
this is a country of poverty. They do
not call themselves poor, for all are
nearly on an equality in the bare furnish
ings of their houses, and the shotes that
they raise on the free forage of the woods
in summer and fall, with the corn, hon.
my, tobacco and moonshine they can
lay up by small trading with the valley
farmers, supply their modest winter
needs. Money is thing that enters very
little into their calculations. A mountain
community enjoys more than average
prosperity, in which the cash earnings of
the heads of the families reach as much
as $50 per year apiece. But all being on
about the same basis there is no compare
tive poverty. They get along from year
to year, and never having known any
other condition they are content.
AS matter of course, they cannot re-
pay the services of the water witches
with cash. The most they can do is to
make them comfortable. This is salts
factory all around. In some way the
suppression has become general that a
water witch is a supernatural sort Of
creature, not made for common toll, and
whose magic will be impaired by the
kind of labor that ordinary mortals en-
dure. AS witches are too scarce to be
spared, they receive very good care, and
as they are endowed along with their
mystical gifts with the natural incidence
of the mountaineer nature, they are ex-
pected and are entirely willing to save
themselves always for the small service
required Of them by those who bring
them yearly tributes of stores The
witches thus get no richer than their
neighbors, but they have an easier time
of it. Sometimes, months will pass in
which one will not be called upon.
Whenever a call is made, however, he
must be ready to respond to it.
A forked branch of a peach tree is the
only divining rod known in the noun
tains. Every witch is as careful of his
branch as if it were genuine treasure.
He selects it when he begins to practice
his magic, and never changes it willingly.
When not in use it is carefully hung on
the walls of the best room in his cabin.
Whatever else may happen, that must
not be disturbed. 1t would be the first
thing to besaved if his cabin caught fire.
Afterward he might go back for the wife
and babies. On every trip he carries it
out of reach of the brush and rock that
may line his pathway, and his mission
ended he returns it as carefully to its
hanging place in the cabins best room.
/ hos hal Af hoG l. Il,
gifted beyond men, or because of the
awe in which he is held by his fellows,
the water witch always means that his
work shall be impressive. When armed
with his twig and in search of water he
seems to lose himself, as If he were lifted
out of the common sphere into a relation
with something more than human.
There are no incantations such as negro
Toodooism employs, but the scene be-
comes suggestive of that class of super
stition. With his face set and apparent
ly with no thought of his surroundings
beyond the intensity with which he fol-
lows and watches his twig, he walks
solemnly up and down, holding the
twig by its forks in front of him, and
seeming to let it lead him instead of
being propelled by him. When the free
end of the twig drops from the horizon
tai at which it has been carried to the
perpendicular he stops suddenly. His
mission is over. The twig points to
water. Men mark the spot, and the
water witch goes away. The well is dug
through the markings. The mountain
GERS say that water never fails when
found this way.
OLD DOC WISE.
The water witch best known in this
part of the country is old Doc Wise. He
lives in the mountains over beyond
Christiansburg, and rarely leaves home.
Indeed, it is only with the greatest diff
Guilty that the mountaineers can get him
to point a well for them. He is above
the need of help from their stores, and
of late years when he has gone out with
his rod twas to oblige his friends rather
than for prestige or pay in any form.
The mountaineers understand that he is
in some way related to the old family of
Governor Wise and that he was chris
tened Decatur. At any rate, the abbre-
waited twist of the name by which he is
known did not result from any financial
doctoring of the gentlemen from whom
he got his money, although such deri-