Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1894-10-24
VOCDOU BIRD CHARMS.
Characteristic Tales of the Negro
About Birds.
HERON CARRIES A DEATH POWDER,
How Maurice Thompson Tried and Failed
to Break the Cuckoo Charm A
Shooting Match Broken Up.


Thompson, IN the Independent,
l saw old Merge doctors or charm work
ers pretend to do wonders with the aid
of what they called oharir string.
A birds head nearly always fillod n
conspicuous place in the makeup of
this string, the kingtisher's and the
woodpecker's being oftenest used, re-
member seeing one with the flaming
scalp of log at one end and at
the other the dried head of rattle
snake, while between the two extremes
various birds heads and snakes heads
alternated. In the cracker cabins one
may now and again see dead spar
row hawk or kingfisher suspended from
the ceiling or from rafter by n string
fastened to its back, its wings outspread
and its mouth open. The Crackers
believe that the birds beak will point
in the direction of the wind of tho fol-
lowing day. Clearly this is very old
superstition, and the mountaineers
have it as we'll as the crackers.
Some characteristic superstitions of
the Southern negroes had mocking
bird singing through them. made a
short voyage ON corn boat many
years ago 1t was down the Coosa-
wattee we went sailing The boatmen
were stalwart slaves, happy, songful
and good story tellers in their way.
The mocking birds twittered and flut-
tered all night in the thickets along the
river banks, and the jet-black captain
smoked and babbled. From him got
the following, which now set in his
own phraseology as nearly as l can:
Yah, de mockin' bird sing wen de
moon shine bright; but yo' amt got no
business tryin' ter ketch IN at it, he
not gwine let yo' see IN den vile he
ten ter the business. / cross-ex-
amined the captain, and found out that
the mocking- birds business" was
somewhat uncanny, relating, indeed,
to dark conjuring not to be described
here.
III Alabama Negro who boasted
descent from an African king, albeit
he was most unroyal- looking dwarf
himself, told me the story of the owl
and the magnolia tree. He said that
every spring the great laughing owl
came to the magnolia tree and warned
it against opening its mouth Cits
bloom). Eff yo' does open it, the
bird insisted, "yo's gwine ter lose
somefn wat yo caynt git back. +"
But the foolish tree never needed the
admonition; it opened it's bloom and
lost the sweet odor, for which it g1ieved
whole year thereafter.
The bluejay, according to cracker and
Negro tradition, visits hell every Fri
day to pay the devil for weeks work,
carrying Goals to feed the pit fire. And
the turtle dove has the reputation of
wolf in sleeps clothing. He's a
regular ole tarkle dove" is phrase
which, in Blue Ridge lingo, means
that the person spoken of is a saint out
wardly while inwardly he is rottenness
and dead mems bones.
An old mulatto man who went with
me down the Ancilla River in Florida
seemed to be a half-breed in religion
as we'll as blood. He was Baptist,
but he crossed himself whenever a
heron flew ahead of us. He told me
solemnly. following his throat to make
it's notes sepulchral, that the heron
carried death powder on its neck;
if you breathed in but single grain of
it your doom was sealed. When l
made light of his story he shook his
head and 1nuttered: Nebah min /,
boss, yo' obun' ter git fooled some time
er ODER"
Returning to the woodpecker, it was
generally believed by the Georgia
mountaineers that the corn hidden by
the common redhead Melanerpes cry
threcephalus) in hollows and clefts OF
trees were poisoned by the birds
tongue. To the great horror of the lank
youth who told me this ate number
of the hard dry kernels, hoping to en-
tighten him, but l only demonstrated
to his satisfaction that l was ''rayglal
blame fool ter be reskin sich projicks. >
Among the mountain sportsmen, who
used the old-fashioned flint-lock rifle
the flicker's golden-shafted quill was
always chosen to stop up the pan-ven
of the gun while ramming home the
bullet.
This was thought to insure grea
! good luck. On the other hand, ;
screech owls wing feather would sent
the shot wide of the mark. l saw ;
savage fisticuff fight at shooting
match, near Dalton, brought about b.
one man furtively slipping an ow
quill into the touch-hole Of his adver
sary's gun, and the "jedges O. tn
shootin' unanimously decided tina
"Jake he'd no fair chence wi thet al
| feather botherin' 'im."
A family by the name of Dodd. liy
t ing in wild and lonely pocket c
the Pine Log Mountains, showed me
variety of snake skins collected froI
9 the nests of great crested tiycatcher'
These dry sheddings were valued 9