Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1897-04-17
now steaming away there potato and
yooonno 2D

git up fore de sun be up. 60 an git
me YARDS. ketch de rabbit in de full
OBJ de moon. I kill de sarpent when
ebber kin. I hab owl, an crow, an
|jaybird. De all hep me to make de
pills an my charms; but, boss, am
gwine to tell you secret. If you
eber tell it, look out for old Kamo's
cuss. Here is de charm. No man
had seen it in many long years. When
l die it gwine be buried wild me-" He
put his hand into his bosom and drew
from it smooth, jet black stone; about
two inches long and one and-a-half
thick. I went to take it from his
hand, when an awful shrek, like that
of wounded animal, echoed through
the hovel. At the same time he
grasped it tightly. "Don't touch dat,
mister, it kill you like de pisen OBJ de
rattlesnake. No man touch dat but
. he lay a dead man."
| Iapologized I humbly to the excited
old man, and when he gained COM
posure he went on to relate the history
of the stone. The date "1739, Ris-
mas" is engraved on one side of it
with several hieroglyphs. The old
man informed me that. in 1879 an
African king gave his daughter in
!, marriage to the prince of neighbor-
ling tribe and bestowed upon the cou-
pie this stone. 1t was considered the
most precious wedding gift that could
be given them, as it was supposed to
possess wonderful curative powers.
Not only could it cure physical mala-
dies; but also exercise evil spirits.
Old Kamo, who was native of Africa,
came into possession of it at the death
of his father, who had in some way,
he knew not how, obtained it..
Through all the days of slavery he
wore it around his neck, night and
day; but it was only after emancipa-
ton that he became recluse and be-
gan to utilize the power of the stone.
So left the old man with his good
luck spell upon me, and in my left
pocket a snake skin and frog head,
that he forced in my hand as I bade
him goodby.
But my talk with King Kamo only
filled me with a desire to see more Of
his semi-barbarous subjects. Accord
ingly l passed his hut and continued
my journey across the swamps by
what was once a fine enough road,
but had now become mere bride
path, overgrown and obstructed by
creepers and trailing vines. Some
500 yards further on came across u
clearing around which were gathered
a number of rude huts. Here in old
times had been the slave quarters be-
longing to Governor Aiken, but the
governors slave huts had given way to
flimsy structures of baked mud and
wattles-like nothing in the world so
much as the rude dwellings of Asian
tee or Dahomey. Children were play
ing in the open, and there was barely
enough clothing among those dusky
babes, as Private Mulvaney has it, "to
dust ffe." Some of them, indeed,
were absolutely naked, and when one
looked at the mud huts, the lush
growth of forest around, and these
woolly- headed sprawlers in the fore
ground, it did not need much imagl-
nation to carry ones fancies back to
Africa.
There was a smell of cooking in the
village; and I noticed that the smoke
escaped from the huts, not by means
of the modern chimney, but by
primitive aperture in each leaf-thatch-
ed roof. Occasionally, was told,
this mode of egress caused the huts to
take fire, but the Negroes took the
loss of their homesteads quietly, since
all that it entailed was the collecting
of mud, live wood and leaves for the
construction of new mansions.
Every hut had some sort of voudou
charm of fetch hung before the slit
which served for door, and some vii
layers, more superstitious than others,
had placed regular bunch of these
talismans before their homes. Such
of the women as were not busy cook
ing came out for deep at the "whlte
man." and in its femininity / saw
Jehossa Islands real savagery.
They were oil but nude. But the
care avoided in the matter of habili'
ments had been lavished upon the
training and adjournment Of hair. The
average height of these danes coli
fures exceeded IL inches, and l saw
one towering specimen which must
have almost reached to two feet. Here
was certainly a distinct trace of the
return to African customs. The wo-
men had creased their lofty hirsute
growth until "they shone, and smelt,
like Eden.n Moreover, long, pieces
of wood and even thin seashells were
struck into the coarse, shining piles OF
hair, after the fashion, now or recent
ly in existence, of modern bellies
combs and pins. When addressed
these poor creatures, they laughed
broadly and answered me readily
enough, but in dialect which would
have been impossible of understand
ing to northerner or an Englishman.
In fact, only my long South Carolinian
experience could have enabled me to
penetrate the meaning of the singu-
lar patois, only partly English, ID