CONTROL-SIGNS

Below is a list of prohibitions and controls on behavior. In Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, Newbell Niles Puckett divides these restrictions into positive and negative "control-signs". Both involve causal relationships; positive control-signs bring about a desired results through the commission of an act, negative control-signs allow an individual to avoid a undesirable result by avoiding a specific action. Both types are included here under 'thematic' headings.

*Those selections marked with an asterisk are quoted directly from Folk-Lore From Adams County Illinois by Harry Middleton Hyatt.

BEES

• When the head of a household dies, someone must go and inform the bees, otherwise they will leave or die. This widely-held European belief stipulates that the bees were the messengers to the gods, and must be sent to inform them of the recent death. (Puckett, 82.)

BIRDS

• Never kill a robin, bad luck will follow."
• Do not kill a swallow; it will make you unlucky.*
• The killing of a wren is unlucky.*
• Bad luck comes to those who kill a woodpecker.*

• The spilling of salt on the table say some, on the floor say others, is unlucky.*
• To avert bad luck when you spill salt, throw some of it over your left shoulder.*
• To avert bad luck when you spill salt, throw some of it over your right shoulder using the left hand.*
• To avert bad luck when you spill salt, drop some of it into the fire or on the stove. Some say you must not speak between the spilling and the burning.*
• To avert bad luck when you spill salt, burn some of it while wishing the bad luck on an enemy.*
• If at the table you upset the saltcellar and the salt falls in your direction, you will have bad; if it falls towards someone else, good luck.*
• The person who spills salt will be disappointed. This disappointment can be counteracted by throwing some of the salt over the left and then the right shoulder.*
• If you spill salt, you will soon cry --- before bedtime say some, before the day is over say others.*
• Children spilling salt will be whipped before night.*
• Whoever spills salt will soon be angry without reason.*
• After you spill salt, you will have a quarrel.*
• If you spill salt, you have an unknown enemy.*
• If you spill salt, an enemy wants to become your friend.*
• The person who spills salt will soon lose a friend.*
• It is unlucky to borrow salt.*
• The person borrowing salt will always be poor.*
• If you burn salt, you will be forced to pick every grain of it out of hell when you die.*
• Sprinkling salt under the pillow, about the bed, in doorways and windows, and on one's back will safeguard that person from being ridden by witches.

SNAKES

• If a snake is killed during the mating season, its mate will come to the body; before sunset say some, before noon next day say others.*
• Never pick up a skin cast by a snake in early spring; you would be picking up a lot of trouble.*
• The snake-doctor (dragon fly) warns a snake when danger is near.

Cures for snake bite:

• Split open a black hen and bind it warm to the bitten place. If the flesh of the fowl darkens the poison has been drained from the bite; if not, the victim has absorbed the poison.
• Apply soda and lye soap to the bite.
• Suck the poison from the bite. This must be done by a person with red gums who has chewed a piece of tobacco before starting.
• Kill the snake and tie it around the victim's foot.
• Dig a hole and bury the bitten foot.

The Explanatory Notes to this edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn include the following prescription for snakebite, quoted from the 1867 Gunn's New Family Physician:

Internally, give the patient all the Whisky he can drink. From a quart to a gallon should be drunk in six or eight hours. No fears need be entertained of making the patient drunk. You may fill him with Whisky, then let him swim in it, and it will not make him drunk, so long as the poison of the snake remains in the system....It is a complete antidote for Snakebite, if taken freely, and may be relied on in any and all cases. It should be drunk like water for a few hours, and continued, at short intervals, until the patient gives signs of intoxication, when the quantity should gradually be diminished as the disease is beginning to recede. Keep him "under the influence of liquor," however, until you are sure he is out of danger.

SPIDERS

• A spider found crawling on a person is good luck
• "If you wish to thrive, Leave the spider alive."*
• Only a spider killed in the house or one found on your person causes bad luck say some.*
• The killing of a black spider or a baby spider is particularly unlucky.*

PROPHESY-SIGNS

That certain occurrences are signs of things to come is accepted as absolute truth by Jim. He does not doubt the connection between his hair and his newfound wealth; to his mind they are in fact inextricably entwined.

A prophetic sign or omen differs from a control-sign in that the "action is accidental or outside of personal control." 1 The course of events is set into motion by chance or by another person rather than by any action of the individual who will suffer the consequences. Puckett notes that the distinction is not clear cut; often there are ways to counteract an omen. For example an owl hooting signifies a coming death. The owl may be hushed by sticking a knife in wood, or by turning your pockets inside out.2 Each item below is connected to Huck Finn; together they illustrate the fact that for Huck and Jim, almost no occurrence, however common, is without significance.

• A spider found crawling on a person is good luck.

• The hooting of an owl is an omen of death.
• In Europe and Africa, an owl hooting near a house signifies the death of one of the inmates.
• The wailing of a whippoorwill portends death.
• The person who hears a whippoorwill calling at midnight will soon hear of a death.*
• A storm is approaching when chickens run about flapping their wings.

DOGS

• If a dog howls at night in your yard, someone is dying or has just died.*
• A dog howling at midnight warns you of a death.*
• If a dog howls at night beneath a window, there will be a death.*
• A dog howling all night is foretelling a death.*

HAIR

• Persons with hairy bodies will always have money.*
• To have hairy arms is a mark of wealth.*
• Hairy legs are a token of wealth.*

OTHERS

DROWNING

• You will always find the body of a drowned woman floating face up; the body of a drowned man, face down.*
• To locate a drowned person, lay some quicksilver on the middle of a slice of bread and let the bread rest on the water where the person went down. The bread and quicksilver will float and stop above the submerged body.*
• As a last resort in recovering the body of a person who has drowned, set off a charge of dynamite in the water where the person sank. It is thought the explosion will cause the bladder to burst and thus raise the cadaver.*

GHOSTS

It was believed that when a person died, if his or her soul was somehow troubled - if it had been wronged in life or in its death, for example, or if the body were left unburied - it would roam a middle ground between the states of existence.

In Mark Twain's America Bernard DeVoto describes ghosts or "ha'nts" as follows: "The spirit left the corpse and entered a dreary state, less than life, not quite extinction. Such half-creatures flitted endlessly about the world, their passage marked by a small rustling or a tiny beat of wings. ... But for their envy, they would have had pathos." (DeVoto,68)

WITCHES

The witch can be a man but is more frequently a woman. She is normally an old hag but can change form, becoming any living creature - a frog, an insect, a black cat. Her purpose is not so much murder as torment; she brings about poor health, misfortune, and mischief. One means to this end is riding. When she wishes to ride someone, a witch enters the house of her sleeping victim, slips a bit into his mouth and the nightmare begins. You know you've been ridden when you wake up fatigued and depressed, often with bit marks at the corner of the mouth and lashes on the back from her whip.

Because the witch plaits the victim's hair into stirrups, one way to prevent a riding is to tie your hair with thread. As she must shed her skin before riding, sharp objects left in her path will thwart her by catching on her empty skin, preventing her from re-entering it. There is a close connection between witches and horses; therefore hanging horseshoes over windows and doors and throughout the house keeps away the unwelcome visitor. Some believe that the witch is forced to travel all the roads that the horseshoe had traveled before she could enter the house. Daylight and safety will arrive before she's finished the route.

Witches also have a counting instinct which forces them to count all that they see. So a witch-riding can be avoided by leaving items in her path - a sieve, she will be forced to count all the holes; a broom, she will count all the straws. Some people scatter mustard seeds or sand throughout the house. The witch is caught before she has time to count each grain.

CONJURE-BALLS

According to Puckett, conjure-balls are generally used as charms to cast spells. Left in the room, hand, or path of someone, it will produce the desired effect. "In some of the states a spell may be put upon a man by burying a "hair-ball" (one of the compact balls of hair often found by butchers in the stomachs of cows or oxen) under his doorstep. This object (powerful, because peculiar) may also be carried about as an amulet to protect one from spells." 4

2. Puckett, 482.
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3. Hoffman, 52. - "Jims Magic: Black or White?"
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4. Puckett, 231.
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