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This thread has been quiet for way too long so I’m gonna stir things up a bit. What I would like for everyone to do is to talk with family members about customs, traditions, stories, religious beliefs, etc and report back to here. What we need is our own virtual “pow wow”.
Some ideas are old wives tales, “soul” or “country” foods that were cooked. Superstitions, medicinal and spiritual.
Things that have been passed down from generation to generation. Example: my great grandfather had a flint rock that he carried in his pocket constantly. Sort of like a good luck piece. This ocurred in NC, flint is not native to NC. More than likely traded between tribes in yrs past.
My mother, the first 6 years of her life wore a small sachel around her neck filled with various herbs. Was placed around her neck on the first day of October and wasn’t removed until May first.
My grandmother would take pine resin from the trees and form a ball to give my mother and uncle to chew for pin worms.
We need this information. We need to document all of this because even the craziest notions of family traits may not be so crazy after all. Folk lores may in reality be traditions that bind us together.
Let me hear from you guys. If you wish, e-mail me with the more personal ones.
My main line of research for my NDN heritage has always been my Collins/Holloway/Roark lines as that was my father’s people. I often forget my little grandma Mollie PERRY who I have shared her picture here on the forum.
My mom was very Superstitis. I know she believed in sperits watching over those left behind. She told me that shortly after her adopted mother died (she was only 14 years old) she was awakened by a soft light and standing at the end of her bed was her adopted mother. She told her that she would always be near but that she knew she was a strong and brave girl. Years later when granddad Doc was so very sick (1947) we lived in a little cabin on Fenwick Mountain West Virginia. Mother was sweeping the dirt out the front door and all of a sudden she had tears running down her face. I ask what was wrong. Mother stared at the sky and said ” your granddad has gone to a better place”. I ask her how she knew this and she said she saw his sperit go.
When they sold that little place in WV to move west it was years before anybody could live in that little cabin. Everybody said they had seen the sperit of granddad. One family only stayed in the house one night.
Granddad was a good man and at one time he was considered quiet wealthy but he got in bad with the law( never solved this) and I am told by my uncle that another man claiming to be his friend had him sign all his holdings over to him so the goverment wouldn’t take it. Of course when granddad died mother got nothing but granddad has given her that little piece of land that our cabin sat on so I am not sure that granddad was really walking that land or if some folks just had a good case of the guilts.
Some of the other Superstitions included, don’t rock the chair with nobody in it, don’t sit on the table, don’t raise an unbrella in the house, don’t sweep under a lady’s feet, don’t EVER wake a sleeping baby. She made me wear a pouch of herbs around my neck all winter to warn off a cold, when I was sick she made this concocksion she called “granny’s grease” and rubed it over my back and chest. Boy did that stuff stink! You got better or died from the smell and since I am still here I guess it worked.
Mother died in 1988. She had had a hip replacement and was at home recovering. They had brought a hospital bed in and sat it up in the room next to the bathroom to make it easier for her with the walker(no stairs) Mom called me several times after she returned from the hospital. She said she felt wonderful, no pain, and wished she had done this years before. The day she died she must have been on the phone with everybody she knew. She called everybody in West Virginia and each one said she told them the same thing. She felt better than she had in years and she wasn’t even having to take any of her pain medication. I heard from her that evening and she gave me the same story. When she hung up she said to me” I have been blessed to be your mother, you have been a good daughter”. She told me she was getting ready to go to bed. My stepfather said she hung up from me and made her way into the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom heading back to the bed. He was sitting on the sofa when she passed she reached down and took his hand, she said, “Daddy, I am going home.” She fell to the floor. The doctors said it was a bloodclot that passed through her heart. I believe mother had a feeling that last day on earth and she spoke to everybody that was special in her life that one last time because she knew her time was near just as she knew that granddad ‘s sperit had passed on.
That was absolutely beautiful. Similar story when my maternal grandmother passed away in 1994. My mother, sister and myself all awoke that morning with such a strong sense of peace and the most breath taking clouds we had ever seen in the sky. We received the call from the nursing home around 10 am that we needed to get there immediately. My grandmother had suffered a stroke 6 weeks prior which left her pretty out of touch with reality and she had extreme difficulty recognizing family. After listening her to repeat the same lines over and over of “Ya know, I love you”, she finally slipped into a coma around 9 pm that evening. The most serile beautiful peace came over the room. I told my mother it was as if she were flipping through the pages of her life and acknowledging each and every one that she loved them. I stood to give her a kiss on her forehead around 11:30 that night and as I whispered I love you Granola (my nickname for her), and kissed her, she let out her last breath. Just weeks prior to her stroke, she and I had a conversation that I would be the glue that would keep the family together, in essence, taking over her position. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine it encompassing sides of the family that hadn’t spoken in 100 years, covering states, countries, races, bloodlines that we never knew anything about. She’s been gone for 8 years now but she’s still just as close to me as she was physically.
Thank you for sharing your story with us.
My great grandmother used to place a broomstick across the doorway every night before bed to keep the “haints” out. Witches couldn’t cross the broom without counting the straws. The larger the broom, the longer it took. Of course, they couldn’t cross a threshold after the sunrise. We used to have an old “witch doctor” or “medicine man” if you will, that lived in the community that my family is from. He once placed a curse on my grandmother (same one) unknowing who he was hexing. Once realized, he instructed my great grandmother in what to do to break the curse. We almost lost her due to loss of blood.
Regarding babies, ain’t that the truth, NEVER wake a sleeping baby, don’t let a cat near a baby because it will steal it’s breath, don’t give an infant under the age of 2 pot liquor, you can’t spank a child til it falls off a bed/chair and bumps it’s head, scorched muslin on the umbilical cord to make it fall off faster, drops of warmed sweet oil in the ears for earaches, don’t take a newborn out in the sun for 9 days after delivery, don’t lift your arms over your head while pregnant, fulfill all cravings during pregnancy due to marking a baby, don’t watch horrors and avoid any situation that may scare for marking a baby.
One thing I want to try to make, hopefully this week is ash cakes. Cornmeal wrapped in the husks and baked in the ashes of a fire. Supposed to be good. I’ll let ya know. 🙂
my grandmother told me it was bad luck to hear an owl in the day
time worse to see one(messenger of death)…good luck to see a cardinal fly from one tree to another…she never went outside to
work without longsleeved dress, bonnet, and gloves…as i got older to she kept me out of the sun as much as possible…i was seven…she caught me staring in a mirror in her guest room,she asked what i was doing i replied nothing, she said yes you were you were looking at yourself…you see something different than the other children don’t you? yes ma’m, i answered… that’s because you are different…you are indian, be careful who you say that to, when i was growing up that was the worse thing you could be, jobs were hard to get and if you were indian there was no work at all…my g-mother was a wonderful human being…she
loved me…raised me…forgave me…i lost her jan 82…i was less than 5 min’s away, when she died and i haven’t forgiven myself..
i’ll always feel that i should have been there…as for advice, well
i always was hard headed!! i’ve been active in ndn affairs for the last 16 yrs…and hopefully will be until i take my last breath…
lghnhawk…oh yeah skuh ta wo di
Oh my God, I have a hundred or more old family stories . . . Dad was a natural born story teller. I wouldn’t know where to begin.
Dad’s grandma was a midwife/local person people came to for doctorin’. Nearly all of her life they lived where there was no doctor within a half a day’s travel. Her maiden name was Josephine Brown, and she married Jeffrey Richey. She was born in Lawrence County, Arkansas 1854 & died in Tillman County, Oklahoma in 1932.
Dad said once when he was a kid he got a cut under his eye on his left cheek and it got infected. It gradually swole up the entire left side of his face. He said she got a knife, cut an upsideside down “L” incision, or backwards “7” on his face, squeezed the “goo” out, and put it back together again. All his life he had this scar on his face and he said that was where he got it. But it did heal back and the infection left him.
Dad also said he had warts on his hand nad showed them to his grandma. He said she told him to go down to the streambed, pick out as many round stones as he had wards, and put them in his kerchief that he wore around his neck. Now this was in the 1920s and all young Oklahoma boys had this thing they wore around their necks, so that if the winds got bad, you could turn it around and wear it “like an outlaw” in the movies covering the nose, and you could breathe through the dust.
Anyhow, he did what she asked. She also told him to walk to the nearest crossroads, a place where roads intersected, and throw the kerchief filled with round stones diagonally across the road. She told him to then just forget about it, and said that the next time he thought about his warts, he would look down and they would be gone.
Well, he did as she asked, and lo and behold, when he next remembered the warts, he looked down on his hands and they were gone.
He also said when he way maybe six years old he got some disease in his legs — he never knew what it was — where his legs got weak and he just couldn’t walk. His brother Raymond often carried him to school. He said his grandma faithfull for 2 or 3 years would rub some of ehr homemade medicine on his legs, and eventually they got better and his ability to walk normally came back.
Great-grandma Richey also delivered both my mom and my dad as a mid-wife. Both were born of farms a mile apart, and one month apart in Aug & Sep of 1915. I was told she’d go down to the creek and gather roots, or stems or leaves or bark or whatever nad make her own medicines. I don’t have a clue about this. What ever she knew, it died with her. But I do know my mom told me she took grandma Hawkins (Josephine’s daughter) to the doctor for the first time after WW2, and Grandma Hawkins, after she left the doctors office told mom, “That man doesn’t know what he is doin.” talkin about the doctor. Yall have seen photos of the “Richey Boys” on another thread on this forum. Grandma was their older sister, nad looked just as Indian as they did.
I better stop.
vance hawkins
Thanks Guys,
These are the stories that we can NOT let die with us. I really love to hear these. I would like to keep this string going as long as we can so I can get this stuff documented. It is lores like these that keep us bound together. Not just blood.
I met a lady about a year ago and was visiting her about 2 weeks after we first met. She knew nothing about what I did as I knew nothing of her ancestry. We started to discuss family lores and “old wives tales”. Uncanny how many of those that we shared. She, herself, was from Carolina but the Northeastern Corner. Once we finally got around to blood lines and NDN blood, she confessed that she was “Blackfoot”. Not Saponi, not Souix, not Chowan, but BLACKFOOT. You can only imagine the surprise I felt, not to mention the excitement.
One of the Carolina tribes, I can’t remember which one right now, Lumbee or Robeson, based part of their recognition on Oral History. I can’t express how important it is to get all of this documented. Please, keep this string rolling. It doesn’t matter how Cooky or strange it may seem but it may trigger a memory for our visitors that are struggling for their way home as well.
we had gone to visit my g-mothers sister…i was school age 6 or 7…i had a wart on the top joint of my middle finger…when i wrote a lot it would get sore, burst, and bleed…so my mo’ told me to go into the kitchen get a dirty dish towel and rub the wart then hide the d’towel…so i did…in a few days the wart was gone??…i still have a bump there but no wart…several yrs. later when aunt ruby was moving, she called my mo’ and told her she had found the d’towel in a weird place ( she had looked all over house for it while we were there, she knew it was missing???)my mo’ laughed and told her what i had done…
i had health problems as child?? severe nose bleeds, nearly fatal several times…also born w/ crooked ankles…still have ’em crooked ankles that is… on the nose bleeds they had done everything they knew…wore mercury dime around neck, cough instead of sneeze( that’s ROUGH), hold head back until nearly drowned, i don’t know what else…anyway my g-pa came in one day with 2 cans of ‘kraut juice…said for me to drink 1/2 can at time…i didn’t want to?? you know kids…i liked ‘kraut…didn’t want that juice tho’…anyway to make it short?? it worked…i didn’t have another uncontrollable n’b’ again( other than the kind you get when punched in the nose) until basic training…i came close to hemmorraging to death…military doctors never could figure it out, neither can i…
the ankles, well when i was 3, they took me to specialist…he put braces on me (you know like forrest gump wore)..i threw a fit told them i didn’t want them…mo’ said ” take them off, he was born w/ crooked ankles, he’ll die with them…that’s about all that can be said ’bout crooked ankles…oh yeah i passed air-force physical
in 70’s…dr’s at v a said i should not have passed, because of that… do na da go hv i…. lghnhawk
I was also told my grandpa used to gather honey. He’d go out with a canning jar, find a honey bee on a wild-flower, and put the canning jar over the flower and his hand over the other end and catch the bee. The bee then would buzz and fly back to its nest, but flying with it’s body closest to one side of the jar. Grandpa would walk in the direction the bee was leading him to the hive. Once he’d find the hive, he’d start a fire under it and then gather the honey.
I, as a child, saw him get stung and it didn’t bother him any more than a mosquito would. I think he’d been stung so many times he was immune to the toxins in their stinger.
vance hawkins
I have a question for all of you, talking about bees and mosquitos, do any of you have problems with the pesty critters? I think I may have been bitten by a mosquito maybe 3 times in my life. Evidently, my sis and I just aren’t sweet enough for them.
Chiggers, NEVER had them, probably never will and if there’s one passion in my life, it’s tromplin through the woods. Poison Oak/Ivy, never had it. And it’s not just me, but my kids as well. Their father is NDN as well and we just figured we probably have built in immunities thanks to our genes.
Thank you for starting this thread, Rosebudsaponi. First I wanted to answer your question regarding bees, mosquitos, chiggers, & poison ivy. Personally, I am highly allergic to poison ivy. The worse case I had was when I was a kid, my hands were covered in blisters, I still have a scar on one of my fingers. Bees, mosquitos, & chiggers are attracted to me like a magnet! I hate them all. 🙂 I have Elhers Danlos Syndrome, which causes the skin to be thinner than normal. It causes severe pain in my joints, it’s like having arthritis without the redness & swelling. Insects prefer to attack skin that is easier to penetrate, at least this seems to be the case in my family. Ehlers Danlos is a genetic disorder, that also causes hyper-mobility, (double jointed).
My mother has always been superstitious. I grew up hearing the following superstitions: Don’t let the cat sleep with you, as they will “Steal your breathe”. My cat always slept with me, & I’m still here. Mom thought it was bad luck to have a black cat cross your path. She once was driving & a black cat ran across the street in front of the car. Mom stopped the car, got out said something & spit on the spot where the cat had crossed. She then made some type of mark with her shoe. :p Mom told us that if a spider came down & hung in front of your face, that it was a sign of death. Also if a bird hit or flew to your window, it was a sign of death. A few other superstitions she had are, Don’t walk under a ladder, never sweep or allow someone to sweep under your feet, this only applied to females, & never walk on a grave, only around it.
As a child I kept with me a arrowhead (clovis point), that I had found in Richmond. Over the years I lost it, however I always had my lucky rabbit’s foot on me. I still have the rabbit’s foot.
Our food was rather basic, we always ate fresh yellow squash & onions, turnips, corn on the cob, cabbage & potatoes, fried potatoes & onions, fried green tomatoes coated in flour, salt & pepper, salt herrings only on Sunday, fried okra, butter beans served in a bowl with the water from cooking, sliced potatoes fried, meatloaf, & pork. I had a love for blackberries, as I use to pick & eat them without washing them. I enjoyed planting corn, green beans, tomatoes, as a kid. My family had friends where I use to go, to plant crops in their garden. I loved & still do love catching soft shell crabs & eating them. I have always enjoyed fishing, but not as a sport, only for food.
For earaches, hot not warm oil was used, I dreaded this. 🙁 The spiritual aspects of my life are very personal. Our family seems to be blessed or cursed with the ability to know things before they happen. This is something that has grown stronger over the years. I think I will leave it at that.
Sincerely,
CoheeLady
howdy Lighnhawk —
thanks for the comments about “warts” — ha ha.
to Lighhawk & Dennis —
About the other thing — it is one of the things you just don’t discuss, it is taboo, at least in a public forum like this. I feel a little guilty thinkin about sayin the word even. You know what I am talkin’ about. If you do discuss it you will have bad luck. But it goes along with what you said. So while Dennis says “thank you” for bringin’ up a topic, I have been told that is a topic not to be brought up.
to Dennis —
That is why when I put up a link to enrolled traditional Cherokee folks who follow the “Red Road” religiously (and I mean that literally), I didn’t say anything about them, just left the link and nothin’ else. A couple of years ago I was really stupid and would have made more comments about them.
Well, I am still partly very stupid because I am irritated and want to respond but know I probably should just “let it pass”. YOU have to seek those things out. Unlike the surface of shallow aspects of Christianity where we SEEK converts, the Red Road has to be searched out, it is not obvious It doesn’t come to you seekin’ you out. We are accustomed to Christianity and are skewed towards the western way of thinkin’ about religion.
Dennis, I think you probably mean well or I would continue to say nothin’. Maybe you want to “teach” and that is a good thing. I will talk all I want about my Christian faith for that is in the nature of Christianity. Christianity WANTS as part of its doctrine to be discussed as “conversion of nonbelievers” is a principle aspect of it.
But I am learning you have to ask me personally and show me personally that you will respect and not trample on my other, non-traditional-Christian beliefs before I ought to be willing to discuss them just a little bit even, and then certainally not in a public place like this where anyone — maybe someone who has no respect, can see it. There were perverts here not long ago who added ugly comments and links if you will remember. But even Chritianity SHOULD be more like this, a Jesus said “don’t lay your pearls before swine” once. He was sayin’ don’t tell everything you know to everyone.
The little I have already said might get me in hot water with some of those traditionals (whose link I once sent). A few Elders are willin’ to open to the public “just a little” and put that website up. But I bet they’re gettin’ a lot of flack over it from other elders.
Now when I point a finger at somebody all the other fingers point back at me, I make mistakes all the time and have been known to be very very stupid at times, too. I am guilty.
But everytime you talk about ceremony and how good you are at it and how smart you are and how much you know, it is like a fingernail on a chalkboard to my ears. Would you please stop that — we are all equal I think, with me bein’ perhaps a little dumber. 🙂
vance
I was reading the stories posted here; it’s like talking to family! My Grandma used to tell me stories about her Grandma Dolly Lee Kinnison, who was what would be called a Root Woman. She used to gather Yellow root and bloodroot and sell them in Louisville, Kentucky. My great uncle told me that when he was little they rode from Mounds, Illinois to see her–in a horse drawn wagon. She lived in a small house which was “something like a log cabin” according to Uncle Lacy, and it “had a big cooking pot hanging from the fireplace in the living room.” Dirt floor.
She was already over a hundred years old at that time, and apparently my grandma Maggie was her favorite.
Some of the things that got passed down– card reading, spiritualism, women who dream precognitively, and superstitions like, always having hoppin john and greens on New years. Putting a lettuce leaf in your wallet on New Year’s day so you’ll always have money. Don’t sweep over somebody’s feet. Fear of cats, ’cause “they suck the breath out of babies.” Stories of shapshifting withces who turn into cats in order to steal your husband. If you sprinkle salt on ’em, it will kill the witch.
Using borax to kill roaches. (Sprinkle in cupboards.) Carrying a chicken’s foot for good luck.
Big ones: Never sass your elders, most especially not your mother, always respect her, “’cause she brought you into this world and she can take you out” !
Grandma used to make snow ice cram, dandilion wine, and “hoecakes”.
I miss you, Grandma.
Blessings,
Erica
I went to family Lore and found it hasn’t been used in a long time. I reread some of the stories there and hope that others will leave their stories, Superstitions, remedies, or even a recipe or two.
Brenda
Hey Shirley and All, Yes, I agree this is an interesting thread~So, thought I’d throw in some of my memories of my Grandfather. When I was a young girl, he used to sit and tell me stories and usually they started with~”Did I ever tell you bout the time?”~and usually he had~several times, but I liked hearing his old stories so I never told him yea~you already told me that bout a 100 times~lol!!~ Anyway, he used to sit on his screened in front porch on a kitchen chair turned round backwards and lean his arms over the back~crossed kinda like what I remember thinking~”Indian~style” and I thought he looked like an old Indian Chief. He was a farmer and he also was a black~smith. He told me~”I shod many a horse” At first, I thought he said shot many a horse and I said why did you shoot them? ha~ha and he said no, I put shoes on them~horse shoes~Oooh, ok, I said~ Anyway he used to tell me abt his Grandmother and that she was Indian and how she used to cut the bark on a certain tree (wish I knew which one) and chew on it and that it kept her from having any cavities. Also, if I got a bee~sting he would put chewed chewing tobacco on it. I remember he said that a slice of potato or a slice of raw bacon would take the poison out of any wound. He drank mustard water for an up~set stomach~and he brushed his teeth with salt~water. Speaking of salt, one time he told me if I sprinkled salt on a birds tail~it couldn’t fly~So, I spent the better part of one day running around with a salt~shaker trying to catch a bird~never did~ha~ha. I loved my Grandpa, very much and he was from West Virginia~~He was in the US Navy in WWI~In memory of him and all our fallen and fighting heros I hope You All have a Blessed and wonderful Memorial Wkend!!~~Greydove~~ 🙂
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