To Cure Pains In The Stomach They Tie Around
Them The Skin Of The Comadreka, A Small, Vile-Smelling Animal.
This
they told me was a sovereign remedy.
If the sufferer be a babe, a
cross made on its stomach is sufficient to perfectly cure it. I have
seen seven pieces of the root of the white lily, which there grows
wild, tied around the neck of an infant in order that its teeth might
come with greater promptitude and less pain. A string of dog's teeth
serves the same purpose. To cure a bad wound, the priest will be
called in that he may write around the sore some Latin prayer
backwards. Headache is easily cured by tying around the head the
cast-off skin of a snake. Two puppies are killed and bound one on
each side of a broken limb. If a charm is worn around the neck no
poison can be harmful. For a sore throat it is sufficient to
expectorate in the fire three times, making a cross. Lockjaw is
effectually stopped by tying around the sufferer's jaws the strings
from a virgin's skirt; and they say also that powdered excrement of a
dog, taken in a glass of water, cures the smallpox patient,
As Mrs. Jesus sent her boy to my school, so Mrs. Flower sent her
girl. The latter was perhaps the most deluded woman I have met. Her
every act was bad in itself or characterized by superstitious
devotion. She was one of the Church's favorite worshippers, and while
I was in the neighborhood she sold her cows and horses and presented
the priest at the nearest town with a large and expensive silver
cross - the emblem of suffering purity. Near her lived a person for
whom she had an especial aversion, but that enemy she got rid of in
surely the strangest of ways, which she described to me. Catching a
snake, and holding it so that its poison might not reach her, she
passed a threaded needle through both its eyes. When this was done
she let it go again, alive, and, carefully guarding the needle,
approached the person from behind and made a cross with the thread.
The undesired one disappeared, having probably heard of the
enchantment, and being equally superstitious, or - the charm worked!
Mrs. Flower was a most repulsive-looking creature. Her skin was
exactly the color of an old copper coin. She did not resemble any
flower I have seen in either hemisphere. Far was she from being a
rose, but she certainly possessed the thorn. Her love for the saints
was most marked, and I have known her promise St. Roque that she
would walk six miles carrying his image if he would only grant her a
certain prayer. This petition he granted, and off she trudged with
her divine (?) load. Those acquainted with dwellers on the prairie
know that this was indeed a great task, horses being so cheap and
riding so universal. Mrs. Flower was unaccustomed to walk even the
shortest distance.
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