Questionnaire: "Folk Customs and Folklore" Viola Muse Transcription Zariah Grant Encoding and edition Savannah Almond

This document was produced as part of the Viola Muse Digital Edition, based at the University of North Florida.

https://violamuse.unfdhi.org/items/show/43 USA Florida Jacksonville Jacksonville Historical Society Viola Muse Collection (1959-18) Folder 6, Item 7 List of questions and instructions for gathering information about folklore and customs

Typed, 2 pages

Document transcribed and encoded following the criteria of the Viola Muse Digital Edition (violamuse.unfdhi.org), based at the University of North Florida.

Class 111 B

Folk Customs and Folk LoreFolklore

List with dates any interesting picturesque or unique folk customs in your district. (Example: Annual memorial service in GlocesterGloucester,Mass.Massachusetts, for men lost at sea.)

List and date any unusual burial customs among the racial groups.

Are there any unusual types of tombstones or grave coverings or decorations? Where are they and when may they be seen?

Are there any unusual tombstone inscriptions? Quote and describe briefly. (Example: General------ __________ of Jacksonville who "died of hiccoughs".)hiccough is today a less commonly used variant of hiccup (MW), but was the only of the two forms registered by Webster's in the early twentieth century (WRUD).

Are there any houses in your district carrying Voo–doovoodoo signs or any other signs of black and white magic? Do servants in your district place secret marks or markers on doorsteps or other places?

What Negro or other racial customs in relations to birth, sick–ness, and cures exist in your section? (Example: Many Negroes place saws and knives under the birth–bedbirth bed believing that such implements tend to lessen pain.)

Are there any witch doctors in your district? Give names, ad–dresses, and brief descriptions of their customs and practices.

Additions

Tell what you can of the Negro superstition that certain diseases (tuberculosis, some social diseases) become worse in the spring;, that they "rise" with the sap in the trees.

What unusual cures or preventatives are practiced in your district, and how far into the past can you trace them?

What customs and lore can you trace to the turpentine camps, etc., in your district.? Turpentine camps began in the mid–1800s and often enforced brutal labor upon African Americans, who were frequently convicts leased from the state. The workers would slash pine trees to gather turpentine and sap. These substances were mostly used to repair holes in boats that were made of wood or to preserve naval rigging. See Robert B. Outland, Tapping the Pines: The Naval Stores Industry in the American South, Louisiana State University Press, 2004, and Vivien M.L. Miller, Hard Labor and Hard Time: Florida's "Sunshine Prison" and Chain Gangs, Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2012.

List with dates, any interesting, picturesque, or unique folk custom in your district. (Example: Annual memorial service in Gloucester, Mass.Massachusetts, for men lost at sea.)

What unusual forms of fraternal orders are found in this district and what practices do they observe.? We have added are, omitted in the original.

What unusual social practices do you observe in this district and how far into the past can you trace them.?

What customs and lore can be traced to rosin camps, etc., in your district.?

Folk Customs and Lore—#2

List with dates:

1. Possible sources: interviews with key residents, rere: past happen–ings;, unusual social and religious groups.

2. Tombstones, inscriptions, etc.

Are there any old cemeteries in your district? Interview Morticiansmorticians, grave tenders, etc.

3. Voodoo signs on doors:

Get a lineup on section most likely to use these practices, then make the rounds. Are there any old residents who will talk? (Use subterfuge if necessary.)

4. What do physicians, health nurses, midwives, and old mothers in this district have to say about births, cures, sickness, superstitions, etc.?

5. Get lineup of witch doctors in your section and their practices. Which of these have largest clienteles.? Look them up on the pretext of seeking help. If possible, interview some onesomeone who has reaped the "benefits" of their work.

6. Unusual fraternal orders. Your local newspaper and prominent lodge members may be able to give desired information.

7. Unusual social practices, customs, observation—- (refer to 1).

8. Customs traceable to rosin camps. Observation. What customs smack of back woodsbackwoods life? Can you find and talk to any oneanyone who formerly lived in a rosin camp? (Preferably an old person with a clear memory.)

Note: Submit questionnaire to librarian of your district who may furnish literature giving important leads.