Many and legendary are the superstitions in Georgetown County concerning the long, mysterious reptiles that slither silently through the summer months.
Occasionally glimpsed in town, these furtive creatures are more at home roaming remote areas of the county. Serpents are sometimes found lying languidly upon the moss-draped, low-hanging limbs of the black cypress and live oak trees lining Georgetown’s dark, winding rivers. Oftentimes, a wide, straight stretch of river will be broken only by the narrow wake of a snake swimming surreptitiously from one bank to the other.
Whether quietly harmless or deadly venomous, snakes have been the subjects of superstitious beliefs in Georgetown County since the early nineteenth century.
During the 1920s, sociologist and folklorist Dr. Newbell Niles Puckett spent time in Georgetown County researching beliefs and superstitions. A professor at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Puckett researched and recorded over a hundred eighteenth- and nineteenth-century folk ballads and lumber-camp songs in Ontario and was working on a collection of Ohio folklore when he died. He is best known, however, for his work in Southern black folklore. While researching Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro, published in 1926 by the University of North Carolina Press, he collected from Georgetown County, other parts of South Carolina, and other Southern states at least ten thousand beliefs and superstitions, many of which had never been recorded. Many of them were about snakes.
Long ago in Georgetown County, it was believed that a snake could grasp the end of its tail with its mouth to form a wheel or hoop. In that form, it was believed, the snake could roll faster than it could slither—and faster than a person could run.
Anyone running from a snake was advised to keep a straight path, for it was said a snake could not follow a direct track without coiling. Running straight could buy precious time to escape.
Catching a rattlesnake and rubbing the rattles on your eyes, it was believed, gave you the ability to always catch sight of a rattlesnake before it caught sight of you.
A wavy snake trail in the dust of a dirt road, it was believed, indicated a poisonous snake had traveled there, while a straight track was the sign of a harmless one.
If a snake had crossed at the place where you were crossing, you would get a backache—unless you walked backwards over the same place.
It was believed that coachwhip snakes could stand straight up and whistle. In fact, it was thought that all snakes communicated with one another by whistling. For that reason, a person walking through the woods should not whistle or else they might be answered by a snake. Also, a person hearing a whistle of unknown origin should never whistle back, as he might unknowingly whistle up a snake!
It was believed that blacksnakes, also known as milk snakes, would milk cows out in the field, sometimes milking them dry. Cows lowing in the field were said to be calling for their milk snakes. The snakes would then wait for the cows in one area of the field. One cow was said to have pined away from grief after her milk snake was killed. On rare occasions, milk snakes were said to have crept into homes to nurse sleeping women. It was also believed that milk snakes could charm children.
Snakes shed their skins annually as they grow longer. The shed skin of a snake was believed to have a special magic and was used for all sorts of reasons.
A snakeskin was usually part of a good-luck mojo consisting of protective ingredients tied up in red flannel.
Rubbing a snakeskin on your hands would keep you from dropping or breaking dishes.
A snakeskin worn around the leg or waist would keep you strong and flexible.
The skin shed by a graveyard snake was believed to be especially potent. Black with yellow patches, graveyard snakes lived in the graveyard, where they could mourn and grieve. When they shed their skins in the graveyard, the discarded skins could be worn around the waist by people wishing to defeat enemies.
Conjure doctors often used snakes in their enchantments. One conjure doctor always had with him a crooked walking stick. When he tossed it on the ground, it would writhe like a snake. Once he picked it up, it was a rigid walking stick once more.
A person who had been conjured or had accidentally ingested a small snake while drinking out of a stream could, it was believed, have terrible troubles with snakes inside the body.
One man never seemed to receive nourishment no matter how much he ate. Hoping for relief, he went to a conjure doctor. The doctor told him he had several small snakes in his body that immediately consumed any food he ate.
Conjure doctors could rid people of snakes inside them. They were able to charm snakes, too.
A snake found in a person’s bed was a sign that person had been conjured.
People often wondered if they had been conjured and were sometimes warned of a conjuration attempt by dreams—snake dreams. What did snake dreams indicate?
Dreaming of a snake was an indication of having enemies.
Dreaming of a rattlesnake meant the conjure doctor had a conjure that would work on you. If the snake in the dream attempted to bite you but missed, then the conjure had missed you, too.
Dreaming of a rattlesnake indicated a dangerous conjure, while dreaming of a chicken snake meant only a small sickness.
Dreaming of a snake coiled and ready to strike indicated the conjure doctor was furious with you. But if the snake in your dream was resting quietly, then the conjure doctor was merely thinking about you.
Not documented by Dr. Puckett was the Georgetown County belief that snakes were attracted to expectant mothers. Snakes, it was said, did not seek out pregnant women to do them harm but rather just to be near them. One lady related that during her pregnancy, a snake would slither up onto her porch and remain there until removed.
A tale is told of one expectant mother in Georgetown who was charmed by a blacksnake in her yard. She could not stop staring at the snake and was finally taken, trancelike, into the house by her relatives. Only then did she cease to stare. When her baby was born, the child had rattles beginning to grow on it in the area around its stomach. The rattles were removed by the baby’s doctor.
Serpents still roam Georgetown County, so beware of stepping on one! Though the harmless snakes are worth their weight in gold for the many thousands of mosquitoes they eat, the venomous ones are no less worthy of fear and respect than when Dr. Newbell Niles Puckett came to learn the age-old local beliefs.