I heard of Father Watson the “Frizzly Rooster” from afar, from people for whom he had “worked” and their friends, and from people who attended his meetings held twice a week in Myrtle Wreath Hall in New Orleans. His name is “Father” Watson, which in itself attests his Catholic leanings, though he is formally a Protestant.
On a given night I had a front seat in his hall. There were the usual camp-followers sitting upon the platform and bustling around performing chores. Two or three songs and a prayer were the preliminaries.
At last Father Watson appeared in a satin garment of royal purple, belted by a gold cord. He had the figure for wearing that sort of thing and he probably knew it. Between prayers and songs he talked, setting forth his powers. He could curse anybody he wished—and make the curse stick. He could remove curses, no matter who had laid them on whom. Hence his title The Frizzly Rooster. Many persons keep a frizzled chicken in the yard to locate and scratch up any hoodoo that may be buried for them. These chickens have, no doubt, earned this reputation by their ugly appearance—with all of their feathers set in backwards. He could “read” anybody at sight. He could “read” anyone who remained out of his sight if they but stuck two fingers inside the door. He could “read” anyone, no matter how far away, if he were given their height and color. He begged to be challenged.
He predicted the hour and the minute, nineteen years hence, when he should die—without even having been ill a moment in his whole life. God had told him.
He sold some small packets of love powders before whose powers all opposition must break down. He announced some new keys that were guaranteed to unlock every door and remove every obstacle in the way of success that the world knew. These keys had been sent to him by God through a small Jew boy. The old keys had been sent through a Jew man. They were powerful as long as they did not touch the floor—but if you ever dropped them, they lost their power. These new keys at five dollars each were not affected by being dropped, and were otherwise much more powerful.
I lingered after the meeting and made an appointment with him for the next day at his home.
Before my first interview with the Frizzly Rooster was fairly begun, I could understand his great following. He had the physique of Paul Robeson with the sex appeal and hypnotic what-ever-you-might-call-it of Rasputin. I could see that women would rise to flee from him but in mid-flight would whirl and end shivering at his feet. It was that way in fact.
His wife Mary knew how slight her hold was and continually planned to leave him.
“Only thing that’s holding me here is this.” She pointed to a large piece of brain-coral that was forever in a holy spot on the altar. “That’s where his power is. If I could get me a piece, I could go start up a business all by myself. If I could only find a piece.”
“It’s very plentiful down in South Florida,” I told her. “But if that piece is so precious, and you’re his wife, I’d take it and let him get another piece.”
“Oh my God! Naw! That would be my end. He’s too powerful. I’m leaving him,” she whispered this stealthily. “You get me a piece of that—you know.”
The Frizzly Rooster entered and Mary was a different person at once. But every time that she was alone with me it was “That on the altar, you know. When you back in Florida, get me a piece. I’m leaving this man to his women.” Then a quick hush and forced laughter at her husband’s approach.
So I became the pupil of Reverend Father Joe Watson, “The Frizzly Rooster” and his wife, Mary, who assisted him in all things. She was “round the altar”; that is while he talked with the clients, and usually decided on whatever “work” was to be done, she “set” the things on the altar and in the jars. There was one jar in the kitchen filled with honey and sugar. All the “sweet” works were set in this jar. That is, the names and the thing desired were written on paper and thrust into this jar to stay. Already four or five hundred slips of paper had accumulated in the jar. There was another jar called the “break up” jar. It held vinegar with some unsweetened coffee added. Papers were left in this one also.
When finally it was agreed that I should come to study with them, I was put to running errands such as “dusting” houses, throwing pecans, rolling apples, as the case might be; but I was not told why the thing was being done. After two weeks of this I was taken off this phase and initiated. This was the first step towards the door of the mysteries.
My initiation consisted of the Pea Vine Candle Drill. I was told to remain five days without sexual intercourse. I must remain indoors all day the day before the initiation and fast. I might wet my throat when necessary, but I was not to swallow water.
When I arrived at the house the next morning a little before nine, as per instructions, six other persons were there, so that there were nine of us—all in white except Father Watson who was in his purple robe. There was no talking. We went at once to the altar room. The altar was blazing. There were three candles around the vessel of holy water, three around the sacred sand pail, and one large cream candle burning in it. A picture of St. George and a large piece of brain coral were in the center. Father Watson dressed eight long blue candles and one black one, while the rest of us sat in the chairs around the wall. Then he lit the eight blue candles one by one from the altar and set them in the pattern of a moving serpent. Then I was called to the altar and both Father Watson and his wife laid hands on me. The black candle was placed in my hand; I was told to light it from all the other candles. I lit it at number one and pinched out the flame, and re-lit it at number two and so on till it had been lit by the eighth candle. Then I held the candle in my left hand, and by my right was conducted back to the altar by Father Watson. I was led through the maze of candles beginning at number eight. We circled numbers seven, five and three. When we reached the altar he lifted me upon the step. As I stood there, he called aloud, “Spirit! She’s standing here without no home and no friends. She wants you to take her in.” Then we began at number one and threaded back to number eight, circling three, five and seven. Then back to the altar again. Again he lifted me and placed me upon the step of the altar. Again the spirit was addressed as before. Then he lifted me down by placing his hands in my arm-pits. This time I did not walk at all. I was carried through the maze and I was to knock down each candle as I passed it with my foot. If I missed one, I was not to try again, but to knock it down on my way back to the altar. Arrived there the third time, I was lifted up and told to pinch out my black candle. “Now,” Father told me, “you are made Boss of Candles. You have the power to light candles and put out candles, and to work with the spirits anywhere on earth.”
Then all of the candles on the floor were collected and one of them handed to each of the persons present. Father took the black candle himself and we formed a ring. Everybody was given two matches each. The candles were held in our left hands, matches in the right; at a signal everybody stooped at the same moment, the matches scratched in perfect time and our candles lighted in concert. Then Father Watson walked rhythmically around the person at his right. Exchanged candles with her and went back to his place. Then that person did the same to the next so that the black candle went all around the circle and back to Father. I was then seated on a stool before the altar, sprinkled lightly with holy sand and water and confirmed as a Boss of Candles.
Then conversation broke out. We went into the next room and had a breakfast that was mostly fruit and smothered chicken. Afterwards the nine candles used in the ceremony were wrapped up and given to me to keep. They were to be used for lighting other candles only, not to be just burned in the ordinary sense.
In a few days I was allowed to hold consultations on my own. I felt insecure and said so to Father Watson.
“Of course you do now,” he answered me, “but you have to learn and grow. I’m right here behind you. Talk to your people first, then come see me.”
Within the hour a woman came to me. A man had shot and seriously wounded her husband and was in jail.
“But, honey,” she all but wept, “they say ain’t a thing going to be done with him. They say he got good white folks back of him and he’s going to be let loose soon as the case is tried. I want him punished. Picking a fuss with my husband just to get chance to shoot him. We needs help. Somebody that can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.”
So I went in to the Frizzly Rooster to find out what I must do and he told me, “That a low fence.” He meant a difficulty that was easily overcome.
“Go back and get five dollars from her and tell her to go home and rest easy. That man will be punished. When we get through with him, white folks or no white folks, he’ll find a tough jury sitting on his case.” The woman paid me and left in perfect confidence of Father Watson.
So he and I went into the workroom.
“Now,” he said, “when you want a person punished who is already indicted, write his name on a slip of paper and put it in a sugar bowl or some other deep something like that. Now get your paper and pencil and write the name; alright now, you got it in the bowl. Now put in some red pepper, some black pepper—don’t be skeered to put it in, it needs a lot. Put in one eightpenny nail, fifteen cents worth of ammonia and two door keys. You drop one key down in the bowl and you leave the other one against the side of the bowl. Now you got your bowl set. Go to your bowl every day at twelve o’clock and turn the key that is standing against the side of the bowl. That is to keep the man locked in jail. And every time you turn the key, add a little vinegar. Now I know this will do the job. All it needs is for you to do it in faith. I’m trusting this job to you entirely. Less see what you going to do. That can wait another minute. Come sit with me in the outside room and hear this woman out here that’s waiting.”
So we went outside and found a weakish woman in her early thirties that looked like somebody had dropped a sack of something soft on a chair.
The Frizzly Rooster put on his manner, looking like a brown, purple and gold throne-angel in a house.
“Good morning, sister er, er—”
“Murchison,” she helped out.
“Tell us how you want to be helped, Sister Murchison.”
She looked at me as if I was in the way and he read her eyes.
“She’s alright, dear one. She’s one of us. I brought her in with me to assist and help.”
I thought still I was in her way but she told her business just the same.
“Too many women in my house. My husband’s mother is there and she hates me and always puttin’ my husband up to fight me. Look like I can’t get her out of my house no ways I try. So I done come to you.”
“We can fix that up in no time, dear one. Now go take a flat onion. If it was a man, I’d say a sharp pointed onion. Core the onion out, and write her name five times on paper and stuff it into the hole in the onion and close it back with the cut-out piece of onion. Now you watch when she leaves the house and then you roll the onion behind her before anybody else crosses the door-sill. And you make a wish at the same time for her to leave your house. She won’t be there two weeks more.” The woman paid and left.
That night we held a ceremony in the altar room on the case. We took a red candle and burnt it just enough to consume the tip. Then it was cut into three parts and the short lengths of candle were put into a glass of holy water. Then we took the glass and went at midnight to the door of the woman’s house and the Frizzly Rooster held the glass in his hands and said, “In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Ghost.” He shook the glass three times violently up and down, and the last time he threw the glass to the ground and broke it, and said, “Dismiss this woman from this place.” We scarcely paused as this was said and done and we kept going and went home by another way because that was part of the ceremony.
Somebody came against a very popular preacher. “He’s getting too rich and big. I want something done to keep him down. They tell me he’s ’bout to get to be a bishop. I sho’ would hate for that to happen. I got forty dollars in my pocket right now for the work.”
So that night the altar blazed with the blue light. We wrote the preacher’s name on a slip of paper with black ink. We took a small doll and ripped open its back and put in the paper with the name along with some bitter aloes and cayenne pepper and sewed the rip up again with the black thread. The hands of the doll were tied behind it and a black veil tied over the face and knotted behind it so that the man it represented would be blind and always do the things to keep himself from progressing. The doll was then placed in a kneeling position in a dark corner where it would not be disturbed. He would be frustrated as long as the doll was not disturbed.
When several of my jobs had turned out satisfactorily to Father Watson, he said to me, “You will do well, but you need the Black Cat Bone. Sometimes you have to be able to walk invisible. Some things must be done in deep secret, so you have to walk out of the sight of man.”
First I had to get ready even to try this most terrible of experiences—getting the Black Cat Bone.
First we had to wait on the weather. When a big rain started, a new receptacle was set out in the yard. It could not be put out until the rain actually started for fear the sun might shine in it. The water must be brought inside before the weather faired off for the same reason. If lightning shone on it, it was ruined.
We finally got the water for the bath and I had to fast and “seek,” shut in a room that had been purged by smoke. Twenty-four hours without food except a special wine that was fed to me every four hours. It did not make me drunk in the accepted sense of the word. I merely seemed to lose my body, my mind seemed very clear.
When dark came, we went out to catch a black cat. I must catch him with my own hands. Finding and catching black cats is hard work, unless one has been released for you to find. Then we repaired to a prepared place in the woods and a circle drawn and “protected” with nine horseshoes. Then the fire and the pot were made ready. A roomy iron pot with a lid. When the water boiled I was to toss in the terrified, trembling cat.
When he screamed, I was told to curse him. He screamed three times, the last time weak and resigned. The lid was clamped down, the fire kept vigorously alive. At midnight the lid was lifted. Here was the moment! The bones of the cat must be passed through my mouth until one tasted bitter.
Suddenly, the Rooster and Mary rushed in close to the pot and he cried, “Look out! This is liable to kill you. Hold your nerve!” They both looked fearfully around the circle. They communicated some unearthly terror to me. Maybe I went off in a trance. Great beast-like creatures thundered up to the circle from all sides. Indescribable noises, sights, feelings. Death was at hand! Seemed unavoidable! I don’t know. Many times I have thought and felt, but I always have to say the same thing. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Before day I was home, with a small white bone for me to carry.