I don’t believe in Bigfoot, aliens from space, vampires, werewolves, or anything supernatural. However, growing up on Sand Mountain, I’ve witnessed my share of Southern superpowers that I can’t explain.
Julene, my oldest sister, could take warts away. People would come from all around the area just to get her to do this. How did she do it? She bought them. She would pay the person a nickel or dime for the wart, and a few days later, it would be gone. I have no idea how or why that worked.
When I was a kid, we still had a medicine man in our community. It was a person who knew all the home remedies and could cure anything from Whooping Cough to Yellow Jaundice. This knowledge and ability was passed down through each generation alternating from male to female.
Bee charmers are people who can stroll right up to wild honeybee nests, reach their hand in, and bring out a huge honeycomb dripping with honey, then walk away unscathed. I can’t even get within 20 feet of a nest without getting stung.
I’ve seen several water witches in action. It used to be that whenever someone built a new house or just needed a well dug, they hired a water witch to find the best location to dig. Utilizing a forked stick from a willow or sassafras tree, the water witch walks around the property until the forked stick is pulled downward by an invisible force. This might seem unbelievable, but I’ll bet you can find people on the mountain who can vouch for the success. In fact, I’m guessing water witches are still used today.
I knew a woman who had several wells dug, and each produced iron water, which caused her hair to be reddish-orange. Her neighbor across the road had clear water, so she hired a water witch to trace the same spring her neighbor used. It worked. He followed it across to her property and told them where to dig, and she had clear water.
I once went to a Holiness church in Mentone that used rattlesnakes. They had a congregation of about 12 people, pulled out a box of six rattlesnakes, and passed them around. They offered me one, but I realized there wasn’t enough to go around, and I don’t have a greedy bone in my body. But no one got bit.
My granddad, Pete Wooten, could run faster and jump higher than most mortals. I used to believe one of my cousins had canine DNA because he could find more rabbits than the beagles. That’s Sand Mountain. I bet you know a few people with strange powers, too.
Neal Wooten is a columnist in the Mountain Valley News and North Jackson Press newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected].
