'' 'Tis..."

Urban Legend: Southern Roots

Talking or singing for the field black was a form of entertainment which also served as a way to vent hostility if someone else were a problem to them as was often the case. Norris King being a kin and a member of a large clan had allies to vent her verbal opinions skillfully and successfully. She likewise represented those able-bodied black women and girls, strong and bold, who strutted their stuff to walk among various generations all trying to scrape out a meager living performing back-breaking labor in the worst of times in the deep South. Still the African's desire to use language to challenge one another was a daily contest in getting their points across, in determining the victors of this sport of wits. They indeed had no equals upon the earth in getting their points across singing and talking or sassing or rapping, which sustained a culture and tradition like Bro Rabbit's sayings that were as entertainment and for kicking tempting butt. These rituals of the field are as a whole a legacy of African slaves in America.

First of all, though tiresome and punitive, field work was considered among the respectable forms of labor for most black women like Norris, Sister (Elizabeth), and Mat (Matie Mae) King, Miss Susie, Irene Carter, Arwilla Adams, Eva Mae Roddy, Mamie Jones, Georgia Ann Sparks, Alice Anderson, Eula Crapps (Miss Pots), or other renowned field queens of Worth County black communities. Many of whom were related in some manner whether by blood or marriage, a legacy of the plantation system, mongrelized and victimized. The field was a living for many black families in SOWEGA of the times before the 1960's. It was a livelihood where the planter culture ruled with an iron hand much unchanged since the days of slavery where chastisements were culturally imposed. The field was, however, the passion and rhythm which connected these people to the motherland, despite her misdeeds. It was there that the women maintained a hierarchy and a rite of passage going over generations connecting young folk to souls that the reality of then and now couldn't or wouldn't paint. The field was a place to settle a score whether by fist or by mouth. The later was preferred and expected as it entertained and sustained them with its rich improvisational skills allowing the women, many with children, to attack verbally opponents as equals to find assertive leaders. It all represented a kingdom of the field hands in field black culture, a darker shade of an exploited people coping with themselves in extreme conditions being put upon by everyone else.

Field humor was a daily war of words among the women of Worth County where these wise-talking women would fight with spicy words and angry fists if need be. It represented a salty reminder of the women's plight. Tales told in the field might also have been passed on in this setting or occurred in this fashion. Thus, Norris King's, a departed family member in April 2003, tale of a premonition about a weird incident involving witchcraft recounts: "Moving around the house," She said, "I looked hard for the telltale signs of them things which I had seen in my dream or something. All of a sudden, there on the outside I saw a strange packet wedged between the wooden house's side and the brick chimney. It was odd that I never seen it before. Just as I touched it the darn thing burst; powder spewed out of it, and it got all over me child! From that came the ants that crawled right out of my skin!"

Norris King had a premonition alerting her about something rather unusual which might be left in or around her shotgun style house. Her culture understood such reoccurring premonitions of importance as this fanciful dream-like encounter of hers. It turned out to be no dream but a seer's insight relating to a voodoo attack on her by an enemy that she had apparently enraged somehow. As stated, it didn't take much to "root" when evil fixations were the norms. Norris was a charming woman, strong in every sense of the word. She had a long history of spats with local black women of her day as fearless Eva Roddy remained a close friend and defender. All seemed to be consumed with her nice appearance given a determined attitude born by poverty and race and place. This matter of the flesh is a sure way to get fixed in a voodoo culture like that of the deep South where "roots" were a form of black non-judicial punishment imposed by nearly everyone in the black community whether they knew it or not – as usual with some whites tapping in too once the lights go out, commingling with our two-headed doctors.[1] It was and is a form of collective remembrance of those ancient arts which the curse of slavery didn't undermine; for in both primeval voodoo became a means to an end – revenge on one's own terms!

Cellular Memory