Watt Mckinney
From:
Arkansas
FOLKLORE SUBJECTS
Name of interviewer: Watt McKinney
Subject: Superstitious beliefs
Story--Information (If not enough space on this page, add page)
This information given by: Tines Kendricks (C)
Place of residence: Trenton, Arkansas
Occupation: None
Age: 104
[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of form.]
There is an ancient and traditional belief among the Southern Negroes,
especially the older ones, that the repeated and intermitted cries of
a whippoorwill near a home in the early evenings of summer and
occurring on successive days at or about the same time and location;
or the appearance of a highly excited redbird, disturbed for no
apparent reason, is indicative of some imminent disaster, usually
thought to be the approaching death of some member of the family.
Tines Kendricks, who says that he was born the slave of Arch Kendricks
in Crawford County, Georgia, two hours before day on a certain Fourth
of July, one hundred and four years ago, recalls several instances in
his long and eventful life in which he contends the accuracy of these
forecasts was borne out by subsequent occurrences. The most striking
of these he says was the time his young master succumbed from the
effect of a wound received at the first battle of Manassas after
hovering between life and death for several days. The young master,
Sam Kendricks, who was the only son of his parents, volunteered at the
beginning of the War and was attached to the army in Virginia. He was
a very impetuous, high-spirited young man and chafed much under the
delay occasioned between the time of his enlistment and first battle,
wanting to have the trouble over with and the difficulties settled
which he honestly thought could be accomplished in the first
engagement with that enemy for whom he held such profound contempt.
Sam Kendricks, coming as he did from a long line of slave-owning
forebears, was one of those Southerners who felt that it was theirs to
command and the duty of others to obey. They would brook no
interference with the established order and keenly resented the
attitude and utterances of Northern press and spokesmen on the slavery
question. Tines Kendricks recalls the time his young master took leave
of his home and parents for the war and his remarks on departing that
his neck was made to fit no halter and that he possessed no mite of
fear for Yankee soldier or Yankee steel. Soon after the battle of
Manassas, Arch Kendricks was advised that Sam had suffered a severe
wound in the engagement. It was stated, however, that the wound was
not expected to prove fatal. This sad news of what had befallen the
young master was soon communicated throughout the entire length and
breadth of the great plantation and in the early evening of that day
Tines sitting in the door of his cabin in the slave quarters a short
distance from the master's great house heard the cry of a whippoorwill
and observed that the voice of this night bird seemed to arise from
the dense hedge enclosing the spacious lawn in front of the home.
Disturbed and filled with a sense of foreboding at this sound of the
bird, he earnestly hoped and prayed that the cry would not be repeated
the following evening, but to his great disappointment it was heard
again and nearer the house than before. On each succeeding evening
according to Tines Kendricks the call of the bird came clearly through
the evening's stillness and each time he noticed that the cry came
from a spot nearer the home until at last the bird seemed perched
beneath the wide veranda and early on the morning following, a very
highly excited redbird darted from tree to tree on the front lawn.
The redbird continued these peculiar actions for several minutes after
which it flew and came to rest on the roof of the old colonial mansion
directly above the room formerly occupied by the young master. Tines
was convinced now that the end had come for Sam Kendricks and that his
approaching death had been foretold by the whippoorwill and that each
evening as the bird approached nearer the house and uttered his night
cry just so was the life of young Sam Kendricks slowly nearing its
close and the actions of the redbird the following day was revealing
evidence to Tines that the end had come to his young master which
indeed it had as proven by a message the family received late in the
morning of this same day.
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Frank Kennedy
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Tines Kendricks
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