Traditions

Kente cloth has its origin with the Akan people in Ghana. It is traditionally a royal and sacred cloth worn only in times of extreme importance. Kente was the cloth of kings, and it is best known of all African textiles. Kente cloth is identified by its dazzling, multicolored patterns of bright colors, geometric shapes and bold designs.

Many of the patterns are very symbolic. Boxes arranged in an “X” mean all ideas coming together at one point, symbolizing leadership and the voice of the people. The stepped border motif symbolizes defense against the countless assaults and obstacles encountered in the course of an African lifetime.

It is important that the rituals were followed in a particular order so as not to offend the dead and ensure the spirit’s safe journey back to God. In African belief, the self has three components: the body, the spirit, and the shadow. Once the body is dead, the shadow could live on and wreak havoc for the living if not given due respect.

Large stone markers as well as tombs and church monuments record the lives of plantation owners, while few markers exist for those of poor whites, indentured servants or slaves. The markers would most likely have been household items used by the deceased, broken to ensure they would not be used again, by the shadow of the deceased or any other visitor to the grave. Plants such as the yucca cactus were used to keep the spirits in the cemetery.

Another African tradition is to place inverted glass vessels on a grave to symbolize libations to departed spirits, as noted in African American Art and Artists by Samella S. Lewis.

Graves were dug east to west and the body placed to face sunrise. Mourners would often take some dirt and their backs turned to the grave, throw it between their legs to prevent the dead from following them home. In addition, the deceased’s personal belongings were also placed on the grave to pacify the dead person’s spirit and prevent it from leaving the grave. These items were often broken in order to prevent more deaths in the family.

Sources:

• “Death and Dying in the Black Experience: An Interview with Ronald K. Barrett, PhD”. Education Development Center, Inc. 2001-09-25.
• Senior, O. (2003), The Encyclopedia of the Jamaican Heritage, Kingston: Twin Guinep Publishers.

Cemeteries

Chesterfield County

Foundry Hill Cemetery – Located at the East side of Jersey Street, Cheraw.

Darlington County

Darlington Memorial Cemetery – Located at Avenue D and Friendship Streets, Darlington.

Dillon County

Catfish Creek Cemetery – Located in Latta at the intersection of Catfish Church and Dalcho Roads, behind Catfish Creek Baptist Church.

McClellan / Mason Family Cemetery – on Hwy 41, going from Lake View toward Marion, turn right onto Buck Swamp Road, turn left on dirt field road just before you get to a large white frame house on the hill. Field road runs behind the house. Cemetery is about 1/4 mile out field road, on the right.

Old Page Cemetery – From Hwy 41, going from Lake View toward Marion, turn right onto Buck Swamp Road. Cemetery is 3.5 miles from Hwy 41, immediately past railroad tracks.

Florence County

Jamestown Cemetery – Located on Jamestown Cemetery Road, via Old Marion Highway.

Mt. Zion Cemetery – Located at 5040 Liberty Chapel Road, Florence.

Slave Cemetery at Francis Marion University – Located east of the Francis Marion Library at 4822 E. Palmetto Street, Florence.

Clarke Cemetery – Located at Roseville Plantation, off of N. Williston Road, Florence.

Lee County

Concord Church – In Lucknow (Bishopville), a slave cemetery is located behind the parking area at N 34° 27.043 W 080° 33.535, Bishopville.

Coopers Cemetery – Located at N 34° 13.860 W 080° 22.750 off of St. Charles Road, Bishopville.

McCutchen Cemetery – Traveling on S. Main Street in Bishopville, turn left on St. Charles Road and travel 4.5 miles. Turn left onto Manville / Wisacky Road and travel .45 miles. Turn left onto Woods Road and travel .4 miles, Bishopville.

New Zion Memorial Garden – Located in the Wisacky Community, turn right into Cooper’s Mill Pond and travel .9 miles. New Zion A.M.E. Church and cemetery are on the right. The old cemetery is .4 miles from the church on the right, Bishopville.

Shaw Mission Cemetery – Located in the Lucknow Community near Lucknow Road, the original site of Shaw Mission Church and School – a historically African-American school, Bishopville.

Marion County

Fork Chapel A.M.E. Church Cemetery – From Marion, go 3.1 miles past 501 business and bypass merge point and take first right on Temperance Hill Road. It’s 1.1 miles to Greater Fork Chapel A.M.E. Church. Just past the church, turn left onto the dirt road (Kirton Place). The cemetery will be on your left, Marion.

Carmichael Cemetery (Old Field Cemetery) – Going south on Hwy 41, turn left at first traffic light onto E. Dogwood Drive. Going north, turn right at the last traffic light. Go 2.7 miles to Fisher Road and make a left. Turn left onto first paved road (Pansey Road). Turn right on Clover Ct. Clover Ct turns into Winchester Road. The cemetery on the hill is Old Field Cemetery.

Smithboro Cemetery – Located in Smithboro off Hwy 917 (Mullins-Latta Hwy), take the first right past the pond on Pond Ln. The cemetery is one block west of Hwy 41 & 917.

Spring Branch Baptist Church Cemetery – Going north out of Marion on Hwy 501, go 3.1 miles (just past merge point of 501 bypass). When the highway becomes two lanes, at first intersection is E. Sellers Road. Turn right behind sign that says Spring Branch Treatment Center. Cemetery is on left.

Hopewell Presbyterian Church, Florence

Hopewell was the heart of a community made up of scattered plantation families, some of them very large land owners. Member families included wealthy cotton planters and their slaves. In 1841,the church had 115 white and 139 African-American members, nearly all of them slaves. When the Civil War began, slaves made up half the rolls of churches in Harmony Presbytery, of which Hopewell is part. Their withdrawal in favor of independent African-American churches reflected in Hopewell’s membership: it fell from 213 in 1860 to 104 in 1867. However, some African Americans remained into the twentieth century.

Church history recounts two African-American families using the balcony in about 1906. Trustees today report a persistent tradition that some slaves were buried behind Hopewell Cemetery, probably in the area just southeast of the Session House, but there is no evidence in the form of markers or depressions.

Hopewell Presbyterian Church is located at 5314 Old River Rd. For more information, please call (803) 665-1308.

Lynchburg Presbyterian Church, Lynchburg

Lynchburg Presbyterian Church, built in 1855, is significant as an excellent example of late antebellum Greek Revival ecclesiastical architecture. It is one of the few antebellum buildings still extant in the original community of Lynchburg. The sanctuary was built by members of the congregation, with assistance of members of the Lynchburg Methodist Church and several slaves and free African Americans as well.

The church is a two-story temple-form Greek Revival style building with an engaged tetrastyle portico featuring four massive stucco brick columns. Set upon an open pier brick foundation and sheathed in six-inch wide weatherboard, the building is a local interpretation of the Tuscan order of architecture. Corner and wall pilasters adorn each side elevation. The interior is primarily a single room with plaster walls and twenty-one foot high ceilings, undecorated except for a large, circular plaster medallion in the center. 

The back half of the church’s three-acre lot is the church cemetery, with randomly placed pots and monuments of various designs and dates from the mid-nineteenth century through the late twentieth century.

Lynchburg Presbyterian is located on Lynchburg Hwy (Hwy 341), just north of Black Swamp Rd.

Note: The information above was found at www.nationalregister.sc.gov.

Trinity Episcopal Church, Society Hill

Trinity Church (c. 1834) was the first Episcopal Church in Darlington County and is the oldest original church building of any denomination still standing in the county.

The church was founded by seven local families and was built for $1,500 on a donated lot. The Rt. Rev. Nathaniel Bowen, D.D. Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, consecrated Trinity Church as “A house suitable for the worship of Almighty God” on April 25, 1834.

People have said that attending service at Trinity Church is like “stepping into the past”. The heavy wooden pews and doors are still intact, and the original hand-pump organ is in its place (restored in 2011). There’s even a hymn board on the wall with numbers from the 1916 Episcopal Hymnal. 

Although, regular Sunday worship services ended in 1929, Trinity Church still holds an annual homecoming service in the spring.

Trinity Episcopal Church is located on Burns Street in Society Hill.

Note: Information from www.scnow.com.

As the slaves came to the U.S., they brought very few personal items with them, but they carried the wisdom to cure ailments. Borrowing some knowledge of the native herbs and their healing qualities from the Native Americans, they were soon able to find relief from common illnesses.

• Snakeroot (Aristolochia serpentaria) – to treat a snake bite and to battle the effects of pneumonia.
• boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) – to relieve symptoms of the common cold. In fact, this herb’s common name comes from its use in treating a nineteenth-century disease known as “breakbone” fever. The slaves made a tea from the herb’s leaves and flowers and sipped it to induce sweating. They also used it as a diuretic.
• sage (Salvia spp.) – made into a gargle to treat sore throats or used as a mouthwash; the slaves also used it to treat colic in infants. However, internal medicine use of sage should be done cautiously because the herb’s constituents may be toxic when taken in large amounts.
• pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides, Mentha pulegium) – used to fight colds, reduce fever, and relieve the pain of a toothache or headache. (Pennyroyal can cause deadly liver damage and should not be taken during pregnancy).
• catnip tea (Nepeta cataria) – used to induce sleep.
• Spearmint, peppermint, and other members of the mint family (Mentha spp.) – used to make bittersweet tea, candy, and syrup to alleviate sore throats, coughs, and cold symptoms.

They used leaves from peach trees (Prunus persica) to expel intestinal worms, and as a laxative, a remedy for morning sickness, and a substitute for quinine. Although malaria was a problem for early Americans, slaves often were prevented from using drugs commonly available for whites, so they found their own remedies. (Peach leaves can be toxic, so avoid them.)

Slaves also used all parts of the cherry and dogwood trees (Prunus serotina and Cornus spp.) for a wide range of medicinal purposes, and simmered the bark of the black cherry and dogwood to make a remedy for chills and fever.

They used dogwood-bark tea to treat malaria. Like their African ancestors, slaves generally believed that some illnesses were caused by spells placed by medicine doctors with special powers. Traditional wisdom held that only another medicine doctor could help. Although some slaveholders tried to suppress the superstition, conjure practices thrived among slave communities, and continue to this day.

In Florence, Nico World Botanica specializes in traditional spiritual customs and natural herbal medicines which were carried from West Africa and Haiti, following Yoruba tribal religion. Dr. Nico has followed in the footsteps of his father, a high priest of Santeria in Haiti. Dr. Nico can provide spiritual assistance through readings, jinx removal, or casting of spells.

The shop offers a wide array of traditional herbs with uses outlined on the jars: white sage bundles to bring good vibrations to your home or business, goofer’s dust (grave dirt) to be mixed with black mustard seed and sprinkled in the path of your enemy, and jinx removal powder in case your enemy got to the goofer’s dust before you did!

Nico World is located at 202 3rd Loop Rd. in Florence, or give him a call at (843) 662-6426.

HAGS

Do you wake up feeling tired? The hag may have been riding you all night. Hags are women who shed their skin (sometimes hanging it on your bedpost) to float into the night air, seeking their next victims. Once they find you, they steal your breath while you are sleeping, similar to a vampire stealing blood.

There are many ways to protect against being ridden by a hag. You can prop a broom against your door to slow down the hag who will count each broom straw before entering, or pour mustard seed outside your window for her to gather and count each seed. Or we’ve recently heard that you can sleep with a flour sifter over your face, and you will hear her counting each of the holes — keep a fork handy to poke her to make her go away.

Men, if you find an empty skin hanging on your bedpost or doorknob late at night, pour salt in it. When your hag-wife returns to her skin, she’ll never be able to shed it again.

Plat-Eyes

If you find a stray animal following you at night, remembe3r it may be a plat-eye on the prowl. Hiding by day, the plat-eye only has one eye in the center of its head — but at night it can take the shape of any animal, encouraging you to invite it into your home. To keep away from danger, stay away from swamps and rice fields at night, where the plat-eyes feel most comfortable – and don’t invite any nighttime strays into your house!

Haint Blue

If you want real protection against the various spirits roaming out there, it’s best to paint your window frames and doorways “haint blue”.

Haints, or haunts, are spirits trapped between the world of the living and the world of the dead. These are not your quiet, floaty, sorrowful ghosts. They are the kind you don’t want to mess with, and the kind you certainly don’t want invading your humble abode looking for revenge. Luckily, the Gullah people remembered an important footnote to the haint legend: these angry spirits cannot cross water. The safest place would be in an underwater bubble, or perhaps to surround your house with a moat. The Gullah people have a much more elegant solution. They would dig a pit in the ground, fill it with lime, milk, and indigo, or any other pigments they could find, stir it all together and paint the mixture around every opening into their homes. The haints, confused by these watery pigments, are tricked into thinking they can’t enter. 

Note: Information from curiousexpeditions.org.

From Blue Roots by Roger Pinckney:

Some taboos, bad luck signs and omens:

• Never carry out ashes on Friday, or between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
• Never start a task on Friday, lest you never finish it.
• Never keep a crowing hen.
• Never carry a hoe or spade into the house.
• Never mend clothes while they are being worn.

Good Luck Signs:

• If you see a red bird on the doorstep, count to nine and money will flow.
• If two people wash hands together, they will be friends forever. Burning onion peels will strengthen the bonds.
• Saying “rabbit” as you awaken on the first day of the month will bring a good month.
• A bird singing on the doorstep means company is coming.
• The first water taken by a new mother should be from a thimble, to ease the baby’s first tooth.
• If you kill a snake in your yard, hang it from your porch post and your crops will never suffer drought. 
• Wishes made to a new moon or under a new quilt will come true.