Divining the Dead

(A short sabbatical is in order - So, for the next few weeks, we'll take a look back at some older posts: This one is from 2011 on grave-witching.)

18th Century Dowser

Regardless of what you call it, divining, witching, dowsing or rhabdomancy - the interest in this ancient art is growing.

Grave dowsing has caught the attention of genealogists around the world as a way to locate the unmarked graves of ancestors. It can also be utilized to help locate lost burial grounds, find pioneer cemeteries, and uncover the burial grounds of Native Americans.

Y Branch

Witching, divining or dowsing has been used for centuries to locate water, oil, caves, precious metals, artifacts and treasure.  Cave paintings depicting dowsing have been found in France, Spain and the Middle East.  

Dowsing

Pharaohs were buried with dowsing tools and etchings on how the tools were used have been found on the walls of their tombs. Dowsing is mentioned in the Old Testament.   The Greek poet Homer referred to dowsing as Rhabdomancy – meaning divining rod in Greek.  Dowsing with a pendulum was popular in ancient Greece. In the 1700 and 1800’s. Europeans used forked branches to locate water and ore deposits. The U.S. military used dowsers in the Viet Nam War to locate land mines and hidden tunnels.  The British military had dowsers on the Falkland Islands to help locate unexploded ordnances.

De Vinci

There were times in history when dowsers were considered to be witches, or evil.  The Catholic Church assisted in this rumor by declaring that the devil was involved, giving dowsers ‘special powers.’  Dowsing fell from favor and went underground during the 1500's and 1600’s.  Victorians revived an awareness of it with their interest in the mystical and spiritual.  Many well-known people were dowsers including Leonardo De Vinci, Robert Boyle, Otto Edler von Graeve and Albert Einstein.

Pendulum

There are mainly four types of dowsing items used.  There is the Y rod, usually from a peach, willow or witch hazel tree.  The L rod can be brass, copper, aluminum, even wire coat hanger, bent in the shape of an L.  The Bobber rod is a long, slender, tapered stick.  The Pendulum is not a rod but a weight with a chain or a string attached.

L Rods

The actual skill of dowsing is not hard to learn.   L rods are easy to use and to explain.  You can make your own from wire coat hangers. Simple cut off the hook and straighten out the wire.  Make a bend about 4 inches in on the wire to create an L shape.  The smaller part of the L will be the handle. Create another and you have two L rods.

L rods held out

Stand normally, hands at your side.  Raise your arms to bend naturally at your elbows, with your forearms parallel to the ground.  Hold each rod straight out.  The rods should be held lightly in your hands.  Do not place your thumbs over the bend in the rods.  Now begin walking slowly and calmly toward the area you wish to test.  When you step on a grave the rods should cross or swing apart. When you step off the grave, the rods should uncross or swing back to their former positions.  Before you attempt to go into uncharted territory to divine graves, get your feet wet.  Take your rods to a cemetery and practice the art of dowsing there.

Many dowsing books and articles mention that cemeteries in the U.S. are usually laid out with heads pointing west and feet pointing east.  Supposedly this will aid you in identifying the gender of the body.  I have been in countless cemeteries where this is not the case.  While it may have begun in that manner, through the centuries, especially in large cemeteries, the bodies have been buried with the lay of the land.  Regardless, working your way from north to south will help you create an organized search route and may be able to determine the width of the cemetery.

Counting Steps

Once you get familiar with the rods, you may want to try to identify age and gender.  Age can be guessed at by the length of the body.  Count your steps lengthwise along the body.  A general rule of thumb is 1 or 2 steps for an infant, 3 or 4 steps for a child, 5, 6 or 7 steps for an adult. 

...indicates a female.

For gender, there are several methods.  An easy  one is to push one rod in the ground at the center of a grave.  Step back away from the grave and reapproach the grave with the remaining rod in one hand, out in front of you.  A swing to the left indicates a female; to the right is a male.  You can attempt to verify by approaching the grave from the other end and see if the verdict is the same.  (This is why practicing in a cemetery is useful – The stones will verify what you’ve found out.  Try different methods in order to discover what really works for you.)  Also remember, dowsing rods can also pick up on cremated bodies and animal remains

Dowsing Forms

So how does it work?  Better still, why does it work?  There are no true proven answers.  Theories abound that there may be a physical connection made between the dowser and the item sought.  It could possibly be an energy vibration that the dowser tunes into and the diving rods amplify, causing them to move.   Scientists say that the rods are not picking up on soil disturbances, metal in the ground, magnetic fields, or decay.  But as many have proven, believing in dowsing is not required for it to work.

Not everyone can dowse.  Just as we don’t know why it works, we also don’t understand why some people have the ability and some don’t.  As a water witcher, I felt compelled to try grave dousing.  I have always used peach or willow branches as Y dowsing rods, but discovered that the metal L rods work fine.  Cajoling my husband to assist me, we went to Richmond Cemetery in Richmond, Kentucky so I could see if I had, as my grandma would have said, ‘the touch.’  Grandma would be proud - I do.

Albert Einstein

Be skeptical, if you like.   After all, many consider this to be based on folklore, superstition, placing dowsers in the same category as charlatans and with doctors. Albert Einstein explained dowsing as a way of using the human senses to perceive something that is “unknown to us at this time.”     And since he had a good grasp on things being ‘relative,’ I can buy that! 

To learn more about dowsing visit these web sites:

International Society of Dowsers http://www.dowsingworks.com/

American Society of Dowsers http://www.dowsers.org/

Appalachian Dowsers http://www.wncdowsers.org/      

British Dowsers http://www.britishdowsers.org/

Canadian Society of Dowsers http://www.canadiandowsers.org/

~ Joy

Cross By the Side of the Road

We’ve all seen them – those crosses and shrines along the side of the road, marking where someone has died in an accident.  Many drivers find them offensive and dangerous, others find them touching and thought-provoking; some just ask “Why?”

 

Roadside memorials have had a place on our highways and byways since man began traveling.  It was only practical, and necessary to bury someone where they fell on a journey. 

The Spanish brought the tradition of descansos (meaning ‘place of rest’) to America. Coffin bearers would place a stone on the route each time they set the coffin down to rest, from the church to the cemetery.  This was a reminder for others to pray for the deceased.

Today, these memorials are set up to mark the place where someone has died.  Family members express a universal motive for creating roadside memorials: To mark the spot where their loved one drew their last breathe: where their spirit departed.

Memorials vary in look and feel, some may be made up of a bunch of flowers stuck in the ground, or a simple wooden cross with a name painted on it. Others are more elaborate, a plaque with an inscription placed on a tree, or personal mementos edged with brick or rock along the side of the road.

Opinions about these roadside shrines are mixed.  Many people see them as places of healing for families who lost a loved one in an accident. Others say they represent a startling safe-driving message for passersby. 

Those opposed find the memorials to be ghoulish, a distraction, and a road safety hazard to drivers; the shrines create problems for road workers trying to maintain the right-of-ways.  Many also oppose special exemptions that are given for roadside memorials when the law bars all others from placing signs, advertising or promotions on public property.

Problems also stem from a public space being used for personal mourning.  Many feel it is the state’s responsibility to keep roadways and right-of-ways clear of debris, and distractions. 

States around the country are discovering that roadside memorials are becoming too numerous. With over 50,000 travel-related deaths occurring each year in the U.S., memorials have started appearing everywhere, and if not constantly attended to, quickly dissolve into attention-getting eyesores.

Although there are no federal laws concerning roadside memorials, many states in the U.S. are enacting laws to limit or eliminate them. Others are trying to find a balance between a family’s desire to express grief, and the public’s right to safe roadways.

Roadside memorials remain a sensitive issue – one that each state will have to eventually come to terms with. But the bottom line must remain safety first, or the end result could be another roadside memorial ...

~ Joy

Calamity Jane - The Legend Continues 111 Years After Her Death

Calamity Jane

Her reputation as a rowdy woman of the Wild West has helped grow her reputation as folk hero. She was known as Calamity Jane, a professional Indian scout who dressed like a man, shot like a man, swore like a man, and drank like a man, but she could still make time to care for the sick and injured.

Gold Rush

She was born Martha Jane Canary on May 1, 1852 in Princeton, Missouri. She was the oldest of the six children that Robert W. and Charlotte (Burch) Canary had. When Martha Jane was 13, her father packed up the family and moved out west to Virginia City, Montana for the Gold Rush. Jane’s mother died in 1866 and her father died one year. As the eldest child, Martha Jane took on the responsibility of caring for the family: In 1867, she loaded up the wagon and moved them to Piedmont, Wyoming.

Martha Jane

General George Custer

Once settled, Jane worked at any job she could find including as a dishwasher, cook, waitress, dance-hall girl, nurse, miner, and an ox team driver. In 1874, she was hired by General George Custer as an Indian scout for Fort Russell; her duties included protecting Union Pacific Railroad workers from military conflicts, and driving the Native Americans onto reservations.

"Calamity" Jane

She claimed to have been christened Calamity Jane by Captain Egan because she saved him from being trampled by his horse after Indians shot him. Egan supposedly said, “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.” But many said she exaggerated her stories. A more popular version said that men were “courting calamity” if they offended her.

Mining in the Black Hills

It was 1875 when Calamity accompanied the Newton-Jenny Party into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Their expedition was sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey in order to map out the Black Hills and confirm claims that gold was located there.

Madame DuFran

Wild Bill Hickok

One year later she settled in the Deadwood area of South Dakota where she became friends with the leading madam of the Black Hills, Dora DuFran. (It was said that DuFran coined the word “cathouse” after Charlie Utter brought her a wagonload of cats for her brothel.) It was also during this time that Jane met and became infatuated with Wild Bill Hickok.

Agnes Lake Thatcher

Hickok was known throughout the Wild West as a lawman, a gunfighter and a gambler. Calamity claimed that she and Hickok had been married in 1873, but she had divorced him so that he could marry Agnes Lake Thatcher, a circus owner. There are no records to support Jane’s story.

Dead Man's Hand

Shortly before his death, Hickok had a premonition that he would die in Deadwood. He was gunned down as he sat with his back to the door, playing five-card draw. The hand he held – two aces and two eights, became known as the “dead man’s hand.”

"Black" Jack McCall

Original Hickok Grave

In later years, Calamity claimed to have led a posse after Hickok’s murderer, Jack McCall, but at the time of his death Jane was in jail, being held by military authorities. Hickok was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood.

Deadwood, SD

After Hickok’s death, Calamity Jane remained in Deadwood. She worked as a nurse during the smallpox epidemic of the late 1870’s before purchasing a ranch and moving to Miles City, Montana where she ran a lodging house.

She married Clinton Burke in August 1885, and two years later, gave birth to a daughter whom she named Jane and gave to foster parents to raise.

By 1893, Jane was traveling with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, demonstrating her riding and shooting skills, and telling her version of stories about life in the Wild West. By the summer of 1903, Jane had returned to Deadwood, an alcoholic.

Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane died on August 1, 1903 at the age of 51 in Terry, South Dakota. She was buried next to Wild Bill in Mount Moriah Cemetery, some say in accordance with her dying wishes. Others say she was buried there as a final insult to Wild Bill who had “absolutely no use” for her.

Her funeral was the largest ever held for a woman in Deadwood. 

Calamity Jane's Grave

Calamity Jane’s grave was marked with a stone topped with a lawn urn. Four faces decorate the monument, but few knew whom they represent?

I queried Michael Runge, the City Archivist of Deadwood. According to Michael, “The faces on the pedestal represent Pan, the Greek mythology god.  Beginning in the late 18^th and early 19^th century, there was a Greek and Roman revival.  As part of this revival, Pan’s image became popular again. Locally, stone mason, Lars Shostrom sold these bases and the urns.”

Deserted Western Town

Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane has gone down in history as one of the roughest, toughest women of the Wild West - although knowing where the truth ends and fiction begins is a trail that’s been lost in history …

~ Joy

A Simply Spook-tacular Idea, Horror Fans

Last summer, I wrote two blog posts about horror show hosts. Many readers wrote back about their favorite memories of local horror hosts and it became apparent that these “emcees” of the darkness were well loved. 

 

Favorite Horror Hosts

Many horror hosts became American icons dressed in costumes, trading barbed comments with other cast members, the television crew, or inanimate objects before introducing the B-grade horror movie of the night. These “thrillers” were the mainstay in the late 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, and every TV station seemed to have a happenin' “Horror Host” during these years.

The role of horror host was usually filled by someone who worked at the TV station; the weatherman was a favorite, a booth announcer, film editor, or someone from the late night news cast. This was low-budget television at its best. 

Host Sir Graves Ghastly

All you needed was some grease paint, a costume, low lighting, and spooky music to set the mood.  The fact that the host wasn’t afraid of vamping it up was a definite plus.

In 1957, Screen Gems released some old Universal horror movies syndicated to television, and the “Horror Host” was born.  The name given to the syndicated show was “Shock” and local television stations were encouraged to use hosts dressed in the horror theme. It was a death-defying hit!

Then in the 1960s and 70s, Creature Feature packages were released and included, not only horror films but science-fiction from the 50’s, British horror films of the 1960s, and those great Japanese monster movies with English-dubbed sound tracks.

Host Sammy Terry

By the early 70’s these true “shock” jocks had learned how to deliver a high-energy show on a low, low budget simply by providing a dry wit and cool patter. By the end of the 1970’s, over 200 horror hosts roamed the late night television airwaves: A tradition that continued into the 1980s before dying a slow death at the feet of the cable and satellite channels.

But some fans won’t let their old favorites … die.

One example is Madd Frank, a popular monster movie host from 1985 to 1995 in Fargo, North Dakota. “Madd Frank Presents” showed B-grade horror movies every Friday and Saturday night. The show lasted for ten year before eventually going into syndication across the country; but a few years later lost its impact when infomercials took to the air. Del Dvoracek was Madd Frank, and over the years he developed a cult following around the country.

Here’s a glimpse of a Madd Frank show intro:

After the show died a final death, fans decided that they were not content to just let it rest in peace.

Cast in 1993-94

Madd Frank and Frizzy

Madd Frank has been resurrected and is now becoming the subject of a documentary being produced by fans in Bemidji, Minnesota. Madd Frank was a favorite of producer Mike Bredon, and he decided that a 2-hour program about the original show and cast was in order.

Cast Today

That’s why there is a Kickstarter project that has been developed to collect $12,000 for the making of the Madd Frank documentary. The entire cast including Madd Frank (Del Dvoracek), Programmer (James Erickson), Ichy Bodd (Martin Jonason), Billy Jabber (Dave Prentice), Dr. Phil O’dendron (Bill Flint), and Vanilla White (Judy Rae) have all agreed to take part. The documentary will consist of modern interviews with the cast, interspersed with archival footage of the show.

Once the documentary is completed, the team hopes it will be aired at the 15^th annual Fargo Film Festival next March.

So far, the project has over 50 backers and has raised one-quarter of the needed funds. But there’s still time to get involved: the project doesn’t close until Monday, August 4^th.

Here’s wishing “Ghoul Luck” to all involved!

~ Joy