Gloomy meeting with the spirit;
Contemplation lines like the veins in jade.
I have been haunted lately by the images of my ancestors. I have been finding out more and more about them through my own research and from the pictures and stories sent by my relatives. Usually one begins his/her own story with stories of ancestors which then give some insight for understanding the context of the writer's life. The family history sometimes gives information about the future characteristics of the children as well as understanding about the future in general. It has been traditionally seen as a woman's concern. Therefore, I have chosen to place the beginning of the discussion of my family history in the area entitled Dog.
382-383
Rushing, rushing to the meeting with the child.
The son has no likeness.
Much of what can be remembered in my own family history is predominately from a woman's perspective, even on my father's side of the family. My father's father died of tuberculosis when my father was only six years old. My grandfather's father died when he was 9 years old and his father was shot in 1864 by a band of outlaws called Cantrell's Gang when he was 11 years old. All that we know about the male line of the Prices is what has been passed on by the surviving widows. I happen to look exactly like the picture of my great grandfather, James Henry Price; the son of James Henry Price who was shot.
384-386
Neither departing, nor coming,
Obtaining from the sage woman the divination.
My grandparents, Lon and May Turner Price, were half first cousins (sort of). Lon Price's mother was May's great aunt, Lottie Turner, who married the James Henry Price that looks like me. She was the half sister of May's grandfather by his second wife, Sarah Hatcher, who was half Cherokee. Lottie believed in and practiced some of the Cherokee customs that were passed on to her through her full-blooded grandmother. When her first two babies died of pneumonia she believed that it was because she had been washing her hair with water. Afterwards, she never used water on her hair but combed cornmeal through it.