Monroe railroad men on the Georgia division tell of an Abbeville, S.C., man who claims to be possessed of a strange healing power. His name is Joe Munday and he lives near Buzzard Roost church on the Abbeville-Hodges road. He is a middle-aged, square-set fellow, with a face as full of freckles as a turkey egg full of spots. He is or ordinary education and attainment but believes absolutely in himself and in his power to heal.
He says his power has been in his family for generations and is handed down from mother to son, and father to woman can teach a man but not a woman to heal but not another man, and a woman can teach a man but not a woman. The power is passed down through the sexes in this cross-wise manner.
The Mundays live at the old homestead. One brother, Rink Munday, has lived there for 55 years and has never been away for longer than two weeks during this time. Joe Munday believes firmly that he has a power to heal and that this power is God given. He says he can cure any kind of skin affliction or disease, like eczema or pellagra, or any hemorrhage or bleeding. He cites various cases and marvelous cures that he has made. He makes no charge for the treatment and claims that his gift would be taken from him if he accepted pay. His power is a secret, and he will not reveal it. All that is necessary for you to do to be healed, he says, is to tell him your name and he will look into your eyes, and presto, you are well. There are magic words he uses in his mind tut that belongs to the secret. Munday’s family believe him possessed of this strange power. Recently one of the children, while playing near the house, cut a toe nearly off and a playmate ran for the mother, who kept on with her work saying that Joe was there and he would heal it. They claim that he did.
He also claims to be able to heal animals. A mule while plowing in a field stepped on a broken bottle and cut a gas in his foot, causing great loss of blood. He approached the mule, looked into its eyes, and the bleeding stopped into instantly. An unbeliever aske dhow the mule could tell his name to which the reply was made, “Well, he was a mule and you would just call him ‘mule’.”
From the Monroe Journal as reprinted on the front page of The Davie Record, Mocksville, N.C., Nov. 29, 1922
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