HAUNTED SKY

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 June 1926, Page 6

HAUNTED SKY

FARMER KILLS BELL BIRD. A bird of sinister omen in the Southern States—the “be,Meli fifuzzard’’—has been killed at last. A farmer shot him and the “ba<r” appears to be the original winged scavenger whose tinkling, as he hovered ver the dismal swamps of Louisiana or the impenetrable everglades ot Florida, has been the basis of many stories that for nearly Half a century have caused the flesh of the darkies to creep and their wmolly polls to horripilate. This bird was what Uncle Remus ■would have called “a harnt.” It •haunted” the evil-doer. For round the bird’s ne©k .a bell—now' on exhibition in a jeweller’s shop at Athens, Georgia. It bears the engraved (description : Joel Mine Lianville 1882. One of the firm beliefs of the Southern negroes, for years, has been fb. - when a dead human body lay exposed in wood or swamp, the buzzards would gather for an inquest. If thev found that, the man or woman had been slain they, before disposing of the body in their usual carrion way, would send the bell bupward on. to avenge the crime. And the pursuit would go on until the incessant sound of the bell drove tb.e murderer insane or impelled him to confess his guilt.