Mar 21, 2013 - Sale 2308

Sale 2308 - Lot 337

Price Realized: $ 2,880
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(FORTUNE--TELLING.) DYE, "AUNT CAROLINE" TRACY. Real Photo Post Card and two Autograph Letters Signed on her own letterhead. Silver print photographic post card with signs at the corners of having been pinned to something; the letters are 8vo, single page and two pages with the original hand-addressed envelopes, addressed to a Miss Jimmi Summer. Arkansas, 1916
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Additional Details

a very rare photograph and two letters from "hoodoo woman"Caroline Tracy "Aunt Caroline" Dye. Dye (1843-1918) was a well-known fortune teller, healer and "seer," born into slavery in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Dye was freed at the end of the Civil War in Arkansas where her mistress had moved. As a young child, she had already established a reputation as a seer of future events and after the war, she remained in Arkansas. There, people from far and wide would come to her home for readings, and remedies. For her services she would receive a modest sum, a dollar or two depending on the pocketbook of the client. "Aunt Caroline" used only a deck of cards to help her concentrate and steadfastly refused to give any readings on love or war. She did have an exceptional track record, but made a couple of spectacular errors, including the prediction that the tail of Haley's Comet would brush up against Earth causing terrible destruction.
. The letters are rather difficult to decipher but seem to be written to a friend and concern advice, for which she asks: "In close $10.00 dollar for me to help you out in your bizness so that you can be better satisfied. . ." Dye is mentioned in at least a couple of blues songs by W. C. Handy and as a "hoodoo woman" in Johnny Temple's "Hoodoo Women" (1939) where she's mentioned by name.