224

A. Varesano interviewing Joe Sulkusky (and Mrs. Sulkusky)
- 6 -
Tape 30-2

217
rattlin'! The snake is dead! I said How the hell, I said, where is that
song? I look down, and here's one comin' out from that crack. That's where
they were, down in that crack! I says Come on, Come on. I never moved at
all, I just stood in the same position, you know, til he come out about ythat far
out from the crack, you know. When he poked his head out, then I killed him!
I pokes him on the side. Well, by the time I was done, I killed six of them!
I killed six of them there. And one had thirty-five rattles, and he had an
end broke off somewhere, lost. So he had more, who know how much he had,
maybe he had up to forty. but he was a "baby". He was like a stove-pipe.

AV: My goodness!

JS: Oh, he was about like from here to the door long. And rattlers don't grow very fast,
you know. They're a slow grower. And he was a dandy. But if, only you had
somebody to take them rattlesnakes and get belts made, they're expensive,
and are they pretty! They are nice. See, there's different kind of rattlesnakes.
There's a ring-----he's a kind of a grayish color---and there's
one, he's blue, and he has different like flowers over him, different colors
of flowers over him. Then there's another one they call him the diamond-back.
That's a fasty one, the diamond-back. He's the fasty of them all. He has
just like diamonds, but they're nice, you know, on his back, all the way down.
That's the diamond-back. And they can fight. Well, if you ever see a good fight,
you get a rattlesnake and a black snake. You do't have to say Sicc'im! Just take
them out and put 'em out in the open some place, where the one can see the
other one. And when they go to fight--but they kill theirselves. That's how
long they'll fight, when they kill theirselves. See, the black snake can lick the
rattlesnake. He's too fast for him. But--the rattlesnake bites him, and he has to die
from that poison, see? So the two of them die. You oughtta see the fight, you
wouldn't believe it. they fill the yard sometimes they'll be in one bunch, you'd
think it was one lump, they're pushi' up and tryin' to--the black snake tries to
choke the rattlesnake, you know, and the rattlesnake, all he knows is to bite, he's
bittin' all the time. The rattlesnake'll bite, and the black one'll try to twist him
up and choke him, you know, break him, break his bones or somethin', you
know. That's the way they fight.

MS: Well, didn't you shoot a black snake between....

JS: Well, the black snake, he'll attack you if you attack him and you don't get him.
And he's big enough that he ain't afraid. He'll, he'll tackle you. But--what
he'll go for, he go to tighten you somewhere. He'll get around you and
he'll choke you if you ain't got a knife. He'll choke you. See now,
there's lotsa accidents happen, you see, now you don't hear like that no
more. But before, when they'd go pickin' blackberries or somethin', they'd
be layin' on the briars, you know, and you're pickin', you're not payin' any
attention, and he'd sneak up and sneak up and he'd wrap around you. If you
ain't got a knife, you're done You're done. He'll choke you.

AV: What do you do with the rattles from the rattlesnake?

JS: Well, they used to take them like for souvenirs, you know? Or else, they
used to claim--I don't know--they used to claim if you have a headache, put
the rattles in your hair, you know, and put your dap on, or else like a
lady if she has bigger hair, she'll put 'em in under there and keep 'em.
That's what they used to do, half the time!

AV: Do you have to use all the rattles from one snake? Or just one rattle?

JS: No, you can have one rattle for as long as you want to keep it.

AV: I mean, one of those little layers of....

JS: They just look like a shell, you know. But then they're just like, you can
count them--one, two, three, four, five, all the way up, you know they like