The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Misc needle men Select a topic - - - - - - - - Home Searches AFU FAQ - - - - - - - - AFU Animals Books Celebrities Classic Collegiate Death Disney Drugs Food GIF Language Legal Medical Misc Movies Politics Products Religion Science Sex Songs TV - - - - - - - - Other sites

From: gbelton@bellsouth.net (Gerald Belton)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Needle Mens
Date: Mon, 07 Dec 1998 19:02:21 GMT

I've been following the several threads here about miscreants sticking random people with AIDS-infected needles. This sounded vaguely familiar when it first came up, but now that it has moved from discos to movie theaters I am reminded of why it sounded so familiar.

Rummaging around in my various bookshelves turned up a dusty old tome titled "Gumbo Ya-Ya, A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales." This was published in 1945, edited by Lyle Saxon, Edward Dreyer, and Robert Tallant from material gathered by the Louisiana Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration[1].

Chapter four, titled "Axeman's Jazz[2]," starts thusly[3]:

'"No, Sir!" declared Mamie Smith emphatically, her eyes huge and white in her fat black face. "I sure don't go out much at this time of year. You takes a chance just walkin' on the streets. Them Needle Mens is everywhere. They always comes 'round in the fall, and they's 'round to about March. You see, them Needle Mens is medical students from the Charity Hospital tryin' to git your body to work on. That's 'cause stiffs is very scarce at this time of the year. But them mens ain't workin' on my body. No, sir! If they ever sticks their needles in your arm you is just a plain goner. All they gotta do is jest brush by you, and there you is; you is been stuck. 'Course I believes it!"'

[snippage of editorial speculation on the origin of this belief]

'Apparently Needle Men have actually appeared on several occasions, though this is debatable. In 1924 there was a Needle Men scare in the Carrollton section of the city. It was reported that these "fiends" slunk about in the darkest streets, sprang from behind trees or from vacant lots overgrown with weeds, jabbed women with their needles and fled. Cruel skeptics insinuated the "victims" were suffering from a combination of imagination and Prohibition gin, but indignant females, of all colors, swore to the existence of these particular Needle men....

Only a few years ago Needle Men reappeared, according to reports, and began stabbing young women while they were seated in moving-picture theatres, rendering them partially unconscious and carrying them off into white slavery and a fate "worse than death." For months in New Orleans downtown cinemas, women were screaming and fainting and crying out they had been jabbed with a needle. But so far as can be ascertained, the period offered no more disappearances than usual, nor is it known that any New Orleans women strayed down the primrose path via this particular route.'

These stories are not identical to the ones current making the rounds, but there are some similarities:

1. People being stuck with needles by strangers
2. In the old version, the needles are drugged; in the new version, they are infected.
3. In the old version, the person either dies and is anatomised or is sedated and carried off to "a fate worse than death." In the new version, the person is infected with an incurable, long-term fatal illness.

Gerald "better a needle than an axe, man" Belton

[1] My copy is too old to have an ISBN number, but I see it in the local bookstores so it's still in print. Try Amazon. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Folklore or New Orleans.

[2] The Axeman mentioned here is not Ray Depew. After a couple of introductory pages about Needle Men, Black Draughts, Hugging Molly, and other assorted miscreants, the authors get to the story of a series of axe murders reminiscent of Jack the Ripper, complete with taunting letters to the newspaper. New Orleanians responded to this as they do to everything: they threw a party.

[3] I hesitated to quote this first paragraph. It is written in dialect and may sound racist, at least to the folks who find racism in such books as "Huckleberry Finn." But I assure you that it accurately captures the manner of speaking found among the poorer residents of New Orleans, regardless of race. My mother talks just like this, and she's white.