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191 Epilogue Looking over here from beyond the bridge, you might believe some of the more far-fetched stories about Willow Springs: the island that got spit out from the mouth of God, and when it fell to earth it brought along an army of stars. He tried to reach down and scoop them back up, and found Himself shaking hands with the greatest conjure woman on earth. “Leave them here, Lord,” she said. “I ain’t got nothing but these poor black hands to guide my people, but I can lead on with light.” Gloria Naylor, Mama Day The people of Willow Springs have been celebrating Candle Walk on the twenty-second night of December for some time now, though nobody really knows why or exactly when the ritual began. But they do know that it has been this way since before they were born—and even before the ones before them were born. They have been observing the holiday since way before that outside preacher, Reverend Hooper, tried to stop it altogether, and they kept right on going strong after he left. In some ways the holiday has never changed. But even if it feels like Candle Walk has always been the same, the truth is that it has always been changing. The young folks now carry kerosene lamps or sparklers in lieu of the old-fashioned candles preferred by the elders. The residents of Willow Springs used to use Candle Walk Night as a way of sharing the fruits of their hard labor: fresh vegetables, a cured side of meat, a homemade cake, or a freshly brewed tea. But now, with more and more people crossing the bridge to earn a living, there are fewer fresh vegetables to be had. Instead, some of the young ones have taken to buying each other gadgets and other such things from the catalogues. Some have refused to bake their own sweets, opting instead for store-bought ginger snaps. Worse still, some have even stopped walking during Candle Walk altogether, choosing to drive instead, with headlights blazing. Some older residents argue that, taken together, all of these changes spell the end of Candle Walk. But the wisest ones remember that when they were youngsters, Candle Walk was different still, that they used to gather on the Rituals of Resistance 192 main road and “hum some lost and ancient song.” Back then you heard talk of “a slave woman who came to Willow Springs, and when she left, she left in a ball of fire to journey back home east over the ocean.” Indeed, the elders remember that their parents’ celebrations of Candle Walk were different still. In the end, it will take generations before Willow Springs stops celebrating Candle Walk, and more generations will pass after that before people stop talking about it. By then, “it won’t be the world as we know it no way—and so no need for the memory.” In her brief portrait of Candle Walk, Gloria Naylor illustrates some of the most important themes explored in Rituals of Resistance. To a certain extent, the ritual beliefs and spiritual practices explored throughout this project have been the same for some time. In both Kongo and the Lowcountry blacks responded to Christian missionaries and their attendant theologies through the lens of their own immediate concerns. On both sides of the Atlantic they decorated graves in a similar fashion and constructed medicine bags and bottles from the rough cloths and wood carvings available to them. On both coasts they resisted slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. They did it for centuries—and they continue to do it. But the slave cultures of the Americas were no mere replica of a presumed African precedent. American slaves valued innovation and creativity. Still, this innovation of blacks around the Atlantic, like the improvisation in be-bop, carried its own rules and discipline. One had to play the music, as in the Candle Walk, according to tradition. As Toni Morrison explains, “Black Americans were sustained and healed and nurtured by the translation of their experience into art, above all in the music. That was functional. . . . My parallel is always the music because all of the strategies of the art are there. All of the intricacy, all of the discipline. All the work that must go into improvisation so that it appears that you’ve never touched it.” Tradition is not bound by inheritance. Rather, people create tradition out of a certain legacy...

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