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"But listen, they say you should lay your burdens at the feet of the Lord. They say He'll listen." Sister Madclaine stifled a yawn. "But you have to tell Him the truth; that's the only catch there. Else, even He can't help you." "I have laid them everywhere, believe me that is the truth. Starting years ago I went to everybody that would listen. Including Him. But the more I lays them down the heavier they gets. All around me is a great big hush, like before a storm, and when I dream it is just to let witches ride me." Sister Madelaine raised an eyebrow. "My colledged son will tell you there is no such thing as witches riding people. From Morehouse he learns it is indigestion. Something you ate, the way you are laying in the bed. The circulation of your blood stops and you can't move. While you lay there sweating and not able to move you have nightmares, and when you wake up you think a witch has been riding you. According to my son you wouldn't need a fortuneteller, you'd need a dose of salts." —Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland On a very hot August night Anna Perry called me out to the front porch of her home; she had something to tell me that "the men" should not hear. As we sat on the old porch swing drinking iced tea she admonished me once again on the importance of burning used menstrual pads. I had always been polite, she said, and did not openly disagree with the things she told me. But now it really was important that I pay attention; after all, I had a new job teaching at a university in faraway Michigan. Now I was going to be "one of the higher ups"; now I would always have enemies. Didn't I remember what had happened to Lila?1 (Tucson, Arizona; 1971) Ann Lee Dalton poured a spoonful or so of red pepper and some of her own urine into a bucket of hot and soapy water as she prepared to mop the worn linoleum of her kitchen floor. The soap and water would remove the dirt her children have tracked in from the yard, muddy from a spring rain in Michigan. The pepper and urine was a preventive measure which, she believed, "helps to keep bad spirits away." So far it has worked. (Port Huron, Michigan; 1981) It was Christmas morning and Bernita Washington was lying on her old red couch, suffering from the headache she had had for 24 67 4 You Brought It on Your Own Self 68 You Brought It on Your Own Self hours. Her own fault, she says; it was brought on by "neuralgia" from going out in the cold without her head covered. This, coupled with the fact that she had not been careful about what she was eating, had caused her blood "to rise" and the result was pain. She was treating the headache by resting and drinking only black coffee for breakfast. And for the rest of the day? "I'm going to not eat any pork or grease, or too much sweetenin'." She expected to be herself by afternoon when the members of her large family would be dropping in because of the holiday. (Lansing, Michigan; 1986) Reverend Moses Hastings had just made a pastoral call to a 23-year-old woman dying of AIDS in a nearby hospital. For days she had been distraught at the inconsolable weeping of babies, unaware that no one else in the room could hear their cries. It was the wailing of the seven babies she aborted, Reverend Moses said, the babies that she had not allowed to be born. But she was beyond any help he could give; "All I could do was pray for her." Nor does he pity her. She has to pay, he said, and she is. God was punishing her for the terrible sins she had committed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan; 1987) These anecdotes deal with a common-sense way to prevent the malicious use of a bodily fluid by the envious; the everyday use of body waste to prevent infestations of evil spirits; a regimen of diet and rest to alleviate the bad headache resulting from injudicious behavior; a terrible death as punishment for a sinful lifestyle. As Click has stated (1967), "the most important fact about an illness in most...

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