Negro Secrets for the Unknown and Unseen

By Kennedy Smith

Secret 1: Never be without your oak root and dandelion hair.

Mama told me stories of men who ran with the water and wind. They were guided by the stars, the first

abolitionists. We all carry our pouches that is meant for us, but everyone also carries their oak root and dandelion hair. My own pouch has those little speckled purple flowers and pine needles. The oak root and dandelion hair was our protector. They worked with the stars to unveil our freedom.

Keep your pouch hidden, though. Lil Jimmy was beat just yesterday for “engaging in that pagan worship.”

Catholicism is the way of the land down here. God is all-mighty, all-seeing, and looks just like that man who beats us til we can’t move. God rejects “things” like us, things that look and move how people look and move but are useful only in servitude. God wasn’t made for us. He was made to bind us. Without their oak root and dandelion hair, the running men fell. I seen their bodies as extensions of tree branches. The ridges of the bark continue onto their arms and backs as burns and lashes. I seen the trees weep under their weight, and I heard the birds hum their dirge.

Secret 2: Know that some of us ain't really us.

Some of us kneel to God, and others refuse to learn the spirituals. They never join in when we sing to each other,

them call-and-responses that are etched into our soul. Some of us haven’t been around long enough to know the nods and winks, or they just choose to be blind. Mama taught me how to know who was really real and who really ain't. The creases in our eyes formed over many lives and our patinated skin reflect the light absorbed from the sky. You can tell who ain't us by the straightness of their gait and the hardness of their face, rigid with false laws that they “know” to be true.

Ole miss Jenkins is one of the fakes. She works in the house and tends to their kids. Under the pitch-black

backdrop of the night sky, the real elders tell us stories of what miss Jenkins done aided them with: what they do with the fallen men. She’s a cook by trade, and the stories say she specializes in imported cuisine. I remember the orange flames bouncing off Mista Josa’s boney face when he said that part and all the children huddled a bit closer. After the men are beaten, they’re taken into the house, out there on the horizon. Sometimes I see a bunch of those black, shiny buggies queuing up like a line of black ants, and dim, flour-colored men and women spill out in pairs. It looks like they’re wearing what we wear to church, our fancy clothes. Those are the days when Rufus and Shala are taken to the house, but Rufus is not allowed to enter. He’s meant to play his fiddle outside, and Shala helps with the serving. Shala told us she couldn’t tell what the dark cubes skewered between the potatoes was. She said, “Now, the meat resembled beef, but the skin was similar to pork, and the white folk damn sure enjoyed every piece.”

Mista Josa told us that miss Jenkins was a plump, yellow woman. Her cheeks blushed the same red as the people

from the buggies and her skin peeled if she was in the sun too long. Even I could tell she ain’t real because her gaze is as stale as top-shelf crackers. Before they take the men to the house, they make them bathe in white vinegar. The sound of their bloody wounds sizzling was just as clear as their screams. We was all made to watch, and nobody made no reaction, not even the children. Once they entered that big white house, they were never seen alive again. Most of them swung in the wind, but some of them just seemed to disappear. Some of the fakes in the fields tried to convince us that they had been sold, but nobody ever seen them standing on the stage. Them folk walked back to their buggies with a type of energy that wasn’t there before. Their skin almost seemed to glow like ours. Instead of bronze, theirs was like mother of pearl. “She boiled em, then sliced em like the white folk do with cattle”, whispered Mista Josa, his eyes darting near and far.

Secret 3: Don’t get caught up.

There’s a lot of things that get people caught up down here. I’m talking about slip-ups, literal and figurative, the

boogie man, and entities betting on people’s lives. When the mamas’ screams and cries for their stolen babies replace the early morning birds’ songs, we know that the boogie man done struck. Unlike the entities, no lock or salt could stop the boogie man. There was nothing subtle about the boogie man either. Once the victim was chosen, it was guaranteed that we would never see them again. Last week, Miss Sally's newborn was chosen. I was woken up as the sun started to stretch over the horizon by rustling and muffled sobs. Mama was stuffing things into her burlap sack when she glanced back at me, behind her eyes was tears too afraid to fall. She dashed out the door, and I followed behind her. Her broad feet and long strides kicked up the red dust, the blinging bronze of her legs still cutting through her dirty white linens.

Three buildings down, Mama rushed into Miss Sally’s dwelling without hesitation. I stopped. Before me, Miss Sally

wilted on her knees in dying light, desperately wrenching, contorting, stretching up to the sky, her face disfigured with travail and eyes red with rage. Silhouettes surrounded her and their hands, connected to her body, transmitted healing energy that made the candlelight waver, projecting dancing spirits onto the wall. Mama rips through her sack, pulling out candles and salt and pouches of herbs. I couldn’t stand to be there. My thighs felt weak, and my heart was ready to explode. My porous soul absorbed this image of grief and anguish. That’s another way to know who’s real. If they can feel what we all feel, that’s how you know.

The boogie man was different from the betting imps. They both caused misery, but different methods was at

practice. The imps are carried in the wind like smoke and a breeze. If you don’t implement the proper protection, they’ll corrupt your mind with contradictions and disavowals. They gambled with the lives of the vulnerable and worked with evil like miss Jenkins.

They got to poor Peter last year. They had just bought him when he got caught up. I remember it was fall, right

before it broke into winter. Peter hadn’t ever been exposed to evil things and protection because he was still a child when they bought him. He didn’t put any salt on the sills or even carve stars in the wood and the imps knew. That night, the wind harassed our dwellings, screaming through the cracks and scratching at the windows. It had stopped. The silence was followed by hushed whispers of hushuhsuhsuush only interrupted periodically by sly snickers. In the morning when Peter hadn’t come to the rows, the men went and checked on him. When they saw his state, they yelled for Mama. She dropped her basket and glanced over at me, and we both ran to Peter. He was pressed in the corner when his black eyes slowly pierced into ours. Because of his state, Mama couldn’t heal him on her own. The power of communal prayer, specifically that of Mama Ezekiel of the Cosmos, was required.

Secret 4: Acquaint yourself with the healing woman.

Every village has a healing woman who has been gifted with tremendous abilities. They say these abilities trickle

down through generations. And although everyone has access to them, few can harvest them. Mama Ezekiel of the Cosmos was our healing woman. And Mama was right beneath her.

In the nightly storytelling, the elders told us that the abilities placed onto the women was originally in the

categories of protection and reversal. As our ancestors were fixed as the target of physical, mental, and then occult warfare, a defensive mechanism was necessary. Not too many of us remember this period of divine development because, for most of us, it occurred multiple lifetimes ago. The constant shifting and oscillations threw our memories out of reach. But for Mama Ezekiel and other healing women, this wasn't the case.

Mama Ezekiel was able to extract information from the stars, the cosmos, as our ancestors have done before, and

while doing so, deposit information of her own.

~~~

“His eyes. Now his eyes was especially peculiar. The regular glimmer that accompany the eyes of the real was

gone. They was stagnant and devoid of expression, and I could feel that pressure of nothingness trying to impose itself on my own. So I came to you,” Mama expressed with refined steadiness.

After replacing the brown baby attached to her breast with a pale one, Mama Ezekiel made her way over to the

rickety rocking chair. Her eyes scanned Mama until they fell upon me. Her head was covered with dull, red cloth, and the folds in her skin ran deep.

“And what do you think can be done, child?”, a smirk flashing onto her face.

“Well, probably not no herbs or salt cuz Mama didn’t even bother to try ‘em,” I said. “Y'all come on by here

tonight, at the hour where not even your own two feet is visible to your eyes.”

At this point, Mama Ezekiel’s eyes slid shut with the smirk still painted on her face and began rocking and

humming them hymns.

~~~

Secret 5: Keep it hidden.

Before the sun dipped below the horizon blurring the lines between the real and imagined, Mama counted

through her items for the umpteenth time. She towered over me as I sat on the single cot in our dwelling, and while I tried to focus on the lines of the wood, I felt her gaze. She walked over and held my hands, transmitting her warmth to me. She stooped down, closing the distance between me and her, and lightly kissed my forehead. Her eyes clicked with mine, as I followed the lines on her face. Her deep brown eyes mimicked the color of soil, and her cheekbones curved with the softness of the clouds. We can’t love how we was meant to love. Everything that we cherished, every way that we expressed had to be kept hidden. We suppressed the most tender parts of us deep down in our souls, as the earth does at its core. So that even when we was beat, there was no way that our love could be released. No way we could be seen as weak.

~~~

In the stillness of the night, Mama and I headed to Mama Ezekiel’s abode. From the outside, you wouldn’t even

know what was taking place inside. It looked like it was just a normal wooden building. Not no sound or even light escaped them walls. When we got there, Mama rhythmically tapped her fingers, and instantly the door slowly opened. Inside there was chattering women sitting in a circle. Mama Ezekiel sat in the center next to an upside-down pot. She smirked that same smirk as before and motioned to a break in the circle. As soon as Mama and I sat down, Mama Ezekiel shouted a phrase in a tongue I hadn’t never heard before. All the women closed their eyes and started humming that hymn that Mama Ezekiel was humming in the rocking chair. Feeling compelled and after seeing Mama doing it, I closed my eyes and hummed the hymn too. The woman to the right of me grasped my hand, and so did Mama on the left. The air in the building started swirling, and the orange tinge of light appeared before my eyes where it once wasn’t. And so I peeked. I made my eyes into thin slits and peeked on through them. Mama Ezekiel’s face was pointed directly up towards the sky. She had columns of light beaming from her eyes and mouth. My gaping mouth wasn’t humming the hymn no more, and the slits of my eyes had been expanded into saucers. I followed the light up to the ceiling, but the ceiling had disappeared. And instead, the vast multiverse replaced it. I felt my chest expanding and contracting with the deepness of my breaths. I then decided to just go on and close my eyes and hum the hymn. The breeze settled and the light dimmed, and I opened my eyes once again, finding myself in our dwelling the next morning.

~~~

I was almost beat that day for not getting up in time. The sun had already hit its peak, and I wasn’t in the rows. He

barged into our dwelling just seconds after I opened my eyes and he grabbed me up by my collar. I was dragged to the post, kicking and squirming, preparing myself to meet god. “You ain’t gon do that”, jawed Mama Ezekiel.

Everything stopped. It felt like even the earth halted its revolutions. His eyes went blank, and he dropped me,

stood tall, turned around, and walked away.

~~~

There’s a persimmon tree that grows in the middle of death. The grass surrounding its base fell flat to the ground,

sepia, dead. And yet, the persimmon tree flourished. Its branches boomed, mingling with the sun. And its fruit was ever-present and vivid in hue. There’s a persimmon tree that grows in the middle of death. The soil surrounding its base was unusually sandy, like ashes in a pipe. But despite how granular, the soil fostered life. In the middle of a burial ground, a persimmon tree grew. The land of death and life was gated in with a black fence. The one area of ours that wasn’t tormented. When we died, we was carried on a bed of cloth into the land. Those who loved us and our foes all gathered for our transition. Quarters was placed on our eyes and pennies into our palms. And our bodies had been wiped down with blessed water. One after another, everyone came up and whispered an averment into our ears, knowing it would be carried into our next life. They all expanded into a circle and looked on as our bodies turned into ash. Hymns mixed with the dust of our bodies, infusing a living force. After the ceremony, our dust was swept off the cloth and into the ground. There’s a persimmon tree that grows in the middle of death. A tree that repels the people who tormented us. A tree that strikes fear and death into them. A tree of protection and reversal.

~~~

Mama Ezekiel walked me to her dwelling with her wide palm resting on my shoulder. We walked in silence. By the

time we made it to her building, our silence was broke by the crying of the pale baby. Mama Ezekiel walked over, annoyance conveyed in every step and attached the baby to her bosom. It suckled, pleased. The brown baby sat up. Their nose was broad and flat, and their lips was plump with youth. Their eyes glistened with specks of gold, twinkling with a galactic presence. Mama charged into the building, throwing her arms around me.

“Mama is sorry, baby. I was tryna give you time to rest. I’m so sorry, my sweet baby.”, she cried. I squeezed my

mama tight and felt engulfed by her. Her tears fell onto my shoulders, and I felt streams of warmth cascading down my cheeks. Together we cried, and together we loved.

~~~

Mama and I walked with Mama Ezekiel to the persimmon tree. We was instructed to stay behind the fence while

she went in. Because of the distance, I couldn’t make out what was being said. But I could see Mama Ezekiel speaking with the tree, her arms rising and falling with urgency. Then the persimmon tree creaked and stretched like Mama do when her back aches. One of its branches that bore fruit glided down, greeting Mama Ezekiel, and dropped a persimmon into her hands, cementing in its new position. She took out a pouch of something from her pocket and placed it at the base of the tree and made her way back over to us.

“What y’all know about this?”, Mama Ezekiel said grinning.

~~~

Mama Ezekiel placed a large, white, porcelain saucer on the floor of her dwelling and centered the persimmon on

it. The babies was asleep, and Mama and I stood to the side so we wasn’t in her way. She grabbed six candles and some string. Five of the candles was set around the saucer in the shape of a star. Mama Ezekiel twisted the string around them candles, defining the shape. The sixth candle was used to light the other five and the string. She sat down and reached up for our hands. Mama and I joined her. Mama Ezekiel spoke a prayer over the permission that put the flames out. Grabbing the fruit and our hands, she said, “Come on, we needa get ta Peter”.