SUNDAY SAUCE - Midday duppy and she-devil
Published:Sunday | October 31, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Oxy Moron, Contributor
My mother used to sit around the Singer sewing machine pedalling away, singing and humming, humming and singing, and sewing. The songs, replete with African retentions, were Revivalist songs, songs to make you think, songs to make you reflect, songs to make you fret. They were stylised to suit her moods, those melancholic moods. The rhythms were staccato and the pace slow, most times.
In between the songs were duppy stories. We, the children, would sit and listen, and were enthralled by the mystery of them all. I was entertained but I did not believe. I could not let them know that I was a non-believer, that I did not believe that a dead woman could come from market with a basket on her head one Monday evening, that the man who sat under the tree rolling tobacco on his knees was a figment of Mama's imagination, and that when I collapsed on her father's property in the country, I was just dizzy from singing with an empty stomach and not struck by a midday duppy who I had allegedly frightened.
It was summer and I had gone to spend the holidays in the country. One day, I was bored so I went outside to explore. I found myself in a cane piece but, unfortunately, the cane was not fit for eating. I saw a pile of stones on a cleared spot. The weather was quite cool, so I put some dried cane leaves on the stones and lay on them. All at once, I was a runaway slave. I started to sing a song of freedom and there was another, and another, and another until I felt dizzy and weak, and a cold hand on my face.
Granny was rubbing my face with alcohol, as I sat on her lap. She shook her legs, shaking me back to consciousness. My cousins crowded around us. The one who claimed she saw an old lady standing over me as I lay dazed on the pile of stones was telling her story. Granny believed her. She said it was her Granny's mother's grave on which I had lain, and that I had disturbed the woman's afternoon nap with my dreadful voice, and so she came out of her grave and boxed me.
Loves to sing
That so-called apparition did not daunt me, for I had always wanted to sing, to sing negro spirituals and Sunday-morning jazz songs. However, I just could not get them right. They were not coming out as they should have. Nonetheless, I would sing especially when I was feeling low. There was something relaxing about singing, so, in addition to reading and writing stories, I would sing. My attempts were met most times with snide comments. There were many embarrassing moments like the one the Sunday evening when there was a penny concert at the AME Zion Church.
My friends who knew I liked to sing paid 10 cents for me to sing a negro spiritual. With much egging and heckling from the audience, I went to the front of the church. I was so nervous my right leg shook uncontrollably. I tried to compose myself but it was futile. So, I decided to hurriedly sing and go back into the congregation.
When I started, no words came from my mouth, and I looked into the congregation only to see a little girl at the front grinning from ear to ear. I attempted again, but still no words came. I felt perspiration dripping down my black face polished with Vaseline. By this time, the little demon at the front was shaking with stifled laughter. She was not alone.
The entire congregation was about to keel over. I would have none of it so I stormed out, in the processing glancing at the little she-devil dressed in Sunday clothes hoping that she would spend the rest of her life with Beelzebub in Hell.