The Soultown! Volume IV: Issue 1 JANUARY 2020 | Page 22

The Griot
Tituba’s Salem Witch Trial Blues
Dedicated to Dedicated to Maryse Condé
(English & French)

I met Tituba, “the Black Witch of
Salem”
(While reading I, TITUBA,
BLACK WITCH OF SALEM—
Moi, Tituba, La Sorcière … Noire de Salem)
the
Other day. Tituba was Slouching and
Moaning as she went by,
Complaining about the
Absence of
Recorded evidence of her
Existence while weaving a song of
Resistance—
“I do not belong to the civilization of the
Bible and Bigotry.”
No “need for the written word.” In their hearts
my
People “will keep me in memory.”
“It’s in their hearts and heads.”—
“Je n’appartiens pas à la civilisation du Livre
et de la
Haine.” Mon peuple garderont mon souvenir
dans leurs
Coeurs, “sans besoin de graphies. C’est dans
leurs têtes.
Dans leurs coeurs et dans leurs têtes.”—

Some have described me
As a 1674 loving
Barbados Woman and a
Root Doctor. A Root Worker—
In Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Bynum is a
Root Worker. He says, “The
Roots is a powerful thing.’—
Sandy Jenkins gave
Frederick Douglass a
Root. He kicked Mr. Covey’s
Derrière and lived to tell the story —
The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, An
American Slave, Written by Himself,
1845–Before Uncle Tom’s Cabin —
Naughty Harriet Beecher Stowe
Stole a Black Man’s Story:
Josiah Henson’s Gris-Gris — Amulets —
Leslie Marmon Silko, Navaho, says:
“You don’t have anything
if you don’t have stories.” “Tsì its tsi’ nako,
22
22
Thought-Woman,” and her three Navajo sisters
Created the Universe —
One
World on earth “and the four worlds below” —
Stories of Creation —
Native American survivance —
No Adam and Eve, but
Paula Gun Allen’s Crystal Woman—The
Women of Wisdom practicing “their art” “in the
Cave of Knowing” —
Not Plato’s Cave of Darkness —
Writing as Voodoo,
Voodoo as Writing — Chiasmus —
‘You have seen how a man was made a
Slave; You shall see how a slave was made a
Man — Self-Taught Freddie Douglass
fathomed
Greek Rhetoric before JFK —
“Ask not what your country can do for you;
Ask what you can do for your country”—
Remember March 1692? She asked me.
I began those in/famous Witch Trials of
Salem—
With Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne—A
Community that cheated and burgled while
Wrapping itself in the cloak of God’s name—
They believed Satan lived among them—
I’d predicted before my death that Eurocentric
Historians would ignore me, sparsely
mentioning
My name Tituba here and there:
“a slave originating from the West Indies
and probably practicing ‘hoodoo.’”
“I do not belong to the civilization of the Bible
and
Bigotry.” No “need for the written word.”
In their hearts my people
“will keep me in memory.”
“It’s in their hearts and heads.”—
“Je n’appartiens pas à la civilisation du Livre et
de la Haine.”
For some time now, I’ve been leafing through
the
Leaves of the colonization of Salem Village my
Story in the history of Salem Witch Trials.
Silence greets my
Eyes—Silences, omissions, preposterous
hoaxes — while
Judgments had rehabilitated my other co-
victims,
Thus restoring their honor.
Yet, I was as much a part of the in/famous
Salem
Witch Trials, just as Sarah Cloyse, Martha
Carrier…
Not even Nathaniel Hawthorne mentioned my
Name when the whole village attended the
Deviltry meeting—His Young Goodman Brown
Claimed, “‘There may be a devilish Indian
behind every tree.’”—
Young Good Man Brown lost his Faith—
“‘My Faith is gone!’”
cried Young Goodman Brown..
“‘There is no good on earth,
and sin is but a name.
Come, devil! For to thee this world is given.’”—
He died a gloomy death. Black-veiled Mr.
Hooper “carved no hopeful “verse upon his
tombstone” — All gloom atoning for the sins
of the fathers —That NathanielnHawthorne.
Twice-told tales craft master — “I do not
belong to the civilization of the Bible and
Bigotry.”
No “need for the written word.”
In their hearts my people “will keep me in
memory.”
“It’s in their hearts and heads.”—
“Je n’appartiens pas à la
civilisation du Livre et de la Haine.”
I lived but a few miles from Hawthorne’s
Custom House.
Why did I cross Salem history and waded into
Lethe? Or received a few lines from/in the
many volumes
Jotted down about the witch hunt and trials?
Nobody cares about a Root Worker and her
trials —
Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams accused
me of Witchcraft — I told them tales of Voodoo
and
African magic. Samuel Parris beat the
Confession out of me.
Susanna Endicott called me une Sorcière de
Nago, Man Yaya—
Man Yaya raised me. She was a healer, not a
sorcerer—
Jan. 2020 • Immortalizing Our Stories to Implore Positive Progress In Our Communities • thesoultown.com