The Macumba

FEATURED in The Writing.Com Newsletter - Mystery: Puzzling Dark Mysteries - Editor's Picks, October 19, 2011

Vana had never believed in spirits, black magic and spiritual possessions, and would laugh at who believed in embodied spirits, animistic-spiritualistic religions, extra-ecclesiastic consolidations, Afro-Brazilian sects and religious synchronism. She cursed at the very idea about deities of nature, incarnation and  mediums as "horses" for the so-called suffering spirit or the humiliating "mounting" or possession of a spirit in the medium's body, for Christ's sake. How could people believe in spiritual Fathers and Centers that resembled churches and were often located in far away places; in counter magic, fluid manipulation, symbols, offerings, and Candomblé. It was all bullshit. A bunch of lies in the name of "charity" because all they wanted was your money and your soul.

Vana was smart, intelligent, objective, educated and only believed in facts, and believed in explainable facts of nature and man. As a scientist and professor at a traditional university in Rio de Janeiro, she could not waste her time with unearthly, untrue matters. Vana had a critical mind, and only believed in logic and in reason because, in logic, there are three kinds of logical reasoning that can be distinguished: deduction, induction and adduction. Given the precondition, a conclusion, and a rule that the precondition implies the conclusion.The grass is wet; therefore, it may have rained. There you go! Logic! No more!

Vana loved horseback riding in the Alto da Tijuca woods; her getaway, her escape from students, professors, classrooms and painful teachers’ meetings. She could be free, be herself and enjoy the company of her Manga Larga horse, Maximilian. She enjoyed the warm, delicious breeze while riding fast under the trees and sometimes she'd close her eyes and smell the wet grass from the rain.

It all started when her horse stood still and wouldn't move. Right in front of her she saw an enormous voodoo offering under an Oak tree. Maximilian was whinnying and breathing deep, refusing to go any further, understanding the mysteries, the objects, the meaning, the moment; as if seeing and feeling things not seen. She was mad and impatient and kicked the animal to move forward. He stood in his two back legs and kicked the air with his two front hoods, neighing in protest. She lost balance and fell on the wet soil but was unharmed, yet, frustrated and angry.

Vana Maria walked towards the Offering. What she saw was unbelievable! Neatly set on a black cloth were moonshine bottles, pomegranates, apples, pumpkins, rue, rice, red roses, roasted chicken, black ribbons, a shiny dagger, matchboxes, cornmeal and okra porridge, bananas, cooked rams, red wine bottles and a long, axe-blooded machete stuck deep right in the middle of a paper where the word Xango Macho was written. She felt sick to the stomach with the putrid odor and the scene and right there, on top of it all, she threw up, and, so many times that she cried and screamed in pain and disbelief that this was really happening to her. She furiously kicked the banquet and the rotten chicken, the bottles, the candles and the roses with her right boot while Maximilian saw a black figure emerge from behind the Oak tree and disappear into the air. He neighed. He called for her. She stopped and as if in a trance, mounted her horse and left, swearing and crying, spitting dirt and blood, arrogantly offended and mortally dishonored. Witchcraft! Paganism! Indigenous, dirty practices! Dirty, poor peasants! This should be forbidden!

Next day, when she stepped out of her bed and put her feet in her slippers, she screamed in pain and fell on the soft carpet. Her eyes opened in horror at what she saw. There was a very big, swollen, painful and stinky wart, right there, on the tip of her big toe! It was disgusting to look at! Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph! For the love of God! She had an afternoon class, 45 students. How was she to get up, wear high-heels and walk those long corridors? How? How? How? And... then... in horror, she thought of the voodoo offering and what she had done! No! No! No logical reasoning. No precondition for conclusion, no logic reasoning here! No! It's coincidence, mere, sheer coincidence, that's all! Nothing else!

She had to cancel her afternoon classes and after that, cancel classes for the whole week. She set an appointment with her doctor but he said that it was an infected wart; he couldn't do anything about it. It would unswell in some days - maybe in a week. If he tried to puncture it, it could become worse. She had to wait. Yet,it was getting worse day by day. Her toe was infected; full of puss. It hurt like hell, if there was hell. It ached. It throbbed. She scheduled another appointment with a specialist --- he said the same thing: wait for the infection to sink. It would, eventually. She became frustrated, annoyed, impatient. The pain became agonizing. She couldn't sleep. Sometimes, her leg felt numb and gone. In the middle of the night, she would wake up screaming in pain. She felt as if somebody was in the room... observing, preying and waiting. Illogical. This was crazy! She gave up. She succumbed to her fate. Oh what have I done!

A friend from the university came to see her the next week. They were all worried with her absence and the Dean was upset about substitutions. The students were complaining and wanted their money back; they wanted Vana, with her classy, intelligent, argumentative classes not any of those other boring teachers, no, they wanted her. What a mess. When her friend saw her toe, she screamed in shock and told her that THIS was a voodoo revenge, a wrath, a black magic payback, a… Macumba!  She knew. She had seen one exactly like this some years ago. What had Vana done??? Vana told her that she had kicked a voodoo offering when she went horseback riding in the woods. Her friend told her that you should never ever e v e r EVER do this. You leave it alone. Respect it. It's another belief. Another way of thanking “God” but in the form of a deity, an animal or a crossroad spirit. Eshus. You never touch their sacred offerings, never. Would you like somebody to walk into your church and kick the holy cross, the wafer and the candles, destroying everything? How would you feel about that? Angry, right?

You must get help! Right now or you'll lose your foot, maybe the keg, she said. It will gangrene till it falls off, believe me! I'm taking you to the Pai Joao Terreiro, tomorrow. You have to go there. It's the only solution. It's a Bantu Gege spiritual center and I'll set an appointment for you. I go there every two weeks. Religiously. They know me. I don't care what you say or think, want or don't want, believe or not. Tomorrow, she told her. Don't disagree or argue with me. And, trust me. This is a serious matter that cannot be explained in this earth, in heaven or in hell! This is a Macumba evil, dark, black spell cast against you for what you did to a Kongo Kingdom deity's offering! Not good! Ah so powerful and dark. The worst of them, not even close to the Haitian voodoos. You're doomed if you don't react and act now before it's too late! And Vana, for the first time in her life, believed in somebody else besides herself.

That night she dreamed of daggers and machetes poking her toe, her leg and her thighs. She swore she saw a black, disfigured hand holding her foot and dropping, slowly, hot red candle wax on her toe, drop by drop, every hour, infecting, cutting, and burning. She heard mumbling and chanting and she woke up crying, screaming and sweating. What had she done? If only she could go back in time and undo this horror. She couldn't think straight, well.

When she arrived at the Spiritual Center she was carried and helped into the Terreiro's big room. She gazed at the confusion. Rituals, clothes, drums. People from all social classes, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, men and women, even children. Flowers, moonshine, chicken, roosters, red roses, red wine, food, cigarette and cigar smoke, hands clapping, people laughing, screams and gun powder smoke in the air. It was weird and... it was beautiful at the same time. She was confused. Barely walking, she was taken to the Spiritual Father. She was placed in front of him in the middle of the room. She stared at him, waiting; heart beating fast. He was all dressed in white and had short gray hair. He had a small, twisted cane and he was smoking a long, thick cigar. He looked young and strong, powerful, dignified, elegant and handsome. He seemed so very old and so...so slave looking as if he was suffering still; as if his legs were stuck in chains. Was he?

Standing in front of her, he peacefully and calmly drank his cachaça from a gourd. He looked at her in silence. He nodded. He smoked his cigar. He closed his eyes. He nodded again, agreeing. He looked at her toe and at the ugliest wart he had ever seen in all his years of “trabalhos". He understood. Very well. He knew. He mumbled and talked to an invisible someone. Silence in the immense room. He nodded softly as if agreeing with whispered words around him. The debtor and the creditor. Eye for an eye. This had been going on since the beginning of times. Why can't people just... believe? Let go. Why all this battle against the dead and the living? He had seen this Ah... so many times. But one must help, teach, understand, cure, heal and forgive. And, then... they would learn.

He held her hand and softly asked her if she was sorry for what she had done, even but a little bit. She broke up. Sobbing and then crying deeply and sincerely, Vana told him that if she could, she would have never done it, looked at it, and kicked it that way. She was so sorry.

"Forgive me. Ask him, them... to forgive me."

He told her that she had done a magic attack to a deity's property; the supposed guilty person is immediately found by “them”, living or dead, the perpetrator is neutralized and negative and destructive, dark magic is counterattacked, often eliminating the forces of the enemy. How to stop this? Believing. Trusting and by candidly apologizing. Heart-fully apologizing.

"Do you come here this way?"

"Yes! Yes, I do!"

"Good! I will help you because it’s your first and ONLY time. Remember, I'm doing this because you don't know how to defend yourself and because I can see "things" inside of your soul. You are merely ignorant, spiritually void but… a good person. You need to believe in something in your existence and stick to it. You cannot be empty inside. Just as your body needs food your soul needs food, too but a different kind of nutrition. This nutrition is called belief, kindness, understanding and love. Practice this, alright?"

"Yes!"

She was placed in front of the Terreiro's big red door and facing the warm night, outside. The drums were loud and the mediums were clapping, dancing and singing. Excitement was in the air. The Pai de Santo drew symbols of knives, tridents and skulls on the floor with a white Pemba chalk and covered it all with gun powder. He placed a black candle in her right hand, a moonshine bottle in the left hand and suddenly, without giving her a chance to think, he chopped off a shacking black rooster's neck right there, in front of her, spilling blood on her face, her dress, her legs and on the wart. He knelt down in front of her but facing the darkness outside. He bent his head then touched the floor, respectfully. She heard him whisper softly and was sure that she heard the word Lucifer. Finally, holding a red candle, he lit the gun powder. In seconds the fire exploded in red and yellow flames and the symbols and the room were immediately covered with a darkish, heavy smoke. The mediums fell to the floor, shacking and twisting and the batuques sounded fervently. People clapped and screamed. All the spells, the evil, the voodoo, the requests and the favors were "granted" and the “forgiveness” was given. The revengeful spirit's bad tempers were calmed down and the poor patients’ pains, suffering and hurt were negotiated and bargained, all at the same time. The power of fire over the noxious, obnoxious spiritual influences.

When the smoke was gone and her dizziness recovered she immediately looked at her toe. Oh…The wart was gone! Miracle! It was a miracle! GONE! It was g o n e! But how? Oh... And, now, the recognition of the powers from the unknown, from the dead, from another universe beyond belief was true! She relaxed and cried and laughed and everybody clapped and danced. He smiled. She smiled. She kissed his hand. She loved him. She believed. She drank moonshine from his gourd and it burnt her throat and lungs but she didn't care, she coughed many times but she laughed loudly and happily. She was so happy. She believed now, no matter what, blindly. He gave her a Brazilian magic Figa amulet to ward off enemies, evil eyes and bad spirits. "Good luck, go in peace. Will I see you in two weeks?", he asked her.

She quickly answered the question with all her body, mind and soul: "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Vana walked out of the Terreiro light-hearted. They never asked her for money or contributions. Amazing. She was cured, just like that! Cured! No doctors, nurses, hospitals, health insurance, money, pain and suffering not to mention the embarrassment. Cured! No wart, not even a sign of it on the tip of her toe. Gone. Nada! What a relief. Such happiness! Her friend smiled and asked her about beliefs, reason, logic and about the unnatural "things".

"Have you changed, just like that - radically, plain and simple?"

And so, Vana sincerely told her friend in an open, clear, illogical, natural, unreasonable, unorthodox and believable way:

"Yo no creo en las brujas pero que las hay, las hay..."



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