Brown Girl in the Ring

Crack Monkey and Barry hold down Ti-Jeanne while Rudy slices his granddaughter’s thigh open and injects her with bufo powder, a paralyzing agent. With Ti-Jeanne unable to move, Rudy places her inside a black sack and douses her with white rum in preparation for the ritual that will make her Rudy’s new duppy. Rudy prepares four mounds of gunpowder, which will ignite once Ti-Jeanne willingly relinquishes her spirit from her body.

To convince Ti-Jeanne to release her spirit from her body, Rudy lies to her. He tells her that Mi-Jeanne came to him, believing that Mami put visions in her head. Ti-Jeanne starts to question whether Mami did the same to her to keep her tethered to her. Rudy further says that Mi-Jeanne came to him to ask for relief from the heartache of the world, that “she didn’t want the pains of the body anymore” (215). He says that Mi-Jeanne willingly gauged out her own eyes for the ritual to separate her spirit from her body. He concludes this story by offering Ti-Jeanne the same relief from the physical world. If she relinquishes her spirit from her body, she too can live in duppy form as Mi-Jeanne has done.