How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
One day, [my father] arranged to be somewhere else and Ma Jolie came. She made cross marks on the soles of my feet, on my knees, on my stomach, in my armpits, and on my forehead. She lit two special candles and placed one over the head of my bed and the other near the foot. She said that, with all the rain, it was impossible for anything meaning me harm to be living outside in the yard, so she would not even bother to look there now. (8.12)
Annie goes into great detail to describe Ma Jolie's obeah. In one of her signature lists, we learn of all of Ma Jolie's efforts to cure Annie of her illness. We also learn that Annie's father isn't buying it.
Quote #5
In the basin with the candles she had placed scraps of paper on which were written the names of people who had wanted to harm me, most of them women my father had loved a long time ago. She told my mother, after a careful look around, that there were no spirits in my room or in any other part of the house, and that all the things she did were just a precaution in case anyone should get ideas on hearing that I was in such a weakened condition. Before she left, she pinned a little back sachet, filled with something that smell abominable, to the inside of my nightie, and she gave my mother some little vials filled with fluids to rub on me at different times of the day. (8.12)
Again, Annie's father's former lovers come up. While Annie's father is never held responsible for his past actions or the women who he may have hurt, Annie's mother and the obeah women have to try to clean up his mess and prevent any bad spirits from attacking their household.
Quote #6
When my father came in to see me, he looked at all my medicines—Dr. Stephen's and Ma Jolie's—lined up side by side and screwed up his face, the way he did when he didn't like what he saw. He must have said something to my mother, for she arranged the shelf in a new way, with Dr. Stephen's prescriptions in the front and Ma Jolie's prescriptions in the back. (8.12)
Annie's father's reaction to seeing the medications from the Western medical doctor and Ma Jolie lined up next to each other disturbed him. In this world where everything is symbolic, he rejects this equation of Western medicine and obeah practice. He clearly has a hierarchy in his mind in which the Western medicine trumps the obeah medicine. What does this say about his regard for tradition?