Aida Gomez, now thirty-four years old, had also been stricken. In fact, she claimed she still suffered the effects. “I can’t eat, my stomach is extended, and I’m nauseous,” she told me. “At one time,” she explained, “My family had to tie me up or I’d run away and hurt myself.” They didn’t always succeed in restraining her; she pointed out several old wounds on her legs suffered from kicking her house. Obviously fed up with her illness, Aida said that she’d actually been successfully treated by a curandero. “But I couldn’t afford to pay him his 1,000-cordoba fee so the symptoms returned.” Aida also talked about her visions. She described two or three old men who would come to take her away. “What causes your grisi siknis” I asked her. “Only God knows what causes it,” she replied, then added,” We believe someone is causing it.”
This was another recurring theme. Bad things done by bad people invited the bad spirits that caused the illness. The collective wisdom in Krin Krin was that three men who practised black magic had instigated the most recent outbreak. Two of them had been banished, but the third remained in town and, according to Jesús, was stirring up problems once again.
Although Porcela Sandino assured me she’d rid Krin Krin of grisi siknis, the illness seemed to linger. Our hosts claimed that when people visited their community, those causing the problem eased up so the village appeared normal. The villagers hoped that I could help them rid their community of evil spirits. Patricio told me he was convinced Krin Krin needed the assistance of “Parson Taylor” in Honduras. He explained plans to head north across the border in search of him. I had thought that Parson Taylor was a church minister—and he was. But I discovered that to the villagers Parson Taylor was actually parsin tailar, which, when said quickly, becomes fortune teller. According to the Miskitu, the most powerful fortune tellers—the ones who could cure grisi siknis once and for all—were in Honduras.
Almost four hours after we’d arrived in Krin Krin, we’d exhausted our list of questions so our hosts offered us accommodations for the night. They assured us that the small cabin next door to the Catholic church would serve us well. We made our way across the cropped grassy fields, and although a full moon loomed low in the hazy night sky, it cast little light. We entered the church compound through a locked gate and then climbed up a ladder to the entrance of a simple wooden cabin. It was perched on high stilts. Our home for the night had a front veranda and two rooms empty but for some bat guano and the remains of an old engine, which sat in a pool of grease.
After our hosts left, Ana Rosa, Dud, and I moved out onto the veranda for air. I sat on a roughly hewn bench and leaned back against the outer wall of the cabin, while my companions stretched out on the wooden floor. We could only just make out the cross that capped the long, low church next door. We watched the reddish moon climb in the night sky and realized we had neither the energy nor the will to eat a simple dinner.
I leaned forward to retrieve a bottle of water and, as I did, the floor seemed to shift beneath me. I glanced over at Ana Rosa and Dud, but they continued their quiet conversation. I leaned back; the sensation persisted, and I felt shaky and slightly nauseous. I rubbed my eyes and tried resting my forehead on my knees, but this made it worse so I sat up straight. Soon, my head cleared. But as I contemplated spending the night under a full moon in the lee of the Catholic church among the grisi siknis-prone Miskitu of Krin Krin, I couldn’t help wondering if my dizziness had been brought on by the duende spirits—if I too believed, just a little bit.
