That’s the title of a book I haven’t read on Santeria, but I’m just floored by that collection of words. So economical, yet evocative of so much. I highly recommend spending a little time letting your brain swim in that puddle of language. Amazing stuff.

Google hunting on that phrase I came across a song entitled, “The Dead Sell Memories“. I know nothing of the band Oracular Laboratory, but I think the lyrics are quite nice:

Mama is loco,
And daddy is tired;
And sister is vocal,
And I’m just wired.

I look over the trees,
And I look to the river
And across it I imagine
Lives the Great Forgiver;

That is where all the dead people go,
That is where all the dead people know,
That is where they have eyes to see,

You must understand:
The Dead sell memories.

O take me away
I am so superstitious;
The ghosts they come knocking
And their habits are vicious;
And we the living
We stand with our wishes,

They do not breathe
Yet the Dead sell memories.

O burn a candle,
Burn it upright,
Burn it so long into the night,
Burn a candle for all to see,

Because the Dead they sell memories.

I stood silently
By the shore of the lake,
I had nothing left,
There was nothing to take;
I did not have coin,
But my pain they could see,
So the dead spoke to me
In the language of memory.

The Dead sell,
The Dead sell,
O the Dead sell… memories…