Sorcery and Survival, The Duality of Obeah in Colonial Jamaica

“ They have abandoned the practice of polygamy, the besetting sin of the negroes; and the fatal influence of Obeah or witchcraft, which is often productive of the most terrible mischief, among the slaves, is effectually destroyed wherever Christianity prevails. As a proof of the general good conduct of the converts, it is not unworthy of notice, that when an office which requires trust and confidence becomes vacant, such as that of a watchman, it is a usual practice with the planters and managers to enquire for a religious negro to fill it. ”

“ Consider, then, the real condition of affairs,—three hundred and fifty thousand blacks, a large share of them children or grandchildren of those who were brought from Africa, with the wild blood of their fathers scarcely diluted in their veins, with all the old traditions of Fetichism and Obi worship fresh in their minds, altogether uneducated, or at best half educated; consider what virgin soil is here for every vile superstition, what a field for the demagogue to cultivate, and then decide whether it might not be safer, after all, to educate the negro in Jamaica. ”

“ This derivation, which applies to one particular sect, the remnant probably [135] of a very celebrated religious order in remote ages, is now become in Jamaica the general term to denote those Africans who in that island practise witchcraft or sorcery.”
The Obeah man, as I have heard him described, is generally a most forbidding-looking person, craftiness and cunning being stamped on his features. He pretends to a medicinal knowledge of herbs, and undoubtedly is well versed in the action of subtle poisons; his trade is to impose upon his simple compatriot. ”

“ The most predominant trait in their character is superstition; indeed, there never was a race so universally inclined to this weakness. What is called Obeah, has existed since the first introduction of negroes into these islands; it is one of those dark and fearful practices which they brought with them from Africa, where the devil is still openly worshipped, and temples built to his honour. Few English people can have any idea of the dreadful extent to which the practice of Obeah was carried in the West Indies, in former days. ”

“ The Negroes in Jamaica have sorcerers and physicians, called Obeah-men, whose ceremonies are probably of African origin, although they are in many respects similar to those of the Indian medicine-men. The Obeah-men, being well acquainted with the peculiar effects of the different poisonous plants, it is said, often make bad use of their knowledge. [52] When attending a sick person, the Obeah-man generally commences his cure with a dance, and he administers a powder, or a liquor, to his victim. ”

“ All this suggests that obeah, as one finds it in the West Indies, is not so much a tradition and a cultural inheritance as it is an innate predisposition, like a sense of humor, or “the will to believe,” as James describes it. Behind these practices, and supporting them, are all sorts of fears and a general sense of insecurity in regard to the physical and spiritual environment that more cultivated persons either do not feel, or they find escape from in quite different practices. ”

“ The Obeah man from Africa can do no mischief to one of us. The proud and enlightened white man despises his arts; and for him, therefore, these arts have no existence, for they work only through strong preconceptions of their reality, and through trembling faith in their efficacy. ”

“ The slaves had brought from the Guinea coast the mysteries of Obeah and dark practices of sorcery. The native Indians had ample store of superstitions, to cure or to injure, to provoke love or hatred; the colonists had their own credulous beliefs, to which they added implicit faith in those of the inferior races. The land was overrun with this combination of the occult arts of three continents, all of which were regarded by the Inquisition, not as idle fancies, but as the exercise of supernatural powers, involving express or implicit pact with the demon. ”

“ Travellers of late have told us enough—and too much for our comfort of mind—of that prevailing dread of poison as well as of magic which urges the African Negroes to deeds of horrible cruelty; and the fact that these African Negroes, up to the very latest importations, are the special practisers of Obeah, is notorious through the West Indies. The existence of this trick of poisoning is denied, often enough. Sometimes Europeans, willing to believe the best of their fellow-men—and who shall blame them?—simply disbelieve it because it is unpleasant to believe. ”

“ Lighter-hearted creatures do not exist on the globe. But the continuance of it depends on the continuance of the English rule. The peace and order which they benefit by is not of their own creation. In spite of schools and missionaries, the dark connection still maintains itself with Satan's invisible world, and modern education contends in vain with Obeah worship. ”

“ Paul Harley started and glanced at me significantly.
“They think, those simple negroes, that it is witchcraft, Voodoo, the work of the Obeah man. It is of two kinds, rapid and slow. Those who suffer from the first kind just decline and decline and die in great agony. Others recover, or seem to do so. ”

“ It will be seen above, that since African charms are to prevent evil, and others to procure it, the first belong to the worship, and are derived from the power, of the good spirit; and the second are from the opposite source. It is to be concluded, then, that the superstition of Obi is no other than the practice of, and belief in the worship of Obboney or Oboni, the evil deity of the Africans, the serpent of Africa and of Europe, and the old serpent and Satan of the scriptures; and that the witchcraft of the negroes is evidently the same with our own. ”

“ The indigenous inhabitants of the country were negroes as black as coal. Strong, virile, and simple-minded savages, they lived as we may imagine prehistoric men—hunting, fighting, marrying, and dying, with no ideas beyond the gratification of their physical desires, and no fears save those engendered by ghosts, witchcraft, the worship of ancestors, and other forms of superstition common among peoples of low development. They displayed the virtues of barbarism. ”

“ They have their necromancers and conjurors of both sexes, whom they call “Obeah men and women,” to whom they apply for spells and charms against sickness, to prevent their being robbed, or to find out the thief, and to punish those who do them any injury. These Obeah people are very artful in their way, and have a great ascendancy over the other negros, whom they persuade that they are able to do many miracles by means of their art; and very often get good sums of money for their imaginary charms. ”

“ In every district there is an Obeah-man, or Bush-doctor, as he is often called, from his supposed knowledge of herb simples. He is by no means the innocent person which this latter designation would seem to imply. He deals in magic and sorcery of all descriptions, and there is not a Black man who does not believe in his powers. They consult him on every conceivable business and he gets heavy fees. He will secure a man the favour of his master so that he shall not lose his place, or help him to revenge a wrong, real or fancied. ”

“ Obeah seems to be about the only thing they care about."
"I ran up against some Obeah in Haiti," remarked Stuart, "though Voodoo is stronger there."
"I never heard of much real Voodoo stuff here in the Windward Islands," the planter rejoined, "but Obeah plays a big part in negro life. And, as I was just telling you, the whites aren't above using it, sometimes."
"In Haiti," responded Stuart, "Father and I once found an Obeah sign in the road. Father, who knows a lot about those things, read it as a charm to prevent any white man going that way. ”

“ The laws of Jamaica afford a Negro no redress. His colour is considered as a sufficient testimony against him. It is to be lamented that moral right should ever give way to political convenience. But if temptations of interest are sometimes too strong for human virtue, let us at least retain a virtue where there is no temptation to quit it. In the present case there is apparent right on one side, and no convenience on the other. Inhabitants of this island can neither gain riches nor power by taking away the liberty of any part of the human species. ”

“ What is more interesting about obeah is that while as a practice and a belief it is universal among the uneducated classes of the black population in the islands, it is everywhere different, and everywhere in process of change. Practices that were originally imported from Africa tend to assimilate and fuse with related practices and traits of the European and Hindu cultures wherever the Africans have come into contact with them. ”

“ It is very difficult, therefore, for the white proprietor to distinguish the Obeah possessor from any other negro upon his plantation; and so infatuated are the blacks in general that but few instances occur of their having courage enough to impeach these miscreants. With minds so firmly prepossessed, they no sooner find Obi set for them, near the door of their house, or in the path which leads to it, than they give themselves up for lost. When a negro is robbed of a fowl or a hog he applies directly to the Obeah-man or woman ”

“ They had listened to Congo myths in the arms of colored mammies in infancy. But superstition, while a retarding force to civilization, is sometimes a mighty consolation to the spirit. The tribes of Darkest Africa, seeing many things that [Pg 176] in their barbarism they can not understand, find it wiser to turn to superstition than to go mad. Thus they escape that bitter, nerve-wracking struggle of trying to adjust some inexplicable mystery with their every-day laws of matter and space and time. They likely find it happier to believe in witchcraft than to fight hopelessly with fear in silence. ”

“ The negro tribes of Central Africa are great believers in the power [Pg 176] of magic. Their sorcerers are invoked frequently to discover stolen articles, to heal the sick, and perform other practical work which we usually give to the police or the doctor, and they also exercise the art of rain-makers. ”

“ Next to this vile trick of poisoning people (arising, doubtless, in a great measure, from their total want of religion, and their ignorance of a future state, which makes them dread no punishment hereafter for themselves, and look with but little respect on human life in others) , the greatest drawback upon one’s comfort in a Jamaica existence seems to me to be the being obliged to live perpetually in public. ”

“ This terrible crime does not, it is true, rage to the extent it once did; but even in these days of freedom, Obeah men and women are still to be met with, and many negroes consult them when they have lost anything, are suffering from protracted pain, or when they wish to injure any one they may have quarrelled with. ”

“ It, indeed, came out, afterwards, that this crime was also effected by the abominable belief in Obeah: the woman, who mixed the draught, had no idea of its being poison; but she had received the deleterious ingredients from an Obeah man, as “a charm to make her massa good to her;” by which the negroes mean, the compelling a person to give another every thing for which that other may ask him. ”

“ The old people are acquainted with many of the wild plants indigenous in the country; and they often recommend them as specifics in certain diseases. They also appear equally familiar with those plants which yield poison. When irritated with denials of what they wished for, or suffering from jealousy, or any other strong passion, instances have been known of the negroes applying to these Obeah people, and, for a small sum, receiving from them one of their deadly draughts, so prepared as to render death either almost immediate, or, as was most common, lingering. ”

“ The spirit of caste is still relentless. The white man despises the black man, and, if he can, cheats him and tramples upon him. The black man, in return, suspects and fears his old oppressor, and sometimes, goaded to desperation, turns upon him. A perpetual discontent has always brooded over Jamaica ”

“ In the morning the stoutest-hearted negro gives himself up for lost when he sees the well-known, but much dreaded insignia of the Obeah man upon his door-step, or under the thatch of the roof. This generally consists of a bottle with turkeys’ or cocks’ feathers stuck into it, with an accompaniment of parrots’ beaks, drops of blood, coffin nails, and empty egg-shells. The same spirit of fatalism which makes the black tell you he cannot “dead” before his time, causes him to believe himself the victim of an unseen irresistible power. ”

“ These 'mediums' are called 'Obeah-men' and their functions are not confined, by any means, to the merciful interference between the demon and his victim to which I have just alluded. These idle dreamers are not unfrequently employed by revengeful negroes to 'bewitch' some enemy; and, such is the superstitious dread of, and belief in, the communicated power of the Obeah priest, that the person bewitched wastes away and dies, as I have often seen, sometimes from credulous fear, and sometimes from secret poisoning. ”

“ Many, and many a one, has sunk into a premature grave, from the awful dread of Obeah hanging over them. These Obeah men and women are supposed to have entered into a league with the spirit of darkness, and by his aid are enabled to bring hidden things to light, and do many other marvellous actions ”

“ Martin​—​Giles Blizard​—​Adam Ogilvie.
The next crime I have to mention, in this continuation of dark tints, is murder. This dreadful act, however, I am happy to say, is not very common now; in these days they seldom embrue their hands in human blood; but in former years, years of moral darkness, the negroes used frequently to suffer death for the Obeah practice of poisoning, or in some other way taking the lives of their fellow-creatures, particularly those who had authority over them, and who, in the exercise of that authority, made use of harsh measures. ”