THE OBEAH MAN OF THE WEST INDIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2199, 23 April 1896, Page 46

THE OBEAH MAN OF THE WEST INDIES.

The following is an instance of what Mr ' Hesketh J. Bell saw with his own eyes in the British colony of Grenada, one of the Wind- " Ward Islands : — A planter had in his grounds a fine lot of £000 plantains, but could never get a bacon, 'pf the fruit for the table. The " wretched ' triggers " of the neu> h -x^urhood always walked X>S with it as quickly as it ripened. At neither watchmen nor spring guns had any .'tffecb in checking the depredations, he deter- ' mined to have the garden " dressed " by an ' Obeah man. Accordingly, one day he was ' fey appointment waited on by a wizened old African, attended by a' small black boy tarrying a large covered basket. Mokombo, ' on being told what was wanted, promised : * " Me go set strong Obeah for dem, and dey nebber go tief your- plantain again." Instructed to go to work, Mokombo took up his basket and went down among the tree?, which were planted in long rows in a large ' field. "The plantain is much the same as the banana — the fruit growing in enormous bunches out of a soft fle?hy trunk, the leaves . on which spread out like those of a palm. * This is what the Obeah man proceeded to ' do. Out of bis basket he took a number of * large and small medicine-bottles filled with ' dome mysterious liquid; then taking up a position in front of a plantain, he tied one of the bottles on to a branch of the fruit, muttering the while an incantation in some African liDgo, completing the spell by frequent genuflections and waving of the , Arms. He went through all the rows' in the ' lame fashion. When he had used up his ' utock of bottles, be took from his basket a small black wooden coffin. This he placed, with ' a good deal of ceremony, in the branches of a cocoa-tree, and on the top of the coffin he put a 'saucer containing a little water with a

hen's egg floating in it. He then walked right round the field, muttering his incanta- ~ lion and waving his arms, after which he cams to the planter and declared that the ' Dbeah was complete — not another bunch of 1 plantains would be stolen. Receiving bis fee, he departed, saying : "Me let go plenty ' cribo, Massa, and now if anyone da go and ' tief dem plantains, he must go swell up and HrastJ" ' * Criboes an large black serpents, very common in the island but quite harmless, The planters, indeed, rather protect them, as. they wage war on the rats. These criboes, however, are supposed to become deadly under the Influence of the Obeah man, and the negroes believe that when he " dresses " & garden or field he sets free in it a swarm of ferocious criboes, who will assuredly destroy myone who goes into the place for the purpose of stealing. They know well enough ' that there is no venomous snake in the Island, yet the African dread and veneration of the serpent is ineradicable. , On the particular occasion referred to, the bottles were Bxamined after Mokombo's departure, and found to contain nothing but sea- water, coloured with a little laundry blue, with a dead cockroach floating on the top. gome of them bad also a few rusty nails or a bit of red flannel. But there might be any sort of rubbish in the mystic bottlet, for no negro would dare to touch them. Nor would he go near to the trees on which they were hung to steal unless he was prepared to "swell up and bust." It is hardly credible, but charms of this sort are believed in and practised among the negroes who are reputedly con- - verted, and who regularly attend the services in the English churches and chapels. All the teaching of Christian ministers and schoolmasters for 50 years has not been able to destroy the dark superstitions brought over with the cargoes of slaves from the African coast during the previous two centuries, A French Oatholio priest described the contents of the hut of an Obeah man which he had examined. The man had died, and bone of ths people would eater the house, so the priest went himself. He found the dirty

little place Uttered with Obeah utensils. There were vials containing Borne unholy liquor, ready to be exchanged for their weight in silver; rags, feathers, bones of cats, parrots' beaks, dogs' teeth, broken bottles, grave dirt, ram, and egg shells. Under the bed was found a large earthen' jar containing an immense number of round balls of earth or day of various dimensions, and whitened on the outside. .Some of these contained hair aad rags ; others, skulls of cats, stuck round with human or dogs' teeth and beads. In a. tin canister was found the sourcerer's most valuable treasure, seven bones from a rattlesnake's tail, valued at sdol each for amulets or charms. There was also a yard of hang- . man's cord, intended- to be retailed to the negroes by the inch as a preservative against bad luck. In another old tin was found bis hoard — bundles of bank notes and a number of gold pieces, amounting altogether to such a considerable sum as to prove that the trade of the Obeah man is an exceedingly lucrative one. The money was handed over to the Government, and the rubbishy contents of the hut publicly burned. — Chambers's Journal.