Obeah

He and other proponents of the Akan-Twi hypothesis argued that the word was derived from obayifo, a word associated with malevolent magic by Ashanti priests.[23] (Akan: witchcraft).[24] Kwasi Konadu suggested a somewhat updated version of this etymology, suggesting that bayi, the neutral force used by the obayifo, is the source material – a word with a slightly less negative connotation.[25]

The first time in Jamaican history the term "obeah" was used in the colonial literature was in reference to Nanny of the Maroons, an Akan woman, considered the ancestor of the Windward Maroon community and celebrated for her role in winning the First Maroon War and securing a land treaty in 1739, as an old 'witch' and a 'Hagg'.[26][27][28] Obeah has also received a great deal of attention for its role in Tacky’s Rebellion (also an Akan), the 1760 conflict that spurred the passage of the first Jamaican anti-Obeah law.[29] The term "Myal" was first recorded by Edward Long in 1774 when describing a ritual dance done by Jamaican slaves. At first the practices of Obeah and Myal were not considered different. Over time "Myal-men" involved in spirit affairs involved themselves with Jamaican Native Baptist churches, bringing Myal rituals into the churches. Over time these Myal influenced churches began preaching the importance of baptisms and the eradication of Obeah, thus formally separating the two traditions.[30]

Despite its associations with a number of Akan slaves and rebellions, the origin of Obeah has been criticised by several writers who hold that an Igbo origin is more likely.[31] According to W. E. B. Du Bois Institute database,[32] he traces Obeah to the Dibia or Obia (Igbo: doctoring)[33] traditions of the Igbo people.[34][35] Specialists in Obia (also spelled Obea) were known as Ndi Obia (Igbo: Obia people) and practised the same activities as the Obeah men and women of the Caribbean like predicting the future and manufacturing charms.[7][36] Among the Igbo there were oracles known as Obiạ which were said to be able to talk.[37] Parts of the Caribbean where Obeah was most active imported a large number of its slaves from the Igbo-dominated Bight of Biafra.[32] This interpretation is also favored by Kenneth Bilby, arguing that “dibia’ connotes a neutral “master of knowledge and wisdom.”[38]

In another hypothesis, the Efik language is the root of Obeah where the word obeah comes from the Efik ubio meaning 'a bad omen'.[39] Melville Herskovits endorsed a different Efik origin, arguing that obeah was a corruption of an Efik word for “doctor” or the corruption of the Bahumono word for "native doctor".[38]

Obeah figure confiscated from a black man named Alexander Ellis on his arrest in suspicion of practicing as an 'obeah-man' in Morant Bay, Jamaica in 1887. Both of which were Akan speakers or "Coromantee".[40]

The earliest known mention of Obeah comes from Barbados in 1710 from letters written by Thomas Walduck. He writes in part, that an Obia Negro can torment another by sending uncountable pains in different parts of their Body, lameness, madness, loss of speech, lose the use of all their limbs without any pain. [41]

The term 'Obeah' is first found in documents from the early 18th century, as in its connection to Nanny of the Maroons. Colonial sources referred to the spiritual powers attributed to her in a number of derogatory ways, ranging from referring to her as “the rebel’s old obeah woman”[42] to characterizing her as “unsexed” and more bloodthirsty than Maroon men.[43] Maroon oral traditions discuss her feats of science in rich detail. She is said to have used her obeah powers to kill British soldiers in Nanny’s Pot, a boiling pot without a flame below it that soldiers would lean into and fall in,[44] to quickly grow food for her starving forces,[45] and to catch British bullets and either fire them back or attack the soldiers with a machete.[46]

Discussion of Obeah became even more frequent when it was made illegal in Jamaica after Tacky's War. During the rebellion, Tacky is said to have consulted an Obeahman who prepared for his forces a substance that would make them immune to bullets, which boosted their confidence in executing the rebellion.[47][48]

In 1787 a letter to an English newspaper referred to "Obiu-women" interpreting the wishes of the dead at the funeral of a murdered slave in Jamaica: a footnote explained the term as meaning "Wise-women".[49] The practice of obeah with regards to healing led to the Jamaican 18th and 19th century traditions of "doctresses", such as Grace Donne, who nursed her lover, Simon Taylor (sugar planter), Sarah Adams, Cubah Cornwallis and Mary Seacole and her mother. These doctresses practised the use of hygiene and the applications of herbs decades before they were adopted by European doctors and nurses.[50][51]

A continuing source of white anxiety related to Obeah was the belief that practitioners were skilled in using poisons, as mentioned in Matthew Lewis's Journal of a West India Proprietor. Many white Jamaicans accused women of such poisonings; one case Lewis discussed was that of a young woman named Minetta who was brought to trial for attempting to poison her master.[52] Lewis and others often characterized the women they accused of poisonings as being manipulated by Obeahmen, who they contended actually provided the women with the materials for poisonings.[53] The laws forbidding Obeah reflected this fear: an anti-Obeah law passed in Barbados in 1818 specifically forbade the possession of "any poison, or any noxious or destructive substance".[54] A doctor who examined the medicine chest of an Obeah man arrested in Jamaica in 1866 identified white arsenic as one of the powders in it, but could not identify the others. The unnamed correspondent reporting this affirmed "The Jamaica herbal is an extensive one, and comprises some highly poisonous juices, of which the Obeah men have a perfect knowledge."[55]

During the mid 19th century the appearance of a comet in the sky became the focal point of an outbreak of religious fanatical millennialism among the Myal men of Jamaica. Spiritualism was at that time sweeping the English-speaking nations as well, and it readily appealed to those in the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, as spirit contact, especially with the dead, is an essential part of many African religions.

During the conflict between Myal and Obeah, the Myal men positioned themselves as the "good" opponents to "evil" Obeah.[56] They claimed that Obeah men stole people's shadows, and they set themselves up as the helpers of those who wished to have their shadows restored. Myal men contacted spirits in order to expose the evil works they ascribed to the Obeah men, and led public parades which resulted in crowd-hysteria that engendered violent antagonism against Obeah men. The public "discovery" of buried Obeah charms, presumed to be of evil intent, led on more than one occasion to violence against the rival Obeah practitioners. Such conflicts between supposedly “good” and “evil” spiritual work could sometimes be found within plantation communities. In one 1821 case brought before court in Berbice, an enslaved woman named Madalon allegedly died as a result of being accused of malevolent obeah that caused the drivers at Op Hoop Van Beter plantation to fall ill.[57] The man implicated in her death, a spiritual worker named Willem, conducted an illegal Minje Mama dance to divine the source of the Obeah, and after she was chosen as the suspect, she was tortured to death.[58]

Laws were passed that limited both Obeah and Myal traditions.[59]

Trinidad and Tobago Obeah includes the unique practice of the Moko-Jumbie, or stilt dancer. Moko was a common word for Ibibio slaves. In the Trinidad and Tobago Obeah tradition, a Douen is a child who has died before being baptized, and is said to be forced to forever walk the earth at night in English-speaking regions of the Caribbean. Jewelry is made from deadly toxic red and black seeds called jumbies, jumbie eyes or jumbie beads (seeds of Abrus precatorius) in the Caribbean and South America. By contrast, the moko-jumbie of Trinidad and Tobago is brightly colored, dances in the daylight, and is very much alive. The moko-jumbie also represents the flip side of spiritual darkness, as stilt-dancing is most popular around holy days and Carnival.

Obeah in the Bahamas Currently, the Bahamian Penal Code (Chapter 84: Sections 232-234) allows for up to 3 months of incarceration for practicing obeah. Interestingly, suspicion of possessing an instrument of obeah (vials, blood, bone, images) while in a courtroom, can result in immediate search without warrant and a fine where such item is found.

Obeah Laws In Trinidad Trinidad has similar laws like Jamaica for Obeah as a crime. Trinidad did not have as many cases of people practicing Obeah compared to Jamaica. In Trinidad, there was discrimination of what was a religion practice or what was considered Obeah. The reason for this is the cultural differences of the Blacks and East Indian race living in Trinidad and Tobago (Page 68).[60] These laws pertaining to obeah was derived from the common law system, which governed many many island in the Caribbean included Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.[61][62]

In Trinidad, 13 percent of East Indian people also known as "coolie" made up the population of people being convicted of obeah. In Jamaica, where there wasn't a high population of East Indian people, there was only 4 percent of prosecution for the crimes of obeah. In Jamaica and Trinidad there was more people that believed that the East Indian descendants were known to be affiliated with being an "obeahman" because of their spiritual practices, that are connected to their religion. Some of those religions are Hindu and Muslim. People that were convicted of obeah in Trinidad has serve six months as a maximum punishment. These two countries had other smaller punishments like fines or lashes. Lashes are beatings that the person being convicted of obeah would receive with whips. These lashes would also be reported in how many lashes the person would receive in documents.

Although 19th-century literature mentions Obeah often, one of the earliest references to Obeah in fiction can be found in 1800, in William Earle's novel Obi; or, The History of Three-Finger'd Jack, a narrative inspired by true events that was also reinterpreted in several dramatic versions on the London stage in 1800 and following.[63] One of the next major books about Obeah was Hamel, the Obeah Man (1827). Several early plantation novels also include Obeah plots. In Marryat's novel Poor Jack (1840) a rich young plantation-owner[64] ridicules superstitions held by English sailors but himself believes in Obeah. The 20th century saw less actual Obeah in open practice, but it still continued to make frequent appearances in literature.