What is Obeah?

[Guest]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by sukuna:
[qb]Through Obi, a thief could be convicted or a murderer be made to confess his deed. Thus, even within a system of oppression which deprived the individual of his natural rights, social control and justice could be maintained on a microcosmic level.[/qb]
quite right, obeah is also a legal system

I had missed this point completely. Of course, by meting out their own justice, massa was even more excluded from the goings on amongst the slaves.

[Fledgist]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by JesusDread:
[qb]

Originally posted by Fledgist:
[qb]

Originally posted by JesusDread:
[qb]

Originally posted by Fledgist:
[qb]

Originally posted by JesusDread:
[qb]

Originally posted by Fledgist:
[qb]

Originally posted by JesusDread:
[qb] Originally posted by sukuna:
Deut 18:10-13 never say nothing bout obeah. no wonder yu a classify obeah and witchcraft as same.
is it wrong to consult a person for my physical health and well-being? it is wrong to go to the doctor?
a only obeah can ha yu so

-----------------------------------------

Unless is anada obeah difrant fram de one yu use to, me kno, obeah is witchcraft. Dem cast spells, dem consult spirits an a dem tings Duet 18 a lik out gainst.

Anyway sukuna, mi know yu only use yur obeah fi do good an heal people so mi wi come chek yu when mi head start raise and mi foot dem a swell cause a tink sumady pan dis board mad wid mi an dem mighta jinx mi, LOL

TGIF, have a wonderful week end and a happy, fulfilling life.

Abracadabraaaaaaaa

[img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] [/qb]

Of course Obeah must be what you say, after all it was created by the Negroes in Africa, not by the white people who brought the light of the Gospels to us benighted savages. [/qb]

Obeah was created by your father, Satan, just like wicca, wirchcraft, and the rest of your trade.

Fiya! [/qb]

My father was a decent, hardworking man, who's been dead now for three years. He didn't create obeah. That a piece of trash like you would seek to sully his name comes as no surprise. Your racist self-hatred is rather interesting. [/qb]

A piece of trash! Nice one Fledg, so I am ascending your scale of classifications, moving up from murderer to piece of trash. I wonder if I should be feeling elated?

I don’t know anything about your earthly father and don’t care. I was referring to your spiritual father but I know you already know that, you just couldn’t let the opportunity to pass yourself off as a victim go by without your usual crap. Always hitting below the belt, huh? So pitiful!

And I see you are back with your racist card too! You are such a poor ambassador for higher education and a sorry excuse for a professor or teacher or whatever you do. I have more respect for the guy that tries to was my windshield at the stoplight than I have for you right now.

[/qb]

You can give it, but can't take it. How interesting. It must be nice living under that rock. [/qb]

Oh I can give and take as much as the next man, it’s just that your juvenile attempts at pestering me is getting tiresome and boring. Too much of one thing! But seeing how relentless you are, I’m up to it if it makes you feel big!

{Fledgist: If you don't like disagreement, just don't post. That's simple.}

Just hope you paying yu other half as much attention as you pay me cause I wouldn’t like to be the reason for your home problems. LOL

{Fledgist: If I paid her as much attention as I paid you, she'd be upset at the neglect.}

And another thing, tell yu admirers to stop tracing me over you, I barely made it out of the Jamaican News and Politrix board with mi life, sake a yu fren dem waa gang me!

{Fledgist: Perhaps you should stick to the juvenile section.}

And the only rock I've ever lived is at 77 degrees West and 18 degrees North. You come from the primordial ooze remember!

[/qb]

I had no idea that you could live in a rock, as opposed to under it.

[rufian]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by MissB:
[qb] I don't believe in the supernatural, superstition, or anything even remotely related. When I was a child, my cousin used to scare me with duppy stories and the like, but I feel (maybe mistakenly) that I've grown out of it.
[/qb]

Believing and understanding are two different things. If something is without function then it will make sense to none.
The many "superstitions" that I know tend to have great knowledge and folklore behind them, therefore for me they are more than superstitions and are worth being told. Believe it or not many of them pass on obeah knowledge.

My questions:
You don't believe in the supernatural, superstition, or anything even remotely related, but do you believe in obeah? [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] Not that anybody ever answer that correctly.
If not, why do you see the power of obeah in a possitive light, to free the slaves?

[Guest]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by sukuna:
[qb]Believing and understanding are two different things. If something is without function then it will make sense to none.
The many "superstitions" that I know tend to have great knowledge and folklore behind them, therefore for me they are more than superstitions and are worth being told. Believe it or not many of them pass on obeah knowledge.

My questions:
You don't believe in the supernatural, superstition, or anything even remotely related, but do you believe in obeah? [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] Not that anybody ever answer that correctly.
If not, why do you see the power of obeah in a possitive light, to free the slaves? [/qb]

Maybe my lack of belief comes from lack of understanding...

Basically, I feel that there is an explanation for everything, we just don't know the rationale for all the natural events around us *yet*.

I don't know much about Obeah, so in my limited understanding, Obeah's power is essentially psychological and social.

Edited to add: medical - how could I forget? [img]/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[rufian]

Re: What is Obeah?

you forgot medical [img]/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[rufian]

Re: What is Obeah?

Mek me pull out me 1 yr old post out of the closet bout superstition. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Superstitions was one of the primary method of passing on the knowledge of obeah, by decoding many of them it is possible to extract many obeah spells. What could be a better way to teach the young and creating awareness other than fear?

Take for example, whenever you urinate outside, spit on it or you will become billious.
One way this could happen is because it is possible for someone who is dogging you to take that patch of earth with the urination, cork it up in a container and to cause you harm, but spitting on it will encourage its break down and thus render it useless. Of course, if you don't spit on it you might not feel the consequences because noone had tampered with it.

Another one is, when you are finished massaging someone, hit your hands on a wall or the pain will leave them and come to you. Well if you consider energy transfer similar to methods of yoga. The same energy you put into the removal of the pain will be taken from you and cause you pain, that is why you should release it to a neutral source.

Then there is, you should never throw away your hair, because if birds make a nest with it you will go mad. Head hair is used in obeah to make a person turn crazy and the way birds make nest is similar to the binding method applied on the hair for this deed.

Many superstitions attached to the cemetary are all associated with obeah working whether by mental or physical applications. For example, when you go to the cemetary don't carry your
shoes into the house, wash them off first, or don't walk over graves or the people will follow you home, enter the house backways and on and on.

[JesusDread]

Re: What is Obeah?

Part of sukuna’s post:

Until 1760 the colonial masters paid little attention to the cultural-religious ceremonies of their slaves. Being well aware of the revolutionary potential inherent in Christian concepts of equality, they even strove to prevent the slaves from Baptism. In the revolutionary era the slaves’ conversion to Christianity was increasingly seen as a potential cure to African savagery as constructed in white accounts of Obeah:
quote:

Obeah is the witchcraft of the West Indies. The sworn foe of Christianity and civilization, it hinders every effort to uplift the negro race; it is a superstition as degrading as widespread, a standing menace to the social order. But for the strong hand of the British Government, it might at any time incite the mass of ignorant blacks to massacre the mere handful of whites thinly scattered amongst them. (Anon., 1902, 81)

The soothing and consoling effect of the Christian message of salvation was intended to lighten the burden of slave existence by promising a better and glorious life to come. Feelings of hatred and revenge might be soothed and replaced by the New Testament’s message of brotherly love and forgiveness.

JesusDread pan tape.


The apparent readiness of black people towards conversion was, in reality, a suitable means to manipulate their masters by paying lip-service to their beliefs and by faking the impression of willing obedience. Beyond the sphere of white influence they could thus maintain a space of free agency and power, build a culture of their own and develop an alternative identity:

father god anansi coming een pan de scene


Enslaved people found elements in Christian worship that resembled their own religious practices of their African heritage and they reinterpreted the new religion according to familiar patterns.

My reply:

An look how yu run mi dung an laugh afta mi when mi tell yu say slaves were taught Christianity while they were still slaves.

When ignorant people laugh they should stand in front of a mirror.

Who laughs last laugh best anyway. Ha ha haaaaah!

Let that burn, let it burn!

[img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

[rufian]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by JesusDread:
[qb] My reply:

An look how yu run mi dung an laugh afta mi when mi tell yu say slaves were taught Christianity while they were still slaves.
[/qb]
me till a laugh after you bra goat [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img]
me stand by me word ramsey. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[qb]
When ignorant people laugh they should stand in front of a mirror. [/qb]
Just mind you cover that mirror when lightening stike [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

[qb]
Who laughs last laugh best anyway. Ha ha haaaaah!

Let that burn, let it burn!
[/qb]
when smaddi go done laugh after you? yu are incurable.

[rufian]

Re: What is Obeah?

On a cure note. I have observed that as our vocabulary becomes more and more less original the need for the obeahman to cure certain illnesses deminishes. Some people have the obeah behind the doctor some people have him in front.
When some go to x amount of doctors for cure and they can't find out what it is, they go to the obeahman.

people who strictly believe in obeah when ever they are ill, their first suspicion, what some would call mere superstition is "obeah". The afflicted never sees himself to be sick by natural causes.
The vocabulary of the obeahman/his clients is much different to the modern doctor.
Infertility amongst women was once a common case for the obeahman in the name of "smaddi do she" or "smaddi tie she womb" now people run to the doctor. If one would now say why don't you go to the obeahman because after years and years you haven't conceived, some will look at you like you are mad
**troupes**

On any matter, it is always up to the obeahman to use his expertise to analyse the cause of the problems.

One story goes that a woman went to an obeahman because spirit min a walk pan she roof a nighttime. The obeahman made his bargain and promise to take care of the problem. The obeahman came at night and inspected the house, observingthat it was a tamarind tree that scratched the roof. He took his matchet and chopped off the branches that were making the sounds at night.

Now de smaddi dat tell me dis story claim self dat spirit does come off dem own tamarind tree a night time but laugh after this woman [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

It is not easy to determine whether the obeahman was being dishonest or not.

Mind you, spirits do live in trees.

[Guest]

Re: What is Obeah?

Interesting how the most successful slave rebellions were led by Obeah men and women.

QUEEN MOTHER NANNY (circa 1700 - 1740) AND NANNY TOWN (PORTLAND)

The Maroons of Jamaica were comprised of Africans who first came to Jamaica beginning in 1517 and who became free after the exodus of the Spanish. Their numbers were boosted with those Africans who later escaped from slave ships and ran-away from the British plantations after 1655. Together, these African 'Maroons' formed viable Black communities in remote and inaccessible mountainous parts of the island. Situated high up in Portland at a very inaccessible 2,000 feet above sea level, Nanny Town, was the most famous settlement of the Maroons. In its heyday, the Maroon Citadel had over 140 houses. It was named after Queen Mother Nanny, the great Maroon leader who brought the Maroons many of their victories during the first Maroon war. Initially built around 1723, Nanny Town's precise location in the mountains of northeastern Jamaica was not discovered by the English until 1728 when Sambo, an African traitor, led them to it. Nanny Town was repeatedly attacked by British troops in 1730, 1731, 1732, and several times in 1734. Today, the original Nanny Town site remains one of the hidden mysteries of the Blue Mountains.

Up until fairly recently, the history of Queen Mother Nanny, the great 18th century leader of the Windward or Eastern Jamaican Maroons and her heroic struggle against the British colonial empire and its institution of slavery in Jamaica had been largely ignored. Today however, Nanny of the Maroons stands out in Caribbean history as the only female among Jamaica's seven National Heroes. As a result, modern authors and historians are now analyzing the importance of Queen Nanny from cultural, military, historical and religious points of view, as they attempt to integrate this key female figure of 'New World' history into her rightful place as the leader of the most successful African resistance movement against British colonialism in Jamaica during the first part of the 18th century.

Besides being immortalized in songs and legends, certain facts about "Granny Nanny", as she was affectionately known, have also been documented. Both legends and documents refer to her as having exceptional leadership qualities. Nanny was Queen Mother of the Blue Mountains and a leader of the Maroons at the beginning of the 18th century. The Maroons themselves and the British settlers too, all recognized her as an outstanding military leader. Thus, she became a symbol of unity and strength for her people during times of crisis -both in her lifetime and even after. She possessed that fierce fighting spirit generally associated with the courage of men. In fact, Nanny is described as a fearless Asante warrior who used militarist techniques to fool and beguile the English.

She was said to be a small wiry woman with piercing eyes and her influence over the Maroons appears to have been strong. So strong indeed, that it bordered on the supernatural and was said to be derived from her powers of Myal (i.e. 'Good Obeah'). The Warrior Queen was particularly skilled in organizing the guerrilla warfare carried out by the Eastern Maroons to keep away the British troops who attempted to penetrate the mountains to overpower them. And, she was especially important to the free Africans in their fierce fight with the British during the First Maroon War from 1720 to 1739. Beside inspiring her people to ward off troops, Nanny was also the type of village wise woman who passed down legends that instilled confidence and pride in her people and encouraged the continuation of customs, music and songs that had been traditional in Africa.

Queen Mother Nanny was known as a great healer and extremely powerful Obeah/Myal woman (holder of secret/sacred African knowledge). As a result, most historians relish in describing Granny Nanny as an "Obeah Woman" and as a practitioner of 'witchcraft'. The term "Obeah" refers to a person who practices the traditional African religions in Jamaica, and is much akin to Voodou in Haiti. However, just as there is good Voodou and bad Voodou, likewise there is bad Obeah and good Obeah or Myal. There is no doubting the fact that Queen Nanny was a spiritual leader, a Priestess, for her people. Nor is there any doubt that she was a knowledgeable herbal healer. However, it is necessary to understand Queen Nanny as a complete personality, encompassing the roles of Queen Mother, Warrior-General, Priestess/Myal Woman, Chieftainess, Herbal Healer, and Mountain Revolutionary. Her multiple personas overlapped and intertwined, each one influencing the other. The Maroons conceive of her as a product of all of these aspects and thus she is seen as a supernatural Cheftainess, a Priestess, a Healer, and a Military Leader who was able to perform miracles. Whatever we may think today, Nanny's 'Herbal Science' served her well for a good season.

Maroons rightly believe that one's spiritual or supernatural abilities are a power inherited from the Ancestors. Queen Nanny had a strong bond and was in close communicatioher African Ancestors, and this was the source from which her power as a Myal Woman was derived. As would be expected, Nanny and the Maroons of her day, retained aspects of traditional African culture and customs much more than did their counterparts who remained captive on the slave plantations. In fact, Queen Nanny and her people were far more African than they were 'Jamaican' or 'Creole'. The spiritual side of life was very important to the Maroons and it was incorporated into their military strategies, into the raising of children, and into the daily lives of the people.

n with So, operating from her base camp of Nanny Town in the rugged ridges high in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Jamaica, Nanny led the Maroons to repeated victories against the British at the height of their world domination and at a time when 'Britannia ruled the waves'. Although the Maroons were vastly outgunned and outnumbered repeatedly, often with hundreds of half-starving Maroons fighting against thousands of the best-provisioned and best-armed soldiers of the British Empire, the mountain guerrillas came away with victories time and time again. The Maroons employed techniques of camouflage that have become legendary and their guerilla ambushes not only decimated British patrols, but drove fear into the hearts of the colonizers every time they entered the mountainous "land of look-behind". Despite relentless pursuit by the British forces, the Windward Maroons continued raiding plantations for food and supplies; survived and thrived in the mountainous jungle terrain; communicated using the famous abeng (cow horn); and kept their mountain citadel's location secret for at least ten years.

After Cudjoe (Nanny's brother) and the Leeward Maroons signed a 'Peace Treaty' with the British, Nanny was reportedly very angry and at first refused to sign any treaty with the British. She was in disagreement with the principle of making 'peace' with the British, which she knew meant only another form of subservience. But eventually, Nanny reluctantly agreed to a truce, after which Nanny's Windward Maroons divided themselves into two groups one of which went with her Brother Quao to Crawford Town. The other group followed Nanny to a new settlement in the hills of Portland, New Nanny Town. Located alongside the Wild Cane tributary of the Rio Grande River, New Nanny Town is also known today as Moore Town and is governed by a Maroon called 'Colonel' -the honorary title earned by his ancestors.

There are still many legends about Queen Nanny among the Maroons. Some even claim that there were several women who were leaders of the Maroons during this period of history. But all the legends and documents refer to Nanny of the First Maroon War as the most outstanding of them all, leading her people with courage, vision and determination. And so the indelible spirit of Queen Mother Nanny of the Maroons, as a General and as a Myal Woman, remains to this day as a symbol of that indomitable African independence that will never yield to captivity.

Source

[Guest]

Re: What is Obeah?

Slightly off-topic: I've read an excerpt of the work The World the Slaves Made and it deals with Christianity as a replacement for African religions and the "calming" effect of conversion on the slaves. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

The Methodists, and even more the Moravians undermined the unity and the subservisive potential of the slaves in ways more effective than by inculcating submissiveness. The Danes, who also housed Moravian missionaries on the Caribbean slave plantations, boasted that their Christian Negroes provided greater security against insurrection than their forts...everywhere Christianization did create new divisions and new hostilities among the slaves. In particular, it greatly exacerbated the dangerous cultural division between the creoles and the African-born. As Christian profession became a symbol of being civilized, it narrowed the apparent gulf between master and slave, white and black; in precisely the same way, it weakened the unity of the quarters.

[Fledgist]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by MissB:
[qb] Slightly off-topic: I've read an excerpt of the work The World the Slaves Made and it deals with Christianity as a replacement for African religions and the "calming" effect of conversion on the slaves. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

The Methodists, and even more the Moravians undermined the unity and the subservisive potential of the slaves in ways more effective than by inculcating submissiveness. The Danes, who also housed Moravian missionaries on the Caribbean slave plantations, boasted that their Christian Negroes provided greater security against insurrection than their forts...everywhere Christianization did create new divisions and new hostilities among the slaves. In particular, it greatly exacerbated the dangerous cultural division between the creoles and the African-born. As Christian profession became a symbol of being civilized, it narrowed the apparent gulf between master and slave, white and black; in precisely the same way, it weakened the unity of the quarters.

[/qb]

I wonder how many people are going to claim that this was inspired by the devil.

During the Second Maroon War, the people of Accompong demonstrated their loyalty to the British, and their refusal to support their brethren in Trelawny Town, by a mass baptism.

[Guest]

Re: What is Obeah?

More from the same book: The World the Slaves Made. The following excerpt gives an overview of the differences between Myalism and Obeah. (Nanny was a Myal priestess.)

Afro-Caribbean religion manifested itself in two forms, Obeah and Myalism, although the distinction became less clear with time. The Obeah men worked in secret and concerned themselves largely with private matters. In societies marked by acute sexual imbalance, not to mention the grave everyday problem of dealing with harsh taskmasters, slaves needed personal help. The magic of the Obeah men, including their ability to poison and to heal with herbs and folk medicine, comforted the tormented and tormented the comfortable, according to circumstances and the right price...the planters of the southern United States were solemnly warned about the power of Obeah long after Caribbean emancipation.

African practices did not reappear in the New World in their traditional forms. Many of them...fused somewhat incoherently into new and much less structured patterns of belief and ritual. Obeah aimed specifically at harming individuals at the behest of others and relied on the skill of professional sorcerers to manipulate fetishes in order to detect and punish the crimes of slave against slave. The Obeah men were generally African-born, as was their following. Accordingly, their influence waned as creolization advanced during the nineteenth century.

Myalism became a more politically dangerous tendency. The Ashanti are supposed to have predominated in Myalism and the Popos in Obeah...the alleged role of the Ashanti in Myalism is noteworthy in view of the frequent identification of the Ashanti and Myalism in Caribbean slave revolts. The Myal men concerned themselves with group worship and welfare rather than with personal vendettas, and, if anything, arose as anti-Obeah men...Since like the Obeah men, they represented an avowedly anti-Christian religious movement, they too were suppressed. As a result, these ethnic and religious leaders emerged in enforced hostility to the regime and curbed the accommodationist attitudes that might have developed in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Myalism spread among the slaves and became deeply implicated in such major risings as that of 1760 in Jamaica. Although rivalry divided the Obeah and Myal men, the two seem to have cooperated effectively during a number of revolts and disturbances. They Myal men compelled fear and respect among the slaves, noticeably in a manner especially attuned to political resistance...

British imperial policy had generally tended toward toleration of native customs, but in religion the British worked harder to influence the Negroes than in any other area of culture. Yet...the strongest African survivals in Jamaican culture are to be found precisely in religion...When the time came for compromise and syncretism, such traditionalism proved a formidable rival to Christianity. The political consequences in Jamaica as elsewhere in the hemisphere depended on the totality of political and cultural conditions, but clearly the high level of religious autonomy among the slaves and the decidedly African cast of that autonomy created unusual insurrectionary possibilities.

[Guest]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by Fledgist:
[qb] I wonder how many people are going to claim that this was inspired by the devil.[/qb]

Yes, some have said that already. It's unfortunate that their beliefs do not allow them to read and learn about their own history instead of mocking it. But then, that's what the imperial powers and slave masters wanted and it seems to have worked.

[Fledgist]

Re: What is Obeah?

Originally posted by MissB:
[qb]

Originally posted by Fledgist:
[qb] I wonder how many people are going to claim that this was inspired by the devil.[/qb]

Yes, some have said that already. It's unfortunate that their beliefs do not allow them to read and learn about their own history instead of mocking it. But then, that's what the imperial powers and slave masters wanted and it seems to have worked. [/qb]

I'd say so.