What is Obeah?

[RollinCalf]

Re: What is Obeah?

The best evidence of this would be, in my opinion, the effort by descendants of slaves to chracterise a religion that was forced upon their ancestors by Europeans as a "Blackman's religion".

[rufian]

Re: What is Obeah?

Obeah can be manifested in all artforms.

Apart from the symbols used in obeah, obeah working can be done by singing, dancing and other recreational activities.
The secrets of obeah are hidden everywhere.
Quite a few children games are also based on the workings of obeah.
There is one particular song which is used to charm sand worms out of their holes and to get them to do certain things.
When I sang this song to a Northern Ghanaian, we ended up singing the same tune.
There are also children's games which are based on patterns applied in obeah working.
Some ring games if played at night are then dances with the spirits.
There is an African board game called Warri on some islands to which there is a particular rule for obeah. This rule is also the same in Ghana, by playing the game you and your oponent obeah each other.

At this point I'd like to say that this game is our national game and we hold the world championship as well as host it [img]/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

There are also dances for obeah working just as there are in Voodoo.
There is one particular dance which is danced to threaten and to drive away evil spirits from a compound.

[Diplomat]

Re: What is Obeah?

MissB, Sukuna: This is a fairly long thread and I am closing it for length. Please feel free to start a Part II. For the next couple of days I'll feature this one for reference purposes. Thanks.