PSYCHIC PHENOMENA OF JAMAICA
Reginese Dei:
PSYCHIC PHENOMENA OF JAMAICA
By JOSEPH J. WILLIAMS, S.J.
NEW YORK [1934]
Note: This book is in the public domain because its copyright was not renewed in a timely fashion (U.S. Copyright Database).
The authorship of this book (by a Jesuit ethnologist) makes some of the editorial content suspect. However, the author spent time in the field in Jamaica. His library research was extensive and used rare and unique sources such as contemporary newspapers, legal archives and early accounts. Williams keeps his skepticism active while remaining open-minded. On the downside there are some passages which could be interpreted as racist (in hindsight), so the usual disclaimers apply.
All that said, this book remains a good introduction to the outlines of this subject. If you've ever listened to a Reggae song about 'Duppies' and wondered what they were talking about, now you'll know. -jbh
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reginese Dei:
PSYCHIC PHENOMENA OF JAMAICA
By JOSEPH J. WILLIAMS, S.J.
Ph.D. (Ethnol.), Litt.D.
Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Boston College Graduate School
FELLOW of The Royal Anthropological Institute; The Royal Geographical Society; The American Geographical Society; The Royal Society of Arts.
MEMBER of Congrès International des Sciences Anthropologiques et Ethnologiques; International Institute of African Languages and Cultures; American Association for the Advancement of Science; American Council of Learned Societies; American Anthropological Association; American Ethnological Society; Catholic Anthropological Conference; American Folklore Society; African Society; etc.
AUTHOR of "Voodoos and Obeahs," "Hebrewisms of West Africa," "Whence the 'Black Irish' of Jamaica?" "Whisperings of the Caribbean," etc.
THE DIAL PRESS
NEW YORK MCMXXXIV [1934]
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION-WEIRD HAPPENINGS
1
CHAPTER
I.
ASHANTI CULTURAL INFLUENCE IN JAMAICA
23
II.
JAMAICA WITCHCRAFT
50
III.
APPLIED MAGIC
109
IV.
POPULAR BELIEF IN GHOSTS
144
V.
FUNERAL CUSTOMS
176
VI.
POLTERGEIST
220
VII.
CONCLUSIONS
244
DOCUMENTATION
266
BIBLIOGRAPHY
286
{p. 1}
Reginese Dei:
INTRODUCTION
WEIRD HAPPENINGS
EARLY in December, 1906, I first visited Jamaica, where I planned staying a couple of months. On January 14th, the day of the disastrous earthquake, I was returning from the north side of the island, driving by way of Mount Diabolo, and I arrived at the Ewarton Railway Station about an hour before the starting time of the train that was to carry me back to Kingston.
The day was unusually tropical for that season of the year in Jamaica, with a cloudless sky, and what was really strange, at a time when the Trade Winds should have been at their height, not a breath of air was stirring. One could almost feel the stillness, and the brightness of the sunshine was simply dazzling. As I reached the station platform, a gentleman and a young lady were attracting much attention. They were brown people of the mulatto type, well dressed and with every indication of refinement. But the young lady, who, I should judge, was about twenty-five years of age, had become hysterical. She was wringing her hands, and between convulsive sobs kept repeating: "Father, we should never have left home to-day. I told you that something dreadful is going to happen."
{p. 2}
The gentleman naturally showed great embarrassment as he vainly strove to quiet his daughter who kept repeating in a mechanical sort of way that she knew that something dreadful was going to happen. Finally, her father led her away and I saw nothing more of either of them. But just about half an hour after their departure, suddenly the ground began to tremble and to run in waves with a crackling, sputtering sound similar to the disruption of a gigantic Leyden jar--an earthquake was upon us. Then as the tremors ceased, I glanced at my watch, the time was exactly eighteen minutes past three.
It was the following morning before I reached Kingston, and I found the city a mass of ruins with a ravaging fire still sweeping over the débris. More than a thousand persons had been killed outright and many hundreds of others were succumbing to their injuries.
Amid the general confusion and excitement, I repeatedly heard stories of a weird prophet who, it was said, had passed along the city's streets some hours before the disaster, sounding a cry of warning that had gone unheeded by the populace who had only laughed at him.
Ordinarily, I would not have given any credence to these rumors which I would have classified with those numerous after-fact delusions to be expected on such occasions. But the memory of the strange scene at the Ewarton Station haunted me as it had baffled any explanation that I could offer. Consequently, I made it a point to inquire carefully from the least imaginative of my confrères and they were
{p. 3}
in agreement that they had heard the rumor many hours before the earthquake had happened.
Years later, this incident was reported in The Times of London for January 13, 1921, as follows: "It is noteworthy that in the forenoon of January 14, 1907, a man wearing a red mantle, who was regarded as an irresponsible person, made his appearance in Kingston warning the people that before evening Kingston would be destroyed. At 3:30 p.m. Kingston, and in fact the entire island, was visited by an earthquake of great magnitude which not only laid a large area of the capital in ruins but killed at least 2,000 persons."
Needless to say, the following days in Kingston were filled with rumors of prophecies of new disasters that never eventuated, and which drove the distraught people to an emotional frenzy of despair. Even the revivalist Bedwardites, clothed in white, as they paraded the city in single files, with that peculiar hip-movement which is so characteristic of myalism,[1] adapted their hymns to the spirit of the occasion. Over and over again, in seemingly interminable reiteration, they sang with a distinctively myalistic lilt to their tune: "It is a warning! It is a warning! On the dreadful judgment day, Heaven and earth will pass away. It is a warning! It is a warning! On the dreadful judgment day there'll be no warning." At first I could not catch the words, but the air itself seemed to burn into my very soul.
[1. As shown in Voodoos and Obeahs Myalism is a residue of the old Ashanti religious rites as found in Jamaica just as obeah is a continuation of Ashanti witchcraft.]
{p. 4}
Reginese Dei:
I asked a youngster to find out for me what they were saying with the result that I have here set down.
Since that fateful day, about twenty-seven years ago, I have made three other visits to Jamaica and I have spent there in all nearly six years. It has been my good fortune to penetrate to some of the least accessible parts of mountain and "bush" and I have lived for considerable time in those remote districts where superstitious practices are most prevalent. It has been my constant purpose to forward a scientific study of such unusual phenomena as might be regarded as psychic, both by discussing the incidents with natives of every class and colour, and by seeking out those who were reputed as practitioners of the black man's witchcraft.
Time and again I sought to draw out in conversation the professional obeah-men, but I invariably found them evasive and non-committal. As occasion offered, I closely questioned youngsters who, according to common report, were apprenticed to obeah-men as disciples to acquire the art, but they had already learned their lesson of secrecy and I could make no impression on them. I repeatedly watched a black boy whom I knew well, the son of a notorious obeah-woman, as he stood motionless for long periods staring straight at the sun,--a sure indication in itself that he was in preparation for the practice of obeah, yet despite the fact that I remunerated him generously for trifling errands and otherwise strove to win his confidence, I never succeeded
{p. 5}
in gaining from him any information of value.
It was only from disillusioned clients of obeah-men who shame-facedly made admissions connected with their own experiences, that I was really able to gather directly any reliable facts. Chance, however, occasionally favoured my effort. At rare intervals I stumbled on nocturnal workings of the obeah-man, but even here there was no prearrangement--I am extremely sceptical of all stories of surreptitious rendezvous--and even what I did see usually savoured rather of myalism than of obeah proper, as we shall see in the course of the narrative.
Meanwhile, however, I have carefully studied the works of others and I have searched diligently for every scrap of information on the subject, making it my great objective to sort out judiciously to the best of my ability, what appears to be authentic facts from the mass of fiction that has been written on the subject.
At the Congrès International des Sciences Anthropologiques et Ethnologiques, held in London, July 30 to August 4, 1934, I presented a paper to the Section on Religions bearing the title "Psychic Phenomena in Jamaica." Over a thousand delegates had assembled from forty-two different countries, and it was my purpose to place dispassionately before the learned gathering the results of more than a quarter of a century of intensive research.
After a brief description of the various forms of local belief in Jamaica regarding duppies, shadows, and the like, I then proceeded:--
{p. 6}
Reginese Dei:
Without attempting to classify the various phases, we may now take up some particular instances of "Psychic Phenomena in Jamaica". No idle rumors are to be reported. Almost without comment, I purpose citing a series of cases, as far as possible quoting the very words of witnesses for whom I can personally vouch, and also giving an incident or two that actually came under my own observation. The Reverend A. J. E. to whom repeated reference will be made was the Reverend Abraham J. Emerick,[1] a Jesuit Missionary who took up work in Jamaica in 1895, at first in Kingston, and subsequently in the heart of the mountains where for ten years, as he expressed it himself, he "lived in an atmosphere impregnated with obeah and other superstitions."
CASE 1. (BY REV. A. J. E.)
One of the favourite pastimes of the duppies is stone-throwing. Reports of persons and places being stoned by duppies are very common. My first experience of stone-throwing duppies was rather startling and trying. It happened soon after my undertaking the mountain missions on the north side of the island, and before I was acquainted with the habits of the
[1. The Reverend Abraham J. Emerick, S.J., was born at Falmouth, Pennsylvania, November 211, 1856, and died at Woodstock, Maryland, February 4, 1931. After missionary work in Jamaica from 1895 to 1905, he laboured for a time among the coloured people of Philadelphia and subsequently spent more than a dozen years in Saint Mary's County, Maryland, where he devoted himself especially to his beloved Negroes whom he had come to know so well.]
{p. 7}
people and knew anything about their superstitions and occult practices. One evening after dark, I was on my way to Alva mission, situated at a lonesome spot on a hill in the Dry Harbour Mountains. I was met by a crowd about a mile away from the mission. They got around me and warned me in an excited way against going up to the mission. They said that duppies were up there at night throwing stones; that the duppies had stoned the teacher away from the Alva school. It seems that the stone-throwing had been going on for a week or more before my arrival. For several nights crowds went up to the old Alva school, not far from the church on a mountain spur partly surrounded by a deep ravine covered with thick bush. The teacher of the school, a certain Mr. D. lived in two rooms that overlooked the declivity. Every night the crowd was there, stones were thrown from various directions, but most of them seemed to come from the bush-covered ravine. What mystified the people most and made them believe and say, as did the teacher and the most intelligent store-keeper in the district, that the stones were thrown not by human hands but by spirits, was that those who were hit by the stones were not injured, and that some of the stones which came from the bushy declivity, after smashing through the window turned at a right angle and broke the teacher's clock, glasses, etc. on a sideboard. In spite of the dreadful stone-throwing duppies, I went up to the hill followed by a crowd. I found the school building littered with stones,
{p. 8}
broken windows and a generally smashed-up, sure-enough ghost-haunted place. The story of the stone-throwing, which I afterwards put together, amounted to this. On a Saturday night Mr. D. and a hired girl noticed a suspicious person lurking around the premises. They became frightened, left the place, and returned later with a man by the name of H. who brought a gun with him. They were not long in the school building before stones began to fall here and there in different rooms, at first one by one but gradually very plentifully. They ran away in fright with the stones pelting after them as they ran. H. turned around once and fired, pointing his gun in the direction from which the stones were coming. As he did so, a stone flying from the opposite direction hit him in the back of the neck. The stone-throwing followed them into the house to which they fled for refuge about a quarter of a mile away. They, with the family living in the house, made a gathering of six or seven or more. Stones were fired into this house and broke a number of things on the sideboard, but no one could tell from where the stones were coming. Some of them seemed to come in the open door, turn around and fall at the teacher's feet. One of the persons marked a stone and threw it out saying: "If him be a true duppy, him will throw this stone back." This marked stone was said to have been thrown back, proving that the stone-thrower was a true duppy. A while after they went to bed, the stone-throwing ceased.
{p. 9}
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page