Obeah

I'm not starting with MPP and it's not.

I'm speaking as Obeah.

I'm speaking as Obeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So displacement means that we were cut off from the roots and the sources of our power.

In some instances, there were certain spiritual practices that survived, right? Hoodoo in Louisiana, Obeah throughout the Caribbean, Santeria and Lucumi in Cuba, um, Voodoo in Haiti, Kumina, Zion Revival in Jamaica, um, what's referred to as Orisha and Shango Baptist practice in Trinidad, um, Candomble in Brazil.

A lot of those all have sort of Yoruba, Yoruba sort of diasporic foundations.

The Sanctified Church in the US, right? So the forms that have survived in the diaspora are displaced Africanized forms, right? Much of formal academia and everyday culture has disconnected our diaspora realities from the continental African realities, and often demonized these diaspora forms as country, savage, deviant, devilish, right? And they're not that thing.

Had to make patience, had to make patience.

Obeah now, Obeah now, Obeah now, Obeah now.

I'm the Obeah woman from beneath the sea.

To get to see me, you gotta pass through me.

I know the angels name by name.

Yeah.

All right.

Obeah woman.

What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story? Is it of the same nature as the fascination which we feel for the mystery of the detective story? Of the latter fascination, the late Paul Armstrong used to say that it was because we are all as full of crime as Sing Sing, only we don't dare.

Thus may I ask, are we not fascinated by the ghost story because no matter what may be the scientific or skeptical bent of our minds, in our inmost souls, secretly perhaps, we are as full of superstition as an Obeah man, only we don't let it loose? Who shall say that he is able to fling off lightly the inheritance of countless ages of superstition? Is there not a streak of superstition in us all? We laugh at the voodoo worshiper, then create our own hoodoos, our pet obsessions.

It has been said that a man is incurably religious, that if all religions were blotted out, man would create a new religion.

Man is incurably fascinated by the mysterious.

Mm.

Like, the Obeah and, like, he, he knew not to fuck with that shit, right? Claudia was...

[laughs] Was it in the first fucking episode? Claudia was the one, and I'm pretty sure Matthew was like, "Hey," I didn't think he called it a talisman, but he's like, "If you ever see this, don't touch it."

Mm.

Me get 35 and me give them back that quick.

Them haffi wonder if a Obeah me practice.

God, me say yo, watch a Obeah me practice.

'Member say Addi don't know come fi stop Rich.

Gyal, me no stop switch.

What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story? Is it of the same nature as the fascination which we feel for the mystery of the detective story? Of the latter fascination, the late Paul Armstrong used to say that it was because we are all as full of crime as Sing Sing, only we don't dare.

Thus may I ask, are we not fascinated by the ghost story because no matter what may be the scientific or skeptical bent of our minds, in our inmost souls, secretly perhaps, we are as full of superstition as an Obeah man, only we don't let it loose.

Who shall say that he is able to fling off lightly the inheritance of countless ages of superstition? Is there not a streak of superstition in us all? We laugh at the voodoo worshiper, then create our own hoodoos, our pet obsessions.

It has been said that a man is incurably religious, that if all religions were blotted out, man would create a new religion.

That law, updated in 1898, is still on Jamaica's books today.

which means Obeah remains criminalized in the country where it's most historically rooted, even as a growing legal and cultural movement pushes to finally repeal it.

Other islands have moved faster.

Trinidad and Tobago decriminalized it in 2000 and Barbados in 1998.