Socio-religiously speaking, ‘obiah practitioners’ or obiah doctors, as they were called on the plantation estates, may be the zoom-in on part of the ‘slaves tribal’ beliefs – the obeah was targeted and used mostly against the brutal slave owners. I am intrigued because obeah folks had powers based on their ‘obia dancing’, to find poisons, stop women from miscarrying, to find lost things etc, but I believe that behind the lower case p-power – God, Creator.

I wish to make a distinguished differentiation between the present day obeah, of which, I will be the first to admit, I have no knowledge, because the early documents stated, that ‘island born’ slaves were not able to perform any of this ‘obia setting on others’. Should I believe this? At the end of the day, I believe the enslaved folks by man, would have emerged from one of the 12 biblical tribes – and maybe somewhere, given power as to what they swiftly displayed and brought fear to their slave masters especially as documented on a south American country colonial records.

A slave ‘on court charge for obiah’ – and oh boy, after reading this the slaves had some ‘fun’,other slaves had to give evidence on what they had seen, this charge was a colonial turning point for the slaves documentation ‘well- being’, as this high profile ‘charge obiah’ case, gave a ‘slavery’ U turn, for better documentation on slaves treatment, documentation of plantation punishment logs, hence we are able to find historical practices of obiah, obiah practices were seen as an obstacle to converting slaves to Christianity – but I ask the question did the slaves need converting – who gave them their powers – for even the devil have to ask God permission to test his children? The most common punishment entries for the slaves were for ‘practising obeah’? Oh, I just love the ‘crafty’ slaves, making up ‘selective’ stories to protect the ‘obeah practitioners’ or saying false things to get rid of the ‘obeah practitioners’, voicing their concerns and fears in a mixture of creole dutch and switching to creole English to add to court case confusion. Who say slavery was all gloom!

So why do I get quizzical looks, because, after this trial, the colonists, passed down their philosophies that this obeah practice was of the devil, and an art of witchcraft! Now to curtail slave unrest, obeah performing, slaves were deported to other isles – so now, an obeah folk, could have been born in say Nevis, practised his ‘obi’, then deported to Grenada, deported again for ‘obi’ to say Barbados? A Complexity of slavery and ancestral tracking?

The battle to eradicate this ‘obia setting’ by death or punishment, would have been resulted in slave masters’ way of ‘terrifying the enslave folks, in believing this is ‘bad practices’ and of course, this would be passed down the generations even to this day, that is why, in my previous post, I must mentioned again, about quizzical looks from my Caribbean community if I tried to start a conversation about ‘obiah practices.

If folks, have noticed from my contents, I have not mentioned voodoo, or sorcery or witchcraft, because I cautiously believe that the original slave ‘setting obeah’ practices may have been unique to their tribal-belief connections, and may be dismissive of these three concepts, on the contrary they may be branches that have shot out of ‘obeah’. Now back to Moses, the man of God, would have known all about these performances, he lived as ‘Pharaoh son’ in the palace – nowhere is it documented of Moses or God condemnation? God knows all about their performances, for He is the Supreme Power.

Personal speaking, I believe that to find out my ancestral past, I have to be willing to walk on the waters, inclusive of ‘an obeah walk’ to try to find the originality of my own socio-religious beliefs, and show gratitude to enslaved fearless folks of old, their willingness, to fight slavery at all costs, which probably laid the foundation that one day on the foreign soil freedom will come at a expensive cost, similar to the cost of the expensive perfume used to anoint the feet of Christ.

All I know is from the records, the ‘obeah practitioners’ or ‘obeah doctors’ were held in rank high esteem, well respected and feared! And, you know what; I believe as person from enslaved stock, I need these practitioners from of old, right to this day. Some questions: Did the ‘obeah practice’ died off with West African born slaves? As the ‘island born’ slaves were not able to carry out ‘obia setting’, Did the ‘island born’ slaves used ‘obia’ to obtain respect and high esteem like their ancestral folks – hence island poverty? And, are the current ‘island born’ ‘obia practices’, past its sell-by-date? If some enslaved folks displayed their fearless socio-beliefs, what about the terrified ‘non obia’ setting folks, what were their socio-beliefs?

Thanks for the GoGouyave Forum platform!