Appendix. — Stray Notes on Obeah. 129 



reason confirming them all the stronger in its alleged reality. The 

 obeah-man is certainly more feared than the magistrate, and assuredly 

 has greater " uncanny " powers. To get my tongue so tangled that I 

 should be unable to pass sentence that had been suspended from the 

 previous Court, I was once on the Pomeroon challenged by the prisoner 

 who, when addressing the Court from the dock, was found to be chewino- 

 a blob of some resinous material, which he subsequently admitted paying 

 the " black doctor " a dollar or two for. On another occasion I received 

 warning by letter that obeah was " on " me and that I was to use 

 particular care as to how I reached the Hyde Park Court stelling from off 

 the steamer : my anonymous well-wisher feared a drowning accident ! 

 And only so recently as on my late attendance at the trial over the 

 Noitgedacht tragedy, was I not warned that to save myself from obeah, 

 I must rub some guinea-pepper onto the soles of my boots, aud put a little 

 garlic and salt in one of my pockets ! 



The obeah-man may be coolie, but is more often negro, and his 

 consultants may be members of his own or another race : next to neoroes, 

 I should say that the people who most frequently resort to these 

 scoundrels are the Portuguese. 1 can call to mind one example of a 

 buck Indian consulting a coolie obeah-man for sore-eyes : in payment the 

 former gave him a sewing machine in addition to a fair amount of 

 money, to which my predecessor subsequently added two terms of 

 imprisonment of six months each. The real buck Indian still has 

 recourse to his piai — as a matter of fact I have seen at least three piai- 

 houses within a few miles of a certain Mission Station in the Pomeroon 

 Judicial District, — but very little, if any harm is done, his powers beino- 

 more or less limited to the treatment of disease, his faith in which can 

 be proved by his practising his arts upon himself. 



The kickshaws or trade-tools of the obeah-man are usually bones, 

 feathers, rags or other trash. 



The assistance sought from the Obeah-man is of a somewhat varied 

 natuie, e.g., the cure of disease, the discovery of theft, the possession of 

 love-charms, the telling of fortunes, the results of a coming horse-race 

 including it is said the gratification of revenge and the conciliation of 

 enemies. Not fifty years ago, Sir Spencer St. John tells us that in Hayti 

 " most of them ask for the talent to be able to direct the conduct of their 

 masters : " a request certainly not to be wondered at considering the 

 local conditions. As to the cure of disease, I am confident that during 

 my sojourn on the Pomeroon a large number of the residents consulted 

 the black and coolie obeah-men of the Coast. I remember the consequent 

 loss of an eye in the case of one negro farmer, and the alleged cure of a 

 temporary mentally-alienated condition in another. It was not the most 

 ignorant, but even some among the best intelligent and well pursed 

 Portuguese that used to take advice from these people, who naturally 

 fleeced them unmercifully. The statement has been made, on fairly 

 reliable authority that it is upon a secret and skilful use of poison that 



