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."
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 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.]
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 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:--
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."
[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.]
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 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, 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.
Strange to say the old mission house at All Saints, with a history and
location as weird as that of the "House of the Seven Gables," was said to
be haunted. A strange coincidence in connexion with its being haunted
happened to one of our Fathers. The Father, who had come to the country
for a change, was to stop in this house on Saturday night and say Mass at
All Saints on Sunday, while I went on to Falmouth about eight miles away
to say Mass there. Before going I said to the Father, "As you are not
accustomed to sleep alone in a house, you had better have a boy remain in
the house with you." "Do you think," he asked, "that I am afraid to sleep
alone in the house?" "No," I said, "but I think it more prudent that you
have the boy in the house in case anything should happen."
The next day the Father seriously asked me why I warned him against
sleeping alone in the house. He said that during the night the boy who was
sleeping in the hall called him and said that a lady and gentleman were
there and wanted to see him. The Father, having dressed hurriedly and come
out of his room into the hall, asked the boy where were the lady and
gentleman. The boy pointed to the corner where he said he had seen them;
but when the lady and gentleman were not there, the boy was so frightened
that he could not be persuaded to remain alone in the hall.
So much for Father E's account. In January, 1907, On the occasion of my
first visit to Jamaica and just a few days before the earthquake to which
reference has been made at the opening of this Introduction, I myself
spent a night at All Saints in this very mission house which was supposed
to be haunted. At the time, however, I was absolutely in ignorance of its
ill-repute, and it was only later that I heard of other incidents similar
to the one I have just related. I should note, too, that Father E. knew
nothing whatever of my experience when he wrote his own account some time
later. After we had both committed the facts to paper we met and talked
them over.
All Saints mission is located in a mountain district, looking out over
the Caribbean towards Cuba. The night that I spent there found my sleeping
accommodations restricted to a sofa in the front room which was of unusual
size. It was this very room which in Father E's account is called the hall
where the boy was sleeping and where the lady and gentleman so
unceremoniously disappeared.
On three sides of this room there were windows and on the fourth a
passage led to the rear of the house. This passage was cut off from the
room by a pair of swinging doors. It was a bright moonlight night and as
there were no curtains on the windows I might easily have read without
artificial light. As I put out the lamp, the doors of the passage began to
swing back and forth in unison. When I touched them, the motion ceased.
But while I felt no pressure of any kind, as soon as I withdrew my hand
they immediately began to swing again. I could feel no draft of air and
examining all around the doors I found no explanation of the movement.
After about three-quarters of an hour, the doors ceased of their own
accord.
Going over to the sofa, I lay down and tried to sleep. While I could
see nothing out of the ordinary, I was disturbed by all kinds of sounds.
First it was as if someone came tramping across the floor in my direction.
That might easily have been imagination. Then a hand or something similar,
I could see nothing, seemed to press heavily against various parts of my
head and arms. That, too, might possibly have been imagination. But this
was no imagination: while the rest of my body was burning hot with fright,
the parts touched were left not merely clammy but actually wringing wet
with water which I mopped up with my handkerchief in sufficient quantities
to be squeezed out. And that, I repeat, was no imagination.
One day a man living about a mile away from Alva mission, came to me
and said that he was in trouble and asked me to help him out of it. He
said that the spirits had been troubling him and his family for a long
time, and that it had become unbearable. "The duppies," he said, "come
every night and knock from sunset to sunrise, frightening the life out of
my wife and children. I tried to shoot one the other night but I could
not. I put a cap on the pivot ammunition in my gun and fired at the place
from which the knocking came, but the gun would not go off. I went into
the house, opened the pivot with a pin and tried to fire at the ghost
again, but again the gun would not go off. I felt something shaking in my
hat rim, which turned out to be the cap I had put on the pivot of my gun.
I tried the gun again, firing in another direction, and it went off." I
told him that I would go to his house and bless it.
At the appointed time I went to the house. After closing the door, I
heard the knocking and all in the room heard it. It was a slow dull knock.
The man went out and knocked at the place from which the sound seemed to
come, but it was not the same sound at all. I listened to the knocking for
awhile but could come to no conclusion as to the source of the sound. I
was not in the least afraid or nervous but rather indifferent, having
become habituated to sleeping alone in lonesome, outlandish places and
hearing at night all sorts of creepy sounds, rappings, knockings,
clankings, crawlings, etc., so that this knocking made very little
impression on me. I thought to myself, I will bless the house and by so
doing I will not commit myself to passing any judgment as to the source of
the knocking. When I pulled out my ritual to read the blessing of the
house, I was, as far as I remember, trying in my mind to account for the
knocking by some kind of insect concealed somewhere in the house. While
reading the prayer I suddenly became excited and with great difficulty
finished it. I felt as if I had been put under some kind of an exhaust
pump that drained me of all my supernatural energy. I felt as if I were
injuring someone and tears, or a feeling of tears, came to my eyes. I
tried to conceal what happened to me by saying in a joking way, "Now duppy
him gone." My embarrassment left me. I sprinkled holy water in the house
and out in the yard and especially in the place from which the sound
seemed to come. When I returned into the house I raised my hand to give
the common blessing, "Benedictio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi descendat
super hanc domum et maneat semper." ("May the Blessing of Our Lord Jesus
Christ descend on this house and remain forever.") I found the same
excitement come over me and the same difficulty in finishing the blessing,
but it was not so strong as the first time. I was told that after I left,
the duppy gave two hard bangs and then stopped knocking. Sometime
afterwards, I heard the people speaking of its return,--this time it was
outside of the house,--and that crowds went up to see it, and some claimed
that they saw it. It left shortly after, not to return. I learned later
that the wife of the man whose house was troubled by the duppy was a
revivalist, one of a religion which is nothing but a form of myalism. If
they are not possessed by the devil at times, there is no lacking in
appearances of their being possessed.
The following incident was related to me by both parties concerned and
their accounts agreed in all details As they are still alive I do not feel
free at present to disclose their identity even by initials or to fully
identify the locality itself. It all happened at a particularly lonely
spot on a mountain overlooking the sea where a priest made his
headquarters in a house that was since demolished by a hurricane. A
brother priest who came to visit him was spending the night in a room
concerning which weird stories were told, although the occupant knew
nothing of the fact at the time.
On retiring, finding that there were no matches in the room, the
visitor went in quest of a box and left it with a candle on a table near
the door of the room. Three times during the night he was awakened by
someone entering the room, striking a match and lighting the candle. Each
time he could just make out the figure of a man withdrawing from the room
with face averted and closing the door behind him. Knowing that he and his
host were alone in the house, he naturally concluded that it was all a
practical joke that was being played on him.
On the first two occasions he got up, extinguished the candle and
retired again to bed. But on the third perpetration he felt that the joke
had been carried far enough. Quickly he sprang from the bed and rushed to
the door just as it closed behind the figure. When he reached the hall,
the figure had vanished, and going to the far end to his host's room, he
found the occupant sleeping soundly, with the door of the room securely
locked. On being aroused, the host vainly protested and strove to persuade
his guest that he had been playing no tricks, and that the whole incident
must have been a dream. But, on returning to his own room again, the
visitor counted on the table three partially burnt matches where there had
been no loose matches at all when he retired. Next morning he made his
departure from the house as early as possible.
It sometimes happens that the duppy's attacks upon human beings
resemble possession by the devil. One day I was asked to come and see some
sick children. When I arrived, I found two young girls under a peculiar
spell which came about, I was told, in the following manner. Mrs. D. said
she was sitting in a room with a girl named J., when three slow raps came
upon the jalousies, then came three more slow raps, followed by three more
slow raps; then a warm wave passed through the room. At the same time J.
leaped into the air crying out, "Old man come," and from that time up to
my arrival she had been acting queerly. When I arrived, about three days
after the event, she was much better, I was told, than she was at first.
While under this strange influence she said, "Old man catch M." The M. in
question was a quiet, shy, modest girl of about seventeen years whose
father was a Portuguese and whose mother was a slightly brown woman. When
she came home she started laughing and kept it up for two or three days.
When I came she was hoarse from laughing. The people of the house told me
that a peculiar mutual sympathetic influence controlled J. and M. If one
laughed the other laughed, if one had a headache the other had a headache,
and so on. I was told that similar occurrences had been going on in this
family for years, and that it was attributed to the malicious black-art
working of a family enemy.
Some of the effects of this possession, if I may use the word, was that
those affected spoke in an unknown tongue. I read Latin at them and they
thought the unknown tongue sounded like Latin. Another strange effect of
this possession was the impulse to run wild in the woods, climb trees,
etc. I was told that in past years those attacked had to be constantly
watched, and that at times it was difficult to hold them down, and that
they would even work themselves loose from ropes with which they were
tied.
I asked J. what had happened to her. Speaking with difficulty and with
a guttural sound she said, "A dooorrrg queeezed me," that is, a dog
squeezed me, or a dog jumped up against me. I did not think it a case of
diabolical possession, nor, did I attempt to exorcise the children, but I
read some of the prayers taken from the form of exorcism, and blessed the
two girls, the house, and the yard. I remained around for some time, and
on my way home, I met the girls returning from a spring with pails of
water on their heads, laughing and chatting as happy as larks, apparently
well. I never heard of them being again troubled by duppies.
Father p. who died in Jamaica during the "Flu" epidemic, once told me
of an experience of his own. He was called to a young woman who was dying.
She had been baptized as a Catholic, but had never attended church and had
led a notoriously immoral life. He found her unconscious, lying on a couch
in a single-room hovel. After sending everybody out of doors, he strove
for some minutes to elicit from the dying woman at least some sign of
contrition for her misspent life. Failing in his effort, he gave
conditional absolution, real zing that possibly the wretched woman, while
unable to give any external sign, might still be fully conscious of what
was going on. Father p. then prepared to anoint her according to the
Catholic ritual which gives even a poor creature like this the benefit of
every doubt when eternity is at stake.
Just as he stooped over to begin, a black arm reached around him and
struck the woman on the side of the head with such violence that the head
was dislodged from the pillow. Father p. turned quickly, but the arm was
gone and he was alone in the room with the dying woman. Trying to persuade
himself that it was all a trick of the imagination, he started again. Once
more the arm reached around and this time it actually threw the woman from
the couch to the ground. Father-P. immediately looked for the body to
which the arm should have been attached, but as he did so, the arm itself
vanished, and he was still alone. Then, as he turned back again, he found
the woman, to all appearances, dead at his feet.
This same clergyman, I have heard, on another occasion witnessed the
severe flogging of a woman by unseen hands which left cruel welts upon the
body. But, as I never received the story from his own lips, I omit it
here, as I am now confining myself strictly to first-hand information.
The weirdest happening in my own experience occurred when I took up
residence at my first mission with headquarters at M. The house was a
spacious one that was intended ultimately for a school. A large double
hall passed down the centre with a range of rooms on either hand. On the
side that I occupied, my bedroom was the second from the rear. Next came a
vacant room with doors on the four sides including an entrance from the
yard. The door that connected this room with mine was always left open for
purposes of ventilation. The other three doors were kept locked and were
bolted on the inside of the room which had formerly been a bathroom. About
twenty minutes past eleven one night, shortly before the Hurricane of
November, 1912, I was awakened by a loud knocking at the side entrance. My
first thought was that I was needed for a sick-call. Calling to my
supposed visitor to wait a minute, I began to dress hurriedly. When I was
about half-clad, the knocking changed to a series of crashing sounds as if
someone was forcing an entrance with a crowbar. At this I concluded that
thieves were breaking in. Being alone in the house, I flung my shoe
against the door and saw it bounce back a couple of feet or so, and I then
shouted to the marauders to go away. As I did so, the door crashed open
towards me and I sprang back to escape being knocked down. It was a dark
night and I saw nothing beyond the door. There was an old gun in the
corner of my room. I did not know whether it was loaded or not. But as I
turned to get it, still thinking that it was thieves that I had to deal
with, I could hear a tramp of feet across the room next to mine and it
sounded as if the door into the hall had been forced open in the same way
as the outer door had been. Opening my own door that led into the hall, I
thrust the gun in the general direction that I supposed the thieves must
be, and aiming high, I pulled the trigger. There was a snap and that was
all. The gun was not loaded. But as all noise had now ceased, I hurried
through my room to gain the side entrance, with the purpose of summoning
help, only to find that the door that I had seen crash open was now closed
and locked and bolted on the inside and nothing was broken. And it was
only then that I realized that I was not dealing with thieves, as my hair
seemed literally to stand on end, especially when I found my shoe that I
had seen fall well in front of the door actually back against the wall
where it had been pressed when the door swung open.
And so it is that, as I ponder upon the weirdest stories of the Jamaica
"bush," I find the question arising in my mind: Is it then all
hallucination? Or is there some mesmeric influence at work, as more than
one critic has suggested in connexion with Haitian voodoo? Or, again, have
we here a recrudescence of the diablerie found recorded in the Scripture
narrative? What must the answer be? The out-and-out materialist will meet
my question with a sneer, perhaps even question my sobriety if not my
veracity, and dismiss the matter from his mind as unworthy of further
consideration. The devotees of spiritual séances, on the other hand, may
seek to turn it all to their foolish ends and claim to find here a
verification of the potency of spirits who may be used to impose upon the
ignorant and superstitious for the entirely unspiritual purposes of
material gain.
For my own part, with full realization of the seeming bathos of the
confession, as regards the individual cases considered separately by
themselves, I must simply say: I do not know. I state the facts. I admit
man's proneness to exaggerate and that even by a process of self-hypnotism
there is a possibility of his becoming convinced at times that the
figments of the imagination have actual objective reality in the material
order of things. I acknowledge no less the power and machinations of the
evil one, always subordinate, of course, to the limitations set by
Almighty God. And so it is, that in each particular case, if considered by
itself, I am constrained to shake my head and admit: I am not sure.
But, taking all the cases cited as a group, the collective evidence, I
feel, compels us to acknowledge that we are dealing with some
preternatural agencies or forces, call them what you will. All the
witnesses cannot have been victims of delusions. I knew them individually,
and without exception, they were men of mature years, characterized by
sound judgment. They were practical men and distinctively unimaginative.
In fact, they were rather phlegmatic than otherwise, and had in each case
sifted every possible natural cause as an explanation. In consequence of
the years of missionary service which they had seen in Jamaica, they had
become accustomed to the creepy sounds of the tropical night in the
"bush," that invariably disturb the uninitiated.
However, I do not feel that we have here sufficient data to propound
any clearly defined theory as to whether the preternatural forces are
influences for good or evil. Consequently, while obeah contacts might seem
to imply his Satanic Majesty as the principal agent, I am far from
considering this here as an established fact.
So concluded the paper presented at the London Gathering of
Anthropologists, and it was so favourably received that I feel constrained
to treat the whole matter in more detail since the limited time afforded
by the Congress restricted me to a very cursory review of the subject.
It is the aim of the present work, to go more deeply into the question
of weird happenings and superstitions in Jamaica; to examine carefully the
curious beliefs, still prevalent in the island; to analyze critically the
extraordinary manifestations that are reported from time to time; and, to
seek some plausible explanation for the various phenomena. It is the
purpose, however, to restrict the study to such phenomena as are
distinctively Jamaican, and consequently a residue of the days of slavery
and so presumably of African origin. Our field of investigation, then, is
Negro culture, which precludes such occult practices as have been acquired
through contacts with the Whites as well as European superstitions,
however they may have been introduced to the island. For these latter
cannot be regarded as peculiarly Jamaican, either in origin or practice.
They are ingrafts and nothing more.
To understand properly many of the superstitions and practices in
Jamaica, it is necessary to trace them back to their origins in Africa
whence they were brought in the days of slavery and adapted to the
exigencies of new surroundings and varying contacts. Hence we must
determine in the first place just what tribal centres exerted the greatest
influence in the cultural development of Jamaica, especially as it
concerns the "bush" to-day. And here it should be carefully noted that the
word "bush" is a colloquial term for the less accessible country districts
in Jamaica. For, in the Isle of Springs, there is neither jungle nor
forest. Even the most remote parts of the island are well cultivated and
provided with schools and local shops where all necessities and even
conveniences may be procured. |
