Obeah

Although lacking a self-perpetuating institutional structure, Obeah was a crucial element of Afro-Caribbean religions everywhere from Suriname's Maroon societies (communities of runaway slaves) to the Leeward Islands' slave societies.

However, quite often it is also applied to protect from obeah spells which the client feels himself or herself to be suffering from. Since obeah can also cast protective spells (e.g., against other obeah spells), it is not entirely correct to dismiss it as an evil practice.

Obeah—a set of hybrid or creolized beliefs dependent on ritual invocation, fetishes, and charms—incorporates two very distinct categories of practice. The first involves "the casting of spells for various purposes, both good and evil: protecting oneself, property, family, or loved ones; harming real or perceived enemies; and bringing fortune in love, employment, personal or business pursuits"[…]. The second incorporates traditional African-derived healing practices based on the application of considerable knowledge of herbal and animal medicinal properties.

[…] but he went down to death, with dusky dreams of African shadow-catchers and Obeahs hunting him.

A Jamaican Christian came to me for counseling. […] I asked him if he had been charmed as a child by an Obeah. Obeahs are the magicians of the Carribean^([sic]) islands.

Although Adair suspected that obeahs often employed poisons, he emphasized that the diseases induced by obeahs resulted from "depraved imagination, or a powerful excitement or depression of the mental faculties."

Mr. M. J. Walhouse then read a paper on "Some Indian Obeahs", and exhibited some photos of Kurumbars, and a piece of the bone of an elk and an iron cock's spur, with which a man had been murdered, both of which had been regarded as Obeahs.

A poor old woman who thinks she has been Obeahed lies ill in an isolated hut on the short cut to New Castle. I discovered her while out shooting, and promised to send her medical aid. Her case is pressing.