Print this page

Obeah on Sunday Island: Fact or Superstition Cont'd

Roseau, Dominica (TDN) – After a few minutes of conversation, I mentioned the recent power outages in the Portsmouth area. Had they affected him? Or did he have his own generators?

He looked at me quizzically. "Outages?" "Yes, last week. And another one around the end of last month." He shook his head. " No, we haven't had any since way before Christmas. Why do you ask?"

I stared at him. "Are you sure about that?" "Of course. After all, I live in the area. Not only that, the manager of the power station happens to be a good friend of mine. We play gin rummy together every week. I'd be one of the first to know about something like that."

The awful moment of truth, having lurked in the shadows for so long, had finally struck. All I could do was to close my eyes and just sit there. Self-recrimination would come later.

Then I told Isaac Newton Shillingford the whole story, from beginning to end. "He probably sold the meat to smugglers from Marie-Galante," Shillingford said, referring to a nearby French island renowned for its contraband boats. "As for your new freezer, it's probably already on its way to the Mediterranean on some charter yacht. Byron would have made its captain an offer he couldn't refuse." He shook his head sadly. "I'm so sorry, Eric."

There followed a long silence. I turned and watched a group of colorfully-dressed women, balancing heavily-laden wicker baskets on their heads, as they passed our window on their way to market.

Guavas, cinnamon, lettuce, cucumbers, soursops, melons, finger bananas, eggs, even live chickens: you name it, they probably sold it. It could have been a scene straight out of Ghana or Cameroon.

Dominica, thanks to its rich soil and abundant water, was an enormous tropical garden; almost everyone had a plot in his or her back yard, or in some small clearing in the forest.

Life goes on, I told myself. Shillingford broke the silence with a long sigh. "Eric, I wish that you'd come to me before you decided to get involved with an unsavory character like Byron".

I just stared down gloomily at the table, " I would have told you not to go near him with a ten-foot pole. Byron could talk a tortoise out if his shell. And you're not the first foreigner he's conned, believe me".

I glanced up at him. "Well, I only have my own stupidness to blame, don't I? The world's full of con men. I should have known better."

"True." He paused, choosing his next words carefully. "But there's something else you couldn't have known-because nobody in Portsmouth would have told you. You see, Byron is much more than just a con man."

"I don't understand." Shillingford rose from his chair and slowly walked over to the window. He was a slim grey-haired man, an imposing figure who always dressed immaculately whenever he came to Roseau, right down to his polished shoes.

For a few moments, he stood there without speaking, watching the traditional Saturday morning hustle and bustle on the street below. When he turned back to me, his expression had become deadly serious.

"Do you know the meaning of Obeah Man?" I nodded. "Yes, from my visits to Africa. And what I've read. Something like a witch doctor?" "Something like that."

He settled back into his chair. "Because that's what Byron is," he continued. "Why do you think no locals come into his establishment? Or, as you just told me, turned their faces away whenever you mentioned his name? I'll tell you why. Because they know. But they would have been too afraid to tell you.

Not just for themselves, but for their families. That's what an Obeah Man does, what makes him so powerful. But nobody will talk about it, except in whispers,"

He paused and looked me straight in the eye. "Most white men I've known wouldn't believe a word of what I'm telling you right now. Or, more to the point, wouldn't want to.

They'd just dismiss the whole thing as local superstition. But, as you said, you've spent time in Africa. You know what I'm talking about."

He was right. After all, that's where Obeah had reputedly originated,in the isolated west African mountain villages of the Ashanti tribe, long before Europeans had first set foot on the continent. There, the practice was known as obayifo, an adaptation of an ancient Egyptian word for serpent. Obayifo often involved the placing of objects, such dog's teeth or parrot beaks, in newly-dug graves .

As a photo journalist, i'd observed some of their tribal rituals with my own eyes. These traditional beliefs, I knew, had first come to the West Indies on slave ships from Elmina and other ports situated along what was then called the Gold Coast.

Then I remembered Friendly Wallace's words in that cabin in the hills, what now seemed an eternity ago: Let's just say that he's special, he'd said; not like others. Suddenly, everything clicked.

I hadn't wanted to believe. But I did now. My first impulse was to jump into the speedboat and head immediately to Portsmouth to confront Byron face to face. But Shillingford finally dissuaded me. It would be a waste of time, he assured me. Byron would deny everything. Besides, he added,ominously, I couldn't be sure of my personal safety.

Byron was known for his violent temper, another reason why people tried their best to avoid him. He'd once tried to attack one of his own bartenders with a cutlass, right in front of his customers, after he'd caught him stealing. In my case, he'd already got what he wanted; I was no longer of any value. As usual, I realized, Isaac Newton Shillingford was right.

Instead, he advised, I should go to court and try to get him evicted. After all, he reminded me, the lease was in my name, not Byron's. At the very least, I might be able to take possession of any remaining appliances and other items of value, then sell them to cut my losses-although, he cautioned, there was no guarantee that I'd find anything left by then.

Or I could just forget about the whole thing and put it down to one of life's unpleasant learning experiences. For me, that would be unthinkable. I wouldn't even be able to look at myself in the mirror. No, I told Shillingford, I would go to court.

He nodded in understanding. "You have a firearms permit, you once told me". "Yes, for a pistol. The government doesn't want to risk any negative publicity when it comes to tourism. As you know, we go to some pretty isolated areas."

Shillingford leaned forward in his chair toward me. "A bit of advice," he said, lowering his voice. "From now on, keep it with you at all times. No matter where you go, even here in the office. You never know who's going walk in through that door."

I had to admit that his words struck an uneasy chord in me. But I'd made my decision.

Later that afternoon, Shillingford introduced me to one of his own lawyers, an energetic female barrister who worked under Eugenia Charles (later to become Dominica's first woman Prime Minister) with long experience in property disputes. After hearing us out, she agreed to represent me in my claim against Byron.

As it turned out, the case moved forward with surprising speed despite what many considered the country's often cumbersome judicial system, a system largely inherited from Dominica's former British colonial era. A formal hearing was scheduled for the middle of August and a bailiff was sent to serve a summons on Byron.

But Byron never showed up in court on the appointed day. This time, the court gave him seven days to provide an explanation as to why he hadn't done so.

Once again, Byron ignored the judge's orders, not even bothering to respond. Ten days later, the judge granted my request to have him evicted from the property.

But that's as far as it got. As events turned out, nobody in Portsmouth, it seemed, was willing to enforce the court's orders, least of all the local police. Whenever I called the police station, I was shuttled from person to person and given one excuse after another.

Sorry, sir, the officer in charge isn't in today, please call back tomorrow. On the rare occasions when I did manage to reach someone of authority, I was told either that Byron couldn't be found, or that they believed that the Coconut Oasis was closed for the season.

More often than not, the excuse given was that the police were already swamped with more serious crime investigations but, nevertheless, I was assured, the Court's orders would be obeyed. When time permitted.

But, as the days and weeks went by, I came to realize that I no longer had the slightest interest in going back to Portsmouth and the Coconut Oasis. In fact, I wanted nothing more to do with it. The whole thing had been like a bad dream. I just wanted to forget.

Something else had changed, too. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake off a deep sense of depression. It haunted me from the moment I woke up to when I went to bed at night.

Instead of my usual optimism, there was now a sense of self doubt, even despair. Even my own personality, I realized, seemed to have changed. I'd become morose and short-tempered, to the point where Peterson, Harold, and the other drivers did their best to avoid me.
Page 1|Page 2|Page 4|Page 5