obeah
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈəʊbɪə/
ipa: /ˈobia/
Forms: form: obeahs
form: obe
form: obea
form: obi
form: obia
form: oby
Etymology: Uncertain; apparently from a Caribbean creole, probably ultimately from a West African language. The Oxford English Dictionary points to Igbo abià (“knowledge, wisdom”), obìa (“doctor, healer”). Cognate of Aukan obiya, Saramaccan obia, and Sranan Tongo obia.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1997, James D. Rice, “Obeah”, in Junius P. Rodriguez, editor, The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, volumes II (L–Z), Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 477:
text: 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.
ref: 2001, Holger Henke, The West Indian Americans (The New Americans), Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, →ISBN, page 89:
text: 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.
ref: 2011, Margarite Fernández Olmos, Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, “Obeah, Myal, and Quimbois”, in Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.; London: New York University Press, →ISBN, page 155:
glosses: A form of folk magic, medicine or witchcraft originating in Africa and practised in parts of the Caribbean.
examples: text: […] but he went down to death, with dusky dreams of African shadow-catchers and Obeahs hunting him.
ref: 1860 November, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “The Story of West-Indian Emancipation”, in M[oncure] D[aniel] Conway, editor, The Dial: A Monthly Magazine for Literature, Philosophy and Religion, volume I, number 11, Cincinnati, Oh.: Office, No. 76 West Third Street, →OCLC, page 651:
text: 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.
ref: 1986, Kurt E. Koch, Occult ABC: Exposing Occult Practices and Ideologies, 2nd edition, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications, →ISBN, page 299:
text: 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."
ref: 2009, Londa Schiebinger, “Scientific Exchange in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World”, in Bernard Bailyn, Patricia L. Denault, editors, Soundings in Atlantic History: Latent Structures and Intellectual Currents, 1500–1830, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 320:
glosses: A magician or witch doctor of the magic craft.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1893 June, “Folk-Lore Society. Proceedings at Evening Meetings.”, in Folk-Lore: A Quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution, & Custom, volume IV, number II, London: David Nutt, 270, Strand, →OCLC, page 254:
glosses: A spell performed in the practice of the magic craft; an item associated with such a spell.
Derived terms: obeah doctor
obeahism
obeahman