Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1896-03-21
A PLANTATION SPELL.
No More Plantains Were Stolen After thu
Obexh Man Was Called In.

No Nor. Plantains Were Stolen After the
Obexh Man Was Called In.
Tho following is an instance OF
what Mr.. Hesketh j. Bell saw with
his own eyes in the British colony
of Grenada, ore Of the Wiindwurd
islands:
A planter had in his ground fine
lot of 1000 plantains, but could new
or get bunch of the fruit for the
table. The wretched niggers" of
the neighborhood always walked off
with it as quickly as it ripened. AS
neither Waterman nor spring guns
had any effect in checking the depre-
dations, he determined to have the
gardens dressed" by an Obeah
man.
Accordingly one day he was by
appointment waited on by a wien
ed old African, attended by small
black boy carrying II large covered
basket. Mokombo, on being told
what was wanted. promised:
me go set strong Obeah for dem,
and dey nebber go lief your plantain
again." Instructed to go to work,
Mokombo took his basket and went
down among tho trees, which We're
planted in long rows in q large field.
The plantain is much the same as
the banana-the fruit Srowing in
enormous lunches out of soft,
fleshy trunk, the leaves on which
spread out like those of palm.
This is what the Obeah man pro.
ceeded to do: Out of his basket he
took number of large and small
medicine bottles filled with some
mysterious liquid; then, taking up
position in front of n plantain, he
tied one of the bottles on to n branch
of the fruit, muttering the while an
incarnation in some African lingo,
completing the spell by frequent
genuflections and waving of the
arms. He went through all the rows
in the same fashion.
When he had used up his stock of
bottles, he took from his basket a
small black wooden coffin. This he
placed with good deal of ceremony
in the branches of cocoa tree, and
on the top of the coffin he put n saul
Ger, containing a little water, with q
hens egg floating in it. He then
walked right round the field, NUT
tering his incarnation and waving
his arms, after which he came to
the planter and declared that the
Obeah was complete-not another
bunch of plantains would be stolen.
Receiving his fee, he departed, say,
ing, me let go plenty cribo, massa,
and now if any one da go and t'iet
dem plantains he must go swell up
and bust"'
Criboes are large black serpents,
very common in the island, but quite
harmless. The planters, indeed, rath.
er protect them, as they wage war
on the rats. These criboes, however,
are supposed to become deadly un-
der the influence of the Obeah man,
and the negroes believe that when
he "dresses" garden or field no
sets free in it swarm of ferocious
criboes, that will assuredly destroy
any one who goes into the place for
the purpose of stealing. They know
we'll enough that there is no venom
Gus snake in the island, yet the Az
rican dread and generation of the
serpent are ineradicable.
On the particular occasion referred
to the bottles were examined after
Mokombo's departure and found to
contain nothing but sea water, col.
ored with little laundry blue, with
a dead cockroach floating on the top.
Some of them had also few rusty
nails or u bit of red flannel. But
there might be any sort of rubbish
in the mystic bottles, for no negro
would dare to touch them. Nor
would he 60 near the trees on which
they were hung to steal unless he
was prepared to 'swell up and bust.
All the teaching of Christian minis
tiers and schoolmasters for so years
has not been able to destroy the
dark superstitions brought over with
the cargoes of slaves from the Afri-
can coast during the previous two
centuries. -Chambers' Journal.