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METHODS TO PROTECT CROPS USED IN AFRICAN MAGIC

  
 
 
On this subject, the expert in African magic, Miad Hoyora Korahon, wrote the following:
 
« The services of the Obeahmen are frequently requested to “dressing a field,” of sugar-cane, cocoa or other crop, to prevent stealing. There seems to be at least two modes of doing this: one by getting “Obeah” from a practitioner to put into the field, and another by the performance of a prescribed ceremony in the field by one learned in the art.
 
Of the first, I am told by an eye-witness, that in 1872, a man called C___, wanted to have his cane field “dressed,” to prevent the canes being stolen. He accordingly sought the assistance of a noted Obeah doctor who lived at M___. Witness met C___ returning from the doctor’s, and asked him what luck he had had.
 
For reply, C___ produced two little rods about 18 inches long, saying ‘he gave me these two snakes to put into the field, and on throwing one of them down on the road, it at once turned into a black snake, which again assumed the form of a piece of stick as C___ picked it up.
 
C___ places them in his field, and carefully told every one of the neighbors he had done so, and many people attempting to steal canes from it were pursued by a black snake, among others, witness himself.
 
He says, too, that C___ used to put a cup of milk down in the field every morning, which he said was for the snakes to drink, and that when the crop was reaped the snakes disappeared. I am referred to several other people who saw these snakes.
 
It would appear from this, that the Egyptian magician’s feat of turning their rods into snakes, is not yet an extinct art, nor confined alone to their comer of Africa. An enterprising Obeah doctor might do a good business in this line, in protecting crops from depredation, in various parts of the world.
 
 
Here is an instance of a second method. J.L. states thus:
 
“In 1868 I became a Metager on C___ estate.  Early one morning, being in my field among the canes, I heard voices in the field adjoining mine, belonging to J.  C___ looking through the canes, I saw C___ and a man called McS___ with him. They could not see me, as I was quite concealed from them by the canes. They had with them a three-forked pole about 6 feet long, a bottle, and a wisp of dry plantain leaves.
 
Being anxious to learn what they were after, I listened, and watched them carefully. After some preparation, they planted the pole m the ground, fork up. In the fork they placed a pad made of the dry plantain leaves, and on it seated the bottle, which was full of something; by the side of the bottle they put a hen’s egg, with its small end up.  McS___ then said to C___  ‘What is it you have to say?’
 
Then, placing his hand on the bottle, C___ talked to it in a low voice for about ten minutes, and then in a loud tone, said, ‘No one but (so and so, meaning a number of his friends and the members of his family) will I allow to come into this field, and if any one else comes, you must fly after them, and bite them to death.’  Then they left the field.”
 
At this time I was living in C___’s house with him, and I was not well pleased that my name was left out of the list of those allowed to go into that cane-field, so I determined to keep a close eye on what should follow.
 
In about 28 days, or a month after the above took place, a black ring had appeared by some means a short way from the top of the egg. After a second period of similar duration, I observed a hole in it, such as might be made by a chicken when it first breaks the egg-shell; and, in a few days after that, nothing but a few fragments of the egg-shell remained beside the bottle.
 
About that time people began to say there was a snake in that field, and became afraid to go there, because some of them said they were chased by it. I myself often saw a snake there after that, and believe it was put there by that operation.”
 
Still another way of protecting a field or garden, is to send for an Obeah doctor and promise him so much to protect the garden until the crop is reaped. In a case of this sort which came under my notice, the Obeah Doctor began by going to the field, and there hanging to one of the trees:
 
1.    A bottle containing (apparently) dirty water.
2.    A triangular piece of board, on which a similarly shaped scrap of black cloth was glued, both point downwards.
3.    A little skin bag containing an egg, some nails, beans of various kinds, and rags of different colors.
 
After hanging these up, he walked round the tree several times, and then, from these different points, spoke to it, muttering — presumably reciting-spells.
 
Returning to the house, he had all the laborers called, and informed them that the owner had given that field into his charge, because there had been so much stealing going on; and that he wished them to understand from that day onwards that, if there was so much as one grain of plantains missed, ho would know within twelve hours after who the thief was, but there would be no use for that man to send for him to cure the pains in the belly he would most certainly die of.
 
I believe very little of that crop was stolen!
 
The black men believe that when, as in J.L.___’s case, the egg and bottle business is performed, that a snake is hatched from the hen’s egg, and that the contents of the bottle, whatever they may be, are to feed the snake while it is very young.  Another favorite article used for the protection of fields, is a miniature coffin; sometimes empty, but usually filled with bits of bone, feathers and generally an assortment of things such as above mentioned as filling the skin bag.
 
But with the exception of the first case of “dressing,” in which the stick was turned into a snake, I believe that these bottles, eggs, triangles, and so on, are the exoteric dregs of a more than half forgotten magical ritual; and are to the average Obeahman very much what the symbols of masonry are to the average freemason, — pro-forma symbols for certain purposes, the complete details of whose use is forgotten or unknown, and have about as much “ Serpent” left in them as remains in the sloughed off skin, of a snake.
 
Most Obeah men are, as far as these things are concerned, like a child with a stopped watch, which he is confident, gives correct time, while he is quite ignorant of the proper way to wind it up, and even unconscious of the fact that it requires to be wound.
 
That this prevailing ignorance is not universal, is proved, I think, by the following little experiment. One old “doctor” laid claim to about half an acre of my land on which are growing some half dozen cocoanut trees.
 
To prevent others —including my servants— from gathering the nuts, he erected a post there, on which were fastened a triangle like that above described, a bottle, and some other things.
 
Going there one day, I found this erection and was promptly informed of its purpose. In order to test whether the old rascal knew anything beyond a mere belief in the efficacy of things so placed, I drew a circle round his post on the sand, and inscribed therein a certain figure, with an intention, and left it.
 
He very soon discovered what I had done, and since that has left that place and my cocoanuts severely alone; with the result that I am now credited by him and his friends with being a much bigger Obeahman than he is, and dangerous to meddle with: which, on the whole, if not a complimentary, is at least a useful reputation»
(Theosophist, February 1891, p.314-316)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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