Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 2 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present dayLanaghan, Mrs.
History
Antigua and the Antiguans, Volume 2 (of 2): A full account of the colony and its inhabitants from the time of the Caribs to the present day
Lanaghan, Mrs.
Antigua -- Description and travel; Antigua -- History
Again the porters commenced their melancholy office of carrying
to the grave a corpse that would not be buried. The same ground
was again passed over, but no effort of theirs could lead them to
gain the intended place of burial. At length, forced on by the
jumby, they made up to a negro house, the door of which was shut;
and before they could ask for admittance, the coffin was impelled
through it, breaking it into pieces, and was dashing forwards
against the face of a man, the only inmate, who, frightened and
horrified at the encounter, was endeavouring to effect his
escape. This at length he accomplished, but not before he bore
upon his head and face the marks of a jumby’s revenge. The open
door gained, he fled as if ten thousand demons were hanging upon
his steps, while the corpse, satisfied at having pointed out its
murderer, bowed itself upon the bearers’ shoulders, and then
allowed them to carry it quietly to its last resting-place.
Time flew on, and no tidings of the murderer were heard, until
about six months had elapsed, when a party of negroes went into a
copse to cut wood. They had almost penetrated through its tangled
mazes, when they thought they saw something lying under the
brushwood; and upon a nearer approach, discovered it to be the
man who had fled from the attack of the jumby. He was in a dying
condition, and according to the old women who related the
circumstance, “He face ’top most like one buckra, all _whitey
whitey_, from de jumby licking he so;” a great compliment to us
whites! But to return to our story. The negroes picked him up,
and carried him home, where he lived long enough to confess, that
a quarrel having arisen between himself and the deceased woman,
he procured “something” from an Obeah man, which he put into some
soup, and which caused her death.
Like everything else, my story has an end; and now let me ask my
readers what they think of it? I am sure they will join with me
in deploring that superstition has still so many votaries. Oh!
that her reign was at an end! Yet there are some negroes who are
getting over the dread of these things. An old woman remarked one
day, “Missis, me hear of jumby, but me neber see dem; me can’t go
say dere non ob dem, but me say, if one sombody do good, God will
neber let dem hurt you; an we ought to pray, dat wen we go dead,
He will gib us some place ob rest.”
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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