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CASE 2. (BY REV. A. J. E.)

Strange to say the old mission house at All Saints, with a history and location as weird as that of the "House of the Seven Gables," was said to be haunted. A strange coincidence in connexion with its being haunted happened to one of our Fathers. The Father, who had come to the country for a change, was to stop in this house on Saturday night and say Mass at All Saints on Sunday, while I went on to Falmouth about eight miles away to say Mass there. Before going I said to the Father, "As you are not accustomed to sleep alone in a house, you had better have a boy remain in the house with you." "Do you think," he asked, "that I am afraid to sleep alone in the house?" "No," I said, "but I think it more prudent that you have the boy in the house in case anything should happen."

The next day the Father seriously asked me why I warned him against sleeping alone in the house. He said that during the night the boy who was sleeping in the hall called him and said that a lady and gentleman were there and wanted to see him. The Father, having dressed hurriedly and come out of his room into the hall, asked the boy where were the lady and gentleman. The boy pointed to the corner where he said he had seen them; but when the lady and gentleman were not there, the boy was so frightened that he could not be persuaded to remain alone in the hall.

So much for Father E's account. In January, 1907, On the occasion of my first visit to Jamaica

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and just a few days before the earthquake to which reference has been made at the opening of this Introduction, I myself spent a night at All Saints in this very mission house which was supposed to be haunted. At the time, however, I was absolutely in ignorance of its ill-repute, and it was only later that I heard of other incidents similar to the one I have just related. I should note, too, that Father E. knew nothing whatever of my experience when he wrote his own account some time later. After we had both committed the facts to paper we met and talked them over.

All Saints mission is located in a mountain district, looking out over the Caribbean towards Cuba. The night that I spent there found my sleeping accommodations restricted to a sofa in the front room which was of unusual size. It was this very room which in Father E's account is called the hall where the boy was sleeping and where the lady and gentleman so unceremoniously disappeared.

On three sides of this room there were windows and on the fourth a passage led to the rear of the house. This passage was cut off from the room by a pair of swinging doors. It was a bright moonlight night and as there were no curtains on the windows I might easily have read without artificial light. As I put out the lamp, the doors of the passage began to swing back and forth in unison. When I touched them, the motion ceased. But while I felt no pressure of any kind, as soon as I withdrew my hand they immediately began to swing again. I could feel no draft of air and examining all around the

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doors I found no explanation of the movement. After about three-quarters of an hour, the doors ceased of their own accord.

Going over to the sofa, I lay down and tried to sleep. While I could see nothing out of the ordinary, I was disturbed by all kinds of sounds. First it was as if someone came tramping across the floor in my direction. That might easily have been imagination. Then a hand or something similar, I could see nothing, seemed to press heavily against various parts of my head and arms. That, too, might possibly have been imagination. But this was no imagination: while the rest of my body was burning hot with fright, the parts touched were left not merely clammy but actually wringing wet with water which I mopped up with my handkerchief in sufficient quantities to be squeezed out. And that, I repeat, was no imagination.

CASE 3. (BY REV. A. J. E.)

One day a man living about a mile away from Alva mission, came to me and said that he was in trouble and asked me to help him out of it. He said that the spirits had been troubling him and his family for a long time, and that it had become unbearable. "The duppies," he said, "come every night and knock from sunset to sunrise, frightening the life out of my wife and children. I tried to shoot one the other night but I could not. I put a cap on the pivot ammunition in my gun and fired at the place from which the knocking came, but the gun

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would not go off. I went into the house, opened the pivot with a pin and tried to fire at the ghost again, but again the gun would not go off. I felt something shaking in my hat rim, which turned out to be the cap I had put on the pivot of my gun. I tried the gun again, firing in another direction, and it went off." I told him that I would go to his house and bless it.

At the appointed time I went to the house. After closing the door, I heard the knocking and all in the room heard it. It was a slow dull knock. The man went out and knocked at the place from which the sound seemed to come, but it was not the same sound at all. I listened to the knocking for awhile but could come to no conclusion as to the source of the sound. I was not in the least afraid or nervous but rather indifferent, having become habituated to sleeping alone in lonesome, outlandish places and hearing at night all sorts of creepy sounds, rappings, knockings, clankings, crawlings, etc., so that this knocking made very little impression on me. I thought to myself, I will bless the house and by so doing I will not commit myself to passing any judgment as to the source of the knocking. When I pulled out my ritual to read the blessing of the house, I was, as far as I remember, trying in my mind to account for the knocking by some kind of insect concealed somewhere in the house. While reading the prayer I suddenly became excited and with great difficulty finished it. I felt as if I had been put under some kind of an exhaust pump that drained me of all my supernatural energy. I felt as if I were injuring someone and tears, or a feeling

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of tears, came to my eyes. I tried to conceal what happened to me by saying in a joking way, "Now duppy him gone." My embarrassment left me. I sprinkled holy water in the house and out in the yard and especially in the place from which the sound seemed to come. When I returned into the house I raised my hand to give the common blessing, "Benedictio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi descendat super hanc domum et maneat semper." ("May the Blessing of Our Lord Jesus Christ descend on this house and remain forever.") I found the same excitement come over me and the same difficulty in finishing the blessing, but it was not so strong as the first time. I was told that after I left, the duppy gave two hard bangs and then stopped knocking. Sometime afterwards, I heard the people speaking of its return,--this time it was outside of the house,--and that crowds went up to see it, and some claimed that they saw it. It left shortly after, not to return. I learned later that the wife of the man whose house was troubled by the duppy was a revivalist, one of a religion which is nothing but a form of myalism. If they are not possessed by the devil at times, there is no lacking in appearances of their being possessed.

CASE 4.

The following incident was related to me by both parties concerned and their accounts agreed in all details As they are still alive I do not feel free at present to disclose their identity even by initials or

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to fully identify the locality itself. It all happened at a particularly lonely spot on a mountain overlooking the sea where a priest made his headquarters in a house that was since demolished by a hurricane. A brother priest who came to visit him was spending the night in a room concerning which weird stories were told, although the occupant knew nothing of the fact at the time.

On retiring, finding that there were no matches in the room, the visitor went in quest of a box and left it with a candle on a table near the door of the room. Three times during the night he was awakened by someone entering the room, striking a match and lighting the candle. Each time he could just make out the figure of a man withdrawing from the room with face averted and closing the door behind him. Knowing that he and his host were alone in the house, he naturally concluded that it was all a practical joke that was being played on him.

On the first two occasions he got up, extinguished the candle and retired again to bed. But on the third perpetration he felt that the joke had been carried far enough. Quickly he sprang from the bed and rushed to the door just as it closed behind the figure. When he reached the hall, the figure had vanished, and going to the far end to his host's room, he found the occupant sleeping soundly, with the door of the room securely locked. On being aroused, the host vainly protested and strove to persuade his guest that he had been playing no tricks, and that the whole incident must have been

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a dream. But, on returning to his own room again, the visitor counted on the table three partially burnt matches where there had been no loose matches at all when he retired. Next morning he made his departure from the house as early as possible.

CASE 5. (BY REV. A. J. E.)

It sometimes happens that the duppy's attacks upon human beings resemble possession by the devil. One day I was asked to come and see some sick children. When I arrived, I found two young girls under a peculiar spell which came about, I was told, in the following manner. Mrs. D. said she was sitting in a room with a girl named J., when three slow raps came upon the jalousies, then came three more slow raps, followed by three more slow raps; then a warm wave passed through the room. At the same time J. leaped into the air crying out, "Old man come," and from that time up to my arrival she had been acting queerly. When I arrived, about three days after the event, she was much better, I was told, than she was at first. While under this strange influence she said, "Old man catch M." The M. in question was a quiet, shy, modest girl of about seventeen years whose father was a Portuguese and whose mother was a slightly brown woman. When she came home she started laughing and kept it up for two or three days. When I came she was hoarse from laughing. The people of the house told me

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that a peculiar mutual sympathetic influence controlled J. and M. If one laughed the other laughed, if one had a headache the other had a headache, and so on. I was told that similar occurrences had been going on in this family for years, and that it was attributed to the malicious black-art working of a family enemy.

Some of the effects of this possession, if I may use the word, was that those affected spoke in an unknown tongue. I read Latin at them and they thought the unknown tongue sounded like Latin. Another strange effect of this possession was the impulse to run wild in the woods, climb trees, etc. I was told that in past years those attacked had to be constantly watched, and that at times it was difficult to hold them down, and that they would even work themselves loose from ropes with which they were tied.

I asked J. what had happened to her. Speaking with difficulty and with a guttural sound she said, "A dooorrrg queeezed me," that is, a dog squeezed me, or a dog jumped up against me. I did not think it a case of diabolical possession, nor, did I attempt to exorcise the children, but I read some of the prayers taken from the form of exorcism, and blessed the two girls, the house, and the yard. I remained around for some time, and on my way home, I met the girls returning from a spring with pails of water on their heads, laughing and chatting as happy as larks, apparently well. I never heard of them being again troubled by duppies.

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CASE 6. (BY REV. M. E. P.)

Father p. who died in Jamaica during the "Flu" epidemic, once told me of an experience of his own. He was called to a young woman who was dying. She had been baptized as a Catholic, but had never attended church and had led a notoriously immoral life. He found her unconscious, lying on a couch in a single-room hovel. After sending everybody out of doors, he strove for some minutes to elicit from the dying woman at least some sign of contrition for her misspent life. Failing in his effort, he gave conditional absolution, real zing that possibly the wretched woman, while unable to give any external sign, might still be fully conscious of what was going on. Father p. then prepared to anoint her according to the Catholic ritual which gives even a poor creature like this the benefit of every doubt when eternity is at stake.

Just as he stooped over to begin, a black arm reached around him and struck the woman on the side of the head with such violence that the head was dislodged from the pillow. Father p. turned quickly, but the arm was gone and he was alone in the room with the dying woman. Trying to persuade himself that it was all a trick of the imagination, he started again. Once more the arm reached around and this time it actually threw the woman from the couch to the ground. Father-P. immediately looked for the body to which the arm should have been attached, but as he did so, the arm itself vanished, and he was still alone. Then, as he turned back

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again, he found the woman, to all appearances, dead at his feet.

This same clergyman, I have heard, on another occasion witnessed the severe flogging of a woman by unseen hands which left cruel welts upon the body. But, as I never received the story from his own lips, I omit it here, as I am now confining myself strictly to first-hand information.

CASE 7.

The weirdest happening in my own experience occurred when I took up residence at my first mission with headquarters at M. The house was a spacious one that was intended ultimately for a school. A large double hall passed down the centre with a range of rooms on either hand. On the side that I occupied, my bedroom was the second from the rear. Next came a vacant room with doors on the four sides including an entrance from the yard. The door that connected this room with mine was always left open for purposes of ventilation. The other three doors were kept locked and were bolted on the inside of the room which had formerly been a bathroom. About twenty minutes past eleven one night, shortly before the Hurricane of November, 1912, I was awakened by a loud knocking at the side entrance. My first thought was that I was needed for a sick-call. Calling to my supposed visitor to wait a minute, I began to dress hurriedly. When I was about half-clad, the knocking changed to a series of

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crashing sounds as if someone was forcing an entrance with a crowbar. At this I concluded that thieves were breaking in. Being alone in the house, I flung my shoe against the door and saw it bounce back a couple of feet or so, and I then shouted to the marauders to go away. As I did so, the door crashed open towards me and I sprang back to escape being knocked down. It was a dark night and I saw nothing beyond the door. There was an old gun in the corner of my room. I did not know whether it was loaded or not. But as I turned to get it, still thinking that it was thieves that I had to deal with, I could hear a tramp of feet across the room next to mine and it sounded as if the door into the hall had been forced open in the same way as the outer door had been. Opening my own door that led into the hall, I thrust the gun in the general direction that I supposed the thieves must be, and aiming high, I pulled the trigger. There was a snap and that was all. The gun was not loaded. But as all noise had now ceased, I hurried through my room to gain the side entrance, with the purpose of summoning help, only to find that the door that I had seen crash open was now closed and locked and bolted on the inside and nothing was broken. And it was only then that I realized that I was not dealing with thieves, as my hair seemed literally to stand on end, especially when I found my shoe that I had seen fall well in front of the door actually back against the wall where it had been pressed when the door swung open.

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And so it is that, as I ponder upon the weirdest stories of the Jamaica "bush," I find the question arising in my mind: Is it then all hallucination? Or is there some mesmeric influence at work, as more than one critic has suggested in connexion with Haitian voodoo? Or, again, have we here a recrudescence of the diablerie found recorded in the Scripture narrative? What must the answer be? The out-and-out materialist will meet my question with a sneer, perhaps even question my sobriety if not my veracity, and dismiss the matter from his mind as unworthy of further consideration. The devotees of spiritual séances, on the other hand, may seek to turn it all to their foolish ends and claim to find here a verification of the potency of spirits who may be used to impose upon the ignorant and superstitious for the entirely unspiritual purposes of material gain.

For my own part, with full realization of the seeming bathos of the confession, as regards the individual cases considered separately by themselves, I must simply say: I do not know. I state the facts. I admit man's proneness to exaggerate and that even by a process of self-hypnotism there is a possibility of his becoming convinced at times that the figments of the imagination have actual objective reality in the material order of things. I acknowledge no less the power and machinations of the evil one, always subordinate, of course, to the limitations set by Almighty God. And so it is, that in each particular case, if considered by itself, I am constrained to shake my head and admit: I am not sure.

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But, taking all the cases cited as a group, the collective evidence, I feel, compels us to acknowledge that we are dealing with some preternatural agencies or forces, call them what you will. All the witnesses cannot have been victims of delusions. I knew them individually, and without exception, they were men of mature years, characterized by sound judgment. They were practical men and distinctively unimaginative. In fact, they were rather phlegmatic than otherwise, and had in each case sifted every possible natural cause as an explanation. In consequence of the years of missionary service which they had seen in Jamaica, they had become accustomed to the creepy sounds of the tropical night in the "bush," that invariably disturb the uninitiated.

However, I do not feel that we have here sufficient data to propound any clearly defined theory as to whether the preternatural forces are influences for good or evil. Consequently, while obeah contacts might seem to imply his Satanic Majesty as the principal agent, I am far from considering this here as an established fact.

So concluded the paper presented at the London Gathering of Anthropologists, and it was so favourably received that I feel constrained to treat the whole matter in more detail since the limited time afforded by the Congress restricted me to a very cursory review of the subject.

It is the aim of the present work, to go more deeply into the question of weird happenings and

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superstitions in Jamaica; to examine carefully the curious beliefs, still prevalent in the island; to analyze critically the extraordinary manifestations that are reported from time to time; and, to seek some plausible explanation for the various phenomena. It is the purpose, however, to restrict the study to such phenomena as are distinctively Jamaican, and consequently a residue of the days of slavery and so presumably of African origin. Our field of investigation, then, is Negro culture, which precludes such occult practices as have been acquired through contacts with the Whites as well as European superstitions, however they may have been introduced to the island. For these latter cannot be regarded as peculiarly Jamaican, either in origin or practice. They are ingrafts and nothing more.

To understand properly many of the superstitions and practices in Jamaica, it is necessary to trace them back to their origins in Africa whence they were brought in the days of slavery and adapted to the exigencies of new surroundings and varying contacts. Hence we must determine in the first place just what tribal centres exerted the greatest influence in the cultural development of Jamaica, especially as it concerns the "bush" to-day. And here it should be carefully noted that the word "bush" is a colloquial term for the less accessible country districts in Jamaica. For, in the Isle of Springs, there is neither jungle nor forest. Even the most remote parts of the island are well cultivated and provided with schools and local shops where all necessities and even conveniences may be procured.

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