villages, singing the national anthem and devotional hymns, occasionally rending the air with their acclamations of "Freedom's come! We're free, we're free; our wives and our children are free!"
The conduct of the newly-emancipated peasantry everywhere, would have done credit to Christians of the most civilized country in the world. Their behavior was modest, unassuming, civil, and obliging to each other as members of one harmonious family.
Many of the original stock of slaves had been imported from amongst the Mandingoes, and Foulahs, from the banks of the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Rio Grande, the most refined and intellectual of the African tribes; and from the Congoes of Upper and Lower Guinea, the most inferior of the African race. The latter class brought with them all the vices and superstitions of their native land, and these had been cultivated in Jamaica.
The worst of these superstitious ideas was obeism, a species of witchcraft employed to revenge injuries, or as a protection against theft and murder, and in favor for gaining the love of the opposite sex. It consisted in placing a spell or charm near the cottage of the individual intended to be brought under its influence, or when designed to prevent the depredations of thieves, in some conspicuous part of the house, or on a tree; it was signified by a calabash or gourd, containing among other ingredients, a combination of different colored rags, cats' teeth, parrots' feathers, toads' feet, egg-shells, fish-bones, snakes' teeth, and lizards' tails.[1]
Terror immediately seized upon the individual who
- ↑ "Jamaica, Past and Present." Phillippo.
