Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 11/My grandfather's narrow escape
MY GRANDFATHER'S NARROW ESCAPE.
A Story of "Obeah.".
"First of all," said my grandfather, "do any of you happen to know what an Obeahman is?"
Only one or two of those present had heard anything about "Obeah" or its professors.
"I thought not," mused my grandfather. "Well, you won't enter into the interest of my story unless I give you some explanation beforehand of this remarkable negro superstition. The Africans indulge in a sort of Arimanic philosophy, and conceive that the world is under the dominion of a demon, whose destructive tastes must be propitiated by offerings and prayers, much as the Eumenides were wont to be appeased by euphemistic titles and worship. This demon, whose name is 'Obeah' or 'Obi'—the latter spelling is, I assume, the more correct—exhibits his malignity chiefly in bewitching his unfortunate victim, who pines away under this fiendish influence and miserably dies, unless Obeah's wrath be turned aside by the intervention and mediation of one of his inspired priests and prophets. These 'mediums' are called 'Obeah-men' and their functions are not confined, by any means, to the merciful interference between the demon and his victim to which I have just alluded. These idle dreamers are not unfrequently employed by revengeful negroes to 'bewitch' some enemy; and, such is the superstitious dread of, and belief in, the communicated power of the Obeah priest, that the person bewitched wastes away and dies, as I have often seen, sometimes from credulous fear, and sometimes from secret poisoning. The only English equivalent superstition is, I fancy, what country folks call the 'evil-eye.' And the effects of Obeah influence are very similar to those which have occasionally been noticed in people supposed to be 'bewitched' in this country. Of course, where this parallel can be drawn, we must understand that the person influenced is merely affected by credulous dread, and not by secret foul-play. The juggling Obeah-prophet is nothing without his professional apparatus, and whenever his aid, propitiatory or offensive, is invoked, he is careful to present himself in as strikingly hideous an exterior as can be produced by paint, feathers, and grease in various combinations. When he has disfigured himself Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/459 Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/460 'Surely,' I thought, 'the service I have so lately done to this creature must be remembered by him in my favour—perhaps he tells the truth—perhaps I am running into danger of which he is aware, and would, in gratitude, give me warning.' Before I had done with my conjectures the Obeah priest was standing panting and out of breath by the side of my gig. 'What is it?' I asked; 'why do you stop me?' 'Massa,' answered the man, with difficulty speaking, so exhausted was he by his long run; 'massa, you save my life once, I now save you life.' 'What do you mean?' I asked in some trepidation. 'I mean I will save you life as you save mine. Take me wid you, I tell
you all about it as you go along. I save you life myself' (he kept on repeating this phrase incessantly) 'as you save mine.' 'What am I to do?' said I, looking earnestly at the priest as I spoke to see if he flinched, as negroes often will at the fixed gaze of a white man, who suspects them. He confronted my gaze and
replied, 'Take me wid yon, massa, and write down what I got to tell you; take me wid you, and I save you life.' As he still kept to this request, I acceded at last, and permitted him to join me in the gig. We soon reached Newton, and when pen, ink, and paper had been procured, and the witnesses he desired had been called for, the Obeah-man disclosed the secret to me. I won't trouble you with an account in his own words, but will briefly give the purport of what I took down from his dictation. It seems that Theophilus, the driver whom I had degraded, had never forgiven the author of his punishment, and after long brooding over various methods of obtaining his revenge, had called in the aid of the all-powerful Obeah priest. Most fortunately for me the man whose services he sought to obtain against me was no other than the priest whose life had been spared at my intervention and by my vote. Gain, however, being prominent with this man, he agreed to supply Theophilus with a poison which should make away with me, and offered to show his employer how to mix the powder in the jug of water, to which I always used to apply in the evening, before quitting the manager's house for my own. He accordingly received his reward, and in return handed Theophilus a paper of powder, with full directions as to how, when, and where to administer it to me. Theophilus took the powder, and in due course mixed it with the water which used to stand in a jug by my side. Then, at a safe distance, he watched till he saw me raise the jug to my lips and drink its contents. He must have been disappointed at seeing no ill effects following upon my drinking the water; but had he known what the contents of the paper were which the Obeah-man had given him for my destruction, he would have been still more disconcerted. I didn't die, for the powder which had been dissolved in the water was simply arrowroot. The poor wretch in whose behalf my interference had been so fortunately and, I must say, justly urged, had too much gratitude in his heart to conspire against my life. So he substituted arrowroot for something more deadly, and saved my life in return for his own acquittal."
"What," interrupted one of my grandfather's hearers, "became of the murderer—Theophilus?"
"Ah," said my grandfather, "here comes the most wonderful part of my story. Long before the law had time to complete his punishment, he died miserably in prison—swollen, bloated, and diseased—a victim to the Obeah priest's influence. Not content with saving me, he 'bewitched' my enemy."
ANA.
Poisoning by Tobacco.—A very curious case of poisoning by the absorption of tobacco through the skin was mentioned, at a recent meeting of the Académie des Sciences, by M. Cl. Bernard, who received the information from a M. Namias. A smuggler had placed a quantity of unmanufactured tobacco next his skin, and the heat and perspiration produced by walking caused the poisonous properties of the tobacco to enter the system, the consequences of which were very serious.
Hounds in the Seventeenth Century.—One of the earliest packs of fox-hounds on record was that kept by the then Lord Arundell of Wardour, between the years 1690 and 1700; and the family are in possession of memoranda proving that they occasionally hunted then from Wardour Castle, in Wiltshire, and at Breamore, near Salisbury, now the seat of Sir Edward Hulse, but then the occasional residence of Lord Arundell. These hounds were kept by the Arundells until about the year 1745, when the sixth Lord Arundell died. After his decease they were kept by his nephew, the Earl of Castlehaven, by whom and his successors they were hunted until the death of the last Earl of that name, about the year 1782. The pack was then sold to the celebrated Hugo Meynell, Esq., of Quorndon Hall, Leicestershire; and it is probable that they contributed largely to the establishment of that gentleman's fox-hunting fame, and have been the progenitors of some of the Quorn hounds of the present day.