Jamaican Song and Story Part 57

Here is something very short:--

[Music:

Oh Oh Leah married a Tuesday.]

On asking if that was all, Levi, the contributor, said:--"It no have no more corner," it hasn't any more corners, or "turnings" as they generally say, what we call variations. Levi likes to cut everything short and rattle it through with lightning speed. He it was who gave me that little gem of an Annancy story about the rats and their trousers (No. XI.), and this is his:--

LXXIII.

[Music:

Cheer me oh!

Cheer me oh!

Cheer me oh!

My will fight fe you.]

LXXIV.

In imitating animals the negro is clever. He moos like a cow, grunts like a pig, whinnies like a horse, besides the minor accomplishments of miauling and barking. Even trammelled by music this c.o.c.k's crow is good:--

[Music:

Me c.o.c.k a crow coocoorico, before day him a crow coocoorico, him a crow fe me wake coocoorico.]

(Sound the _i_ short as in rich.)

LXXV.

Now we come to a tragedy. Selina is drowned, and they sing smoothly and flowingly:--

[Music:

Oh Selina!

Oh Selina!

John Crow de a river side a call fe Selina!

Oh poor Selina!

Duppy an' all a call fe Selina!

Oh poor Selina.]

Everybody in Jamaica believes in Duppy, and many women and children will not go out at night for fear of meeting one.

A man, they say, has two spirits, one from G.o.d and the other not from G.o.d. The one from G.o.d is good, and the one not from G.o.d may be either good or bad. During sleep, these spirits leave the body and go to other people's houses in search of food. Being shadows themselves, they feed on the shadow of food and on the smell of food. They are seldom far apart, and the heavenly spirit can always prevent the earthly spirit from doing harm. At death the G.o.d-given spirit flies up upon a tree, and goes to heaven the third day. The other spirit remains on earth as Duppy. Its abiding place is the grave of the dead man, but it wanders about at night as it did when he was alive. A good Duppy will watch over and protect the living. A bad Duppy tries to frighten and harm people, which it is able to do now that it has lost the restraining influence of its former companion, the heavenly spirit. It can a.s.sume any sort of shape, appearing sometimes as a man, sometimes as an animal. If it is a very bad Duppy, it makes the place where it is unbearably hot. The Negro believes that he can put a bad Duppy upon another person.[48] He proceeds as follows:--Going to the grave at midnight, he scoops a small hollow in the ground and puts in some rice, sprinkling it with sugar-water, a mixture of water and moist cane-sugar. He then directs Duppy to visit the person whose name he mentions, and goes away without looking behind him. The person on whom Duppy is put becomes "tearing mad," and it requires a ten-pound fee to "take the shadow off." How to do this is the Obeah-man's secret. A Duppy of one's own family is worse than a stranger's, and the "baddest" of all is Coolie Duppy. One of the most dreaded Duppies is "Rolling (_i.e._ roaring) Calf." It goes about making a hideous noise, and clanking a chain. "If Rolling Calf catch you, give you one lick, you dead." Your only chance is to run, and you must keep on "cutting ten" (making the sign of the cross), and the pursuing monster has to go round that place ten times. "Shop-keeper and butcher," so goes local tradition, "tief too much (rob their customers very much) and when they dead they turn Rolling Calf."

[Footnote 48: [Cf. Miss Kingsley, _The Fetish View of the Human Soul_, in _Folk-Lore_, vol. viii., p. 138; also R.E. Dennett, _Bavili Notes_, _ibid._, vol. xvi., p. 371.]]

Those who are born with a caul can see Duppy. So can those who rub their faces with the rheum from the eye of a horse or dog, and those who cut their eyelashes. Every Duppy walks two feet above the ground, floating in the air. If a child is not christened before it is six months old, Duppy will carry it away into the bush. To avoid this, a Bible and pair of scissors are laid on the child's pillow. The scissors are a protection, owing to their cross-like form.

Such are the main beliefs with regard to this remarkable superst.i.tion of Duppy on earth.[49]

[Footnote 49: [See _Folk-Lore of the Negroes of Jamaica_, in _Folk-Lore_, vol. xv., pp. 87, 206, 450, and vol. xvi., p. 68.]]

This, however, is not all. At the day of judgment the two spirits will be reunited to the body, and in many cases the G.o.d-given spirit will go to h.e.l.l after all. I often ask my boys which of these three is themselves? Is it the body? Is it the heavenly spirit? Is it the earthly spirit? But they do not understand the question and have no sort of reply. When I ask if it is not hard that the heavenly spirit after its sojourn in heaven should go to h.e.l.l, they laugh.

LXXVI.

Leaving the religious, we come now to, what Jamaica considers more important, the colour question:--

[Music:

Sambo lady ho! Sambo, Sambo lady ho! Sambo, Sambo no like black man, Sambo, Sambo want white man, Sambo, Sambo no get white man, Sambo, Sambo no want man again, Sambo, Sambo lady oh! Sambo.]

A Sambo is the child of a brown mother and a black father, brown being a cross between black and white. The Sambo lady, very proud of the strain of white in her blood, turns up her nose at the black man. She wants a white man for a husband. Failing to find one, she will not marry at all.

LXXVII.

"Oh John Thomas!" is a favourite digging-sing at Goatridge, twenty-two miles from Kingston:--

[Music:

Oh! John Thomas, Oh! John Thomas, Oh! John Thomas, Oh! John Thomas, We all a combolow, John Thomas, Me go da 'leven mile, John Thomas, Me see one gal me love, John Thomas, Me court her all the way, John Thomas, Me come a Bangheson, John Thomas, Me buy one quattie bread, John Thomas, Me part it right in two, John Thomas, Me give her the biggest piece, John Thomas, and a warra more you want, John Thomas?]

"Combolow" is comrade oh!

"Da 'leven mile," to Eleven-miles, the halfway halting place between Goatridge and Kingston.

When he gets to Bangheson's shop he buys a quattie (p.r.o.nounce quotty, penny halfpenny, quarter of sixpence) loaf, and what more do you want, John Thomas?

The quattie bread weighs eight ounces only. It is therefore a dear and much esteemed luxury.