I wrote about this experience a long time ago but it was lost in some technical difficulties I had on the blog last year. But I just thought of it and really wanted to rewrite and share it again. There are no photos of the actual medicine man and surrounding area, it just didn’t feel appropriate to whip out a camera.
A couple years ago we were driving around in some back country in Westmoreland, on our way to Darliston. Our driver lived in the area and was familiar with it and asked if we’d like to see a Jamaican medicine man…of course the answer was YES! So he detoured off the main road and up a narrow road to the top of a hill where we saw a house and probably 40 people just sitting around in the yard. It was kind of eerie when we got out the car because it was dead silent.
Our driver told us that the way it works is that you sit in the yard with all the other people and the medicine man comes out on his stoop and just hand picks each person. There is no line-up because he picks who ever he wants. We were also told that many people here would wait all day and never get chosen, which means you had to go home and come back another day to try again.
My friend and I sat there for about two hours enduring stares and whispers going on around us. I can imagine they were wondering why on earth two white girls were here and how we even found the place. It was a hot day and thankfully a random guy showed up selling ice cream out of a cooler on the back of his bike so we indulged.
The silence up here was deafening, I guess it was proper to wait in silence. We saw several people be chosen for their turn so I decided to ask our driver what exactly happens when you are chosen? He said that you go up to the porch of the house where the medicine man is and you just sit down next to him. You don’t ask questions, he just proceeds to talk to you and tell you what’s on his mind about you. There is “no charge” for the session however it’s customary to leave a donation or whatever you can pay.
We never did get chosen as the sun started to set and I was definitely disappointed because I would have loved to experience this, even though I am Christian and this definitely doesn’t fall under that category. People started leaving the yard as dusk fell so we assumed the selection process was over for the day.
It was a once in a lifetime experience just being in that yard, it’s hard to describe the overall mood and feeling up there. Kind of creepy but sort of sacred at the same time.
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Comments
12 responses to “Jamaican Medicine Man”
thats kinda cool.. my friend says that she had a tea leaf reading during her trip to Jamaica and the things that she said was all accurate.
Some people have an EXTRA gift… not everybody.. but some people were destined for this.
I agree. I think it’s kinda eerie because it makes me think of Obeah and ting….but still intriguing!
This reminds me, i really have to go to Maroon Town at some stage.
The whole Maroon culture fascinates me. I’ts so brilliant the way they managed to escape the early oppressors and begin their own way of life away from the colonials and hang onto the african roots. I hear its like a complete other world there, herbal healers , drum makers etc..
I was recently learning about Granny Nanny.
Yea I love Jamaican history for real! I find I’m more interested in it than the history of my own country!
omg medice man wow nice name jamacia history is so awsome i’m proud to be a black jamaican!!!!
Have you read “The True History of Paradise” by Margaret Cezair-Thompson ? She is a JA born Prof. at Wellesley college. This was her first novel and while the characters are fictional the history is not. A really great read for JA fans. I am currently reading her second novel “The Pirate’s Daughter” which takes place in Port Antonio and is based around Errol Flynn. Equally riveting!!!
Hey thanks for the info, I love reading books like that. Have you by any chance read any Andrea Levy books?? Same thing, the history is correct but the stories fictional. Small Island was the first of her books I read and I was riveted. Great writer.
Rignt on the money JC…..with the obeah thing…..dwl
Here’s my story….we were living in the hills in Cambridge, St James next door to a Mother (obeah woman) who had sons and a daughter. This daughter did not like me and one day she said to her mother that she was in Montego Bay and a man approached her and said she had a vagina discharge to which she said she was surprised and said yes. At the same time she said the man saw my husband and myself drive past in our car and pointed us out to her and said that’s them its the white woman who went to foreign and planted the blue drawers (panties) that belong to the girl (which I had supposedly stolen from her washing line) and buried them in grave dirt in England and this put a curse on the girl which made a duppy have sex with her in her sleep and give her the discharge….
Are you still with me???
Anyway the daughter came back and reiterated this her mother who promptly started her obeah work on me…
Every morning at 5am she would come into the yard and beat her drum changing “Kill her kill her”…”
The first time I heard it it was scarey but as I don’t believe in obeah I wasn’t too worried but I told someone I knew about this and he said turn it around on her….
He said every time she chants with her drum shout out loudly three psalms from the bible.
I chose Psalms 61, 11 and 1 and every time she chanted so did I….
Nothing ever happened to me but her grandson is now in jail for attempted murder and another one has just been released for manslaughter…
And the girl??
It turned out she was lying about the man in the street and was in fact having sex with three men at once without protection and the worse thing was she was a nurse and could have treated this herself!!!! She aso became pregnant and had to give up work…
I can laugh at it all now but at the time it was stressful for me plus I had the most awful sore throat from chanting my psalms five times a day!!
As jewellers we make many many “guard” rings which the obeah man fill with a potion to keep away bad people/spirits….and trust me…they are not cheap and the obeah man puts more dollars on what we charge!!!
WOW Janet! That’s insane! And I also find it interesting that you do good business making those kind of rings. Thanks for sharing that.
Kristi, I too had the same experience as you. I know we were in Westmoreland too. I also remember the guy coming on his motor bike to sell ice cream. I remember the women were required to wear a dress or a skirt before entering the room with the medicine man. When we got there you would go inside and wash your hands with holy water first and then just wait. The Jamaicans i went with were Christians but were desperate to get answers to their situations and would do whatever it took to find a solution. It was an experience. I remember seeing a huge cage with doves in the back yard. The ride there was crazy too, those back roads in the hills. You gotta have a lot of trust in your driver.
Have a great day girl!
Becky that’s really cool you got to experience a similar thing. You can really “feel” something in the air at those places huh?