Of dead birds and coffins

“To be unaffected by this, one should simply drink tea made with the raw juice of a large soursop and cover one’s throat with a clean flannel. Just like those who left this scare package – I also just made up the antidote!” Social media commentator

DEAD birds and coffins are humorous to some, and entirely no laughing matter to others. For those in the know, such flamboyant displays of pseudo-witchcraft or black magic are amusing and an excellent strategy to confuse. But for many others, such acts are viewed with a level of suspicion and nervousness, probably due to the fact that they are not really sure what is happening.

It was instructive to me that the discussion about the bird and coffin immediately went to a debate about obeah, a word that is associated with traditional African belief systems and which over the centuries developed negative connotations. But this article is not about obeah or about the demonisation of African culture and traditional beliefs.

I have written about these matters in the past and shared the research of respected scholars such as Professor Maureen Warner Lewis. Professor Lewis has identified the linguistic roots of obeah as originating from the Igbo peoples of Nigeria, where it is spelled obia or abia, and means “knowledge of manipulating supernatural forces, divination and herbal medication.”

Like many other peoples, Africans conceive the world to be inhabited by spiritual presences. Spirits inhabit both animate and inanimate matter ... The world is perceived as an interlocking network of spiritual presences and forces. So, the people we call witches, obeah men or shamans as with indigenous peoples, are in essence the ones who have a deep, instinctive understanding of these forces and yes, they may choose to use their knowledge for good or to inflict harm.

But this article is really about why it is so easy to worry and confuse us when it comes to this subject matter. It is about the fact that we have been so removed from ourselves by western thought rooted in slavery, indentureship and colonialism, that we have actually ingested such views about who we are and now repeat them as ‘gospel’.

For instance, history has shown that although European travellers and tradesmen discovered organised cities, structures and established religions in Africa from as far back as the 15th century, their writings trivialised indigenous African religions as savage and inferior, and projected instead the validity of Christianity.

Similarly, it should now be common knowledge that Columbus called indigenous peoples from this region ‘Indios’ because he thought he had arrived in Asia. However, history recalls the presence of ancient cultures, from the Cherokee and Inuit on the North American continent to the Incas, Aztecs and Maya in Central and South America.

In the Caribbean region, there would have been peoples such as Taino, Nepuyo or Karina (not Caribs and Arawaks). Europeans decimated indigenous peoples through pillaging their natural wealth, spreading disease and sundry abuses. Their beliefs were also dismissed as primitive, because they venerated ancestral spirits, and believed in the concept of a sacred presence in all nature, including plants and animals.

European colonisation and expansion into India for business and trade also had a consequence for indigenous religions. William Wilberforce, often painted as a champion of African emancipation, is quoted by one author as saying that after slavery, “the foulest blot on the moral character of Britain was that it allowed its Indian (by which he meant Hindu) subjects to remain under the grossest, the darkest and most degrading system of idolatrous superstition that almost ever existed upon earth.”

Christian missionaries were thus part of the colonial fabric and their work to convert peoples became linked with notions of racial superiority and rejection of indigenous beliefs. Fortunately, conversion did not completely eliminate indigenous practices as many peoples pretended and yes, confused their oppressors as they found ways to stay true to their ancestral traditions.

The irony of all of this is that although staunchly Catholic, my grandmother had her obeah too. The lighted candle, prayer beads, novenas, bush baths, eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood – all of these were viewed as completely normal and right, and were certainly integral to her sense of self.

The point is, others can only scare or confuse us if we do not seek out a deeper understanding of the world around us. The point is, at one level, coffins and birds may be funny, but at another, they are very serious indeed.

Dara E. Healy is a performance artist, communications specialist and founder of the NGO, the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN.