[Bones Of Damballa Sub Download
Everardo Laboy
When popular obeahman Ruben Williams invited THE WEEKEND STAR to visit his workplace in Oracabessa, St Mary, I hesitated for months because I am no ghostbuster. Despite being curious, the very thought of entering a spirit-filled domain had me nervous.
Last week, though, with photographer Kenyon Hemans as my sidekick, I braved up and made the trip to see this obeahman. On the way from Kingston, a million images of Williams, who I have never met, came to mind. Kenyon imagined aloud that his eyes would be blood red, while I, on the other hand, pictured him as a wrinkled old man with pencils behind his ears and other tools of his craft, such as bones and candles, affixed to his waist by a belt.
As soon as we got to his office, which comprised a table with a variety of candles, oils and odd paraphernalia, Williams darted to a private quarter in order to change into his work attire. The work table also had what he said was grave dirt and a bottle of reddish liquid, which he said is pig and goat blood mixed with seawater.
Feeling uneasy, I removed myself from the doorway and moved to another section of the 'obeah office'. This time, I stood near a window. My curiousity led me to take a peek through the window, and, to my absolute shock, mine and the cat's eyes made four.
Williams appeared to have read my mind. Or perhaps it was mere coincidence and common sense. The obeahman, who is in his 40s, said he has been practising obeah for more than two decades. He said he has had the ability to 'read' since he was a small child. His father, David Williams, was also an obeahman.
With a wry smile, Williams indicated that he had a job to complete. He took up a cup containing liquid, which he drank before sitting around his table. The job, he said, involved removing a curse from a client who he said was being tormented by a 'damballa spirit'. This spirit is rooted in Haitian voodoo mythology.
"The customer weh mi a deal wid a go through a lot of things. A man set the damballa and him legion dem on him and a bare pain him in. Worms and rat bat full up him house, and him a hear bare talking in the house and is him alone live," Williams said.
"Things a lick up on his window and, when him wake, a bird dead outside. Like how mi call damballa name, mi have to put things in place suh him nuh create no stir. Him have some little legions behind him, but mi have four puss outside suh him can go in them," the obeahman said.
He then lit some candles and began to burn incense, all of which he said had their individual purpose. The obeahman also 'commanded some spirits' to stay outdoors. He also claimed to have summoned spirits to his work table to assist in freeing his client from the damballa's clutches.
Williams' workshop also contained a voodoo doll that contains several pins. He said the doll was instrumental in the ritual he was performing. At one point, he removed one of the pins from the doll, dipped it in a container and muttered some words. Believe it or not, the pin disappeared. Williams said that it was "gone to the person who a terrorise mi client".
Although he spent a portion of the afternoon working for the client, Williams said he still had a lot of work to do, which included visiting a graveyard between the hours of 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. to ensure the damballa curse is defeated.
In 1935, she returned to Columbia to complete a doctorate in anthropology, with voodoo as her major area of interest. A year later, the Guggenheim Foundation awarded Hurston her first grant to conduct research in the Caribbean. She traveled to Jamaica for a year, and then spent six months in Haiti until she ran out of funding. Later in 1937, the Foundation renewed her grant, lending her the opportunity to spend an additional three months in Haiti. This study period ended due to a serious, yet mysterious illness, which she believed was related to her voodoo studies and ultimately she left the island. She returned to the United States in September of 1937, and by the following October, her part-anthropological, part-biographical work on Jamaica, Haiti, and voodoo, Tell My Horse, was published.
Imagine what Zora could capture if she had been able to record the actual sounds, chants, songs, and drums as she was able to do with federal funding in Florida. It is interesting to consider the aspects of reality that are lost when a three-dimensional, multi-sensory experience is portrayed through text alone .
Some songs were preserved and presented in the form of musical notation at the end of Tell My Horse, in a section titled Songs of Worship to Voodoo Gods. The sheet music for two songs are included below, as well as recordings of the songs played on the piano. It is unlikely that the piano would have been an instrument present during a Haitian voodoo ceremony. However, these piano recordings allow listeners hear to a bare-bones version of the aural experience Hurston attempted to visually represent. In this way, listeners listeners can begin to comprehend what is lost when the sonic can only be dictated over text.
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