Sean Major-Campbell | Healing in the balmyard

MY RECENT obeah piece certainly triggered many comments, questions, and some condemnation both for obeah and for me. I decided to ask AI Overview about obeah!

Here goes: “Obeah is a system of supernatural beliefs, divination, and healing practices with West African origins, brought to the Caribbean by enslaved Africans. It incorporates African spiritual traditions, indigenous beliefs, and sometimes European and South Asian influences, focusing on communicating with the spirit world for healing, protection, or to bring harm to others. Obeah was also a powerful force of cultural resistance and empowerment for enslaved people under colonial rule.” This is a good representation from Artificial Intelligence.

One clergy respondent asked, “Is there space to discuss the dark side of obeah; and practitioners building on fear, ignorance and lack of understanding? The first thing that comes to my mind is the dark side of many Christians who do so much wickedness in the world. It is open and glaring to see and hear many under the banner of Christianity profiting from people’s fears, ignorance, and lack of understanding.

There should always be space to discuss anything that would exploit the vulnerable and bring harm to anyone.

An online article, Obeah Histories, Researching Prosecution for Religious Practice in the Caribbean, gives some history about the balmyard: “Rose Ann Forbes, also known as ‘Mammy Forbes’, ran one of the most important balmyards in Jamaica for at least 30 and probably nearly 60 years, at Blake’s Pen, on the border of Manchester and St Elizabeth. Rose Ann’s husband, George Forbes, was also involved in healing at the balmyard. According to oral tradition, Forbes established the Blake’s Pen balmyard in the 1870s after a vision called her to heal the sick. In 1916 an article in The Gleaner reported that the Forbeses began ‘about 16 years ago this balming business’, suggesting that the balmyard had already become well established by the turn of the century. Balmyards connect healing with revivalist religious worship. In Jean Besson and Barry Chevanne’s words, ‘Healing became a major dimension of Revival with the beginning of the ‘balm-yard’.’”

It is interesting to note the overlapping concerns re obeah and the balmyard. “Neither Beckwith nor Barrett reported on the Forbes’s encounters with Jamaica’s legal system, but newspaper reports reveal that in the 1910s Rose Ann and George were each prosecuted as a result of their healing activity. In 1910 Rose Anne Forbes was convicted of practicing medicine without a license, while in 1916 her husband was charged with obeah, but had the charge reduced to one of practising medicine without a licence. Practising medicine without a licence was a lesser crime than obeah. Whereas obeah was usually punished with a prison sentence and often also with flogging, practising medicine without a licence was only punishable with a fine. George Forbes’s trial also shows that individuals who were not widely understood as obeah practitioners could be vulnerable to prosecution under the obeah law.”

Apparently, both religious folk traditions and legally recognised religious traditions have the potential to do good or evil. We have seen the history of the Church’s role in advancing white supremacy, racism, and the Holocaust of slavery. It is generally assumed that the Church is a force for healing and salvation. However, today there is so much being done in the name of the Christian religion that do not bear witness to the life and teachings of Jesus the Christ.

Faith and religion are clearly not matters for legislation aside from protecting the freedom of religion. Who determines the purview of the balmyard? Is it the court or the particular adherents?

Singing Healing in di balmyard, the Ticklers share,

“Come along and watch the

Healin’ in the balmyard

Hallelujah

Healin’ in the balmyard

If you want to hear something

Come on here with me and sing?

About the healin’ in the balmyard.” (chorus)

Various verses go on to make commentary about activities in the balmyard.

“So he took her into a tent

And him make she feel so content

If she did know how healin’ sweet

Everyday she would a dweet

She love di healin’ in the balmyard.”

Understandably there is fear about things being done to cause harm or exercise control over others. Focus and faith are therefore supported in the balm yard as noted here:

“A woman want to hold down a man

And want to do it as fast as she can

I say you bring a pole and some silver in a bowl

And I will fix you in the balmyard.”

Perhaps the fear that many have heard about is that of swollen feet or supposed sickness attributed to obeah. The singers therefore note that:

“Jackie want to give har swell feet

for she say the gal dress too sweet

Mama say you bring a little cock

an a whiter likkl frock for di healin in di balmyard.”

The well-known sins of envy, jealousy, and bad mind, resonate only too well in the minds of many. Maybe people are people whether they are respected Christians or the marginalised from humble folk religious traditions. Maybe people regardless of religious practices should all be encouraged to build community for the greater good of one and all. The colonial enterprise bequeathed a legacy of division, suspicion, and mistrust. We must now seize the opportunity to advance the human rights and dignity of every Jamaican.

Fr Sean Major-Campbell is an Anglican priest and advocate for human rights and dignity. Please send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and seanmajorcampbell@yahoo.com