"The Obeah Woman" by Anastasia Armourer
CHAPTER 1
Trinidad and Tobago lie at the northeastern corner of Venezuela from which it is
separated by the Gulf of Pariah. It is the most southerly link of that beautiful chain of islands,
which form a curved line starting at the top of the Florida Peninsula to the mouth of the
Orinoco River called the West Indies.
The island of Trinidad is rectangular in shape. It is 50 miles long and 37 miles wide, with
a surface area of 1,863 square miles. The highest range of mountains, in the north, crosses the
width of the island from Galena Point to Dragon’s Mouth. The only two clearly marked breaks
in the hills are Tucker Valley and Diego Martin Valley.
It is in Diego Martin Valley that Mother Dora, The Obeah Woman, lives. She is like a
mother to all the people in Simian Village, for she brought 99% of them into this world. She
cares for them with her healing herbs and she is there for them in times of trouble.
No one knows how old Mother Dora is. To look at her, one would say she is in her late
fifties. She stands about five foot six inches and weighs one hundred and sixty pounds. Her
head is tied up in a bright red and white floral head wrap which is the same pattern as her
dress.
She pulls her black shawl about her shoulders, and takes her medicine basket in her
hand. It is the dry season, and the Trade Winds are blowing through the trees as she steps out
of her house. The smell of her garden always brings a smile to her face. She walks around to
the back of her house, quickly picking a few fresh herbs for her basket. Now she is ready and it
is time.
She places her basket on her head and walks briskly along the path that leads to Simian
Village. As she walks, the wind swirls about her kissing her cheeks and tugging at her skirts like
an impatient lover. She smiles and sang a love song to the Great Spirit in the wind. The dirt
road turns sharply to the right. She walked quickly as she approached the house of Shanka, a
Portuguese man whose wife was in her eighth month of pregnancy.
It was after midnight, and all the lights in the house were on. She could hear the cries of
Shanka’s wife, Gloria, in pain. She heard Shanka’s mother-in-law saying,
“Shanka, you’ve got to get Mother Dora! She will know what to do! It’s all too soon!” “You
have four more weeks yet!”
Mother Dora stood outside the door. It swung open and the tall man stared into her
smiling face with deep astonishment. She walked forward and touched his shoulder.
“It will be alright.” She said, as she walked past him into the house.
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“Hot coals!” she commanded to Shanka’s mother-in-law, Edna, who leaped to her feet and ran
outside to the still shouldering fire pit. She put some of the coals into a flat pan and brought
them to Mother Dora.
The house had two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. Mother Dora put incense on
the hot coals. Soon, the whole house was full of smoke. Then she started to sing as she
opened all the windows and doors of the house. She then took a white bottle from her basket
and poured its contents in a wooden bowl. Finally, she sprinkled the house and everyone in it,
with a bundle of fresh herbs.
Shanka sat on his living room sofa, holding his two sons. Jessie the oldest, was six.
Martin was two. Edna sat on the bed, trying to comfort her daughter. “It’s alright girl. Mother
Dora is here.” Somehow, she knew to come just now.” She wet her daughter’s forehead with a
damp cloth.
Dora took a small black bottle from her basket. She held it firmly as she walked over to
the southwest corner of the bedroom. She stood facing the corner as though standing in front
of a person.
“You get out from here right now!” she commanded in a low, hard voice, as cold as
water in a cellar.
“I know Cocoka sent you and I know why, but you ain’t going to succeed here tonight.
So get out! Get out now!! I say GO!!!
She walked around the room sprinkling the content of the bottle on some invisible
person. Then she closed all the windows and doors and started singing again as she put the
contents of the black bottle on the doors and windows. Next, she anointed the foreheads of
every person in the house with blessed oil.
“Now, we must stop these labor pains, “she poured the content of a blue bottle into a
clay mug and handed it to Edna.
“She got to drink all this.”
Edna took the mug and fed the drink to Gloria, who was still crying out from her pains.
Dora placed two lighted white candles on the floor on each side of the bed, and then she placed
one lighted blue candle at the foot of the bed. Then she placed the pan of hot coals next to the
candle, and burned the fresh herbs on them. The smoke perfumed the air as Dora sat up in
front of the candle, singing, with her medicine basket next to her on the floor.
She looked at Gloria on the bed, whose cries became a low moan, showing that the pain
was subsiding. Edna was wiping her daughter’s forehead when a loud bang from someone, or
something, hit the roof of the house.
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Shanka ran into the bedroom, a look of horror on his face. Edna and Gloria clung to
each other in terror. The sounds of scraping and scratching as if something with long claws
was trying to scratch a hole through the galvanized roof.
Gloria screamed again. Dora stood to her feet and intercepted Shanka as he rushed
towards his wife. “You broke your contract with Cocoka, didn’t you? “Now she wants
revenge!”
Shanka looked with astonishment into the gray, piercing eyes of Mother Dora. He
opened his mouth to confirm her statements, but no sound came from his lips. He only nodded
his head as tears fell from his eyes.
Gloria was now howling in pain. Dora rushed to her, took a necklace of multicolored
stones from around her neck and placed them on Gloria. They stopped her screams instantly.
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Panting heavily and placing her hands on her belly, Gloria cried between breaths, “The child….,
the child is coming!”
Dora rushed to her basket and took out a red root. “Eat this!”
Gloria ate the gnarled plant with haste. Dora placed her hands on the woman’s belly
and said, “STOP!” “Stop Now! It is not yet time! Wait a little bit longer.” With these words, the
pains stopped.
Gloria looked at the woman whose hands had brought her and her two children into this
world. “Thank you, Mother,” she whispered. The gentle woman smiled at her and wiped away
her tears.
“This child will not come before her time, nor will she die.” She smiled at Gloria
reassuringly.
Suddenly, screams came from the living room. “Stay here with her.” Dora said to Edna,
as she and Shanka ran to find the two boys doubled in pain. “Go bring my basket.”
Shanka rushed back to the bedroom as Dora Scooped his sons into her arms and held
them to her. Shanka brought the basket and placed it before the woman on the floor.
“You are a damn fool, Shanka!”
He glared at her, not knowing how to respond. Her eyes blazed with anger. “You were
a fool first of all to go to Cocoka, and even a bigger fool to sell her you’re first born, and for
what?”
“I was desperate,” he shouted. “She gave me the money I needed for my shop! I had to
make a life for my family!”
“Money, money! It’s always money!” she howled at him. “Give me that little black
bag,” she pointed with her head and eyes to the basket. Shanka handed her the little black bag.
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She set the boys on the floor in front of her. Then she made a circle around the man and his
sons.
“You stay here in this circle and do not move until I come back inside.” The boys
stopped crying as they held onto their father. The scratching on the roof became louder and
more intensified. Dora reached into her basket and took out three small black stones and
spoke some words to them in pattwa. After this, she left the house, locking the door behind
her.
All around was still and heavy. She could feel the evil presence of Cocoka the Sukkunya,
the witch of black magical arts. She held her body erect and walked a little way from the house.
Standing straight and still, she turned and looked at the rooftop.
In the light of the moon she saw her. It was Lilith! A horrible winged demon with sharp
claws on her feet. She was scratching at the tin plates of the roof, moving in a circle, in a
horrible rage.
Dora opened her hand. One of the stones rose out of her hand and flew towards the
demon. The stone turned into a blaze of fire as it flew through the dark. The horrible form was
struck under her right wing and she let out a great screech. She turned and looked at Dora,
only to see another fireball coming. The ball hit the demon square on the back as it tried to
avoid the attack, it ripped off a piece of roofing, howling in agony.
“You tell Cocoka that I have put my seal on this house and she must deal with me now.”
The Last fireball struck the demon on the butt as it flew into the night, screaming.
Shanka sat on the floor, sobbing over his sons. He looked up with a start as Mother
Dora re-entered the house. “You are right, Mother,” he said, weeping and rocking his sons back
and forth in his arms. “I am a fool I can’t believe I have done this horrible thing. What was I
thinking of?”
“Money!!! Snarled Dora. “You were so blinded by the idea of having your own shop and
all the money it could bring you, that all Cocoka had to do was put the idea of what she wanted
into your head and you were willing to give it. But, the witch didn’t count on me getting
involved in all of this.”
Mother Dora walked past him and went into the bedroom. Gloria just went off to sleep,
just like that, once the screaming stopped outside. “What was that sound?” Edna asked, as she
pulled the cover over her daughter’s still body. Dora did not answer. “I will go and put the
boys to bed, if it is safe now.” Said Edna knowing not to push the issue.
“Send Shanka in here,” Dora said sternly.
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When the man stumbled into the room, Dora was gathering her things. “Look at her,”
Dora said to him, as she pulled him to the bed. “She is a beautiful black woman and she loves
you very much. Now you are basically a good man, Shanka, and you have a beautiful family.
Now, because of your stupidity, you almost lost them all tonight. Just remember this, young
man. If you ever do something his asinine ever again, believe me, you’re going to deal with it
yourself.” Dora then sat with Gloria for a few hours to make sure she was alright. She then left
Shanka’s house.
She took four small stones from her basket, spoke to them and buried them in the
ground at the four corners of the house. Then placing her basket on her head she set out down
the path for home.
The sky was purple in the east, and a few of the stars could still be seen in the west, as
the dawn of a new day greeted the Valley. The air was cold and chill, and she pulled her black
shawl around her as she walked briskly along the dirt road. She knew that her lifelong enemy,
Cocoka, now had one more reason to hate her. Mother Dora would have to battle the evil
Sukkunya again, and soon.
The fragrant smell of her garden greeted her and the dew on the rose bushes lining the
path to her house look like diamonds in the first dawn light. She smiles as she walks by them
into her house. She will turn in now and rest in the beauty of her home, for in her heart, she
knows, that soon she must face Cocoka and pay the reckoning for the broken contract.
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