Rural Folks in Jamaica and their superstitions-Part One

In the 1960s and 70s when I lived in Keswick superstitions abounded. Obeah men and women were all over the place, but there was one man whom we shall call Lucky who was regarded as a man of high science or a Science man. He lived in difficult terrain but dozens of persons negotiated the terrain to find his yard. If you wanted to get rid of someone just find out where Lucky lived, but he was very pricey. The ambulance driver, the lady at the bank, the one at the branch library all owed their jobs to Lucky. No matter how poorly they performed they could never lose those jobs. They were tied to it. The authorities had relocated the ambulance to another community more in need of it. The driver went to Lucky to complain but Lucky asked if he wasn't being paid. My granduncle had rented a part of his house to a family. The head of this family had enemies. One night my granduncle came home, saw a bottle in the yard, picked it up and from that day couldn't use his left hand again. Somebody had left it to hurt Alty, his tennant. Lucky told him who had done it, but said that he couldn't turn back the blow. I remembered one day my friend,  Berby coming to school crying as their neighbor had left for Lucky's house promising to make him wipe out his whole family as they were locked in a land dispute. Fortunately for them she couldn't afford the fee Lucky was charging. Incidentally Lucky charged different fees. His highest fee was for killing a man or woman. I remembered Selly. An old man was mocking Selly in the Keswick village square one afternoon. Apparently the old man had begged Selly for a drink of rum. Selly told him that he was broke. The old man had seen him losing all his money to a three card man and was now mocking him. Selly pushed the old man away from him. The old man fell, hit his head and died a few days later. Selly was arrested and charged with murder. I saw Selly's mother and aunt every Monday morning going in the direction of Lucky's yard. Selly eventually got off the murder charge, thanks to Lucky. Please visit the Austin Mitchell pages at Amazon for a look at my books. My new blog is:glengoffe1.wordpress.com