Rural Folks in Jamaica and their superstitions-Part Two

At school in Keswick I had a very superstitious friend. We used to talk about rolling calf and Spanish jar. I'm trying to remember what was the legend about the Spanish jar all about. If any of my readers know about the legend they can get in touch with me. I think it might be that the Spaniards had hidden some jars full of money in Jamaica. Anybody who found one of these jars would be rotten rich for the rest of their lives. There were so many superstitions flying about the place. By the way science men practice a higher craft than obeah men, many of whom were mere bush doctors. I notice people selling tons of bushes all over the place. Some have even made all sorts of tonics out of it. But back to superstitions, in those days if a person died before a certain age it was assumed that he or she had been obeahed. People warned their enemies not to attend their funeral and what they would do them if they attended. It was customary to hear that a recently deceased person was walking and several persons would attest to having seen the ghost. On the education front it was the same, there were some very bright students who just couldn't get ahead no matter how hard they tried while some ordinary students were forging ahead. This was all put down to obeah and sometimes students had to relocate to another part of the country in order to succeed with their studies.There is the story of Darlene Treasure. Some girls found her with a list of their names in the soles of her shoes, beat her and chased her over Christmas Hill. She never returned to school. A man named Jonathan had contracted Darlene's mother, Miss Judy to look after hid bedridden wife. Jonathan was a prosperous farmer. He had hidden away a substantial amount of money in a drawer in his wife's bedroom. He was now looking for the money and couldn't find and suspected Miss Judy of stealing his money. Jonathan, a science man of sorts, did his own investigations and realized that it was Miss Judy who had taken his money. He warned her to put it back but she denied taking the money. We were all in shock a week later when we heard that Miss Judy was seriously ill and had to be rushed to hospital. Sadly she didn't survive and died a few days later. Rumors soon started to spread that it was Jonathan who had killed her.
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