#caribbean folklore

[caribbeangirlfolkloring]

The night-soil men can see a bird walking in trees. It isn’t a bird. It is a woman who has removed her skin and is on her way to drink the blood of her secret enemies. It is a woman who has left her skin in a corner of a house made out of wood. It is a woman who is reasonable and admires honeybees in the hibiscus.

Jamaica Kincaid, from At the Bottom of the River

[sharlbranch]

A lil (late) Good Friday horror comic.

There's a well known superstition that one must never go swimming, or even to the beach on Good Friday because without fail someone has drowned.

there was a discussion on caribbean Twitter talking about making a horror short story/film about this superstition and I couldn't get it out of my head, so this was my take on it!

experimenting with black and white and watercolour brushes in fresco!

[seasonofthewitch06]

I want to learn more about African-American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino, and continental African folklore!!!

Especially the horror stories!!! I already know some but there’s so much I don’t know!

Can anybody please suggest any books or resources that talk extensively about folklore from these communities 🙏🏾?

[forgedfromlove]

The Legend of Gang Gang Sarah

From Folklore and Legends of Trinidad and Tobago, by Gérard A. Besson:

“The legend of Gang Gang Sarah, the African Witch of Golden Lane, has its origins in the latter half of the 18th-century.

On a stormy night she was blown from her home in Africa across the sea to Tobago and landed quite safely at the village of Les Coteaux. From there, she journeyed to Golden Lane in search of her family, who had long ago been transported there. She lived to a great age and is remembered for her wisdom and kindness.

She became the loving wife of Tom, whom legend says she had known as a child in her native Africa.

After her Tom died, wishing to return to her native land, she climbed a great silk cotton tree and tried to fly, not knowing that she had lost the art of flight as a result of having eaten salt.

To this day the names of Tom and Sara can be seen inscribed upon the headstones of their graves. where they have lain side by side for close upon two hundred years.”

Photo by Lisa Levi.

[schweizercomics]

Companions of Christmas 13: Pitchy Patchy

Once a highly decorated Akan military commander, the man who would become known as Pitchy Patchy was stolen from his home and enslaved in Jamaica, but he was able to escape to freedom and, operating from the Maroon towns that he helped to defend, would regularly lead raids against the plantations to free others.

Since the folks that he rescued didn’t have access to the kinds of ornate trophies and medals that he’d worn in the past, they would honor him with a simple strip of colored cloth as a sign of their gratitude for his valor. He saved so many people that he was eventually festooned with these cloth strips, to the point that they covered his entire body.

At Christmastime, he would parade boldly through the streets during the festival of Jonkonnu (or Jankunu, or Junkanoo, etc), and he continues to be a part of Jonkonnu parades to this very day.

[briefbestiary]

Disturb not the one who stares up at the luminous moon.

Some say that if one manages to distract him from his focused attention to the Moon, he will begin to chase them in order to suck out their brain using the palm of his hand.

[3rdeyeblaque]

On March 24th we venerate Brother John Mason Brewer on his birthday🎉

An iconic folklorist, historian, scholar, educator, storyteller, poet, & quadlingial speaker, John Mason Brewer dedicated his 50-year long career, between the early 1900s to the 60s, to the documentation & preservation of Afrikan & Afrikan descendant narratives across the South, particularly his home state of Texas.

It was from the love & education instilled within him by his father & grandfather before him that spurred his barrier-shattering academic career, pursuing his B.A. in English & M.A. in Folklore, & professional career as a lifelong educator/professor and lecturer; in an era that many deemed nearly impossible to fathom. Though long before he was awarded prestigious grants for his outstanding contributions in research and the education of folk traditions among our people in the U.S. & the Caribbean & befriending the likes of U.S. presidents & other notable figures, Brother Mason spent his life fascinated by the tales & belief systems of our people that, over the years since the Great Migration & WWII, became best preserved in the South. He wrote and published a plethora of poems, books, and articles on Afrikan-American & Afrikan-Carribean history & folklore. If not for his unyielding presence in higher academia & public research institutions, and relentless pursuit of the preservation of Afrikan Ancestral voices in oral tradition & literature, centuries of wealth in knowledge and history of our people would be lost.

We give libations & well deserved 💐 today for his ancestral teachings & wisedom, delivered to us via the masterful art of storytelling and poetry & for lifelong work in unearthing & preserving a legacy ancestral voices never to be forgotten.

Offering suggestions: share/read his literary and academic work, a Methodist Bible/verse, & libations of water.

[mangoscriber]

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Expression sheet for El Sombrereo or Tye Mad Hatter for my LatAm AiW AU. Trying to show expression through one eye is already hard enough, but doing it one eye that is just an infinite void into space is another task. Also...HATS ARE HARD!! Overall, I am really happy with the number of ways I was able to contort his the one thing that gives him expression. Which is your favorite?

[havatabanca]

[fyeahgothicromance]

I'm reading about Caribbean and Latin American folklore creatures/cryptids and a lot of them have janky feet?? Jumbies and other spirits with backwards feet or one hoof and one human foot, or just one foot (La Patasola), or no feet (trauco).

And sure shape-shifting and spells and murder are recurring themes, but the feet... Why?

[pensivegladiola]

Folklore: La Diablesse

In Caribbean folklore, La Diablesse is a devil haunts the edges of the woods luring men to their untimely deaths with her beauty.

It is said she traded her soul to the devil in pursuit of vanity. The existence of this deal is evidenced by one of her feet having turned into a cloven hoof.

[caribbeangirlfolkloring]

Illustration of a Caribbean mermaid from Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World.

In Jamaican folklore, the River Mumma is a Water spirit who protects the rivers. The fish are her children. It’s said that if you find her belongings—such as a gold comb or jewellery—on the river bank, you should leave them where they are, or else!

[lilibetbombshell]

[gaulinwife]

[forgedfromlove]

The Haunting of the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway

In (belated) honour of Halloween, here’s a spooky urban myth from Claxton Bay. Photo by Hayden Roach.

From Life in Trinidad and Tobago:

”This story dates back to the 1900s, where a young woman becomes the victim of circumstance in this tragic romance.

The lore says, in 1909 the daughter of a Spanish overseer on the Forres Park Sugar Estate, named Maria, fell in love with an Indian labourer who worked there. Maria’s parents, especially her father, did little to hide their disdain toward her relationship. One night, the overseer saw his daughter and her lover in what is described as a “compromising affair”, and became furious. So he waited, and when the young man left his daughter’s company, he made it clear to her that she wasn’t to see him again. But, Maria was in love, and had no intention of ending her relationship with the young man, and retorted that she’d rather die.

When his daughter refused to comply, he took an alternative approach calling upon his most loyal workers to execute the labourer. As the overseer of the estate, it was not difficult for him to persuade them to get the job done. However, word got back to Maria of her father’s plan, and was advised to warn her lover of his inevitable fate if he didn’t leave. Angry and terrified she left her home on a mission, determined to save her love. Unfortunately, Maria never makes it, on her way to him she is bitten by a snake but still she continued on, weakened by the venom, she falls to her death from the hill. Whether, the labourer is murdered by her father’s men, or they find Maria’s body before they could, is not known.

Grief stricken by the loss of his daughter, her father constructs a statue of the Virgin Mary in her memory, on the estate’s tallest hill where he pleaded for her forgiveness. Over the last century, since her death, people claimed to have seen Maria’s ghost trying to cross the Solomon Hochoy highway, where the statue still stands today, although decapitated.”

From Angelo Bissessarsingh’s Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago:

“Many motorists travelling this stretch of roadway in the dead of night have been brought to a screeching halt or worse by swerving to avoid the apparition of a young girl seen darting across the double carriageway. Some have actually stopped to explore the nearby bushes on the verge of the roadway for evidence of her flight but to no avail.

This manifestation is said to be the phantom of the dead child of Forres Park who is searching through time and space for her head, for long ago, the statue atop the hill was decapitated and the head was lost along with much of the torso.”

[briefbestiary]

A burning being with some vampiric traits. As an additional note, if one manages to find her skin and rub it with salt or hot peppers, she can be killed as this will prevent her from reentering her skin.