Jamaican Folk Religion, 1919-1929

University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/71099 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. Shadow worlds and “superstitions”: an analysis of Martha Warren Beckwith’s writings on Jamaican folk religion, 1919-1929 by Hilary Ruth Sparkes A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in History University of Warwick, Department of History February 2015 Contents Acknowledgements and Declaration and Inclusion of Material from a Prior i Thesis Abstract ii Introduction 1 i.) Martha Warren Beckwith in the academic scholarship 5 ii.) Her methodology 7 iii.) Secondary literature 16 iv.) My methodology 19 v.) My terminology 26 vi.) Chapter plan 28 Chapter 1: Jamaica: folk culture, race and identity 32 i.) Jamaica as it was 33 ii.) Growing radicalisation 39 iii.) Religion and resistance 45 iv.) The black middle classes 47 v.) Evolution of a national identity 49 vi.) Jamaica and the United States 53 vii.) Race and anthropology in the United States 57 viii.) Folk culture and national identity 65 Chapter 2: Obeah: ‘religion of the shadow world’ 73 Obeah and Obeah lore 73 i.) Obeah: questions of etymology and origins 74 ii.) Obeah practice 78 iii.) The practitioners 80 Anthropologists, Folklorists and Obeah 88 i.) Fear and Obeah 88 ii.) Beckwith’s views on Obeah 94 iii.) “Civilising” Jamaicans: the Obeah practitioner versus 99 education, the churches and the law iv.) Obeah and change 107 v.) Beckwith as a forerunner to modern writings on Obeah? 115 vi.) The exoticising of Obeah 119 vii.) Conclusion 123 Chapter 3: “Call Shepherd Taylor to come bear me over Jordan”: Myal, 124 Revival and Pukkumina Myal, Revival and Pukkumina 124 Anthropologists and Folklorists on Myal, Revival and Pukkumina 131 i.) Women as Revival leaders 133 ii.) Revival and mental health 134 iii.) An emphasis on contexts 147 iv.) Multiple voices 151 v.) Christianity in Revival religions 154 vi.) Beckwith and race 159 vii.) Conclusion 165 Chapter 4: ‘A No Every Chain You Hear A Fe Rolling Calf’: The African- 167 Jamaican Spirit World and Duppy Lore Duppies and duppy lore 167 Anthropologists, folklorists and duppies 178 i.) The impact of evolutionary theories of culture on perceptions 184 of African-Jamaican religions ii.) Spirit beliefs and social class 190 iii.) Conclusion 197 Conclusion: Martha Warren Beckwith’s Impact and Legacy: 200 Bibliography 210 Acknowledgements People I would like to thank: My supervisors Gad Heuman and Tim Lockley for their advice and support; Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert for her support and encouragement; Leonard Smith, Mary Legge, Daisy and Millie Noel; Rae Sparkes for inspiring me in things folkloric and Simon Noel for all his help and being prepared to act as a sounding- board for my ideas. Declaration and Inclusion of Material from a Prior Thesis I declare that this thesis is my own work. It has not been submitted for a degree at any other university. Included in this thesis is a citation in chapter 3 from my M.A. dissertation (unpublished), “The Bishop and the “Warrior”: The Relationship Between Protestant Christianity and Perceptions of Africa in Late Post Emancipation Jamaica, 1880-1914”, (MA dissertation, University of Warwick, 2007). The citation is referenced in the relevant footnote. i Abstract My doctoral research is an examination of the pioneering nature of Martha Warren Beckwith’s writings on Jamaican folk religion. Beckwith, an American anthropologist and folklorist, visited Jamaica four times between 1919 and 1924. During her visits she recorded aspects of African-Jamaican folk life ranging from stories, songs and proverbs to rites of passage, children’s games and plant lore, as well as various forms of folk religion. She is regarded as pioneering in choosing Jamaica for her fieldwork at a time when the Caribbean was overlooked by many American and British anthropologists. In this thesis, I argue that in her methodology and treatment of her subject matter she was also ahead of her time. Beckwith is still often cited in modern writings on African-Jamaican religions with little or nothing in the way of background or context. Using close textual analysis, I examine both the nature of Beckwith’s research and exactly how ground-breaking it was when compared to those commenting on African-Jamaican spiritual beliefs in the same era. Although a variety of people wrote about African-Jamaican folk religions, my focus is on the way these faiths were covered by anthropologists and folklore collectors as a distinct group. This was also a period when both anthropology and folklore studies had moved away from being the preserve of amateurs and were developing as academic disciplines. An analysis of the works of late post-emancipation researchers such as Beckwith gives an insight not only into how African-Jamaican folk religions were practised and perceived at that time but also how changes in folklore and anthropology theory and practice impacted on such perceptions. ii Introduction In late December 1920, thousands of people flocked from all over Jamaica to August Town hoping to witness the ascension into heaven of Alexander Bedward, a prominent black Revivalist preacher, scheduled to take place at the end of the month. One of those caught up in the “ascension fever” was Martha Warren Beckwith, an American anthropologist and folklorist, who was on her first round of fieldwork in Jamaica researching the folk life of the African-Jamaican peasantry. On December 26th 1920, she interviewed Bedward who told her that, because his pastors still were being denied licences to perform marriage ceremonies, he had decided to bring this world to an end.1 Bedward insisted that he be addressed as “lord”, referred to himself as “Jesus Christ” and stated that his ascension was to be accompanied by the destruction of whites and the reign of Bedwardism on earth. In this new world, Bedward told Beckwith, his hands would be as white as hers.2 Beckwith’s interview with the preacher is significant.3 Not only does it provide an insight into the mindset and beliefs of Alexander Bedward who is now viewed as a proto-black nationalist and an influence on both Garveyism and the early Rastafari movement but it is also part of what was 1 Martha Warren Beckwith, Black Roadways: A Study of Jamaica Folk Life, (reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969, of orig. edn, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1929), p.169. 2 Ibid., pp. 168-170. 3 It is not just Beckwith’s interview that is noteworthy here. Her photograph of Bedward (Black Roadways, p. 170) is still extensively used in works on Revival religion. Leonard Barrett comments that Beckwith was ‘the only person to leave us a physical description’ of the preacher – Leonard E. Barrett, Soul-Force: African-Heritage in Afro-American Religion (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday & Company Inc., 1974), p. 126. 1 described by Melville Herskovits as ‘a pioneer ethnological account’ of African- Jamaican folk culture in the early twentieth century.4 The account in question is Martha Warren Beckwith’s 1929 book, Black Roadways: A Study of Jamaican Folk Life. The book was the culmination of her Jamaican research which also included a number of articles and monographs: “Some Religious Cults in Jamaica” (1923), “Christmas Mummings in Jamaica” (1923), “The Hussay Festival in Jamaica” (1924), Jamaica Anansi Stories (1924), “The English Ballad in Jamaica: A Note Upon the Origins of Ballad Forms” (1924), Jamaica Proverbs (1925), “Notes on Jamaican Ethnobotany” (1927) and Jamaica Folk-Lore (1928).5 The material was gathered over the course of four trips Beckwith made to Jamaica between 1919 and 1924, accompanied on some occasions by the ethnomusicologist Helen Heffron Roberts. As indicated by the titles, Beckwith’s fieldwork took in wide-ranging aspects of the culture of the African-Jamaican peasantry. However, my doctoral research is focussed specifically on her writings on Jamaican folk religion. In part, this is because I am particularly interested in how African-Jamaican religious beliefs were used to contest and challenge colonialism - the writings by folklorists and anthropologists provide some of the main sources of information about African-Jamaican folk religion in this era. However, my main aim is to examine Beckwith’s research into these religions In light of Herskovits’s view of Beckwith as a pioneer in the field of Caribbean anthropology. Beckwith wrote about African-Caribbean religions and cultures at a time when, with the possible exception of Vodou, they were largely ignored by anthropologists. A prevalent contemporary belief held that the 4 Melville J. Herskovits, review of Black Roadways, The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 43, no. 169 (Jul.-Sept., 1930), p. 338. 5 N.B. “Christmas Mummings in Jamaica”, “Jamaica Proverbs”, and “Notes on Jamaica Ethnobotany” were all compiled in Jamaica Folklore. 2 traumas of the process of enslavement and the Middle Passage meant that enslaved Africans had brought no cultural heritage with them to the New World. Any folk cultures that they did now possess had been created in the Americas and were considered as poor imitations of white practices. Another reason behind the lack of study of African-American and African-Caribbean cultures in the era can be attributed to the influence of a racist strand of evolutionary theory which maintained that African cultures were inferior to western ones. This line of reasoning also held that even if enslaved Africans had been able to maintain their own cultural practices, they would have shunned them in favour of “superior” European ones.6 Beckwith’s Jamaican fieldwork was ground-breaking in another sense.

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