Obeah is like a scissors, a hammer or a knife. All it is is a tool. It different from the hammer and the knife and the scissors because obeah is not a tangible tool, it is a tool of the mind. If you want to shape wants and desires, to control energy, you use obeah. Just like you wouldn't use a hammer to cut cloth, or a knife to ram a nail into a piece of ply, there are things to not use obeah for. Like with all tools, what obeah do, is somewhat up to the wielder of the tool. It have things obeah good for and things it not good for.
Obeah, as a tool, is really meant to be a bridge. A thing that connects this world of being to other worlds of being and not being. It connects the tangible to the intangible. It could help you to see pathways, the places jumbie go and the people that jumbie like. What obeah not good for, like most tools is self-interest. But then that never stop them from using the hammer or scissors or knife for self gain either. When Papa see the piece of sky, when he see the piece of sky it was almost like he had no choice.
Papa don't deal with the white man religion. His science was a deeper thing, an older thing with more gods, each god with its own secrets and mysteries. Papa know about energy and power. He know about things of the flesh and things of a different nature, things lacking form, supernatural things.
He know that when his people first start crossing the sea, it was on their own. It wasn't plenty of them, no exodus out of Egypt, it was the few. The lonely ones, the driven ones, the banished ones. The restless ones and sometimes even godless ones. Restless or godless and everything in between, they still all crossed with jumbies. Each had their jumbies inside them, some had the jumbies of others but they all crossed with the moko jumbie.
Moko is good jumbie, protectors and guardians. When they paddling across, going further and further into sky, suddenly moko appear in front, his long long legs dropping down through the sea water, finding sea floor. Moko walk them straight into the new lands. Same thing happen when they crossed again, thoussands of years later, as white man 'property'. When they did not leave their homes but were taken. Before their eyes, moko in the water, leading the way, visible only to some of them. Not everybody had the sight, Moko don't show himself each and every where. Papa know these things.
He know, too, that moko stay with the people. After the water cross, there was no crossing back, nowhere else for moko to go. Moko don't have the same power on land like over water. Over water they tall, tall. Touching sky and star, pointing the way, steering ships through storms. On land moko shrink down to the size of man. They sing songs and see the dream world clearer than man. Still, moko now come like man, he feel man things. He still want to guard and protect but not all the time again. Sometimes moko feel lust and love, even rage. All this, Papa know.
Papa was tired. He tired longer than he could remember not being tired. All the pray for this one, help this one get back she man, this next one want to make a woman stay, and a next one want blessing for his crops and another for his hogs. Papa wondered if he this tired as man, what going on in the ears of gods. How the gods does deal with all these needy, ungrateful, black people? How they does find peace? The white man say his god does be everywhere, at all times, hearing and seeing everything, all the time. Yet these people worship once a week then live in shame and beg for forgiveness the rest of the time. What kind of god is that? Better to have gods where you could stand up for yourself and stop take the white man shit. They want saving, they need it, but they don't come to him.
He tired and he feel it in his bones, not just the tiredness, but the feeling, the gnawing of knowing, premonition. Of all his brothers, he had it the most. The gift in him was the strongest. Better to be strongest than weakest. With him he get sight. He know things before they happen, and he understand the science of the ancients too. He know what roots and herbs to mix to get rid of maljo, or to keep a lover, or turn a womb. His brother who get the gift the weakest get it like a curse. With him it was fits. Epilepsy. He seem to always know when it was coming. He would stop whatever he was doing and start to smell the air, like if recognizing something familiar. He never said what it was he smelt, never asked anyone else if they smelt it too. But when he start sticking his nose up in the air like that, you could bet money that he was going to be on the floor convulsing in seconds. So it go with his bloodline. All of them get the mark, but not in the same way. He take his mark and make a living with it. But this too have a curse. As much as he know, he don't know that what he know is a little. So little, it could be a nothing.
Is a very long time now that he doing the science. He know too, just by the smell of them, other people who strong in the science. He never smell anything like Pearl, but even before she come, he feel her in his bones, the gnawing of knowing. Is only when she in front him he realize that is not her but the piece of sky that she had. The thing was wet with magic, pure moko magic. He know, then, what he dealing with. He understand too, that if he help the old man Jack get revenge on a real life jumbie and people hear about it, about his power...
Papa love obeah, he good at it and from all corners of the island, upstairs and downstairs, people come to see Papa. Everybody else don't understand obeah like Papa, they don't see the potential, the power. So with their simple requests they reduce him to nothing more than a herbalist. Nobody came to him for guidance with energy, he gave no divination regarding the universe. He gave away no Shango secrets. All these things he had but no one sought them.
What he found himself doing was mixing the most common of potions. Things to help women keep men, things for other women to attract a man. Things for men to keep themselves excited when they with women, things for men to get more women. Simple potions for aching joints or to soothe the blood after a hard fall or kick from a mule. These people only came to him with vice or pain. Either they hiding themselves in the corner of his shop from Jesus or have no money for pills from the doctor and bush tea stop working. They taking all the big problems to Jesus and leave him here like an errand boy. You feel he can't take care of souls too? Ensure a child get what the mother want it to get? Education? Love? Property? But no! They don't want potions for that. What they want is 'ting fuh de back' and potion to keep man at home. It became what he was known for.
As much as Papa love obeah, he love himself more. He don't want to help people to help people. He want them to know how great he is. He want them to know that he could talk to hurricane and steer it away from the island, that he convince the volcano to throw up only mud but not lava here. He want the leader of the country to come hold his ear in counsel. He want the most beautiful women to beg him to sire their children, just so they could have a piece. All this he want and he never see a way. Energy don't care about wants and desires, neither hopes and dreams. All energy know is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. He want to have a hand in everything and for years he never see a way. So when Pearl and her father come with the piece of sky it was almost like he had no choice.
