< Far-Off Realities: Myth and Folklore in Oonya Kempadoo’s Buxton Spice and All Decent Animals >

Folklore and myths are to literature what drops of water are to the ocean. Deciphering this sentence leaves us with a twofold interpretation. First, the folklore and myths of any culture make up an essential part of the common consciousness of the respective population, which becomes amalgamated so wonderfully with facts and fiction, like a work of alchemy, that the literature thus produced is rendered inseparable from constituting elements. Second, from the times of oral circulation of myths and folklores, certain elements crystallised over time, so to say, and took the shape of written forms.

What cannot be forgotten is how the traditional literature of a particular culture tends to bear some hints of those myths and folklores that once rolled off the tongues of old maids and men, thus weaving contemporary literature with the yarns of far-off realities. In calling the myths and folklore “realities”, it becomes important to hearken to the adage “perception becomes reality”. To think of the word “myth” as both vague and vast at the same time, it seems more apt to forgo labelling it in strict terms and accept it as a genre of “traditional oral tale” (Kirk 57), which is “passed down from generation to generation to be eventually recorded when literacy becomes established” (Kirk 56).

In contemporary folk literature, the specks of similarity or even derivation from classical folklore show the mutual inextricability of these two domains. More often than not, folk tales were shaped by the imaginative faculty and circulated as cautionary tales to warn people against undesirable situations and the repercussions of ill practices. Like the age-old stories about the bogeyman, which finds a version in almost every culture, certain myths are prevalent across geographical and metaphorical borders that aim to direct people towards social and personal betterment. Ultimately, like the metamorphosing nature of water, folklore and myths, too, often put on the cloak of new words and newer interpretations.

Forces such as colonisation, the slave trade, and indentured labour brought in an influx of populations from a wide variety of socio-cultural backgrounds at different times in the history of the Caribbean Islands. This introduced myths from African, French, German, and other cultures into the Caribbean oeuvre. On the whole, the Caribbean myth and folklore, alongside other cultural markers, such as food, clothing, and language, became an indivisible part of the cultural fabric of the place.

Novels prove to be one of the best genres to harness the effects of myth and folklore, owing to the curiosity and facet of other-worldly charm that they add to the work. The wider scope of poetic license allows the artful incorporation of myths into the literature, and their believability is established, as seen in the novels under consideration, by the ready dependence of the characters on these myths to derive meanings in commonplace situations. Additionally, myths also help to build the crisis in the characters’ lives, thus furthering the action in the narrative.

Oonya Kempadoo is a Caribbean novelist who has captured the essence of Caribbean life in her novels Buxton Spice (1998) and All Decent Animals (2013). Having spent a part of her impressionable years in various Caribbean countries, Kempadoo absorbed the knowledge of Caribbean myths, which resulted in the outpour of this knowledge in her novels in a way that mirrors the consciousness of the local people through her characters.

The first novel under discussion is Buxton Spice, which looks into the life and everyday activities of Lula and a number of other characters in the fictional town Tamarind Grove. What is interesting to note is that Buxton Spice has a child protagonist, Lula, and the references to myths show how they become an inseparable part of the vocabulary, even among young characters. The common consciousness of people of all ages bears these myths at the back of their minds, making recollections effortless and almost instinctive.

The myth of Obeah recurs in the novel quite a few times. Mrs Emelda DeAbro is a Portuguese lady who is a close friend of Lula’s mother, Rose. Having spent all her life in Tamarind Grove, Guyana, Mrs DeAbro seems to be well versed in the culture and beliefs of the place, including its myths. Lula’s parents, on the other hand, have spent a great part of their lives abroad. Mrs DeAbro attributes this reason to a number of practices at Rose’s household that she finds odd. The first instance is of the differently or rather oddly shaped “calabashes, strange carvings and paintings, [all of which] made it more obeah-like to superstitious Emelda” (Kempadoo, Buxton Spice 69).

The word Obeah originates from the West African word “obayi”, which means a “priest or sorcerer” who can invoke spirits (Luntta 31). Practitioners of Obeah are called Obeah men or Obeah women, who supposedly perform humanly impossible tasks through the power of magic spells and sorcery. American anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston writes of “rum and threepence [money] and a calabash stick” (Hurston 45) being associated with the invocation of duppies, which too are mythical creatures. This explains why Emelda despises the calabash as a portent of bad luck.

Lula, the young and precocious protagonist of the novel, seems to be terrified of the sequestered lady, Aunt Ruth, whom Lula believes to be an Obeah woman. While the neighbours express no suspicion towards Ruth, Lula says, “Everything bout her had a dangerous ring to it” (Kempadoo, Buxton Spice 84), and she feels particularly terrified of her scathing red eyes and trembling lips. Lula recollects how she had once seized Miss Nora’s son under the “layers and layers of [her] old skirts” (Kempadoo, Buxton Spice 84) as a penalising act for stealing genip fruits from her trees. As a way of warning other kids against the repetition of such obnoxious behaviour, Aunt Ruth glimmers her red eyes at them.

Lula’s wariness of the Obeah woman makes her take particular note of the time when Mrs DeAbro’s granddaughter, Baby Isabel, dies and Mrs DeAbro gets Aunt Ruth to supervise the funeral rituals. “Mrs DeAbro being a Catholic” (Kempadoo, Buxton Spice 84), it becomes all the more perplexing for Lula to wrap her head around the fact that Aunt Ruth would even be allowed to be involved in this, much less let her hold the baby’s body in privacy. Lula sees Ruth’s strange actions as preparatory steps towards her witchcraft, which she believes the latter would perform once she would be alone in the room with the baby.

Lula also associates the myth of Old Higue with Auth Ruth. Emerging from Guyanese folklore, this myth refers to an elderly woman who is believed to suck the blood of humans, especially babies. The Old Higue casts her skin off at night and stores it in a calabash before metamorphosing into a blazing ball of fire. Stealthily, the inferno enters the house through the keyhole and sucks the baby’s blood after which the limp body of the infant turns blue. Aunt Ruth’s blazing red eyes seem to be a reference to the fiery apparition of the Old Higue. When she takes Baby Isabel into a room, Lula suspects that the woman is drooling, possibly after sucking the blood from the corpse, leaving it blue and pallid.

References to mythical elements are also abundantly seen in All Decent Animals. Set in the Port of Spain, Trinidad, this novel revolves around the life of the returnee, Atalanta, and other people connected to her by way of professional or personal ties. Characters such as Atalanta and Sammy are shown to be rooted in Caribbean culture, which explains why even the most commonplace experiences or incidents remind them of the prevalent myths. The first such reference is made in the initial pages of the novel.

One night, right before falling asleep, Atalanta takes note of the gleaming light coming from the Silk cotton trees outside her lodging and calls them “shining eyes”, possibly alluding to the common Caribbean myth that spirits and gremlins lived on those trees. She even recalls how “Soucouyant and Lagahoo. Old spirits and superstitions lived in them” (Kempadoo, All Decent Animals 13). This explains why the silk cotton trees were typically planted far from the housing areas to prevent the evil spirits from causing trouble to the inhabiting humans (Hurston 25).

A Soucouyant is the Trinidadian equivalent of the Guyanese Old Higue. Both are shapeshifting creatures that appear as hermetic old women by the day and cast off their skin at night to turn into a ball of fire. Following their transformation, they enter the abodes of people and victimise them. Interestingly, both of them seem to be informed by the vampire myth, wherein a heliophobic creature transforms into a blood-sucking predator at night.

The vampire myth was originally associated with Europe. The early works featuring the blood-sucking creature were authored by European writers, whose works paved the way for the incorporation of the vampire myth into literature. In a section titled “Every Culture Embraces the Vampire It Needs”, Timothy H. Robinson thus notes, “In yet another region of the world influenced by the transatlantic slave trade, the soucouyant emerges as a haunting vampire figure among those of African descent in the commonwealth of Dominica, Trinidad, and Guadeloupe” (Robinson 65–66).

Next, the myth of Lagahoo seems to be shaped by the werewolf myth of French and German folklore. Lagahoo appears as a normal human during the day. Come night, this therianthropic beast, which also goes by the name “Loup Garou”, shapeshifts and victimises other creatures, including animals (Shearer 112–117). While Lagahoos are lycanthropic creatures, they can take the form of various animals, such as a pig, goat, and cat, among others.

Yet another mythical figure that finds a place in the novel is Mama D’leau, who is believed to be a revered “protector and healer of river animals” (Shearer 61). The term Mama D’leau is derived from the French “maman de l’eau”, which translates into English as “mother of the water” (Da Costa). She is believed to be a custodian of the waterbodies and the forests, and anybody who harms nature or misuses natural resources would invite her wrath.

Drawing from the description popularised in Caribbean myth, Mama D’leau closely resembles the mermaid myth of European origin. Waist up, this creature has the body of an alluring woman, but her lower torso is variably described as either fishtail-like or coiled tail-like (similar to a snake). She also has a flickering forked tongue and is believed to be sighted beside waterbodies, combing her voluminous serpentine hair with a golden comb. These creatures are variously also called “Water Mama” and “Mama D’Low” (Shearer 61).

Atalanta refers to Mama D’leau at a time when her architect friend Fraser Goodman is undergoing venipuncture to get his bloodwork done, following the discovery of his illness. Atalanta likens the tormenting phlebotomy process of piercing the skin with the needle to the perfidious movements of Mama D’leau’s “mermaid tail and serpent hair” (Kempadoo, All Decent Animals 57).

The next reference in the novel is made to the creature called Jumbie, also called “Duppie” (Luntta 32), which is believed to be a malevolent spirit “that directly affects the events of the living in either a benign or injurious manner” (Luntta 371). These mythical creatures, believed to be the spirits of the deceased people, roam the earth for “nine days after death”, during which they engage in malicious activities and “take with him what he wants” (Hurston 47) to the netherworld.

In the novel, Jumbie is referred to when Atalanta tells the driver, Sammy, about her dalliance with another person when she was all by herself in the cottage house at Blanchisseuse. Sammy asks if she has seen this person before or if she was scared upon seeing him, and Atalanta replies negatively to both his questions. This other person establishes a beguiling familiarity just by his touch, and Atalanta later confesses to Sammy that “he may not even be real” (Kempadoo, All Decent Animals 238). She further adds that “it’s almost as if he’s in me”, which makes Sammy wonder if Atalanta had been plagued by “a combination of madness and jumbie-business” (Kempadoo, All Decent Animals 241).

It may be deduced that this other person is an alter ego of Atalanta. However, her revelation vexes Sammy. Being a true-blue Trinidadian with his consciousness doused in Caribbean myths, Sammy’s mind hearkens to the myth of evil spirits, and he fears that the “other person” that Atalanta keeps referring to is a “jumbie” that must have attacked her when she was alone. Sammy suspects that some “obeah kind’a business” (Kempadoo, All Decent Animals 239) is involved in this entire incident.

Sammy’s preoccupation with Atalanta’s secret prods him to think of the mythical creature “Lagahoo” (Kempadoo, All Decent Animals 240). Most likely, Sammy jumbles up different folk narratives and recalls the Lagahoo as a disrobed creature that enters the house of humans at night and then either rapes the women or bites their legs to suck blood. This description is partly reminiscent of the European vampire and partly of the Mesopotamian mythical creature, Incubus, which victimises sleeping women by “[lying] on the chest of the sleeper” (Hoppál 57) and immobilising them during the torment. Later, Sammy even asks Atalanta if she has any bite marks or bruises on her legs, suspecting an attack by a blood-sucking creature.

All of these examples from the two novels show how myths govern the thoughts and beliefs of the characters. The fact that a range of characters, starting from the young Lula to the middle-aged Mrs Emelda, instinctively refer to the myths shows how ingrained these myths are into the common consciousness of people of all age groups. Additionally, from finding meanings in commonplace things, such as decorative pieces and paintings, to decoding strange encounters with unidentified people, Kempadoo shows how myths tend to find a route into the explanations that the characters employ in trying to understand life from the lens of folk beliefs.

While the novels are written and set in relatively modern times, the incorporation of myths shows the timelessness of the traditional folk elements. In continuing to engage with the myths, the characters become mouthpieces of the contemporary population by reflecting their common consciousness. The discussion shows how Caribbean myths are mottled with the myths of other cultural and geographical backgrounds. This hints at the possible exchange of thoughts between the different socio-cultural groups, which fruitions into the creation of newer myths or adds a new facet of understanding to the already existing ones.

The examples discussed in this paper also necessitate emphasis on the fact that as cultural and social impetus, myths also help reinforce values and appropriate behaviours among the population. In a world that valorises empirical experiences and concepts, the existence of myths shows that, ever so often, the mind walks beyond the realm of veracity and is more effectively tended to by the intangible emotive and emphatic domain than by the logical one, thus repositioning myths as an important part of life’s proceedings.

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