Obeah

The magical systems evoked in much of this folklore, like obeah, have their roots in African religious and spiritual practices.

Butterflies are a relatively harmless vice, but giant moths are like heroin: “The moth eater is always moved to begin again,” an obeah woman tells Xavier.

He studied anthropology at Harvard University and published several papers on Afro-Jamaican folklore and obeah, a spiritual practice combining Christian and African rituals.

Thus, there gathered a loud convocation of such of our number as claim familiarity with appropriate rites of burial—a meeting of palaver-men, Christian New Lights, obeah priests, and new-made cunning-workers.

It also corresponds with the obeah of the West Indies, the ubio of the Efik race, a charm put into the ground to hurt or kill.