Ivan was holding a Thanksgiving Service. He had been in the profession of healing and helping people for nearly six years now. Due to his trade he had become very rich. He refused to accept what he was doing as Obeah. Instead he told everyone that he was a healer. Some people believed that he could heal anything and paid well for his service. Today he was giving thanks for everything.

Six years ago Ivan was broke, unemployed and angry at everything and everyone. He got into incident after incident. Then his ailing mother sent him to spend some time with his grandfather in the country. It was there that he was introduced to the business of healing. He saw many people visit his grandfather looking sick and when they emerged they were smiling. The old man made lots of money. Ivan decided then that this would be his vocation.
Six months later he had spread the word and had started accepting clients. At first the traffic was a trickle. Soon more and more people started arriving. Ivan found that he could now afford many things he had previously gone without. Although he knew little about healing he sought advice from his grandfather and prepared medicines from local herbs, bushes and roots. These concoctions he sold as his panacea. Somehow it seemed to be working.
For the Thanksgiving he had invited many villagers, friends and family. There were also a few of his grateful clients attending. There was plenty of food, drinks, fruits, rum, cake, bread, milk cheese, biscuits and three bottles of perfume. Incense burned filling the small space with its intoxicating odour. The ceremony got on the way. Everyone formed a conga line and shuffled around the table as Ivan chanted some sort of gibberish.
Half way through the ceremony there was a loud knocking on the door. Some people entered bringing a man for him to heal. Ivan asked them to come another day but they offered him twenty-five thousand dollars, an offer he just could not refuse.
The man was in his mid-thirties, six foot plus with shoulders as broad as a barn door. His relatives explained that the man was haunted by Jumbie. One of the elders who normally assisted Ivan put the sick man to sit in the centre of the room. Ivan and the elder laid their hands on the patient. Ivan began one of his usual commentaries.
“I can feel and sense many different Jumbies in this man. There is a Chinese spirit, an African spirit and an Indian spirit. It was now time for decisive action. Taking a small gravel (Small hammer used in court by a judge), he began hitting the man all over his body. The knee, the back, the head and the chest took quite a beating. The back and chest were given special attention.
The music of Little Jones started playing and they all danced around the sick man. Some elders began beating the man with cabbage brooms and the shouting and chanting grew louder and louder. Many of the guests forgot about the Thanksgiving and got physically involved. The healing intensified. As the session progressed things escalated to an embarrassing level.
In the midst of the beating, praying and singing, the sick man sprang into action. With speed and brutal accuracy, he started to share some licks of his own. He beat everyone especially his family. The elders and poor Ivan took some punches thumps and kicks.
Soon the celebrants had stopped singing and chanting and started shouting and screaming in agony as licks rained down on them. Howls of terror could be heard a street away and even the very old were ducking and dodging. It was every man for himself. The younger folks exited the nearby windows without the assistance of wings. The elders made straight for the two main doors unwilling to take a dose of their own medicine.
Ivan sought refuge under the banquet table. The long black tablecloth concealed him successfully. When all had fled followed by an irate muscleman, Ivan crawled out from his place of refuge and began to eat hungrily. He did not intend to waste a morsel. News reached him the next day that the sick man did not have Jumbie after all. The man had been recently discharged from the Psychiatric Ward.

(By Neil Primus)