Hartley Neita
IN THE village of my youth, older boys frightened us the young ones with stories of death and duppies and other tales of the unknown.
One was that if you pointed your fingers or toes to the site of a recent grave, they would become full of pus and rot and fall off. Our home was a stone's throw from the church cemetery and after funerals we took extreme care to avoid pointing at the new grave.
During the night we turned our backs to the cemetery and fell asleep with our fingers and toes pointing away from it, and when we woke next morning we fearfully reached for our fingers and toes to count them, praying that they were all in place and healthy.
We were also told that duppies lived in the moonlit shade of
cotton trees. One such tree grew less than 100 yards from our home. We avoided going near it on moonlit nights. Soon we even believed that there were duppies in the shade during the sunlight hours.
The tree grew a white flower, which carried the cottonseed floating in the wind and we trembled if it touched us because this white flower was what the clothes of the duppies were made of. And, it was ill luck if the flower touched you.
RAN HOME
If the dark of night caught us away from home we ran all the way, arriving inside our yard gasping and with our legs heavy as a lignum vitae trunk. We were told that throwing salt over our shoulders would frighten duppies who might have followed us, so we raced into the kitchen to get a pinch of salt to chase these beings away.
Death was also associated with a lizard called the galliwasp. This reptile was not common in our village and when we saw one, it was a portent of tragedy. It is actually harmless, but the older boys told us that if one bit us we had to race the reptile to the nearest pool of water. If we reached the water first, we would live. But if the galliwasp was first, then we would die. We did not wait to feel the bite of the reptile; we just assumed it had bitten us and off we would go running.
We also feared the black-heart man. Every time a stranger came to live in the village he was immediately thought to be this cold-hearted person who captured little children and cut out their hearts. We would hide in the bushes and watch them wherever they went. Why we did so I cannot now recall, and in later years I often wondered what we would do if he caught us shadowing him.
OL'HIGE
Then there was Ol'Hige, a wicked witch who shed her skin and took the form of an owl or bat. She entered homes and sucked out the breath and blood from little children. To prevent this happening, the skin had to be found and sprinkled with salt and pepper while the words, 'salt an' pepper fe yu mumma' are intoned.
When Ol'Hige returned to inhabit her skin she would find that the mixture of salt and pepper burnt her. She would plead: "Skin, yu mus' know me," but her plea would be ignored. In her naked state she could then be killed and the breath and blood she had stolen from the child would be returned and the child would live.
Another of the fears was of a mysterious animal called the rolling calf. It appeared at nights and had red, flaming eyes. Around its neck was a chain, which clanked as it ran through the village. Rolling calves were the duppies of men who cheated their customers. Depending on how much of a thief he was, he would become a rolling calf because he was not too wicked to enjoy the hereafter in heaven or too bad to burn in hell.
