Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/288

 278 Obeah in the West Indies.

and finishing up each line with a couple of ^'s; thus: I 1 1 1 I I I I 1 1 1 I ^- They extended over a period of four years. Some asked for protection against the machina- tions of other persons, and for means of attacking or injuring them in return.

One (B) who writes from Tortola, in the Virgin Islands, says : " I cannot have any peace with those persons, they working on me in every side, so I lie in great danger. Try your best with them for me, if even to kill them, or some- thing according to what I begged. . . . Oh ! friend, try your best with them, for this I am writing you is with tears. I will give you gold and silver if I have only to get the satisfaction of those men. ... I send you the four of their names. If you done anything for me, don't leave out Daniel, for he is working enough on me."

Several applicants for assistance evidently looked upon Dasent as a doctor. Indeed, there was evidence in the case that he was commonly known in Nevis as "Dr. Dasent." There is one letter (F) from a woman, complaining that she had been sick for over a year with a sore on her foot and had done everything he had advised without success, and appealed to him to send her something to cure it, promising to give him a little barrow pig as a present when it was a little bigger.

Another (G) is evidently from a jealous wife, asking for assistance against a rival. " I want you to fix me straight, not half-way." She asks that "the thing" may be sent to a friend of hers with directions, " for I want when he sees this woman to see the devil, for I am seeing the devil with this woman. ... I want my husband from this woman."

Another (I) apparently seeks for protection against " overlooking," or " the evil eye." The writer (a man) says : "Thank God we are nothing worse, and I have done what you told me to do. I have done so, but I can't say fa[r]ther for the present. As for the letter you told me I