Angelo thought that, as an American, I might be quick to judge this humble abode or, better yet, post photos on social media so that Western eyes could gawk at an impoverished scene.
“Please don’t take photos,” he kept reminding me on the ride from the city.
My first impression of the Obeah-Man’s house was steeped in envy not disgust. A house that intruded gently into the jungle, with just enough protection from rain, and just enough privacy to perform rituals in peace and quiet was a manifestation of my wildest desires.
Angelo’s offer to take me to the Obeah-Man was impromptu. He knew that if I was given time to ponder the offer I would surely choose sleep over awakening. Angelo knew a lot about me – all without knowing much about me. Ultimately, that’s why he took me to see the Obeah-Man. He knew.
Angelo is a kickboxing trainer and a world-renowned one at that. He makes his living equipping everyday people with the ability to find their fighting spirit. He understands how the fight so often occurs outside of the ring, on a multitude of planes, in just as many realms.
Only a man reared in the magic of the extended Amazon rainforest could, so confidently, acknowledge the invisibilities of the fight without fearing intellectual recourse. Maybe that’s why Angelo chooses to ply his trade in the tiny South American/Caribbean nation of Suriname rather than compete with spiritless streams of consciousness abroad. Angelo recognized the fight I was engaged in well before I did.
“I normally don’t do this kind of thing with foreigners, but I feel like you understand. I feel like you will benefit,” Angelo said while steering his sedan through Paramaribo’s dusty streets on the way to see the Obeah-Man.
Suriname is utopian. Sure there’s crime, but it's the kind you expect in a country with a struggling economy and corrupt government. It’s the kind of crime that a little common sense can counter. No ATMs after dark. No befriending international cocaine dealers.
Otherwise, Suriname presents itself as a colorful, cultural quilt that extends from the densely populated coast to the rugged and remote rainforest interior. A synagogue, the oldest in this part of the world, stands next to a mosque in Paramaribo’s city center as a testament to Suriname’s knack for embracing cultural differences.
Suriname is a place untouched by excess commercialism and tourism; where the concept of one love survives in its purest form.
The easygoing vibe purveyed by locals might be a byproduct of their staunch belief in an ability to perform good and bad in realms unseen. So much so, that the only thing left to do in the physical realm is smile, laugh, and be cool. If ever there was a fertile training ground for inviting good spirits and thwarting evil ones, Suriname is that place.
These beliefs and powers are not restricted to society’s whacky outliers lost in plumes of their own self-fulfilling, pseudo-spiritual admixtures. The Obeah-Man I was about to encounter, and those like him, represented the fully engrossed and embattled of Suriname’s spiritual crop. In Suriname, one quickly learns that the butcher, the banker, the lawyer, and the maid (especially the maid) are all in on it.
I walked to the back of Angelo’s gym one morning to fill up my water bottle before another of his grueling training sessions. I found the gym’s cleaning lady yelling at the wind off of the veranda.
“What’s she doing?” I asked Angelo upon re-entering the gym.
“She’s just telling the bad spirits to go away,” Angelo replied.
If you stay in Suriname long enough, you begin to realize that what seems like nothing, often, is something.
Due in large part to slavery and international experiments in indentured servitude, Suriname is like a metaphysical United Nations. Hindus, Africans, Javanese, Jews, Muslims, and the Indigenous are all casting spells and sending up prayers from the bushy shadows; engaging in the constant push and pull of light and darkness, good vs. evil. Christians are not exempt, although they like to think they are.
A few weeks into my second trip to Suriname, an elderly Indian woman appeared on my doorstep under the cover of darkness. She was hell bent on convincing me to attend an Obeah-like ceremony where participants summoned spirits and transformed into their respective spirit animals. Part of her pitch was to tell me about her experience at such a ceremony.
“I’m a Christian. My belief in Christ was too strong for their magic to get me. But they got my European husband. He transformed. My belief in Christ is just too strong,” the frail woman attested. None of this explained why she, as a Christian, attended the ceremony in the first place. Nor do I have any idea why she sought me out as a prime target. (Or do I?)
On a return flight from Suriname, I encountered a Surinamese mother and daughter wearing large Coptic crosses around their necks. They were traveling back to Boston after visiting family. The crosses covered most of their bosom and almost reached the edges of their shoulders. They were ornate, intricate, and looked like artifacts taken directly from Anthony the Great’s tomb. The duo wore them like chest plates of armor.
“We have to wear these for protection against red-eye (evil-eye), white magic, and black whenever we visit home,” the mother explained after I inquired about their distinct religious jewelry.
As we drew closer to the Obeah-Man’s house, Angelo touched on the matter of black magic, but offered little explanation.
“Some Obeah-Men turn to black magic; to evil. They dedicate their lives to doing harm. I can’t tell you why. That’s just the way it is,” Angelo said with a cryptic air.
The Obeah-Man was in his mid-to-late 40s with a clean-shaven head and an athletic build. He was dressed comfortably in loose pants and a dashiki – a sign of his African connection. He emitted a strong, deep tone when he spoke English; emphasizing syllables as though he were speaking Suriname’s unique Dutch dialect. The passion in his voice trumped his awkward cadence.
Although he had been blinded in a car crash some years ago, I could still feel his eyes on me through his dark sunglasses. I caught a glimpse of his wayward, brown pupils and the scarred whites of his eyes whenever his shades fell down the bridge of his nose.
The janky, four-legged table between us was a resting spot for his sacred leaves, bottles of alcohol, tobacco, and the other instruments of his profession. A woman, likely his wife or occasional lover, tended to Angelo and me. Once she was assured of our comfort she disappeared.
The Obeah-Man lit a cigar and smoked it up-right like a Sadhu puffing on a chillum. He did this to keep the ash from spilling. When the cigar was nearly finished, the ash resembled a mini monument sitting in between his thumb and forefinger. He flipped the pile of ash and the last bits of burning cigar into his mouth. He took a swig of alcohol to wash everything down.
“Send me a picture of your father so he can see me,” the Obeah-Man requested. “You hear me? Send me a picture, so he can see me.”
Where Angelo knew, the blind Obeah-Man could see.
“You have a coin?” The Obeah-Man asked holding out his palm.
I reached into my pocket and gave him what he wanted. He wrapped the coin and a small charge of gunpowder in a leaf. The Obeah-Man said a prayer for my prosperity and held a flame over the concoction on the table before him.
BANG!
I jumped out of my seat, taking the next few moments to pull myself out of temporary shell shock. Angelo burst into schoolboy-ish laughter.
“What the fuck did you think was going to happen?” The Obeah-Man asked shaking his head with a sinister grin painted on his face. “My God, man. Even I could see that coming.”
The laughter waned and Angelo transitioned into playing a drum that was lying next to him. He played rhythms that had been passed down to him from his African ancestors. The Obeah-Man sang and prayed in time with Angelo’s cosmic flow.
When they finished, the Obeah-Man enriched my understanding of how so many of Suriname’s slaves emancipated themselves and disappeared into the jungle to start communities of their own; communities which still exist today.
“They sang to the spirits and they were given the ability to fly. They did not run off of the plantations. They grew wings. They flew.”
Therianthropy is a fancy, less-spiritually-rooted, word for a human’s ability to transform into his/her animal equivalent or gain animate qualities. I prefer to use the term shape-shifting. Shape-shifting is a common, ritualistic thread amongst the many groups inhabiting Suriname’s rainforest, which happens to be the densest in the world. If there’s one place where spirits prefer to hide, frolic, and plot – it’s in the jungle.
In 2018, I traveled seven hours into Suriname’s western rainforest to visit the Kwinti people (one of six Maroon groups in Suriname) and their ancestral homeland, a village called Witagron. A young Kwinti man named Jdjani gave me a tour of Witagron. Sensing that I was a judgmental, spiritually backwards American, he quickly glanced over the ramshackle house at the back of the village where they performed spiritual ceremonies.
“That’s where we turn into our spirits. The greatest spirits are the jaguar-men,” Jdjani said with a look of coy embarrassment eclipsing his face.
Fortunately, at this point in my life, I had been witness to many spats of shape-shifting in the form of a jaguar-man leading Peruvian healing ceremonies in Hawaii.
“Yes, I am very good friends with a jaguar-man in America,” I said confidently. The embarrassment left Jdjani’s face and gave way to a look of surprise, and finally, trust. It was the kind of trust I would have been hard pressed to gain with a suitcase full of cash and bags of sugar from the city.
From that point on, Jdjani introduced me to the other villagers as a man who was friends with a jaguar-man.
The Obeah-Man asked if I could stay the night, but Angelo had other plans for me. We had to rush back to the city for a kickboxing session. The Obeah-Man blessed me with these parting words.
“Remember, you are the shaman. You already know this, but you are the shaman.”
