Bound by blood: new film highlights Jamaica’s outlawed obeah belief system

A new movie from award-winning Jamaican film-maker Sosiessia Nixon shines a spotlight on Jamaica’s enduring west African-based magic and spiritual healing tradition known as obeah. Nixon’s tense, feature-length suspense, Stew Peas , tells of the story of Jamaican detective Tessa, who is obsessed with an old murder case. Tessa’s life begins to fall apart when it becomes clear that her husband, Neil, has fallen under the spell of her new maid, Marcia. The story takes a dark turn with the shocking revelation that Marcia has been adding a secret ingredient to Neil’s food – her menstrual blood. “This film focuses on the persisting Jamaican obeah belief, that a woman could ‘bind’ a man in a relationship by serving him a meal of the traditional kidney beans and meat stew, which becomes a potent love portion when her menstrual blood is added,” Nixon said. Nixon hopes the movie will spark a dialogue about the tension between Christianity and obeah, which is rooted in the country’s African heritage and still practised today despite being outlawed by colonisers in the 1700s – and still illegal today. “The practice of binding a man with stew peas remains very much taboo in Jamaica, and I wanted to open a conversation. I wanted to look at this belief system in depth. Jamaicans often say that belief kills and belief cures, meaning that whatever you believe, that is what is going to happen. So, does this thing really work?” Nixon said. …