A jumbee, jumbie, mendo or chongo in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

is a type of mythological spirit or

demon A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in Media (communication), media such as comics, video ...

in the

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...

of some

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...

countries. Jumbee is the generic name given to all malevolent entities. There are numerous kinds of jumbees, reflecting the Caribbean’s complex history and ethnic makeup, drawing on African, Amerindian, East Indian, Dutch, English, and even Chinese

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

. Different cultures have different concepts of jumbees, but the general idea is that people who have been evil are destined to become instruments of evil (jumbee) in death. Unlike the ghost folklore which represents a wispy fog-like creature, the jumbee casts a dark shadowy figure.

Regional

People in English-speaking Caribbean states that were colonized by the British commonly believe in this creature. The belief is also held by practitioners of

Obeah Obeah, or Obayi, is an ancestrally inherited tradition of Akan witches of Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Togo and their descendants in the African diaspora of the Caribbean. Inheritors of the tradition are referred to as "obayifo" (Akan/Ghana-region ...

, a form of mystical wizardry that encompasses traditional African beliefs and Western European, primarily Anglican, images and beliefs concerning the dead.

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

, and various islands—including

Antigua Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Bar ...

and

Barbuda Barbuda (), is an island located in the eastern Caribbean forming part of the sovereign state of Antigua and Barbuda. It is located north of the island of Antigua and is part of the Leeward Islands of the West Indies. The island is a popula ...

in the east,

The Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

in the north and as far south as

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

—have long held a tradition of folklore that includes the jumbee. In the French islands

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label= Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands— Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and ...

and

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label= Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in ...

, people speak of Zombi rather than Jumbie to describe ghosts, revenants and other supernatural creatures. The Étang Zombi in Guadeloupe owes its name to the legend of the wife of a slaver who was killed by her husband for trying to free his slaves and now haunts the pond. The people of the Congo speak of what they believe to be a Nfumbi—ancestral ghost—which could be related to the word Jumbie.

Trinidad and Tobago

Moko jumbie In the mythology of Mangaia in the Cook Islands, Moko is a wily character and grandfather of the heroic Ngaru. Moko is a ruler or king of the lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging acro ...

is a protecting spirit in Trinidad and Tobago.

The Bahamas

As Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons captured in a 1918 transcription of an old Bahamian story, the jumbee in Jamaica is often called a "sprit": "Dese sprits which you call witch people, dey lives in de air."

Jamaica and Barbados

In Jamaica and Barbados, a jumbee is called a

duppy Duppy is a word of African origin commonly used in various Caribbean islands, including Barbados and Jamaica, meaning ghost or spirit.

Montserrat

In the folk religion of

Montserrat Montserrat ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, with roughly of coastline. It is n ...

, a jumbie is a ghost, or spirit of the dead. Jumbies are said to possess people during ceremonies called jumbie dances, which are accompanied by jumbie drums. Four couples perform a set of five progressively quicker

quadrille The quadrille is a dance that was fashionable in late 18th- and 19th-century Europe and its colonies. The quadrille consists of a chain of four to six '' contredanses''. Latterly the quadrille was frequently danced to a medley of opera melodie ...

s during the jumbie dance, switching out with other couples until someone is eventually possessed by a jumbie. Jumbies receive numerous small offerings from Montserratians, such as a few drops of

rum Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, a clear liquid, is usually aged in oak barrels. Rum is produced in nearly every sugar-producing region of the world, such as the Ph ...

or food. They are also the subject of numerous superstitions. It is believed that the spirit separates from the body three days after death, at which point the havoc begins. Jumbies are believed to have the ability to shape-shift, usually taking the form of a dog, pig, or more likely, a cat.

Characteristics

There are many recommended ways to avoid or escape jumbie encounters: * If a pair of shoes is left outside the front door of a house, jumbies (who have either no feet at all, or backwards feet) will spend the entire night trying and failing to put on the shoes, rather than entering the house. * Jumbies are similarly distracted by a heap of sand or salt or rice outside a door, since their obsessive curiosity (particularly in the case of the Firerass, or ole Higue) compels them to count every grain before the sun rises. Likewise, a rope with many knots in it will keep a jumbie busy trying to undo them until sunrise. * Upon coming home late at night, walking backwards may prevent a jumbee from following one inside. * If a jumbee chases a person, crossing a river may stop them; since it is believed that jumbees, like their relatives in numerous cultures, cannot follow over water.

References

Sources

* * {{cite book , title=Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume Two: South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean , author=Messenger, John , chapter=Montserrat , page
922–926
, isbn=0-8153-1865-0 , year=1999 , publisher=Routledge , chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/garlandencyclope0001unse/page/922 * ink broken Guyanese folkloreat Guyana Outpost * Hochschild, Adam. ''King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa''. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin (1998, p. 15). Caribbean legendary creatures Native American demons Guyanese culture Montserratian culture Trinidad and Tobago culture