I Just Hope This Makes Sense Lmao. I Think I Rambled A Little. - Tumblr Posts

🪐 — ANONYMOUS  sent :  Hello this is meant in the most friendly of ways!!! In the movie they do actually refer to Calypso as an obeah woman, which is a separate (but very similar dispora) to Hatian voodoo that originates from Ghana. Given, it's also one of the clown crew who says this so it's not necessarily a fact of law! Just something in the body of the movie that might be speaking to the writers intention. Also both of these practices draw their power from spirits and deities, so I don't know if I'd call it human magic exactly? As it's still sourced from nonhuman entities that the practitioner calls on. I hope this doesn't come off as rude im just someone who is very invested!!

    hi anon !  i’m taking this in a friendly way, don’t worry.  💖✨  i also do just want to take a moment to  thank you  for bringing this up  &  encouraging me to delve deep on this concept that i only glossed over in my post from last night.    you’re right, i definitely know the line in awe where pintel refers to tia dalma as  that obeah woman.  &  i want to just say right out the gate before i dive in here that i am very much  not an expert  on the nuances of obeah or voodoo. but i do know that both are very real cultural practices with a rich  &  vibrant history that are still actively practiced by many people today.  &  because of my very much non-expert status, i really want to be respectful of these practices  &  the real people who participate in them.  if someone who knows more on the subject than i do reads something within this post that is incorrect regarding the practice of voodoo or obeah, please don’t hesitate to let me know !    i also want to note that, characterization-wise, i tend to see calypso as, well, calypso. she as a muse is not actually the priestess persona of tia dalma that she takes on in her human form, who is a practitioner. calypso herself took up the craft only after she was trapped in her human body. especially at first, she sees the practice very much as secondary to her own intrinsic powers, a necessary tool that helps her work around the curse as best she can. calypso sees herself as a goddess first  &  foremost,  &  participates in human rites only out of necessity.  if she had never been cursed  &  bound in a human body  —  &  in particular, a Black female body, the power implications of which are obvious  —  i seriously doubt that she as her goddess self ever would have engaged in the practice.  this is why i personally tend to place lesser importance on that aspect of her voodoo or obeah powers that she weilds as tia dalma  &  focus more on the goddess elements as calypso in my portrayal.     that being said !  this ask did inspire me to do just a little bit more research into the subject.  &  while it’s a very vast topic  &  i still am definitely not an expert, what i found is that the enslaved people who were brought to the caribbean from Africa developed different practices depending largely on location.  voodoo  is the most widely known practice outside of the caribbean region,  &  has a myriad of location-based sub-practices, but was especially concentrated in hati.  obeah, as  pintel names tia dalma, was originally recorded as being practiced in barbados, but is also well-known in jamaica thanks to the strict laws that prohibited the practice there.  obeah is also notably different in that it is an inherited ancestral practice, rather than a learned one.  in addition, the Afro-caribbean people in cuba, which is where tia dalma’s shack is located, also developed a practice of their own called santería.      but here’s the thing that i think is really important to remember about all of these different practices : all of them were created by the diaspora of enslaved people in the caribbean using their African religions  —  especially the yoruba  &  akan religions  — as their roots.  &  in the early days of these practices being developed, which is when calypso would be learning them as well, i think that it’s very unlikely that there would be a super clear-cut distinction between the multiple types of practices in real time. in addition, because of the laws against participating in the craft, as well as the obvious lack of firsthand written material recording the process of formation of these practices, most of their development happened in a way that sadly, it is impossible for us to know today. most of my initial research found the first written recordings of these practices being set in the early 1700s, right around the time that the potc trilogy canon is set, which tells me that while it’s likely they grew for a long while without being recorded, they were still all relatively new, especially in the decades prior to the trilogy when calypso was living  &  practicing them in her human form. it’s pretty easy for us looking back from the comparative clarity of the present to designate all these different practices out as separate from the start, but i think in the moment they were first being created, it was likely a little messier. i have to imagine there was a not insignificant overlap between them all, particularly at the time of their emergence.      finally, one thing i did find in my reading on the topic is that the term “obeah woman” was given as a direct translation for “wise woman,” in a 1787 press letter.  this use of the phrase in this context did not actually refer to the particular practice of obeah, but rather referenced the colonized narrative of the African witch.  &  in typical colonizer fashion, this phrase was frequently used in a derogatory way to call to mind a racist caricature of the  “monstrous” Black witch with unexplained supernatural powers. so while it’s possible that the disney writers really did intend for tia to be specifically an obeah practitioner, i think it’s equally  ( if not more ) possible that either the writers, or even the character of pintel himself, are just using the phrase generically, the meaning of which was not necessarily meant to reference the specific practice of obeah.    i also used the phrase “ human magic “ in that previous post, but only because that’s how calypso thinks of it.  however, you’re very right to point out that almost all of these Afro-caribbean practices, including both voodoo  &  obeah, are based on the spiritual concept of channeling the power of a higher being  ( like a spirit or deity ).  &  this makes me feel like if calypso did ever get the practice properly explained to her by an actual real human practitioner of the craft, rather than just picking up the rites casually for her own purposes, she would actually understand it a lot better.  it’s not that the humans are magic, they’re just calling on the power of some of the many higher-beings that exist in the world, who are lending their power temporarily to the practitioner through the rites.  that actually makes a lot more sense to her than it just being... some weird kind of human magic, lol.  personally, i don’t think that even calypso knows or cares  which of these particular human practices she’s using, even if they were very clearly distinct from each other during that time period. she probably picks up most of her rites secondhand after observing them from actual human practitioners.  she also probably doesn’t have much respect or understanding for it, at least at first  —  as i said, it’s just convenient.  she doesn’t really get how it works, but she knows that it does make her own power stronger while she’s in her human form. it also gives the humans something to grasp onto with her, an explanation for her power that they can kinda sorta understand  &  contextualize. it’s much more believable to everyday humans that she’s a practitioner of voodoo or obeah,  &  nothing more.    as far as specific terminology, i think that i will continue mostly using the term voodoo on this blog because it is the most widely known.  but in general, given the time period  &  the nature of the muse, it’s worth noting that calypso herself does not really differentiate between voodoo, obeah, santería, or any other diasporic practices that share common roots with African religions, in spite of the fact that she does participate in the practice herself when living as tia dalma.