By Johnny Coomansingh
My reflections on the distant past and the way I was raised in Trinidad are now paying dividends in terms of the subjects I choose to pen. Trinidad possesses a multi-racial, multi-religious and polyrhythmic landscape. A culture arising from once enslaved Africans, indentured South Asians of the British Crown and an admixture of various ethnicities provides a rich nursery for the creation of unwritten rules, sayings, customs, quirks, cautionary phrases and non-empirical hoopla. Dominating these idiosyncrasies are the descendants of Afro and Indo-Trinidadians. Added to the mixture of peoples were the Chinese and a host of other ethnicities that also influenced the cultural topoi.
Although ad hoc, the belief systems from both West Africa and South Asia took root in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). Because of British indentureship, it would seem that the ‘East Indians’ are more elaborate in exhibiting what they believe in terms of their mentifacts. All of this history forms the framework to introduce a selected few of these traditional unwritten rules and quirks that continue to be present, not only present, but propagated for future generations.
To begin the discourse, one such rule is to ‘never accept hot pepper hand-to-hand.’ The giver of the pepper, as a precaution, must put down the pepper on a surface before the receiver can then pick up the pepper, a piece of pepper, pepper sauce or even the pepper sauce spoon. This action is said to allow friends to continue with good relations and prevent them from ‘falling out,’ getting angry or becoming enemies. How true is this I do not know. So far, there is no empirical evidence to prove this alleged fact.
Sometimes you would hear people say, “…like he want ah good bush bath.” An individual could be going through a bad patch in life, maybe with marriage, illness, finances, struggling to survive or unemployed. They could be going through, as some people say, a gra (in Trini slang, “going through a ‘gra’ means experiencing a difficult or challenging time, a period of hardship or struggle), when the bush bath is seriously recommended. For all wants and purposes, the bush bath is said to be a ‘spiritual exercise’ for cleansing and healing.
It is said that a good bush bath could cure all ills. Many people take such advice and would go to the river or seaside with a trusted bush bath expert who would administer the bath where different types of bush could be used depending on the ‘ailment.’ Some sufferers may be beaten with a cocoyea broom made from the lamina midribs of the coconut tree to ‘chase’ evil spirits out of the person taking the bath. People could also travel to south Trinidad to the village of Moruga for a Moruga Bush Bath. Again, who knows if bush baths work but I guess belief is belief.
Mention was made of the cocoyea broom and this item seems to be very important in the lives of the population. Today, a good cocoyea broom could sell for about TT$40 or TT$50. A cocoyea broom is considered a ‘weapon’ against evil spirits. There are others who believe that an upside-down cocoyea broom in the house could ward off evil soucouyants and other evil spirit beings.
Patricia Bissessar on the Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago (Facebook Post) pointed out: “But the cocoyea broom according to village elders was also a powerful weapon against evil spirits. It was used by the village obeahman to beat off evil spirits…it was also used to perform the ritual of jharaying to heal persons with malyeux (maljo).” Another person said that the cocoyea broom is also used to shayshayray (whatever that means) little children, to protect them from ‘bad eye’ or maljo. The term ‘malyeux’ comes from French Creole, with the word ‘maljo’ coming from Spanish ‘mal de ojo’ meaning ‘bad eye.’
Sweeping the house after dark is also almost against the law in T&T for fear that a person’s wealth will be swept away. Some people believe that you will be sweeping away the barakat (Arabic: blessings of divine gifts abundance, prosperity and good fortune). On the hustings these days in Trinidad and Tobago there are individuals with cocoyea brooms apparently sweeping the road before party supporters pass, maybe to ‘cleanse’ the area of evil spirits. There is no tested scientific research to prove whether these things are true about the cocoyea broom. Nevertheless, the cocoyea broom remains an icon in the spiritual life of many people in Trinidad and Tobago.
Continuing with the concept of maljo, in certain gardens, especially vegetable gardens, some gardeners impale a blue-colored bottle on a stick and place it in the garden. This ‘blue bottle’ activity is thought to prevent maljo (evil eye). Anything colored blue is probably quite spiritual in Trinidad and Tobago. I witnessed an old lady anxiously rubbing down her two Beagle hound dogs with Oxford Blue (an item used in the laundering of white clothing) to ‘cure’ them of maljo. She said, “…mih dog and dem suffering from najar…they eh eating; is like somebody bawl on mih dog an dem.” Who knows if the dogs became anorexic because of some other problem but some Trinis will use blue colored items, whatever is at hand to assumably ‘tie up’ spirits.
I don’t know how to figure out this unwritten rule. My mother died at 95 but was it because I clasped my hands behind my head? During my high school days, the lady of the house where I once lived firmly told me that I should not clasp my hand behind my head because “yuh mudda go dead.” I was around 16 years of age and my mother kept on living. How do these sayings get into the system? Why did the elder folk peddle such fallacies? All that is left for me to deduce is that many sayings came about because of some bad occurrence and were given a label.
My mother comes into play here. She did not believe in obeah or the ‘black arts,’ however she remembered her mother’s instruction: “Tun up yuh broom and tun dong yuh posy.” This activity is believed to work like a charm when you want a visitor to leave your house because they overstayed their time. There was an incident. My godfather was a boastful drunkard, what we call a ‘rum cork,’ a kind of miserable, overbearing individual. He came to visit us one day but he just wouldn’t leave. My mom had nothing to lose. In desperation she did what her mother told her, and voila! Suddenly, my godfather was rushing to the door to go home. What a laugh she had. Should I seek to practice such an activity just for the laughs?
I’m sure the next one will surely evoke some laughter; a quirk I presume. The saying goes that if a man recognizes that he has too short of a penis he should plant a cassava stick. When the stick grows, his penis will elongate much to his delight. I am wondering how many men in Trinidad did this bit of ‘agriculture.’ What I know to be a fact is that if you plant sweet cassava in the same plot as pigeon peas, the cassava tubers will turn out bitter.
Body odour is a terrible thing. Many hygienically challenged people do not smell themselves and yet they want to be in the company of those who bathe. On two occasions, I remember sitting next to two individuals, one at Fort Hays State University in Kansas and one at Missouri State University. I don’t know what they ate, if they showered, or if they knew how putrid they smelled. I almost couldn’t find a molecule of oxygen to save myself. The stench was so horrible that I became confused for the lack of clean air. I almost died! Should I have recommended what my godmother, a quasi-Obeah woman advised?
Here’s the remedy she recommended: Take two hot hops bread. Put one bread in each armpit. Walk until the bread becomes cold. Remove the bread and throw them behind your back and don’t look back. Allow stray dogs to consume the bread. The body odor will then leave you. Wow! How does that sound? I never tried it but I should have kindly given such a remedy to my friends. Do you think this will work?
Remove your shoes, do not bring with you any dirt from the cemetery into the house. Walk backwards into your house after attending a funeral is said to keep the spirit of the dead outside. Coming home after midnight requires walking backwards into the house for the same reason. Once again, this is conjecture. Shadows and certain sounds, especially in the night create in the minds of people that there are creepy and sinister activities in the environment.
On April 17, 2025, a man was shot and killed at the Piarco International Airport in Trinidad. It would seem that the security detail at the airport was very lax. No one really expected such an incident to occur at the airport. Almost immediately, security at the airport was beefed up. This is what can be considered as a reactive ploy and satisfies the meaning of the saying: ‘Yuh doh set lagley everywhere bird does sh*t (poop).’ (Lagley is a sticky substance made from the sap of chataigne (breadnut) and breadfruit trees. The sap is boiled and chewed and then rolled around a cocoyea stick to catch songbirds in Trinidad).
‘Doh gih lil chirren coffee tuh drink because dey go geh dunce.’ Coffee in my childhood days was considered a ‘big people’ drink. What we little children drank was ‘coffee water,’ a weakened drink made from used coffee grounds. Doh cut the hair of little children before they are two years old. The ‘old people’ believed that this could prevent them from learning to talk.
‘Ah doh put mih mouth in boli (calabash) tuh talk’ or in another way, ‘ah doh put water in mih mouth tuh talk,’ means that the speaker is not afraid to express himself or herself even in a ludicrous manner. In other words, even though it’s bacchanal, mauvais langue, kankah or kuchoor, I will say what I want to say despite how some people may feel. Only today I mentioned that people, especially politicians, should practice ‘mouth control.’
Earlier today I heard someone say: “What sweet in goat mouth does sour in dey backside.” This statement is primarily concerned with individuals making the wrong choices. Some people throw caution to the wind; many are there that refused to change their ideology. They say we must let the id survive; ‘do it if it feels good’ not taking into consideration the future consequences which may very well be regrettable.
There are so many other sayings, maybe dozens more but I will conclude with these selections:
‘Maga (meagre) goat does take long rope.’ ‘When yuh neighbour house on fire, wet yours.’ ‘When yuh living in concrete house, dut (dirt) house does call yuh.’ ‘If yuh have cocoa in the sun yuh go look fuh rain.’ And finally, ‘A one-eye man is king in blind man country.’
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