ABSTRACT
This paper presents a historical ethnobiological approach to determining the meaning of ‘God tree’ in Jamaica. I begin by interrogating the origins of the sacred status and divine associations of trees, especially in African traditions in the new world. Continuation of African spiritual traditions in Jamaica is observed, particularly in the prominent role of spirits and spiritualized beings of variable natures and in the designation of trees as essential sites, or even altars, of spiritual encounter rather than objects of worship themselves. Furthermore, my look into the God Tree reveals patterns in the naming of local flora and fauna, which effectively support cultural survival through the enshrinement of religious, martial and economic meaning in the observed natural world. The rhetoric, utilization and meaning surrounding the God Tree in Jamaica can be seen as reverberating with the Coromante reputation of being fierce fighters and resistors, including against racialized economic slavery. An ethnobiological approach to explaining the meaning of the name God tree in Jamaica supports the view that there is a “system of correspondence” associated with the relationship between nature, spirits and the realization of human desires that is essential to understanding African religious and folkloric traditions of the New World, especially their role in social histories of resistance to economic exploitation and cultural repression.
