Obeahmen as heroes, in ‘a zone of direct contact with developing reality’ 1

This chapter analyses how Obeahman heroes, simultaneously central and marginal to their nations, struggle with Obeah in the service of their respective communities. It provides not only Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of the hero in both epic and novel, but also from Wilson Harris’ and Orlando Patterson’s conceptions of the role of the Caribbean artist and trickster. Obeah is presented as a great power bestowed upon exceptional men who must learn to wield it responsibly and are punished for abusing it. Obeah is even more inaccessible in Quality’s world, as it is located in the ‘forgotten’ past of the characters themselves; it is static and unalterable, and has no future potential. Zampi, the hero of Ismith Khan’s The Obeah Man, is the first Obeahman-protagonist of a novel since Hamel in 1827. Obeah is the conduit to the hero’s spiritual enlightenment, and to the fulfilment of his personhood.