The Goats

Posted by on Mar 29, 2013 in The Journey | 0 comments

The Goats

They stood like sentinels on top of the graves, staring at us.

“Eerie,” Stephen said.

And they were. In island folklore a goat might well be a duppy, the patois term for a restless spirit or ghost, and usually a nasty one. Jamaica loves its ghost stories: tales of departed souls tormenting the living, haunting mansions, taking animal forms, terrorizing people at night.

Most of the island’s superstitions stem from a long history of African folk magic that once made white captors fearful of the sorcery slaves might wield against them.