Vashti Bowlah

Folk­lore ex­ists in many cul­tures through­out the world. Folk­lore in the form of tales, myths and leg­ends is passed from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion through the oral tra­di­tion. Folk­lore in the Caribbean has been drawn from the rich and di­verse back­grounds of our an­ces­tors who came from var­i­ous parts of the world. Our an­ces­tors brought with them their lan­guage, cul­ture, re­li­gious be­liefs and prac­tices, and their tra­di­tion of sto­ry­telling. The tales of demons, ghosts, zom­bies and spir­its have been fas­ci­nat­ing for the young and old alike, and vari­a­tions of these sto­ries have been told again and again. Though there are a few books pub­lished on Caribbean folk­lore, they main­ly pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on ma­te­r­i­al orig­i­nat­ing from French-Cre­ole cul­ture.

Un­til now, no one has ever at­tempt­ed to doc­u­ment folk­lore fig­ures as­so­ci­at­ed with the East In­di­an tra­di­tion. In­di­an Caribbean Folk­lore Spir­its by Ku­mar Ma­habir is, there­fore, a pi­o­neer­ing work. This 32-page book fea­tures five su­per­nat­ur­al crea­tures that some of us would have heard about, or even seen, while grow­ing up. These in­clude the raakhas, churile, saapin, Dee Ba­ba, and the jinn, Sheik Sadiq.?This long-await­ed mile­stone pub­li­ca­tion is well-struc­tured with a clear and easy for­mat. Each colour­ful, glossy page con­tains phys­i­cal de­scrip­tions and traits of each folk­lore spir­it, sup­port­ed by tes­ti­monies of el­der­ly peo­ple re­call­ing their child­hood or adult en­coun­ters.

The au­thor was care­ful to re­tain the lan­guage and di­alect of the nar­ra­tors for au­then­tic­i­ty, with the names, ages and lo­ca­tion of the nar­ra­tors pre­ced­ing the tes­ti­monies. Read­ers will ap­pre­ci­ate the in­clu­sion of in­for­ma­tion on sim­i­lar spir­its in oth­er parts of the Caribbean and the rest of the world, as well as use­ful notes to read­ers. The book is de­light­ful­ly il­lus­trat­ed with colour­ful im­ages jump­ing out of each page, bring­ing to life var­i­ous scenes and fig­ures men­tioned in the text. A lot of time and ded­i­ca­tion must have gone in­to the re­search re­quired to put to­geth­er this great com­pi­la­tion. The au­thor is a known an­thro­pol­o­gist with spe­cial in­ter­est in In­di­an cul­ture, and should be com­mend­ed for his ef­forts in pre­serv­ing this as­pect of the cul­ture, dat­ing back to the time when im­mi­grants were first brought to the Caribbean dur­ing in­den­ture­ship in 1838.

In­di­an Caribbean Folk­lore Spir­its is filled with valu­able in­for­ma­tion on five crea­tures. This in­for­ma­tion could have eas­i­ly dis­ap­peared from our mem­o­ries in the next few years. In a fast-chang­ing world where our chil­dren are be­ing swept away by the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy and the in­ter­net, it is even more im­por­tant to pre­serve this as­pect of our oral tra­di­tion. The book seems to be writ­ten main­ly for the aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly-in­clined be­cause of the way the ma­te­r­i­al is pre­sent­ed. But it al­so holds great po­ten­tial to be used in read­ing ses­sions in class­rooms of pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary stu­dents. It can al­so be a use­ful ref­er­ence re­source at uni­ver­si­ty lev­el for those do­ing re­search on lo­cal cul­ture, or sim­ply in­ter­est­ed in learn­ing about these spir­its.

Giv­en the na­ture of the sub­ject, the au­thor could have in­clud­ed a fic­tion­al sto­ry to com­ple­ment each of the five spir­its and in­crease the en­ter­tain­ment val­ue. This ap­proach would have broad­ened its ap­peal. There is no doubt, how­ev­er, that this book can be en­joyed by read­ers of all ages who love to read a charm­ing sto­ry. It is an en­ter­tain­ing book that serves to ed­u­cate, en­light­en and pro­vide valu­able in­for­ma­tion on the sub­ject of In­di­an Folk­lore Spir­its. We all love old tales or good bed­time sto­ries, and the fas­ci­na­tion of folk­lore has its own ap­peal. I high­ly rec­om­mend that you read this book and be cap­ti­vat­ed by these crea­tures of the su­per­nat­ur­al world.

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Ed note: Vashti Bowlah is an award-win­ning Trinida­di­an?writer?whose work has ap­peared in lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al pub­li­ca­tions.