Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The hills of Les Coteaux have seen many mys­te­ri­ous things over the years.

Cen­turies of tra­di­tion from West Africa have sur­vived coloni­sa­tion, pass­ing from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion, leav­ing a lega­cy of mys­tique and in­trigue.

For the unini­ti­at­ed, it has in­stilled grip­ping fear, but for oth­ers, it has piqued their cu­rios­i­ty as they seek spir­i­tu­al help to nav­i­gate dai­ly chal­lenges.

Tales of jumbies, spir­i­tu­al war­fare, non-tra­di­tion­al heal­ing prac­tices and un­eth­i­cal court­ing meth­ods have made Les Coteaux, named af­ter French colonis­ers, fa­mous for its folk­tales and su­per­sti­tions.

For the vil­lagers of Les Coteaux, these sto­ries are more than a pre­sen­ta­tion for the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val — they are part of their cul­ture and his­to­ry.

Ul­ric Grant, 85, a gar­den­er who has lived in Les Coteaux his en­tire life, re­mains pas­sion­ate about these tra­di­tions.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia out­side his home on Wednes­day, Grant said he was wor­ried the vil­lage could be los­ing what once made it mag­i­cal.

As he sat on a wood­en bench man­ning his veg­etable stall, Grant ex­pressed con­cern that the younger gen­er­a­tion was not be­ing re­cep­tive.

He said, “I en­joy the years I grow up in Les Coteaux, but right now, to me, Lex Coteaux change all en­tire­ly. This ain’t like Les Coteaux again.”

He re­called East­er was a live­ly time with sin­gle men com­pet­ing against their mar­ried coun­ter­parts in foot­ball, crick­et and bas­ket­ball, while women played net­ball.

“Right now all them thing die out. I don’t know the rea­son why.”

Re­call­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with his friend Pap­pi, Grant said he was un­sure what the vil­lage would look like when the el­ders have died.

“Pap­pi say, ‘Well, boy, I go come back and take a peep.’”

Grant, who re­mains very ac­tive de­spite his age, said he is open to teach­ing youths how to make dirt ovens, so they too can make a liv­ing.

How­ev­er, he said young men are not com­ing to the el­ders for ad­vice or knowl­edge.

“As a mat­ter of fact, the young peo­ple don’t want to lis­ten to the old­er heads. Them feel they know every­thing. They does call me old school.”

The com­mu­nal spir­it fos­tered through the len’ hand sys­tem, he said, has al­so tak­en a blow.

“It’s dog-eat-dog now,” he said.

The sys­tem, which has been part of To­ba­go since post-Eman­ci­pa­tion, in­volves vil­lagers vol­un­teer­ing their labour to each oth­er to com­plete a task.

“I work with you a Sat­ur­day, and next Sat­ur­day you work with me. We nev­er run out of food. We have food to feed the vil­lage.”

He said Les Coteaux is no longer self-suf­fi­cient, and peo­ple are forced to pur­chase from the mar­ket to feed them­selves.

Spir­i­tu­al pro­tec­tion of Les Coteaux

On the su­per­sti­tions of the vil­lage, Grant said the mys­ti­cal realm was noth­ing to fear as it was used to up­hold the law.

While mod­ern times re­ly on a Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad for re­dress, Grant said back then, they would be more proac­tive in their ap­proach.

He said many farm­ers would con­sult Loss Him, an el­der renowned for prac­tis­ing rit­u­als to pro­tect one’s har­vest.

Grant said that dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, the names of those who were al­lowed to en­ter the gar­den were chant­ed.

For those strangers who were un­in­vit­ed, a snake would sud­den­ly ap­pear to stop the thief in his tracks.

“Yuh can’t go in a next man gar­den and thief dey thing. A fel­la go try to take yuh mel­on but can’t pass be­cause the snake block yuh.

“Even though yuh go in, yuh can’t come out un­til I come to re­lease yuh.”

He said many farm­ers would use this rit­u­al to pro­tect their pro­duce.

Grant re­called a sto­ry about a group of friends who were mak­ing a cook on a Fri­day when one of them of­fered to bring the peas for the pot.

“He ain’t work­ing no gar­den but gonna fur­nish the peas.”

He said a farmer was home when he sud­den­ly shout­ed, “Hehe, meh trap ketch, but I eh go­ing there till Mon­day.”

Grant said the thief had to work the gar­den the en­tire week­end un­til the farmer came to re­lease him af­ter land­ing a few blows of pun­ish­ment.

Dr Ver­leen Bobb-Lewis, for­mer pro­duc­er of Les Coteaux’s her­itage pre­sen­ta­tion, Folk­tales and Su­per­sti­tions, said her navel string is buried there as she was born in the vil­lage and lat­er em­ployed there as a teacher.

She re­called a Her­itage Fes­ti­val pre­sen­ta­tion on left-hand dumpling, cap­tur­ing the imag­i­na­tion and keen in­ter­est of the au­di­ence.

“Peo­ple used to come with pen and pen­cil, tak­ing notes about what to do if yuh don’t want yuh man to leave yuh,” she said.

Heal­ing of the tam­brin

Bobb-Lewis said some vil­lagers were able to do “mirac­u­lous things” that or­di­nary peo­ple could not.

“Based on what you want to do you might go there to get some help be­cause you thought there were peo­ple up there with the skills to help you.

“Look I lost my two legs and maybe if those peo­ple were still there I might not have lose them,” she said.

She said apart from peo­ple seek­ing to vis­it Les Coteaux’s obeah prac­ti­tion­ers, there were oth­ers who were renowned for their spir­i­tu­al and heal­ing pow­ers.

Grant said many peo­ple who fell grave­ly ill were saved by what he called a reel dance us­ing the spir­it in­voked by the tam­brin mu­sic.

“You will dance, dance, dance un­til you take off to the grave­yard. The spir­it will give you all dif­fer­ent kind of bush to bathe the per­son.

“If they tell yuh to look for a cra­paud, when yuh com­ing back yuh com­ing back with a cra­paud in yuh mouth. Yuh will call for wa­ter, bush and bathe the per­son, and the per­son will get back strong.”

Asked if this was a cus­tom he had heard about or ex­pe­ri­enced, Grant said he had ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the reel dance and been en­tranced by the mu­sic.

He lament­ed that youths nowa­days do not be­lieve in the pow­er of the reel dance.

Food and fam­i­ly life

Mean­while, Sarah Gilman, 87, a ma­tri­arch in the vil­lage, said food and fam­i­ly are im­por­tant as­pects of Les Coteaux her­itage.

In an in­ter­view at her Bam­boo Hill home, Gilman said she nev­er got to ex­pe­ri­ence Her­itage Fes­ti­val as her hus­band used to leave her to go out and lime.

Nonethe­less, Gilman said she en­joyed stay­ing at home, tak­ing care of the house­hold, her fam­i­ly and cook­ing for them.

De­spite her dwin­dling eye­sight and the dis­cour­age­ment of her daugh­ters, Gilman said she can still bub­ble a pot to feed her­self and oth­ers.

“You know some peo­ple will give up dey self and say I can’t do this — not me. If I tell them I hun­gry I go­ing home and cook,” she said.

Her chil­dren have tak­en over the fam­i­ly tra­di­tion of bak­ing in the decades-old dirt oven at their home.

Gilman makes no apol­o­gy for still throw­ing a watch­ful eye, mak­ing sure they are stick­ing to her recipes for her fa­mous cas­sa­va pone, tarts and hops.

“Yuh gone down in the oven, she come down to still di­rect yuh. All yuh ah tell her move, she still ah come,” her daugh­ter Ber­nice Gilman-Mc­Dougall said.

“They does scold meh for that eh,” the el­der­ly Gilman chuck­led.

The “sweet-hand” of the Gilmans is ex­pect­ed to be part of Les Coteaux’s Her­itage Fes­ti­val cel­e­bra­tion, which gets un­der way on 23 Ju­ly.

The pre­sen­ta­tion is one of many for the an­nu­al fes­ti­val set for 16 Ju­ly to 1 Au­gust.

10 Facts About Les Coteaux

Mean­ing of the name

Les Coteaux is French for “the hills” or “the slopes,” re­flect­ing the vil­lage’s el­e­vat­ed, hilly ter­rain.

Lo­ca­tion

Les Coteaux is a vil­lage in south-west To­ba­go, sit­u­at­ed along the route be­tween Scar­bor­ough and Ply­mouth, and falls with­in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s west­ern dis­trict.

French in­flu­ence

The vil­lage name dates back to the pe­ri­od of French set­tle­ment and in­flu­ence in To­ba­go, de­spite the is­land chang­ing hands sev­er­al times be­tween Eu­ro­pean pow­ers.

Agri­cul­tur­al roots

Les Coteaux has long been known for farm­ing and food pro­duc­tion, in­clud­ing crops such as cas­sa­va, peas, ground pro­vi­sions and fruit.

Len’ hand tra­di­tion

The vil­lage his­tor­i­cal­ly prac­tised the “len’ hand” sys­tem, a com­mu­nal labour tra­di­tion in which res­i­dents vol­un­teered their time to help neigh­bours com­plete tasks.

Her­itage Fes­ti­val par­tic­i­pa­tion

Les Coteaux is known for its in­volve­ment in the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val, of­ten show­cas­ing per­for­mances root­ed in folk­lore, vil­lage tra­di­tions and oral his­to­ry.

Folk­lore and su­per­sti­tion

The com­mu­ni­ty is wide­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with To­ba­go folk­lore, in­clud­ing sto­ries of jumbies, spir­i­tu­al pro­tec­tion, bush med­i­cine and su­per­nat­ur­al be­liefs.

Tra­di­tion­al cook­ing

Dirt ovens re­main part of the vil­lage’s culi­nary her­itage, used for mak­ing lo­cal del­i­ca­cies such as cas­sa­va pone, bread, tarts and hops.

Tam­brin mu­sic

Tra­di­tion­al tam­brin mu­sic, a form of per­cus­sion-based folk mu­sic, has his­tor­i­cal­ly played a role in sto­ry­telling, dance and heal­ing rit­u­als in some com­mu­ni­ties.

Strong fam­i­ly ties

Like many tra­di­tion­al To­bag­on­ian vil­lages, Les Coteaux has been shaped by close-knit fam­i­ly net­works and in­ter­gen­er­a­tional knowl­edge-shar­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in farm­ing, cook­ing and cul­tur­al prac­tices.