Seeking the Spirited, Mystical Jamaica Tourists Don’t See

Photographs by Naila Ruechel

Text By Nicole Dennis-Benn

When the photographer Naila Ruechel proposed a trip documenting religious practices in Jamaica — the country where we were both born — she set out to “offer a broader understanding of the spiritual lives of Jamaican people; a Jamaica unseen by the average visitor.” Starting from Kingston, Ruechel charted a course through the rich mix of Christian and Afro-centric traditions, from Obeah to the Revival church to Rastafarianism. These images document that voyage.

Worshipers at an Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston.

It’s often claimed that Jamaica has the most churches per square mile of any country in the world. On any given Sunday, you can expect to see people going to church dressed in their best clothes: women in bright print dresses, men in somber dark suits that seem hot amid the tropical sun, children’s shoes polished to a shine. Mothers warn: “Mek sure nuh mess up oonuh self, yuh hear?” I grew up Christian. Everyone I knew was Christian. In school, we bowed our heads and prayed to the Virgin Mary. Some of my most vivid memories of childhood involve me stuffing my belly with HTB Easter bun and cheese, grateful that Jesus Christ died not for my sins but for the ability to eat the spicy-sweet bun all day without getting in trouble.

She saw a 1-year-old male goat being prepared for sacrifice at Cross of Life Revival Ministry and captured this basin of rice, rum and wine used in the Revival ceremony, which stands next to a red ritual candle and a glass of wine.

Ruechel went to Cross of Life Revival Ministry in August Town, Kingston, during a four-day-long “thanksgiving” celebration. “The energy stimulated every sense,” she said. “What began with prayers and thanks quickly evolved into a spirited cacophony of drums, cymbals, electric guitar, singing, chanting and speaking in tongues.” She saw a 1-year-old male goat being prepared for sacrifice at Cross of Life Revival Ministry and captured this basin of rice, rum and wine used in the Revival ceremony, which stands next to a red ritual candle and a glass of wine.

Tourists seldom realize how powerful and persistent Christianity is on our island. Centuries ago, when the British colonized the island, Christianity became the dominant religion. Believers consider it to be more respectable than the “backward beliefs” brought centuries ago by African slaves. For this reason, people discussed traditions like Obeah — a hard-to-define faith that, in its essence, can be considered “the black magic of the Caribbean” — in secrecy. But those so-called backward traditions are central to the country’s identity. Nanny, Jamaica’s national hero and the great leader of the self-emancipating Maroons, was also a known practitioner of Obeah. As legend has it, the Maroons used Obeah to defeat British soldiers. Because of this illustrious heritage, mysticism undergirds the island’s sacred life.

Ruechel was given permission to photograph an Obeah man’s altars. Devotional items on one altar include machetes, goat horns, dice and a small bottle of overproof white rum. Statuettes of Christ and other religious figures populate the corner above another altar.

My great-grandmother was a healer who knew every bush and their properties. She was a country woman, the only one in our family with knowledge of our ancestral worship practices. By the time I was born, she, like many Jamaicans getting up in age, had given her life to Jesus. She moved in with us in Kingston, forgoing the familiar rural landscape for city living. But she still boiled her bush teas and grew her herbs and plants in our backyard and soaked leaves in white rum that she used to anoint our heads and bellies whenever we were sick.

Believers attending the “thanksgiving” at Cross of Life Revival Ministry.

Rastafarianism, which outsiders assume is Jamaica’s main religion, is largely shunned by mainstream culture. (My sightings of Rastas were mostly on the street, and the only Rasta I knew personally was my estranged cousin, Kerry, who began quoting Marcus Garvey when he became, as my mother put it, “a madman.”) At the time I did not yet know my history; my teachers were trained by the British. They were all Black like me but taught to see anything other than fair and Christian-like as deviant.

The reggae artist Sizzla is planning to transform Judgment Yard, his property in August Town, Kingston, into a place where all are welcomed to stay and experience Rastafarianism. At the site, Ruechel photographed Sizzla’s son, the Rastafarian Melech Miguel-Kayodeye Collins, a.k.a. Melekú (seen in profile before the green background), and the Trinidadian musician Marlon Asher (standing in front of the red background). Ruechel notes that Judgment Yard, which also includes a music studio and youth center, “is a beacon of hope in an area plagued with outbreaks of violence.”

Ruechel traveled to St. Thomas Parish and observed people who follow the Kumina tradition, which centers communication with ancestral spirits. She spoke with a devotee who said she saw the ghost of an elderly woman dancing on the dirt road near the field. The photographer took pictures of other attendees of the ceremony, including a pair of schoolgirls and a Maroon father and son. Maroons and Kumina practitioners worship in different ways but appreciate one another’s rituals.

Ruechel’s arresting photographs made me think about my great-grandmother again, about all the things in my culture that I rejected because I did not understand them. Because I was taught to fear them. These photographs took me back home. They gave me the ability to rediscover my island through the rituals and beliefs bequeathed from my ancestors.

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