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Midday sighting of Jhumbie
by "Indentured Slave"

In the days when the villages in Canje were lit by candles and oil lamps, supernatural beings such as the OLD HIGUE woman and THE DUTCHMAN jumped to life in stories passed down through the generations. Many of my relatives remember these characters and others that once roamed free after the sun went down and how they set about creating mischief in the community in which sugar was king.

I experienced the sighting of one of these supernatural beings and I am ready to declare that I have seen "Jhumbie". In these desolate country villages of Berbice in which after sunset it is pitch black like a mile deep cave. The slang word for these beings is "jhumbie" and yes I saw the jhumbie with my own eyes.

Acknowledging the existence of spirits is an important part of traditional countryside nites as we sat in front of a barrel billowing with smoke to chase away mosquitoes. It is in this faraway village called Cumberland that we listened the tales of Dutchman and old higues, spirits whistling in the nite and other tales. I listened to these stories intently so much that one night I urinated right through a window because our Latrine was about 30 yards from the house.

A day I will never forget is the oft repeated story that I have told many times but now I am putting it in writing. So I will declare that I have seen supernatural spirits the proverbial "jhumbie".

I was about 8 years old and I was across the road (those days it was still a redbrick broad) just hanging out with my friend Lenny picking guava, jamoon and ginip from their yard which had all kinds of fruit trees. It was around midday, myself and Lenny was just talking when I noticed two flying fully clothed(dressed in a white sheet) "Jhumbies" passing over the coconut trees in a similar pose to superman(a person I did not know about back then).

In complete awe, I turned and said to Lenny,"did you see that"? Lenny said yes and we started running towards the house, halfway there I "juk" my foot in a large splinter of greenheart (wood from Guyana) and limped all the way still trying to go as fast as I could.

Myself and Lenny knew then that we had seen what very few before us had seen but still in shock. After a while I went home and wrapped my foot thinking nothing of the danger of a piece of greenheart in my body. Around 3 p.m. my mother came home from market and asked what happened and I just told her that pimplah (thorns) bore my foot and that I was ok.

In the meanwhile, Lenny told his mother about the sightings and described what had happened to me. She then told me to take off the bandage because she knew that I was hurt because Lenny told her about the big splinter. She felt my foot and by my reaction she knew it was a big piece of wood.

Lenny mother knew right then that that piece of wood had to be taken out immediately and also knew that Rose Hall estate dispensary would close at 5 but the dispenser was a family friend so he wouldn’t hesitate to stay back and cut it out.

I screamed in excruciating pain as he cut my foot and took out the piece of wood. As he bandaged my foot the dispenser said that I could have died if it was left overnight in my body. So thanks to Lenny momma and the dispenser, I am still here to tell this "jhumbie tale".

There are still a lot of people who believe I am telling a child's tale and will swear that jhumbies do not exist. I still believe those jhumbies saw what had happened to me and protected me from evil. Yes the jhumbies I saw were my guardian angels.

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