Obeah Practitioners and Cunning Folk in the British Atlantic World

My poster, titled “Obeah Practitioners and Cunning Folk: Popular Magic in the British Atlantic World,” will compare obeah practitioners in the British Caribbean and cunning folk in rural England. Both kinds of magical practitioners were well known and widely consulted in the British Atlantic world, leading to the creation of a number of court records, newspaper articles, government reports, and other sources covering their activities. British elites frequently complained about the “superstitious” practices of these magical practitioners and saw them as both originating from the rural, uneducated, and even uncivilized masses. However, these magical practitioners and their clientele understood magic as a means to manipulate the world around them. Obeah practitioners and cunning folk played comparable roles in their respective societies and provided similar services in their own spiritual economies. Both obeah practitioners and cunning folk offered magical cures for illnesses, practiced counter-witchcraft, and helped locate lost objects. While there are significant differences between these societies, specifically with enslaved Africans practicing obeah in the Caribbean and free Englishmen performing cunning magic, the ruling British elites understood both types of magic as being similar and the magical practitioners provided many comparable services in their own societies.