obeah

1. (transitive) To bewitch using this kind of folk magic.Examples: "Sometimes an egg is boiled hard, and laid in the middle of the road, surrounded by a circle of plantane bark; at others, pieces of hair, cats' teeth, cocks' feathers, and bits of glass, broken amber, and snakes' skins, are placed at the person's door; but oftener buried so as to be concealed from sight. Whoever touches an obeah of this kind, is certain to bring all the mischief intended for the obeahed person, upon his own head; and the consequence is, very few Negroes, if any, venture to remove the charm, or even to come near it. A lock of the obeahed person's hair is almost indispensably necessary, […]"; "[I]f any negro from that time forward should be proved to have accused another of Obeahing him or of telling another that he had been Obeahed, he should forfeit his share of the next present of salt-fish, which I meant soon to distribute among the slaves, and should never receive any favour from me in future; […]"; "A negro takes a dislike to a negro or negroes, either upon the same estate with himself or upon another; he goes to the Obeah woman and tells her that he will give money or something else as payment if she will Obeah such and such persons. The Obeah woman then goes to those people, and tells them she has Obeahed them. Slow poison is at times secretly administered, but in by far the greater number of cases the mind only is affected; the imagination becomes more and more alarmed, the spirits sink, lassitude and loss of appetite ensue, and death ends the drama."transitive