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    The Dance of Death
    The Dance of Death
    The Dance of Death
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    The Dance of Death

    By Peter Halder

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    Chilling Supernatural Tales from Guyana

    A crypt of seven chilling, spell binding and spine tingling supernatural tales that portray the folklore of Guyana. The Dance of Death highlights an Africa inherited CUMFA ritual and its fatal objective. Obadella The Obeah Woman uses witchcraft to exact revenge for a young lady who was abused. The Moongazer of Kingston uses her power to save the life of a man who harmed a spirit. The Obeah Man, the male counterpart of an obeah woman, uses black magic to cement the love between a married couple. Four schoolmates face terror in a haunted house when they are confronted by a blood sucking, The Old Higue of Belfield. The Devil Woman entices a girl to the woods for an evil purpose but the courageous girl turns the table on her. A baby is seized by a supernatural water devil which turns it into The Gold Ringed Alligator that relishes little girls.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherProglen
    Release dateJul 1, 2014
    ISBN9786167817491
    The Dance of Death
    Author

    Peter Halder

    Peter Halder is the pen name of Burnett Alexander Halder. He was born in Guyana, formerly British Guyana, and educated there, the United Kingdom and the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. Peter worked as a journalist and later joined the Government Service. He served in District Administration, Licence Revenue and Foreign Affairs. As a diplomat, he was Deputy Head of Mission, Guyana Embassy, Washington D.C., U.S.A. and subsequently appointed High Commissioner to Canada. He resigned and accepted an appointment as a Consultant with the Government of Fiji. He later became a Consultant with the Fiji Embassy to the U.S.A. and after, with the Fiji Permanent Mission to the United Nations. Peter received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guyana Cultural Association of New York, USA and Editor’s Awards from The National Library of Poetry, Maryland, USA. His first book, The Cat of Muritaro, was published in 2012. He has a blogsite at www.peterhalder.wordpress.com/ at which his nostalgias, articles, short stories, and poems can be read. He is now retired and lives with his family in Virginia, U.S.A.

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      Book preview

      The Dance of Death - Peter Halder

      THE DANCE OF DEATH

      Mother Azura

      Mother Azura was the High Priestess of cumfa in Ruimveldt, a southern suburb of Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, a country on the northern coast of the continent of South America.

      Cumfa is a ritual dance for supernatural purposes. It was a culture, like voodoo, of slaves from Africa brought to Guyana by European colonists to work on sugar estates. The culture was handed down from generation to generation

      Mother Azura lived alone in a small wooden cottage.

      She was never married, was thirty-five years old and a virgin. A High Priestess of cumfa had to be a virgin and retain her virginity.

      She made and sold black pudding. It is a kind of very long sausage stuffed with cooked rice mixed with cow’s blood and spices and then boiled in a huge enamel pot. She sold it by pieces from a blue enamel pot which she put on a wooden stand at the front gate to her yard, facing the East Bank Public Road. Two pieces were sold for four cents and four pieces for eight cents. She would slit each slice and between, she put a mixture of carambola (also called souree) boiled in oil with pepper, onion and garlic. The pieces were put in piece of white paper.

      Mother Azura was selling her black pudding one day when a young man riding a Raleigh bicycle stopped at her gate.

      He called out to her, Gimme eight cents black pudding with lots of sour.

      He paid her, ate it slowly and kept looking at her.

      Is something wrong? she asked.

      Not really. My name is Moonsammy, Alvin Moonsammy, the dapper-looking young man replied, I work for a newspaper, The Argosy, and I have been asked to write a human interest story on cumfa. I would be very happy therefore if you could tell me when is your next cumfa ritual. I would like to attend it and write about it. I would also like to bring my staff photographer along to take some photographs so that our readers would have a visual idea about the weird dance ritual.

      Well I hate to disappoint you Mr. Reporter Moonsammy, all dressed up as you are in jacket and tie and so mannerly. Strangers are not allowed in nor are they permitted to even have a glimpse of the cumfa ceremony. Great harm will come to anyone who does so. Also, cumfa is not held regularly. It is only done when I determine that a session is required. So there you are. I cannot help you and would not help you for your own good.

      Thank you very much for being frank with me, Moonsammy replied, I shall tell my editor what you said. One more question please, if you don’t mind, where do you hold the session when it is required?

      It is held right here on the grounds at the back of my house, she said, and you can see for yourself that my compound is fenced around with zinc sheets. You cannot see through them or over them for the sheets are over ten feet high. If you are thinking of taking a peek on the sly, forget it or you will regret it Mr. Moonsammy for the rest of your life. Bye now.

      What she did not tell Moonsammy was that the cumfa ritual was her main source of income. The ritual was used for many purposes other than its cultural aspect. People paid Mother Azura handsomely to obtain information from, and about, the dead and about the living.

      Cousin Fred

      Several nights later, a male relative of Mother Azura went to her home and asked to speak to her privately.

      Now what is it you want to see me about Cousin Fred?

      You and I are family, Azura, so I know you would do anything to help me and would not charge me for it.

      Okay, go on, go on, don’t waste my time.

      My wife Doris is giving me blow - she is having an affair with another man. The man, Vernie, works at the same place as I. One day, I went home early and saw them in the act. When I confronted him at the workplace, he laughed at me and said, ‘Fred you got the ring but I got the thing’. I never felt so ashamed. When I went home that same night, I told Doris I knew what was going on and cautioned her to give up her lover Vernie. She laughed in my face and said ‘never’. She called me a cunoo moonoo (a big fool). And so she and the man have been carrying on. I can’t take the pressure any more, Azura. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep and I feel like killing myself. Then I said why I, if anything should, she must be the one to die. With that as my decision, I came to you. You are my family. You have an obligation to help me and save me from shame. I beg you to use your cumfa and get rid of Doris for me and her kangalan (good-for-nothing) sweetman too. Do it so that no suspicion will fall on me. Make it appear that they both died a natural death.

      Mother Azura thought long and hard over her cousin’s request, lifted her head and told him she had a duty as his relative to help him and that she was prepared to act. She advised him that she will do it on Friday night of the following week, for most cumfas are done on Friday nights. He should arrange to go to the rum (liquor) shop at 8.00 as he normally does on Friday nights, sit at a table with at least three friends, and ask the owner’s permission for the group to remain until six on Saturday morning. By then it would be all over and his presence in the rum shop with his friends would be his alibi. Fred smiled, shook her hand, thanked her and left.

      The High Priestess’ demeanor changed. She felt elated. She enjoyed cumfa. It gave her an extraordinary supernatural feeling and also one of power. In her culture, she had an obligation to her family and using cumfa to kill gave her a thrill. So she set

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