The difference between a jumbie and a ghost is dis – yes? A ghost is Yank and a jumbie done be Crucian. We ain’t got ghost in de Virgin Islands.
– The Rev. George Franklin
As the sun set and the darkness spread across the hills, some 200 people gathered Saturday at Mt. Victory Camp in the St. Croix rainforest to share stories about jumbies, those ubiquitous figures of Caribbean culture.
It was the fourth annual Jumbie Talk, sponsored by Caribbean History and Nature Tourism. And while the supernatural figures were the center of attention they were hardy the only draw. There was something for everyone – Bully and the Musical Kafooners played their irresistible Quelbe, there was food and drink from several local vendors, and the five-woman drum group Asche Akoma played rhythms that got many of the children in the crowd up and bouncing while their parents sat and swayed.
Jumbie can’t find you when you hide under things.
– Bully Petersen
But Jumbies were certainly the central focus of the evening. Jumbies are spirits, with a tradition stretching back to Africa. Depending on who’s telling the story, they are ghosts, or sprites, friendly, helpful or, more often, malevolent, and can look like a person — usually a dead person — or a cat, or a dog, or a goat or … Well, it depends on the story and the storyteller. And the storytelling was the highlight of the night.
First Veronica Gordon took about a hundred, more or less, on a hike from the camp down to Creque Dam, pausing here and there along the way to point out a Kapock tree with an opening so large that a man had actually once lived there. His spirit is said to still reside there. At a spot where the road ran over a small rivulet running down to the dam, she told of a mother and daughter who had drowned at the spot in the 1920s. Peope driving on the road still sometimes report seeing a woman and child crossing the road there.
The reason why de cemetery wall is white, because Jumbie can’t climb over white wall.
– Franklin
And at the dam itself she told of the last person reported to have drowned there, an 11-year-old boy looking for freshwater shrimp back in 1977 or ’78. People passing by will still occasionally see a black ribbon tied to a tree by family members to memorialize him, she said.
Then she told how to "raise the dead," but she doesn’t recommend dealing with the spirits.
"You must pay dem. Dey can’t use paper money. They want metal, or flesh," she said. If you’ve run out of gold or silver coins or "friends you don’t like, then it’s your turn."
Much better, she said, is "if you want something, pray to your creator."
There are no jumbies in Christiansted. You know why? Christiansted have a cemetery, and Frederiksted have a graveyard. It’s true!
– Franklin
She then told a story about a man named Fungi, one of three who went to the graveyard to raise a spirit Fungi held the lantern while another man carried the Bible and a third dug When the ground began moving, Fungi ran so fast "the lantern was still in the air while Fungi was out on the street!"
And then it was back to the camp. The walk back was a tough, uphill slog in the dark past all the possibly spirit-haunted Jumbie dwellings, but it put the audience in the mood for stories around the fire.
In Crucian culture, Jumbie stories often have a moral or lesson teaching the listeners about obeying parents or being responsible. The listener who fails to heed the lesson is putting him or hersef in peril – The jumbies will get him!
Nothing has more speed than a man with a Jumbie behind him!
– Petersen
And as with all good storytelling, it wasn’t just the content of the tale that got a reaction, it was the telling. The Rev. George Franklin, a Catholic priest and author of "A Bunch Ah Real Jumbie Stories Meh Son," had his audience rolling with laughter as he explained "facts" about Jumbies, and told a story about four Jumbies fighting over a horse. And Bully Petersen proved he’s an artist at more than Quelbe, as his big voice boomed out with stories from his youth. Asta Williams shared a story about a Jumbie visiting her church during a service. And several members of the audience took advantage of the call for volunteers, telling stories of hauntings and vistitations and eerie events they attributed to the spirits.
While Jumbies — 
as related in Saturday night’s stores — seem to be mostly malevolent, they also seem to be fairly easy to fool. Besides Petersen’s advice about hiding under something, it seems Jumbies can be confused by a person wearing clothing backwards or inside out. If you take off your shoes when you enter your home and leave them facing the other way, that will also apparently confuse them, as will walking backwards.
But never shine a flashlight at the spirits, Gordon warned hikers. "They’ll follow de light right back to you hand!"
