A Spooky Tale for Halloween

This fictional traveler's tale was inspired by the author's encounter with Juju in coastal West Africa.

Sun glints off the wet sand and I squint at the rocks protruding from the sea, the waves still angry from the night's storm. A pile of palm trees, thrust across the beach in a wild timber tangle from the turbulent storm, lies still and ominous. I climb over one fallen trunk in my path, then another, slowing my jog to a walk that enables me to see it. Something caught in a mass of giant, rotting palm fronds. Something that draws me into the sea.

Struggling against the tide and waves pounding my hips, now up to my chest. Clinging to the rocks, I untangle a wooden statue from its leafy raft. Grabbing the treasure, I wade back to the shore. I stop momentarily to examine it before heading back to the beach hut, eager to show my children.

A lovely carving of a young girl, the length of my forearm, with a peaceful, yet distant expression, staring into something I cannot see. The front is smooth with carved details-beads around the naked neck and waist, tight curly hair. A feather weight, the back of the wooden statue is riddled with holes.

What has been its journey floating on the palm fronds in this west African sea, coming to me, a gift of sorts?

Retracing my footsteps, I pass three British friends parked in beach chairs with gin and tonics, peering at me over owlish sunglasses. It might be juju, they warn. Best to throw it back in the sea. Stubbornly I tramp onward, the foot-high statue, light as a corn husk, now tucked into the waist band of my shorts, becoming part of me. Mine. Mine.

I approach the younger kids-my son, his schoolmates, and the fishermen's children-playing pirate games in the dugout canoes abandoned by village fisherman on their Sunday day of rest. I call out for them to come and see my treasure, also drawing the attention of my daughter and her friends from their sandcastles. In unison, they scramble to see what I am holding, politely pass it around with faintest interest, and return to their play. Not their idea of treasure.

Back home I lay the statue on an alcove shelf that opens between the dining room and the tiled corridor that we pass from kitchen to the living areas throughout the day. Always glancing at or away from the wooden doll.

Then, things happen. The car tires crush my prescription glasses that fell from my head when I bent to pick up a list I dropped before I get into the car and back over my glasses. A friend's tour group, short of rooms, asks to house a stranger in our guest room for one or two nights but the tourist has a psychotic breakdown and stays a week under doctor's sedation. A thin necked porcelain vase that falls to the floor leaves sharp shards to cut my feet as I stumble down the hall for morning coffee.

The children's schoolmates, both expatriate and African, come to see it. They point and talk in whispers but will not touch it. The housekeeper, Helen, won't dust it. She warns there are objects found in Ghana with great powers. Some evil. She begs me not to take such risks. Ignoring her worries, expressed in mumbles or prayers under the breath, I go on with daily life. The Ghanaian teachers in the school where I work ask for daily updates, certain that the statue is a bad omen carved by a traditional herbalist, a black magic man. They urge me to offer it back to the sea. I tell them I will do it on Sunday but Sundays come and go because I cling to it. The story of my find too colorful to lose.

Did you bring it? The children ask when we arrive at the beach hut. I make excuses that week and again the next but then the robbers cut the steel bars that caged our house and entered the living room with their massive metal cutting tools. Waking to noise that might be mangoes falling on the tin roof, I get out of bed, and head to the living room, to read a bit and ease myself back to sleep, but as I approach the living room and the thieves lurking in the shadows, I decide on a whim to go down the long hall to the kitchen.

On the way to the kitchen, I stop by the dining room and give a careful look at the statue. How could such a sweet face, such silken wooden skin, cause the bad luck that has swept our lives? Or did it? After all, didn't the security guards think that if I had entered the living room, the thieves would have been forced to kill me with their heavy tools? I can now see that the statue drew me to her and away from certain death. Isn't my luck turning? Could my statue actually be my protector? Clinging to this effigy as if it has entered my soul, I refuse to yield to the pleas of my children, my housekeeper, and my colleagues at work. The statue is mine.

Pulling myself from deep sleep to find smoke in the hallway seeping under my son's door frame, I open his door and see flames screaming from his split AC unit. As I grab him, my husband attacks the flames with a fire extinguisher. The next day, Sunday again, the children look at me with pleading eyes, and so I wrap the effigy in a batik cloth and tuck it into a basket, the one with a leather handle that held picnics and happy days before the juju doll. Nestled sweetly in the basket, it occurs to me that this foundling might be a good luck charm that waked me from my sleep to save my son. Conflicted, but resolute, I put the statue into the car.

Promising my two children that I will throw it back into the sea, I head down the beach to the isolated shore where I found it. The children, playing along the beach, want to go with me and offer some chants to break the juju spell as we toss it out to sea. But I tell them I must do it alone. Still unsettled about my decision, I throw the statue out to sea and it washes right back to my feet.

I pick it up and look down the beach toward our enclave of friends to ensure that no one is watching me put the statue back in the basket. I take a detour up a path of beaten shells around the perimeter of the fishermen's village. Intending to stop and ask our friend, John, who rents us the beach hut, if he knows anything about the statue, after all he is the herbalist's son.

Considering that he might lay claim to my unique antique, I change my mind. I scurry along the forest path that encircles the village and out to the thick sand behind our beach hut. I put the statue in the bottom of the basket and lay the cloth on top, set the basket at the edge of the bush, and walk out to jump waves with my daughter and son.

Did you do it? They ask. I smile and they smile back at me. It is time to load up the beach toys and picnic supplies. In the scurry of packing I am able to nestle the basket unseen in the floorboard under the children's dangling feet. I sing a lullaby to them as we plow along the dirt track, past the skinny goat herders, all angles and bones, and onto the paved road. The children are soon fast asleep as the lithe and deadly green mamba glides from the basket and under my car seat.

Sleepy, too, from a day in the sun, I close my eyes and have one final thought. I'll just put it away, out of sight, until one day when it matters not to anyone but me, I'll take it out and put it on a shelf. An interesting traveler's tale.

The Truth:

In 1995, I was living in Ghana and found this statue in the sea as described. The bad luck episodes also occurred as described, as well as several other calamities, but I remained persistent to hold onto that statue. I am a collector of interesting antiques, after all, and this one was freely offered to me by the sea.

In this photo, Charles and kids are standing by rock outcroppings that jutted into the sea. This is where we searched for interesting fish to put in our aquarium. As tide retreated, small fish were caught in the small pools formed in the rocks. This is the location where I found the statue.

My African friends and colleagues, surmised that the statue might be juju. It was a running point of discussion for several weeks and I was constantly asked what else had occurred, and there was always something to report. It's true that my housekeeper refused to dust it and school children came by often to stare at it and then run away screaming. It was a game, but then again it wasn't.

Everyone, especially my children, begged me to throw it back into the sea. Once I decided to do so, I was given much advice from locals about the correct procedure, including pouring of libations and some spell breaking chants.

We knew all about libations and rituals because the rental of our beach hut required that it be blessed by the village chief and linguist with a bottle of good whiskey that we would supply.

Unfortunately, the village chief died on the night after our hut blessing. For a while, we were fearful to use the hut thinking the villagers might associate us with the chief's death.

On the day I agreed to throw the statue back in the sea, I remained unsettled, wanting to know the truth behind the statue. The kids were out playing, waiting for me to alert them that it was time to do the deed.

I was standing by the basket on the picnic table when our friend John from the village came to collect rent for the use of the hut. I said, "John, I found something. It's not mine and I am going to put it back where I got it, but I am wondering if you might know something about it."

He looked at the statue long and hard while my heart lodged in my throat. He finally asked, "Do you know what this is?" In a quivering voice, I answered, "No."

"It's a twin statue," he said, smiling. "In our culture, twins are rare and special. If a twin baby dies, the dead twin will attempt to take the living twin with her because she is fearful to make the journey alone to the other world. So, the witch doctor carves a statue representing the dead twin. Through libations and ritual, he calls the spirit of the dead twin into the statue and there she stays, participating in all family and village celebrations.

When the living twin reaches puberty, her father and the herbalist row her out to sea in a canoe and she tosses the twin statue into the sea releasing the dead twin to make her journey to the land of the dead.

At that point the living twin is deemed strong enough not to be drawn to the other world with the dead twin. So what you see here," he continued, "is a twin statue that has been floating in the sea for a long time, an empty vessel. You can keep it, if you like."

We did not drive home that day with the statue and a green mamba snake in the car, although I did find a deadly green mamba in our home's interior garden where our son, Chas, and his friend, Christopher, played with their Jurassic park figures.

This was another ominous incident that occurred during the weeks the statue lived with us. Nearing a move from Ghana to Nepal, it occurred to me that I might not want to pack that statue in with our household effects. Just to be sure, I really did throw it back to sea.

I no longer have the statue. Assisted by Damian Gagnon with a pitcher's arm, his kids and mine, and a barrage of others, we returned the statue to its watery grave.

The Gagnon family-Damian, Jeane Marie, Nathan, Monica, Phillip, and Kathleen- were our closest American friends in Ghana. Pictured here with our children Bronwyn and Chas. It was Damian's pitcher arm that returned the statue to its watery grave.

Reflections and Photos

This story reveals one of the strangest aspects of living abroad as expatriates. We lived like Americans do, stridently working for change and 'chillin" with a level of frivolity and privilege that was in harsh juxtaposition to the cultural ethos of the places we landed. And what we found time and time again was an openness of these kind people to accept us as we were, and a generosity and willingness to invite us into their homes and communities, helping us appreciate another way of looking at the world.

Here are some photos of good times at Mile 13 outside Accra, Ghana, where we spent Sundays at the beach. The villagers who "owned" the beach discovered a way to enhance income by renting out beach plots to foreigners on their day of rest. Other days the beach was busy with fisherman and family life. And perhaps a bit of juju

Pictured above are three wonderful Ghanaians who ran our household and helped us navigate life in Ghana. Eric was an exceptional cook, as well as a Vet Tech, which came in handy because we had a menagerie of animals. When Charles and I were at work, Eric played roller skate hockey with Chas down the long hall (by the statue) and don't touch the floor tag.

Helen, with Chas, was our housekeeper. She had an amazing gift to find every tiny lost Lego and returning it to its special bin. She made beautiful clothing for Bronwyn and me, and costumes for Chas, and filled our day with sunshine. The night of the break-in we were coming back from dinner out and she told us she had finished making a set of batik placemats for me while she was watching the kids. The night I woke, it was those placemats that drew me to the kitchen instead of the living room to read, where the thieves would have likely attacked me. So I give Helen credit for saving my life.

Albert was hired as a driver and gardener. He soon played a major role getting Bronwyn safely to the polo field and standing by, just in case, when Bronwyn rode Butterfly (retired polo pony) into the bush. "Oh mom, Butterfly was so perfect today. He stayed completely still and didn't freak when a spitting cobra rose up in our path on the bush walk. I was able to slowly back him up and the cobra settled back down, without striking and slid away. Albert also collected insects with a butterfly net in the edge of the jungle (just down the street) to feed our chameleon. Here he is, proud father, with his son.