Obeah survived centuries of suppression by mutating into Myalism, Pocomania, and Rastafari

Evidence

As it happened, obeah proved to be more resilient than its opponents. Indeed, it was never extinguished. It continued its mutational adaptation and development in Jamaica (and elsewhere) over the centuries, successively manifesting itself in the societies of Myalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Pocomania movement of the late nineteenth, and the Rastafarians of the present. As we shall see, as it was with obeah, it was also the case with marronage. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 682

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the essay on grafting and survival — religious traditions, like root grafts, survive by sending up new shoots from a living underground structure.
• SEED: An article on how persecuted cultural practices survive by re-embodiment: obeah into Rastafari, Vodou into Haitian liberation, etc.