Obeah
E58153
Obeah is a system of Afro-Caribbean spiritual and magical practices rooted in West African traditions, often associated with healing, protection, and resistance to colonial oppression.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Obeah canonical | 3 |
| Obeah (folk practice) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T458141 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Obeah Context triple: [Afro-Caribbean religions, includes, Obeah]
-
A.
Shango
Shango is a major Yoruba orisha revered as the powerful god of thunder, lightning, and justice, often associated with kingship and drumming.
-
B.
Tituba
Tituba was an enslaved woman of Indigenous and African descent whose accusations and testimony helped ignite the Salem witch trials in 1692.
-
C.
Mandinka
Mandinka is a major Mande language spoken primarily in The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and neighboring West African countries by the Mandinka people.
-
D.
Blacker
Blacker is a comparative form of the color term "black," indicating a greater degree of darkness or blackness.
-
E.
Hudra
The Hudra is a principal liturgical book of the Syriac tradition, containing prayers, hymns, and rites used throughout the liturgical year.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Obeah Target entity description: Obeah is a system of Afro-Caribbean spiritual and magical practices rooted in West African traditions, often associated with healing, protection, and resistance to colonial oppression.
-
A.
Shango
Shango is a major Yoruba orisha revered as the powerful god of thunder, lightning, and justice, often associated with kingship and drumming.
-
B.
Tituba
Tituba was an enslaved woman of Indigenous and African descent whose accusations and testimony helped ignite the Salem witch trials in 1692.
-
C.
Mandinka
Mandinka is a major Mande language spoken primarily in The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and neighboring West African countries by the Mandinka people.
-
D.
Blacker
Blacker is a comparative form of the color term "black," indicating a greater degree of darkness or blackness.
-
E.
Hudra
The Hudra is a principal liturgical book of the Syriac tradition, containing prayers, hymns, and rites used throughout the liturgical year.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
African diasporic religion
ⓘ
Afro-Caribbean spiritual practice ⓘ folk religion ⓘ magical practice ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
counter-magic
ⓘ
divination ⓘ healing ⓘ protection ⓘ resistance to colonial oppression ⓘ spirit communication ⓘ |
| centralFigure |
Obeah man
ⓘ
Obeah woman ⓘ |
| criminalizedIn |
Barbados during British colonial rule
ⓘ
Jamaica during British colonial rule ⓘ Trinidad and Tobago during British colonial rule ⓘ |
| hasCulturalContext | Afro-Caribbean communities ⓘ |
| hasHistoricalRole |
form of resistance among enslaved Africans in the Caribbean
ⓘ
tool for organizing slave rebellions ⓘ |
| hasOrigin | West African spiritual traditions ⓘ |
| hasReputationFor | both benevolent and malevolent magic ⓘ |
| hasThemeIn |
Caribbean folklore
ⓘ
Caribbean literature ⓘ Caribbean music ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
European folk magic
ⓘ
West African cosmologies ⓘ indigenous Caribbean practices ⓘ |
| perceivedAs | threat by colonial authorities ⓘ |
| practicedIn |
Bahamas
ⓘ
Barbados ⓘ Belize ⓘ Lesser Antilles ⓘ
surface form:
Eastern Caribbean islands
British Guiana ⓘ
surface form:
Guyana
Jamaica ⓘ Trinidad and Tobago ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Haitian Vodou
ⓘ
Myal ⓘ Obeah man stereotype in Caribbean literature ⓘ Pocomania ⓘ Santería ⓘ |
| subjectOf |
anthropological studies of Caribbean religion
ⓘ
postcolonial historical research ⓘ |
| subjectTo | colonial legal suppression ⓘ |
| transmittedBy |
apprenticeship to experienced practitioners
ⓘ
oral tradition ⓘ |
| uses |
charms and talismans
ⓘ
herbal remedies ⓘ incantations ⓘ ritual objects ⓘ |
| viewedAs | form of witchcraft by some Christian groups ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Obeah Description of subject: Obeah is a system of Afro-Caribbean spiritual and magical practices rooted in West African traditions, often associated with healing, protection, and resistance to colonial oppression.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Obeah (folk practice)