Bound by blood: new film highlights Jamaica’s outlawed obeah belief system

A still from Stew Peas. Photograph: Danangelowe "artboii" Spencer/DAJS Visuals 2025 View image in fullscreen A still from Stew Peas. Photograph: Danangelowe "artboii" Spencer/DAJS Visuals 2025 Bound by blood: new film highlights Jamaica’s outlawed obeah belief system Stew Peas focuses on obeah, an enduring African magic practice in Jamaica banned by colonisers in the 1700s A new movie from award-winning Jamaican film-maker Sosiessia Nixon shines a spotlight on Jamaica’s enduring west African-based magic and spiritual healing tradition known as obeah. Nixon’s tense, feature-length suspense, Stew Peas , tells of the story of Jamaican detective Tessa, who is obsessed with an old murder case. Tessa’s life begins to fall apart when it becomes clear that her husband, Neil, has fallen under the spell of her new maid, Marcia. The story takes a dark turn with the shocking revelation that Marcia has been adding a secret ingredient to Neil’s food – her menstrual blood. “This film focuses on the persisting Jamaican obeah belief, that a woman could ‘bind’ a man in a relationship by serving him a meal of the traditional kidney beans and meat stew, which becomes a potent love potion when her menstrual blood is added,” Nixon said. Nixon hopes the movie will spark a dialogue about the tension between Christianity and obeah, which is rooted in the country’s African heritage and still practised today despite being outlawed by colonisers in the 1700s – and still illegal today. “The practice of binding a man with stew peas remains very much taboo in Jamaica, and I wanted to open a conversation. I wanted to look at this belief system in depth. Jamaicans often say that belief kills and belief cures, meaning that whatever you believe, that is what is going to happen. So, does this thing really work?” Nixon said. Coming from St Thomas, an idyllic coastal parish on the south-eastern tip of Jamaica, sometimes nicknamed the “obeah parish”, Nixon said she was inspired by actual experiences. “Growing up in St Thomas, I was very much exposed to a lot of obeah,” Nixon said. Producer and actor, Ava Eagle Brown, who created Jamaica’s Black River film festival , said the film will resonate with Caribbean people everywhere. “There is so much of us in this film, the things that make us Jamaican – especially if you’re in the diaspora … it brings you back home.” Brown, who is also in the film, added: “It’s probably going to now have some men looking at their woman with suspicion and asking: ‘What did you put it in my stew peas?’” she said. “But on a serious level, I told my son to make sure he doesn’t eat any stew peas from any woman!” Sonjah Stanley Niaah, a Jamaican cultural studies scholar and the director for UWI’s Centre for Reparation Research , said the stew peas belief is linked to the African view that natural elements, including blood from menstruation, has an inherent potency. The idea, she added, was that the red kidney beans will mask the blood so the man being charmed ca