The Bowl and the Stone...and Jumbies

I'm still editing, but the good news is I'm on the last pass before sending my triplets off to the editor. Of course, I'm only about 25% through Book #1, so there's a way to go yet. Sigh. But I'm getting there!

Bish Denham is visiting the Tiki Hut this month to tell us about her new book, THE BOWL AND THE STONE, a Haunting Tale from the Virgin Islands. How perfect is that for October - the month of Halloween!

It's just out, so go buy it today!

Bish is also hosting a Rafflecopter giveaway for a copy of her new book. Some of you may recall that Rafflecopter refuses to acknowledge my existence, so I'm unable to post the signup link here. If you wish to participate, just zip over to Bish's blog, and you can enter the drawing from there.

If you buy the book AND win the Rafflecopter giveaway, you have one to keep and one to donate or give to your favorite library or child. Win/Win!

Hold onto your laptops! The jumbies are coming. . . .

Thanks for hosting me today Carol!

Today I’m going to tell you a little bit about jumbies.

A jumbie, jumbee, or jumby is a mythological spirit or demon in Caribbean folklore which has its roots in Africa. It is a generic name given to all malevolent entities. Different islands have different concepts of what jumbies are. Generally it is thought that people who were evil in life will become instruments of evil after death. Unlike ghosts that are wispy, fog-like beings, jumbies are dark and shadowy.

Traditional sayings

In the old days some parents would tell misbehaving children to watch out or, “the Jumbies will get you!”

Ways to avoid a Jumbie

You can confuse a Jumbie by wearing your clothes backwards or inside out.

Leaving a heap of sand, salt, or rice outside the door compels the Jumbie to count every grain before sunrise. You can also place 99 grains of rice, sand, or salt around your house and the Jumbie will spend the night looking for the 100^th grain.

Leave a rope or thread tied with many knots outside your door. Jumbies love to untie knots and will be so busy untying the knots they’ll forget about coming into your home.

Jumbie beads, Abrus precatorius, is a plant native to India. The seeds were believed to ward off Jumbies. Because they are small and hard they were also used in percussion instruments and in jewelry. The seeds are quite poisonous. One well chewed seed can kill an adult or child.

Jumbies are mentioned in my book, The Bowl and the Stone: A Haunting Tale from the Virgin Islands. In it, Sam and her best friend Nick, are being haunted but they don’t know if it’s a mischievous jumbie or tormented ghost. In this excerpt they encounter the mysterious man for the first time.

We turn at the same moment, staring down the porch which is shrouded in the deepening gloom of dusk. A huge black man is there in the blocked doorway. His body fills the space. In the darkness I can barely make out the tattered pants that are tied at his waist with a rope. His face is in shadow. As one, without a word, Nick and I slowly walk towards him. As we approach, he backs up into the thorny tangle of lime trees and disappears. We race to the blocked entrance, but we can’t get through the trees, so how could a person of his size manage it?

“Did you see that?” Nick runs back to the main entrance and the front steps, red cape flapping.

I follow, almost stepping on his heels. “None of the branches were moving!”

We race outside and around the front of the house to the lime trees, searching for whoever disappeared into them, but no one’s there.

We go back to the front steps and sit.

“How weird….” My heart is pounding. “But we both saw it, didn’t we? So it has to be real, right? This isn’t a game, is it?”

“No, it’s not a game. Maybe it was a jumbie. OOoooooOOooooo.”

I slap Nick’s arm. “Stop it, that’s not funny.”

Pirates. Explorers. And spooky ghost hunters.

It’s 1962. Sam and her best friend, Nick, have the whole island of St. John, in the U. S. Virgin Islands, as their playground. They’ve got 240 year-old sugar plantation ruins to explore, beaches to swim, and trails to hike.

But when a man disappears like a vapor right in front of them, they must confront a scary new reality. They’re being haunted. By whom? And why? He’s even creeping into Nick’s dreams.

They need help, but the one who might be able to give it is Trumps, a reclusive hunchback who doesn’t like people, especially kids. Are Sam and Nick brave enough to face him? And if they do, will he listen to them? 

As carefree summer games turn into eerie hauntings, Sam and Nick learn more about themselves and life than they could ever have imagined.

Purchase your copy today

and enter the ghostly tale of the Jumbies. 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bowl-Stone-Haunting-Virgin-Islands-ebook/dp/B01I5H0NOW

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/650290

Bish Denham, whose mother’s side of the family has been in the Caribbean for over one hundred years, was raised in the U. S. Virgin Islands. She still has lots of family living there whom she visits regularly.

She says, “Growing up in the islands was like living inside a history book. Columbus named the islands, Sir Francis Drake sailed through the area, and Alexander Hamilton was raised on St. Croix. The ruins of hundreds of sugar plantations, built with the sweat and blood of slave labor, litter the islands. Then there were the pirates who plied the waters. It is within this atmosphere of wonder and mystery, that I grew up. Life for me was magical, and through my writing I hope to pass on some of that magic.”

The Bowl and the Stone: A Haunting Tale from the Virgin Islands, is her third book and second novel. You can find Anansi and Company: Retold Jamaican Tales and A Lizard’s Tail, at Amazon.com.

To learn more about Bish, you can visit her blog, Random Thoughts, at www.http:/bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com.

She can also be found on Facebook: www.facebook.com/BishDenham/Author

Twitter @BishDenham

And Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6439315.Bish_Denham

In order to avoid posting on Election Eve,

I'll be back here on Wednesday, November 2. See you then!