A Personal Account:
I remember that night quite vividly. It was during the late 1950s in the Morne Diablo area, South Trinidad. My aunt had just given birth, and I was standing outside their home, listening to the pandemonium inside. From where I stood, I could hear the chaotic noises, but I didn’t see anything directly. I was told that my uncle, normally a strong man, was frozen in fear in the corner when he saw the newborn child. Vashti, the mother, was said to be slipping in and out of consciousness.
Inside, Ms. Ingrid, the ‘chaamine’, was struggling to control the situation. She told me later that she tried in vain to hold down the child, but it scratched her fiercely and scurried under the bed. During a brief moment of silence, when the child had stopped screaming and growling, it was said to target the father with insults. With a disturbingly deep, unsettling voice it shouted: "Boysie! Wey yuh mudda? Watch yuh, yuh moorkh!" From outside, I could hear the cries, the screaming, the moving furniture.
Ms. Ingrid said that earlier, as soon as the child was delivered, it asked her in ‘a big man’s voice’ what she was doing there. She said she never expected the raakhas to be that strong, that the “kala jaadu that griping Vashti was too much.”
Ms. Ingrid described the creature as looking like a slippery, black ‘crapaud,’ with teeth like a dog. We were told to go ‘up de road’, away from the house. I heard later that when they eventually mustered the courage to look under the bed, the ‘thing’ was gone.
The trauma of that night left my aunt mute for nearly two years, and my uncle, unable to cope with the stress, fell into alcoholism, which ultimately led to his death. Ms. Ingrid herself was never the same after that night. To be honest, nothing was right after that, especially with Auntie Vash—no amount of puja, or visits from priests and pundits could bring her back to her old self. She eventually passed away in 2004. To this day, the memory of that night haunts me—the eerie cries, the growls, the stories from Ms Ingrid, it was really something else yes.”
- D. Bheepat
----------------------------------------------------------------
"The Raakhas"
The tale of the “Raakhas” is a chilling legend that likely evolved with the East Indian indentured labourers who came to the Caribbean and was propagated by their descendants. This folklore may have been influenced by the “Rakshasa” of Indian mythology—demonic or ‘goblin-like’ beings known for their shape-shifting abilities, immense strength, and in some instances, an insatiable appetite for human flesh.
In Trinidad, a Raakhas/Raa-khas is a sinister newborn creature, often resembling a young rat, monkey, or frog, with a complexion as dark as night. It bears a high, sloping forehead, and its menacing grin reveals four protruding teeth—two on the upper jaw and two on the lower. Its long fingernails, toenails, and hair add to its eerie appearance, and it may even possess a tail. Upon birth, the raakhas immediately attempts to flee, leaping through windows and scaling rooftops, all the while shrieking the names of its parents as a chilling omen of impending doom.
The chaamine (midwife) faces a grim task: to kill the raakhas by strangling it or crushing its chest with a grinding stone (sil) the moment it is born. If the creature survives, it becomes a relentless predator, seeking to end the lives of its parents and others by clawing at their flesh and piercing their necks with its razor-sharp teeth.
The child never lives beyond a few days; it either perishes naturally or is mercilessly destroyed by human hands. A child is cursed to become a raakhas as a result of its mother's dark karma.
Have you ever heard of this tale?
Further Reading:
- Mahabir, K., & Khan, A. (2010). Indian Caribbean folklore spirits. Chakra Publishing House.
- Pattanaik, D. (2003). Indian mythology: Tales, symbols, and rituals from the heart of the subcontinent. Inner Traditions.
- https://www.nalis.gov.tt/.../Indian-Caribbean-Folklore
(Source: San Fernando North Community Library, July 20, 2024)

KIM JOHNSON
THE tributes have been paid on the death of my maternal uncle Prof David Picou, who died on May 4. He was one of the great Caribbean men, whose research into malnutrition saved millions of children’s lives in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and Asia, when starvation was rife. As my daughters’ obstetricians once told me, he was one of the region’s greatest scientists.
And that’s fine and well-deserved, but it doesn’t give an idea of the man, who was no stuffy scientific nerd, all work and no play.
No one mentioned, for instance, that Uncle David loved Carnival passionately, like many Chinese-Trinis. At his home was a collection of paintings of pan and mas, and copperwork by Ken Morris from his costumes.
When he lived in Jamaica, after about 20 years, he began returning to Trinidad for every Carnival to play mas, starting with Peter Minshall’s Paradise Lost, until he moved back here. For that first band, he was part of the group that made a plaster of Paris mould for Peter Samuel – who had a damaged spine – so his Serpent in the Garden of Eden costume could be strapped on without hurting the masquerader.
So the masman that was Prof Picou was never isolated from the academic. In 1981, for instance, there was a conference on Carnival at The UWI, and one presenter did not show up. I was working as a research assistant at The UWI at the time and I invited Uncle David to fill the spot. He did so, and spontaneously presented one of the most insightful analyses of the aesthetic considerations involved in designing a king-of-the-bands costume.

At first Uncle David came home under his own steam, but after a while he arranged every The UWI faculty of medicine meeting to be held in Trinidad in the Carnival season so that academics from around the world would get a taste of what he loved as much as his medical research.
He would rigorously make attendees work without a break till about 2 pm. Then he’d say, “Ok, work done for the day – time to lime.” And he’d pour drinks. At night they’d all go to a calypso tent.
He always played a section leader in the band in a large, ornate costume, which he’d take back to Jamaica. Those days there was a family joke that Uncle David’s sole topic of conversation was either the Carnival just passed, or the next one coming in six months’ time. And when he had people over to his home in University Close in Mona, and the rum started to flow, and the calypso was blasting on the stereo, he’d put on his costumes – as many as he could wear at the same time – and begin to dance. In The Sea he played a manta ray, with 15-foot wings, and he’d put it on to dance, spinning around, knocking over lamps and vases, crash! Smash!
Once he fell off the truck on Carnival Monday and fractured two ribs. He was a doctor, so he knew what had happened. So what? He just bandaged it up and continued playing mas.
He was a deeply social man; he loved to entertain, and he cooked like a pro. At the slightest excuse he’d invite people to his house and whip up an amazing four-course meal of Chinese food. Sometimes I’ve thought that his research into malnutrition made him acutely aware of the blessing that was a good meal.
Every year in Mona he held an enormous Old Year’s Night party that lasted until lunch on New Year’s Day. I’d not gone to Jamaica yet, but I remember it because he’d get my parents to send up, with some BeeWee captain, pastelles, black pudding and souse for the fete.
Then, after he returned home to live, around 1979, I think, he was one of the founders of his old school, Queen's Royal College’s, Men Who Cook fundraisers. Certainly, with his friend Prof Max Richards, he created the Max and Friends fundraiser fete for The UWI.
Once, after Richards had become president of Trinidad and Tobago, Uncle David was in New York and invited him to where he was staying for a lime. As a visiting head of state, the US Secret Service had two bodyguards accompany Richards, and they stood outside the building shivering – it was winter.Uncle David went down and invited them to come inside and join the lime. He persuaded them they’d better do their duty in sight of the president.

I could go on and on, because he also had a mischievous sense of humour and could regale you with amazing scenes from his life as a researcher. But I won’t. I’ll just end with one anecdote from when he was head of the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit in Mona.
At the time he worked with many working-class women who were overburdened with many, many children they couldn’t take care of. He’d prescribe contraceptives so they wouldn’t continue getting pregnant. One came to him complaining that the contraceptives weren’t working and she was pregnant once again, for the eighth or ninth time.
“You made sure to take one of the tablets every day?” he asked the lady.
“Yes doctor,” she replied. “Every day I make sure and push one up."
(source: Newsday, May 14, 2024)