Meaning
Afro-Jamaican folk magic — the practice of casting and removing spells, healing, giving protection, and harming enemies through supernatural means. An obeah man or woman is consulted for luck, for love, for revenge, or for defence against another's obeah, and belief in its power runs deep and old across the island. Feared, secretive, and long outlawed, obeah is at the dark heart of Jamaican folk spirituality, bound up with duppies, guzu, and the reader and the balmist, and it names the whole world of worked magic, worked for good or for ill.
Examples
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Dem seh she work obeah pon him.
They say she worked obeah on him.
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Him go a di obeah man fi protection.
He went to the obeah man for protection.
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Nuh badda wid no obeah.
Don't get involved with obeah.
Origin
From a West African word (likely Akan or Igbo) for a spiritual practitioner or charm, carried to Jamaica by enslaved Africans.
How it’s used
Long feared and once outlawed. Spoken of with wariness. Distinct from Revival and Kumina, which are communal religious traditions rather than private magic.