If people stop telling stories about jumbies, will they still exist?
George Franklin thinks so, but he doesn’t want to take any chances. That’s why he has collected tales about the spirits that make up such an important part of Caribbean culture and published them in a book: "A Bunch Ah Real Jumbie Stories, Meh Son: A Collection of Oral and Traditional Stories of the Virgin Islands."
Franklin talked about the book Sunday at the Whim Plantation Muesum where he was signing copies for people who stopped by the museum store.
In one sense, the book was almost 30 years in the making, but really it’s something that Franklin, a Roman Catholic priest and native Crucian, has been working on all his life.
"When I was younger, growing up, we would sit around outside on the gallery, which is what we called the porch, all the friends and families, we’d sit around and tell jumbie stories," he said.
Jumbies have different roles in different cultures. In some African villages and Caribbean islands, they are spirits that guard the town. But to Franklin, they are the spirits of family members who have "passed on to the other side," who still have an interest in or concern for those of us left behind. Jumbies can be playful, helpful, or even threatening, he said.
One older man who stopped by commented that when he was a child and misbehaved, his parents would invariably warn him, "The jumbies will get ya!"
Asked how jumbies differ from ghosts, Franklin paused, a puzzled look on his face, then explained, "Ghosts are from the States. Jumbies are from islands."
As the years passed, Franklin noticed that jumbie stories were told less and less frequently.
"I wanted to preserve a part of our culture that for me was very significant and that I often remembered," he said.
In 1981, Franklin was in college in Iowa and happened upon a notice on the bulletin board seeking applications for grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study cultures.
" I just applied and I was one of 12 recipients that year, which was 1981, that received a grant," he said.
He began collecting stories, not just from his native St. Croix but from St. Thomas, St. John and Tortola. But life, as it often does, had other plans, and Franklin found himself in graduate school, then in the seminary where he studied for the priesthood. Upon ordination he had a variety of church duties, including teaching at his alma mater, St. Joseph High School, serving as a pastor, director of development, director of evangelization, and principal of Sts. Peter and Paul School on St. Thomas.
But he never forgot his study, and in the last few years began pulling his work together for publishing. He completed the manuscript and copyrighted it in 2007. He then self-published it, and received the first 500 copies from Antilles Press two weeks ago.
"I consider myself a culture archivist," Franklin said, "just collecting the stories and preserving them for generations to come And I hope that other people will tell their own stories and write their own jumbie books so the jumbies themselves don’t die off and the stories themselves don’t die, and we can have lots of fun and lots of laughter."
A book about spirits may seem an unusual topic for a priest, but Franklin doesn’t have a problem.
In the first place, he noted, he collected the stories before he was ordained, and one of the conditions of the grant was that he publish the study and make it available for libraries. But more than that, he said, there’s nothing incompatible between jumbie stories and the Catholic faith, he said.
"We’re simply talking about spirits," he said. "In the African culture there’s no separation between the living and those who have passed on beyond."
Franklin compiled and published the book so that the jumbie tradition doesn’t die out, but even if people stopped telling the stories that doesn’t mean that jumbies would no longer exist.
"Yes they’d still exist. Even though we don’t see them they’re still around. … They’re a part of us because they’re actually our ancestors and our relatives who have passed to the other side but they are still very much concerned about us on this side. The connection is not so far apart."
The book is now available on St. Croix only at the Whim Museum store, and on St. Thomas at Dockside Books. Franklin will have a St. Thomas book signing from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 12 at Dockside.
