Jamaica

Description

Jamaica is most popular for it's tourism. The Topatop Market is particularly amusing to many wizards due to how the marketplace manages to pull off hiding many magical things in (relatively) plain site, and how portable the market can be due to manipulating magical dimensions and space.

If wizards are uncomfortable with the market they can travel from the market into Cockpit Country and enjoy parties, dinners, or other locations scattered around. If you know the right Jamaicans you can get into certain parties or places in the cockpit, and if you're even more well-connected into the Hamaka Ends Swamp. Lagoons can be visited but can those with mermaids can be hard to find, as Jamaicans do not direct tourists towards those places.

A downside to Jamaica is their resistance to creating and cooperating with other Ministries, especially since most are more interested in establishing power and then using the peoples' resources for themselves. Habitants also fear what sort of transition that sort of government establishment would have on their local traditions and customs, considering these aspects of their lives particularly vital, and don't want any regulations on them.

These unfriendly terms sometimes lead to political pressure encouraging violence and territorial battles over the country, and have caused wizards to resort to certain defenses and other indirect defenses, such as the Blitz Raider during a storm or overcast.

History

Before immigration and colonization began, Jamaica had it's own culture among the Arawak[1] people, but do to Spaniard immigration and the Trans-Atlantic slave-trade, these people disappeared or went into hiding.

When Jamaica started to become colonized and populated with sugar plantations and slaves, some of the slaves who arrived during the Trans-Atlantic trade were also wizards, and brought along their cultures and traditions with them, however they did not become permanent until Amadi Afamdi.

He was a pureblood and a metamorph, who killed and replaced the owner of the sugar plantation he had been shipped to, and then used the plantation, magic, and an order of community oaths and systems to sustain a society of wizards caught up in the slave trade. He bought, traded (muggles for wizards,) and shipped all kinds of wizards into the community he created and propagated breeding and traditions until the Slave Trade was finally abolished.

Even though the Slave Trade was abolished, there were still very sour feelings towards outsiders, and the wizards in Amadi's community grew to only trust themselves. There was also a clash of religions, associated with witchcraft, that once again endangered the discovery of the wizarding community, resulting in more stringent oaths and guidelines. [2]

Finally, slavery was abolished in the 1900's, and the wizards no longer had to sustain a makeshift community hidden on the guise of a slave plantation. The plantation was sold and the wizards established themselves in the Cockpit[3][4] with some assistance of the magical Maroon[5] refugees.

Asians later began to immigrant into Jamaica as well, mostly Indians and Chinese, and are commonly seen groups involved in the culture.

Families

The Afamdi-Steeles

Family: The Foleys

Distant Relations: The Inkwoods, The Ó Móráins, The Knights, The Snarks, The Amhersts, The d'Aubignes, The Darrions, and The Osterdikes

Culture

Wizard & Muggle Relations

The wizards in Jamaica are very suspicious about outsiders, but have a more deep-seated mistrust with muggles. Due to their civil rights history and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, they have little to no tolerance of muggles and believe that their lack of magic has made them inherently greedy, lazy, and corrupted about them. The Jamaicans are a tight-knit community, bound by a series of magical oaths, to keep order, and they do not have, and often reject the establishment of, an official Ministry. This is usually because those trying to establish a Ministry hold the same basic colonization views or over-ambitious political views Jamaicans unanimously oppose.

In contrast, muggleborns and halfbloods are looked highly open as being able to overcome these tendencies, but tolerance of them varies depending on purity beliefs, with those of more purer descent having much higher expectations of them. Since these children may end up with parents ignorant about the wizarding world. Patrols of specially trained crups were formed for the purpose of finding and guiding magical children, especially when maturing magically, and they are stationed throughout major cities, ports, and other places in Jamaica, and released and cared for as wild animals or strays. There are also farms of crups in the wild for this very purpose. This method is preferred to putting tracers on people or magic in an attempt to avoid the insecurity issues of being monitored without their consent.

Pure and strong breeding is strived for, even though they show a great tolerance or acceptance for halfbloods and muggleborns. But purebloods breed believing that it is a responsibility and their duty to do so, but arranged marriages are rare, as most Jamaicans hold a series of matches for suitors, sometimes involving multiple suitors or family members, to earn respect and prove a person's worth before they can marry.

It is also believed that only purebloods can responsibly be capable of making a judgment between what is viewed as good and bad, without becoming tainted by power, and are viewed as being fair, although, after making a series of unsettling decisions, their power can be questioned, and they may lose respect among the community.

Clothes

The Jamaican magical people blend in well with local people. Their clothes primarily consist of cotton or a mixture of it, because of the hot weather, and are notable for their prominence of color. The only noticeable different between these wizards' clothes and a muggle's clothes is the mixture of denim into their fabric, their tendency to wear boots, and how much more conservatively they may be dressed, due to their spending time in the Wetlands of the Cockpit.

The Magic

Standard

Rituals, dances, and community celebrations and collaborations are a primary magical form of magical expression, with it's roots in West African Vodun and other cultures adapted from the mixture of ethnic groups and people mixing with the people. Families have also spanned and migrated across the Caribbean, making the magic in certain areas, a specific culmination of how cultures have migrated across the countries and slaves, and where they go to school.

Magic in Jamaica is also traditionally hidden behind they hype of Obeah or other forms of witchcraft, and they play up other festivals and deities like Baron Samedi, and have an elaborate series of celebrations and events to keep up the charades.

Voodoo

There are darker and more serious aspects of voodoo that are kept within old families who practice the branch of magic, and those aspects stem into dark and light types of magic. It focuses around worshipping and respecting spirits, and understanding that respect is the key to working the magic, as there is a lot of side-effects that could result from a misplaced incense or mispoken pronunciation.

There is also a wide network created for keeping secrets, since wizards started hiding from muggles, it revolves around, when various offenses or secrets are revealed, then the person revealing the secret is robbed of various senses: touch, taste, sight, smell, and sound. A person's life can also be at stake for more serious offenses.

Little rituals are also taught to children, as they mature magically, to help them control magic, rather than let it bottle up and explode so often. There are spells for smoking, messing with lighting, dancing, and making noise, like spells imitating ding dong ditch, and the Baron Samedi[6] mask[7], that are the building blocks for growing into the magical community and learning stronger magic later in life.

Related Links

Voodoo, etc

Creatures

Since there isn't an official Ministry there aren't any real restrictions between what a Beast is or what a Being is, there are simply individual negotiations and recognized rules of engagements between wizards and magical beings. In Jamaica, this primarily involves the merpeople cooperating with wizards and witches and sharing springs and lagoons, and tolerating each other peacefully, usually by sharing an interest in music. Wizards also introduced lolabugs into Jamaica, mostly for the merpeople's use.

Breeding

Due to Voodoo families' interests in breeding creatures, it has become a societal norm to practice breeding as a job or a hobby. The wide-interest and use of methods result in a lot of strange creatures to be available in the black market, and any of the ones that are particularly ridiculous or could harm the environment are usually weeded out via Voodoo bokors.

List

Indigenous	Invasive
X
Flobberworm	Horklump
XX
Fairy	Grindylow
Ghoul
Gnome
Mooncalf
XXX
Dugbog	Lolabug
Clabbert	Hippogriff
Nogtail	Streeler
Knarl	Kneazle
Salamander	Crup
Sea Serpent	American Crocodile (Morph)
XXXX
Merpeople	Erumpent
Re'em	Griffin
	Tebo
XXXXX
Blitz Raider	Peruvian Vipertooth
Lethifold

Locations

Cockpit Country

When slavery was finally abolished, the wizards of the Steele sugar plantation went in search of a new home that their wizarding society could reside in. A natural choice was the Cockpit Country, so after selling the plantation they then established the Topatop Market for more funds, and then began building building in the Cockpit Country. It is a large and thick forested and protected country area in Jamaica. It provides excellent cover for the wizards and witches and can be accessed through a rock face near were the Black River emerges from beneath the country in Siloah, St. Elizabeth. There are also many villages scattered throughout the area where some magical communities of Maroon people reside.

Hamaka Ends Swamp

The Swamp Shop can be reached through portkeys or caves from the Topatop market, or by the entrance to where the Black River emerges from underground the Cockpit in Siloah, St. Elizabeth. It was created after the abolishment of slavery, and when the Steele plantation closed, the community moved there. It is not so much a shop as it is a gathering place for witches and wizards to hang out with a few shops, lots of restaurants, music, places to dance and places for children to learn and play with each other. The Ends Swamp is surrounded by a tight mangrove forest and network of boathouses, houses held up by stilts, and networks of treehouses, stacked, and woven through each other, the mangrove trees, and the forest.

Topatop Market

This is where the Black Market and Normal Wizarding market is hidden, behind some stalls, shops and vendors, that have ways of identifying wizards and detouring them to hidden areas, only accessible to magical people. Because of this, the wizarding community of Jamaica make muggle money and wizarding money, while successfully keeping the wizarding world a secret. There are also portkeys that lead into the Cockpit Swamp and the Black Market usually detours into Cockpit Caves. There are also caves that lead to the Hamaka Ends swamp from the Topatop market.

Links Lagoon

The Lagoon is generally where mermaids hang out, and where native wizards and witches are permitted to swim. The mermaids here look more human, and trade music and songs with the wizards and witches of Jamaica, although not many people know or pry too much into the lives of the creatures. The ones that frequent these waters are usually not warlike, and primarily only come for the music and parties. Fewer merpeople are known for flirting. It is customary for kids to eat gillyweed and try and swim with the mermaids or speak mermish, resulting in very little success.

Phoenix Hospital

It is a building hidden under the parapet of a mountain in the Cockpit, and sits at the edge of a lagoon. Wizards who move to Jamaica looking for jobs usually strive to work at the hospital. It has very strict policies and job requirements, as well as training sessions. Other wizards and witches who go to this hospital go for the alternative medicines or the spa treatments.The Afamdi family are head of this hospital, and many of the proceeds go back to the wizarding community. It is hidden by muggle repelling charms, and is well-protected. There is enough jungle and overhanging foliage to make it appear as if it's just another forest covered hill in the Cockpit country.