Camille McEach­nie

For­mer vil­lager Pen­te­costal pas­tor Rawl­ins Bac­chus and vil­lager Samuel “The Red Hat Man” Charles is warn­ing any­one in­volved in re­mov­ing the leg­endary silk cot­ton tree at Cul­lo­den Bay Road, Gold­en Lane, to do so while per­form­ing rit­u­als.

In­for­ma­tion on the tree’s leg­endary pow­ers is trans­ferred through the is­land’s oral tra­di­tion an­nu­al­ly through the Her­itage Fes­ti­val.

One fa­mous leg­end is of Gang Gang Sarah - a witch from West Africa, climb­ing the tree to fly back to Africa. She fell off and died.

The tree was “up­root­ed” just af­ter mid­day on Wednes­day, fol­low­ing heavy rain­fall.

It blocked the road­way, cut­ting off the vil­lage of Gold­en Lane and dam­ag­ing two cars, To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency’s (TEMA) Di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art said.

Vil­lager Lovern Stew­art-Charles said, for weeks, there was a crack­ing sound near the tree.

“We heard this long crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, and when we look our the tree was on the ground, and when we look down by the roots, it came out from the roots. That is how we knew it was the tree mak­ing the sound all the time,” the vil­lager told Guardian Me­dia.

Villager, Samuel Charles also Known as “red cap”.

VINDRA GOPAUL-BOODAN

An­oth­er vil­lager, Charles, who grew up and re­mained in the vil­lage, claimed he has seen spir­its asleep un­der the tree.

“Things like this (cut­ting the tree) will in­ter­rupt them so you have to talk to them by giv­ing them rum and wa­ter. The work­ers, cut­ting the tree, tak­ing it for kicks. They might cut the tree now, and noth­ing hap­pens, but bit by bit they will get sick, some might get blind, crip­ple, all kinds of things could hap­pen to them.”

Pas­tor Bac­chus made sim­i­lar com­ments.

“Al­though I am a Pen­te­costal, I have seen things grow­ing up there. Men like Wal­dron Phillip and Bob­by Quashie per­formed rit­u­als there. They would dance to the tree and writhe their bod­ies af­ter they had in­voked the spir­it. I re­mem­ber see­ing a man danc­ing in fire and putting a cig­a­rette in­to a cra­paud mouth and telling it to stay where it was. The cra­paud did not move,” the pas­tor told Guardian Me­dia.

“Even now, peo­ple are said to vis­it the tree to per­form rit­u­als. The peo­ple cut­ting the tree, or liv­ing el­ders, must talk to the spir­its and of­fer some­thing. They can’t just cut the tree and go about their busi­ness,” he said.

For years Bac­chus, who no longer lives in the vil­lage, has doc­u­ment­ed the leg­ends and ac­tiv­i­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with the tree in books and films.

Pentecostal pastor Rawlins Bacchus

COURTESY RAWLINS BACCHUS

Mean­while, TEMA’S di­rec­tor Al­lan Stew­art told Guardian Me­dia re­mov­ing the tree will take many hours.

He said TEMA, oth­er To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly di­vi­sions, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion’s work­ers would work un­til it is re­moved.

He did not wish to com­ment on whether any rit­u­als were tak­ing place at the site.

Ac­cord­ing to the Di­vi­sion of In­fra­struc­ture, Quar­ries, and the En­vi­ron­ment, the up­root­ed tree is one of 106 rain­fall-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents on the is­land for No­vem­ber.