Mambo Emma

Old Emma is the senior Mambo in the Port Royal/Spanish Town hounfo.  She is also regarded as the best Seer in all of Jamaica.  No one is certain as to how old Emma really is.  To all appearances she is in her eighties, but mention of the manumitted slave woman, ‘Old Emma’ can be found in Spanish Town’s tax records dating back to 1659.

Emma is a small wizened old black woman, so hunched and stooped as to be almost a dwarf. Her hair is snow white, her skin like wrinkled leather, but she has a pair of bright green eyes  undimmed by age.