A community of descendents of freed slaves is blaming the recent defeat of Jamaica's long-ruling People's National Party on the prime minister's improper use of a sacred horn.

Former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller brought bad luck upon her party by improperly brandishing the horn, an abeng, at political rallies, a leader of the Accompong Maroons, Melville Currie, told The Star newspaper in Jamaica.

Currie told the paper the political use of the abeng "tarnished" the talisman and may have set off a string of bad luck for Simpson Miller, including the arrest of one of her bodyguards for driving a stolen vehicle in July and the shooting deaths of another bodyguard and a party activist after the election.

"The abeng is our national symbol. I believe the ancestors stirred in their graves to see this happening," said Currie, an Accompong leader responsible for culture.

Simpson Miller received the abeng — traditionally used by the Maroons to summon the spirit of their ancestors or to announce a war — as a gift before the Sept. 3 election, in which she was ousted by the victory of the main opposition Jamaica Labor Party.

The Accompong Maroons are the descendants of slaves freed by the Spanish in the 17th century to repel invading British forces. The community has lived semiautonomously in Jamaica since 1739, when they signed a peace treaty with the British after resisting them for decades.

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