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CHAPTER V

THE TRUTH ABOUT VOODOO

IN the West Indies, from Demerara to Honduras, from Panama to St. Thomas, when people tire of talking about the sugar tariff or the Governor's last garden party, they as often as not, and rather oftener, I think, fall to talking about the cannibalistic practices and Voodoo crimes of the superstitious Haytian blacks. It is not a comfortable theme of conversation, but it is interesting as it comes so near home to them all.

All these weird and creepy stories and goosefleshraising rumours lend an interest to the sight of the shores of Hayti which is not aroused when the other islands swim into view upon the waves of the turquoise sea. When the first Haytian land-fall is made, West Indians, as well as travellers from more distant climes, throng the bridge and even the look-out aloft, if the captain permits, and begin to make discoveries. One of the most common of these rests upon nothing more substantial than the lazy columns of smoke which one sees so frequently floating slowly heavenward from the Haytian jungles and the highland forests. What is generally the fire of some lonely charcoal-burner, or a party of peasants making a clearing to be planted in the woodland, is by the power of imagination and of ignorance transformed into the scene of a cannibalistic feast. If there be a passenger on board who has been in Hayti, or, better still, lived there, his position of supreme au

thority is an enviable one, and, human nature being what it is, he sometimes abuses it.

The truth is, that while you need have no fear whatever of eating human flesh in Hayti disguised as a roast or as a round of beef, there is no place in the world where you could so easily satisfy a cannibalistic craving as in this land, whose centre is not much further from New York, the empire city of the Western World, than is Chicago or Milwaukee.

Voodoo is not a written creed over which a house of bishops presides publicly, a fact which should account for the many and extremely varied versions of its practices which are in circulation through the world. It is certainly not a mere veneer or an old garment from the Congo days of the black race which has not yet been cast away. But it is a substantial edifice of West African superstition, serpent worship, and child sacrifice which exists in Hayti to-day, and which undoubtedly would become rampant throughout the island were it not for the check and control upon native practices which the foreign residents exercise.

Several Roman Catholic priests, who have long resided in the heart of Hayti, told me that one of the hardships and difficulties of the combat against African darkness upon which they are engaged, is the extreme reticence not only of the active Voodooists themselves, but of all blacks in regard to the fetich-worshipping rites.

A Haytian is often absolutely lacking in that form of self-respect which is the last to depart from the most ignoble white. "All will confess the most despicable crimes," said my priestly informant, "and admit having sunk to the lowest forms of human degradation, but,

even should you see him at the dance under the sablier tree at night, all smeared with the blood which may have flowed in the veins of a cock, or goat, or even a human child, he will deny having anything in common with the Voodoo sectaries."

It is this reticence that has impressed many observers most unfavourably and caused them to jump to the conclusion-an erroneous one, I believe that the Voodoo gospel simply preaches the massacre and general destruction of whites, wherever found. Men wise in African tongues say that the horrible talismanic word should be written "vodun," vodun," a term widely diffused among the upper Guinea tribes, and supposed to indicate the all-powerful, non-venomous serpent who controls all human events, who knows all things past, present, or to come, and who communicates his dreaded power to the high priests and priestesses of the sect, the papalois, or papa kings," the mamalois, or mama queens," who rule the great majority of the people of Hayti by the wand of wizardry and the fear which it inspires.

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There is still another definition of the term Voodoo, to which I find that many of the French priests and other ancient settlers in the country are inclined. They say, or many of them do, that the word is not of African origin at all, though used to describe African rites, but is a corruption of the old French word vaudois, meaning magician.

Mr. Léger, the Haytian Minister in Washington, in his book of special pleading, entitled "Hayti and Her Detractors," speaks of the fearful loup garous, the religious kidnappers of children, as though they were simply legendary monsters, or if they really ever lived

and did their devilish work, are to-day as extinct in Hayti as the werewolf of Saxon days in England.

Of course, the countercharge which Mr. Léger makes that child-stealing is not unknown in Europe and in America is perfectly true, but here he simply dodges the gravamen of the charges which are brought by every intelligent foreigner and many of his countrymen whose position is so independent that they can, or think they can, tell the truth and reveal the devilish practice in all its revolting cruelty.

Of course, the real charge against Haytian civilisation is not that children are frequently stolen from their parents and are often put to death with torture, and subsequently eaten with pomp at a Voodoo ceremony, but that Haytian officials, often the highest in the land, not only protect the kidnappers, but frequently take part in the cannibalistic rites which they make possible. This is the charge which I bring and which I am prepared to substantiate in every particular upon evidence which appears to me, and to many others to whom I have submitted it, to be absolutely unimpeachable.

Of recent cases of kidnapping I have only the heart to relate two, which fortunately did not reach the final tragic stage. It should be borne in mind that, when the crime is completely successful, no evidence remains that would warrant an investigation.

In one of the northern ports an East Indian woman was sleeping by the side of her child. She had lulled it to slumber and then fallen asleep herself, when suddenly she was awakened by a sharp earthquake shock. In her terror she stretched out her arms to protect her child from falling beams or rafters, and found that the

infant was gone. The place where she had cradled it a few minutes before was still warm, but the child was missing. There could be no doubt of that, and the anxiety which, though dormant, oppresses every woman's heart in Hayti awakened to a living reality.

The frantic mother searched the chamber and even the whole house, but in vain. She was still engaged in this when the nurse girl, a coal-black native Haytian, arrived on the scene. She was evidently disconcerted at finding her mistress awake, but professed to know nothing as to the whereabouts of the child. Her mistress noticed from her first appearance on the scene that the nurse girl seemed out of breath and apprehensive. In her excitement she talked continually and with dread apprehension of the earthquake and the probability of a recurrence. Her absence at this hour of the night was so unusual and her whole bearing was so strange that the suspicions of the mother immediately fell upon the nurse girl, though for two years she had been a kind and, indeed, a most affectionate and trusted guardian of the missing child.

Though it was now the dead of night the distracted mother rushed to the house of the commanding general, and found him awake and much disturbed over the earthquake shock. Though on the verge of despair she was not without guile, and immediately began to profit by the abject state of nervousness in which she found the black chief. "The earth itself trembles at the sight of the crime which has been committed upon me and upon my child," exclaimed the mother, assuming the mien and bearing of a prophetess. "What horrible things are about to happen! alas! that the innocent should suffer along with the guilty!"

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