Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-07-06
Suit gake gentoerat.
MONDAY.
HAYTIEN CANNIBALS.
BarbarOUS and Degraded COndi-
ton of Some of Our NeigbbOrs.


ton of Some of our NeighbOrs.
Sir Spencer st. John, British ministe
to Hayti from 1863 and 1875, in reference
to the practice Of Haytiens, relates The
following:
The mother was induced to go to Port
au-Prince for an afternoon, when the
child was kidnapped and hidden under
the altar of a Vaudoux temple The
mother was deceived on her return, and
on New Years eve a select company As
sembled at the house of Jeanue to par
take of a savory feast. The child was
horribly butchered, carved up, and the
! flesh placed in wooden dishes. After
various ceremonials, the flesh was cooked
with Congo beans, and the head was put
/ into pot with vans to make some soup.
One of the women present, urged by the
! fearful appetite of a cannibal, cut from
| the child's palm piece of flesh and ate it
raw The night was passed in eating,
! dancing, drinking and debauchery. The
next morning the remains of the flesh were
warmed up for breakfast. Fourteen per-
sons were arrested, and sufficient evil
dence was found against eight, who were
tried, condemned and executed Sir
! Spencer asked the public prosecutor if he
thought that the mother had been really
ignorant Of the fate reserved for her
child. He replied: owe have not
thought proper to press the inquiry too
closely, for fear that we should discover
that she partook of the feast; we require
her testimony at the trial. " After
pause, he added: off full justice were
done, there would be fifty on those
! benches instead of eight" During the
trial, proofs were renewed that the
devotees of Vaudoux worship associate it
with the ceremonies of the Catholic re-
ligion. Crosses and pictures of the Vir-
gin are strangely mingled on their affairs
with the objects of their superstition
In 1862 the delegate of the pope left the
country in disgust on account OF the pre-
vailing corruption, the dearth of religion
among the Sectaries of the VaudouX. and
the opposition which he met with in
what in Hayti is called civilized society.
The Spanish Minister reported to his
Government the case of an unknown
youth of about twenty years, found dead
in the streets of Port-au-Prince. his heart
pierced by a weapon attached to which
was thin, hollow cane. 1t was supposed
that he was assassinated in order to suck
his blood. The power of the Vaudoux
priests, according to the report made by
the Spanish minister, Mr. Alvarez, was
something tremendous in its influence on
the people" They produce death-appa-
rent, slow or instantaneous madness,
paralysis, impotence, idiocy, riches or
poverty, according to their will \ < : If
it be doubted that these individuals, with
out even common sense, can understand
so thoroughly the properties of herbs and
their combinations, so as to be able to /
apply them to the injury OF their fellow
creatures, / can only say that tradition is /
a great book, and that they receive these /
as a sacred deposit from one
generation to another, with the further .
that in the hills and mountains /
Of this island grow in abundance similar :
herbs to those which in Africa they en- |
ploy in their incantations."
Beside human sacrifices connected with /
religion, there is another phase-canni- /
balism practiced for the sake OF the food .
which the slaughteriug of human beings |
affords to vile section OF the community. /
A lady, the widow of q missionary, forced /
TO stay in the interior on account of civil /
war in the surrounding districts, related |
some horrible incidents other own knowl-
edge She declared that human sacrifices
were constant; that human flesh was
openly sold in the market A high gov
eminent official told Sir Spencer the fol-
lowing: a man travelling with his wife
was obliged to seek shelter in cottage on
of storm. The latter was i'll,
and becoming worse, the man went to seek
help, leaving his wife with the occupants,
time before he could find any one,
and on his return his wife was gone
They told him she had followed him,
becoming uneasy at his long absence.
He rode away, and induced the police to
follow him; the three inmates were ar
rested, and the body OF the woman,
already dismembered, was found in
cask in an clubhouse, covered with thick
layer OF salt. The only punishment the
assassins received was that administered
by the clubs of the police as they were
taken to prison. The practice OF mid
wives Staying children to eat them is an
old one in Hayti. As late as 1873 two
women were arrested in hut near Port
au-Prince, caught eating the raw flesh of
a child. 1t was found that all the blood
had been sucked from the body, and part
Of the flesh had been sailed down for flu
ture use. A woman arrested for cannibal-
ism was asked by priest: ''How could
you eat the flesh of your own children ?'
She answered coolly, "And who has a
better right?" There is in Hayti class
Of human monsters called loup garous,
who make it a practice to prowl about
lonely houses at night to carry off the
children. They are employed by the
papalois to secure children for sacrifice in
case the neighborhood does not furnish a /
suitable subject, and they are naturally /
the bugbears of the country. In closing
the frightful record, Sir Spencer says that
except during one year OF Geffrard's
no government has ever
cared resolutely to grapple with the evil.
If they have not encouraged it they have
ignored it, in order not to lose the favor
of the masses.
THE FIRST BAR OF BULLION.