The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-11-16

HieuiOihe OF MS own practitioner the VIC
TIM soon sinks into decline
Inc obj" or charm, which is set for
the victim may be composed of MANY ma
terlals' as of some already enumerated
put the most common are blood, feathers
broken glass and bottles, parrots beaks.
oos' cat monkey and alligator teeth. rum
eSsshehs and graveyard dirt The prac-
lce mas been known in the West Indies
ever since the first importation of slaves
from Africa, and so long as the negroes
coiIhed their arts to the hanging up of
hlngs the English took to be of the ma
lure OF scarecrows, such as feathers, bot
tles' etc, IN order to prevent the plumber
InS OF hen roosts and pig sites, no objec-
whites.
DtslOdginE a Firm Belief.
But when, in one of the great insurrect-
ions, the chief instigator was found to
De an obeah man, who administered 10
each lnsurgent a magical draught which
was to make him invulnerabfe, it was
seen 10 be a very serious business. Every
piack deVli in the conspiracy, having full
ialtn IN his invulnerability, fought like
"a mend, and it was not until several of
them mad been killed. and the obear man
hlmself hung in chains, with all his war
paint on him, that the deluded blacks saw
now they had been fooled. But the obeah
man, whether he believed in his own in
carnations or not. died game and told the
eAecut1oner as he swung him off that it
was not in his power to kill him, so that
the onlooking negroes were very much
perpleNed when they finally saw him ex-
pre-. lt was because of the terrible
power exercised by the priests of obeah
over their followers that The laws of ia
malca passed in the last century contained
two clauses especially aimed at them
Although the blacks of the British West
Indies have been free for over two gen.
erations, yet they have not become freed
from the superstiti0 brought by their
ancestors from Africa. Superstition, in
fact, will rather increase than diminish.
unless vigorously and cons antIy COM
bated, and this is well illustrated in the
condition of the freed negroes to-day
There are Thousands of them who, though
nominalIy Christians, are yet enchained
by obeah and devoted Votaries of the pre-
vailing devil worship.
1t is strange fact that, while This de-
graded superstition flOurishes among the
French and British islands, it does not pre-
vail 10 any great extent in the Spanish,
as in Cuba and Porto Rico. The natives
of those islands are sunken deep in other
superstitions, but they are mainly such as
the white man has fostered and not the
black. But Ii is in the negro island of
Hayd that we find obeahism rampant
have said that 1t is infrequenty harmful
in the British islands, but N Hayti this
cannot be affirmed. Known there under
the name of the vaudoo derived from
'vaudois' and giving origin to the com
mon 'hoodoo') the obeah practice -four
| ishes in all i s pristine vigor and is really
an unadulterated form of the African
| serpent worship.
Sacrifices offered Up.
The African of the west coast, besides a
number of deities believed in family
deity or tuIelar saint, who was supposed
originally to have been one like themselves
and the first founder of their family On
| the anniversary of this saints burial the
| whole number of his descendants gathered
around his grave and the Oldest man of
the assemblage, after Offering up praises
| to Accompong, Assarci, Ipboa and the
| tutelar deity, sacrifices a cock or a goat
! by cutting its throat and shedding it's
| blood upon the grave. Every head of a
| household does the same, and as soon as
| all those who are able to bring such sac
| rifices have made their citations the ami
mails which have been killed are prepared
| and a great festival follows. This custom
! is followed out almost exactly in the for
| ests of the Haytien serpent wOrshipers, or
! the vaudou. If you perchance find your
| self in the great forest which lies between
! Port au Prince and the mountain lake En-