The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-05


 greater and the more dangerous because the cult is carried on in secret There are two principal sects of Voodooists. | One believes that animal sacrifices are sufficient; the other demands human | sachifices and practices cannibalism. 1 even in this twentieth century, and al- ! most within sight of the American flag ! that floats over Porto Rico. The "Em- peror' Soul0uque was a faithful adher- ent of VoOdoo fetishism: and his fore most general. Therlonge, was a high priest. Only about thirty years ago, | President Saluane, an ignorant black | soldier who fought himself into the ex- 1 ecutive chair and after a short reign was driven out by clubs and killed like dog in thestreets. sought to obtain the good will of the better class of Haitiens by discountenancing the cult. This was a fata! mistake as he soon discovered. and then he swerved to the other ex- ! treme. At first he tried to strengthen 1 his tottering cause by bathing in the ] blood of goats, under the direction of the high priest, and afterwards partici- pating in the most fearful debaucheries | incidental to the sacred rites of Voo- dooism. Still the war went against him, and the high priest declared that nothing would save him but the sacri- flee of the goat without horns"-the Haitian term for what the South Sea is- flanders call Hong pig i. e., a human | sacrifice. It was obtained. in the per- son of young white girl, who was hung up by the heels (alive. but rem 1-,- oIo I~,-, Iaa f roots). slit open with knife, her blood drank and her flesh boiled and eaten, amid unprintable orgies, winding up in wild dance in which the devotees, men and women, spun round and round like crazy creatures, tearing off every shred of clothes, biting their own and others flesh, and at last falling down insensi- ble.
 The most terrible thing about Voodoo- ism is it's stealth. Like the great yellow l snake itself, it turks in hidden places and crawls under cover, always unseen when it strikes the fatal blow. Poison is the usual weapon, and the Voodoo prests are past masters in its use. Strange diseases atflict those who of- fend the true believers" Sometimes l the victim becomes stone blind in a sin gle night, or goes insane without mo- ment's warning, or suffers the tortures of Dantes' Inferno from some loath- some skin disease which does not kill, but cannot be cured. Hundreds of well | vouched for instances might be cited. In Cape Haitien was told pitiful tale of woman who had been his friend for | hot had been in the habit of over-running his garden, and in driving them off, the man one day threw a club that hit young porKer in vital part and killed it. He went at once to apologize to his neighbor and offered to pay for the pig. But the old woman would take nothing, saying truly that it was her fault as much as his, in allowing her pigs to trespass Next day she brought him pitcher of butter-mlk. After drinking some of it he began to act in the stran- gest manner, getting down on his hands and knees, frothing at the mouth and trying to eat grass. He had been poi soned by his neighbor and former friend with some mysterious vegetable mixture which does not kill. but affects the nerves in such a manner that for ever afterwards the sight of anything green-even a tree, or window shutter of that color-will throw him into an agonizing fit. The doctors can do noth- ing; even the miserable old hag who poisoned him is powerless to undo her work and henceforth, as long as he lives, he must he confined in a room which has none of the fatal color about it and affords no glimpse of the world outside, or go abroad only in the dark ness of night.
 It is wei known thata brotherhood of sorcerers and prisoners extends all over Africa. Their fraternity is of the most ancient oigin and they possess unusual knowledge concerning many thigs. In particular 'they are acquainted with vegetable and mineral poisons, includ- ing some drugs as yet unknown to sci ence. By means of certain decoctions they can produce in the chosen victim insanity, paralysis, idiocy or slow decay of mind and body. Tn Africa these priests of Fetish usually act as a secret police for the native chiefs. smelling out as witches any person whose destruc- l llOl Iiloy DC ucSiISu. lc SdIilS biOl IT. erhood runs the machinery of the Voo- doc faith all over the West Indies. par ticularly in Haiti and Jamaica, where the blacks are described from the Zulu and Matabele races. In sout hern Afri- ca the "wise men" speak to a pair of yellow serpents, which tell them se- crets. On the eastern coast of the dark continent" where the people have come into contact with Orientals and are nominally Mohammedans, as these of Haiti are Roman Catholics in outward appearances, the serpent-god is said to wear a golden crown and to hold court. Among our own southern negroes, belief in the wisdom of this particular serpent is not uncommon. The special variety of serpent depends upon what part of Africa the ancestors of the believers came from. Of course devil-worship is the most primitive form of religion, for man naturally l Worshipped what he was afraid of and must propitiate, long before he learned to revere a Deity of Good. This propi- tiation of the powers of evil requires sacrifice, and from earliest times the most acceptable, from the viewpoint of the fiend, has been living, human flesh and blood In Haiti the great yellow snake is never thoroughly satisfied un-