The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-23
YOODOOISM IN HAITI.
FAITH THAT DOMINATES THE
 LIVES OF THE NATIVES.

dies for Diseases--TempIes in Which
 Ceremonies Occur.
 There Is probably no land on earth
 where superstition is so rife as in Hayti The people exhibit many of the
 oddities of though and habit common
 to European races. They have also na- tive ideas of far stronger character. They give allegiance to a faith which
 dominates their lives to an almost in credible extent.
 This is the old system of witchcraft
 which was brought with them from Africa, writes w. P Livingstone in
 the London Evening Standard, and
 which has since been modified to some extent by the isolation of their sur roundings, a slight infiltration of a Christian doctrine and the restraint of a nominal civilization. Comparatively little is yet known by white people
 of the real inner significance of the cult, though it's phenomena are obvi- ous enough. The negro, simple as a child in most things, is inscrutable
 when it comes to the sunseen forces that environ his life and the person. ality and power of the persons who be
 believes have dominion over him.
 Voodooism is the popular name of the faith. Its basis is a belief in evil spirits and their ability to hurt and
 destroy. Good spirits also exist to the negro, but these are harmless and need not be feared. There is, however, an urgent necessity to eonciliate the evil spirits, and hence we have wor- ship and sacrifice. These are conduct ed by recognized agents, by the papa loi or priest, and mamalio, or pries- tess. The sacrifice consists of black goats and fowls, and on great oceas- ions the goat without horns"-that is, the human victim.
 Associated with the faith is the practice of bush medicine, In connec- tion with this the most extraordinary stories are told of the power of the papaloi and mamaloi, and curious circumstance is that the European re- sidents appear to believe them, But one is not long in the country before he believes anything.
 Probably an important element in the matter is the power of hypnotiz- ing which the priests possess, for they have stumbled upon this singular phenomenon and use it freely to im- press the ignorant. An intelligent na- tive doctor told me of the case of a oirl for U,bon1 coiopco oo,,1d do ,,otI, ing she was incurable. She was talk en to a mamaloi and she recovered It is said, too that these priests have remedies for many diseases which Flu ropean science has not yet been able to cure. They are able to render a per son insensible and to all appearances dead, and to revive him at will with a simple antidote. This is probably the explanation of story which the same native doctor told me,
 A papalio publicly challenged him to a strange contest--to resore the deal to life, The doctor of course, ignored the challenge and the papaloi then said that if he paid him two hundred dollars gold he would prove his claim by killing cat burrying it for three days at his door, and then restoring 1t, The doctor had his reputation to safeguard, and he let the matter pass, More curious still is their apparent power to eXtinguish ones mental per- sonality and memory by administer ing a drug and then restoring them at will. People who have mysterlously in the towns have been found long afterward in the fields or the hills, but without any recollection of their former life A remedy has been administered and they have gone back as if nothing had happened in the interval.
 Some queer sories were related to me by white man who had lived in the country many years, and I mention two which he said came within his own experience. A woman apparently died and was buried in due course. Many years after she was found work ing in field and recognized. She said she dimly remembered dying and be- ing placed in the grave, and also of be- ing dug out and removed. She was dosed with salt and the memory of her former life returned. The other tale was of a girl, the child of educated and well to do parents, who died and was buried Some time afterward the parents were dining in another house and sat down beside their own daughter They were advised to go to the papaloi, He said it was a very likely thing and told them to give the girl salt, which they did, and she fully recovered her memory.
 There must of course be a natural explanation of all these things, just IS there is for others that are told the traveller. For instance, the negroes obtain knowledge of events which have occurred a long way off in a remark ably short space of time. During re- 1olutionary uprisings those in the capital have known the result of en- agreements long before the news could nave been brough by the swiftest lder, sometimes, indeed, before it has Irrived by telegraph. It is believed by l he whites that the intelligence Is | houted across from hill to hill. This s supposed to be the secret of the ex- 1 raordinary rapidity with which news ravels in Africa. Lady Lugard men | ions the interesting fact in "A Tropi- 1 al Dependency" that it was once an | organized custom in the ancient black | ,ingdoms on the West Coast for the <ing to transmit messages from yiIl- -ge in this way.
 never realized how 1t could be lone, even in the clear atmosphere of 1 he tropics, until one day in Jamaica
 was standing on hill beside a mis- lonary. I remarked to him how far he voices fin the valley halnm saa.,n 1