BACE PE0BLEM8 IN THE WEST INDIES 393 



diplomatic corps in Washington, said: "] was born in 

 Haiti and spent aboul half <f my life in thai country, 

 and I never saw any person who had seen anything there 

 iu the shape of cannibalism. I have seen persons who 

 were known serpent-worshipers, bu1 no such thing exists 

 as voodooism." 



.Mr. Whidden, the firsl minister of the United States to 

 Haiti, believed that these reports were based on popular 

 rumor, sometimes originating in private malice, and was of 



the opinion that, if the truth were ascertained, there would 

 be found no more cannibalism in Haiti than in Jamaica. 



Most of the West Indian negroes, only a few genera- 

 tions removed from savagery, undoubtedly believe in 

 witchcraft, and practise it, too, as I shall describe; but the 

 most absurd feature is that the native whites, while not 

 practising it, believe in its powers and exaggerate its 

 actual performances by attributing to it all the absurd 

 doings which their Gaelic or Saxon forefathers believed 

 in two thousand years ago. I have taken great pains to 

 study this peculiar subject in both the United States and 

 the West Indies. 



Nearly all races of mankind in primitive ages have 

 believed in witchcraft; that is, that certain persons have 

 dealings and influences with evil spirits whereby they 

 obtain the power to work spells for good or evil upon 

 "iher people or their belongings. This is not religion at 

 all. It contains no moral or contemplative conception, 

 hut is merely a sanction of savage fear and revenge a 

 form of belief and practice which preceded religion in the 

 evolution of all mankind. lis conceptions still linger in 

 the folk-lore of civilization, ami more strongly than we 

 are inclined to think, for thousands of the peasantry of 

 European countries, and perhaps our own, still believe in 

 witches and their supernatural powers. 



African witchcrafl goes under many name-. In the 

 English colonies it is known as obiism, in Haiti and the 



French colonies as vaudouxism, in Louisiana as voo- 



