EtA.CE PBOBLEMS IN I III". WES1 lM'll - 39*3 



conjurer, and states thai " her reputation on the northerly 

 slopes of Beacon Hill' fully equals thai which the most 

 fashionable physician has acquired on the southerly side 

 of the sanif eminence." 



In 1897, within a week after my return from the Wesl 

 Indies, where I had made various observations upon 

 obiism, I clipped from the daily papers of Washington 

 city three notices of the yaudoux-doctors and their doings. 

 One had been arrested for illegal practice of medicine in 

 the city ; another of much celebrity had died; and a third 

 had been guilty of some trifling misdemeanor which at- 

 tracted public attention. 



I can recall vividly to this day the scene I witnessed, 

 as a boy, upon a farm within four miles of Nashville, 

 Tennessee, when a great commotion occurred among the 

 former slaves in the quarters then still occupied by them. 

 There was such a loud chattering of African voices from 

 the cabins that the proprietor of the place proceeded to 

 ertain the cause. An old and trusted female servant, 

 who was afflicted wijbh scrofulitic sores upon one of her 

 arm-, was denouncing a certain negro, who, Bhe said, had 

 employed an aged and toothless old man, then standing in 

 the center of the crowd, to east his spell upon her; and as 



proof of her assertions she produced a small bottle which 



she had dug from the path before her cabin door, con- 

 taining a few horsehairs and reptile-claws, which, she said, 

 had made snakes grow in her arm. 

 The papers of the South frequently mention the doings 

 onjnre-dociors. The Atlanta "Constitution " of Novem- 

 ber, L885, stated that perhaps one hundred old men and 

 women practise. 1 voodooism in that city telling fortune-. 

 pointing oul the whereabouts of losl and stolen goods, 

 furnishing Love-philters, and casting spells upon people and 



cattle. They belonged to all ranks and classes of QegP 



The American conjure-doctors, like those of the Wesl 

 Indies, carry bags to hold their charm-, consisting of 

 lizard- 1 claWS, dried rats, hitman bones, and other gTUO- 



