RACE PROBLEM* IN THE WEST INDIES 399 



use of herbs, whereby fchey can produce health, sickness, 

 etc., especially slow death, impotence, riches, poverty, 



storm, rain, hail, and tempest. 



From the similarity between the stories told of the 

 Vaudois and of the Haitian vaudoux, then' can be little 

 doubt that most of the horrors attributed to the Latter are 

 merely products of the imagination of a people who 

 through their French association have become impreg- 

 nated with their belief in the existence of this particular 

 species of witchcraft. 



Mr. \V. W. Newell, 1 to whom I am indebted for many of 

 the data herein presented, has shown the remarkable 

 identity of the charges which the French of the middle 

 ages made against the good and pious sect of Waldenses, 

 and those now daily reiterated concerning the vaudoux. 

 These good people, called Vaudois, were then accused of 

 practising nearly everything that is laid upon the vau- 

 doux. They were called a sect infernal and worthy of the 

 hatred of all good Christians, and were bitterly perse- 

 cuted, and the pious members, under torture, were made to 

 confess the practice of witchcraft and all horrible things. 

 Furthermore, the word run dots meant a witch, and vau- 

 derie signified a sorcerer, in France. At the same time 

 the name Vaudois was applied to an imaginary sect of 

 witches, and the respectable Waldenses were regarded as 

 guilty of all horrible crimes laid to the account of sor- 

 cerers. The word still survives in France. In the 

 canton of Vaud the form is vaudai, a sorcerer; in 

 Morvan it is random'; and the corresponding verb is 

 envaitdoueilleT) signifying to bewitch or voodoo, or, in 

 the corrupted form which it has assumed north of Mason 



and I feon'S line, k ' hoodoo/" 



i " Journal of American Folk-lore/' January, L888, vdi i, pp. 16 30. 



