SUPERSTITION 



a number of years in Hayti. When the time came to stop fishing, we had 

 quite a long row back to Buckaroo, so I took the occasion to question 

 this man about voodoo in Hayti. I asked him some leading questions 

 based on information that Richard, who actually attended a voodoo 

 ceremony, had given me. 



I said, "Ferguson, have you ever gone to a voodoo meeting?" 



"Yes sir, many of them." (Ferguson like many Bahamans spoke cor- 

 rect Enghsh.) 



"My son attended one," I said, "and they were saving a man's soul 

 from the devil." 



"Yes sir, they do that," said Ferguson. 



"The man sells his soul to the devil, doesn't he?" 



"Yes sir, he does that when he is a young man, but if he dies before 

 the devil comes out of him, then his soul belongs to the devil." 



"The devil helps him a lot, doesn't he?" 



"Yes sir, he makes him very smart in his business and he gets rich. 

 I knew a man who made his living by fishing. He sold his soul and the 

 devil helped him do anything he wanted. He had a fishing boat, and it 

 had no motor, no sails, no oars and no rudder. That man just stood in 

 the middle of the boat and it went wherever he wanted it to go, all he 

 had to do was just look in that direction and the boat went there." The 

 man spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that I believed he thought he 

 saw what he was recounting. 



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