500 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Courtesy U. S. Marine Corps 



A HAND OF HAITIAN BANDITS BEING BROUGHT IXTO PORT AU PRINCE UNDER GUARD 



OF A SOU AD OF MARINES 



amid dirt and squalor, in tiny huts or 

 huddled together like animals, in the 

 open, when night overtook them on their 

 rude trails. 



The bandit bands thrived and increased 

 in number and boldness, gaining the 

 name "cacos," the caterpillars, because, 

 like caterpillars, they covered the earth 

 at certain seasons and. like caterpillars, 

 they ate everything. The bands ranged 

 in number from ten to several hundred, 

 each under a chief hostile to every other 

 chief, united only in the desire to plunder 

 and rob. and stopping at no crime or 

 atrocity. 



CACO BANDS CAUSE WOMEN TO PREDOMI- 

 NATE IN HAITI 



When it became difficult to obtain re- 

 cruits for these caco bands, all male 

 natives found were pressed into service, 

 from which grew the Haitian custom 

 whereby all peaceful males kept out of 

 sight as much as po>sible, and nearly all 

 work and barter was carried on by the 

 females. 



The slaughter of males by war and the 

 feuds of the bands also kept down the 



number of men, so that at the time of the 

 landing of the American forces it is 

 estimated the females outnumbered the 

 males by a considerable ratio. 



HUMAN SACRIFICE WAS PRACTICED 



In this carnival of barbarism religion 

 also had its place. Cannibalism and the 

 black rites of voodoo magic of the Afri- 

 can iungles were revived in all their hor- 

 ror, and the sacrifice of children and of 

 animals to the mumbo jumbos of the local 

 wizards was practiced in the appropriate 

 seasons. Poisoning and praying to death 

 became the mode, and missionaries to the 

 island report their belief that fully four- 

 fifths of all the population are either 

 active believers in or hold in fear the 

 spells of the witch doctors. 



So much for the interior. In the 

 cities of the coast another condition pre- 

 vailed. Here an element made up of 

 the mulattoes and the more intelligent 

 negroes ruled, and an attempt was made 

 to keep up the forms of government and 

 maintain order. By the trade which they 

 carried on between the hinterland and 

 the nations of Europe and North America, 



