Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress/Among the Voodoos
AMONG THE VOODOOS.
By MISS MARY A. OWEN.
I have frequently been asked, "What is Voodoo worship?" frankly I answer, "I don't know." It seems to be like the old woman's recipe for fruit-cake—"a little of this, and a little of that, and a little of most anything, but a heap depends on your judgment in mixing." "To be strong in de haid"—that is, of great strength of will—is the most important characteristic of a "Cunjerer" or "Voodoo". Never mind what you mix—blood, bones, feathers, grave-dust, herbs, saliva, or hair—it will be powerful or feeble for good or ill in proportion to the dauntless spirit infused by you, the priest or priestess, at the time you represent the god or "Old Master"
How then must we set about obtaining this "strength of head"? Alexander—"King Alexander", as he insists on being called—prescribes the following initiation:
"Go to the woods in the dimness of the morning, and search through them until you find two small saplings growing so near together that when the wind sways them the upper parts of their trunks rub against each other. Climb up to where the swaying trunks have rubbed the bark perfectly smooth. Gather two handfuls of bark, one from each tree (the higher you climb for this purpose the higher your rank in Voodoo craft is destined to be). Take this bark—from what kind of tree it comes is no matter, though it is likely to be hickory—put it into a gallon of rainwater, and boil it until there is but a quart of the decoction. Add a pint of whiskey, and drink it all at one draught if possible, at one sitting, as a necessity of the case. In the old time, in the outlandish country, or Africa, the fermented juice of some herb was used to produce ecstasy, but whiskey answers every purpose. This dram may make the novice very drunk, but no matter for that, he must hide himself and sleep off the effects of it. For nine days after taking it he must keep away from human kind, sleeping in the woods if possible, and eating little or nothing. During this time he must give his mind to a consideration of the power and strangeness of the new life upon which he is about to enter. He must sleep as much as he can, and pay great attention to his dreams. Dreams that come at this time are all fraught with meaning and prophecy. Some object he will dream of he will at once feel is his peculiar fetich or medicine. When the nine days are over he must present himself to the conjurer who is to be his teacher."
Alexander expressly states that a man's teacher should be a woman, and a woman's should be a man. His instructor was a man, but one night he dressed in woman's garb, and the next his master assumed the undivided raiment. Then begins the preparation for full membership in what Alexander, Arthur McManus, John Palmer, Aunt Stacie, Aunt Dorcas, and others call "The Circle" This preparation consists in learning the "Luck numbers" (not lucky numbers), a simple feat, "for seven is a lucky number to cunjer or hoodoo by, but nine is better; three is a good number, but five is better." Four times four is the Great Number. Neither the devil nor his still greater wife can refuse to assist in the working of a charm with that number "quoted in". "Sometimes devils are contrary, just like folks", Alexander explains, "but they can't help giving in to four times four times four." Ten is the unlucky number. At the first lesson the student receives a secret name by which he must call himself when he is working spells. Alexander's name is Eminaw.
The second initiation—the one I received from Aunt Dorcas, a little, lame, poverty-stricken old black woman, whose ability to "fetch luck" evidently did not extend to herself—was as follows:
"Go at midnight to a fallow fields go bare-footed, bare-headed, walking backward, and not looking on the ground. Stoop down in the field, reach your hand behind you, and pull up a weed by the roots. Run home, fling the weed under your bed, and leave it there until sunrise. At sunrise strip off its leaves, make them into a little packet, and wear it under your right arm for nine days. At the close of the ninth day, take the packet, separate the leaves and scatter them to the four winds of heaven, throwing them, a few at a time, over your right shoulder as you turn round and round, so as to have them fall east, south, west, and north. What dreams you have during the nine days are warnings, consequently you must carefully consider the "sign" of them. For instance, if you dream of fire you will have trouble in getting your witch education. If you dream of honey bees you will be a successful conjurer (Dorcas never said "Voodoo"), and receive money and presents. As soon as your leaves are scattered you are ready for lessons. In passing, it may be as well to state that the more leaves there are in your weed, the more exalted will be your rank in sorcery.
After the numbers are learned, a season is given to acquiring knowledge of the value of certain vegetable remedies and poisons, such as snake root, smart weed, red clover, mullein, deadly night- shade, Indian turnip or "Cunjor John", mayapple, etc., together with the proper times (all times are regulated by the moon) of gathering and administering the same. There is nothing mysterious in this much of the profession: any old woman who has an herb-bag has the same simples as a witch, and plants that which is to grow mostly under ground in the dark of the moon, that which is to go to leaves and blossoms when the moon is waxing; gathers all beneficent things when the moon is full, the same as she does.
Afterwards it is imparted that charms and tricks are of four degrees. To the first degree belong the good tricks which are hardest to perform, because it is always harder to do good than evil. Of this class are "luck balls", "jacks", and other fetiches prepared and then endowed with a "familiar or attendant spirit in the name of the Lord" For this class the formulas all begin, "The God before me, God behind me, God be with me." John Palmer said "THE God" always. Alexander said it sometimes. All close with, " I ask it in the name of the Lord or God."
Here is a complete formula as I took it from the lips of the Great Alexander when he was preparing a luck-ball for Mr. Charles G. Leland:
"The God before me, God behind me, God be with me. May this ball bring all good luck to Charles Leland. May it bind down all devils, may it bind down his enemies before him, may it bring them under his feet. May it bring him friends in plenty, may it bring him faithful friends, may it bind them to him. May it bring him honour, may it bring him riches, may it bring him his heart's desire. May it bring him success in everything he undertakes. May it bring him happiness. I call for it in the Name of God."
These kind wishes sound a good deal like a Christian prayer, but you should have seen this ancient, ill-smelling, half-naked, black sinner as he rocked himself to and fro, now muttering in a whisper, now raising his voice to its ordinary conversational pitch as he repeated the good wishes over his materials, four skeins of white yarn, four skeins of white sewing-silk, four leaves and blossoms of red clover, four bits of tinfoil, four little pinches of dust. Over and over he said the words: I couldn't keep count of the times, but he said that as he tied each knot in the yarn and silk, he carefully said his charm four times. Four skeins, four knots in each skein, four times muttered the formula for each knot. And then the whiskey and the saliva, no prayer surely ever had such an accompaniment! The king had a bottle of whiskey beside him, and filled his mouth therefrom every time he tied a knot. Half of it he swallowed, and the other half with a copious addition of saliva he sprayed through his jagged stumps of teeth upon the knots. When all were tied he spat upon the clover, the tinfoil, the dust, and declared that his own strong spirit was imparted with the spittle. When he had gathered the several components into a little ball he spat once more, violently and copiously. "Dar," said he, "dats a mighty strong spurrit. Now to keep it dataway wet it in whiskey once a week."
"Shall I spit on it, or tell Mr. Leland he must?" I asked.
He looked at me with scorn, and made reply that we neither of us had any strength. We had nothing to spit out.
Last of all he breathed on the ball and shed, or pretended to shed, a tear. Then the ball was done. It had a spirit in it to work for the one for whom it was named.
"Go to the woods, Charles Leland," commanded Alexander, dangling the ball before his eyes, "for Im going to send you a long way off, an awful long way, across big water. Go out in the woods now and 'fresh yourself. Do you hear me? Are you going, are you going 'way off? Are you climbing? Are you climbing high?" After a long pause Charles Leland was invited to return. Was asked if he had started back from the woods, if he was drawing nearer, if he was back in the ball.
To all this "Charles Leland" replied by causing the ball to dance and spin in the most delirious manner, and by a murmur sounding now far now near, something like the coo of the wood-dove, but it was oo-oo, oo-oo, not foo-ool, foo-ool, as the dove calls to those who penetrate miasmatic woods. Then there was another shower-bath of whiskey, after which the ball was wrapped, first in tinfoil then in a silk rag. I was warned at the time to tie no knots in the wrappings: such knots would tie the spirit up helpless. This thing is to be worn under the right arm.
As an illustration of the power of the sorcerer's spirit, Mymee and Alexander tell a story of Chuffy the rabbit. He had three arrows, one of which he spat on before he shot at the sun. It fell into the water. The second he breathed on: the wind carried it away. The third he wetted with a tear, and nothing could impede its flight. It made a hole in the sun, and from that fell fiery blood that almost burned up the world. Indeed, nothing was left but some trees on a sandy island in the midst of a great river. The trees and river would soon have shared the general destruction had not Chuffy shed another tear into the waters, and thus kept them from drying up.
This same Chuffy had the most potent luck-ball that ever was made; it looked like silver, and was brought into existence by the devil's wife. The story of it is too long for insertion here.
It may not be out of place to mention that the left hind-foot or right fore-foot of one of Chuffy's descendants, especially if it be a graveyard rabbit killed "in the dark of the moon", may be used instead of a luck-ball.
Better still is the "swimming bone" of a toad. The "swimming bone", as Arthur McManus explained to me, is "the one bone of the hop-toad's body that will not sink when dropped in water".
A mole's right fore-foot is also a good-luck piece. These things are not prepared; they are powerful, because parts of sorcerers.
To the second class belong the bad tricks, charms and fetiches made in the name of the devil: those queer little linen, woollen, or fur bags, or tiny bottles filled with broken glass, bits of flannel, hair, ashes, alum, grave-dust, jay or whippoorwill feathers, bits of bone, parts of snakes, toads, newts, squirrels, fingers of strangled babes and frog-legs—this last component being especially necessary, because in the old time the devil made the moon to illuminate the night for the convenience of his votaries. As the Good Man had used up all the material of the universe in his creations, the devil or Bad Man took a frog, skinned it, and made it into a moon.
To the third class belong all that pertains to the body, such as nails, teeth, hair, saliva, tears, perspiration, dandruff, scabs of sores even, and garments worn next the person. These are used in conjurations and charms for good or ill, not alone, but with other things. I will illustrate their use by a story told me by Alexander. He said, "I could save or ruin you if I could get hold of so much as one eye-winker or the peeling of one freckle." Then he went on to make his meaning clear by giving a scrap of biography.
Just before the civil war, in the days when he was a slave, he lived for a short time in Southern Missouri, "nigh de big ribber." He had an enemy, a conjurer also. The enemy affected friendship, invited him to his cabin, and offered him refreshments, of which Alexander refused to partake. "Dar wuz spiders in de dumplins and hell in de cakes," he explained, "and I dassent eat 'em, but I 'greed ter stay all night."
Both men lay down on a bed on the floor. The guest pretended to fall asleep. Presently the host cautiously raised himself up and peeped into the face of the other, to see if he was asleep, There was bright firelight in the room, cast from the great open fireplace where many dry logs were burning. Alexander breathed heavily, and, as he said, held his face like a stone, though he was watching through a crack in his eyelids. The host reached a pair of scissors towards the sleeper's head. Alexander stretched out his hand and struck down the advancing arm, at the same time muttering a curse upon the musquitoes.
Both lay quiet for a while, then the scene was re-enacted. Again and again this was repeated, and all this time each man was willing with all the strength that was in him that the other should sleep. Finally Alexander prevailed. "I'd been a cunjurer longer than he had, and my will was made up strong," said the victor.
While his host slept, Alexander arose, took his (the host's shoes) and scraped the inside of the soles—they had been worn without stockings. Then he took the man's coat and scraped the collar where it had rubbed his neck at the edge of his hair. The fire was out then, and he had no light but a little grey streak of dawn coming through the chinks of the wall. He stole forth with the scrapings, put them into a gourd with red clover leaves, alum, snake root, and the leaves and stalks of a mayapple. Then he put the gourd into the river and said, "In Devil's name go, and may he whose life is in you follow you." The very next week the unfortunate "cunjered" conjurer was sold and sent down the river. "But no one could touch me," said the old man, "for I cunjured master and all of 'em."
The fourth class is composed of "commanded things", such as honey locust thorns, parts of "sticks", sand, mud from a crawfish hole, wax from a new beehive, things that are neither lucky nor unlucky in themselves, but may be made so. No charms are said over them: they are merely "commanded" to do a certain work. Take, for instance, the locust thorn, used innocently enough as a hairpin or dress-fastener, but which when "commanded" proves a terrible little engine of mischief A small rude representation of the human figure, made of mud from a crawfish-hole or wax from a beehive, when named by a conjurer and pierced by a thorn of his implanting, is supposed to make the man for whom it is named deaf, dumb, blind, crazy, lame, consumptive, etc., according to the place pierced. Worse still, the one killed or maimed will after death "walk" till judgment day. A prolific maker of uneasy ghosts is the "commanded thorn".
After each lesson, both pupil and teacher of witchery get drunk on whiskey or by swallowing tobacco-smoke. I feel it necessary, however, to state that I was an honourable exception to the rule, although I did find it necessary to set forth spirituous refreshment for my teachers. I must add to this, that maids and bachelors do not progress very far in the degrees of Voodooism.
After the preliminaries I have mentioned, the pupil begins to make some acquaintance with Grandfather Rattlesnake and the dance held in his honour. The origin of the dance was in this wise:
In the old times Grandfather Rattlesnake and his sister lived together; so say Mymee and a dozen other darkies of my acquaintance. The sister's disposition was as sweet as his was bitter. As he was very wise, many men and animals came to him for instruction, which he gave freely; but as he took leave of a disciple he always stung him. The sister, in the goodness of her heart, immediately healed the poisoned wretch, who then went off with all the serpent wisdom he had acquired. Finally Grandfather became so enraged that he changed his sister into snakeweed. As such she still heals, but not so freely as formerly, for she cannot go to the afflicted; they must come to her.
Since that time men, warned by the sister's fate, have not willingly approached Grandfather very nearly. They find it best to dance about him, and thus absorb the shrewdness and cunning he really cannot help giving out. As a further precaution they render him almost torpid by giving him a young rat, bird, or toad just before the dance begins.
The dance itself has no method in its madness, I have been told. The participants, who are not all Voodoos by any means, have been on short rations or none for nine days; they are full of tobacco-smoke or whiskey, and their nerves are still further excited by fear of the snake and the god or devil he represents. They howl in any key, without words or rhythmic sounds, the same as they do at a religious revival or camp-meeting. Sometimes they circle wildly about, with their hands clasping those of the persons next them; sometimes they jump up and down in one spot, while they make indecent gestures or twine their arms about their own naked bodies. They keep up this exercise until the greater number of them fall exhausted, when they have a rest, followed by a feast of black dog and, Arthur McManus says, kid. Four conjurers—two men and two women—cook the meat and distribute it.
The fire-dance is for strength of body, as the snake-dance is for strength of mind. I have never heard of anything being eaten at this dance. The same ceremony, or lack of ceremony, in the dancing is observed.
Any wood may be used for the fire except sassafras or maple. During the dances to the moon they chant—what I know not—and circle round with rhythmic motion, which sometimes changes into a rapid trot. I have never seen a moon-dance, nor more than a glimpse of the others, but I am sure my information is correct. The reason I am sure, I may state in parenthesis, is because every participant in the dances denies that he has been present, but accuses his fellow-sinner, with whom he has had a quarrel, and described what the offender has stated he did: "When he wuz thes so drunk that his tongue runned off with him." The full moon is by common consent given as the time for these exercises. What the dance means I do not know, and cannot find out. It seems very much like the Hottentot dance to the moon which that Dutch traveller, Peter Kolben, describes as taking place as early as the year 1705. He says:
"The moon with them (the Hottentots) is an inferior visible god. They call this planet Gounja, or God . . . they assemble for the celebration of its worship at the change and full, and no inclemency of the weather prevents them. They then throw their bodies into a thousand different postures, scream, prostrate themselves on the ground, suddenly jump up, stamp like mad creatures, and cry aloud: 'I salute thee! thou art welcome; grant us fodder for our cattle and milk in abundance.' These and other addresses to the moon they repeat over and over, singing 'Ho, ho, ho!' many times over, with a variation of notes, accompanied with clapping of hands. Thus in shouting, screaming, singing, jumping, stamping, dancing, and prostration, they spend the whole night in worshipping this planet."[1]
The dances of the ghosts of the departed conjurers also take place at the full moon. All I know about this is that Aunt Mymee was said by other negroes to be able to appear in two places at once, to take any shape she pleased, and to know what people were saying and doing when they were miles away. This, they said, was because she had found out where these "hants" met, had watched their exercises to their close, and had asked and received her heart's desire. Anyone as bold as she is may ask and receive aid of these shades, it is said. The snake- and fire-dances may take place any time: that is, anywhere that policemen are not likely to come. The moon-dance must be in an open space in the woods.
There is a sacrifice of a black hen to the moon. Alexander said that Arthur McManus had no better sense than to sacrifice a black hen and white rooster, and then wait for luck when he ought to be making power for himself I do know that all negroes, and not a few white people who have been raised with them, believe that black hens, split open and applied to the body warm, will cure typhoid or bilious fever, and stay the progress of cancer.
For sacrifice, Alexander says the way to kill the hen is to slit her side and let the entrails protrude, then turn her loose; she will run a little way, then jump up into the air, crow like a cock, and die instantly without any struggle. I asked what was then done with her. He said, "Nothing."
Under date of December 20th, 1889, a distinguished scholar asked me these questions:
"Where are these dances held? I mean, in what district or districts? How is it possible that large gatherings can be concealed from observation? What is the nature of the hierarchy? Is your King Alexander a king among these people? Have you yourself seen the dances? How could you otherwise be initiated? If you have not access to these, can you not procure the attendance of some male friend? This is a matter certain to be disputed, and which requires, therefore, strong testimony."
When I read these questions I sat down before them in despair. I have always lived among negroes and among white people familiar with their peculiarities and superstitions. For the first time in my life I reflected how small, comparatively, is the number who do understand our Americanised African population. How could I describe to the man who knows him not the cunning, simple, cruel, kindly, untruthful, suspicious yet credulous, superstitious negro, who sees a ghost or devil in every black stump and swaying bush, yet prowls about two-thirds of the night and sleeps three-fourths of the day. The old-fashioned negro, who is destined to have no son like him, who conjures in the name of his African devil on Saturday, and goes to a Christian church, sings, prays, and exhorts, and after "meetin'" invites the minister to a dinner of stolen poultry on Sunday. Finally, I answer these questions briefly, and, like a good Methodist sister, "relate my experience".
"Where are these dances held?"
Anywhere in the woods and fields of North Missouri. I know nothing of what is done elsewhere. The last one of any size that I knew of was just outside of the corporation limits of St. Joseph, in a wooded dell surrounded by high hills. It was given out among the dusky brethren that a camp-meeting revival of religion would be held at that place. The revival lasted a week, and was followed, after the preachers and more respectable attendants left, by a fire-dance. The police had no authority to interfere at that place, even if they had had knowledge of the gathering. I did not know anything of the dance until it was over, and certainly would not have risked my life by attending if I had been invited. The secret was disclosed, as all negro secrets are in the course of time, by those who held it quarrelling and accusing one another.
"How is it possible that large gatherings can be concealed from observation?"
The gatherings are not always large, but, large or small, they can be hidden in the woods, or even in that negro settlement, a suburb of St. Joseph called Africa. They are no noisier than a revival or an ordinary ball. Think a minute of what a people are like who will say, as a pretty and pious mulatto house-girl said to my sister: "No, Miss Ella; I didn't go to the ball. I'd loaned out my razor, and it hadn't been sent back." Her successor, a girl who could read and write, and sing by note, in complimenting another entertainment, said: "It was so quiet and nice; only two pistol-shots were fired all evening." These girls, bear in mind, are of a superior grade to the Voodoo and his chents. A little howling, more or less, does not arouse suspicion, unless somebody runs for a surgeon.
"What is the nature of the hierarchy? Is your King Alexander a king among these people?"
There is no hierarchy. Alexander is the head-man in the Voodoo circle that meets after church is over in the African Methodist Church, but his title of King he probably gave himself.
"Have you yourself seen the dances? How could you otherwise be initiated? If you have not access to these, can you not procure the attendance of some male friend?"
I have never had but a glimpse of a dance, and that was when a child. As I have said before, I rely not on the testimony of those old rascals who have instructed me, but on the proof furnished by those who quarrel and accuse each other.
A dance is not an initiation: that is done with leaves or bark, as I have said. I don't know what a moon-dance is for, but the other two are considered as remedies rather than ceremonies. As for getting a male friend to do anything for me, I've never found one who would entertain the suggestion for a moment.
"Peril life and reputation among those beasts?" exclaimed one. "Not I! It will be better for the world when they and all knowledge of their vileness die out."
My knowledge of Voodoos began at an early age. Aunt Mymee Whitehead, or, as some called her, "Aunt Mymee Monroe", was my nurse. She has always wished it understood that she is the daughter of the devil. Her mother was a Guinea woman, a conjurer also, who inspired such fear and hatred that the people rose against her to kill her. She fled on board a slave-ship, and was brought to this country—to what part Aunt Mymee did not know. Soon after landing Mymee was born, and was sent with her mother to Kentucky. When ten or twelve years old they were brought to Missouri. I may remark here that Aunt Mymee, a pure-blooded Guinea, and Alexander, half Guinea and half Cherokee Indian, are the only two conjurers I ever heard speak of themselves as Voodoos. The others, while practising the same rites, invariably speak of themselves as Witches, men or women, or conjurers. Their humble admirers, however, frequently speak of them as "Voodoos", and of their deeds as "Noodoos".
Aunt Mymee gave me the first glimpse of her secret business by importuning me to get from my grandmother some amaranth seeds. When I insisted on knowing what she wanted with them, she acknowledged she wished to make them into a little cake which would make any who ate it love the one who handed it to him. That sounded reasonable enough to anyone as fond of all sorts of sweeties as I was, so I procured the seeds, and had the cake made up.
Not long after I heard other servants of the family say that Mymee had surely conjured me, for I followed at her heels like a dog that had eaten shoebread.
Afterwards, partly by coaxing and partly by watching, I learned to make a trick or two, and came to know of the existence of some being called Samunga. When you go for mud, call out
"Minnie, no, no Samunga,
Sangee see sa soh Samunga."
Perhaps this may be the Gounja of the Hottentots.
King Alexander I met for the first time the 1st of July 1889. I had heard of him for years, but he had a way of slipping in and out of town that made it hard to interview him. With some friends I drove to the house where he was staying. It was a hot day, and he sat in most unkingly state outside the door on a wooden chair tipped against the wall.
As I looked at him I thought, "Well, you are the most uncanny old nigger I ever saw"; as I drew nearer, I added, "and the dirtiest."
He had on but two garments: a shirt, of which the original colour was lost, with the sleeves torn off above the elbow, and open in front, so that one could see all of his chest and some of his ribs. His trousers had evidently been made for a shorter and stouter man.
When he saw us he shut his eyes. When we asked if he was Alexander, he opened his eyes and said, " Yes, I am the great Alexander, King Alexander," and closed them again. My sister-in-law at once applied herself to the business in hand by saying we were unfortunate people who wish to buy some good luck. We would like to get a "jack", or something of the kind.
"Now you's foolin'. Duno nuttin' 'bout dat. I'se a Church member, I is, thes come up from Boone County foh a little visit."
"Are you King of the Church."
"Dat thes is my entitle. Go 'long, ladies, I ain't de one you a huntin'."
"I am sorry", said I, "for I know something about conjuring myself. For instance, I can make a trick of stump-water, grave-dust, jay feathers, and baby fingers that can strike like lightning." Instantly his manner changed. He flew at us like a bat, and clung to the side of the carriage. It required no persuasion to have him appoint an afternoon to visit us and "projeck" on things.
He came the evening of the 3rd of July. Brought with him some "enemies' dust", and materials for a "luck-ball" for Mr. Leland, and a "hand of love", which last insures marital felicity. He drank a good deal of whiskey, sang songs, told rabbit, bird, and ghost stories, assured me I was strong enough in the head to make a good Voodoo, boasted extravagantly of his power over the fair sex. "I've allus been a pet," he said, showing his fiery red gums; bare of teeth except for a few discoloured snags, and rolling his great black lips in an awful grin. "All I haf ter do is to say 'lubly lady, yo' obfustercate my wits, my thoughts follow yo' ez de shedder follers de tree'."
As he took leave he promised to send me a teacher.
Instead of a man coming, as I expected, an old black woman walked up to me in a butcher-shop, and, taking me on one side under pretence of asking for work, told me of the initiation of leaves. She would have gone out without mentioning her name, had I not asked it. This was Aunt Dorcas.
A week later my sister-in-law sent me word that John Palmer wished to see me He had been to her house. We called on him the next day, and wasted several hours listening to him tell how pious he was, and what visions of heaven he had had. When we were entirely out of patience, and ready to depart, he whispered he was talking for the benefit of the neighbours, but would meet us and would talk "sho 'nuff" the day following.
At that meeting he told us of the circle's meeting late at night in the church, and laughed with most unholy glee as he explained that the sexton was one of their number. He explained the great powers of "Cunjer John", or "Indian Turnip", and taught me to make a "Jack" of equal parts of alum, sulphur, salt, and "Cunjer John". A bad trick, he explained, was made with the red seeds of the turnip and the other ingredients, the "lucky Jack" with the white root. He also gave me a great deal of information about the medicinal virtues of plants, explained about luck-stones, and the curative powers of snakes and black dogs. He then offered to conduct me to the meetings of the circle. I asked him about the mysterious cases of poisoning among the negroes. He knew nothing of them, but said it was told that 'twas obeah stuff brought up from the south.
"By Alexander?"
"Gord, missey! I ain't namin' no names." That was all I could get.
I met Alexander and John Palmer a number of times after that, and gleaned from them what information I could. Suddenly Alexander disappeared, but no one thought anything of that. He likes to make his movements as mysterious as possible.
I next hunted up Arthur McManus, or rather my sister-in-law hunted him for me. He is second in importance in the circle, but he certainly is the worst rogue I ever met. He is a mulatto, and terribly crippled. He looks as if he had a bad case of rheumatism, but he says he was conjured by Mandy Jones, another member of the circle, before he turned witcher-man. He told me very nearly the same things the others had, and added that if I wished to turn a trick back on the one who set it for me, I must find it and throw it in running water.
He said that if you wish to drive your enemy mad, it is better to get one of his hairs and slip it inside a slit in the bark of a tree. When the bark grows over the hair, the enemy's intellect is gone for ever. "That", said he, "is better than sticking thorns into images."
Another use he had for hair was to have it summon people. "If you take several hairs from your head, name them for the person you wish to see, place them in a bottle of rainwater, and set them near the front door of your house; the person named will start for that spot as soon as the hairs swell and turn to snakes, which will be between the second and fourth day. For nothing can withstand the power of snakes."
Arthur it was who explained about the "Goat without horns". He knew it was offered up in the "outlandish country", and "way down south", but had never seen it done. He said the offering of a child or a kid without horns was "to seem to be something it stood for". When I could not understand, he illustrated with a story.
Before the civil war, when he was still a slave, he saw the real "Goat without horns". It was one night down in Arkansas. He was a field hand, and lived in a cabin, but his sweetheart, Mary Jane, lived in the big house (the planter's house) as chambermaid. On the night in question, he, with his sweetheart and her mother, Aunt Melissa, the cook, concluded to go a few miles down the road to do some trading with an old man who kept a little store, and often bought stolen goods from the negroes in the vicinity. So Arthur stole two horses out of the pasture, mounted one, and took Mary Jane up behind him, while fat old Aunt Melissa followed along on the other. His errand was to dispose of a bag of produce he had "lifted" from the field. Mary Jane and Aunt Melissa meant to do a little pilfering from the storekeeper while Arther was bargaining. The night was cloudy, and there was very little light, but they went along very pleasantly until they came in sight of the store. They rode around to the side of it, intending to hitch the horses to a fence that enclosed the old man's garden. All of a sudden the clouds swept from the face of the moon, road and garden were flooded with light, and they saw before them, with its fore-feet on the fence, a creature they at first mistook for a dog, but another instant revealed that it was a great hornless goat. That moment it gave an awful cry, unlike any other sound ever heard, and vanished. The horses reared, snorted, trembled, then bounded off towards home, and did not slacken pace until they reached their own bars. Arthur said the only reason he hadn't fallen off was because he was too stiffly fixed in his place; his legs were cramped against the horse's side. As for Mary Jane, her arms were about him, her fingers locked in front of him, and she was squeezing the life out of him. "Let go, Mary Jane," he managed to gasp, at the same time putting a hand on hers. As soon as he felt her hands he groaned out to Aunt Melissa, "Mary Jane is dead!" Aunt Melissa felt her. "She is dead," she said. "Then", said Arthur, "don't turn your horse loose, for it will whinny for mine and wake the white folks. Ride to a cabin door and get help." Soon they had half-a-dozen stalwart men helping them. Finally they managed to get that awful death-grip unlocked. Then they slipped her into the house, carried her upstairs, and laid her in the bed she shared with her mother.
By that time it was almost daylight, and Arthur and his helpers stole away, leaving Aunt Melissa alone with her dead. Immediately she shrieked and alarmed the white people, whom she told, when they came to her, that she had just waked and found her daughter cold by her side.
When some one went to the store to leave orders for nails for Mary Jane's coffin the old man was found dead on the floor. "So 'twas him the goat went for," concluded Arthur
I have interviewed a score or more of conjurers, some in the circle and some out, and have heard from them many queer stories, charms, and superstitions, but where they varied from what I have related they were modified or borrowed entire from their white or red acquaintances. I did not know this until I began to read folk-lore magazines, and had accumulated a great many facts that did not belong properly to Voodoo practices at all.
Before closing I must tell one little experience I had at Plattsburg, a small town about forty miles from where I live. I went there to see two famous Voodoos, but could get very little. All I could learn from the man—and I learned that because he wanted to make a sale—was that rattlesnakes' rattles worn in the hat would cure headache and prevent sunstroke. The skin worn around the waist would cure rheumatism, the heart swallowed whole would cure consumption—"because grandfather willed it so."
My other call was on Aunt Ellen Merida, an enormously fat yellow woman, with a cracked soprano voice and a husky laugh. She greeted me effusively, and in the presence of the neighbours, who dropped in by twos and threes to see what I wanted, lectured me severely on desiring to have dealings with the Old Master, or Devil. She and her daughters then sang a hymn beginning—
"O' wasn't Nora a foolish man,
Buildin' his house on dry Ian'!
O' Nora, Nora, Nora,
No, Nora wasn't no foolish man," etc.
After that she told me of trances she had had. At such times she had been caught up to the highest Heaven, and once she had seen a man's life judge him. He was laid on a white pavement before the great white throne, and his heart's blood ran out in two streams and formed writing; and one writing told of his good deeds, and the other of his bad.
"That's very fine," I said, "but you will get no money from me unless you tell what I want to know."
I rose to leave, and she took me to an inner room to give me "God's blessing"; and what do you think she said? "Come back at full moon, honey, or a little later, that's the time for cunjerin', it's too early in the month now."
Of other interviews with Alexander, of strange tales of the power of Doctor Lemmons, the Leavenworth Voodoo, whom Alexander was accused of poisoning, I shall be glad to speak some other time, if anyone will listen; but now an inner voice whispers to me, "You've talked quite long enough; come back some other day when the moon has changed." That is, I have talked quite long enough of myself and my "prentice" work, but there is among you a White Voodoo quite as high in rank as any African Voodoo in the world. I refer to Mr. Charles G. Leland, who, at this moment, probably holds in his hand one of those rare and precious black, kidney-shaped "cunjer-stones", which, in itself, is all-powerful for good or ill, as its possessor shall dictate.
Even Alexander is not so happily circumstanced as our Caucasian "cunjer-king", for Alexander has never, with all his wiles, been able to lay hands, violent or otherwise, on a "cunjer-stone", but has attained his "strength" by slow and toilsome processes, by fasts, by spells, by study, by uncanny feasts of dog-meat and rats' brains, by foulness that may not be named.
Have I made myself clear as to the power of the "cunjer-stone"? Understand, pray, that nothing is required of him who holds it. Possession is not only nine points of the law, it is all of the law; it is initiation, it is knowledge, it is power. But few of these stones are known to be in existence. I know of but two. I have heard the guess hazarded by Palmer and McManus that there are perhaps six in the United States. They are said to have been brought from Africa (or the "outlandish country", as the negroes call it), and are handed down through families as their most precious possessions. They are supposed to "work" most rapidly when the moon is full or just beginning to wane. At other times, if a little slow, they can be quickened by a libation of whiskey, or, if evil is to be wrought, by a sprinkling of red pepper (here let me say what I neglected to mention in its proper place, that all bad tricks have their malign force increased by cayenne pepper).
As to the past history of "cunjer-stones", it is lost in the mists of antiquity. Any old negro you meet will tell you they are all-powerful, and always have been, but no negro, old or young, whom I have met with has been able to inform me why or wherefore, or when first invested with power.
The one held by our honoured Vice-President, our Romany Rye, our Oriental scholar, our world-known Hans Breitmann, our Voodoo King, was stolen from its unworthy owner, a dissipated and malicious negro, who practised on the superstitions of his race that he might live in a brutish and debased idleness. It fell into my hands. I brought it overseas to Mr. Leland.
Discussion.
The Chairman, in opening the discussion, said that the incantation of "God before me or above me, at the right and at the left, and everywhere" also occurred in one of the oldest prayers to St. Patrick, and also in the Welsh literature.
Mr. Tcheraz explained that in the old Armenian language the word "Woo-hoo" meant sorcerer, which word had also passed into Turkish.
- ↑ "The Voyage of Peter Kolben, A.M., to the Cape of Good Hope." Vol. iv of The World Displayed; or a Curious Collection of Voyages and Travels. Selected and Compiled from the Writers of all Nations, by Smart, Goldsmith, and Johnson. 1795.