Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/391

Rh the average of crime, compared with that of other countries, is inconsiderable. Unfortunately there is among the Haitians a strange tendency to ascribe all cases of sudden death to supernatural causes; and the foreigners who live in the island share this idea with the natives. In the United States apoplexy, heart failure, acute indigestion, etc., daily cause sudden deaths; nobody thinks of imputing them to witchcraft. But in Haiti when a person, apparently in good health, drops dead in consequence of one of these diseases, some people will in nine cases out of ten hold the "papa loi" responsible for this sudden decease; and even when the doctors perform a post-mortem examination, stating the cause of death and all the particulars, many people will still refuse to believe that the death was a natural one. Numerous stories of "loup-garou" and "papa-loi" proceed from this error. "Papa-loi," "mama-loi," and "loup-garou"—these are words which one is sure to find in every article and book written about Haiti. According to these writers, these names represent very important personages of the "vaudou" cult, the mere mention of which occasions a thrill of horror and fear. We will here examine the matter in all its bearings in order to allow the reader to form his own rational opinion about it. Because "vaudou-cannibalism," as described by St. John and other writers, does not exist in Haiti, it does not follow that there are no superstitions in the country. It would be ridiculous to affirm the contrary. The most civilized nations, after many centuries of existence, have not yet succeeded in freeing themselves from superstitious beliefs. Consequently it is not surprising to find superstition in Haiti; but such as it is in reality is very different from what it is usually represented to be. In order to understand the effect that the mere utterance of the word "vaudou" produces up to the present time on some minds, and to appreciate the persistence of the calumnies with which Haiti is overwhelmed on this account, one must go back to the dark days of