Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/395

Rh Haitian peasants do not worship any kind of snake. A foreigner can go all over the country, nowhere will he find a deified reptile. Were such a cult in existence its adepts would not fail to pay the greatest respect to their god, which would occupy the most conspicuous place, both in the temples and in the homes of its worshippers; no believer is ashamed of his god, consequently he has no interest in concealing it; on the contrary, he would have a tendency rather to show off its power and its superiority over other deities. Yet not one of those who have so largely contributed to spread false ideas about Haiti has ever been able to say that he has seen the famous yellow snake or that he has witnessed one of the ceremonies of the cult devoted to it. A whole nation is charged with being addicted to a vulgar fetichism and none of its detractors can be found who is in a position to say truthfully, "I have seen the deified snake and have witnessed the ceremony of its cult." A Haitian peasant will in many instances hesitate to kill a snake; and the foreigner, who does not know his motives for so doing, will at once attribute the sympathy shown the reptile to some superstitious fear or respect for the so-called god. The true reason for the reluctance shown is that in many places the fields are infested with rats; and, as everybody knows, some snakes help greatly to destroy the troublesome rodents, which sometimes cause great damage; consequently the peasants do not care to destroy the harmless snakes, which take the place of cats or ferrets in ridding them of the rats which are a nuisance. There is nothing of impenetrable mystery in Haiti. Her mountains and her forests can be traversed from one part to another in all safety by travelers, native or foreign. In the most remote places chapels are to be found in which the Catholic religion is practised. Christianity prevails everywhere; and should there still be some adepts of what is called vaudou, they cannot be very numerous. Therefore, when Spenser St. John affirms that all the Haitians belong to that cult, he is