Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/397

Rh sort of charlatan is to be found all over the world; he exists as well in France and in the United States under different appellations.

"There is perhaps not a village in France which does not possess its healer (guérisseur) or rebouteux. Both continue to be serious competitors to the country doctors. They assume the appearance of sorcerers and profit by the fear they inspire. They occasionally make use of mediaeval drugs the eccentricity of which takes the fancy of their customers and secures their authority over the minds of those already prepared to respect the traditional and ancestral art of the healer.

"We must confess that most of these unlawful doctors are clever and possess efficacious means of curing some diseases. They know quite well how to set a leg or an arm, to cure sprains, wounds, and burns. Their lasting fame is the best evidence of their skill. The healer has existed from the earliest ages."

Papa-loi is, as it were, the Haitian form of the French rebouteux, who is perhaps more skilled and has certainly been longer in existence than the papa-loi. Nobody would think of saying that the French nation is at the mercy of such quacks. Yet many writers state in a serious manner that the influence of the healer is so great in Haiti that the doctors are unable to earn a living by the practise of their profession. It suffices but to notice the prosperous condition of the Haitian doctors to be convinced of the absurdity of such an assertion; theirs is one of the best paid and the most profitable callings.

As to the philters which the papa-loi is said to administer to those who wish to make themselves beloved, they do not seem to be unknown in the United States. In a divorce suit introduced before the court of North Platte, Nebraska, the husband charged his wife with having given him "dragon's blood," which, it seems, is what the American papa-lois prescribe in love