Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/118

102 whole space inclosed by the uprights, and even several feet beyond them, was tramped smooth and flat and as hard as a threshing floor.

" 'No one passing could have guessed at the terrible crimes which had been committed, for hardly a splash of blood upon the pillars gave evidence of them.

" 'With firing of muskets, blowing of horns, and general congratulations and jollity, with praises, yelled and chanted, of the goodness of their king and his liberality, the crowd returned to the town, the women to prepare the evening meal and make such festive arrangements as were demanded by the king's orders, the men to talk over the day's celebrations, plan future schemes of blood and rapine, and discuss the next slave-catching expedition, all separating later on to secure betimes the royal dole of drink.

" 'I have described the day, the night I will leave to the reader's imagination and to its fitting veil of darkness.' " (pp. 33-43.)

It is perfectly possible that we still have in this country a few negroes living who have taken part in just such ceremonies in Africa as is here briefly described; beyond all doubt we have hundreds of descendants living among us, whose near ancestors were negroes in Africa, who took part in the erection of Juju houses where such practices were indulged in. There are hundreds of hybrids of these people, crosses between the blacks and whites in this country, that upon the side of the former come from such stock. There are thousands upon thousands of negroes in the South who, if taken back into that country, would in a very short time revert to all these customs,— so superficial