Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/157

 masked. Canon Ribet writes: “Les visiteurs du sabbat se cachent quelquefois sous des formes bestiales, on se couvrent le visage d’un masque pour demeurer inconnus.” (Those who attend the Sabbat sometimes disguise themselves as beasts, or cover their faces to conceal their identities.)

At the famous Sabbat of one hundred and forty witches in North Berwick churchyard on All Hallow e’en, 1590, when they danced “endlong the Kirk-yard” “John Fian, missellit [masked] led the ring.” The Salamanca doctors mention the appearance at the Sabbats of persons “aut aperta, aut linteo uelata facie,” “with their faces sometimes bare, sometimes shrouded in a linen wimple.” And Delrio has in reference to this precaution: “Facie interdum aperta, interdum uelata larua, linteo, uel alio uelamine aut persona.” (Sometimes their faces are bare, sometimes hidden, either in a vizard, a linen cloth, or a veil, or a mask.)

In the latter half of the eighteenth century the territory of Limburg was terrorized by a mysterious society known as “The Goats.” These wretches met at night in a secret chapel, and after the most hideous orgies, which included the paying of divine honours to Satan and other foul blasphemies of the Sabbat, they donned masks fashioned to imitate goats’ heads, cloaked themselves with long disguise mantles, and sallied forth in bands to plunder and destroy. From 1772 to 1774 alone the tribunal of Foquemont condemned four hundred Goats to the gallows. But the organization was not wholly exterminated until about the year 1780 after a regime of the most repressive measures and unrelaxing vigilance.

Among certain tribes inhabiting the regions of the Congo there exists a secret association of Egbo worshippers. Egbo or Ekpé is the evil genius or Satan. His rites are Obeeyahism, the adoration of Obi, or the Devil, and devil-worship is practised by many barbarous races, as, for instance, by the Coroados and the Tupayas, in the impenetrable forests between the rivers Prado and Doce in Brazil, by the Abipones of Paraguay, as well as by the Bachapins, a Caffre race, by the negroes on the Gold Coast and the negroes of the West Indies. In the ju-ju houses of the Egbo sorcerers are obscene wooden statues to which great veneration is paid, since by their means divination is solemnly practised. Certain