Page:The humbugs of the world - An account of humbugs, delusions, impositions, quackeries, deceits and deceivers generally, in all ages (IA humbugsworld00barnrich).djvu/412

 among other equally toothsome matters, contained frogs’ toes, bats’ wool, lizards’ legs, owlets’ wings, wolfs’ teeth, witches’ mummy, Jew’s liver, tigers’ bowels, and lastly, as a sort of thickening to the gravy, baboon’s blood.

A creole lady, now at the North, recently told a friend of mine that “the negroes can put some pieces of paper, or powder, or something or other in your shoes, that will make you sick, or make you do anything they want!” The poor foolish woman told this with a face full of awe and eyes wide open. Another lady known to me, long resident at the South, tells me that the belief in this sort of devilism is often found among the white people.

The practices called Vaudoux or Voudoux, are a sort of Obi; being, like that, an invoking of the aid of some god to do what the worshipers wish. The Vaudoux humbug is quite prevalent in Cuba, Hayti, and other West India islands, where there are wild negroes, or where they are still imported from Africa. There is also a good deal of this sort of humbug among the slaves in New Orleans, and cases arising from it have recently quite often appeared in the police reports in the newspapers of that city.

The Vaudoux worshipers assemble secretly, with a kind of chief witch or mistress of ceremonies; there is a boiling caldron of hell-broth, à la Macbeth; the votaries dance naked around their soup; amulets and charms are made and distributed. During a quarter of a century last past, some hundreds of these orgies have been broken up by the New Orleans police, and probably as many more have come off as per programme. The Vaudoux