Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/278

 240 nothing of what is done elsewhere. The last one of any size that I knew of was just outside of the corporation limits of St. Joseph, in a wooded dell surrounded by high hills. It was given out among the dusky brethren that a camp-meeting revival of religion would be held at that place. The revival lasted a week, and was followed, after the preachers and more respectable attendants left, by a fire-dance. The police had no authority to interfere at that place, even if they had had knowledge of the gathering. I did not know anything of the dance until it was over, and certainly would not have risked my life by attending if I had been invited. The secret was disclosed, as all negro secrets are in the course of time, by those who held it quarrelling and accusing one another.

"How is it possible that large gatherings can be concealed from observation?"

The gatherings are not always large, but, large or small, they can be hidden in the woods, or even in that negro settlement, a suburb of St. Joseph called Africa. They are no noisier than a revival or an ordinary ball. Think a minute of what a people are like who will say, as a pretty and pious mulatto house-girl said to my sister: "No, Miss Ella; I didn't go to the ball. I'd loaned out my razor, and it hadn't been sent back." Her successor, a girl who could read and write, and sing by note, in complimenting another entertainment, said: "It was so quiet and nice; only two pistol-shots were fired all evening." These girls, bear in mind, are of a superior grade to the Voodoo and his chents. A little howling, more or less, does not arouse suspicion, unless somebody runs for a surgeon.

"What is the nature of the hierarchy? Is your King Alexander a king among these people?"

There is no hierarchy. Alexander is the head-man in the Voodoo circle that meets after church is over in the African Methodist Church, but his title of King he probably gave himself.

"Have you yourself seen the dances? How could you otherwise be initiated? If you have not access to these, can you not procure the attendance of some male friend?"

I have never had but a glimpse of a dance, and that was when a child. As I have said before, I rely not on the testimony of