Haiti - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 162

not enter.' He paused a moment; I did not dare to ask for further elucidation. 'And all this goes on under
pictures like this .' He placed a finger on the edge of the oleograph. 'It is impossible to make them un-
derstand the abomination of such practices. Owing to the same confusion of emblems, sacrilegious use is
made of a great number of images of the saints. Portions of the liturgy are incorporated into their savage
ceremonies, and many is the time, when I have gone into the church to say Mass in the morning, that the
congregation has consisted entirely of voudouisants , who have just left their temples, after spending the
whole night dancing to tom-toms and worshipping the gods of Africa. But there they are, streaming with
sweat, and one or two of them in an almost trance-like state, kneeling in the church with the utmost piety.
What is one to do? We have to work with the material we have, however unrewarding. If the adepts of
Voodoo were all, ipso facto , to be excommunicated, we would remain with only a handful of true Chris-
tians in Haiti.
'Of course, the country people are not to blame, and there is no intention of sin. The guilty ones are
the Voodoo priests, the N'gans or Houngans, as they are called, who exploit the credulity and supersti-
tion of the peasants for purposes of gain and power; though most of them are of ordinary country stock
themselves and probably believe all this fatras as well. They are the Church's most bitter enemies.
'Some years ago we were making a certain headway. A great deal of ground was cleared by systematic
anti-superstition campaigns.'
'How did you set about them?'
Father Cosme's eyes kindled a moment. 'There was only one way: to pluck up our courage, and strike
at the root! We began by cutting down trees which were said to be inhabited by their gods. At first we
had to tackle them with an axe by ourselves, as the villagers ran away in terror and watched us from a
distance. But after a while, when they saw that nothing happened to us, a few of them would help us
in our work. We demolished any number of trees and caves and “sacred” rocks, and even cut down the
centre poles of Voodoo temples, and made bonfires of the drums and instruments of the cult.' He showed
us photographs of these curious conflagrations, of the enormous tom-toms and gourds and feathered em-
blems blazing away under the gaze of a crowd of Negroes, with a priest or two standing in the centre.
Several were pictures of himself, or one of his party, with an axe raised, about to deliver the first blow to
an inhabited tree. Joan asked him if there were ever any counter-measures. Father Cosme nodded.
'These creatures used to come with their followers and beat drums and blow horns outside the
churches and drown the priest's voice with howling and shouting during the celebration of Mass. Once
or twice priests have died mysteriously, and one can only assume that they were poisoned. Placing the
juice of a certain leaf on the rim of a drinking vessel is a favourite method. The Houngans often combine
Voodoo with the practice of Wanga.'
'Wanga?'
'Black-magic. All the apologists of Voodoo maintain that the two things are distinct. The practitioners
of Wanga are called Bocors. But the Houngan and the Bocor are often united in the same person, so their
separation is relative.'
Father Cosme spoke of Wanga at great length. In its simplest form it is little more than bush-medicine,
the use of certain leaves for medical purposes. The next step is the invocation of evil denizens of the Voo-
doo pantheon—such as Don Pedro, Kitta, Mondongue, Bakalou and Zandor—for harmful purposes, for
the reputed practice (which is of Congolese origin) of turning people into zombies in order to use them as
slaves, the casting of maleficent spells, and the destruction of enemies. The effects of the spell, of which
the outward form may be an image of the intended victim, a miniature coffin or a toad, are frequently