Voodoos and Obeahs: Phases of West India Witchcraft

Abstract

THE study of the superstitions of the American Negro owed much to the interest aroused by the Uncle Remus stories of Joel Chandler Harris; but it was the work of Mary Alicia Owen and her collection of voodoo stories from Missouri which first attracted serious attention to the darker side of these beliefs and the operative magic which they reflected. Miss Owen's account of the voodoo superstitions appeared in 1891 and her stories in 1893; but previously, in 1884, Sir Spencer St. John had published his account of the voodoo cult in Haiti. The scepticism with which that account was received spurred St. John to further investigation and an amplified account was included in the second edition of his “Hayti, or the Black Republic”, which appeared in 1889. From that day voodooism, with which commonly, but erroneously, is coupled the obeah of Jamaica, has been obscured with elements of mystery and the subject of a controversy as to how far the imputation of cannibalism and human sacrifice brought against the cult was justifiable. Educated Haitians deny its existence, except as a form of superstition and black magic, like that found among the uneducated peasantry of other countries, which has crept into Roman Catholic ritual and observance. Yet the best informed of the Haitians who have endeavoured to refute the highly coloured accounts of W. B. Seabrook in his “The Magic Isle” admit the existence of orgiastic assemblies which seem to weaken their case.

Voodoos and Obeahs: Phases of West India Witchcraft.

By Dr. Joseph J. Williams. Third printing. Pp. xx + 257. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1933.) 15s. net.