Voodoo

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

2026 Editor's Note: This page uses language about race that was commonplace when the book was published and is offensive by today's standards. The text has been left exactly as it was printed, rather than cut or softened, so that the historical record — including how ordinary such language once was — is preserved. (Ed: ET 2026-07-22) or VOUDOO, a name given the by negroes of the West Indies and the United States to superstitious rites and beliefs brought with them from Africa, and to the sorcerer who practiced these rites for his benefit and aggrandizement. In the Southern States of the Union there was at one time a widespread and deeprooted belief in the power of these sorcerers . As the negroes advance in education, the belief is dying away. At one time, however, despite all efforts of religious teachers to banish the mastery of this belief from the minds of the slaves, the voodoo "doctor" was an almost omnipotent individual in the estimation of his fellows. No slave could, under any pretext, be persuaded to expose himself to the vengeance or wrath of one of these conjurors. In some cases there was a reasonable foundation for these fears; for in not a few instances has it been proven that some of the voodoos were skillful poisoners, and while the great mass of their professed art was a rank imposture, still they possessed enough of devilish skill to render them objects of wholesome dread. Their methods were as varied and variable as the winds. Anything that was mysterious, or likely to impress the ignorant mind with a feeling of terror was eagerly seized on and improved by them to their own advantage. Their services were more often invoked in destructive than in curative offices. If a negro desired to destroy an enemy, he sought the aid of the voodoo, who, in many cases, would undertake to remove the obnoxious one, and the removal was generally accomplished through the medium of poison. No doubt exists that in many cases the victim of a voodoo died from sheer fright, for whenever a negro had reason to think that he was possessed by the spell of the voodoo, he at once gave up all hope, thus hastening the accomplishment of the end toward which the energies of the sorcerer were directed. Their incantations and spell workings were always conducted with the greatest secrecy, no one being allowed to witness the more occult and potent portion of their ritual. They were frequently employed by dusky swains to gain for them the affections of their hard -hearted inamoratas, and love powders and other accessories for "tricking" constituted their stock in trade, and in some instances yielded them no insignificant revenue . The field in which voodooism flourished was best the far South among the rice, cotton, and sugar plantations, where the negroes were not brought into contact so closely with their masters as they were farther North.