American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World (50 page)

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Authors: Rod Davis

Tags: #Body; Mind & Spirit, #General, #Religion, #Ethnic & Tribal, #Social Science, #Ethnic Studies, #African American Studies, #test

BOOK: American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World
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Page 330
the above mentioned sickly jew's harp. It is hot, truly, and monotonous.
Presently, says the reporter, the crowd (now revised to be "2,5 00") breaks up unsatisfied. But a few hang around, and then hear that:
miles down the coast on Hog Bayou, hundreds of them (voudous) are now in the very midst of their dance, have cast aside all their clothing and morality, and are so inflamed, so aroused by the dance that they gnash their teeth, foam at the mouth and tear and rend each other with their teeth.
But when the crowd gets to the second location, it's another blank. The mood turns surly. Liquor has already been flowing through the evening and now, long past midnight, everyone gets smashed and tries to get the train back to New Orleans. Many get stuck for the night among the mosquitos and humidity. "A voudou hoax," harrumphs the reporter:
If it is one of the canons of the voudou church to propitiate their evil deity by crimes and wickedness, then truly is he propitiated tonight....
To sum up the matter, about 12,000 eminent, respectable and intelligent people were hoaxed to the lake to witness the drunken gambols of ruffians and women of the worst character ... about a dozen carriages were smashed; a thousand persons got drunk, and about half that number were locked up in the jail, and finally, to relieve all this vice, crime and debauchery, there was not a funny incident or redeeming feature.

 

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What is intriguing about the story is not the mass stupidity of the white people out looking for a summer night's lark and finding out they'd only conned themselves, but the size of the crowd (between 1,000 and 12,000, according to four different estimates, alas, in the same story) and the intensity of feeling. Just as the passage of certain kinds of morality laws is actually sociological evidence that the prohibited actions (drinking, dancing, fornicating, etc.) are popular enough to warrant ruling class reaction (the banning proves the activity), so the great frustration of the white crowd of voudou seekers at the absence of the perceived African cult orgy only shows how desperately they wanted to believe in its existence.
Not all the journalistic forays ended in cynicism and without promised result. St. John's Eve coverage in the
Picayune
of June 25, 1875 started off with a false alarm similar to that of the previous account. Curious onlookers traipsed to a bayou area along Lake Pontchartrain only to find nothingbut then to learn of the voudou ceremony actually being held in an even more swampy location. But this time the reporter and the onlookers arrived at a bayou house over the "black, sluggish waters" and found what was described as about twenty-five "colored men and women ... engaged in some sort of dance." Some of the onlookers, on paying a small fee, were permitted to enter the house and watch:
A large white sheet was laid in the middle of the floor, in the centre of which was a pyramid, some five feet in height, of some kind of candy. Around this, in four separate piles, were fruit and flowers, and at each corner of the sheet were four bottles containing perfumed water. Candles stuck in small glass candlesticks were placed at inter-

 

Page 332
vals on the sheet. On the top of the pyramid mentioned was a small covered basket of palmetto, which was said to contain The Voudou.
At each corner of the sheet, and one of the sides were seated alternately a man and woman, while in a corner on a box was an immense "gombo" negro woman.... On each side of her were ten men, leaders of the ceremonies ... the men and women seated around the sheet began a low, monotonous chant, clapping their hands and striking the floor alternately. This was kept up some half an hour, when three of the men and two of the women rose up and commenced to dance around the sheet. Suddenly, at a signal from the "boss woman," one of the men took up one of the bottles, and after sprinkling the four corners of the room and each one of the spectators, drank a portion of its contents. He was immediately seized with a sort of convulsion, laughed, screamed, foamed at the mouth, and leaped backwards and forwards on the floor like a demon. One of the women then took a candle and passed it over his body like a mesmerizer when he fell to the floor as if in a fit. He was lifted up, all shouting "la voudou, la voudou," and the spectators were informed that he was bewitched. The Queen then ordered him to go round and shake hands with everyone, which he did, rolling his eyes and shouting.
... the closed room was excessively warm and most of the spectators had reached the fainting point, when, with a piercing yell from the whole assembly, the Man Bewitched seized the small basket, and opening it, drew out a small garter

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