Thaumaturgia; Or, Elucidations of the Marvellous

by Oxonian

THE PRACTICE OF OBEAH, OR NEGRO WITCHCRAFT—CHARMS—THEIR KNOWLEDGE OP VEGETABLE POISONS—SECRET POISONING.

Obeah, a pretended sort of witchcraft, arising from a superstitious credulity, prevailing among the negroes, has ever been considered as a most dangerous practice, to suppress which, in our West India colonies, the severest laws have been enacted. The Obeah is considered as a potent and most irresistible spell, withering and paralyzing, by indiscribable terrors and unusual sensations, the devoted victim. One negro who desires to be revenged on another, and is afraid to make an open and manly attack on his adversary, has usually recourse to this practice. Like the witches' cauldron in Macbeth, it is a combination of many strange and ominous things. Earth gathered from a grave, human blood, a piece of wood fastened in the shape of a coffin, the feathers of the carion crow, a snake or alligator's tooth, pieces of egg-shell, and other nameless ingredients, compose the fatal mixture. The whole of these articles may not be considered as absolutely necessary to complete the charm, but two or three are at least indispensable.[136]

It will of course be conceived, that the practice of OBEAH can have little effect, unless a negro is conscious that it is practised upon him, or thinks so;[137] for, as the whole evil consists in the terrors of a superstitious imagination, it is of little consequence whether it be practised or not, if he only imagines that it is. But if the charm fails to take hold of the mind of the proscribed person, another and more certain expedient is resorted to—the secretly administering of poison to him. This saves the reputation of the sorcerer, and effects the purpose he had in view.

An OBEAH man or woman (for it is practised by both sexes) is a very dangerous person on a plantation; and the practice of it is made felony by law, punishable with death where poison has been administered, and with transportation where only the charm has been used. But numbers have, and may be swept off, by its infatuation, before the crime is detected; for, strange as it may appear, so much do the negroes stand in awe of those Obeah professors, so much do they dread their malice and their power, that, though knowing the havoc they have made, and are still making, they are afraid to discover them to the whites; and, others perhaps, are in league with them for sinister purposes of mischief and revenge.

A negro, under the infatuation of Obeah, can only be cured of his terrors by being made a Christian: refuse him this boon, and he sinks a martyr to imagined evils. A negro, in short, considers himself as no longer under the influence of this sorcery when he becomes a christian. And instances are known of negroes, who, being reduced by the fatal influence of Obeah to the lowest state of dejection and debility, from which there were little hopes of recovery, have been surprisingly and rapidly restored to health and cheerfulness by being baptized christians. The negroes believe also in apparitions, and stand in great dread of them, conceiving that they forbode death, or some other great evil, to those whom they visit; in short, that the spirits of the dead come upon the earth to be revenged on those who did them evil when in life. Thus we see, that not only from the remotest antiquity, but even among slaves and barbarians, the belief in supernatural agencies has been a popular creed, not, in fact, confined to any distant race or tribe of people; and, what is still more surprising, there is a singular and most remarkable identity in the notion or conception of their infernal ministry.

In the British West Indies, the negroes of the windward coast are called Mandingoes, a name which is here taken as descriptive of a peculiar race or nation. There seems reason, however, to believe, that a Mandingo or Mandinga-man, is properly the same with an Obi-man. A late traveller in Brazil gives us the following anecdotes of the Mandinga and Mandingueiro of the negroes in that country. "One day," says Mr. Koster, "the old man (a negro named Apollinario) came to me with a face of dismay, to show me a ball of leaves, tied up with a plant called cypo, which he had found under a couple of boards, upon which he slept, in an out-house. The ball was about the size of an apple. I could not imagine what had caused his alarm, until he said that it was Mandinga which had been set for the purpose of killing him; and he bitterly bewailed his fate, that at his age, any one should wish to hasten his death, and to carry him from this world, before our lady thought fit to send him. I knew that two of the black women were at variance, and suspicion fell upon one of them, who was acquainted with the old Mandingueiro of Engenho Velho; therefore she was sent for. I judged that the Mandinga was not set for Apollonario, but for the negress whose business it was to sweep the out-house. I threatened to confine the suspected woman at Gara unless she discovered the whole affair. She said the Mandinga was placed there to make one of the negresses dislike her fellow-slaves, and prefer her to the other. The ball of Mandinga was formed of five or six kinds of leaves of trees, among which was the pomegranate leaf; there were likewise two or three bits of rag, each of a peculiar kind; ashes, which were the bones of some animals; and there might be other ingredients besides, but these were what I could recognize. This woman either could not from ignorance, or would not give any information respecting the several things of which the ball was composed. I made this serious matter of the Mandinga, from knowing the faith which not only many of the negroes have in it, but also some of the mulatto people. There is another name for this kind of charm; it is called feitiço, and the initiated are called feitiçeros; of these there was formerly one at the plantation of St. Joam, who became so much dreaded, that his master sold him to be sent to Maranham."

Speaking of the green-beads (contas verdas) which are another object of superstition in South America, and of the reliance placed upon them by the Valentoens, a lawless description of persons among the colonists of Brazil; the same author gives us this further view of the Mandingueiros and their charms. "These men," says he, "wore on their necks strings of green beads, which had either come from the coast of Africa, bearing the wonderful property of conveying in safety their possessors through all descriptions of perils, or were charmed by the Mandingueiros, African sorcerers, who had been brought over to the Brazils as slaves, and in secret continued the prohibited practice of imparting this virtue to them. Vincente had been acquainted with some of the men, and was firmly persuaded of the virtues of the green beads. When I expressed my doubts of the efficacy of the beads, against a musket ball well directed, his anger rose; but there was pity mingled with it."

Labat brings these stones from the Orellana, or river of the Amazons. "I was informed," says our author, "that Contas verdas came from Africa; but some have found their way from the Orellana, and been put into requisition by the Mandingueiros." Mr. Southey has also given an account of the "green stones of the Amazons," in his history of Brazil, vol. 1. p. 107.

In another place, some traveller presents us with the Mandingueiros in the new character of charmer of snakes. "The Mandingueiros are famous, among other feats, for handling poisonous snakes, and can, by particular noises or tunes, call those reptiles from their holes, and make them assemble around them. These sorcerers profess to render innoxious the bites of snakes, to persons who submit to their charms and ceremonies. One of the modes which is adopted for this purpose, is that of allowing a tame snake to crawl over the head, face, and shoulders of the person who is to be curado do cobras, cured of snakes, as they term it. The owner of the snake repeats a certain number of words during the operation, of which, the meaning, if they contain any, is only known to the initiated. The rattle-snake is said to be, above all other species, the most susceptible of attention to the tunes of the Mandingueiros." The above accounts I should not have related upon the authority of one or two authors, I have heard them repeated by several individuals, and even some men of education have spoken of the reputed efficacy of the tame snakes of the Mandingueiros, as if they were somewhat staggered in their belief of it. "These men do certainly play strange tricks and very dexterously." The same writer also observes, "One of the negroes whom I had hired with the plantation of Jaguaribi, had one leg much thicker than the other. This was occasioned, as he told me, by the bite of a rattlesnake; he said he had been cured from the bites of snakes by a certain curador de cobra, or Mandingueiro, and had therefore not died; but that as the 'moon was strong,' he had not escaped receiving some injury from the bite."

Beaver, in his African Memoranda, says, "There is another sort of people who travel about in the country, called Mandingo-men, (these are Mahommedans;) they do not work; they go from place to place, and when they find any chiefs or people, whom they think they can make anything of, they take up their abode sometime with them, and make gree-grees, and sometimes cast seed from them for which they make them pay."

On this, and other occasion, the word gree-gree is applied to a house whence oracles are delivered: but it is also used for a charm or obi. "They themselves," (the natives of the coast) says the author, last quoted, "always wear gree-grees, or charms, which they purchase of the Mandingoes, to guard them against the effects of certain arms, or of poison, and on which they place the utmost reliance. They have one against poison; another against a musket; another against a sword; and another against a knife; and, indeed, against almost every thing that they think can hurt them. Mandingo priest, or gris gris merchant, that is, a seller of charms, which carried about a person, secure the wearer from any evils,—such as poison, murder, witchcraft, etc. To this priest I had made some handsome presents, and he, in return, gave me twelve gris gris, and assured me that they would inevitably secure me from all danger, at the same time he gave me directions how to dispose of them. Some were to be carried about my person; one secretly placed over each archway; another kept under my pillow, and another under the door of the house I was then building." The Byugas hold these people in great reverence, and say that they 'talk with God.'

Mr. Long, in his history of the West Indies, states that, under the general name of Obi-men is also included the class of Myal men, or those who, by means of a narcotic poison, made with the juice of an herb (said to be the branched Calalue, a species of solanum) which occasions a trance of a certain duration, endeavour to convince the deluded spectators of their power to reanimate dead bodies.

Additional particulars of this superstition preserved by Labat, Edwards, and others, are to be joined with those now produced;[138] but after all, the questions to be solved are, whether Obi, Mandinga, and gree gree, are usually words of similar import, and whether those who are conversant in them are all alike, priests of one system of religious faith and worship, or whether the one does not belong to the worship of a good power, and the other to that of an evil one.

It is remarkable, that while the Etymology of Obi has been sought in the names of ancient deities of Egypt, and in that of the serpent in the language of the coast, the actual name of the evil deity or Devil, in the same language, appears to have escaped attention. That name is written by Mr. Edwards, Obboney; and the bearer of it is described as a malicious deity, the author of all evil, the inflictor of perpetual diseases, and whose anger is to be appeased only by human sacrifices. This evil deity is the Satan of our own faith; and it is the worship of Satan which, in all parts of the world constitutes the essence of sorcery.

If this name of Obboney has any relation to the Ob of Egypt, and if the Ob, both anciently in Egypt, and to this day in the west of Africa, signifies "a serpent," what does this discover to our view, but that Satan has the name of serpent among the Negro nations as well as among those of Europe? As to how it has happened that the serpent, which, in some systems, is the emblem of the good spirit, is in others the emblem of the evil one, that is a topic which belongs to a more extensive enquiry. This is enough for our present satisfaction to remember that the profession of, and belief in sorcery or witchcraft, supposes the existence of two deities, the one, the author of good, and the other the author of evil; the one worshipped by good men for good things, and for good purposes: and the other by bad men for bad things and purposes; and that this worship is sorcery and the worshippers sorcerers.

It will be seen above, that since African charms are to prevent evil, and others to procure it, the first belong to the worship, and are derived from the power, of the good spirit; and the second are from the opposite source. It is to be concluded, then, that the superstition of Obi is no other than the practice of, and belief in the worship of Obboney or Oboni, the evil deity of the Africans, the serpent of Africa and of Europe, and the old serpent and Satan of the scriptures; and that the witchcraft of the negroes is evidently the same with our own. It might indeed be further shown, that the latter have their temporary transformations of men into alligators, wolves, and the like, as the French have their loups-garoux, the Germans their war-wolves, wolf-men, and the rest.[139]

The negroes practising obeah are acquainted with some very powerful vegetable poisons, which they use on these occasions, and by which they acquire much extensive credit. Their fetiches are their household gods, or domestic divinities; one of whom is supposed to preside over a whole province, and one over every family. This idol is a tree, the head of an ape, a bird, or any such thing, as their fancy may suggest. The negroes have long been held famous in the act of secret or slow poisoning.

If doubts and difficulties envelope the discovery of poisons, whose distinguishing character is the rapidity of these effects, how much greater must be the uncertainty when we are required to ascertain the administrations of what are called slow poisons. This subject, indeed, is so closely entwined with popular superstitions, that it is difficult to separate truth from falsehood. In Italy, for example, it was formerly said, that poisons were made to destroy life at any stated period—from a few hows to a year. This, however, turns out to be a mere fiction; and, it is well understood, that we know of no substances that will produce death at a determinate epoch. The following case of the late Prince Charles of Augustenburgh, nevertheless, shows that the idea of slow poison is still very prevalent, even among the physicians of continental Europe.

Prince Charles of Augustenburgh, Crown Prince of Sweden, and the predecessor of Bernadotte, in that station, fell dead from his horse on the 22nd of May, 1810, while reviewing troops in Scania. His death, during that stormy period of public affairs, excited great attention, and an opinion soon spread abroad that he had been poisoned. The king ordered a judicial investigation; and it appeared that Dr. Rossi, the physician of the late Prince, had, without directions, proceeded to inspect the body twenty-four hours after death; that he had performed this operation with great negligence, omitting many things which the law presented, which the assisting physicians proposed, and which were essential to render it satisfactory; and finally, that the coats of the stomach, instead of being preserved and submitted to chemical analysis were, according to his own acknowledgment, thrown away. The royal tribunal adjudged him to be deprived of his appointment, and to be banished from the kingdom. This decision would not of course, diminish the suspicion already excited; and among other physicians, who were consulted on the case, M. Lodin, professor of Medicine at Lynkoping, presented two memoirs, in which he stated it as his opinion, that a slow poison of a vegetable nature, and probably analogous to the aqua tofania, had been administered to the Prince, and that this had caused the apopletic fit of which he died. His reasons were:

1. That the Prince had always enjoyed good health previous to his arrival in Sweden, and, indeed, had not been ill, until after eating a cold pie at an inn, in Italy. He was shortly after seized with violent vomiting, while the rest of the company experienced no ill effects.

2. The Prince was naturally very temperate.

3. Ever since he arrived in Sweden he had experienced a loss of appetite, with cholic and diarrhoea; and

4. That on dissection, the spleen was found of a black colour and in a state of decomposition, and the liver indurated and dark coloured. Whilst during life he had experienced no symptoms corresponding to these appearances. Dr. Lodin confessed, however, that he was unacquainted with the effects that indicate the administration of a slow poison, but thought the previous symptoms were such as might be expected from it.

For the credit of the profession, this conjectural opinion met with decided reprobation from other medical men. It appeared that the Prince had, for several days previously, been subject to giddiness and pain in the head, and that all the symptoms were readily referable to a simple case of apoplexy, while the appearances on dissection showed that rapid tendency to putrefaction, which is frequently observed in similar cases.

The public are highly indebted to professor Beckman for a very elaborate article, in which he has concentrated nearly all that is known concerning secret poisoning. Of this we shall here present our readers with an abstract, as peculiarly adapted to the demonology of medicine, aided with some facts from other sources.

Professor Beckman considers it unquestionable, that the ancients were acquainted with this kind of poison, and thinks that it may be proved from the testimony of Plutarch, Quintilian, and other respectable authors. The former states that a slow poison, which occasioned heat, a cough, spitting of blood, a consumption, and weakness of intellect, was administered to Aratus of Sicyon. Theophrastus speaks of a poison prepared from aconite, which could be moderated in such a manner as to have effect in two or three months, or at the end of a year or two years; and he also relates, that Thrasyas had discovered a method of preparing from other plants a poison which, given in small doses, occasioned a certain but easy death, without any pain, and which could be kept back for a long time without causing weakness or corruption. The last poison was much used at Rome, about two hundred years before the christian era. At a later period, a female named Locusta, was the agent in preparing these poisons, and she destroyed, in this way, at the instigation of Nero, Britannicus, son of Agrippina.

The Carthagenians seem also to have been acquainted with this act of
diabolical poisoning; and they are said, on the authority of Aulus
Gellius, to have administered some to Regulus, the Roman general.
Contemporary writers, however, it must be added, do not mention this.

The principal poisons known to the ancients were prepared from plants, and particularly aconite, hemlock, and poppy, or from animal substances; and among the latter none is more remarkable than that obtained from the sea-hare (Lepus marinus or Apylsia depilans of the system of nature). With this, Titus is said to have been dispatched by Domitian. They do not seem to have been acquainted with the common mineral poisons.

In the year 1659, during the pontificate of Alexander VII, it was observed at Rome, that many young women became widows, and that many husbands died when they became disagreeable to their wives. The government used great vigilance to detect the poisoners, and suspicion at length fell upon a society of young wives, whose president appeared to be an old woman, who pretended to foretel future events, and who had often predicted very exactly the death of many persons. By means of a crafty female their practices were detected; the whole society were arrested and put to the torture, and the old woman, whose name was Spara, and four others, were publicly hanged. This Spara was a Sicilian, and is said to have acquired her knowledge from Tofania at Palermo.

Tophania, or Tofania, was an infamous woman, who resided first at Palermo and afterwards at Naples. She sold the poison which from her acquired the name of Aqua della Toffana (it was also called Acquetta di Napoli, or Acquetta alone), but she distributed her preparation by way of charity to such wives as wished to have other husbands. From four to six drops were sufficient to destroy a man; and it was asserted, that the dose could be so proportioned as to operate in a certain time. Labat says, that Tofania distributed her poison in small glass phials, with this inscription—Manna of St. Nicholas of Bavi, and ornamented with the image of the saint. She lived to a great age, but was at last dragged from a monastery, in which she had taken refuge, and put to the torture, when she confessed her crimes and was strangled.

In no country, however, has the art of poisoning excited more attention than it did in France, about the year 1670. Margaret d'Aubray, wife of the Marquis de Brinvillier, was the principal agent in this horrible business. A needy adventurer, named Godin de St. Croix, had formed an acquaintance with the Marquis during their campaigns in the Netherlands—became at Paris a constant visitor at his house, where in a short time he found means to insinuate himself into the good graces of the Marchioness. It was not long before this Marquis died; not, however, until their joint fortune was dissipated. Her conduct, in openly carrying on this amour, induced her father to have St. Croix arrested and sent to the Bastile. Here he got acquainted with an Italian, of the name of Exili, from whom he learnt the art of preparing poisons.

After a year's imprisonment St. Croix was released, when he flew to the Marchioness and instructed her in the art, in order that she might employ it in bettering the circumstances of both. She assumed the appearance of a nun, distributed food to the poor, nursed the sick in the Hôtel Dieu, and tried the strength of her poisons, undetected, on these hapless wretches. She bribed one Chaussée, St. Croix's servant, to poison her own father, after introducing him into his service, and also her brother, and endeavoured to poison her sister. A suspicion arose that they had been poisoned, and the bodies were opened, but no detection followed at this time. Their villainous practices were brought to light in the following manner:—St. Croix, when preparing poison, was accustomed to wear a glass mask; but, as this happened once to drop off by accident, he was suffocated and found dead in his laboratory. Government caused the effects of this man, who had no family, to be examined, and a list of them to be made out. On searching them, there was found a small box, to which St. Croix had affixed a written paper containing a request, that after his death "it might be delivered to the Marchioness de Brinvillier, who resides in the street Neuve St. Paul, as every thing it contains concerns her, and belongs to her alone; and as, besides, there is nothing in it that can be of use to any person except her; and in case she shall be dead before me, to burn it, and every thing it contains; without opening or altering any thing; and in order that no one may plead ignorance, I swear by God, whom I adore, and all that is most sacred, that I advance nothing but what is true. And if my intentions, just and reasonable as they are, be thwarted in this point, I charge their consciences with it, both in this world and the next, in order that I may unload mine, protesting that this is my last will. Done at Paris, this 25th May, in the afternoon, 1672. De Sainte Croix"

Nothing could he a greater inducement to have it opened, than this singular petition, and that being done, there was found in it a great abundance of poisons of every kind, with labels, on which their effects proved, by experiments on animals, were marked. The principal poison, however, was corrosive sublimate. When the Marchioness heard of the death of her lover and instructor, she was desirous to have the casket, and endeavoured to get possession of it by bribing the officers of justice; but as she failed in this, she quitted the kingdom. La Chaussée, however, continued at Paris, laid claim to the property of St. Croix, was seized and imprisoned, confessed more acts of villainy than was suspected, and was in consequence broke alive upon the wheel, in 1673,—The Marchioness fled to England, and from thence to Liege, where she took refuge in a convent. Desgrais, an officer of justice, was dispatched in pursuit of her, and having assumed the dress of an Abbé, contrived to entice her from this privileged place. Among her effects at the convent there was found a confession, and a complete catalogue of all her crimes, in her own hand-writing. She was taken to Paris, convicted, and on the 16th of July, 1676, publicly beheaded, and afterwards burnt.

The practice of poisoning was not, however, suppressed by this execution, and it was asserted, that confessions of a suspicious nature were constantly made to the priests. A court for watching, searching after, and punishing prisoners was at length established in 1697, under the title of chambre de poison, or chambre ardente. This was shortly used as a state engine, against those who were obnoxious to the court, and the names of individuals of the first rank, both male and female, were prejudiced. Two females, la Vigreux and la Voison were burnt alive, by order of this court, in February, 1680. But it was abolished in the same year.

Professor Beckman relates the following, as communicated to him by Linnaeus: "Charles XI, King of Sweden, having ruined several noble families by seizing on their property, and having, after that, made a journey to Torneo, he fell into a consumptive disorder, which no medicine could cure. One day he asked his physician in a very earnest manner what was the cause of his illness. The physician replied, 'Your Majesty has been loaded with too many maledictions.'—'Yes,' returned the king, 'I wish to God that the reduction of the nobilities' estates had not taken place, and that I had never undertaken a journey to Torneo.' After his death his intestines were found to be full of small ulcers."

There has been a great diversity of opinions as to the nature of these poisons. That prepared by Tofania appears to have been a clear insipid water, and the sale of aqua fortis was for a long time forbidden in Rome, because it was considered the principal ingredient. This, however, is not probable.

In Paris, the famous poudre de succession (also a secret poison) was at one time supposed to consist of diamond dust, powdered exceedingly fine; and at another time, to contain sugar of lead as the principal ingredient. Haller was of this last opinion. In the casket of St. Croix were found sublimate, opium, regulus of antimony, vitriol, and a large quantity of poison ready prepared, the principal ingredients of which the physicians were not able to detect. Garelli, physician to Charles VI, King of the Two Sicilies, at the time when Tofania was arrested, wrote to the celebrated Hoffman, that the Aqua Tofania was nothing else than crystallized arsenic, dissolved in a large quantity of water by decoction, with the addition, (but for what purpose we know not) of the herb Cymbalaria, (probably the Antirrhinum Cymbalaria). And this information he observes, was communicated to him by his imperial majesty himself, to whom the judicial procedure, confirmed by the confession of the criminal, was transmitted. But it was objected to this opinion, that it differed from the ordinary effects of arsenic, in never betraying itself by any particular action on the human body.

The Abbé Gagliani, on the other hand, asserts that it is a mixture of opium and cantharides, and that the liquor obtained from its composition, is as limpid as rock water, and without taste. Its effects are slow, and almost imperceptible. Beckman appears to favour this idea, and suggests that a similar poison is used in the East, under the name of powst, being water that had stood a night over the juice of poppies. It is given to princes, whom it is wished to despatch privately; and produces loss of strength and understanding, so that they die in the end, torpid and insensible.[140]

The following extract will show that secret poisoning has penetrated into the forests of America. "The celebrated chief, Blackbird of the Omawhaws, gained great reputation as a medicine man; his adversaries fell rapidly before his potent spells. His medicine was arsenic, furnished him for this purpose by the villainy of the traders."[141]