“The human imagination cannot conceive anything more absurd, more barbarous, or more ridiculous than the acts committed by these ferocious sectaries, who are called Papaloi, Papa Boco, or other names as stupid as they are ill-sounding. They produce death—apparent, slow, or instantaneous—madness, paralysis, impotence, idiocy, riches or poverty, according to their will.
“It has happened on occasions that persons have retired to bed in the possession of their senses to awaken idiots, and remain in that state in spite of the aid of science, and in a few days to be completely cured, when the causes which have produced the alienation have ceased. One individual struck another; the latter threatened him with impotency. At the end of fifteen days he was paralytic in all his members.[11] Following the counsels of a friend, he consulted a Papaloi, who had the coolness to confess that he had himself sold to his enemy the philter that had reduced him to that state, but for the sum of about £20 he would cure him. In fact, in a few days, by means of the remedies of the Papa, he was completely restored to health. And if it be doubted that these individuals, without even common sense, can understand so thoroughly the properties of herbs and their combinations, so as to be able to apply them to the injury of their fellow-creatures, I can only say that tradition is a great book, and that they receive these instructions as a sacred deposit from one generation to another, with the further advantage that in the hills and mountains of this island grow in abundance similar herbs to those which in Africa they employ in their incantations.”
One case occurred in 1860, which was really so remarkable, and drew so much attention at the time, that there was no possibility of doubting it. It was supported by ample testimony. It was first told me by one of the most eminent medical men in Port-au-Prince, and confirmed by another, who had been an eyewitness of some of the details, and pledged his word as to its truth. I one day mentioned the story in the French Legation, as I was still somewhat sceptical, when, to my surprise, I found that it had been made the subject of an official report. Count Mégan, at that time chargé d’affaires (1867), offered to give me an extract relating to that crime, with permission to publish it in any book I might write.
The following are the particulars:—“The police having been informed that some shrieks had been heard at night in the cemetery of Port-au-Prince, went there in the morning, and found a grave disturbed, and near it an open coffin, and lying at the side the body of a lady that had been buried on the previous day. A dagger had been thrust into her bosom, and as blood covered her burial clothes, it was evident that she had been buried alive. Many arrests took place, but the affair was hushed up. It was currently reported, however, that the husband had a mistress, whom he neglected after marriage, and that this woman applied to a Mamanloi for aid. She received a sleeping potion which she contrived to give to the lady during her first confinement, and she was hurriedly buried, to be restored to consciousness in the graveyard at dead of night, with her rival armed with a dagger before her. Her shrieks drew the attention of some Jamaica negroes, who ran towards the spot shouting, but whom superstition prevented from entering the cemetery. Their shouts, however, caused the murderers to fly, and leave the corpse where it was found next morning.” This is the story as told me by my medical friends, and it was universally believed to be true, and in fact was true, and was never denied by those in authority with whom I conversed on the subject.
The accounts given by my French and Spanish colleagues were more complete, and probably more exact, as they were both in Port-au-Prince when this tragedy occurred. My previous French colleague (the Marquis de Forbin Janson) wrote, 2d August 1860:—
“Deux jours après mon arrivé à Port-au-Prince, une femme endormie au moyen d’un narcotique et enterrée le soir au cimetière de la ville, fut exhumée dans la nuit; elle respirait encore, on la tua, puis on enleva la cervelle, le cœur et la foi de la victime, dont on retrouva de débris près de la tombe: le lendemain matin une enquête fut ordonnée, on fit plusieurs arrestations, entre autres celle d’une prêtresse du Vaudoux (Mamanloi). Cette femme fit des révélations y, offrit même de livrer à la justice les auteurs du meurtre et de la profanation en les attirant à la prison par une puissance irresistible ou ballant de son tambour d’une manière particulière. La justice et la police, déjà effrayées du nombre et de l’importance des personnes compromises, reculèrent devant cette nouvelle épreuve. On ordonna aux journaux de se taire et l’affaire fut étouffée. On croit que la principale mobile du crime fut un sentiment de vengeance, mais on tient pour certain que les parties mutilées ont été destinées à la célébration de quelque mystère Vaudoux du fetichisme africain encore pratiqué, quoiqu’on dise, par la grande majorité des Haïtiens.”
I think this case of so much importance, that, at the risk of repetition, I will give the report made by Mr. Alvarez:—
“In July of 1860 there was committed in Port-au-Prince a horrible, almost an incredible crime. A young woman died suddenly, and was buried on the following day. At night several individuals of both sexes went to the cemetery, dug up the coffin, and opened it. What they actually did is not known, but what is positive is that the unburied began to shriek and shout for help. The guard near the cemetery, composed of Jamaicans, Louisianians, and Creoles, approached, and saw the woman sitting in the coffin, and various persons—a torch in one hand and a dagger in the other—vociferating words they could not understand. The Creole soldiers of the country fled dismayed, but the Louisianians, as soon as they had overcome the first feeling of terror, ran to the succour of the unburied; already it was too late, they found her dead from the stroke of a dagger, and her heart and lungs torn from her bosom. The assassins escaped, but subsequently some prisoners were made. In a few days the prisoners were at liberty; and it is related that the lungs and the heart had been cooked and eaten in one of the country-houses in Bizoton.”
My friend, Auguste Elie, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, deplored but could not deny the truth of this story; and having no Vaudoux prejudices himself, having been born and bred in France, conversed freely on the subject, and told us many particulars that had come to his knowledge.
Of the truth of the following story I had the testimony of ocular witnesses. A lady hearing that a child near her house was ill, went down to see it. She found it lying stupefied in the mother’s lap. Her suspicions were aroused, and she sharply questioned the mother as to what had been done to the child. Her answers were so unsatisfactory, yet mournful, that the lady determined to keep a watch on the case. She called in the evening, and was told the child was dead. She insisted on seeing the corpse, and found that though the heart was still and the pulse had ceased to beat, yet that the child did not look dead, and made the remark to the bystanders, but they answered, “Yes, it is dead.” She told the mother she was not satisfied, and that she would return in the morning with her husband, and that in the meantime the body must not be buried. Next day she and her husband walked down to the house, and asked to see the body. The mother replied that the neighbours having insisted, she had allowed them to bury her child, and pointed out the grave. The French gentleman called to some of his labourers, and had the grave opened. There they found the coffin, but the child’s body was absent. Arrests were made, but nothing came of it. It is supposed that it was by this means that the Papalois were enabled to obtain victims during the French colonial period.