American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World (53 page)

Read American Voudou: Journey Into a Hidden World Online

Authors: Rod Davis

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

 

Page 337
wood upon the fire, and incidentally make an attack upon the intoxicants.
After probably a half-hour of the most indescribably grotesque dancing round the fire the voodoos had worked themselves up to such a frenzy that they began tearing off their clothes.
NAKED SAVAGES
One by one the garments were thrown away until finally, in the flickering light of the fire out there in the midst of the swamp, with the long Spanish moss dropping and swinging over their heads, nearly a half hundred impassioned black savages danced as naked as islanders to the beating of ox skulls and tom-toms, the weird crooning of hags, the sharp ejaculations of bucks and wenches, and the monotonous roar of a million swamp frogs.
At the height of the revel the king kicked out the fire, and in the light of the embers upset the cauldron upon the ground, and grasping the cat in his fingers, began thrusting the awful mess in his mouth, his followers, as well as they were able in the uncertain light, following his example. The voodoo dance was now nothing but the lewdest and most outrageous orgie, with license the spirit of the scene, and death by tumbling into the canal and getting drowned most imminent.
"Let us get out of this," said the physician ... and the reporter readily assented.
Even in the twentieth century, the papers rarely changed their attitude, though the emphasis shifted away from the

 

Page 338
annual recitations of St. John's Eve debauchery in favor of voudou as the secret motive in blackside killings. "April Fool Day Slayer Blames Hoodoo for Deed," said an April 7, 1940
Picayune
headline. "Friend Admits Mystery Killing. 'Hoodoo' Over Love Is Blamed," echoed another on the same date, both referring to a shooting involving a man said to have believed he had been "hoodooed" into marriage.
In 1915, a November 7 issue of the
New Orleans American
proclaimed, "The VoudousSuperstition Which is Passing." The subhead explained why that was a good thing: "Mystic Religious Rites Handed Down from Jungle WildsMany Ignorant Whites Took Part in the Horribly-Disgusting OrgiesThousands, Two Decades Ago, Sought Advice of the Voudou King and Queen."
According to the article, "One seldom in these days hears of the voudous, unless perhaps he comes in contact with the lower element of the negro race, for ever (thanks to education) the better class of the colored population fight shy of those who make any pretext whatever of being connected with that religious band of fanatics." Even Marie Laveau, said the paper, is "a dangerous, wicked woman in the truest sense of the word." But those days were over, the paper concluded, because "through the vigilance of the police authorities, the voudous have practically been stamped out."
The passion for accuracy and religious pluralism did not remain peculiar to the Southern media. Northern papers and magazines knew sensationalism was good for sales as much as anyone else, and any news from the South which proved that part of the country was weird and primitive was especially welcome (an attitude that doesn't seem to have changed much over the years). An April 1886 issue of
Century Magazine
devoted many pages to creole culture, including a passage about voudou, which summarized the religion in this manner:

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