CHAPTER VI
THE PEOPLE

IT is impossible to find out just how far the Voodoo wor¬
ship still exists.    No white man has ever been allowed to

witness the Voodoo ceremonies and since the Americans
entered the country they have done all in their power to pro¬
hibit it entirely. The Gendarmes will tell you however that
it still exists in spite of their vigilance. The ceremony is
presided over by a native priest or what would be called in
Africa a "witch doctor." A ceremony very much like the Mass
is used at the beginning. Afterward the child which is to be
sacrificed, is brought in and at a certain stage it is killed, its
heart being taken out and the participants drinking of its blood.
The more recent form of the ceremony substitutes a goat for
a child. Some times the child is used up till the critical time
for it to be sacrificed and then the goat is substituted. It is
said that the result of Voodoo worship is plainly registered
on the faces of those who participate in it, making them look
like devils.

It is not hard to believe anything that one is told about
the degredation of the country people. They are unmoral
rather than immoral as they seem to have no conception of
any high standards of life. An American friend had a boy
and a girl working for him, brother and sister by the same
mother but having diflferent fathers. The father of one of
them had twenty-five children. Such instances are not un¬
common.

When the American military force came into Haiti there
was one plow in the republic which is now exhibited proudly
in Cap Haitien. On all of the coast of Haiti there are only
two lighthouses.

The people that we met on the road seemed to be very
much frightened at our automobile, probably not because they
had not seen these machines before but because the drivers
are often so careless of the people's safety that they run them
down without any excuse. We found them greatly excited
as our machine approached. It was most amusing to see two
or three of them get at the head and tail of a donkey to push

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