On Vodu-Worship (e-book) (used book) | Alfred Burdon Ellis | bookbook.eu

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SIR SPENCER ST. JOHN'S book Hayti, or the Black Republic, brought prominently before the English-speaking peoples of the Old and New Worlds the subject of the so-called vaudoux or voodoo worship which prevails in the island of Hayti-Santo Domingo; and the numerous articles published from time to time by Mr. G. W. Cable in Harper's and the Century Magazines have shown us what the "voodoo-worship" in Louisiana is like; but, as neither of these two authors has, apparently, had any personal acquaintance with that part of the west coast of Africa from which võdu is derived, they have, very naturally, been unable to more than describe it as they found it on this side of the Atlantic. They have been unable to tell us to what language the word vodu belongs, what it means, and what the various practices which in Hayti and Louisiana are roughly grouped together under the designation of vaudoux-worship really are. I fancy I can recollect an article, but by whom written I can not remember, in which the writer derived the word vaudoux from Pays de Vaud; and, as some light seems to be required on the subject, it is here proposed, though now perhaps rather late in the day, to give it.