VOODOO RITES IN CHURCH.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 701, 29 November 1933, Page 7

VOODOO RITES IN CHURCH.

LOVE SPELLS UNDER ALTAR. f A remarlcable story of how Voodoo [ converts in the French colony of 1 Guadeloupe, after embracing Christi- = anity, have alapted church rites to | their own purposes, is told hy M. Jean i Perrigault, the French writer, who j has been visiting th'e French posses- f sions in the Wiest Indies. \ M. Perrigault says they steal holy \ water for use in witehcraft and burn i candles hefore statues of the Virgin ; as they pray for the death of their ; personal enemies. Girls slip notes rni- 1 i der the altars so that love spells may \ | be put on their boy friends, while dis- j | contented wives hide there earth = I taken from the graves of cemeteries' \ with a view to hastening the death of \ their husbands. j M. Bouge, the Governor of the col- \ i ony, was noted for his religious zeal \ ! when administering the penal settle- I ' ment of Ciayenne. He was transfer- j ! red to Guadeloupe last June, one Go- [ I vernor after another having resigned j j or been reealled beeause of inability I j to cope with the rising tide of Voodoo- I i ism among the island's 150,000 neg- j j roes and half-breeds. |