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No/es and Queries. 241
Mr. Leland is to have charge of the next meeting of this Congress,
which is to be held in London during the following year; every measure
will be taken to render the occasion agreeable to American visitors, and it
is hoped that the American Folk-Lore Society may be represented.
To KILL CATS IS UNLUCKY. - Yesterday, while cutting hay, the machine
caught a cat, and cut off all four legs of the poor creature. The Irishman
in charge threw the animal over the fence. In an hour or two the neigh-
bors found it, and threw it back, saying, "He can't put off his bad luck on
me, - I'll not kill his cats for him." Accordingly, the poor thing was
tossed to and fro, until I heard of the matter, and found a man who hap-
pened to be of American birth, to put an end to the animal's pain. As he
killed it he said, "I aint superstitious, but no Irishman will ever kill a
cat."
Mary H Skee4 Newburgiz, N Y.
VOODOO AND VODUN. Reading with interest the papers on "Voodoo-
-
ism" in the various numbers of the Journal of American Folk-Lore, I ob-
serve this remark: "When human testimony is so defective, it is natural
to regard the evidence of language. In an African superstition, one would
expect the survival of some African words and phrases."
The word Voodoo itself, however, seems to be African, and to be used
in a similar sense. In Featherman's "Social History of the Races of
Mankind," volume on the Nigritians, p. 216, it is stated, that, in Dahomey,
"Vodun or Vodum is the name for any object considered as fetish in the
sense of a protecting talisman." With this fact may be compared the spe-
cial use of Voodoo or Hoodoo in the United States as meaning that which
brings good luck (vol. i. p. 17, note).
As to the worship of these same people, we are told that the snake is
with them the highest divinity. It symbolizes supreme bliss and universal
benevolence. Reverential honors are paid to a number of them sheltered
in a fetish house. They are piously cared for by female devotees, who feed
them and present offerings of silk stuffs, bullocks, goats, fowls, cloth, rum,
etc. They are considered so sacred that a girl who accidentally touches
one becomes possessed, and is at once a consecrated person, being taken
from her parents to be taught the arts of singing and dancing, which con-
stitute the ritual of the snake divinity. The evening and night are men-
tioned as the usual time for the young girls to become possessed (Nigri..
tians, pp. 214, 215).
Louise Kennedy, ('oncord, Mass.
(The corresponding verb envaudoueiller, to bewitch, seems sufficient to
mark vaudou as of French origin. As for Vodun, it may resemble vaudou
in sound, yet have no etymological relationship. Such similarities are mis-
leading. What does seem to appear more clearly, the more we know of
the matter, is the close correspondence of European and African belief in
regard to witchcraft and magic. - W. W N)
vOL. 111.-NO. Jo. i6
