It is a fact seldom realized, but none the less of the deepest significance, that almost every detail of the old witch-trials can be exactly paralleled in Africa to-day. Thus there exists in Bantu a society called the “Witchcraft Company,” whose members hold secret meetings at midnight in the depths of the forest to plot sickness and death against their enemies by means of incantations and spells. The owl is their sacred bird, and their signal call an imitation of its hoot. They profess to leave their corporeal bodies asleep in their huts, and it is only their spirit-bodies that attend the magic rendezvous, passing through walls and over the tree-tops with instant rapidity. At the meeting they have visible, audible, and tangible communication with spirits. They hold feasts, at which is eaten the “heart-life” of some human being, who through this loss of his heart falls sick and, unless “the heart” be later restored, eventually dies. Earliest cock-crow is the warning for them to disperse, since they fear the advent of the morning-star, as, should the sun rise upon them before they reach their corporeal bodies, all their plans would not merely fail, but recoil upon themselves, and they would pine and languish miserably. This hideous Society was introduced by black slaves to the West Indies, to Jamaica and Hayti, and also to the Southern States of America as Voodoo worship. Authentic records are easily procurable which witness that midnight meetings were held in Hayti as late as 1888, when human beings, especially kidnapped children, were killed and eaten at the mysterious and evil banquets. European government in Africa has largely suppressed the practice of the black art, but this foul belief still secretly prevails, and Dr. Norris167 is of opinion that were white influence withdrawn it would soon hold sway as potently as of old.
A candid consideration will show that for every detail of the Sabbat, however fantastically presented and exaggerated in the witch-trials of so many centuries, there is ample warrant and unimpeachable evidence. There is some hallucination no doubt; there is lurid imagination, and vanity which paints the colours thick; but there is a solid stratum of fact, and very terrible fact throughout.
And as the dawn broke the unhallowed crew separated in haste, and hurried each one on his way homewards, pale,
