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Superstitions and Their Sources: Cuba

The persistence of the most cruel and unnatural practices of old-time sorcery is illustrated by the fact that only a few years ago, in the island of Cuba, three women were condemned to death for murdering a white baby so as to use the heart and blood as a cure for diseases. Four other women were sentenced to from fourteen to twenty years' imprisonment as accomplices. When such things happen in Cuba, it is not surprising that in half-civilized Hayti similar crimes are committed. Here the Voodoo priests and priestesses, papalois and mamalois (papa-kings and mama-queens) require from time to time a human sacrifice to appease their serpent-god. One strange case is related where a stupefying potion, inducing a state of apparent death, was secretly administered to a sick man. When the attending physician pronounced him dead, he was duly interred; but, two days after, the grave was found open and the body had disappeared. The Voodoo worshippers had carried the man away so as to revive him and then sacrifice him at their fearful rites. In a poem addressed to Marguerite de Valois,--"La Marguerite des Marguerites," as she was called,--by Jean de la Taille de Bondaroy, (Jean de la Taille de Bondaroy, "Le Blason de la Marguerite," Paris, 1574.) we read of the diamond that it came from gold and from the sun. But we are told that not only are precious stones endowed with life, they also are subject to disease, old age, and death; "they even take offence if an injury be done to them, and become rough and pale." The sickness of the pearl has been a theme for centuries, and in many cases is only fancied. It is but a subterfuge or deception for a lady to remark that her pearls have sickened; by referring to this sickness, her friends are naturally led to believe that at one time her pearls were fine, perfect ones, when in reality they may never have been so. The opinion given in 1609, by Anselmus De Boot, court physician to Rudolph II of Germany, regarding the power inherent in certain precious stones, (De Boot, "Gemmarum et lapidum historia," lib. i. cap. 25, Lug. Bat., 1636.) embodies the ideas on this subject held by many of the enlightened minds of that period.

The supernatural and acting cause is God, the good angel and the evil one; the good by the will of God, and the evil by His permission. . . . What God can do by Himself, He could do also by means of ministers, good and bad angels, who, by special grace of God and for the preservation of men, are enabled to enter precious stones and to guard men from dangers or procure some special grace for them. However, as we may not affirm anything positive touching the presence of angels in gems, to repose trust in them, or to ascribe undue powers to them, is more-especially pleasing to the spirit of evil, who transforms himself into an angel of light, steals into the substance of the little gem, and works such wonders by it that some people do not place their trust in God but in a gem, and seek to obtain from it what they should ask of God alone. Thus it is perhaps the spirit of evil which exercises its power on us through the turquoise, teaching us, little by little, that safety is not to be sought from God but from a gem.