Slave religious ceremonies centered on directing the spirits of their masters against them

Evidence

Moreau described in detail a “danse vaudoux” that involved the worship of a snake that had “the knowledge of the past, the science of the present, and the prescience of the future.” It involved dialogue between worshipers, who wore red handkerchiefs, and two religious leaders to whom they referred by “the pompous name of King and Queen, or the despotic master and mistress, or the touching father and mother.” The worshipers asked these two for favors; “the majority,” wrote Moreau, “ask for the ability to direct the spirit of their masters.” At one point during the ceremony, the Queen was “penetrated by the god,” and “her entire body convulsed,” and “the oracle spoke through her mouth.” … The spiritual power itself was such that some whites, caught spying on the ceremonies and touched by one of the worshipers, themselves began to dance uncontrollably, and had to pay the Queen “to end this punishment.” “Nothing is more dangerous than this cult of Vaudoux,” asserted Moreau. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 164

Categorization

• XREF: Foreshadows the role Vodou would play in organizing the Haitian Revolution in later chapters; connects to the reader’s ongoing narrative-arc reading goal.
• SEED: Could yield an article on how colonizers read slave religion as dangerous precisely because of its imputed power of spiritual resistance.