power of Doctor Lemmons, the Leavenworth Voodoo, whom Alexander was accused of poisoning, I shall be glad to speak some other time, if anyone will listen; but now an inner voice whispers to me, "You've talked quite long enough; come back some other day when the moon has changed." That is, I have talked quite long enough of myself and my "prentice" work, but there is among you a White Voodoo quite as high in rank as any African Voodoo in the world. I refer to Mr. Charles G. Leland, who, at this moment, probably holds in his hand one of those rare and precious black, kidney-shaped "cunjer-stones", which, in itself, is all-powerful for good or ill, as its possessor shall dictate.
Even Alexander is not so happily circumstanced as our Caucasian "cunjer-king", for Alexander has never, with all his wiles, been able to lay hands, violent or otherwise, on a "cunjer-stone", but has attained his "strength" by slow and toilsome processes, by fasts, by spells, by study, by uncanny feasts of dog-meat and rats' brains, by foulness that may not be named.
Have I made myself clear as to the power of the "cunjer-stone"? Understand, pray, that nothing is required of him who holds it. Possession is not only nine points of the law, it is all of the law; it is initiation, it is knowledge, it is power. But few of these stones are known to be in existence. I know of but two. I have heard the guess hazarded by Palmer and McManus that there are perhaps six in the United States. They are said to have been brought from Africa (or the "outlandish country", as the negroes call it), and are handed down through families as their most precious possessions. They are supposed to "work" most rapidly when the moon is full or just beginning to wane. At other times, if a little slow, they can be quickened by a libation of whiskey, or, if evil is to be wrought, by a sprinkling of red pepper (here let me say what I neglected to mention in its proper place, that all bad tricks have their malign force increased by cayenne pepper).
As to the past history of "cunjer-stones", it is lost in the mists of antiquity. Any old negro you meet will tell you they are all-powerful, and always have been, but no negro, old or young, whom I have met with has been able to inform me why or wherefore, or when first invested with power.
