Haiti's own Code pénal outlaws "sortilèges" (Haiti, 1835–1987)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet proven
Year: 1835 · Places: Ayiti, Caribbean, Europe
SUMMARYHaiti's own Code pénal outlaws "sortilèges" (Haiti, 1835–1987) [Connections: Ayiti spirit, first-person, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDKate Ramsey (The Spirits and the Law, 2011) studies the prohibition of "sortilèges (spells)" and later "pratiques superstitieuses" from 1835 to 1987; the 1835 Code pénal defined "les sortilèges" in two articles, punishing fortune-telling, divination and dream reading with jail, fines and seizure of objects (review by Myriam Chancy, pp. 285–86). Ramsey: "[l]ong figured as modernity's constituted outside, sorcery belief ought rather to be understood as its internal production." Lawmakers here are the Haitian state under President Boyer
PATTERNPost-independence elites, seeking recognition from Europe, criminalized the people's practice
LENS (WW9)The ban was imported thinking, written by an elite looking to Paris
OPENExact article numbers and wording (often cited as arts. 405–407) need the 1835 text