BOLD JOURNEY

[Music] old journey the exciting television series that brings you each week the actual films of colorful adventures in all parts of the world the golden journeys of real people good evening ladies and gentlemen we have all heard of the strange rituals known as voodoo and this weird practice is to be found in that little known island of haiti the land of the mad emperor now very few tourists ever get the chance to see voodoo in its most frenzied aspects it's said that the people there put spells on themselves so that they become other people or they can hold red-hot burning coals with their bare hands or they can even put a curse on you well our guest tonight mr stanley dashu became involved with voodoo and brought back proof on film of what he had seen in a few moments we're going to meet mr dashu and see that very proof down from ages past the people of haiti have nurtured tribal rights called voodoo today voodoo is in part a dance partly religious worship and overall something unique no other peoples have anything like it is it hypnotism is it frenzy or is it just an exaggerated mambo for the answers to these questions we turn to our guest tonight mr stanley dashu mr dashu what led you to haiti and how did you get involved in this weird voodoo business well jack sailing ships have always been my hobby and back in 1947 i took a trip to the west indies and visited haiti briefly and then in 1949 we decided that we'd take a real long trip for about a year we sold our business in michigan and bought the big schooner and loaded the wife and the two children aboard and went down the great lakes to st lawrence river down through the west indies and we stopped at haiti again on this last trip so that it was a return trip and you literally packed up your family and left right now then mr dashu let's see what happened in your most intriguing film here then ladies and gentlemen is voodoo [Music] the dashu's adventure takes place here in haiti that's the constellation she's really a beautiful ship she's 76 foot on deck and uh 91 feet overall and this would be the proud owner i imagine well yes that's uh that was me trying to make a decision whether to give up the business and take off on the years drawn or not and it took a lot of thinking and sweating this martha and skipper and myself were looking over the globe and picking out the spots that we wanted to go these are some of the charts that uh you have to study before you take off and get a thousand of them on board those things have always confused me i'll have to confess i'm not much of a sailor but i love the sea incidentally that's my chief engineer he's in our business now he was on part of the trip with us and he i took that shot from up there he was a sailing master on the schooner for about four months of the trip as the wife said when we put these books aboard uh i'll bet you'd never read them and we didn't we didn't have time for that [Laughter] too busy sailing the ship to the party that's right that's a little christmas tree we uh put aboard because we knew we'd be out of the country you know and that's little leslie see he was uh three months old when we left and he had to shove off yeah that was a great day it uh a day like that must be a very memorable one it seems to me taking off on a cruise like this i should think you'd remember it with a feeling of great pride as well well it was but of course the real pride wasn't accomplishing a trip and arriving here in los angeles after 16 months and uh there's a lot of skill uh and care uh required in handling a ship as you can see uh there are all kinds of lines and uh blocks and gear [Music] this is a shot of the welland canal it drops you from uh lake euron lake erie to uh uh lake ontario it drops 300 feet but where are we now we have uh we've just gone we've gone through lake michigan lake euron uh lake erie and this is taking us to lake ontario and this is the welland canal all right so it gets around the niagara falls huh now we've just come through the locks it takes uh several hours yes there's a chart of it now that we're in the uh lake ontario from lake ontario you go into the st lawrence river was that a touch of uh wash day monday that we saw yes sir we had uh do all those things aboard and of course with the baby on the ship uh i had diaperitis because [Laughter] different is good phrase that's you again at the wheel of course how big a crew did you have well we had an average of uh four men on board and uh what the newspapers call the seagoing babysitter incidentally this is a saint bonaventure island and these seagulls are really something they fly as uh as much as a hundred miles in a day to get their food uh it's a very famous island it's been written up in national geographic and it's a tourist attraction on these so many steamers that go down the st lawrence river what did you mean when you said that we averaged for it see did you lose any well jack we had an amateur crew you know we had college boys and some doctors lawyers and accounts and so forth and uh since the trip lasted 16 months most of them at one time or another had to leave either to go back to school or get back to work so uh we sometimes had five or six people on board and then we get down to three but the average was about four people all the time this is where we picked up some lobster this is the entrance to uh uh boston harbor and uh little old leslie she didn't worry about that lobster one bit of course to a sea-going baby that might make a good toy now she seems completely indifferent there's the uh lady yourself coming up the new york harbor and this of course is a great view in in the new york skyline is always terrific we only went uh we went from new york down to florida we went inside about 200 miles inland waterway then stopped at miami for a couple days and off to cuba that's taking uh soundings when you go on these strange harbors you don't you don't depend on the charts because so you don't know when they were made and the constellation drew 10 and a half feet so we were down pretty deep in the water and we had to be very careful really [Music] it was a christmas when we hit uh cuba is it santa claus here that's santa claus we had all the trimmings and there's a little uh pup i got for skipper for a uh uh christmas present instantly he was killed in a storm oh that's too bad and it was really pathetic and there's little leslie she had her share of presents a little baby doll in them yeah you have to think of a lot of things when you go off on a long trip like this you know because you just don't go around the corner to a drug store or a big uh grocery store stuff you get what you need earlier this certainly looks like christmas dinner i'll bet was it yes that was a that was a lamb uh some of the folks said it was a goat but i still claim was a lamb and now you're down the jamaica way that's right judging from the map we spent uh some time in cuba and then off to jamaica sailed across and this was really one of the most exciting episodes we had ashore you might say this is the rio grande river in jamaica and it's as you can see a pretty roaring stream and this was a rainy season and that's really rain you see on the screen there i decided i'd take a chance and uh go down the river and skip one to go so we put a life jacket on him and uh it was really quite a thrill it's boiling there isn't it yeah just boiling well they put you to work too didn't we well we got we went to ground there you see and uh we had to pull off before we got flipped into the rocks bamboo yeah it's all bamboo well here's here's something we can't show you all the photographs we took but actually over in jamaica they skinned these alligators alive and you can see the rip down this back of that man's hand there where he started to skin him and he's you see he's still alive they say the skins aren't any good if they skin them after they're dead look at those graceful flamingos their beauties [Music] and now we're off again and the storm clouds were brewing going from uh jamaica over to haiti when would passage we really got caught in a pair we had a very very rough passage and uh mom seems to be having a little trouble we kept her in trim you know that way leslie didn't bother her a bit although the pup got in the way uh we almost tramped on him and we put him down below and during the course of storm the generator was running and uh after the storm was over we looked for the pup and by god she was killed and it was really uh quite a quite a thing you see you crawl out of skips bunkers oh my god they must have gotten along famously they did he was a fine little pup and we had quite a burial to see for him we wrapped him in a casket and put a cuban flag around them and it must have been heartbreaking for the boy she's gotten to be quite a sailor outfit by the time this journey was half over well uh she uh she had about four or five or six men around her all time i think a spoiler for life well after the storm we uh we did quite a bit of uh checking up and uh uh on the ship which we always do and uh we we had a few minor things but no nothing serious when we got back to haiti uh this uh experience uh really started on on this uh voodoo thing this is a very colorful parade they have a lot of parades any place you know in latin countries or south of the borders you might say and the rhythm of these people just just naturalist is terrific and the color uh you just see this film in color while you you just just stands out there french is their language isn't it on the island [Music] this is the beginning of of the voodoo story really it started back in 1947 on our first trip to the west indies in our catch the royal fortune we had met some uh people in haiti they predicted we would be back and as a matter of fact they predicted that we would have another youngster which was a doctor who told us was impossible and it actually happened and it actually yeah true and this was told to you in haiti yes in 1947 what is the significance of that heart that they're drawing well that's called a uh va ver v-e-v-e-r and it's uh they have uh two kinds of guards they have a supreme guard or a senior guard and it might call a junior guard who is supposed to be the intermediary between the supreme god and man and this viver is part of their uh ceremony this is this is a uh ascon that's the uh the hogan or the priest and he that's a gourd with uh beads and a vertebrae of a snake and jack what you have just looked at is something a few other white men have seen but i'm going to show you a voodoo kanso ceremony that never before had been seen by a white man and yet we were ultimately able to see it and photograph it as you will soon see and now back to mr stanley dashu and his true story adventure voodoo these are some of the dolls that uh we had gotten uh several years before voodoo dolls voodoo dolls which this uh mamba which is a priestess uh told my wife uh would represent certain things the uh three the three young ones uh one dead one and and of course the second young one came along and the dead one was a young dog you see that uh that was killed oh i see at least that's the way you interpret yes that's that's what happened that's what we feel and she wanted to uh before taking us any further in this uh voodoo stuff she wanted to do uh a picture of martha and the youngsters and myself uh which is which actually used later on uh as a uh making a ceremony for for our good fortune and a safe voyage i see here here's little leslie again she's not paying any attention to all his voodoo stuff is she well what happened is that uh we tried very much to make arrangements to see this uh this voodoo uh kanso ceremony which as i said before was never viewed by a white man and so they told us it would take some time and uh we took a trip around the jacques mill which is on the other side of haiti while there why we sent some laundry out and it's very interesting what happened they said we have a very modern laundry so uh we're gonna bring it back that night all done skipper and i went down there's a i'm cooking on a native boat they're cooking and cooking it in the pot there's your shirt in the pot no that wasn't the pot no no they were cooking food there but you'll see you'll see that you'll see the laundry wish they had cooked in the pot oh i said i'm sorry oh skip uh skip went down the boats and then down the beach and uh played around and uh the uh this is a beautiful harbor you can see and this little girl here was picking up these round stones and he he couldn't speak her language but he kind of followed her along and found out what they're gonna do with the stones how do you get along that way with these people on the different islands where you can't understand them they can't understand you is it a matter of pigeon english sign language or what well it's a combination you use articles and and pidgin english and uh sign language yes of course american money always talks doesn't you just show that well that talks in every place except one place you visit then they want to give they wanted a penalty on some little island down there in the west indies they did not do with american dollars we want to get some pounds with it and uh they charged the penalty to get it but uh there's a shirt that uh belongs to martha and this is a this was a modern washing machine that they were going to do the work in now what is this this is this is a contrast you see the difference uh this is some of the artwork there was an international fair going on during the time we were there and they had visitors from all over the uh world there and that was some of the haitian art and this is just another contrast this is the marketplace they do such beautiful things there uh and yet other things are so crude the marketplaces all throughout the west indies and latin america are really uh interesting and we bought a a dress here for martha it's uh it's made out of they use the flower sacks and sugar sacks and things that's the clothing that one's made of egg mash and uh you can walk along and know where your dress came from is that the idea that's right this was the boy that did the moderating for us do you have to kind of bargain a little bit there and he was the judge how's this lad well we got back to uh the other side of haiti again and uh martha and i started to uh try to find the uh this kanso ceremony and actually took uh several trips before we were able to uh arrange it look at the fury on that fella's face he's whipping himself well he's whipping evil evil spirits away from the uh from the gods you see uh you look at the expressions on these faces those are chickens that are waving around in the uh in the air it's uh very good luck to be touched by a chicken uh that's what they're of course of course this righteously is the is kanso which means fire it's the highest right they have and these people uh prepare for sometimes many three weeks how did these people feel about you and your wife being there watching this have they raised the protest or had that all been arranged for you uh well it had been arranged but uh frankly you saw the fellow at the sword at the end of the ceremony because i was photographing some of this and stills and i felt almost a sacrilege doing it there's this music these drums it just goes through your body and uh at the end of the ceremony of this uh laplace who's the master sermon with the sword and the two uh uh women on each side of them came at me waving that sword and i thought that i didn't know what to think i froze i had a smile on my face no they're gonna cut my head off or what and they finally came up to me uh up to me and presented me with a sword as a token of their esteem or something oh i see but i was really scared i i must admit that now we're doing now is this uh this uh ceremony they said fire and that's meal a corn meal which was boiled in that hot oil and the first thing they do is the the first part of germany they take the hot oil and they hot cornmeal and make the person squeeze it in the hand that's of course worse than the even hot oil itself and then they put their feet uh in the flames frankly it was very hard hard to actually photograph it you know it was uh i imagine how could you possibly look in the photograph at the same time just incredible and this music is just the strangest thing i think i've ever heard after the ceremony there these initiates are brought out and they you put a new clothing on which never worn before and they're blindfolded and then the blindfolds aren't taking off until the entire ceremony is over this is a mamba priestess as it got darker you see the the light from the outside it was reduced and uh uh this these we had to shoot these uh very uh slow speed which gives you even a more rapid effect in the film well after the kanso ceremony was over uh they asked us to come to this tree which was a very very old tree uh in haiti and there was a sacred tree and uh asked us if we would meet him there we didn't know what was going on but we got there we found that uh they had prepared this vive showing the ship and had this ceremony set up beautiful just beautiful you must have made quite an impression on those people you and your wife well it took a long time because many people have gone to haiti and written stories about voodoo uh which are untrue i mean voodoo is a religion and uh they they're very much against people coming here and seeing any kind of voodoo even the simple ceremonies and we uh i think showed that we were really interested in finding out the true facts uh about voodoo because of that they they allowed us i think they they questioned us for many days on various intervals sent us away and as a matter of fact we had to go back finally with three trips before we actually got to see it i think they wanted to see if we really wanted to uh uh we're interested enough to make this long trip into the uh flatlands i see they're testing you too all the while i think that's that's what happened well they had this ceremony of good fortune uh as we left as martha said she really after that ceremony had no more fear of the sea well jack after leaving haiti we sailed through some of the other west indian islands and some of the south american countries then through the canal uh up the pacific ocean to panama honduras el salvador guatemala and mexico and then one early morning we crossed the boundary line into the good old usa and into uh los angeles harbor and by gosh it was good looking forward to settling down uh to a new life in california that was most amazing mr dashu and we're very grateful to you for shooting all of that film and bringing it to us on ice search for adventure and here with us ladies and gentlemen is mr dashu's son steven who as we know also made that trip and we've just seen him in the film oh steven you were a few years younger then weren't you frightened by this voodoo thing no but i was a little angry because when they were lighting the fires they used oil to light them some got on my clothing and uh i had to uh stand away from the ceremony well i should certainly think that in itself would be a frightening experience you were uh uh on that schooner a long time and i know that all the children watching out there would like the to know the answer to this question how did you manage to stay out of school so long i took a correspondence course aboard ship yes i see now mister dash you exactly why where the girl's feet fire we saw that in a film it was very dramatic and how do you explain why they didn't feel intense pain well jack the uh voodoo was a religion and the people who get to this last right you've seen here which is the highest voodoo right i've prepared for it for many years and i believe that when they get to this point they're in hypnotic state i examine their feet afterwards and there was no sign of scar tissue or burn and i saw the feet in the flames like you did in the film and i just think that they uh they just have some something hypnosis that keeps that fire from burning now you've settled in california what kind of business did you go into well i went back into business machines we call our company dash you business machines we build automatic computing equipment and writing machines but we have a small new development jack which i'd like to show you identification and writing tag and we have your name and title of your show here and you just take this uh plate no matter where it is and you can write with it automatically just like this and there it is well since this is made out to me personally i'd like to keep it and i thank you very much for it now one final question mr dash you will you and the family be making another trip soon yes i think uh within a year or so we're buying another schooner shortly and we hope to make the south seas next time we want to thank you mr dashu for having brought us a truly different kind of adventure many thanks again in a moment means from next week's exciting adventure first this brief but important message so you