As a religion that rose out of the slave trade's force mingling of cultures, Voodoo had long been an integral part of Haitian society.
While the city dwellers including Duvalier tended to be Catholics.
The out in the Haitian countryside, Voodoo was everywhere.
Whole swathes of the nation seeped in practices aliens of the American occupiers.
Perhaps that's one of the reasons why Duvalier's circle was so keen on it, as the clearest signal that Haiti lived a distinct spiritual life.
But Duvalier also had other reasons for being interested in Voodoo, ones that were far less spiritual and far more practical.
Jump forward to the early 1940s, in the United States Program to try and eradicate yaws in Haiti, a disfiguring skin disease that mainly affects children.
Yaws is one of those nasty things like polio that the world would be better without.
And while the US eradication effort would fail, Washington would damn well try recruiting Haitian doctors to go to remote villages and administer shots.
Among their number, was Francois Duvalier?
