Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Voodooism

Voodooism , noun

[Probably (through Creole French vaudoux a negro sorcerer) from French Vaudois Waldensian, because the Waldenses were accused of sorcery.]

A degraded form of superstition and sorcery, said to include human sacrifices and cannibalism in some of its rites. It is prevalent among the negroes of Haiti, and to some extent in the United States, and is regarded as a relic of African barbarism.