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Two Years in the French West Indies

L >> Lafcadio Hearn >> Two Years in the French West Indies




[22] --"Moin té ouè yon bal;--moin rêvé: moin té ka ouè toutt moune
ka dansé masqué; moin té ka gàdé. Et toutt-à-coup moin ka ouè
c'est bonhomme-càton ka danse. Et main ka ouè yon Commandè: y
ka mandé moin ça moin ka fai là. Moin reponne y conm ça:
--'Moin ouè yon bal, moin gàdé-coument!" Y ka réponne moin:
--'Pisse ou si quirièse pou vini gàdé baggaïe moune, faut rété là
pou dansé 'tou.' Moin réponne y:--'Non! main pa dansé épi
bonhomme-càton!--moin pè!'... Et moin ka couri, moin ka
couri, main ka couri à fòce moin te ni pè. Et moin rentré adans
grand jàdin; et moin ouè gouôs pié-cirise qui té chàgé anni
feuill; et moin ka ouè yon nhomme assise enba cirise-à. Y
mandé moin:--'Ça ou ka fai là?' Moin di y:--'Moin ka châché
chimin pou moin allé.' Y di moin:--'Faut rété içitt.' Et moin
di y:--'Non!'--et pou chappé cò moin, moin di y:--'Allé enhaut-
là: ou ké ouè yon bel bal,--toutt bonhomme-càton ka dansé, épi yon
Commande-en-càton ka coumandé yo.'... Epi moin levé, à fòce
moin té pè."...]

[23] Lit.,--"brought-up-in-a-hat." To wear the madras is to acknowledge
oneself of color;--to follow the European style of dressing the hair,
and adopt the costume of the white creoles indicates a desire to
affiliate with the white class.

[24] Red earthen-ware jars for keeping drinking-water cool. The
origin of the word is probably to be sought in the name of the
town, near Marseilles, where they are made,--Aubagne.

[25] I may cite in this relation one stanza of a creole song--very
popular in St. Pierre--celebrating the charms of a little
capresse:--

"...Moin toutt jeine,
Gouôs, gouâs, vaillant,
Peau,di chapoti
Ka fai plaisi;--
Lapeau moin
Li bien poli;
Et moin ka plai
Mênm toutt nhomme grave!"

--Which might be freely rendered thus:--

"...I am dimpled, young,
Round-limbed, and strong,
With sapota-skin
That is good to see:
All glossy-smooth
Is this skin of mine;
And the gravest men
Like to look at me!"

[26] It was I who washed and ironed and mended;--at nine o'clock at night
thou didst put me out-of-doors, with my child in my arms,--the rain
was falling,--with my poor straw mattress upon my head! ... Doudoux!
thou dost abandon me! ... I have none to care for me.

[27] Also called _La Barre de 'Isle_,--a long high mountain-wall
interlinking the northern and southern system of ranges,--and
only two metres broad at the summit. The "Roches-Carrées",
display a geological formation unlike anything discovered in the
rest of the Antillesian system, excepting in Grenada,--columnar
or prismatic basalts.... In the plains of Marin curious
petrifactions exist;--I saw a honey-comb so perfect that the eye
alone could scarcely divine the transformation.

[28] Thibault de Chanvallon, writing of Martinique in 1751,
declared:--"All possible hinderances to study are encountered
here (_tout s'oppose à l'etude_): if the Americans [creoles] do
not devote themselves to research, the fact must not be
attributed solely to indifference or indolence. On the one hand,
the overpowering and continual heat,--the perpetual succession of
mornes and acclivities,--the difficulty of entering forests
rendered almost inaccessible by the lianas interwoven across all
openings, and the prickly plants which oppose a barrier to the
naturalist,--the continual anxiety and fear inspired by serpents
also;--on the othelr hand, the disheartening necessity of having
to work alone, and the discouragement of being unable to
communicate one's ideas or discoveries to persons having similar
tastes. And finally, it must be remembered that these
discouragements and dangers are never mitigated by the least hope
of personal consideration, or by the pleasure of emulation,--since
such study is necessarily unaccompanied either by the one or the
other in a country where nobody undertakes it."--(_Voyage à la
Martinique_.) ...The conditions have scarcely changed since
De Chanvallon's day, despite the creation of Government roads, and
the thinning of the high woods.

[29] Humboldt believed the height to be not less than 800 _toises_
(1 toise=6 ft. 4.73 inches), or about 5115 feet.

[30] There used to be a strange popular belief that however
heavily veiled by clouds the mountain might be prior to an
earthquake, these would always vanish with the first shock. But
Thibault de Chanvallon took pains to examine into the truth of
this alleged phenomenon; and found that during a number of
earthquake shocks the clouds remained over the crater precisely
as usual.... There was more foundation, however, for another
popular belief, which still exists,--that the absolute purity of
the atmosphere about Pelée, and the perfect exposure of its
summit for any considerable time, might be regarded as an omen of
hurricane.

[31] "De la piqure du serpent de la Martinique," par Auguste
Charriez, Medecin de la Marine. Paris: Moquet, 1875]

[32] M. Francard Bayardelle, overseer of the Prèsbourg plantation
at Grande Anse, tells me that the most successful treatment of
snake bite consists in severe local cupping and bleeding; the
immediate application of twenty to thirty leeches (when these
can be obtained), and the administration of alkali as an
internal medicine. He has saved several lives by these methods.

The negro panseur method is much more elaborate and, to some
extent, mysterious. He cups and bleeds, using a small _couï_, or
half-calabash, in lieu of a grass; and then applies cataplasms
of herbs,--orange-leaves, cinnamon-leaves, clove-leaves, _chardon-
béni_, _charpentier_, perhaps twenty other things, all mingled
together;--this poulticing being continued every day for a month.
Meantime the patient is given all sorts of absurd things to
drink, in tafia and sour-orange juice--such as old clay pipes
ground to powder, or _the head of the fer-de-lance itself_, roasted
dry and pounded.... The plantation negro has no faith in any
other system of cure but that of the panseur;--he refuses to let
the physician try to save him, and will scarcely submit to be
treated even by an experienced white over-seer.

[33] The sheet-lightnings which play during the nights of July and
August are termed in creole _Zéclai-titiri_, or "titiri-
lightnings";--it is believed these give notice that the titiri
have begun to swarn in the rivers. Among the colored population
there exists an idea of some queer relation between the lightning
and the birth of the little fish ,--it is commonly said, "_Zéclai-
a ka fai yo écloré_" (the lightning hatches them).

[34] Dr. E. Rufz: "Études historiques," vol. i., p. 189.

[35] The brightly colored douillettes are classified by the people
according to the designs of the printed calico:--_robe-à-bambou_,--
_robe-à-bouquet_,--_robe-arc-en-ciel_,--robe-à-carreau_,--etc.,
according as the pattern is in stripes, flower-designs, "rainbow"
bands of different tints, or plaidings. _Ronde-en-ronde_ means a
stuff printed with disk-patterns, or link-patterns of different
colors,--each joined with the other. A robe of one color only is
called a _robe-uni_.

The general laws of contrasts observed in the costume require the
silk foulard, or shoulder-kerchief, to make a sharp relief with
the color of the robe, thus:-

Robe. Foulard.
Yellow Blue.
Dark blue Yellow.
Pink Green.
Violet Bright red.
Red Violet.
Chocolate (cacoa) Pale blue.
Sky blue Pale rose.

These refer, of course, to dominant or ground colors, as there
are usually several tints in the foulard as well as the robe.
The painted Madras should always be bright yellow. According to
popular ideas of good dressing, the different tints of skin
should be relieved by special choice of color in the robe, as
follows:--

_Capresse_ (a clear red skin) should wear.... Pale yellow.
_Mulatresse_ (according to shade).... Rose. Blue. Green.
_Negresse_.... White. Scarlet, or any violet color.

[36] ... "Vouèla Cendrillon evec yon bel ròbe velou grande
lakhè. ... Ça té ka bail ou mal ziè. Li té tini bel
zanneau dans zòreill li, quate-tou-chou, bouoche,
bracelet, tremblant,--toutt sòte bel baggaïe conm
ça."...--[_Conte Cendrillon,--d'après Turiault.]

--"There was Cendrillon with a beautiful long trailing robe of
velvet on her!... It was enough to hurt one's eyes to look at
her! She had beautiful rings in her ears, and a collier-choux
of four rows, brooches, _tremblants_, bracelets,--everything
fine of that sort."--[Story of Cinderella in Turinault's
Creole Grammar.

[37] It is quite possible, however, that the slaves of Dutertre's
time belonged for the most part to the uglier African tribes; and
that later supplies may have been procured from other parts of
the slave coast. Writing half a century later, Père Labat
declares having seen freshly disembarked blacks handsome enough
to inspire an artist:--"_J'en ai vu des deux sexes faits à
peindre, et beaux par merveille_" (vol. iv. chap, vii,). He adds
that their skin was extremely fine, and of velvety softness;--"_le
velours n'est pas plus doux_."... Among the 30,000 blacks
yearly shipped to the French colonies, there were doubtless many
representatives of the finer African races.

[38] "Leur sueur n'est pas fétide comme celle des nègres de la
Guinée," writes the traveller Dauxion-Lavaysse, in 1813.

[39] Dr. E. Rufz: "Études historiques et statistiques sur la
population de la Martinique." St. Pierre: 1850. Vol. i.,
pp. 148-50.

It has been generally imagined that the physical constitution
of the black race was proof against the deadly climate of the
West Indies. The truth is that the freshly imported Africans
died of fever by thousands and tens-of-thousands;--the
creole-negro race, now so prolific, represents only the fittest
survivors in the long and terrible struggle of the slave element
to adapt itself to the new environment. Thirty thousand negroes
a year were long needed to supply the French colonies. Between
1700 and 1789 no less than 900,000 slaves were imported by San
Domingo alone;--yet there were less than half that number left in
1789. (See Placide Justin's history of Santo Domingo, p. 147.)
The entire slave population of Barbadoes had to be renewed every
sixteen years, according to estimates: the loss to planters by
deaths of slaves (reckoning the value of a slave at only £20 sterling)
during the same period was £1,600,000 ($8,000,000). (Burck's
"History of European Colonies," vol. ii., p. 141; French edition of 1767.)

[40] Rufz: "Études," vol. i., p. 236.

[41] I am assured it has now fallen to a figure not exceeding
5000.

[42] Rufz: "Études," vol. ii., pp. 311, 312.

[43] Rufz: "Études," vol. i., p. 237.

[44] _La race de sang-mêlé, issue des blancs et des noirs, est
éminement civilizable. Comme types physiques, elle fournit
dans beaucoup d'individus, dans ses femmes en général, les plus
beaux specimens de la race humaine_.--"Le Préjugé de Race aux
Antilles Françaises." Par G. Souquet-Basiège. St. Pierre,
Martinique: 1883. pp. 661-62.

[45] Turiault: "Étude sur le langage Créole de la Martinique."
Brest: 1874.... On page 136 he cites the following pretty verses
in speaking of the _fille-de-couleur_:--

L'Amour prit soin de la former
Tendre, naïve, et caressante,
Faite pour plaire, encore plus pour aimer.
Portant tous les traits précieux
Du caractère d'une amante,
Le plaisir sur sa bouche et l'amour dans ses yeux.

[46] A sort of land-crab;--the female is selected for food, and,
properly cooked, makes a delicious dish;--the male is almost
worthless.

[47] "Voyage à la Martinique," Par J. R., Général de Brigade.
Paris: An, XII., 1804. Page 106.

[48] According to the Martinique "Annuaire" for 1887, there were
even then, out of a total population of 173,182, no less than
12,366 able to read and write.

[49] There is record of an attempt to manufacture bread with one
part manioc flour to three of wheat flour. The result was
excellent; but no serious effort was ever made to put the manioc
bread on the market.

[50] I must mention a surreptitious dish, _chatt_;--needless to say
the cats are not sold, but stolen. It is true that only a small
class of poor people eat cats; but they eat so many cats that
cats have become quite rare in St. Pierre. The custom is purely
superstitious: it is alleged that if you eat cat seven times, or
if you eat seven cats, no witch, wizard, or _quimboiseur_ can ever
do you any harm; and the cat ought to be eaten on Christmas Eve
in order that the meal be perfectly efficacious.... The mystic
number "seven", enters into another and a better creole
superstition;--if you kill a serpent, seven great sins are
forgiven to you: _ou ké ni sept grands péchés effacé_.

[51] Rufz remarks that the first effect of this climate of the
Antilles is a sort of general physical excitement, an exaltation,
a sense of unaccustomed strength,--which begets the desire of
immediate action to discharge the surplus of nervous force. "Then
all distances seem brief;--the greatest fatigues are braved
without hesitation."-- _Études_.

[52] In the patois, "_yon rafale yche_,"--a "whirlwind of
children."

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