Two Years in the French West Indies Part 32

--"Why, Cyrillia, it is not difficult to reach clouds. You see clouds always upon the top of the Montagne Pelee;--people go there. I have been there--in the clouds."

--"Ah! those are not the same clouds: those are not the clouds of the Good-G.o.d. You cannot touch the sky when you are on the Morne de la Croix."

--"My dear Cyrillia, there is no sky to touch. The sky is only an appearance."

--"_Anh, anh, anh!_ No sky!--you say there is no sky?... Then, what is that up there?"

--"That is air, Cyrillia, beautiful blue air."

--"And what are the stars fastened to?"

--"To nothing. They are suns, but so much further away than our sun that they look small."

--"No, they are not suns! They have not the same form as the sun... You must not say there is no sky: it is wicked! But you are not a Catholic!"

--"My dear Cyrillia, I don't see what that has to do with the sky."

--"Where does the Good-G.o.d stay, if there be no sky? And where is heaven?--and where is h.e.l.l?"

--"h.e.l.l in the sky, Cyrillia?"

--"The Good-G.o.d made heaven in one part of the sky, and h.e.l.l in another part, for bad people.... Ah! you are a Protestant;--you do not know the things of the Good-G.o.d! That is why you talk like that."

--"What is a Protestant, Cyrillia?"

--"You are one. The Protestants do not believe in religion,--do not love the Good-G.o.d."

--"Well, I am neither a Protestant nor a Catholic, Cyrillia."

--"Oh! you do not mean that; you cannot be a _maudi_, an accursed. There are only the Protestants, the Catholics, and the accursed. You are not a _maudi_, I am sure, But you must not say there is no sky"...

--"But, Cyrillia"--

--"No: I will not listen to you:--you are a Protestant. Where does the rain come from, if there is no sky,"...

--"Why, Cyrillia,... the clouds"...

--"No, you are a Protestant.... How can you say such things? There are the Three Kings and the Three Valets,--the beautiful stars that come at Christmas-time,--there, over there--all beautiful, and big, big, big!... And you say there is no sky!"

--"Cyrillia, perhaps I am a _maudi_."

--"No, no! You are only a Protestant. But do not tell me there is no sky: it is wicked to say that!"

--"I won't say it any more, Cyrillia--there! But I will say there are no _zombis_."

--"I know you are not a _maudi_;--you have been baptized."

--"How do you know I have been baptized?"

--"Because, if you had not been baptized you would see _zombis_ all the time, even in broad day. All children who are not baptized see _zombis_."...

X.

Cyrilla's solicitude for me extends beyond the commonplaces of hygiene and diet into the uncertain domain of matters ghostly. She fears much that something might happen to me through the agency of wizards, witches (_socies_), or _zombis_. Especially zombis. Cyrillia's belief in zombis has a solidity that renders argument out of the question. This belief is part of her inner nature,--something hereditary, racial, ancient as Africa, as characteristic of her people as the love of rhythms and melodies totally different from our own musical conceptions, but possessing, even for the civilized, an inexplicable emotional charm.

_Zombi!_--the word is perhaps full of mystery even for those who made it. The explanations of those who utter it most often are never quite lucid: it seems to convey ideas darkly impossible to define,--fancies belonging to the mind of another race and another era,--unspeakably old.

Perhaps the word in our own language which offers the best a.n.a.logy is "goblin": yet the one is not fully translated by the other. Both have, however, one common ground on which they become indistinguishable,--that region of the supernatural which is most primitive and most vague; and the closest relation between the savage and the civilized fancy may be found in the fears which we call childish,--of darkness, shadows, and things dreamed. One form of the _zombi_-belief--akin to certain ghostly superst.i.tions held by various primitive races--would seem to have been suggested by nightmare,--that form of nightmare in which familiar persons become slowly and hideously transformed into malevolent beings.

The _zombi_ deludes under the appearance of a travelling companion, an old comrade--like the desert spirits of the Arabs--or even under the form of an animal. Consequently the creole negro fears everything living which he meets after dark upon a lonely road,--a stray horse, a cow, even a dog; and mothers quell the naughtiness of their children by the threat of summoning a zombi-cat or a zombi-creature of some kind.

"_Zombi ke nana ou_" (the zombi will gobble thee up) is generally an effectual menace in the country parts, where it is believed zombis may be met with any time after sunset. In the city it is thought that their regular hours are between two and four o'clock in the morning. At least so Cyrillia says:--

--"Deezhe, toua-zhe-matin: c'est lhe zombi. Yo ka sti dezhe, toua zhe: c'est lhe yo. A quattrhe yo ka rentre;--angelus ka sonne." (At four o'clock they go back where they came from, before the _Angelus_ rings.) Why?

--"_C'est pou moune pas joinne yo dans larue_." (So that people may not meet with them in the street), Cyrillia answers.

--"Are they afraid of the people, Cyrillia?" I asked.

--"No, they are not afraid; but they do not want people to know their business" (_pa le moune oue zaffai yo_).

Cyrillia also says one must not look out of the window when a dog howls at night. Such a dog may be a _mauvais vivant_ (evil being): "If he sees me looking at him he will say, '_Ou tropp quiriese quittee cabane ou pou gade zaffai lezautt_.'" (You are too curious to leave your bed like that to look at other folks' business.)

--"And what then, Cyrillia?"

--"Then he will put out your eyes,--_y ke coqui zie ou_,--make you blind."

--"But, Cyrillia," I asked one day, "did you ever see any zombis?"

--"How? I often see them!... They walk about the room at night;--they walk like people. They sit in the rocking-chairs and rock themselves very softly, and look at me. I say to them:--'What do you want here?--I never did any harm to anybody. Go away!' Then they go away."

--"What do they look like?"

--"Like people,--sometimes like beautiful people (_bel moune_). I am afraid of them. I only see them when there is no light burning. While the lamp b.u.ms before the Virgin they do not come. But sometimes the oil fails, and the light dies."

In my own room there are dried palm leaves and some withered flowers fastened to the wall. Cyrillia put them there. They were taken from the _reposoirs_ (temporary altars) erected for the last Corpus Christi procession: consequently they are blessed, and ought to keep the zombis away. That is why they are fastened to the wall, over my bed.

n.o.body could be kinder to animals than Cyrillia usually shows herself to be: all the domestic animals in the neighborhood impose upon her;--various dogs and cats steal from her impudently, without the least fear of being beaten. I was therefore very much surprised to see her one evening catch a flying beetle that approached the light, and deliberately put its head in the candle-flame. When I asked her how she could be so cruel, she replied:--

--"_Ah ou pa connaitt choe pays-ci_." (You do not know Things in this country.)

The Things thus referred to I found to be supernatural Things. It is popularly believed that certain winged creatures which circle about candles at night may be _engages_ or _envoyes_--wicked people having the power of transformation, or even zombis "sent" by witches or wizards to do harm. "There was a woman at Tricolore," Cyrillia says, "who used to sew a great deal at night; and a big beetle used to come into her room and fly about the candle, and and bother her very much. One night she managed to get hold of it, and she singed its head in the candle. Next day, a woman who was her neighbor came to the house with her head all tied up. '_Ah! macoume_,' asked the sewing-woman, '_ca ou ni dans guiole-ou?_' And the other answered, very angrily, '_Ou ni toupet mande moin ca moin ni dans guiole moin!--et cete ou qui te brile guiole moin nans chandelle-ou hie-soue_.'" (You have the impudence to ask what is the matter with my mouth! and you yourself burned my mouth in your candle last night.)

Early one morning, about five o'clock, Cyrillia, opening the front door, saw a huge crab walking down the street. Probably it had escaped from some barrel; for it is customary here to keep live crabs in barrels and fatten them,--feeding them with maize, mangoes, and, above all, green peppers: n.o.body likes to cook crabs as soon as caught; for they may have been eating manchineel apples at the river-mouths. Cyrillia uttered a cry of dismay on seeing that crab; then I heard her talking to herself:--"_I_ touch it?--never! it can go about its business. How do I know it is not _an arranged crab_ (_yon crabe range_), or an _envoye_?--since everybody knows I like crabs. For two sous I can buy a fine crab and know where it comes from." The crab went on down the street: everywhere the sight of it created consternation; n.o.body dared to touch it; women cried out at it, "_Miserabe!--envoye Satan!--allez, maudi!_"--some threw holy water on the crab. Doubtless it reached the sea in safety. In the evening Cyrillia said: "I think that crab was a little zombi;--I am going to burn a light all night to keep it from coming back."

Another day, while I was out, a negro to whom I had lent two francs came to the house, and paid his debt Cyrillia told me when I came back, and showed me the money carefully enveloped in a piece of brown paper; but said I must not touch it,--she would get rid of it for me at the market.

I laughed at her fears; and she observed: "You do not know negroes, Missie!--negroes are wicked, negroes are jealous! I do not want you to touch that money, because I have not a good opinion about this affair."

After I began to learn more of the underside of Martinique life, I could understand the source and justification of many similar superst.i.tions in simple and uneducated minds. The negro sorcerer is, at worst, only a poisoner; but he possesses a very curious art which long defied serious investigation, and in the beginning of the last century was attributed, even by whites, to diabolical influence. In 1721, 1723, and 1725, several negroes were burned alive at the stake as wizards in league with the devil. It was an era of comparative ignorance; but even now things are done which would astonish the most sceptical and practical physician. For example, a laborer discharged from a plantation vows vengeance; and the next morning the whole force of hands--the entire atelier--are totally disabled from work. Every man and woman on the place is unable to walk; everybody has one or both legs frightfully swollen. _Yo te ka pile malifice_: they have trodden on a "malifice."