Two Years in the French West Indies Part 39

"Voyez labas, dans cette eglise, Aupres d'un confessional, Le pretre, qui veut faire croire a Lise, Qu'un baiser est un grand mal;--Pour prouver a la mignonne Qu'un baiser bien fait, bien doux, N'a jamais d.a.m.ne personne Pet.i.ts oiseaux, becquetez-vous!"

Translation:

Little feathered lovers, cooing, Children of the radiant air, Sweet your speech,--the speech of wooing; Ye have ne'er a grief to bear! Gilded ease and jewelled fas.h.i.+on Never own a charm for you; Ye love Nature's truth with pa.s.sion, Pretty birdlings, bill and coo!

See that priest who, Lise confessing, Wants to make the girl believe That a kiss without a blessing Is a fault for which to grieve! Now to prove, to his vexation, That no tender kiss and true Ever caused a soul's d.a.m.nation, Pretty birdlings, bill and coo!]

[Footnote 18: "Cette danse est opposee a la pudeur. Avec tout cela, elle ne lesse pas d'etre tellement du gout des Espagnols Creolles de l'Amerique, & si fort en usage parmi eux, qu'elle fait la meilleure partie de leurs divertiss.e.m.e.nts, & qu'elle entre meme dans leurs devotions. Ils la dansent meme dans leurs eglises & a leurs processions; et les Religieuses ne manquent guere de la danser la Nuit de Noel, sur un theatre eleve dans leur Choeur, vis-a-vis de leur grille, qui est ouverte, afin que le Peuple ait sa part dans la joye que ces bonnes ames temoignent pour la naissance du Sauveur."]

[Footnote 19: During a hurricane, several years ago, a West Indian steamer was disabled at a dangerously brief distance from the coast of the island by having her propeller fouled. Sorely broken and drifting rigging had become wrapped around it. One of the crew, a Martinique mulatto, tied a rope about his waist, took his knife between his teeth, dived overboard, and in that tremendous sea performed the difficult feat of disengaging the propeller, and thus saving the steamer from otherwise certain destruction.... This brave fellow received the Cross of the Legion of Honor.]

[Footnote 20: "_Bel laline, moin ka montre ti piece moin!--ba moin lagent toutt temps ou ka claire!_"... This little invocation is supposed to have most power when uttered on the first appearance of the new moon.]

[Footnote 21: "Guardian-angel, watch over me;--have pity upon my weakness; lie down on my little bed with me: follow me whithersoever I go."...The prayers are always said in French. Metaphysical and theological terms cannot be rendered in the patois; and the authors of creole catechisms have always been obliged to borrow and explain French religious phrases in order to make their texts comprehensible.]

[Footnote 22: --"Moin te oue yon bal;--moin reve: moin te ka oue toutt moune ka danse masque; moin te ka gade. Et toutt-a-coup moin ka oue c'est bonhomme-caton ka danse. Et main ka oue yon Commande: y ka mande moin ca moin ka fai la. Moin reponne y conm ca:--'Moin oue yon bal, moin gade-coument!' 'Y ka reponne moin:--'p.i.s.se ou si quiriese pou vini gade baggae moune, faut rete la pou danse 'tou.' Moin reponne y:--'Non! main pa danse epi bonhomme-caton!--moin pe!'... Et moin ka couri, moin ka couri, main ka couri a fce moin te ni pe. Et moin rentre adans grand jadin; et moin oue gouos pie-cirise qui te chage anni feuill; et moin ka oue yon nhomme a.s.sise enba cirise-a. Y mande moin:--'ca ou ka fai la?'

Moin di y:--'Moin ka chache chimin pou moin alle.' Y di moin:--'Faut rete icitt.' Et moin di y:--'Non!'--et pou chappe c moin, moin di y:--'Alle enhaut-la: ou ke oue yon bel bal,--toutt bonhomme-caton ka danse, epi yon Commande-en-caton ka coumande yo.'... Epi moin leve, a fce moin te pe."...]

[Footnote 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 cla.s.s.]

[Footnote 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 Ma.r.s.eilles, where they are made,--Aubagne.]

[Footnote 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, Gouos, gouas, vaillant, Peau,di chapoti Ka fai plaisi;--Lapeau moin Li bien poli; Et moin ka plai Menm 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!"]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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-Carrees", 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.]

[Footnote 28: Thibault de Chanvallon, writing of Martinique in 1751, declared:--"All possible hinderances to study are encountered here (_tout s'oppose a 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 p.r.i.c.kly 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 n.o.body undertakes it."--(_Voyage a 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.]

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

[Footnote 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 Pelee, and the perfect exposure of its summit for any considerable time, might be regarded as an omen of hurricane.]

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

[Footnote 32: M. Francard Bayardelle, overseer of the Presbourg 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 _cou_, or half-calabash, in lieu of a gra.s.s; and then applies cataplasms of herbs,--orange-leaves, cinnamon-leaves, clove-leaves, _chardon-beni_, _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.]

[Footnote 33: The sheet-lightnings which play during the nights of July and August are termed in creole _Zeclai-t.i.tiri_, or "t.i.tiri-lightnings";--it is believed these give notice that the t.i.tiri 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, "_Zeclai-a ka fai yo eclore_" (the lightning hatches them).]

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

[Footnote 35: The brightly colored douillettes are cla.s.sified by the people according to the designs of the printed calico:--_robe-a-bambou_,--_robe-a-bouquet_,--_robe-arc-en-ciel_, --_robe-a-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.]

[Footnote 36: "Vouela Cendrillon evec yon bel rbe velou grande lakhe....

ca te ka bail ou mal zie. Li te tini bel zanneau dans zreill li, quate-tou-chou, bouoche, bracelet, tremblant,--toutt ste bel baggae conm ca."...--(_Conte Cendrillon_,--d'apres 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).]

[Footnote 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, Pere Labat declares having seen freshly disembarked blacks handsome enough to inspire an artist:--"_J'en ai vu des deux s.e.xes faits a 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 s.h.i.+pped to the French colonies, there were doubtless many representatives of the finer African races.]

[Footnote 38: "Leur sueur n'est pas fetide comme celle des negres de la Guinee,"

writes the traveller Dauxion-Lavaysse, in 1813.]

[Footnote 39: Dr. E. Rufz: "etudes 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 const.i.tution 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.)]

[Footnote 40: Rufz: "etudes," vol. i., p. 236.]

[Footnote 41: I am a.s.sured it has now fallen to a figure not exceeding 5000.]

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

[Footnote 43: Rufz: "etudes," vol. i., p. 237.]

[Footnote 44: _La race de sang-mele, issue des blancs et des noirs, est eminement civilizable. Comme types physiques, elle fournit dans beaucoup d'individus, dans ses femmes en general, les plus beaux specimens de la race humaine_.--"Le Prejuge de Race aux Antilles Francaises." Par G.

Souquet-Basiege. St. Pierre, Martinique: 1883. pp. 661-62.]

[Footnote 45: Turiault: "etude sur le langage Creole 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, nave, et caressante, Faite pour plaire, encore plus pour aimer. Portant tous les traits precieux Du caractere d'une amante, Le plaisir sur sa bouche et l'amour dans ses yeux.]

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

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