Two Years in the French West Indies Part 17

The "mola.s.ses-negro" wears nothing but a cloth around his loins;--his whole body and face being smeared with an atrocious mixture of soot and mola.s.ses. He is supposed to represent the original African ancestor.

The _devilesses_ (_diablesses_) are few in number; for it requires a very tall woman to play deviless. These are robed all in black, with a white turban and white foulard;--they wear black masks. They also carry _boms_ (large tin cans), which they allow to fall upon the pavement and from time to time; and they walk barefoot.... The deviless (in true Bitaco idiom, "_guiablesse_") represents a singular Martinique superst.i.tion. It is said that sometimes at noonday, a beautiful negress pa.s.ses silently through some isolated plantation,--smiling at the workers in the cane-fields,--tempting men to follow her. But he who follows her never comes back again; and when a field hand mysteriously disappears, his fellows say, "_Y te ka oue la Guiablesse!_"... The tallest among the devilesses always walks first, chanting the question, "_Fou ouve?_" (Is it yet daybreak?) And all the others reply in chorus, "_Jou pa'nc ouve_." (It is not yet day.)

--The masks worn by the mult.i.tude include very few grotesques: as a rule, they are simply white wire masks, having the form of an oval and regular human face;--and disguise the wearer absolutely, although they can be through perfectly well from within. It struck me that this peculiar type of wire mask gave an indescribable tone of ghostliness to the whole exhibition. It is not in the least comical; it is neither comely nor ugly; it is colorless as mist,--expressionless, void,--it lies on the face like a vapor, like a cloud,--creating the idea of a spectral vacuity behind it....

VII.

... Now comes the band of the _Intrepides_, playing the _bouene_. It is a dance melody,--also the name of a _mode_ of dancing, peculiar and unrestrained;--the dancers advance and retreat face to face; they hug each other, press together, and separate to embrace again. A very old dance, this,--of African origin; perhaps the same of which Pere Labat wrote in 1722:--

--"It is not modest. Nevertheless, it has not failed to become so popular with the Spanish Creoles of America, so much in vogue among them, that it now forms the chief of their amus.e.m.e.nts, and that it enters even into their devotions. They dance it even in their Churches, in their Processions; and the Nuns seldom fail to dance it Christmas Night, upon a stage erected in their choir and immediately in front of their iron grating, which is left open, so that the People may share in the manifested by these good souls for the birth of the Saviour."...

[18]

VIII.

... Every year, on the last day of the Carnival, a droll ceremony used to take place called the "Burial of the Bois-bois,"--the bois-bois being a dummy, a guy, caricaturing the most unpopular thing in city life or in politics. This bois-bois, after having been paraded with mock solemnity through all the ways of St. Pierre, was either interred or "drowned,"--flung into the sea.... And yesterday the dancing societies had announced their intention to bury a _bois-bois laverette_,--a manikin that was to represent the plague. But this bois-bois does not make its appearance. _La Verette_ is too terrible a visitor to be made fun of, my friends;--you will not laugh at her, because you dare not....

No: there is one who has the courage,--a yellow goblin crying from behind his wire mask, in imitation of the machannes: "_ca qui le quatze graines laverette pou yon sou?_" (Who wants to buy fourteen verette-spots for a sou?)

Not a single laugh follows that jest.... And just one week from to-day, poor mocking goblin, you will have a great many more than _quatorze graines_, which will not cost you even a sou, and which will disguise you infinitely better than the mask you now wear;--and they will pour quick-lime over you, ere ever they let you pa.s.s through this street again--in a seven franc coffin!...

IX.

And the multicolored clamoring stream rushes by,--swerves off at last through the Rue des Ursulines to the Savane,--rolls over the new bridge of the Roxelane to the ancient quarter of the Fort.

All of a sudden there is a hush, a halt;--the drums stop beating, the songs cease. Then I see a sudden scattering of goblins and demons and devilesses in all directions: they run into houses, up alleys,--hide behind door-ways. And the crowd parts; and straight through it, walking very quickly, comes a priest in his vestments, preceded by an acolyte who rings a little bell. _C'est Bon-Die ka pa.s.se!_ ("It is the Good-G.o.d who goes by!") The father is bearing the "viatic.u.m" to some victim of the pestilence: one must not appear masked as a devil or a deviless in the presence of the Bon-Die.

He goes by. The flood of maskers recloses behind the ominous pa.s.sage;--the drums boom again; the dance recommences; and all the fantastic mummery ebbs swiftly out of sight.

X.

Night falls;--the maskers crowd to the ball-rooms to dance strange tropical measures that will become wilder and wilder as the hours pa.s.s.

And through the black streets, the Devil makes his last Carnival-round.

By the gleam of the old-fashioned oil lamps hung across the thoroughfares I can make out a few details of his costume. He is clad in red, wears a hideous blood-colored mask, and a cap of which the four sides are formed by four looking-gla.s.ses;--the whole head-dress being surmounted by a red lantern. He has a white wig made of horse-hair, to make him look weird and old,--since the Devil is older than the world!

Down the street he comes, leaping nearly his own height,--chanting words without human signification,--and followed by some three hundred boys, who form the chorus to his chant--all clapping hands together and giving tongue with a simultaneity that testifies how strongly the sense of rhythm enters into the natural musical feeling of the African,--a feeling powerful enough to impose itself upon all Spanish-America, and there create the unmistakable characteristics of all that is called "creole music."

--"Bimbolo!"

--"Zimabolo!"

--"Bimbolo!"

--"Zimabolo!"

--"Et zimbolo!"

--"Et bolo-po!"

--sing the Devil and his chorus. His chant is cavernous, abysmal,--booms from his chest like the sound of a drum beaten in the bottom of a well.... _Ti manmaille-la, baill moin lavoix!_ ("Give me voice, little folk,--give me voice!") And all chant after him, in a chanting like the rushing of many waters, and with triple clapping of hands:--"_Ti manmaille-la, baill moin lavoix!_"... Then he halts before a dwelling in the Rue Peysette, and thunders:--

--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!--Mi! diabe-la derh!_"

That is evidently a piece of spite-work: there is somebody living there against whom he has a grudge....

"_Hey! Marie-without-teeth! look! the Devil is outside!_"

And the chorus catch the clue.

DEVIL.--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!_"...

CHORUS.--"_Marie-sans-dent! mi!--diabe-la derh!_"

D.--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!_"'...

C.--"_Marie-sans-dent! mi!--diabe-a derh!_"

D.--"_Eh! Marie-sans-dent!_"... etc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUARTER OF THE FORT, ST. PIERRE (OVERLOOKING THE RIVIeRE ROXELANE).]

The Devil at last descends to the main street, always singing the same song;--follow the chorus to the Savanna, where the rout makes for the new bridge over the Roxelane, to mount the high streets of the old quarter of the Fort; and the chant changes as they cross over:--

DEVIL.--"_Oti oue diabe-la pa.s.se larivie?_" (Where did you see the Devil going over the river?) And all the boys repeat the words, falling into another rhythm with perfect regularity and ease:--"_Oti oue diabe-la pa.s.se larivie?_"

DEVIL.--"_Oti oue diabe?_"...

CHORUS.--"_Oti oue diabe-la pa.s.se larivie?_"

D.--"_Oti oue diabe?_"

C,--"_Oti oue diabe-lap pa.s.se larivie?_"

D,-"_Oti oue diabe?_...etc.

About midnight the return of the Devil and his following arouses me from sleep:--all are chanting a new refrain, "The Devil and the zombis sleep anywhere and everywhere!" (_Diabe epi zombi ka dmi tout-patout_.) The voices of the boys are still clear, shrill, fresh,--clear as a chant of frogs;--they still clap hanwith a precision of rhythm that is simply wonderful,--making each time a sound almost exactly like the bursting of a heavy wave:--

DEVIL.--"_Diable epi zombi_."...