people and I notice mail for them at the desk, I say to the clerk,
'I'll take the mail,' and he hands it over in all confidence, because
he is informed that I am an invited guest. So--I slip in my pocket a
letter I think important. If it were discovered, I could say I forgot."
A few weeks before Bull-frog arrived in Marseilles, he had sent me a
letter from a Nordic person, and his answer to it, which he asked me to
render into correct English.
The Nordic letter began: "My dear little big Bullsy--At last I am
terribly excited about your plans, because of Isadora Duncan's interest
in you. Certainly, if she believes in you, I must also. For I do
believe in Isadora Duncan and her dancing, which brings a new beauty
and meaning into life. I shall do all in my power to help to finance
your plans. I wish I was rich. Nevertheless I have influence. I shall
send you the money you need. Then you must come quickly to me, my sweet
little lamb."
I corrected the English of the letter and returned it to Bull-frog
in Nice. Shortly after he and Isadora Duncan arrived in Marseilles.
Bull-frog was impeccably dressed in a style befitting an international
businessman. He had a brand-new car and loads of money. I had not seen
Isadora Duncan since that night when she danced so tragically and
beautifully and for me alone in her studio at Nice. I was not surprised
that Isadora Duncan was with Bull-frog. For Isadora Duncan was like
a great flowing river through which the traffic of the world could
pass. I remember, at a café in Nice, overhearing a chauffeur among
his equivocal companions: "Oh, I saw the great dancer, Madame Duncan,
on the promenade and I spoke to her and said I knew she was the great
dancer. And she invited me to come to the studio and bring my friends
to see her dance."
I asked Isadora what she thought of Bull-frog. She smiled and said
he was at least amusing, and that if the rich folks would not give
her money to build a temple of the dance for beautiful children, they
could do worse than give it to Bull-frog. Isadora was interested in the
_décor_ of my Marseilles book, so we visited the Vieux Port. And as we
three went wandering through the garbage-strewn alleys, the old girls
in their shifts and tights in their holes in the walls were so startled
by the picture of Isadora Duncan and her long Grecian scarf floating
over the muck and misery of Marseilles, that they forgot their business
of snatching hats. Shortly after that, Isadora Duncan was strangled by
her ancient Grecian scarf in a modern automobile.
PART SIX
THE IDYLLS OF AFRICA
XXVI
When a Negro Goes Native
In the Senegalese Bar in Marseilles I was figuring out the ways and
means of a holiday somewhere in Africa. Said a Senegalese: "If I had
money to go any place, I'd go straight to Paris, where one can amuse
himself." I said I didn't feel attracted to Paris, but to Africa. As I
wasn't big and white enough to go on a big game hunt, I might go on a
little one-man search party.
A Martinique sailor, whose boat had just arrived from Casablanca, said
that Africa was all right and Morocco was the best place. He said he
had visited every big port in Africa, and he preferred Morocco. He
lived there. He said: "If you're going to Africa, come to Morocco."
"What are the harems like?" I asked.
"I've got a harem; I'll show you when you come," he laughed. The
Martiniquan spoke Arab and Senegalese, French, Spanish and some English
words. He had been a sailor since he was fourteen and had sailed all
the seas. He was settled in Casablanca, where, he said, he had two
wives. He was illiterate, but full of all kinds of practical knowledge.
He looked like a friendly gorilla.
However, instead of Morocco, I went to Barcelona with my friend the
Senegalese boxer, who had a bout there. Barcelona took my sight and
feelings so entirely that it was impossible for me to leave when the
boxer was returning to Marseilles. The magnificent spectacle of the
sporting spirit of the Spaniards captured my senses and made me an
_aficionado_ of Spain. I had never been among any white people who
gave such a splendid impression of sporting impartiality, and with such
grand gestures. Whether it was boxing between a white and a black or a
duel between man and beast in the arena, or a football match between
a Spanish and a foreign team, the Spaniards' main interest lay in the
technical excellencies of the sport and the best opponent winning. I
pursued the Spanish sporting spirit into the popular theaters, where
the _flamenco_ is seen and the Andalusian melodies are heard. In no
other country have I seen a people's audience so exigent in demanding
the best an artist can give, so ruthless in turning thumbs down on a
bad artist, and so generous in applauding an excellent performance.
The three days I had intended to spend in Barcelona were increased
to over three months in Spain. Then one night, when I was doing the
amusement spots of the amazing Barrio Chino in company with a Moslem
Negro who claimed to be a Prince of Zanzibar, I met the Martinique
sailor again. His boat had brought a cargo from Morocco to Barcelona.
He urged me to pay him that visit.
I had lingered long enough in Spain to become aware of the strong
African streak in its character. Therefore the second invitation to
Morocco was even more interesting. The Prince from Zanzibar wanted to
explore more of Europe and Europeans, and so we parted company.
At last I arrived in Casablanca. On the afternoon when the Martiniquan
took me to his house in a native quarter, some Guinea sorcerors (or
Gueanoua, as they are called in Morocco) were performing a magic rite.
The first shock I registered was the realization that they looked and
acted exactly like certain peasants of Jamaica who give themselves up
to the celebrating of a religious sing-dance orgy which is known as
Myalism. The only difference was in their clothing.
The Gueanoua were exorcising a sick woman and they danced and whirled
like devils. In the Moorish yard men and boys squatted in a wide
circle around them, and women and girls covered up in white haiks sat
looking down from the low flat roofs of the dilapidated cabins. The
music was made by a single lute and a big bass drum and sounded like
muffled thunder in the belly of the earth. I watched them dance a kind
of primitive rhumba, beat their heads against posts, and throw off
their clothing in their excitement. But I did not see the end, when the
devils would be driven forth, because a dancing woman frightened me by
throwing herself in a frenzy upon me. They said I was a strange spirit
and a hindrance to the magic working. So I had to get out.
The members of the Gueanoua are all pure black. They are the only
group of pure Negroes in Morocco. Men and women marry black, and it is
the only religious order that has women members. If one is not a pure
black he cannot belong to the Gueanoua. They say the strict keeping of
this rule makes the Gueanoua magic powerful. The fetish rites are West
African and are transmitted from generation to generation. They have a
special place in the social life of Morocco. The wealthiest as well as
the poorest families have them in to exorcise devils. Often they are
protected by powerful sherifian families, and sultans have consulted
them.
The harem of the Martiniquan was not such a hot spot, as I saw when I
peeped behind the curtain. Just a long spacious room curtained in two,
and two women, one old enough to be his mother and one young, brown and
buxom. We all had tea together, because, said the Martiniquan, he did
not believe in hiding his women from men. However, the male friends
that he admitted into his harem were French West Indian soldiers and
Senegalese, but not Moors. He was the only person in that quarter who
could afford two women. This was because, as a French citizen, he was
rated as a European worker and received between forty and fifty francs
a day--about six times what the native doing the same work got. Thus
the black sailor was really living "white" in Africa.
I enjoyed the Martiniquan Moroccan hospitality for awhile. Then,
feeling the overwhelming European atmosphere of Casablanca, I departed
for Rabat.
Rabat-Salé was delightfully different. Here the native life was the big
tree with solid roots and spreading branches, and the European city
was like an imported garden, lovely and carefully tended. At Shellah
I visited the tomb of the Black Sultan, who, according to the native
legend, was the greatest ruler of Morocco, having united all of North
Africa under his rule, conquered Spain, built the great monuments of
the Giralda at Seville, the Koutabia at Marrakesh, and the Hassan Tower
at Rabat.
I stopped long enough in Rabat to finish _Banjo_. Some Moroccan
students had said to me: "In Fez you will find the heart of Morocco. It
is our capital city. You haven't seen Morocco until you see Fez."
Fez was indeed the heart of Morocco and even more to me. In Moscow they
had published a cartoon of me sailing upon a magic carpet over the
African jungles to see the miracle of the Soviet. In Fez I felt that
I was walking all the time on a magic carpet. The maze of _souks_ and
bazaars with unfamiliar patterns of wares was like an oriental fantasy.
In Fez I got into the inside of Morocco. Hitherto I had been merely a
spectator. But the Fassis literally took me in. There I had my first
native meal of _cous-cous_ in a native house, and the first invitation
was the prelude to many.
I was invited to princely marriage feasts, to eat _cous-cous_ from a
common dish with stately old "turbans," to drink _thé à la menthe_
in cool gardens, to the intimate _flamenco_ dancing of fatmas in the
_garçonnières_ of _fondouks_ and to the profane paradise of Moulay
Abdallah.
Moulay Abdallah is the unique recreation quarter of the young Fassis.
It is a separate little walled town with its own shops and police and
musicians. Arrayed in richly flowered and loose robes held in place
by enormously broad embroidered belts and squatting with the dignity
of queens, the young females who take up residence there charmingly
dispense mint tea and witty conversation to circles of eager young men.
I thought that that antique African city was the unaware keeper of the
cup of Eros containing a little of the perfume of the flower of the
passion of ancient Greece.
I liked the Moroccan mosaic, which is beautiful and bright everywhere
like a symbol of the prismatic native mind. And nowhere is it so lavish
and arresting as in Fez. The Spanish mosaics were interesting, but they
did not appear as warm and inevitable and illuminating as the Moroccan.
The mosaics of Morocco went to my head like rare wine. Excited and
intoxicated and fascinated by the Fassis and their winning and welcome
ways, I went completely native. I was initiated into the practice of
living native and cheaply. I moved from my expensive hotel and parked
my things in a cheaper one. But I hardly lived in it. For my days
were fully occupied in sampling the treasures of the city and its
environments; in picking up the trails of the peasants bringing their
gifts to the town; following the Afro-Oriental bargaining; feeling the
color of the accent of the story-tellers in the market places. And in
the evening there was always _divertissement_: a marriage ceremony and
feast, an invitation to a _fondouk_, where a young man would permit
the pretty _fatmah_ of his profane love-making to dance; and Moulay
Abdallah. And I was never tired of listening to the native musicians
playing African variations of the oriental melodies in the Moroccan
cafés.
For the first time in my life I felt myself singularly free of
color-consciousness. I experienced a feeling that must be akin to the
physical well-being of a dumb animal among kindred animals, who lives
instinctively and by sensations only, without thinking. But suddenly I
found myself right up against European intervention and proscription.
A _chaoush_ (native doorman and messenger) from the British Consulate
had accosted me in a _souk_ one day and asked whether I was American.
I said I was born in the West Indies and lived in the United States
and that I was an American, even though I was a British subject, but I
preferred to think of myself as an internationalist. The _chaoush_ said
he didn't understand what was an internationalist. I laughed and said
that an internationalist was a bad nationalist. He replied gravely:
"All the Moors call you an American, and if you are British, you should
come and register at the Consulate." I was amused at his gravity,
reinforced by that African dignity which is so impressive in Morocco,
especially as I had said I was an internationalist just by way of a
joke without thinking of its radical implications. But I wasn't aware
then of how everybody in Morocco (European and native) was looking
for hidden meanings in the simplest phrases. The natives imagine (and
rightly enough) that all Europeans are agents of their respective
countries with designs upon their own, and the European colonists are
suspicious and censorious of visitors who become too sympathetic and
friendly with the natives. I saw a local French newspaper which had
turned all the batteries of ridicule on a European when he started to
wear a fez. I myself had gravitated instinctively to the native element
because physically and psychically I felt more affinity with it. I did
not go to register at the Consulate. I thought that it was enough that
my passport was in perfect order. While scrupulously complying with
official regulations regarding passports, identity cards and visas,
etc., in all my traveling in strange places, I have always relied on
my own personality as the best passport. Not that I was always such
a circumspect and model traveler! I got into little difficulties all
right. But without claiming special privileges or asking assistance as
a foreigner, I submitted to the local authority and always came out on
top.
For nearly a week I had not been in my hotel. One morning, after an
all-night session of lute-playing and dancing with Andalusian melody
makers in a native house, I went to my hotel for a change of clothes.
There I found a French police inspector waiting for me. He had been
there before. He asked me to show him my passport and other papers.
I did. He looked through them and said I must accompany him to the
British Consulate. I wondered what I could possibly have done. I had
been passing such a jolly time, with no shadow of any trouble. The
only thing I could think of was that I had obtained some wine for
native friends, because they were not allowed openly to purchase. Then
I thought of the _chaoush's_ warning and wondered if my failure to
register had anything to do with it. I asked the French inspector if
he had any charges against me. He said I would hear everything at the
British Consulate.
So I went along to the lion's den. As I entered, the Consul greeted
me with a triumphant, "I knew you were here!" As if I had been hiding
from anything or anybody in Morocco. The charge against me was that
I had left my hotel and was sleeping in native houses. I said I
hadn't imagined that it was necessary to ask special permission to
stay among people who had voluntarily invited me; that I thought it
my right to sleep where I was inclined, since I was not a minor. And,
standing there (he did not have even the formal courtesy to offer me
a chair), I laughed over the Consul's repulsive pink bald head that
was like a white buzzard's. His pink-streaked face turned red, and
it was amusing also to watch the mean expression of irritation on
the cat face of the little French official. He said: "Let us expel
him." I said that I would willingly submit to expulsion on a specific
charge, but that, since they said that it was a native affair, they
should get a native to make the charge. The petty bureaucrats exchanged
embarrassed glances. The Consul said that it was hinted that I was a
radical propagandist. I said they could search my effects, and that no
one could stand up and accuse me of making any verbal propaganda. The
Consul said the colonial people were being actively propagandized by
Bolshevik agents since the Russian Revolution. I said that I was not a
Bolshevik agent. Finally I was permitted to leave.
The personal unpleasantness opened my eyes a little to the undercurrent
of social unrest and the mistakes of mixed authority in Morocco. I'd
been so absorbed in the picturesque and exotic side of the native life
that I was unaware until authority stepped on my sore toe. I discovered
that although the French have established a protectorate over Morocco,
many of the natives are also protected by other European powers, mainly
Great Britain, Spain and Italy. The British possess unique privileges
under a system of capitulations. British subjects, whether they are
born British, naturalized or protected, are not liable to local arrest
and trial in the French and native courts. If a British subject has
committed any offense he must be taken before a British consul.
The privilege of immunity is sometimes abused by morons, and obviously
the French local authority is irritated by the idea of a divided
authority. Therefore the local atmosphere is infested with petty
intrigues.
The specially-protected natives have certain privileges that the
subjects of the Sultan, who are protected by the French, cannot enjoy.
For example, the specially-protected ones can buy and drink liquor with
impunity. But because of a traditional law the subjects of the Sultan
cannot. Therefore they drink surreptitiously, and contemptible European
bootleggers secretly sell them the vilest stuff imaginable. The young
Moroccans generally are afflicted with a pathetic _malaise_. They're
always whining: "I wish I were American or specially protected." And
when you ask why, they say: "So that we could have the freedom of men
to drink in a bar like the Europeans and the Algerians." The _malaise_
is similar to the prohibition pestilence which plagued the spirit of
the youth of America.
That incident spoiled my native holiday. I thought back to Europe,
of that most miserable of years I spent in London. I remembered my
difficulties, when I was studying at the British Museum, to get
lodgings in that quarter. The signs were shouting: "Rooms for rent,"
but when I inquired I was invariably informed that all rooms were
rented. Yet when I passed that way again the signs were still there. I
became suspicious. I asked English friends from the International Club
to make inquiries. They found that the rooms were for rent. But when
they took me along and declared the rooms were for me, we were told
that Negroes were not desired as guests. When I left my London hotel
I found rooms with an Italian family, and later, a German. And the
nearest I got to living quarters close to the British Museum was when I
found lodgings with a French family in Great Portland Street.
I felt helpless and wobbly about that black boycott in London. For
England is not like America, where one can take refuge from prejudice
in a Black Belt. I had to realize that London is a cold white city
where English culture is great and formidable like an iceberg. It is
a city created for English needs, and admirable, no doubt, for the
English people. It was not built to accommodate Negroes. I was very
happy when I could get out of it to go back to the Negro pale of
America.
And now even in Africa I was confronted by the specter, the white
terror always pursuing the black. There was no escape anywhere from the
white hound of Civilization.
When I finally left Fez I proceeded to Marrakesh in the far south, the
hot city of the plains, vast and wild. The Senegalese in Marseilles
often mentioned Marrakesh as the former great _caravansérai_ for the
traders traveling between West Africa and North Africa, and so I had to
see that monumental city, which was founded by a Senegalese conqueror.
Marrakesh moved me. It was like a big West Indian picnic, with flags
waving and a multitude of barefoot black children dancing to the
flourish of drum, fiddle and fife.
When I was going to Morocco, some Europeans on the boat had remarked
facetiously that Morocco was not a Negro country. Themselves divided
into jealous cutthroat groups, the Europeans have used their science to
make such fine distinctions among people that it is hard to ascertain
what white is a true white and when a Negro is really a Negro. I found
more than three-quarters of Marrakesh Negroid. There were unimaginably
strange contrasts. The city is like an immense cradle of experiment in
the marriage of civilized life and primitive life. Here the sun-baked
ebony Sudanese and the rude brown Berbers of the Atlas meet and
mingle with the refined, learned and skilled city Moors of the north.
Marrakesh appeared to be the happiest city of the French Protectorate.
The people seemed more contented than in Fez, although they were
generally poorer. But poverty in a torrid climate is not anything like
poverty in a cold climate. I might say, without poetic license, that in
Marrakesh the sun, blazing without being murderous, seemed to consume a
lot of the wretchedness and ugliness of poverty.
XXVII
The New Negro in Paris
I finished my native holiday in Marrakesh. In Casablanca I found a huge
pile of mail awaiting me. The handsomest thing was a fat envelope from
a New York bank containing a gold-lettered pocket book. The pocket book
enclosed my first grand from the sale of _Home to Harlem_.
There were stacks of clippings with criticisms of my novel; praise
from the white press, harsh censure from the colored press. And a lot
of letters from new admirers and old friends and associates and loves.
One letter in particular took my attention. It was from James Weldon
Johnson, inviting me to return to America to participate in the Negro
renaissance movement. He promised to do his part to facilitate my
return if there were any difficulty. And he did.
The Johnson letter set me thinking hard about returning to Harlem.
All the reports stressed the great changes that had occurred there
since my exile, pictured a Harlem spreading west and south, with
splendid new blocks of houses opened up for the colored people. The
reports described the bohemian interest in and patronage of Harlem,
the many successful colored shows on Broadway, the florescence of
Negro literature and art, with many promising aspirants receiving
scholarships from foundations and patronage from individuals.
Newspapers and magazines brought me exciting impressions of a more
glamorous Harlem. Even in Casablanca a Moor of half-German parentage
exhibited an article featuring Harlem in an important German
newspaper, and he was eager for more information.
But the resentment of the Negro intelligentsia against _Home to Harlem_
was so general, bitter and violent that I was hesitant about returning
to the great Black Belt. I had learned very little about the ways
of the Harlem élite during the years I lived there. When I left the
railroad and the companionship of the common blacks, my intellectual
contacts were limited mainly to white radicals and bohemians. I was
well aware that if I returned to Harlem I wouldn't be going back to the
_milieu_ of railroad men, from whom I had drifted far out of touch. Nor
could I go back among radical whites and try to rekindle the flames of
an old enthusiasm. I knew that if I did return I would have to find a
new orientation among the Negro intelligentsia.
One friend in Harlem had written that Negroes were traveling abroad _en
masse_ that spring and summer and that the élite would be camping in
Paris. I thought that it might be less unpleasant to meet the advance
guard of the Negro intelligentsia in Paris. And so, laying aside my
experiment in wearing bags, bournous and tarboosh, I started out.
First to Tangier, where four big European powers were performing their
experiment of international government in Africa upon a living corpse.
Otherwise Tangier was a rare African-Mediterranean town of Moors and
progressive Sephardic Jews and Europeans, mostly Spanish.
Through Spanish Morocco I passed and duly noted its points of interest.
The first was Tetuán, which inspired this sonnet:
_TETUÁN_