... Here a doubt occurs to me,--a doubt regarding the precise nature of
a word, which I call upon Adou to explain. Adou is the daughter of the
kind old capresse from whom I rent my room in this little mountain
cottage. The mother is almost precisely the color of cinnamon; the
daughter's complexion is brighter,--the ripe tint of an orange.... Adou
tells me creole stories and _tim-tim._ Adou knows all about ghosts, and
believes in them. So does Adou's extraordinarily tall brother,
Yébé,--my guide among the mountains.
--"Adou," I ask, "what is a zombi?"
The smile that showed Adou's beautiful white teeth has instantly
disappeared; and she answers, very seriously, that she has never seen a
zombi, and does not want to see one.
--"_Moin pa té janmain ouè zombi,--pa 'lè ouè ça, moin!_"
--"But, Adou, child, I did not ask you whether you ever saw It;--I asked
you only to tell me what It is like?"...
Adou hesitates a little, and answers:
--"_Zombi? Mais ça fai désòde lanuitt, zombi!_"
Ah! it is Something which "makes disorder at night." Still, that is not
a satisfactory explanation. "Is it the spectre of a dead person, Adou?
Is it _one who comes back?_"
--"_Non, Misié,--non; çê pa ça._"
--"Not that?... Then what was it you said the other night when you were
afraid to pass the cemetery on an errand,--_ça ou té ka di_, Adou?"
--"Moin té ka di: 'Moin pa lé k'allé bò cimétiè-là pa ouappò
moun-mò ké barré moin: moin pa sé pè vini enco.'" (_I said, "I do
not want to goby that cemetery because of the dead folk;--the dead folk
will bar the way and I cannot get back again._")
--"And you believe that, Adou?"
--"Yes, that is what they say.... And if you go into the cemetery at
night you cannot come out again: the dead folk will stop you--_moun-mò
ké barré ou._"...
--"But are the dead folk zombis, Adou?"
--"No; the moun-mò are not zombis. The zombis go everywhere: the dead
folk remain in the graveyard.... Except on the Night of All Souls: then
they go to the houses of their people everywhere."
--"Adou, if after the doors and windows were locked and barred you were
to see entering your room in the middle of the night, a Woman fourteen
feet high?"...
--"_Ah! pa pàlé ça!!_"...
--"No! tell me, Adou?"
--"Why, yes: that would be a zombi. It is the zombis who make all those
noises at night one cannot understand.... Or, again, if I were to see a
dog that high [she holds her hand about five feet above the floor]
coming into our house at night, I would scream: _Mi Zombi!_"
... Then it suddenly occurs to Adou that her mother knows something
about zombis.
--"_Ou! Mannam!_"
--"_Eti!_" answers old Théréza's voice from the little out-building
where the evening meal is being prepared, over a charcoal furnace, in an
earthen canari.
--"_Missié-là ka mandé save ça ça yé yonne zombi;--vini ti
bouin!_"... The mother laughs, abandons her canari, and comes in to tell
me all she knows about the weird word.
"_I ni pè zombi_"--I find from old Théréza's explanations--is a
phrase indefinite as our own vague expressions, "afraid of ghosts,
afraid of the dark." But the word "Zombi" also has special strange
meanings.... "Ou passé nans grand chimin lanuitt, épi ou ka ouè
gouôs difé, épi plis ou ka vini assou difé-à pli ou ka ouè
difé-à ka màché: çé zombi ka fai ça.... Encò, chouval ka
passé,--chouval ka ni anni toua patt: ça zombi." (You pass along the
high-road at night, and you see a great fire, and the more you walk to
get to it the more it moves away: it is the zombi makes that.... Or a
horse _with only three legs_ passes you: that is a zombi.)
--"How big is the fire that the zombi makes?" I ask.
--"It fills the whole road," answers Théréza: "_li ka rempli toutt
chimin-là._ Folk call those fires the Evil Fires,--_mauvai difé_,--and
if you follow them they will lead you into chasms,--_ou ké tombé adans
labîme._"...
And then she tells me this:
--"Baidaux was a mad man of color who used to live at St. Pierre, in the
Street of the Precipice. He was not dangerous,--never did any harm;--his
sister used to take care of him. And what I am going to relate is
true,--_çe zhistouè veritabe!_
"One day Baidaux said to his sister: 'Moin ni yonne yche, va!--ou pa
connaitt li! [I have a child, ah!--you never saw it!] His sister paid no
attention to what he said that day; but the next day he said it again,
and the next, and the next, and every day after,--so that his sister at
last became much annoyed by it, and used to cry out: 'Ah! mais pé
guiole ou, Baidaux! ou fou pou embêté moin conm ça!--ou bien fou!'...
But he tormented her that way for months and for years.
"One evening he went out, and only came home at midnight leading a child
by the hand,--a black child he had found in the street; and he said to
his sister:--
"'Mi yche-là moin mené ba ou! Tou léjou moin té ka di ou moin tini
yonne yche: ou pa té 'lè couè,--eh, ben! MI Y!' [Look at the child I
have brought you! Every day I have been telling you I had a child: you
would not believe me,--very well, look at him!]
"The sister gave one look, and cried out: 'Baidaux, oti ou pouend
yche-là?'... For the child was growing taller and taller every
moment.... And Baidaux,--because he was mad,--kept saying: 'Çé
yche-moin! çé yche moin!' [It is my child!]
"And the sister threw open the shutters and screamed to all the
neighbors,--'_Sécou, sécou, sécou! Vint oué ça Baidaux mené ba
moin!_' [Help! help! Come see what Baidaux has brought in here!] And the
child said to Baidaux: '_Ou ni bonhè ou fou!_' [You are lucky that you
are mad!]... Then all the neighbors came running in; but they could not
see anything: the Zombi was gone."...