... The costumes are rather disappointing,--though the mummery has some
general characteristics that are not unpicturesque;--for example, the
predominance of crimson and canary-yellow in choice of color, and a
marked predilection for pointed hoods and high-peaked head-dresses. Mock
religious costumes also form a striking element in the general tone of
the display,--Franciscan, Dominion, or Penitent habits,--usually
crimson or yellow, rarely sky-blue. There are no historical costumes,
few eccentricities or monsters: only a few "vampire-bat" head-dresses
abruptly break the effect of the peaked caps and the hoods.... Still
there are some decidedly local ideas in dress which deserve notice,--the
_congo_, the _bébé_ (or _ti-manmaille_), the _ti nègue gouos-sirop_
("little molasses-negro"); and the _diablesse._
The congo is merely the exact reproduction of the dress worn by workers
on the plantations. For the women, a gray calico shirt and coarse
petticoat of percaline; with two coarse handkerchiefs (_mouchoirs
fatas_), one for her neck, and one for the head, over which is worn a
monstrous straw hat;--she walks either barefoot or shod with rude native
sandals, and she carries a hoe. For the man the costume consists of a
gray shirt of rough material, blue canvas pantaloons, a large mouchoir
fatas to tie around his waist, and a _chapeau Bacoué_,--an enormous hat
of Martinique palm-straw. He walks barefooted and carries a cutlass.
The sight of a troupe of young girls en _bébé_, in baby-dress, is
really pretty. This costume comprises only a loose embroidered chemise,
laoe-edged pantalettes, and a child's cap; the whole being decorated
with bright ribbons of various colors. As the dress is short and leaves
much of the lower limbs exposed, there is ample opportunity for display
of tinted stockings and elegant slippers.
The "molasses-negro" wears nothing but a cloth around his loins;--his
whole body and face being smeared with an atrocious mixture of soot and
molasses. 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 from time
to time; and they walk barefoot.... The deviless (in true Bitaco idiom,
"_guiablesse_") represents a singular Martinique superstition. It is
said that sometimes at noonday a beautiful negress passes 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 té ka ouè la Guiablesse!_"... The tallest among the
devilesses always walks first, chanting the question, "_Jou ouvè?_" (Is
it yet daybreak?) And all the others reply in chorus, "_Jou pa'ncò
ouvè._" (It is not yet day.)
--The masks worn by the multitude include very few grotesques: as a
rule, they are simply white wire masks, having the form of an oval and
regular human face;--and they disguise the wearer absolutely, although
they can be seen through perfectly well from within. It struck me at
once 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, dead;--it lies on the face like a vapor, like a cloud,--creating
the idea of a spectral vacuity behind it....