I
Nothing else in the picturesque life of the French colonies of the
Occident impresses the traveller on his first arrival more than the
costumes of the women of color. They surprise the aesthetic sense
agreeably;--they are local and special: you will see nothing resembling
them among the populations of the British West Indies; they belong to
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Désirade, Marie-Galante, and Cayenne,--in each
place differing sufficiently to make the difference interesting,
especially in regard to the head-dress. That of Martinique is quite
Oriental;--more attractive, although less fantastic than the Cayenne
coiffure, or the pretty drooping mouchoir of Guadeloupe.
These costumes are gradually disappearing, for various reasons,--the
chief reason being of course the changes in the social condition of the
colonies during the last forty years. Probably the question of health
had also something to do with the almost universal abandonment in
Martinique of the primitive slave dress,--_chemise_ and _jupe_,--which
exposed its wearer to serious risks of pneumonia; for as far as
economical reasons are concerned, there was no fault to find with it:
six francs could purchase it when money was worth more than it is now.
The douillette, a long trailing dress, one piece from neck to feet, has
taken its place.[37] But there was a luxurious variety of the jupe
costume which is disappearing because of its cost; there is no money in
the colonies now for such display:--I refer to the celebrated attire of
the pet slaves and _belles affranchies_ of the old colonial days. A full
costume,--including violet or crimson "petticoat" of silk or satin;
chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery and lace;
"trembling-pins" of gold (_zépingue tremblant_) to attach the folds of
the brilliant Madras turban; the great necklace of three or four strings
of gold beads bigger than peas (_collier-choux_); the ear-rings, immense
but light as egg-shells (_zanneaux-à-clous_ or _zanneaux-chenilles_);
the bracelets (_portes-bonheur_); the studs (_boutons-à-clous_); the
brooches, not only for the turban, but for the chemise, below the folds
of the showy silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,--would sometimes
represent over five thousand francs expenditure. This gorgeous attire is
becoming less visible every year: it is now rarely worn except on very
solemn occasions,--weddings, baptisms, first communions, confirmations.
The _da_ (nurse) or "porteuse-de-baptême" who bears the baby to church
holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards carries it from house to
house in order that all the friends of the family may kiss it, is thus
attired; but nowadays, unless she be a professional (for there are
professional _das_, hired only for such occasions), she usually borrows
the jewellry. If tall, young, graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin,
the effect of her costume is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin. I
saw one young da who, thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and
earthly;--there was an Oriental something in her appearance difficult to
describe,--something that made you think of the Queen of Sheba going to
visit Solomon. She had brought a merchant's baby, just christened, to
receive the caresses of the family at whose house I was visiting; and
when it came to my turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice the
child: I saw only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange and
purple, bending over it, in an illumination of antique gold.... What a
da!... She represented really the type of that _belle affranchie_ of
other days, against whose fascination special sumptuary laws were made;
romantically she imaged for me the supernatural god-mothers and
Cinderellas of the creole fairy-tales. For these become transformed in
the West Indian folklore,--adapted to the environment, and to local
idealism:--Cinderella, for example, is changed to a beautiful metisse,
wearing a quadruple _collier-choux_, _zépingues tremblants_, and all
the ornaments of a da.[38] Recalling the impression of that dazzling
_da_, I can even now feel the picturesque justice of the fabulist's
description of Cinderella's creole costume: _Ça té ka baille ou mal
zie!_--(it would have given you a pain in your eyes to look at her!)
... Even the every-day Martinique costume is slowly changing. Year by
year the "calendeuses"--the women who paint and fold the turbans--have
less work to do;--the colors of the _douiellette_ are becoming less
vivid;--while more and more young colored girls are being _élevées en
chapeau_ ("brought up in a hat")--i.e., dressed and educated like the
daughters of the whites. These, it must be confessed, look far less
attractive in the latest Paris fashion, unless white as the whites
themselves: on the other hand, few white girls could look well in
_douillette_ and _mouchoir_,--not merely because of color contrast, but
because they have not that amplitude of limb and particular cambering of
the torso peculiar to the half-breed race, with its large bulk and
stature. Attractive as certain coolie women are, I observed that all who
have adopted the Martinique costume look badly in it: they are too
slender of body to wear it to advantage.
Slavery introduced these costumes, even though it probably did not
invent them; and they were necessarily doomed to pass away with the
peculiar social conditions to which they belonged. If the population
clings still to its _douillettes_, _mouchoirs_, and _foulards_, the fact
is largely due to the cheapness of such attire. A girl can dress very
showily indeed for about twenty francs--shoes excepted;--and thousands
never wear shoes. But the fashion will no doubt have become cheaper and
uglier within another decade.
At the present time, however, the stranger might be sufficiently
impressed by the oddity and brilliancy of these dresses to ask about
their origin,--in which case it is not likely that he will obtain any
satisfactory answer. After long research I found myself obliged to give
up all hope of being able to outline the history of Martinique
costume,--partly because books and histories are scanty or defective,
and partly because such an undertaking would require a knowledge
possible only to a specialist. I found good reason, nevertheless, to
suppose that these costumes were in the beginning adopted from certain
fashions of provincial France,--that the respective fashions of
Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne were patterned after modes still
worn in parts of the mother-country. The old-time garb of the
_affranchie_--that still worn by the _da_--somewhat recalls dresses worn
by the women of Southern France, more particularly about Montpellier.
Perhaps a specialist might also trace back the evolution of the various
creole coiffures to old forms of head-dresses which still survive among
the French country-fashions of the south and south-west provinces;--but
local taste has so much modified the original style as to leave it
unrecognizable to those who have never studied the subject. The
Martinique fashion of folding and tying the Madras, and of calendering
it, are probably local; and I am assured that the designs of the curious
semi-barbaric jewellry were all invented in the colony, where the
_collier-choux_ is still manufactured by local goldsmiths. Purchasers
buy one, two, or three _grains_, or beads, at a time, and string them
only on obtaining the requisite number.... This is the sum of all that I
was able to learn on the matter; but in the course of searching various
West Indian authors and historians for information, I found something
far more important than the origin of the _douillette_ or the
_collier-choux_: the facts of that strange struggle between nature and
interest, between love and law, between prejudice and passion, which
forms the evolutional history of the mixed race.
[Footnote 37: The brightly colored douillettes are classified by the people
according to the designs of the printed
calico:--_robe-à-bambou,--robe-à-bouquet,--robe-arc-en-ciel--robe-à-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 (cacao) 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.
_Négresse_ {White.
{Scarlet, or any violent color.]
[Footnote 38: "_Vouèla Cendrillon evec yon bel ròbe velou grande
lakhè.... Ça té ka bail ou mal ziè. Li té tini bel zanneau dans
zòreill li, quate-tou-chou, bouoche, bracelet, tremblant,--toutt sòte
bel baggaïe conm ça._"...--(_Conte Cendrillon_,--d'après 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).]