--"But I saw the Sun and the Moon once fighting together: that was what
people call an _eclipse_,--is not that the word?... They fought together
a long time: I was looking at them. We put a _terrine_ full of water
on the ground, and looked into the water to see them. And the Moon is
stronger than the Sun!--yes, the Sun was obliged to give way to the
Moon.... Why do they fight like that?"
--"They don't, Cyrillia."
--"Oh yes, they do. I saw them!... And the Moon is much stronger than
the Sun!"
I did not attempt to contradict this testimony of the eyes. Cyrillia
continued to watch the pretty clouds. Then she said:--"Would you not
like to have a ladder long enough to let you climb up to those clouds,
and see what they are made of?"
--"Why, Cyrillia, they are only vapor,--brume: I have been in clouds."
She looked at me in surprise, and, after a moment's silence, asked, with
an irony of which I had not supposed her capable:--
--"Then you are the Good-God?"
--"Why, Cyrillia, it is not difficult to reach clouds. You see clouds
always upon the top of the Montagne Pelée;--people go there. I have been
there--in the clouds."
--"Ah! those are not the same clouds: those are not the clouds of the
Good-God. You cannot touch the sky when you are on the Morne de la
Croix."
--"My dear Cyrillia, there is no sky to touch. The sky is only an
appearance."
--"_Anh, anh, anh!_ No sky!--you say there is no sky?... Then, what is
that up there?"
--"That is air, Cyrillia, beautiful blue air."
--"And what are the stars fastened to?"
--"To nothing. They are suns, but so much further away than our sun that
they look small."
--"No, they are not suns! They have not the same form as the sun... You
must not say there is no sky: it is wicked! But you are not a Catholic!"
--"My dear Cyrillia, I don't see what that has to do with the sky."
--"Where does the Good-God stay, if there be no sky? And where is
heaven?--and where is hell?"
--"Hell in the sky, Cyrillia?"
--"The Good-God made heaven in one part of the sky, and hell in another
part, for bad people.... Ah! you are a Protestant;--you do not know the
things of the Good-God! That is why you talk like that."
--"What is a Protestant, Cyrillia?"
--"You are one. The Protestants do not believe in religion,--do not love
the Good-God."
--"Well, I am neither a Protestant nor a Catholic, Cyrillia."
--"Oh! you do not mean that; you cannot be a _maudi_, an accursed. There
are only the Protestants, the Catholics, and the accursed. You are not a
_maudi_, I am sure, But you must not say there is no sky"...
--"But, Cyrillia"--
--"No: I will not listen to you:--you are a Protestant. Where does the
rain come from, if there is no sky,"...
--"Why, Cyrillia... the clouds"...
--"No, you are a Protestant.... How can you say such things? There are
the Three Kings and the Three Valets,--the beautiful stars that come
at Christmas-time,--there, over there--all beautiful, and big, big,
big!... And you say there is no sky!"
--"Cyrillia, perhaps I am a _maudi_."
--"No, no! You are only a Protestant. But do not tell me there is no
sky: it is wicked to say that!"
--"I won't say it any more, Cyrillia--there! But I will say there are no
_zombis_."
--"I know you are not a _maudi_;--you have been baptized."
--"How do you know I have been baptized?"
--"Because, if you had not been baptized you would see _zombis_ all
the time, even in broad day. All children who are not baptized see
_zombis_."...
X
Cyrilla's solicitude for me extends beyond the commonplaces of hygiene
and diet into the uncertain domain of matters ghostly. She fears much
that something might happen to me through the agency of wizards, witches
(_sociès_), or _zombis_. Especially zombis. Cyrillia's belief in zombis
has a solidity that renders argument out of the question. This belief
is part of her inner nature,--something hereditary, racial, ancient
as Africa, as characteristic of her people as the love of rhythms
and melodies totally different from our own musical conceptions, but
possessing, even for the civilized, an inexplicable emotional charm.
_Zombi!_--the word is perhaps full of mystery even for those who made
it. The explanations of those who utter it most often are never quite
lucid: it seems to convey ideas darkly impossible to define,--fancies
belonging to the mind of another race and another era,--unspeakably old.
Perhaps the word in our own language which offers the best analogy is
"goblin": yet the one is not fully translated by the other. Both have,
however, one common ground on which they become indistinguishable,--that
region of the supernatural which is most primitive and most vague; and
the closest relation between the savage and the civilized fancy may be
found in the fears which we call childish,--of darkness, shadows, and
things dreamed. One form of the _zombi_-belief--akin to certain ghostly
superstitions held by various primitive races--would seem to have
been suggested by nightmare,--that form of nightmare in which familiar
persons become slowly and hideously transformed into malevolent beings.
The _zombi_ deludes under the appearance of a travelling companion, an
old comrade--like the desert spirits of the Arabs--or even under the
form of an animal. Consequently the creole negro fears everything living
which he meets after dark upon a lonely road,--a stray horse, a cow,
even a dog; and mothers quell the naughtiness of their children by
the threat of summoning a zombi-cat or a zombi-creature of some kind.
"_Zombi ké nana ou_" (the zombi will gobble thee up) is generally an
effectual menace in the country parts, where it is believed zombis may
be met with any time after sunset. In the city it is thought that their
regular hours are between two and four o'clock in the morning. At least
so Cyrillia says:--
--"Dèezhè, toua-zhè-matin: c'est lhè zombi. Yo ka sòti dèzhè, toua zhè:
c'est lhè yo. A quattrhè yo ka rentré;--angelus ka sonné." (At four
o'clock they go back where they came from, before the _Angelus_ rings.)
Why?
--"_C'est pou moune pas joinne yo dans larue_." (So that people may not
meet with them in the street), Cyrillia answers.
--"Are they afraid of the people, Cyrillia?" I asked.
--"No, they are not afraid; but they do not want people to know their
business" (_pa lè moune ouè zaffai yo_).
Cyrillia also says one must not look out of the window when a dog howls
at night. Such a dog may be a _mauvais vivant_ (evil being): "If he sees
me looking at him he will say, '_Ou tropp quirièse quittée cabane ou pou
gàdé zaffai lezautt_.'" (You are too curious to leave your bed like that
to look at other folks' business.)
--"And what then, Cyrillia?"
--"Then he will put out your eyes,--_y ké coqui zié ou_,--make you
blind."
--"But, Cyrillia," I asked one day, "did you ever see any zombis?"
--"How? I often see them!... They walk about the room at night;--they
walk like people. They sit in the rocking-chairs and rock themselves
very softly, and look at me. I say to them:--'What do you want here?--I
never did any harm to anybody. Go away!' Then they go away."
--"What do they look like?"
--"Like people,--sometimes like beautiful people (_bel moune_). I am
afraid of them. I only see them when there is no light burning. While
the lamp bums before the Virgin they do not come. But sometimes the oil
fails, and the light dies."
In my own room there are dried palm leaves and some withered flowers
fastened to the wall. Cyrillia put them there. They were taken from
the _reposoirs_ (temporary altars) erected for the last Corpus Christi
procession: consequently they are blessed, and ought to keep the zombis
away. That is why they are fastened to the wall, over my bed.
Nobody could be kinder to animals than Cyrillia usually shows herself
to be: all the domestic animals in the neighborhood impose upon
her;--various dogs and cats steal from her impudently, without the least
fear of being beaten. I was therefore very much surprised to see her
one evening catch a flying beetle that approached the light, and
deliberately put its head in the candle-flame. When I asked her how she
could be so cruel, she replied:--
--"_Ah ou pa connaitt choïe pays-ci_." (You do not know Things in this
country.)
The Things thus referred to I found to be supernatural Things. It is
popularly believed that certain winged creatures which circle about
candles at night may be _engagés_ or _envoyés_--wicked people having the
power of transformation, or even zombis "sent" by witches or wizards to
do harm. "There was a woman at Tricolore," Cyrillia says, "who used to
sew a great deal at night; and a big beetle used to come into her room
and fly about the candle, and and bother her very much. One night she
managed to get hold of it, and she singed its head in the candle. Next
day, a woman who was her neighbor came to the house with her head
all tied up. '_Ah! macoumè_,' asked the sewing-woman, '_ça ou ni dans
guiôle-ou?_' And the other answered, very angrily, '_Ou ni toupet mandé
moin ça moin ni dans guiôle moin!--et cété ou qui té brilé guiôle moin
nans chandelle-ou hiè-souè_.'" (You have the impudence to ask what
is the matter with my mouth! and you yourself burned my mouth in your
candle last night.)
Early one morning, about five o'clock, Cyrillia, opening the front door,
saw a huge crab walking down the street. Probably it had escaped from
some barrel; for it is customary here to keep live crabs in barrels and
fatten them,--feeding them with maize, mangoes, and, above all, green
peppers: nobody likes to cook crabs as soon as caught; for they may have
been eating manchineel apples at the river-mouths. Cyrillia uttered
a cry of dismay on seeing that crab; then I heard her talking to
herself:--"_I_ touch it?--never! it can go about its business. How do
I know it is not _an arranged crab_ (_yon crabe rangé_), or an
_envoyé_?--since everybody knows I like crabs. For two sous I can buy
a fine crab and know where it comes from." The crab went on down the
street: everywhere the sight of it created consternation; nobody dared
to touch it; women cried out at it, "_Miserabe!--envoyé Satan!--allez,
maudi!_"--some threw holy water on the crab. Doubtless it reached the
sea in safety. In the evening Cyrillia said: "I think that crab was
a little zombi;--I am going to burn a light all night to keep it from
coming back."
Another day, while I was out, a negro to whom I had lent two francs came
to the house, and paid his debt Cyrillia told me when I came back, and
showed me the money carefully enveloped in a piece of brown paper; but
said I must not touch it,--she would get rid of it for me at the market.
I laughed at her fears; and she observed: "You do not know negroes,
Missié!--negroes are wicked, negroes are jealous! I do not want you to
touch that money, because I have not a good opinion about this affair."
After I began to learn more of the underside of Martinique life, I could
understand the source and justification of many similar superstitions
in simple and uneducated minds. The negro sorcerer is, at worst, only a
poisoner; but he possesses a very curious art which long defied serious
investigation, and in the beginning of the last century was attributed,
even by whites, to diabolical influence. In 1721, 1723, and 1725,
several negroes were burned alive at the stake as wizards in league with
the devil. It was an era of comparative ignorance; but even now
things are done which would astonish the most sceptical and practical
physician. For example, a laborer discharged from a plantation vows
vengeance; and the next morning the whole force of hands--the entire
atelier--are totally disabled from work. Every man and woman on the
place is unable to walk; everybody has one or both legs frightfully
swollen. _Yo te ka pilé malifice_: they have trodden on a "malifice."
What is the "malifice"? All that can be ascertained is that certain
little prickly seeds have been scattered all over the ground, where the
barefooted workers are in the habit of passing. Ordinarily, treading on
these seeds is of no consequence; but it is evident in such a case that
they must have been prepared in a special way,--soaked in some poison,
perhaps snake-venom. At all events, the physician deems it safest to
treat the inflammations after the manner of snake wounds; and after many
days the hands are perhaps able to resume duty.