THE GOOD OLD PRIEST--RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION OF THE NEGROES--THE
SEÑORA’S GHOST.
The old _cura_ (priest) in the village had the spiritual surveillance
of all the inhabitants of his _partido_ (district); and we were often
notified to discharge certain duties we owed the church, of which,
being heretics, we were ignorant. I think the fine for failing to have
a slave child christened before it was six months old, was nearly one
hundred dollars. Every six months the _cura_ admonished us to send
to the village church the babies with their mothers, and an _escudo_
($2.12¹⁄₂) for each child. The kindly old man then sprinkled the little
blackies, gave the _escudos_ back to the mothers, and perhaps never
saw the new church-members again until they went up with the next
generation of babies. The good old priest is dead now; but he saved
many souls that way during the thirty-five years he was _cura_ at the
village, and sprinkled several generations, for in Cuba they marry
early and often. Many stories reached us of his kindly, priestly
offices to the poor and distressed, as well as to the wealthy, in
their hour of need. When the former owners of Desengaño had forty
cases of small-pox on the plantation at one time, and the place was
rigidly quarantined--not even a physician being permitted to minister
to them--the _cura_ went to perform his religious offices; he said
no human authority could keep him from that stricken family, and the
blessed Virgin, or his patron saint, or some supreme power, I do not
remember now what, would shield and protect him. So he went and staid
with them, and when the long agony culminated in the death of the aged
mother of the family, the _cura_, in defiance of law, carried her body
to the village cemetery to be deposited in consecrated ground.
No one ever went to him in the hour of need, black or white, that his
benevolence did not assist. He never came to Desengaño after it passed
into heretic hands; but he had long been accustomed to get the lime
from there to whitewash the church and his own house. And every year
or two when we fired the lime-kiln, he wrote us to send enough lime to
whiten the sacred edifice and he would in return pray for us, and, when
we died, say a mass or two.
On Holy Thursday he never failed to notify “los Americanos,” as we
were often called, not to sound the bell, neither the plantation-bell
out-of-doors or dinner-bell in the house, from Thursday night to
Saturday morning, as it was in violation of civil as well as
ecclesiastical law.
Though devoted to the church and its duties, the jolly old man was not
averse to the amusements in which all classes indulged. He was the
owner of the best fighting-cocks in the whole neighborhood. As Sundays
were the days of _fiesta_, he prepared his birds for the fray and
deposited them, safely secured in the folds of a silk handkerchief, on
the church-porch during morning service; and the celerity with which
that divine disposed of his sacerdotal vestments after celebrating
mass, and hastened with the crowd to the cockpit, was something quite
extraordinary!
Such of the coolies as were true to the wholesale christening they
received upon arrival in Cuba, and all the negroes, were furnished with
codfish in place of _tasajo_ during Holy Week. Numbers of the Africans
fasted by abstaining entirely from food on Good-Friday, and by many
acts indicated their reverence for the church. At _vesperos_ (evening
bell), wherever they might be, and whatever their occupation, the older
ones stopped for a moment, uncovered their heads, made the sign of the
cross, and repeated a short prayer.
Frequently a woman at the _tombo_-dances would seat herself beside a
small table covered with a white cloth, on which was placed a lighted
candle and a cup. Those who felt disposed dropped a coin into the
receptacle, and the amount thus collected was sent to the _cura_ to
pay for a mass for the repose of the soul of some relative.
There was a strange combination of African superstition and church
formula in the attention paid by the negroes to the dying. Two things
they were particular about--that their friends should depart from the
world naked, and with a lighted candle in the hand.
A blessed candle is kept in every Cuban family, to be placed in the
hands of their expiring friends. The same one is used from generation
to generation. There is something touching and pathetic in the
sentiment that the same lighted emblem, typical of the faith, is placed
and held in the hand of grandfather, father, son, and grandson in the
supreme moment, to light them through the dark valley of the shadow of
death.
Señora Royo was eighty years old when she died of small-pox. Although
her body was well sprinkled with quicklime and interred in the village
cemetery, the negroes had a superstition that the señora’s ghost
visited the garden every night and took its seat on the bench beneath
the zapote-tree where she had spent so many hours during her life. The
old lady must have been, like many Cuban women, a hard task-mistress,
for the negroes who remembered and had served her, were mortally afraid
of seeing her again.
The garden was large, and in many places the shade was dense. There
were arbors draped with flowering vines; zapote, aguacate, and guava
trees--all of which have low-spreading branches--lemon and orange,
too, and palms, besides many varieties of shrubs. On one side of the
entrance was a parterre devoted to flowers. The beds, arranged in a
series of graceful geometrical designs, were inclosed within stone
walls kept dazzling with whitewash and raised about two feet above the
promenade, thus rendering it convenient for the aged lady to touch and
admire her flowers without being compelled to stoop. The garden was
surrounded by a dense growth of banana-trees, only broken by the tall,
narrow gate which led into the inclosure. Now, the Chinese had never
known the awful señora, and so were not afraid of her ghost. They made
predatory raids upon the garden, often robbing it of unripe fruit.
One night, seated on the veranda with the children, enjoying the
tropical radiance of the moon, I noticed something white moving
at the entrance to the garden--moving, moving--in a mysterious
will-o’-the-wisp way. Sometimes the tall white figure was in full
view, and again in profile. Now and again it vanished, as if to rest
on the zapote bench in the dark, but quickly to reappear. Under the
waving palms it seemed to bow, courtesy, and even beckon. We all
watched the slow-moving, weird, white object with conjectures and
surmises. At last I tested Henry’s courage by asking, “Would you dare
go to the garden and touch that thing?” After some bantering from the
others he went half-way down, and returned to say that it was the
tall gate left unfastened and swaying in the evening air. Zell, who
was always hovering around after the day’s work was done to hear some
of the stories by which I endeavored to entertain the children, at
once suggested a plan to play ghost and “skeer dem Chinese, fur dey
done got dat bad we can’t get no decent orange outen dat garden now.”
So he hastily tucked a sheet under his arm, and, stealthily creeping
around the back way, entered the inclosure over the rear wall. When
all was ready, I called Ciriaco from the kitchen and ordered him to
close the garden-gate. He walked down in the glittering moonlight,
utterly fearless. As he placed his hand on the gate, Zell, enveloped
in white, rose from the bench under the dark-foliaged tree, and slowly
and solemnly bowed. There was one wild, unearthly yell, followed by a
succession of piercing shrieks, as Ciriaco fled toward the house with
the speed that fear imparts.
Quick as a flash all the other Chinamen appeared. Ciriaco had gained
the house, almost paralyzed, when his alarmed countrymen met him.
With gasps and groans he told the fearful tale. After a rapid debate
among themselves, a few of the bravest agreed to go in a body and
investigate the supernatural specter that barred the entrance to those
delicious fruit-groves. Zell had retired, to await results. About a
score of wary braves proceeded cautiously and slowly toward the spot,
peering with keen and anxious eyes as they advanced. When they reached
the gate, Zell slowly rose from out the darkness and seemed ten feet
in height in that white shroud, as with outstretched arms he made
one step forward into the moonlight. The brave band broke ranks and
fled with woful yells and shrieks. The fun was too much for Zell. The
overwhelming success of the pantomime so convulsed him with laughter
that he rolled over and over on the ground, trailing the winding-sheet
after him. The nut was cracked with a loud explosion, but the kernel
was lost when the good-natured negro’s unmistakable “guffaw” rose above
every other sound.