THE DEVOTION OF THE JAMAICAN NEGRO
The native of Jamaica flies to religion as an ant creeps to the
honey-pot. Give a nigger a few catch-words and a ritual in which he can
take a leading part, and there is no more religious man on the face of
the earth. I never met a native man or woman who was not either Baptist
or Methodist, Catholic or Church of England, or member of some other
sect to which he or she clung with the strength of pious madness. There
is no tolerance in the really religious Black. Every member of every
other sect is a member of the eternally damned. In the opinion of the
Catholic there is no hope for his Plymouth Brother. The Baptist cannot
hope for the salvation of the Free Methodist. Every Sunday every
religious nigger goes to church in the morning, in the afternoon if
possible, and then again at night. After evensong there are open-air
services where crowds of souls are saved, with great regularity, week by
week. They tell each other that they have been plucked like a brand from
the burning, and they dance and shout and sing; sometimes, in moments of
great exaltation, they grovel on the ground and clutch at the earth for
inspiration and spiritual comfort. It is impossible for a saved soul to
be cool. The idea of having so narrowly escaped from the burning
brimstone inflames the hearts of the newly saved at each weekly
performance. A revivalist ceremony closely resembles a fetich dance in
an African forest. The ritual is similar, though the cause and effect
are happily different. I do not wish it to be supposed that I venture to
scoff at the religion of the natives of Jamaica. My desire is simply to
attempt a description of the outward and visible effect of the religious
services. At heart every negro is most painfully emotional. After
undergoing the deepest sensation of salvation the negro wanders homeward
satisfied, relieved, and very merry. There is no evidence of deep
impression; no outward suggestion that the man is spiritually affected
to any great degree. The impression I gathered was that Jamaicans are
religious with their lips and voices; that salvation was a thing to be
regularly sought and experienced once a week--just as among certain
people in other more civilised countries. This capacity for the
endurance of great spirituality gives birth in Jamaica to many
lamentable exhibitions of religious humbug. Prophets arrive; new sects
are called into being by unscrupulous adventurers who claim to be in
direct contact with the Deity.
The story goes that a very little while ago a negro arrived in Kingston
from one of the Southern American States. He brought with him a
second-hand uniform of a captain of the British Navy, sword included.
He purchased a donkey in the market place and quietly attired himself
in all the glory of the blue and gold of the British Navy. He mounted
the donkey and loosely slung his sword so that the scabbard rattled
along the cobbles of the rough Kingston roadways. Then, slowly he rode
through the town. Men, women, and children followed him in mighty
astonishment. He rode slowly, with bent head, his arms folded across his
breast. By the time he reached the outskirts of the town the following
crowd numbered many hundreds. He led them to a great field, and halted
his sorry steed, and for several moments sat solemnly staring at his
donkey’s ears, making no movement. Suddenly he drew the sword from out
the scabbard and flung himself upright in his stirrups, waving the sword
aloft. Thrice he did this in silence. Then he turned to the wondering
crowd and shouted--“Kneel to the might of God. Bow down to His servant.
I am come to save you from sin.”
Then he preached to them for an hour. He remained in that field for
several days, and made many converts and found a multitude of followers.
These he marched in procession to the side of a river in which he
baptised them all. Part of his creed was that all people should bathe
every day in water which he had blessed with his all powerful sword. He
dispensed the blessed river water to many hundreds of people every day,
making a money charge for every gallon. When he had amassed a small
fortune he quietly disappeared, and left his flock leaderless and
disconsolate. There appears to be many such chapters in the religious
life of Jamaica. The people are at the mercy of any adventurer who has
sufficient intelligence and enough audacity to prey upon their
credulity, and play his own hand with unfaltering boldness.
It would not be fair to suggest that all the inhabitants of Jamaica
could be influenced by a jackanapes in a naval uniform and sword, riding
on a donkey. There are of course a large number, a large majority, of
really intelligent men and women who are properly religious. I mention
extreme cases in order that it may be possible for you to gain some
insight into the extraordinary character of the Black man. It is easy
for any educated man to make great crowds of Jamaicans profess and call
themselves Christians. To really imbue the people with a knowledge of
the elementary duties of Christian people is a task of great difficulty.
Sunday is their day of rest. The old people smoke their pipes and gossip
in the shade of their doorways, the youngsters parade the town in all
the glory of their gaudy finery. On Sunday the natural idleness of the
coloured man is as it were legalised. Once a week their besetting sin of
indolence becomes a real virtue. So the day is enjoyed to the full. It
is never necessary to drive home to a nigger the fact that it is wicked
to labour on the seventh day. The difficulty is to persuade him to work
on the other six.
Everyone has heard of the Jamaican revivalist meetings, those weird
religious orgies where men and women run riot in the name of great
salvation. They are difficult services to witness; the people,
especially
[Illustration: A GINGERBREAD-SELLER, ST. LUCIA]
the parson people, are shy in the presence of the unbelieving. You can
only enter a native synagogue by means of great cunning and an utter
absence of self-restraint. The interiors of such synagogues are
commonplace--you can see their furniture and fittings in any tiny bethel
in poorer London. The difference lies in the people only; in Jamaica
they are all utterly black and very happy. The preacher wears
spectacles, and has a white beard and conventional clerical collar and
white shirt. The congregation are attired in all the tints of a German
Noah’s Ark, and show examples of half the costumes known to civilisation
and Whitechapel. Of course there are more women than men, but still the
males that appear are not less zealous than the most excitable of the
ladies. When the service has half spent itself, order, and the souls of
the people, have become really affected. The solemnity of the place
entirely disappears, and pandemonium comes in like a rustling, choking
tornado. Men and women dance and pray and sing and shout, and then fall
backwards to the hard wood floor clutching the empty air in the agony of
spiritual exaltation. The preacher abstains from flinging himself into
the heat of the melée with infinite difficulty, and by exercising his
power of self-restraint in a manner inspiring to behold. The
congregation exhausts its frenzy and lies quiet and purified, in the
manner of a snake that has exhausted its poison gland in attacking the
sacking held by an experienced charmer. In this manner is a large
proportion of the population of the island every week, with great
regularity, saved from damnation. The parson is carried home to sup with
the senior deacon, and the congregation disperses into little groups of
devotees, each member anxious to examine the religious experience of his
brother, or explain at great length his own sensations of salvation.
[Illustration: THE TURTLE WHARF, KINGSTON, JAMAICA]
TURTLE FISHING