THE WOMEN OF WILD MAN STREET
Wild Man Street is the central place of Jamaican gaiety. In the day-time
it seems an ordinary street, white in the roadway and green in its walls
of painted houses. The evening shadows blacken the place into an abode
of infamy.
We drove there through the wild scents of a tropic night. The bejewelled
skies sparkled no brighter than the flashing insects; the fresh sea
breeze struggled in vain to kill the half Eastern scents of the garden
flowers and aromatic woods. The singing of the insects made music which
the soft air translated into a sweet lullaby. As you drive to the town
of Kingston, the noises and the scents become more and more suggestive
of the East. The place might be Ceylon, Yokohama, or Hong Kong. We were
to see a bungalow which might be found with equal ease in the byways of
any of these places; the difference existing only in the skins and
tongues of the women. The place was larger than an ordinary house of the
working people; the gaining of fugitive wealth is the only compensation
looked for by the Jamaican dancing women.
The reception room was fitted with cheap muslins and common bamboo
furniture. The stained wood floor was relieved in patches by tiny
squares of matting or cheap imitations of the carpets of Turkey. Several
of the rickety tables supported brass ash trays in which cheap and
evil-smelling pastils smouldered unhealthily, half drowning the odour of
the scents the women used. With finger rings made of silver, flashing
with lack lustre glass or paste; arms and necks encircled with coral or
cheap pearl bands, the women, gowned in flowing robes of white or
yellow, listlessly sustained a difficult part. It is difficult for a gay
woman to appear gay without the aid of strong liquors. This place is one
of the houses where the women dance only at the bidding of white men,
the black man is not a welcome guest. The women call themselves white;
really they are brown or yellow or nearly black. They use powder freely,
and cheap rouge also. The effect is awful; a black man in war streaks of
white or vermilion is not more hideous; they speak the pigeon English of
an affected Eurasian, with a tincture of the sing-song drawl of an
educated negro. To these women all the other natives of Jamaica are
coloured. They speak of the England they have never seen as home. White
men are “chaps” or “felhers”; whisky is their drink, and they suggest
with proud frankness that they are the daughters of great white men. But
coloured people, especially coloured people of this class, are not
infallible. We gave them money, which they received with the grace of a
dissatisfied four-wheel cab driver,
[Illustration: A COLOURED GIRL]
but they produced liquor and became animated. White teeth flashed and
the accent became more coloured and so more natural. It was not pretty
talk, and it was lacking in the elements of refinement. The gaiety of
the women of this class always seems forced. As they talked and
gesticulated the paint and powder flaked off their cheeks as whitewash
scales off a crumpled ceiling. They lost their reserve and found
abandon. One, of uncertain age but decided embonpoint, took up a
mandoline, which was well varnished and hung with ribbons, but badly
tuned, and sang a song. The words were indistinct; the title of the song
I never knew; the tune I am glad to have forgotten.
The doors were closed and window shutters drawn; the unholy stench of
the pastils filled the room with suffocating smoke; it was as though
these women acted their parts and had obtained cheap properties and
mismanaged scenic effects. The amusement of the place, if it existed at
all, was colourless in the extreme. The dancing we did not see. So we
left the place and found the sweet-smelling night breeze.
If it is possible to find a place in which the stupefying smoke of a
burning pastil is not altogether bad, I would suggest that that place
might be a hall in which black people are dancing the dignity dance. To
the white man the negro is not without a curious odour, which seems to
get more powerful when the black man takes violent exercise. Picture a
room, bare as a barn, painted light blue, and filled to overflowing with
people of all shades of colour, from ebony to dark walnut. Though the
window shutters are half open the light night breeze is too delicate to
cool all the people in a room whose temperature must be above one
hundred degrees. Arranged in couples the dancers are executing most
weird and complicated antics--some with a certain degree of grace and
rhythm--to the noise of a band of three tired musicians. Probably the
dancing would be more regular if the music were abolished. If the three
men were playing the same tune, each had learned the piece in different
time, and was playing his hardest in order to show the others how the
thing should really run. However the dancers did not mind, so the
spectator had no right to grumble. The dancing waxed more furious, and
the lagging music raced to keep pace with the spirit of the dancers. The
more excited of the twirling crowd began to chant a weird chorus; the
words seemed to be entirely impromptu, the melody was monotonous, and
somehow it reminded me of the muffled sound of a band of tom-toms. The
dignity dance itself, if it has any set arrangement at all, is something
like the visiting and the grand chain in our lancers. The dancers,
twirling in couples at most giddy speed, frequently separated, and the
men in a long line approached the women, who in turn retired. When the
wall is reached the men retire, and the women do the advancing. A sudden
bang on the part of the orchestra, and a shout by the eager dancers, is
the signal for the breaking of the lines; and the men snatch their
partners and twirl more giddy circles. Interesting as the dancing was it
could not be called either fascinating or unique. Save for the coloured
skin of the dancers, and the curious odour of the room, a similar scene
can be witnessed in any European ballroom. From the dignity ballroom we
went to a concert hall where all the performers were coloured and all
the audience jet black. The performers seemed to enjoy the entertainment
most of all.
The songs were delivered in European concert fashion, and they were
mostly well known ballads:--“Robin Adair,” “I dreamt that I dwelt in
Marble Halls,” and other old airs of that description. It was not an
interesting performance. But the audience applauded everything, they
encored everyone, and when a reciter appeared and gave a rendering of
Hamlet by “Mr. William Shakespeare” members of the audience could
scarcely contain themselves. It was a bad recitation, but I fancy the
people in the body of the hall had paid their entrance money and were
determined to make the best of the business. Certainly they seemed to
like hearing themselves shout. We asked a supercilious half-breed, who
wore an evening suit and a crimson necktie, where we could hear some
native singing.
“If,” said he, “you refer to the songs of the negroes, I can only
indicate the low rum shops, and even there it is not permitted.”
Evidently his opinion of the musical abilities of the black man was not
a high one. However we accepted his advice and journeyed to the rum
shops.
In the architecture of their drinking saloons, as in nearly everything
else, the Jamaicans have imitated New York rather than London. You enter
a swing door and discover a long room fitted with a serving counter, and
otherwise bare of furniture. A man presides over the rum bottles, and
the drinkers are mostly negroes of the richer class; small shopkeepers,
clerks, buggymen, and adventurers. We put our heads in the doors of many
of the drinking shops but we never heard the native music.
We had to be content with a pilgrimage through the deserted streets of
the capital. Save for a few buggies and now and then a noisy road car,
Kingston was almost deserted. At some of the street corners groups of
men were engaged in violent conversation, and occasionally we saw a
policeman; otherwise the empty pavements echoed only the noise of our
walking. There are no theatres in Jamaica, and all the wealthier people
live in the distant suburbs. The poorer black men who live in the side
streets of the town have to be up betimes, so they do not waste their
strength by keeping up late at night. It is a cold and a deathly place
at night, this little town of Kingston. No shop keeps open after dark;
no lights appear in the windows of the houses; no crowds of people
promenade the High Street, and jostle each other in friendly rivalry.
Occasionally when passing a house we heard the echo of laughter, and
sometimes merry noise of music, but as a rule the homes were dark and
silent. It seemed a decayed, deserted city; a place from which all
people had fled.
[Illustration: A SOLDIER OF THE WEST INDIAN REGIMENT]
THE WEST INDIAN ARMY