THE PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY
Notwithstanding the intimacy of our relations with the Cubans for many
years past, our people entertain the most hazy and confused ideas about
them. It is difficult to make an American understand that there is any
essential difference between a Cuban and a Spaniard. He generally
imagines that the distinction is nominal, or, if actual, that it rests
entirely upon political status. Of the Americans who go to Cuba only a
small proportion travel farther from Habana than the caves of Bellamar,
and they imagine that they see the typical native in the men and women
of the city. In this conclusion they fall very short of the mark. The
Habanero is not the best and truest representative of his country. He
must be sought in the rural districts and will most readily be found in
Camaguey, where the percentage of pure whites is even greater than in
the capital. The Cuban is fond of calling himself a Camagueyeno, and
this because the purest native blood of the Island has been found in
that Province since the old days when it was a famous cattle-raising
country.
The Cuban is a Spaniard to the same extent as the American is English,
and no more. Although the compositive mixture is greater in one type
than in the other, they exhibit equal divergence from the parent stock,
both in the matter of physical and mental characteristics. This, without
reference to the native who is tinged with negro blood--the mulatto. He
may conform closely to the traits and appearance of the creole, but
then, again, he may differ from him in the widest degree.
The Spaniard, and especially the peasant of the provinces, from whom the
Cuban is most often descended, is usually round-headed, broad-chested,
and stocky. The Cuban is lanky, lean and slack limbed. His drooping
shoulders, languid air, and listless gait, give the impression of weak
physique and lack of energy, an impression which is confirmed by a study
of his habits. It might be supposed that, with the advantage of
acclimatization, he would be able to hold his own against the foreign
settler, but such is very far from being the case.
Immigrants of any race, but particularly those from Spain, appear to
have no difficulty in competing successfully with the Cuban upon his
native heath. This can not be altogether due to physical weakness and
want of energy, and certainly not to deficiency of intelligence. Perhaps
the chief reason of the Cuban’s backwardness is to be found in a
constitutional absence of ambition. For generations he has had no
incentive to effort and the _laissez faire_ state of mind has gradually
become ingrained. Whether, with improved opportunity, his character will
undergo a change in this respect is beyond the range of safe prediction.
The opportunity has not yet been extended to him, despite superficial
appearances.
Critics of the Cubans are prone to speak of them contemptuously for the
lack of certain qualities which we prize and the possession of certain
defects which we despise. The charges are generally true, but the
condemnation unjust, nevertheless. No people were ever more handicapped
in their formative development. Numerous conditions, over which they had
little, if any, control, have affected the Cubans physically, morally,
politically, and economically,--and the influences have, in the
majority of instances and in the most respects, been maleficent. Only
since yesterday have the Cubans been free agents, and even to-day their
freedom is qualified, the conduct of their Government subject to a
critical supervision, and their independence liable to sudden
interruption. They have had no more control of their making than a child
has of its. They have always been treated as irresponsible and incapable
beings. They have never had fair scope for initiative, nor a free field
for endeavor. There has always been a pressure from above, crushing
growth, independence, enterprise, and hope.
Under the circumstances is it to be wondered at that the Cuban is
deficient in backbone; that he is vacillating and morally wobbly; that
his somewhat effeminate, often handsome, and never coarse features bear
a stamp of weakness which the most fiery pair of eyes will not suffice
to counteract? Would it not be surprising if he displayed any marked
capacity for hard work, or facility for business?
Pleasure loving, inclined to frivolity, cheery, and apparently
philosophical, the Cuban yields to difficulties and sinks under
reverses. It is his habit, fostered by temperament and environment, to
follow the lines of least resistance, and the way leads him ultimately
into a _cul de sac_,--a slough of stagnation. He has a quick
intelligence and a lively imagination. He can plan shrewdly and with
nice calculation, but he has neither the force nor the executive ability
to carry out his designs. For a full century he has conspired to throw
off the galling yoke of Spain, and he would never have done it but for
the intervention of the United States.
As a young man he is apt to be foppish, libidinous and indolent, in
striking contrast to the sturdy little Spanish apprentice, of Habana.
Cuban children are too often spoilt by fond and over indulgent parents.
The effect upon the girls is modified by the restricted home life to
which they are subjected. In the boys it shows in selfwilfulness, lack
of principle and utter absence of respect for things that the Anglo
Saxon is apt to reverence.
The Cuban usually marries early, and he makes a good father, if, often,
a questionable husband. Despite the fact that he can depend upon the
continence of his wife, or, perhaps because of it, he is frequently
guilty of infidelity to her. This, if she discovers it, she is likely to
treat with a complacency that an American woman could not understand.
It is a common boast of Cubans that no Cuban woman ever became a public
prostitute. Whether or not this is true, there is a marked difference in
the standard of marital virtue maintained by the sexes among them. In
this, and other respects, the less said about the Cuban of Habana, the
better.
It is not on short acquaintance that a true gauge of the Cuban’s
character may be made. His surface air is one of self-respect and
geniality, that hides the underlying egotistic selfishness and
flaccidity. If educated, he has a courteous manner and polished address,
while the poorest peasant displays a certain refinement and decided
intelligence. I never remember to have seen a dull or stupid looking
Cuban, but, perhaps, that is due less to mental quality than to the
universal endowment of remarkably fine eyes.
At first sight, you will like the Cuban, and you may continue to do so
after you have learned to know him for a weak-minded brother, without
any stable qualities in his composition. He has a subtle attractiveness
which you will find it difficult to analyze. Perhaps it is his natural
_bonhomie_ and genuine affectionateness
[Illustration: COUNTRY HOMES OF WEALTHY CUBANS.]
that draws you, and the undercurrent of naïve childishness that blinds
you to his faults. Unlike his arrogant cousin, the Spaniard, he is
pathetically conscious of his shortcomings. Often a comic assertiveness
will thinly cloak an uneasy realization of inferiority.
And withal you will conclude that he is not a bad fellow at the bottom;
that with half a chance he might have developed into a very different
man. This idea will be strengthened when you come to know the _guajiro_.
Meanwhile you can not fail to speculate with misgiving on the future of
the country if its Government is to remain in the hands of the white and
parti-colored Cubans. You may base some hope on the recollection that
the soil of this Island has bred not a few men of noble character and
great talent,--but we will consider the subject more fully later on.
The younger generation of the present upper class of Cubans is a source
of hope and may perhaps prove to be the seed-bed of a different race.
Their fathers were born to riches and enjoyed lives of ease and
pleasure. Reckless extravagance and loss due to war, and the consequent
commercial depressions, have reduced most of the wealthy families to
ruin, or comparative poverty. It is as much as they can do to afford
their sons good educations. After leaving college they are compelled to
earn their livelihood. The result of this changed condition is already
apparent in the display of more manly qualities and better principles.
Of the many Cuban youths in our educational institutions, a large
proportion give promise of leading useful lives.
What the Cuban seems to need more than anything else is to develop
virility and hard common sense. If he should do this in combination with
the better application of some of his natural talents, he will present
himself to the world as a very admirable man. Meanwhile, it is always to
be remembered that he was freed from his swaddling clothes but
yesterday. He never before had a fair chance to grow, to stretch his
limbs, to think and act for himself. We do not know what he can do or
what he may become until he has been tested through two generations, at
least.
The foregoing is written, in the main, with the Cubans of the cities and
towns in mind--the men of what are commonly called the “better class.”
The _guajiro_, the white Cuban peasant of the rural districts, is in
several respects a different fellow. But, before we proceed to a
description of him, let us take a view of _la hija del pais_, the
daughter of the country.
From the time that she first begins to walk, until she is handed over,
too often against her inclination, to a husband, the Cuban girl is under
surveillance. Whether this close guardianship is prompted by fear of the
evil designs of the young men of her acquaintance, by anxiety about her
own tendencies to go astray, or both, is not clear. Perhaps the old
Spanish custom is unnecessary and is maintained merely because it is an
established practice. Be that as it may, the Cuban girl is not allowed
any kind of intercourse with the other sex, except for the members of
her own family, until she leaves her father’s house for that of her
husband, unless it be under supervision. Occasionally lovers contrive to
exchange a few words privately through the bars of a ground floor
window, but the proceeding is not countenanced by the maiden’s mother,
and may entail a penance in expiation of the bold defiance of the laws
of etiquette and modesty.
The little _Cubana_ is escorted to school and thence home again. Her
little brother goes to a separate institution. It would not be at all
proper for boys and girls to read their primers upon the same benches,
or even in the same room. Later on, when she has grown to be a big girl
and of an age at which an American miss is supposed to take care of
herself, the Cuban is still treated as if it were not safe to leave her
alone for a moment. She goes to the theatre or plaza with her mother,
and young men of her acquaintance cast languishing glances at her from
the _foyer_, or the benches along the walk. One of them may be
particularly favored by her parents and he may be permitted to call upon
her, but he will never be permitted to see her, except in the presence
of a sister, or a less sympathetic _dueña_. Their courtship is carried
on without any of the sweet _tête-à-têtes_ that are as essential to
Anglo Saxon love-making as mustard is to ham. I presume, although I have
made no precise enquiry on the subject, that most Cuban girls of good
families do not kiss the men to whom they are married until after the
priestly benediction has been pronounced upon the union.
No nation can boast women more comely than the daughters of Cuba. Often
their features are strikingly attractive and sometimes extremely
beautiful, despite the disfiguring _cascarilla_, or powdered egg-shell,
which is plastered on the face with ghastly effect. If the _Cubana_ had
vivacity, or even expression, she would be irresistibly charming. But
her countenance, though not lacking in intelligence, is apt to be placid
to the point of dulness. This is the more remarkable because her Spanish
grandmother was probably a woman of _verve_ and sparkle, with flashing,
big black eyes, which in her descendant are just as big and black, but
languid and unresponsive. Though blondes are not extremely rare among
the Cuban women, the prevailing type is dark, with blue-black hair in
abundant quantity. The cubana matures early and fades correspondingly
soon. A fully developed woman at thirteen, she is often married at that
age, or shortly after, and is probably the mother of several children
before she has passed out of her teens. Her good looks wane and her
figure becomes _embonpoint_, if not corpulent, at an age when the
Anglo-Saxon woman still presents the appearance of youth.
One who had only known _la senorita_ might be disposed to think that
Cuban women have little character or individuality. It is as mothers
that they display their best traits. From the day of her marriage, _La
Cubana_ devotes her life to her home and family. She is a willing slave
to her husband and children, often with bad effect upon him and them. A
little more independence, a little less self-sacrifice, on her part,
would be better for all parties concerned. But every Cuban girl is
taught that her sole mission in life is to fulfill her duty as wife and
mother to the best of her ability. She has been schooled to consider
herself the absolute property of her husband and to render him
unquestioned obedience.
She is prone to jealousy but slow to resent neglect and unfaithfulness.
Sad to say, this devoted creature too often loses the love of her
husband with the decline of her beauty. She seldom has the strength of
character or the intellectual attractions necessary to hold him when the
physical charm has lost its force.
Religion is the only other interest of the Cuban lady, and she has a
monopoly of it, for the men of her class are almost universally
irreligious. During the revolutionary period, when free-thought
doctrines were rife in Europe and America, the Cubans of the cities
became addicted to reading the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and their
Italian disciples. The result was a deterioration of religious belief,
from which the Cubans have never recovered. Although they are sometimes
apparently zealous in the observance of the rites and ceremonies of the
Church, it is probably more from a love of music and of pageantry than
from devotional motives. The most regular attendant of mass is apt to
speak lightly of his faith and its representatives and to laugh at the
scurrilous cartoons, caricaturing the Church and its ministers, which
frequently appear in the newspapers and the shop-windows. No doubt the
conduct of some of the clergy in Cuba, as in other Latin-American
countries, has done much toward destroying respect for the cloth and
devotion to the faith. Then again the fact that the Church was allied
with the official oppressors, although many priests sympathized with the
natives, had its effect for alienation. Were it not for its female
adherents, the Church in Cuba would cease to be a national institution
to-morrow. _La cubana_, however, is a fervent _devotée_, constant in her
attendance at mass and confession.
The Cuban woman is the most conservative of beings and a stickler for
the proprieties. She is very matter of fact, very serious, and utterly
destitute of humor. Her life is passed in a narrow groove, with little
but birth, marriage, and death, to vary it. Her world is contained in
the town of which she is resident, and perhaps within a few squares of
it. What happens outside these boundaries is nothing to her. She seldom
cares for reading, her sole accomplishments are embroidering and
piano-playing, her chief diversion, gossiping with her neighbors. She is
never taught to take an interest in household work and knows nothing
about cooking.
But withal she is womanly, warm-hearted, hospitable, and often extremely
charming.
The Cubans are the most democratic of people. The ragged peasant
maintains a dignified attitude toward all men, which conveys the
impression of a nicely balanced respect for himself and for his fellow.
His landlord, or his employer, meets him upon his own ground and the
relations between them are frequently characterized by friendly
familiarity. The revolutionary period, with its levelling processes and
its common interests, tended to make this condition more pronounced. It
also had the effect of almost obliterating the color-line, which had
previously been but faint. The right of the
[Illustration: “HER WORLD IS CONTAINED IN THE TOWN OF WHICH SHE IS
RESIDENT.”]
black and mulatto to call themselves “_cubanos_” could hardly be
disputed in a country which owes its freedom in so great a degree to
their efforts.
The lowest Cuban of the country will welcome you with dignified
self-possession to the hut in which his naked children are tumbling
about among the pigs and the chickens. You will have no difficulty in
realizing that you may not pity nor patronize him, however miserable his
condition may appear to be. He will be glad to do you a service for pay,
and will overcharge you if you permit, but you can not offer him a
gratuity without risk of offence. His air of independence is not without
a basis of fact for its justification. His simple needs are supplied
with little labor. He works when he wants to, and loafs when he pleases.
The _guajiro_, or white peasant of Cuba, is first cousin to the _gibaro_
of Puerto Rico, whom I have described in a former volume.[2] They are
much alike in character and in manner of living, but the former is the
better man. He has not had to contend against the hookworm, which has
played havoc with the Puerto Rican _campesino_, and he has gained
something in fibre and backbone from his hard experience as combatant or
_reconcentrado_ in the rebellions of late years.
The ancestors of the _guajiro_ came mainly from Catalonia and Andalusia,
and were a good, hardy stock. Time was when he occasionally owned slaves
and a fair extent of land, but nowadays he is more often than not a
squatter in a little corner of that no-man’s-land which seems to be so
extensive in the central and eastern portions of the Island. In
comparatively few instances he has title to a few acres, lives in a
passably comfortable _cabana_, possesses a yoke of oxen, a good horse,
half a dozen pigs, and plenty of poultry. Much more often he lives in a
ramshackle _bohio_, the one apartment of which affords indifferent
shelter to a large family and is fairly shared by a lean hog and a few
scrawny chickens. There is nothing deserving the name of furniture in
the house, and the clothing of the family is of the scantiest. A nag of
some sort, usually a sorry specimen of its kind, is almost always owned
by the _guajiro_, who loves a horse and rides like the _gaucho_ of the
Argentine pampas.
The _guajiros_ are handsome, manly fellows. While they have frequently
become tinged with African blood, a majority probably have maintained
the purity of their origin, and this is conspicuously the case with the
peasantry about Cienfuegos. They speak a _patois_ which is a mixture of
Spanish and negro dialect, picked up from the blacks, with whom their
intercourse has always been more or less close, and with whom they live
on the best of terms.
The _guajiro_ is totally lacking ambition and his chief desire is to be
left alone to live his life in his own way. If he is frugal, it is from
necessity. Of thrift he has no understanding. What he earns to-day he
carelessly spends to-morrow. Indeed he knows no reason for earning
except to spend. It would be strange if his characteristics were
otherwise. He has never had any opportunity to improve his condition,
nor any incentive to accumulate property. He has become accustomed to
living from hand to mouth with indifferent regard to the future. He
works when he must and ceases as soon as he may. In that respect he is
merely giving full play to an inclination that is strong in all of us.
The _guajiro_ lives chiefly on bananas and other fruit. Aside from an
occasional _iguana_, or _jutea_, pork is the only meat he eats. This,
contrary to our idea of the fitness of things in the tropics, is a
frequent and favorite dish with all classes of Cubans. He sometimes
varies his bill of fare with a fish or a bull-frog.
The one trait of his Spanish forefathers which the _guajiro_ retains in
undiminished strength, is love of gambling. He is supported through a
week of loathsome labor by the prospect of wagering his wages at the
cock-pit or bull-ring on Sunday. He enjoys music and dancing with the
whole-hearted delight of a child. As most of the observances of the
Church have something of a gala character they attract him, and he finds
a pious excuse for attending them. Weddings, christenings, funerals, are
so many holidays in which it is a religious duty to take part. Of course
all the _fiestas_ are holy days and if he worked on all the days which
are in no manner signalized by the Church, he would hardly labor half
the time.
The _guajira_ does all the chores about the place, except for looking
after the cattle. If these and the cooking leave any surplus time it is
occupied in attending to the numerous brood of _guajiritos_, who are to
be seen tumbling
[Illustration: YOUNG CANE-FIELD, WITH BANANA GROVE IN THE DISTANCE.]
about every cabin of the Island in a state of unhampered nature. The
_guajira_ is the working member of the family, but she gets her full
share of the holidays, for her husband usually takes all his dependents
with him when he goes to town to attend mass and patronize the
cockfight. Females are debarred from that delectable entertainment and
while it is in progress the _guajira_ will foregather with others of her
kind outside the village _fonda_ and gossip over a glass of tamarind
water.
There used to be more saints’ days than Sundays in the calendar, but the
number is not so generally observed as formerly. In fact, the country
population seems to be beginning to take a more serious view of life and
to regard work as a somewhat essential part of it, rather than a
necessary evil of intermittent character. As he has come into closer
touch with civilization in latter days, the _guajiro_ has become
sensibly discontented with his simple lot and desirous of many things of
which he formerly knew nothing or toward which he was indifferent.