I.
NOTHING else in the picturesque life of the French colonies of
the Occident impresses the traveller on his first arrival more
than the costumes of the women of color. They surprise the
aesthetic sense agreeably;—they are local and special: you will
see nothing resembling them among the populations of the British
West Indies; they belong to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Désirade,
Marie-Galante, and Cayenne,—in each place differing sufficiently
to make the difference interesting, especially in regard to the
head-dress. That of Martinique is quite Oriental;—more
attractive, although less fantastic than the Cayenne coiffure, or
the pretty drooping mouchoir of Guadeloupe.
These costumes are gradually disappearing, for various reasons,
—the chief reason being of course the changes in the social
condition of the colonies during the last forty years. Probably
the question of health had also something to do with the almost
universal abandonment in Martinique of the primitive
slave dress,—chemise and jupe,—which exposed its wearer to
serious risks of pneumonia; for as far as economical reasons are
concerned, there was no fault to find with it: six francs could
purchase it when money was worth more than it is now. The
douillette, a long trailing dress, one piece from neck to feet,
has taken its place. *
But there was a luxurious variety of the jupe costume which is
disappearing because of its cost; there is no money in the
colonies now for such display:—I refer to the celebrated attire
of the pet slaves and belles affranchies of the old colonial
days. A full costume,—including violet or crimson "petticoat"
of silk or satin; chemise with half-sleeves, and much embroidery
and lace; "trembling-pins" of gold (zépingue tremblant) to
attach the folds of the brilliant Madras turban; the great
necklace of three or four strings of gold beads bigger than peas
(collier-choux);
the ear-rings, immense but light as egg-shells
(
zanneaux-à-clous or
zanneaux-chenilles); the
bracelets (
portes-bonheur);
the studs (
boutons-à-clous); the brooches, not only
for the turban, but for the chemise, below the folds of the showy
silken foulard or shoulder-scarf,—
would sometimes represent over
five thousand francs expenditure. This gorgeous attire is becoming
less visible every year: it is now rarely worn except on very
solemn occasions,—weddings, baptisms, first communions,
confirmations. The
da (nurse) or "porteuse-de-baptême"
who bears
the baby to church holds it at the baptismal font, and afterwards
carries it from house to house in order that all the friends of
the family may kiss it, is thus attired; but nowadays, unless she
be a professional (for there are professional
das, hired only for
such occasions), she usually borrows the jewellery. If tall, young,
graceful, with a rich gold tone of skin, the effect of her costume
is dazzling as that of a Byzantine Virgin. I saw one young da who,
thus garbed, scarcely seemed of the earth and earthly;—there was
an Oriental something in her appearance difficult to describe,
—something that made you think of the Queen of Sheba going to visit
Solomon. She had brought a merchant's baby, just christened, to
receive the caresses of the family at whose house I was visiting;
and when it came to my turn to kiss it, I confess I could not notice
the child: I saw only the beautiful dark face, coiffed with orange
and purple, bending over it, in an illumination of antique
gold. … What a da! … She represented really the type of that
belle affranchie of other days, against whose fascination special
sumptuary laws were made; romantically she imaged for me the
supernatural god-mothers and Cinderellas of the creole fairy-tales.
For these become transformed in the West Indian
folklore,—adapted to the environment, and to local idealism:—
Cinderella, for example, is changed to a beautiful metisse,
wearing a quadruple
collier-choux,
zépingues tremblants, and all
the ornaments of a da.
* Recalling the impression
of that dazzling
da,
I can even now feel the picturesque justice of the fabulist's
description of Cinderella's creole costume:
Ça té ka baille ou mal
zie!—(it would have given you a pain in your eyes to look at her!)
… Even the every-day Martinique costume is slowly changing.
Year by year the "calendeuses"—the women who paint and fold the
turbans—have less work to do;—the colors of the douiellette
are becoming less vivid;—while more and more young colored
girls are being élevées en chapeau ("brought up in a hat")—i.e.,
dressed and educated like the daughters of the whites. These, it
must be confessed, look far less attractive in the latest Paris
fashion, unless white as the whites themselves: on the other
hand, few white girls could look well in douillette and mouchoir,—not
merely because of color contrast, but because they
have not that amplitude of limb and particular cambering of the
torso peculiar to the half-breed race, with its large bulk and
stature. Attractive as certain coolie women are, I observed that
all who have adopted the Martinique costume look badly in it:
they are too slender of body to wear it to advantage.
Slavery introduced these costumes, even though it probably did
not invent them; and they were necessarily doomed to pass away
with the peculiar social conditions to which they belonged. If
the population clings still to its douillettes, mouchoirs, and foulards,
the fact is largely due to the cheapness of such
attire. A girl can dress very showily indeed for about twenty
francs—shoes excepted;—and thousands never wear shoes. But the
fashion will no doubt have become cheaper and uglier within
another decade.
At the present time, however, the stranger might be sufficiently
impressed by the oddity and brilliancy of these dresses to ask
about their origin,—in which case it
is not likely that he will
obtain any satisfactory answer. After long research I found myself
obliged to give up all hope of being able to outline the history
of Martinique costume,—partly because books and histories are
scanty or defective, and partly because such an undertaking would
require a knowledge possible only to a specialist. I found good
reason, nevertheless, to suppose that these costumes were in the
beginning adopted from certain fashions of provincial France,—that
the respective fashions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne were
patterned after modes still worn in parts of the mother-country.
The old-time garb of the
affranchie—that still worn by the
da
—somewhat recalls dresses worn by the women of Southern France,
more particularly about Montpellier. Perhaps a specialist might
also trace back the evolution of the various creole coiffures to
old forms of head-dresses which still survive among the French
country-fashions of the south and south-west provinces;—but
local taste has so much modified the original style as to leave
it unrecognizable to those who have never studied the subject.
The Martinique fashion of folding and tying the Madras, and of
calendering it, are probably local; and I am assured that the
designs of the curious semi-barbaric jewellery were all invented
in the colony, where the
collier-choux is still manufactured by
local goldsmiths. Purchasers buy one, two, or three
grains, or
beads, at a time, and string them only on obtaining the requisite
number. … This is the sum of all that I was able to learn on
the matter; but in the course of searching various West Indian
authors and historians for information, I found something far
more important than the origin of the
douillette or the
collier-choux:
the facts of that strange struggle between nature and
interest, between love and law, between prejudice and passion,
which forms the evolutional history of the mixed race.
[_]
* The brightly colored
douillettes are classified by the people
according to the designs of the printed
calico:—robe-à-bambou,—robe-à-bouquet,—robe-arc-en-ciel,—robe-à-carreau,—etc.,
according as the pattern is in stripes, flower-designs, "rainbow"
bands of different tints, or plaidings. Ronde-en-ronde means a
stuff printed with disk-patterns, or link-patterns of different
colors,—each joined with the other. A robe of one color only is
called a robe-uni.
The general laws of contrasts observed in the costume require the
silk foulard, or shoulder-kerchief, to make a sharp relief with
the color of the robe, thus:—
Robe.
- Foulard.
Yellow
- Blue.
Dark blue
- Yellow.
Pink
- Green.
Violet
- Bright red.
Red
- Violet.
Chocolate (cacoa)
- Pale blue.
Sky blue
- Pale rose.
These refer, of course, to dominant or ground colors, as there
are usually several tints in the foulard as well as the robe.
The painted Madras should always be bright yellow. According to
popular ideas of good dressing, the different tints of skin
should be relieved by special choice of color in the robe, as
follows:—
Capresse (a clear red skin) should wear
- Pale yellow.
Mulatresse (according to shade)
- Rose.
Blue.
Green.
Negresse
- White.
Scarlet, or any violet color.
[_]
* … "Vouèla
Cendrillon evec yon bel róbe velou grande
lakhè. … Ça té ka bail ou mal ziè.
Li té tini bel
zanneau dans zóreill li, quate-tou-chou, bouoche,
bracelet, tremblant,—toutt sóte bel baggaïe conm
ça." … —[Conte
Cendrillon,—d'après Turiault.]
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—"There was Cendrillon with a beautiful long trailing robe of
velvet on her! … It was enough to hurt one's eyes to look at
her! She had beautiful rings in her ears, and a collier-choux
of four rows, brooches, tremblants, bracelets,—everything
fine of that sort."—[Story of Cinderella in Turinault's
Creole Grammar.
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