10. BÊTE-NI-PIÉ.
I.
ST. Pierre is in one respect fortunate beyond many tropical
cities;—she has scarcely any mosquitoes, although there are
plenty of mosquitoes in other parts of Martinique, even in the
higher mountain villages. The flood of bright water that pours
perpetually through all her streets, renders her comparatively
free from the pest;—nobody sleeps under a mosquito bar.
Nevertheless, St. Pierre is not exempt from other peculiar
plagues of tropical life; and you cannot be too careful about
examining your bed before venturing to lie down, and your
clothing before you dress;—for various disagreeable things might
be hiding in them: a spider large as a big crab, or a scorpion or
a mabouya or a centipede,—or certain large ants whose bite burns
like the pricking of a red-hot needle. No one who has lived in
St. Pierre is likely to forget the ants. … There are three or
four kinds in every house;—the fourmi fou (mad ant), a little
speckled yellowish creature whose movements are so rapid as to
delude the vision; the great black ant which allows itself to be
killed before it lets go what it has bitten; the venomous little
red ant, which is almost too small to see; and the small black
ant which does not bite at all,—are usually omnipresent, and
appear to dwell together in harmony. They are pests in kitchens,
cupboards, and safes; but they are scavengers. It is marvellous
to see them carrying away the body of a great dead roach or
centipede,—pulling and pushing
together like trained laborers,
and guiding the corpse over obstacles or around them with
extraordinary skill. … There was a time when ants almost destroyed
the colony,—in 1751. The plantations, devastated by them are described
by historians as having looked as if desolated by fire. Underneath
the ground in certain places, layers of their eggs two inches
deep were found extending over acres. Infants left unwatched in
the cradle for a few hours were devoured alive by them. Immense
balls of living ants were washed ashore at the same time on
various parts of the coast {a phenomenon repeated within the
memory of creoles now living in the north-east parishes). The
Government vainly offered rewards for the best means of
destroying the insects; but the plague gradually disappeared as
it came.
None of these creatures can be prevented from entering a
dwelling;—you may as well resign yourself to the certainty of
meeting with them from time to time. The great spiders (with the
exception of those which are hairy) need excite no alarm or
disgust;—indeed they are suffered to live unmolested in many
houses, partly owing to a belief that they bring good-luck, and
partly because they destroy multitudes of those enormous and
noisome roaches which spoil whatever they cannot eat. The
scorpion is less common; but it has a detestable habit of lurking
under beds; and its bite communicates a burning fever. With far
less reason, the mabouya is almost equally feared. It is a
little lizard about six inches long, and ashen-colored;—it
haunts only the interior of houses, while the bright-green
lizards dwell only upon the roofs. Like other reptiles of the
same order, the mabouya can run over or cling to polished
surfaces; and there is a popular belief that if frightened, it
will leap at one's face or hands and there fasten itself so
tightly that it cannot be dislodged except by cutting it to
pieces. Moreover, it's feet are supposed to have the
power of leaving certain livid and ineffaceable marks upon the skin of
the person to whom it attaches itself:—
ça ka ba ou lota, say
the colored people. Nevertheless, there is no creature more
timid and harmless than the mabouya.
But the most dreaded and the most insolent invader of domestic
peace is the centipede. The water system of the city banished
the mosquito; but it introduced the centipede into almost every
dwelling. St. Pierre has a plague of centipedes. All the
covered drains, the gutters, the crevices of fountain-basins and
bathing-basins, the spaces between floor and ground, shelter
centipedes. And the bête à-mille-pattes is the terror of the
barefooted population:—scarcely a day passes that some child or
bonne or workman is not bitten by the creature.
The sight of a full-grown centipede is enough to affect a strong
set of nerves. Ten to eleven inches is the average length of
adults; but extraordinary individuals much exceeding this
dimension may be sometimes observed in the neighborhood of
distilleries (rhommeries) and sugar-refineries. According to
age, the color of the creature varies from yellowish to black;—
the younger ones often have several different tints; the old ones
are uniformly jet-black, and have a carapace of surprising
toughness,—difficult to break. If you tread, by accident or
design, upon the tail, the poisonous head will instantly curl
back and bite the foot through any ordinary thickness of upper-leather.
As
a general rule the centipede lurks about the court-yards,
foundations, and drains by preference; but in the season of heavy
rains he does not hesitate to move upstairs, and make himself at
home in parlors and bed-rooms. He has a provoking habit of
nestling in your moresques or your chinoises,—those wide light
garments you put on before taking your siesta or retiring for the
night. He also likes to get into your umbrella,—an article
indispensable in the tropics; and you had better never
open it carelessly. He may even take a notion to curl himself up
in your hat, suspended on the wall. (I have known a
trigonocephalus to do the same thing in a country-house). He has
also a singular custom of mounting upon the long trailing dresses
(douillettes) worn by Martinique women,—and climbing up very
swiftly and lightly to the wearer's neck, where the prickling of
his feet first betrays his presence. Sometimes he will get into
bed with you and bite you, because you have not resolution
enough to lie perfectly still while he is tickling you. … It is
well to remember before dressing that merely shaking a garment
may not dislodge him;—you must examine every part very
patiently,—particularly the sleeves of a coat and the legs of
pantaloons.
The vitality of the creature is amazing. I kept one in a bottle
without food or water for thirteen weeks, at the end of which
time it remained active and dangerous as ever. Then I fed it
with living insects, which it devoured ravenously;—beetles,
roaches, earthworms, several lepismaoe, even one of the
dangerous-looking millepedes, which have a great resemblance in
outward structure to the centipede, but a thinner body, and more
numerous limbs,—all seemed equally palatable to the prisoner. …
I knew an instance of one, nearly a foot long, remaining in a
silk parasol for more than four months, and emerging unexpectedly
one day, with aggressiveness undiminished, to bite the hand that
had involuntarily given it deliverance.
In the city the centipede has but one natural enemy able to cope
with him,—the hen! The hen attacks him with delight, and often
swallows him, head first, without taking the trouble to kill him.
The cat hunts him, but she is careful never to put her head near
him;—she has a trick of whirling him round and round upon the
floor so quickly as to stupefy him: then, when she sees a
good chance, she strikes him dead with her claws. But if you
are fond of your cat you will let her run no risks, as the bite
of a large centipede might have very bad results for your pet.
Its quickness of movement demands all the quickness of even the
cat for self-defence. … I know of men who have proved
themselves able to seize a fer-de-lance by the tail, whirl it
round and round, and then flip it as you would crack a whip,—
whereupon the terrible head flies off; but I never heard of
anyone in Martinique daring to handle a living centipede.
There are superstitions concerning the creature which have a
good effect in diminishing his tribe. If you kill a centipede,
you are sure to receive money soon; and even if you dream of
killing one it is good-luck. Consequently, people are glad of any
chance to kill centipedes,—usually taking a heavy stone or some
iron utensil for the work;—a wooden stick is not a good weapon.
There is always a little excitement when a bête-ni-pié (as the
centipede is termed in the patois) exposes itself to death; and
you may often hear those who kill it uttering a sort of litany of
abuse with every blow, as if addressing a human enemy:—"Quitté
moin tchoué ou, maudi!—quitté moin tchoué ou, scelerat!—
quitté moin tchoué ou, Satan!—quitté moin tchoué ou, abonocio!"
etc. (Let me kill you, accursed! scoundrel! Satan! abomination!)
The patois term for the centipede is not a mere corruption of the
French bête-à-mille-pattes. Among a population of slaves, unable
to read or write, * there were only the vaguest conceptions of
numerical values; and the French term bête-à-mille-pattes was not
one which could appeal to negro imagination. The slaves themselves
invented an equally vivid name, bête-anni-pié (the
Beast-which-is-all-feet);
anni in creole signifying "only," and in such a sense
"all." Abbreviated by subsequent usage to
bête-'ni-pié, the
appellation has amphibology;—for there are two words
ni in the
patois, one signifying "to have," and the other "naked." So that
the creole for a centipede might be translated in three ways,
—"the Beast-which-is-all-feet"; or, "the Naked-footed Beast";
or, with fine irony of affirmation, "the Beast-which-has-feet."
[_]
* According to the Martinique "Annuaire" for 1887, there were
even then, out of a total population of 173,182, no less than
12,366 able to read and write.
II.
WHAT is the secret of that horror inspired by the centipede? …
It is but very faintly related to our knowledge that the creature
is venomous;—the results of the bite are only temporary swelling
and a brief fever;—it is less to be feared than the bite of
other tropical insects and reptiles which never inspire the same
loathing by their aspect. And the shapes of venomous creatures
are not always shapes of ugliness. The serpent has elegance of
form as well as attractions of metallic tinting;—the tarantula,
or the matoutou-falaise, have geometrical beauty. Lapidaries
have in all ages expended rare skill upon imitations of serpent
grace in gold and gems;—a princess would not scorn to wear a
diamond spider. But what art could utilize successfully the form
of the centipede? It is a form of absolute repulsiveness,—a
skeleton-shape half defined:—the suggestion of some old reptile-spine
astir, crawling with its fragments of ribs.
No other living thing excites exactly the same feeling produced
by the sight of the centipede,—the intense loathing and peculiar
fear. The instant you see a centipede you feel it is absolutely
necessary to kill it; you cannot find peace in your house while
you know that such a life exists in it: perhaps the intrusion of
a serpent would annoy and disgust you less. And it is not
easy to explain the whole reason of this loathing. The form
alone has, of course, something to do with it,—a form that seems
almost a departure from natural laws. But the form alone does not
produce the full effect, which is only experienced when you see
the creature in motion. The true horror of the centipede,
perhaps, must be due to the monstrosity of its movement,—
multiple and complex, as of a chain of pursuing and inter-
devouring lives: there is something about it that makes you
recoil, as from a sudden corrupt swarming-out. It is confusing,
—a series of contractings and lengthenings and, undulations so
rapid as to allow of being only half seen: it alarms also,
because the thing seems perpetually about to disappear, and
because you know that to lose sight of it for one moment involves
the very unpleasant chance of finding it upon you the next,—
perhaps between skin and clothing.
But this is not all:—the sensation produced by the centipede is
still more complex—complex, in fact, as the visible organization
of the creature. For, during pursuit,—whether retreating or
attacking, in hiding or fleeing,—it displays a something which
seems more than instinct: calculation and cunning,—a sort of
malevolent intelligence. It knows how to delude, how to
terrify;—it has marvellous skill in feinting;—it is an
abominable juggler. …
III.
I AM about to leave my room after breakfast, when little Victoire
who carries the meals up-stairs in a wooden tray, screams out:—
"Gadé, Missié! ni bête-ni-pié assous dos ou!" There is a thousand-footed
beast upon my back!".
Off goes my coat, which I throw upon the floor;—the little
servant, who has a nervous horror of centipedes, climbs upon a
chair. I cannot see anything upon the
coat, nevertheless;—I
lift it by the collar, turn it about very cautiously—nothing!
Suddenly the child screams again; and I perceive the head close
to my hand;—the execrable thing had been hiding in a perpendicular
fold of the coat, which I drop only just in time to escape getting
bitten. Immediately the centipede becomes invisible. Then I take
the coat by one flap, and turn it over very quickly: just as
quickly does the centipede pass over it in the inverse direction,
and disappear under it again. I have had my first good look at
him: he seems nearly a foot long,—has a greenish-yellow hue
against the black cloth,—and pink legs, and a violet head;—he
is evidently young. … I turn the coat a second time: same
disgusting manreuvre. Undulations of livid color flow over him
as he lengthens and shortens;—while running his shape is but
half apparent; it is only as he makes a half pause in doubling
round and under the coat that the panic of his legs becomes
discernible. When he is fully exposed they move with invisible
rapidity,—like a vibration;—you can see only a sort of pink haze
extending about him,—something to which you would no more dare
advance your finger than to the vapory halo edging a circular
saw in motion. Twice more I turn and re-turn the coat with the
same result;—I observe that the centipede always runs towards
my hand, until I withdraw it: he feints!
With a stick I uplift one portion of the coat after another; and
suddenly perceive him curved under a sleeve,—looking quite
small!—how could he have seemed so large a moment ago? … But
before I can strike him he has flickered over the cloth again,
and vanished; and I discover that he has the power of magnifying
himself,—dilating the disgust of his shape at will: he
invariably amplifies himself to face attack. …
It seems very difficult to dislodge him; he displays astonishing activity
and cunning at finding wrinkles and
folds to hide in. Even at the risk
of damaging various things in the pockets, I stamp upon the coat;
—then lift it up with the expectation of finding the creature dead.
But it suddenly rushes out from some part or other, looking larger
and more wicked than ever,—drops to the floor, and charges at my
feet: a sortie! I strike at him unsuccessfully with the stick:
he retreats to the angle between wainscoting and floor, and runs
along it fast as a railroad train,—dodges two or three pokes,
—gains the door-frame,—glides behind a hinge, and commences to
run over the wall of the stair-way. There the hand of a black
servant slaps him dead.
—"Always strike at the head," the servant tells me; "never
tread on the tail. … This is a small one: the big fellows can
make you afraid if you do not know how to kill them."
… I pick up the carcass with a pair of scissors. It does not
look formidable now that it is all contracted;—it is scarcely
eight inches long,—thin as card-board, and even less heavy. It
has no substantiality, no weight;—it is a mere appearance, a
mask, a delusion. … But remembering the spectral, cunning,
juggling something which magnified and moved it but a moment
ago,—I feel almost tempted to believe, with certain savages,
that there are animal shapes inhabited by goblins. …
IV.
—"IS there anything still living and lurking in old black drains
of Thought,—any bigotry, any prejudice, anything in the moral
world whereunto the centipede may be likened?"
—"Really, I do not know," replied the friend to whom I had put
the question; "but you need only go as far as the vegetable world
for a likeness. Did you ever see anything like this?" he added,
opening a drawer
and taking therefrom something revolting, which,
as he pressed it in his hand, looked like a long thick bundle of
dried centipedes.
—"Touch them," he said, holding out to me the mass of
articulated flat bodies and bristling legs.
—"Not for anything!" I replied, in astonished disgust. He
laughed, and opened his hand. As he did so, the mass expanded.
—"Now look," he exclaimed!
Then I saw that all the bodies were united at the tails—grew
together upon one thick flat annulated stalk … a plant!—"But
here is the fruit," he continued, taking from the same drawer a
beautifully embossed ovoid nut, large as a duck's egg, ruddy-colored,
and so exquisitely varnished by nature as to resemble a
rosewood carving fresh from the hands of the cabinet-maker. In
its proper place among the leaves and branches, it had the
appearance of something delicious being devoured by a multitude
of centipedes. Inside was a kernel, hard and heavy as iron-wood;
but this in time, I was told, falls into dust: though the
beautiful shell remains always perfect.
Negroes call it the coco-macaque.