VII.
ONE whose ideas of the people of Grande Anse had I been formed
only by observing the young porteuses of the region on their way
to the other side of the Island, might expect on reaching this
little town to find its population yellow as that of a Chinese
city. But the dominant hue is much darker, although the mixed
element is everywhere visible; and I was at first surprised by
the scarcity of those clear bright skins I supposed to be so
numerous. Some pretty children—notably a pair of twin-sisters,
and perhaps a dozen school-girls from eight to ten years of age—
displayed the same characteristics I have noted in the adult
porteuses of Grande Anse; but within the town itself this
brighter element is in the minority. The predominating race
element of the whole commune is certainly colored (Grande Anse is
even memorable because of the revolt of its hommes de couleur
some fifty years ago);—but the colored population is not
concentrated
in the town; it belongs rather to the valleys and
the heights surrounding the
chef-lieu. Most of the porteuses
are country girls, and I found that even those living in the
village are seldom visible on the streets except when departing
upon a trip or returning from one. An artist wishing to study
the type might, however, pass a day at the bridge of the Rivière
Falaise to advantage, as all the carrier-girls pass it at certain
hours of the morning and evening.
But the best possible occasion on which to observe what my
friend the baker called la belle jeunesse, is a confirmation
day,—when the bishop drives to Grande Anse over the mountains,
and all the population turns out in holiday garb, and the bells
are tapped like tam-tams, and triumphal arches—most awry to
behold!—span the road-way, bearing in clumsiest lettering the
welcome, Vive Monseigneur. On that event, the long procession
of young girls to be confirmed—all in white robes, white veils,
and white satin slippers—is a numerical surprise. It is a moral
surprise also,—to the stranger at least; for it reveals the
struggle of a poverty extraordinary with the self-imposed
obligations of a costly ceremonialism.
No white children ever appear in these processions: there are
not half a dozen white families in the whole urban population of
about seven thousand souls; and those send their sons and
daughters to St. Pierre or Morne Rouge for their religious
training and education. But many of the colored children look
very charming in their costume of confirmation;—you could not
easily recognize one of them as the same little bonne who
brings your morning cup of coffee, or another as the daughter of
a plantation commandeur (overseer's assistant),—a brown slip
of a girl who will probably never wear shoes again. And many of
those white shoes and white veils have been obtained only by the
hardest physical labor and self-denial of poor parents and
relatives: fathers,
brothers, and mothers working with cutlass
and hoe in the snake-swarming cane-fields;—sisters walking bare-footed
every day to St. Pierre and back to earn a few francs a
month.
… While watching such a procession it seemed to me that I could
discern in the features and figures of the young confirmants
something of a prevailing type and tint, and I asked an old
planter beside me if he thought my impression correct.
"Partly," he answered; "there is certainly a tendency towards an
attractive physical type here, but the tendency itself is less
stable than you imagine; it has been changed during the last
twenty years within my own recollection. In different parts of
the island particular types appear and disappear with a
generation. There is a sort of race-fermentation going on, which
gives no fixed result of a positive sort for any great length of
time. It is true that certain elements continue to dominate in
certain communes, but the particular characteristics come and
vanish in the most mysterious way. As to color, I doubt if any
correct classification can be made, especially by a stranger.
Your eyes give you general ideas about a red type, a yellow type,
a brown type; but to the more experienced eyes of a creole,
accustomed to live in the country districts, every individual of
mixed race appears to have a particular color of his own. Take,
for instance, the so-called capre type, which furnishes the
finest physical examples of all,—you, a stranger, are at once
impressed by the general red tint of the variety; but you do not
notice the differences of that tint in different persons, which
are more difficult to observe than shade-differences of yellow or
brown. Now, to me, every capre or capresse has an individual
color; and I do not believe that in all Martinique there are two
half-breeds—not having had the same father and mother—in whom
the tint is precisely the same."
