II.
THE legend of "Missié Bon" had prepared me to hear without
surprise the details of a still more singular
tradition,—that
of Father Labat. … I was returning from a mountain ramble with
my guide, by way of the Ajoupa-Bouillon road;—the sun had gone
down; there remained only a blood-red glow in the west, against
which the silhouettes of the hills took a velvety blackness
indescribably soft; the stars were beginning to twinkle out
everywhere through the violet. Suddenly I noticed on the flank
of a neighboring morne—which I remembered by day as an
apparently uninhabitable wilderness of bamboos, tree-ferns, and
balisiers—a swiftly moving point of yellow light. My guide had
observed it simultaneously;—he crossed himself, and exclaimed:
"Moin ka couè c'est fanal Pè Labatt!" (I believe it is the
lantern of Perè Labat.)
"Does he live there?" I innocently inquired.
"Live there?—why he has been dead hundreds of years! …
Ouill! you never heard of Pè Labatt?" …
"Not the same who wrote a book about Martinique?"
"Yes,—himself. … They say he comes back at night. Ask mother
about him;—she knows." …
… I questioned old Théréza as soon as we reached home; and she
told me all she knew about "Pè Labatt." I found that the father
had left a reputation far more wide-spread than the recollection
of "Missié Bon,"—that his memory had created, in fact, the most
impressive legend in all Martinique folk-lore.
"Whether you really saw Pè Labatt's lantern," said old Thereza,
"I do not know;—there are a great many queer lights to be seen
after nightfall among these mornes. Some are zombi-fires; and
some are lanterns carried by living men; and some are lights
burning in ajoupas so high up that you can only see a gleam
coming through the trees now and then. It is not everybody who
sees the lantern of Pè Labatt; and it is not good-luck to see it.
"Pè Labatt was a priest who lived here hundreds of
years ago; and
he wrote a book about what he saw. He was the first person to
introduce slavery into Martinique; and it is thought that is why
he comes back at night. It is his penance for having established
slavery here.
"They used to say, before 1848, that when slavery should be
abolished, Pè Labatt's light would not be seen any more. But I
can remember very well when slavery was abolished; and I saw the
light many a time after. It used to move up the Morne d'Orange
every clear night;—I could see it very well from my window when
I lived in St. Pierre. You knew it was Pè Labatt, because the
light passed up places where no man could walk. But since the
statue of Notre Dame de la Garde was placed on the Morne
d'Orange, people tell me that the light is not seen there any
more.
"But it is seen elsewhere; and it is not good-luck to see it.
Everybody is afraid of seeing it. … And mothers tell their
children, when the little ones are naughty: 'Mi! moin ké fai Pè
Labatt vini pouend ou,—oui!' (I will make Pè Labatt come and
take you away.)". …
What old Théréza stated regarding the establishment of slavery in
Martinique by Père Labat, I knew required no investigation,—
inasmuch as slavery was a flourishing institution in the time of
Père Dutertre, another Dominican missionary and historian, who
wrote his book,—a queer book in old
French, *—before
Labat was born.
But it did not take me long to find out that such was the
general belief about Père Labat's sin and penance, and to
ascertain that his name is indeed used to frighten naughty
children. Eh! ti manmaille-là, moin ké fai Pè Labatt vini
pouend ou!—is an exclamation often heard
in the vicinity of
ajoupas just about the hour when all found a good little children
ought to be in bed and asleep.
… The first variation of the legend I heard was on a
plantation in the neighborhood of Ajoupa-Bouillon. There I was
informed that Père Labat had come to his death by the bite of a
snake,—the hugest snake that ever was seen in Martinique. Perè
Labat had believed it possible to exterminate the fer-de-lance,
and had adopted extraordinary measures for its destruction. On
receiving his death-wound he exclaimed, "C'est pè toutt sépent
qui té ka módé moin" (It is the Father of all Snakes that has
bitten me); and he vowed that he would come back to destroy the
brood, and would haunt the island until there should be not one
snake left. And the light that moves about the peaks at night is
the lantern of Père Labat still hunting for snakes.
"Ou pa pè suive ti limié-là piess!" continued my informant.
"You cannot follow that little light at all;—when you first see
it, it is perhaps only a kilometre away; the next moment it is
two, three, or four kilometres away."
I was also told that the light is frequently seen near Grande
Anse, on the other side of the island,—and on the heights of La
Caravelle, the long fantastic promontory that reaches three
leagues into the sea south of the harbor of La
Trinité. *
And on my return to St. Pierre I
found a totally different
version of the legend;—my informant being one Manm-Robert, a
kind old soul who kept a little
boutique-lapacotte (a little
booth where cooked food is sold) near the precipitous Street of
the Friendships.
… "Ah! Pè Labatt, oui!" she exclaimed, at my first
question,—"Pè Labatt was a good priest who lived here very long
ago. And they did him a great wrong here;—they gave him a
wicked coup d'langue (tongue wound); and the hurt given by an
evil tongue is worse than a serpent's bite. They lied about him;
they slandered him until they got him sent away from the country.
But before the Government 'embarked' him, when he got to that
quay, he took off his shoe and he shook the dust of his shoe upon
that quay, and he said: 'I curse you, 0 Martinique!—I curse you!
There will be food for nothing, and your people will not even be
able to buy it! There will be clothing material for nothing, and
your people will not be able to get so much as one dress! And the
children will beat their mothers! … You banish me;—but I will
come back again.'" *
"And then what happened, Manm-Robert ?"
"Eh! fouinq! chè, all that Pè Labatt said has come true. There
is food for almost nothing, and people are starving here in St.
Pierre; there is clothing for almost nothing, and poor girls
cannot earn enough to buy a dress. The pretty printed calicoes
(indiennes) that used to be two francs and a half the metre,
now sell at twelve sous the metre; but nobody has any money. And
if you read our papers,—Les Colonies, La Defense Coloniale,—
you will find that there are sons wicked enough to beat their
mothers: oui! yche ka batt manman! It is the malediction of Pè
Labatt."
This was all that Manm-Robert could tell me. Who had related
the story to her? Her mother. Whence had her mother obtained
it? From her grandmother. … Subsequently I found many persons
to confirm the tradition of the curse,—precisely as Manm-Robert
had related it.
Only a brief while after this little interview I was invited to
pass an afternoon at the home of a gentleman residing upon the
Morne d' Orange,—the locality supposed to be especially haunted
by Père Labat. The house of Monsieur M— stands on the side of
the hill, fully five hundred feet up, and in a grove of trees: an
antiquated dwelling, with foundations massive as the walls of a
fortress, and huge broad balconies of stone. From one of these
balconies there is a view of the city, the harbor and Pelée,
which I believe even those who have seen Naples would confess to
be one of the fairest sights in the world. … Towards evening I
obtained a chance to ask my kind host some questions about the
legend of his neighborhood.
… "Ever since I was a child," observed Monsieur M—, "I heard
it said that Père Labat haunted this mountain, and I often saw
what was alleged to be his light. It looked very much like a
lantern swinging in
the hand of some one climbing the hill. A
queer fact was that it used to come from the direction of Carbet,
skirt the Morne d'Orange a few hundred feet above the road, and
then move up the face of what seemed a sheer precipice. Of
course somebody carried that light,—probably a negro; and
perhaps the cliff is not so inaccessible as it looks: still, we
could never discover who the individual was, nor could we imagine
what his purpose might have been. … But the light has not been
seen here now for years."
[_]
* "Histoire
Générale des Antilles … habités par les Français."
Par le R. P. Du Tertre, de l'Ordre des Frères Prescheurs.
Paris: 1661-71. 4 vols.
(with illustrations) in 4to.
[_]
* One of the lights
seen on the Caravelle was certainly carried
by a cattle-thief,—a colossal negro who had the reputation of
being a sorcerer ,—a quimboiseur. The greater part of the
mountainous land forming La Caravelle promontory was at that time
the property of a Monsieur Eustache, who used it merely for
cattle-raising purposes. He allowed his animals to run wild in
the hills; they multiplied exceedingly, and became very savage.
Notwithstanding their ferocity, however, large numbers of them
were driven away at night, and secretly slaughtered or sold, by
somebody who used to practise the art of cattle-stealing with a
lantern, and evidently without aid. A watch was set, and the
thief arrested. Before the magistrate he displayed extraordinary
assurance, asserting that he had never stolen from a poor man—he
had stolen only from M. Eustache who could not count his own
cattle—yon richard, man chè! "How many cows did you steal from
him?" asked the magistrate. "Ess moin pè save?—moin té pouend
yon savane toutt pleine," replied the prisoner. (How can I
tell?—I took a whole savanna-full.) … Condemned on the
strength of his own confession, he was taken to jail. "Moin pa
ké rété geole," he observed. (I shall not remain in prison.)
They put him in irons, but on the following morning the irons
were found lying on the floor of the cell, and the prisoner was
gone. He was never seen in Martinique again.
[_]
* Y sucoué souyé
assous quai-là;—y ka di: "Moin ka maudi ou, Lanmatinique!—moin
ka maudi ou! … Ké ni mangé pou engnien: ou pa ké pè
menm acheté y! Ké ni touèle pou engnien: ou pa ké pè menm
acheté yon robe! Epi yche ké batt manman. … Ou banni moin!—moin
ké vini encó"