The sight of a troupe of young girls en bébé, in baby-dress, is really pretty. This costume comprises only a loose embroidered chemise, laoe-edged pantalettes, and a child's cap; the whole being decorated with bright ribbons of various colors. As the dress is short and leaves much of the lower limbs exposed, there is ample opportunity for display of tinted stockings and elegant slippers.
The "molasses-negro" wears nothing but a cloth around his loins;—his whole body and face being smeared with an atrocious mixture of soot and molasses. He is supposed to represent the original African ancestor.
The devilesses (diablesses)are few in number; for it requires a very tall woman to play deviless. These are robed all in black, with a white turban and white foulard; they wear black masks. They also carry boms (large tin cans), which they allow to fall upon the pavement from time to time; and they walk barefoot.... The deviless (in true Bitaco idiom, "guiablesse") represents a singular Martinique superstition. It is said that sometimes at noonday a beautiful negress passes silently through some isolated plantation,—smiling at the workers in the cane-fields,—tempting men to follow her. But he who follows her never comes back again; and when a field hand mysteriously disappears, his fellows say, "Y té ka ouè la Guiablesse!"... The tallest among the devilesses always walks first, chanting the question, "Jou ouvè?" (Is it yet daybreak?) And all the others reply in chorus, "Jou pa'ncò ouvè." (It is not yet day.)
—The masks worn by the multitude include very few grotesques: as a rule, they are simply white wire masks, having the form of an oval and regular human face;—and they disguise the wearer absolutely, although they can be seen through perfectly well from within. It struck me at once that this peculiar type of wire mask gave an indescribable tone of ghostliness to the whole exhibition. It is not in the least comical; it is neither comely nor ugly; it is colorless as mist,—expressionless, void, dead;—it lies on the face like a vapor, like a cloud,—creating the idea of a spectral vacuity behind it....
VII
... Now comes the band of the Intrépides, playing the bouèné. It is a dance melody,—also the name of a mode of dancing, peculiar and unrestrained;—the dancers advance and retreat face to face; they hug each other, press together, and separate to embrace again. A very old dance, this,—of African origin; perhaps the same of which Père Labat wrote in 1722:—
—"It is not modest. Nevertheless, it has not failed to become so popular with the Spanish Creoles of America, and so much in vogue among them, that it now forms the chief of their amusements, and that it enters even into their devotions. They dance it even in their Churches, and in their Processions; and the Nuns seldom fail to dance it Christmas Night, upon a stage erected in their Choir and immediately in front of their iron grating, which is left open, so that the People may share in the joy manifested by these good souls for the birth of the Saviour."[19]...
[19]... "Cette danse est opposée à la pudeur. Avec tout cela, elle ne laisse pas d'être tellement du goût des Espagnols Créolles de l'Amérique, & si fort en usage parmi eux, qu'elle fait la meilleure partie de leurs divertissements, & qu'elle entre même dans leurs devotions. Ils la dansent même dans leurs Églises & à leurs processions; et les Religieuses ne manquent guère de la danser la Nuit de Noël, sur un théâtre élevé dans leur Chœur, vis-à-vis de leur grille, qui est ouverte, afin que le Peuple ait sa part dans la joye que ces bonnes âmes témoignent pour la naissance du Sauveur."
VIII
... Every year, on the last day of the Carnival, a droll ceremony used to take place called the "Burial of the Bois-bois,"—the bois-bois being a dummy, a guy, caricaturing the most unpopular thing in city life or in politics. This bois-bois, after having been paraded with mock solemnity through all the ways of St. Pierre, was either interred or "drowned,"—flung into the sea.... And yesterday the dancing societies had announced their intention to bury a bois-bois laverette,—a manikin that was to represent the plague. But this bois-bois does not make its appearance. La Vérette is too terrible a visitor to be made fun of, my friends;—you will not laugh at her, because you dare not....