They were timid, credulous, extravagantly friendly, affected easily to tears, not cunning enough for their own good, and little capable of concealing or of planning anything. Yet when their eyes were opened, and they understood at last that the strangers had not descended from the skies, their indignation and loathing were well sustained, with a frankness, indeed, which only embittered their condition. They suffered, but could not dissimulate.
But they were at once volatile and of a languid frame, which could not long repel the enticements of wine and passionate excess, liable to petty rages, incapable of concentration, with no power of remembering anything but a benefit, lavish fawners, but not hearty haters, easily persuaded, and easily repenting of everything but hospitality. No abuse of that put the drop of savage blood in motion, till the Spaniards began to regard their women with indiscriminate desire. That was the first outrage for which a Spanish life had to atone. But neither treachery nor cruelty lurked beneath their flowery ways; it was sullen despair which broke their gayety, brief spasms of wrath followed by melancholy. But they could not keep their ideas well enough in hand to lay a plot.
These graceful children, with their curious prognostics of a Creole temper, were not devoid of religion. The Creator has set none of His children in the sun, to work or play, without keeping this hold upon them. They defer to this restraint, with motions more or less instinctive, but can never, in their wildest gambols, break entirely loose. It is not easy to separate the real beliefs of the Haytians from the conjectures of Catholic and Jewish observers. The former were interested to discover analogies which would make it appear that they had been foreordained to conversion; the latter were infested with the notion that they were descendants of one of the Lost Tribes. What, for instance, can be made of the assertion that the Haytian Supreme had a mother? The natives were gentle enough to love such a conception, and to be pleased with the Catholic presentation of it, but this is the only proof we have that they originated it. It would be pleasant to believe that they referred, in some dim way, their sense of the womanly quality back to the great Source of Life.
But the Hebrew coincidences were as eagerly sought.[L] If a cacique remarked to Columbus that he thought good men would be transported to a place of delights, and bad men to a foul and dismal place where darkness reigned, it was deemed to be a reminiscence of Sheol and a later Jewish idea of Paradise. If Anacaona, the charming wife of Caonabo, came forth to meet the Adelantado, at the head of thirty maidens of her household, dancing and singing their native songs, and waving branches of the palm-tree, a variety of Old and New Testament pictures occurred to the mind. Their hospitality and pertinacious sheltering of fugitives was another Oriental trait. But, above all, the horrible oppression to which the Spaniards subjected them, the indignities and sufferings heaped upon them, were considered to fulfil the divine curse which rested upon Jews! What a choice morsel of theology is this!
[Footnote L: Consult a curious book, The Ten Tribes of Israel historically identified with the Aborigines of the Western Hemisphere. By Mrs. Simon. 1836.]
Cabrera found at Cuba, says Humboldt, a variation of the story respecting the first inebriation of Noah. A wild grape grew in all the West India Islands. The natives of Cuba preserved also the tradition of a great terrestrial disturbance, in which water played the chief part. This was probably held by the Haytians also, for we find it again among the Caribs beyond, especially in South America. But Cabrera, mounting with the waters of the Deluge, was not content till he had found in Cuba the ark, the raven and dove, the uncovering of Noah, and his curse; in fact, the Indians were descended from this unfortunate son whom Noah's malediction reduced to nudity, but the Spaniards, descending from another son, inherited his clothes. "Why do you call me a dog?" said an old Indian of seventy years to Cabrera, who had been insulting him. "Did we not both come out of the same large ship that saved us from the waters?"[M]
[Footnote M: Notes on Cuba, containing an Account of its Discovery and
Early History. By Dr. Wurdemann. 1844.]
It is certain that the Haytians believed in continued existence after death, and pointed, as all men do, to the sky, when talking of that subject. They held, indefinitely, that there was some overruling Spirit; but they believed also in malignant influences which it was advisable to propitiate. Their worship was connected with the caverns of the island, those mysterious formations beneath which the strange sounds were heard. The walls of these caverns were covered with pictured distortions, half man, half animal, which yielded to the priests, or butios, interpretations according to the light and shadow. Some of these vaults are lighted through a natural fissure in the roof, and the worship or augury commenced at the moment the sun struck through it. There were movable idols, called Zemés, which represented inferior deities. The Catholic writers call them messengers and mediators, having their own saints in mind. But their forms were sometimes merely animal, a toad, a tortoise with a sun upon its back, and upon each side a star with the moon in her first change; another was a monstrous figure in basalt, representing a head surmounting a female bosom, diminishing to a ball; another was a human figure made from a gypseous stalactite.[N]
[Footnote N: The savages of Martinique kept in their caverns idols made of cotton, in the form of a man, with shining black seeds of the soap-berry (Sapindus) for eyes, and a cotton helmet. These were the original deities of the island. It cannot now be decided whether the cotton thus worshipped was long-staple or upland; but the tendency of the savage mind to make a fetich of its chief thing appears to be universal.]
The cacique took precedence of the butios, in theory, at least, and designated the days for public worship. He led the procession of men and women festively adorned, beating on a drum, to the cavern where the priests awaited them. Presents were offered, and old dances and songs repeated in honor of the Zemés, and of departed caciques. Then the priests broke cakes and distributed the pieces to the heads of families, who carefully kept them till the next festival as amulets and preservatives against disease.