Lisette quitté la plaine

A fascinating presentation on an early piece of Haitian Creole music from the mid-18th century by Jean Bernard Cerin. Anything about the origins of our language and early musical and literary uses of it are worth exploring.

Sued Badillo and the Theme of the Indigenous in the Hispanic Caribbean

Jalil Sued Badillo's essay, "The Theme of the Indigenous in the National Projects of the Hispanic Caribbean", published in Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings should be required reading for anyone and everyone interested in Taino revivalism, Puerto Rican cultural identity, the rise of the mixed-race Creole culture of the peasantry by the 17th century, and nationalism in the Spanish Caribbean setting. Sued Badillo makes a convincing case for the survival, persistence and cultural reproduction of indigenous Puerto Rican and Caribbean peoples well after the mid-1500s. But, over time, this social and cultural reproduction became something new that people of European and African origin also participated in, leading to the distinct Creole identities of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. This, in turn, became a central theme for the construction of national identities, as the peasantry best represented the continuity with the indigenous past and the ""national" character. As illustrated in Sued Badillo's article, 19th century Puerto Rican nationalists called the jibaros of Borinquen the children of Agueybana.

For our interests, Sued Badillo's documentation of "Indian" communities after the middle of the 16th century was most important. It was not solely in Cuba, where "Indian" pueblos and barrios existed long after 1600. For instance, on Hispaniola, he mentions the "Indian" pueblo of Boya, an attempt by Hispaniola encomienda "Indians" to form another town, and the prominence of "Indians" and "mestizos" in western Hispaniola, where smuggling and contraband with other Europeans was common, leading to some mestizos and "mulatos" becoming wealthy. Indeed, this probably explains why Samuel de Champlain, writing in 1599, mentions "Indians" in Hispaniola who trade with the French. These "Indians" and mestizos who continued to trade with Europeans and develop their own contraband economy were also part of the creation of a new creole identity on Hispaniola as "Indians" and mestizos were joined by people of African descent that resisted the colonial government in Santo Domingo. One can see the rustic "monteros" of the 19th and 20th century Dominican Republic emerging from these forebears.

Moreover, something similar occurred in colonial Puerto Rico just as colonial officials were proclaiming the disappearance of "Indians" and mestizos. Some did so, as pointed out by Sued Badillo, to mask the fact that they continued to purchase and exploit enslaved "Indians" from other lands long after the New Laws of 1542. Such an honor appears to apply to the governor of Puerto Rico in the 1560s. Sued Badillo points out the persistence of "Indian" and mestizo communities such as the Quebrada de Dona Catalina, near San Juan. Other "Indians" and mestizos were scattered and pushed onto marginal lands and shifted into the piedmont overlooking the coastal area. These communities, joined by people of European and African origin, gradually increased in population, engaged in subsistence agriculture and commercial exchange for local and foreign markets, and continued to influence colonial society. 

Sued Badillo's analysis of the "Indians" of Mona is likewise enlightening, for it points to indigenous survival on an island which engaged in smuggling, food production (cassava) for other Spanish colonies, and their eventual relocation to the hills of San German and nearby regions sometime before 1685. Unfortunately, Sued Badillo does not explain or speculate on what happened to the "Indian" pueblo of Cibuco, but we are of the opinion that Mona "Indians" and the former residents of the 16th century Cibuco settlement must have both ended up in the region that would eventually be named La Indiera. Perhaps the reappearance of "Indians" on censuses in the late 18th century in the San German area is related to descendants of Cibuco, Mona, and "Indian" or mestizo laborers and convicts transported to Puerto Rico from Venezuela and Mexico in the late 1600s and 1700s, but the censuses do not provide adequate information to ascertain this. An alternative and equally speculative theory could be related to land control and access, as mestizos" and people who may have had distant "Indian" ancestry in western Puerto Rico tried to defend their property or local autonomy in the late 18th century and early 19th century. 

Overall, Sued Badillo's persuasive article demonstrates not only "Indian" survival" in the Spanish Caribbean, but significant "Indian" contributions to the rise of the "mestizo" creole culture. He does not seek to romanticize it, as it was not egalitarian and suffered from some of the same racial hierarchies and problems inherent to its colonial setting. Nor does Sued Badillo seek to exaggerate the population of "Indians" or mistakenly equate jibaros with "Indians" as some Taino revivalists argue. But the indigenous population and its racially mixed-progeny provided much of the basic structure of the nascent creole identity, even as officials denied the existence of "Indians" and even "mestizos" disappear. This perspective was adopted by historians who failed to see how the social and economic conditions of the Spanish Caribbean in the late 1500s and early 1600s favored "Indians" and mestizos through contraband trade, migration away from colonial towns, and a degree of autonomy that allowed for population growth. As for the fate of "mestizos" in the region, Schwartz's article suggests it is very likely that many mestizos became whites (or perhaps even "blancos de la tierra), while others were lumped into the "pardo" category in a process seen for much of Puerto Rico by Abbad y Lasierra in the 18th century. More works remains to be done on this process, as well as the experiences of "Indians" in La Indiera during the late 18th century. 

Works Cited

Castanha, Tony. The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Borikén (Puerto Rico). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Schmidt, Peter R., and Thomas C. Patterson, eds. Making Alternative Histories: The Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-western Settings. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 2003.

Schwartz, Stuart B. “Spaniards, ‘Pardos’, and the Missing Mestizos: Identities and Racial Categories in the Early Hispanic Caribbean.” NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 71, no. 1/2 (1997): 5–19.

Orgueil

 

A day for Creole music is today. Djet-X was one of the best in kompa music, with catchy lyrics and horn arrangements.

Félix Morisseau-Leroy sur la place et l'importance du créole en Haïti. (interview de 1957)

Felix Morisseau-Leroy speaks about Haitian Creole and its place and value as a language like any other and his adaptation of Antigone for a Haitian setting. Morisseau-Leroy was one of the more interesting 20th century writers from our homeland whose life and work should inspire us. 

Regrèt Nèt

Joel Lorquet's 1981 graphic novel, Regrèt Nèt, is an interesting read on a tragic subject: boat people. Written at a time when the boat people crisis was more frequent and demonization of Haitians was on the rise, it tells the tale of an unfortunate man whose miraculous survival ends in humiliation and defeat. While Lorquet's art style is a little too simplistic for my taste, he manages to convey in words and illustration the shame, fear, suffering, and all-too-human pain of misery that compels one to risk one's life in search of opportunity. The only other writer who has managed to capture the life of Haitian boat people like this is Edwidge Danticat in Krik Krak. Like Danticat's later short story, Lorquet's graphic novel conveys the full scope of the eponymous character's motivations for leaving Haiti as well as the harrowing journey doomed to end in tragedy.

I have long thought of slave ships when reading disheartening stories of boat people drowning at sea. The fate of Regrèt Nèt's ship brings this home. Indeed, the ship is destroyed a storm and crashing into reefs, which leads to many on board committing suicide. Although their trip to Miami was only to last 2 days, they're at sea for over a week without enough supplies. The crammed conditions below the deck, with an insufferable heat, are full of hungry people who paid 500 gourdes to risk their lives on this voyage. Tempers are wearing thin, and a fight over a bowl of mayi moulen leads to one man drowning. The dehumanizing conditions of their voyage have turned the passengers against each other. I can see the parallels with our enslaved ancestors who arrived in this hemisphere in similar conditions: crammed  together like sardines, suffering inhumane treatment, subjected to all forms of violence. 

While Regrèt Nèt miraculously survives by grasping a part of the destroyed boat until a ship en route to Puerto Rico rescues him, his fate and backstory are illustrative of the boatpeople dilemma in several ways. First, upon arrival in Puerto Rico, he is forced to take a variety of jobs which he would never have done in Haiti, such as domestic work and cleaning cars. After 8 months of grueling labor that he considered beneath him in Haiti (where he worked as a teacher in a rural school), he is arrested, humiliated, and deported by plane to Haiti, without his 8 months of saving. All of his labor and near-death experiences achieved nothing for him. Thus, he chooses to change his name to Regrèt Nèt, as his decision to try his luck in the land of his dreams achieved nothing but humiliation and shame. Indeed, he sacrificed his life as a schoolteacher, his land, and made promises to his wife and children that will go unfulfilled. 

The overall message of the comic is to urge those considering the risky venture of illegal migration by sea to reconsider. Yet it is very clear how and why the miserable living conditions in Haiti contribute to the pattern and cause many, including the educated Regrèt Nèt, to sacrifice his post as a teacher to find a solution in Mayami. But the multiple layers of exploitation and, for most, death via suicide or shipwreck, illustrate just how persistent the crisis was throughout the 1980s. Unfortunately, just how horrendous conditions were for those detained in centers is not mentioned in the graphic novel, but one can see hints of it in the callous treatment some officers have for Regrèt Nèt in Puerto Rico. Unsurprisingly, the graphic novel avoids any overt reference to the Duvalier dictatorship in fomenting the humanitarian disaster, but a corrupt local officer is bribed before the ship departs from Haiti. Thus, there is Haitian state complicity in the sordid affair.

Lorquet's graphic novel is also interesting to compare with Fanfan's adaptation of Masters of the Dew in Haitian Creole. While Lorquet continues to use French for the narration of his comic, both Fanfan and Lorquet use Creole for the dialogue and appear to have a vision of comics as a medium for the masses. Fanfan was likely the superior artist, since his characters and style are more vivid and memorable, including background scenes or scenery. It would also be interesting to discover to what extent both knew of each other and saw a future for comics in 1980s Haiti, particularly in the media which became increasingly critical of Jean-Claude Duvalier  and successive governments. Were comics to play a didactic role using the vernacular to reach the widest possible audience? What was the relationship between the medium and movements such as ti-legliz?

Atipa Comic Book

Atipa, the first novel in a Creole language, has recently been adapted into a bilingual comic. I would rather read the original novel first, but this is an interesting development that is suggestive of the importance of Atipa in French Guiana's Creole literature and heritage. This is so despite the fact that the novel was ignored for several decades after its initial publication in 1885. From what I have read of the work, most of the novel consists of the eponymous character walking through the streets of Cayenne, engaging his friends and acquaintances in long conversations about a plethora of topics germane to life in the late 19th century in the colony. For anyone interested in the structure of Guianese Creole during this time or the social and cultural world in which Atipa lived would find something valuable in it.

Ouvè Lapôt'la

The same guy who turned a song about social security into a funky boogaloo, also has this irresistible number. There is something about biguine and rhythms from Guadeloupe and Martinique that seamlessly fuse with jazz so well, which is especially evident in the piano here.

Hiram Sampy

Hiram Sampy sings a blues in Louisiana Creole. It's always interesting to hear this language performed in a blues styles. 

Ban mwen an ti bo

Beautiful...

Ludovic Lamothe's Lisette

I have not located a recording of Lamothe himself playing his arrangement of the earliest written Creole poem from Saint Domingue (what is now Haiti), but it's a beautiful melody he chose to adapt this old Creole poem to. It's very distinct from that of Louisiana Creole black slaves (yet both are clearly derived from the same textual source that must have spread to Louisiana through Saint Dominguan immigrants to Louisiana), but a more elegant, stately melody in the form of a Haitian meringue. Here is a jazzy version by Makaya that is quite moving, fusing the lyrics of the poem with Lamothe's arrangement in a jazz vein. Oh, and last but certainly not least, check out a folksy string band rendition of "Lisette." As stated in my previous post on the love poem for a black slave, Lisette, this song epitomizes the cultural (and musical) creolization that led to the flourishing of music in the circum-Caribbean region (which itself has tremendous import for the development of jazz, Haitian mereng, Cuban creolized forms of the contradanza and the son). 

Lisette quitté la plaine

Lisette quitté la plaine

Moin pèdi bonhè moué;

Zié moin semblé fontaine. 

Dépi moin pas miré toué.

Le jou quand moin coupé canne

Moin chongé zanmou moué;

La nouit quand moin dans cabane,

Dans dromi, moin quimbé toué.

Dépi moin pédi Lisette

Moin pas souchiè calinda;

Moin quitté bram-bram sonnette

Moin pas batt Bamboula.

Quand moin contré lautt négress 

Moin pas gagné zié pou li;

Moin pas souchié travail piess,

 Toutt qui chose moin mourri.

Lisette moin tandé nouvelle

To compté bientôt tourné.

Vini donc toujou fidelle

Miré bon passé tandé,

Na pas tardé davantage,

To fait moin assez chagrin,

Moin tant com’zozo dans cage,

Quand yo fait li mouri faim.

According to Potomitan, this old Creole poem was written in 1757 (later published by Moreau de Saint-Mery in 1797) and composed by a white Saint-Dominguan! It's interesting as an example of what would later be known as Haitian Kreyol, as well as how white composers used the language of creolization in ways that were picked up by people of African descent, such as "Lisette," which became a folk song of people of African descent in Louisiana (presumably sometime after Saint-Dominguan refugees and immigrants settled in the area after the Haitian Revolution). Unfortunately, I cannot locate a verison of the song that is more 'traditional,' but here is one excellent arrangement featuring Mattwilda Dobbs. Lescot, the daughter of a Haitian president, also sang "Lisette." Some scholars link "Lisette" to a cocotte musical tradition and see its influence in the more famous "Choucoune" of Oswald Durand, which was set to music by Monton.