LETTER XIX.
It is Sunday, and, separated by the wide Atlantic, I take up my pen to hallow the sabbath to my friend. Mentally I am every day in your society: but on the sabbath I breathe a still warmer aspiration to dear England, and sanctify the wish that we were, personally, nearer. Were you here to participate, with me, the novel scenes which occur to my observation, they would have a double interest, and I should find a charm in many things which now convey only a languid impression.
This is a day of festivity among the slaves. They are passionately fond of dancing; and Sunday offering them an interval from toil, is, generally, devoted to their favorite amusement. Instead of remaining at rest, they undergo more fatigue, or at least more personal exertion, during their gala hours of Saturday night and Sunday, than is demanded from them, in labour, during any four days of the week.
They assemble, in crowds, upon the open green, or in any square or corner of the town, and, forming a ring in the centre of the throng, dance to the sound of their beloved music, and the singing of their favorite African yell. Both music and dance are of a savage nature. Their songs are very simple, but harsh and devoid of melody.
The instrumental parts of the band consist of a species of drum, a kind of rattle, and the ever-delighting banjar. The first is a long hollow piece of wood, with a dried sheep-skin tied over the end; the second is a calabash containing a number of small stones, fixed to a short stick which serves as the handle; and the third is a coarse and rough kind of guitar. While one negro strikes the banjar, another shakes the rattle with great force of arm; a third sitting across the body of the drum, as it lies lengthwise upon the ground, beats and kicks the sheep-skin at the end, in violent exertion with his hands and heels; and a fourth sitting upon the ground at the other end, behind the man upon the drum, beats upon the wooden sides of it with two sticks. Together with these noisy sounds, numbers of the party of both sexes bawl forth their dear delighting song with all possible force of lungs: from the tout ensemble of the scene, a spectator would require only a slight aid from fancy to transport him to the savage wilds of Africa. On great occasions the band is increased by an additional number of drums, rattles, and voices.
The dance consists of stampings of the feet, twistings of the body, and a number of strange indecent attitudes. It is a severe bodily exertion—more bodily indeed than you can well imagine, for the limbs have little to do in it. The head is held erect, or, occasionally, inclined a little forward; the hands nearly meet before; the elbows are fixed, pointing from the sides; and, the lower extremities being held rigid, the whole person is moved without lifting the feet from the ground. Making the head and limbs fixed points, they writhe and turn the body upon its own axis, slowly advancing towards each other, or retreating to the outer parts of the ring. Their approaches, with the figure of the dance, and the attitudes and inflexions in which they are made, are highly indecent: but of this they seem to be wholly unconscious, for the gravity, I might say the solemnity of countenance, under which all this passes, is peculiarly striking, indeed almost ridiculous. Not a smile, not a significant glance, nor an immodest look escapes from either sex: but they meet, in very indecent attitudes, under the most settled, and unmeaning gravity of countenance. Occasionally they change the figure by stamping upon the feet, or making a more general movement of the person, but these are only temporary variations; the twistings and turnings of the body seeming to constitute the supreme excellence of the dance.
For the most part only two enter the ring at a time, but, occasionally, as many as three or four; each making a small contribution to the band at the time of stepping into the circle. They dance, violently, together until one is tired, and when this escapes from the circle another assumes the place, thus continuing to follow, one by one, in succession, so as frequently to keep up the dance, without any interval, for several hours.
The musicians and dancers equally delight in the amusement. They exert themselves until their skins pour off copious streams. The band seem quite insensible to fatigue, for in proportion as the fluid distils from their pores, they increase their efforts, raising their voices, and beating the drum and the rattle, with additional violence; and such of the spectators whose olfactories have no relish for African odours, are sadly annoyed by the high-essenced exhalation which spreads itself around.
As I was looking on, at one of these dances, I observed a soldier’s wife, from the north of Tweed, gazing with curiosity and astonishment amidst the throng; and seeing her features marked with surprise and dissatisfaction, I asked her what she thought of the African dance. “Oot,” said she, “’tis an unco way o’ spending the sabbath night.” And on my asking her if there were any as pretty women in the Highlands of Scotland, she, instantly, replied, “Whether or not—they smell better.”
Presently a soldier, passing that way, and observing the dance, asked a mulatto who was standing by, for a cud of tobacco, and twisting it between his lower lip and his teeth, forced his path, through the crowd, into the middle of the ring; and there placing himself, between the negro and the girl who were dancing, set the nymph in African step and figure. Wowski was responsive, and they danced, cordially, together; but soon finished by footing it, in quick step, from the ring, happily enfolded in each others’ arms, to the great disappointment of poor Sambo; who, no doubt, thought to regain his partner as soon as the soldier had grown tired in the dance.
Near this merry green I witnessed a sad fracas between a negro man and woman, in consequence of gaming; which is a very prevailing passion among the blacks.
Having led you to the loud song, and sprightly dance of the slaves, let me now conduct you to their bed of death. Seeing a crowd in one of the streets, and observing a kind of procession, we joined the multitude, and soon found ourselves in the train of a negro funeral. Wishing to be present at the ceremony of interment, we proceeded to the burial-ground, with the throng. The corpse was conveyed in a neat small hearse, drawn by one horse. Six boys, twelve men, and forty-eight women walked behind, in pairs, as followers, but I cannot say as deeply afflicted mourners. The females were neatly clad, for the occasion, being mostly in white. Grief and lamentations were not among them: nor was even the semblance thereof assumed. No solemn dirge was heard: no deep-sounding bell was tolled: no fearful silence held. It seemed a period of mirth and joy! Instead of weeping and bewailing, the attendants jumped and sported, as they passed along, and talked and laughed, with each other, in high festivity. The procession was closed by five robust negro fishermen, who came behind playing antic gambols, and dancing all the way to the grave.
At the gate of the burying-ground the corpse was taken from the hearse, and borne by eight negroes, not upon their shoulders, but upon four clean white napkins placed under the coffin. The body was committed to the grave, immediately on reaching it, without either prayer or ceremony; and the coffin, directly, covered with earth. In doing this, much decent attention was preserved. The mould was not shovelled in roughly with the spade, almost disturbing the dead, with the rattling of stones and bones upon the coffin, but was first put into a basket, and then carefully emptied into the grave; an observance which might be adopted in England very much to the comfort of the afflicted friends of the deceased.
During this process an old negro woman chanted an African air, the multitude joining in chorus. It was not in the strain of a solemn requiem, but was loud and lively, in unison with the other gaieties of the occasion.
Many were laughing and sporting all the time with the fishermen, who danced and gambolled upon the neighbouring graves during the ceremony. From the moment the coffin was committed to the earth, nothing of order was maintained by the party: but the attendants dispersed in various directions, retiring, or remaining, during the filling up of the grave, as inclination seemed to lead.
When the whole of the earth was replaced, several of the women, who had stayed to chant, in merry song, over poor Jenny’s remains, took up each a handful of the mould, and threw it down upon the grave of their departed friend, as the finishing of the ceremony, crying aloud, “God bless you, Jenny! good-by! remember me to all friends t’ other side of the sea, Jenny! Tell ’em me come soon! Good-by, Jenny, good-by! See for send me good——to-night, Jenny! Good-by, good night, Jenny, good-by!” All this was uttered in mirth and laughter, and accompanied with attitudes and gesticulations expressive of any thing but sorrow or sadness.
From the grave-digger we learned that poor Jenny had been a washerwoman, and that the females who had, so merrily, sounded her requiem, had been her sud associates. They had full faith in Jenny’s transmigration to meet her friends, at her place of nativity: and their persuasion that death was only a removal from their present to their former home; a mere change from a state of slavery to a state of freedom; did not barely alleviate, but wholly prevented the natural grief and affliction arising from the loss of a friend. They confidently expected to hear from poor Jenny, or to know her influence in the way they most desired, before morning.
The faith of these poor ignorant slaves, regarding a happy transmigration, after death, might seem calculated to lead them to the crime of suicide; and, this effect of their superstition is said not to have been unfrequent among them. A tale is told of a singular remedy having been practised against this fatal proceeding of the negroes. Several individuals of a gang having hanged themselves in order to escape from a cruel master; and others being about to avoid his severities by similar means, he prevented them, by the happy expedient of threatening to hang himself, also, and to transmigrate, with them, carrying the whip in his hand, into their own country; where he would punish them ten times more severely than he had hitherto done. The stratagem is said to have succeeded. Finding they could not, thus, escape from the tyrannic lash, they resolved, rather than receive disgraceful stripes, among their African friends, to continue their existence under all the hardships of slavery.