Bahá’í World/Volume 9/Haiti, the Magic Isle
27.
HAITI, THE MAGIC ISLE
BY AMELIE PUMPELLY BATES
IT has been called the magic isle, this Tibet of the western world, a place where anything can happen—a land of mystery and enchantment both terrible and wonderful. There one finds startling extremes of beauty and ugliness, wealth and poverty, privilege and prejudice. Here the transitoriness of life pursues one from the cradle to the grave, where an exuberance of life walks in the shadow of death, and the sound of mourning is mingled with the beat of drums and singing and dancing; here one is forced to adopt an attitude of mystical fatalism.
To me, product of the north, with its natural limitations, restraints, and narrow virtues, where life develops slowly giving a temporary and somewhat false sense of security and permanence, all this gave the sense of a beautiful and fantastic dream. To live in a little house garlanded with bougainvillia and white jasmine, couched in roses and hibiscus, where the eyes met at every turn a symphony of sea and sun and easy laughter—this was almost too much. And at night there was the incredible moon that filled one with a fierce restlessness and desire to steal past the safety of the garden gate and wander through the dark and silver hills—the more so when the sound of voodoo drums filled the clear night air. A temptation one resisted and regretted
Haitian Peasant Women.
for the sake supposedly of the immortal soul. Or is it really merely the inconveniences of the mortal flesh that restrain one so? For my part, when I depart from this troublesome body, I will haunt those hills and freely mingle in the midnight revelry. Such strong joy and complete abandon is to be much sought after by our decadent race which is even losing interest in perpetuating itself.
At daybreak we were awakened by the crowing of cocks, the laughter and chatter of neighbors, the spicy smell of Haitian coffee, and the sound of the yard boy sweeping the yard. A servant always brought in coffee at this time, and you could lie in bed sipping this black dynamite while enjoying the pleasant sights and sounds that accompany dawn in the tropics. Swiftly the golden hours slipped away never to be retrieved, making me feel as Poe must have felt when he wrote that magnificent poem, “A Dream Within a Dream”:
- I stand amid the roar
- Of a surf-tormented shore,
- And I hold within my hand
- Grains of the” golden sand:
- How few! yet how they creep
- Through my fingers to the deep,
- While I weep,—while I weep!
- Oh, God! Can I not grasp
- Them with a tighter clasp?
- Oh, God! Can I not save
- One from the pitiless wave?
After freeing themselves from slavery and taking complete possession of the island, the Africans who had been brought to Haiti discovered that their greatest problem was to stay free in a world that despised Negroes and coveted this rich island. Not wise enough to progress themselves and fearful of outside interference, they closed their doors to a hostile white world and sank into a state of lethargy. The dreams of the great liberators never materialized and the wealth and glory of the new world’s richest colony crumbled into dust. The people who were primarily led on to revolt by the promise of an end to their arduous slave labor, were content with what grew within their reach, dreaming through the hot days and dancing away the nights. The men till the steep rocky mountain sides while the women make their visits to market pleasure trips; proudly carrying baskets high piled with fruit, vegetables, grain, coffee, cocoa, sugar, charcoal, etc., as they stride gracefully up and down the steep foot paths many miles to town. The big markets are places of intense excitement teeming with news, gossip and the fine art of trading.
To me there is something admirable and appealing in the extreme simplicity of the life of the peasants who compose ninety-five per cent of a population of three millions. The small sophisticated upper class offers a strong contrast to them. Reared in a French culture and a classical tradition, these aristocrats have been for the most part content merely to be charming, evidently considering the pursuit of personal pleasure an end in itself. And, believe me, they are charming and extremely cultivated, intelligent, talented—but, of course, with little outlet for their talents.
While professing the Catholic religion, most Haitians are influenced by the faith of their African ancestors, although it has been modified and changed by time and place and complete separation from the great mother continent. The mass of the people are still in a primitive state and today remain an untouched mine of human wealth. The upper class is, as I have said, cultivated and talented, and their capacity to rise to great heights or consequently sink to great depths goes without question. But the peasants, though as yet illiterate, have one important capacity which is developed—and that is the capacity for faith. And this, I think, more than anything else, is what makes Haiti such a remarkable place. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said: "As you have faith, so shall your powers and blessings be. This is the measure—this is the measure, this is the measure!”
Such was the background of magic beauty and strong contrast against which the first believers enacted their predestined roles. The tests and discouragements that Ruth Blackwell met alone the first few months after her arrival were enough to have made the average person turn back. But they proved an excellent education, and by the time her husband joined her she was thoroughly familiar with the habits, customs and characteristics of the Haitian people and already had acquired a working knowledge of the language. When Joan and I visited them in January, 1940, they had interested fifteen people in the Cause. Nine days later, the first three believers declared themselves Bahá’ís. They were Mr. and Mrs. Gerald G. MacBean and Miss May Johnson. The fact that a fuller revelation of religious truth was about to be brought to Haiti had previously been revealed to Mrs. MacBean in a series of visions and spiritual experiences to which she had a number of witnesses. So that when she convinced herself that this faith was the truth, her family and a number of friends and acquaintances were immediately impressed.
In April Mrs. MacBean and I made plans to visit some of the more remote parts of the Island. Thus we went to Aux Cayes, an old town on the Caribbean, where Mrs. MacBean had friends. During one early morning hour of prayer and meditation, before our departure, I seemed to find myself reciting the Tablet of Aḥmad in front of a small house in a palm grove near the sea, when all at once a man of great vigor and dynamic strength appeared and questioned me concerning the Cause. I was certain then that Mrs. MaeBean had been guided to choose the right place and that our trip would be crowned with success.
On the day of Naw-Rúz, 1941, Mrs. MacBean, Joan, and myself left the Blackwells in Petionville at ten in the morning and travelled by camion, arriving at our destination after midnight. We were deposited in the pitch darkness of a moonless night in a country lane on the outskirts of the town, and groped our way to the house which had been prepared for us, complete with a sleepy servant. The next morning I awoke to find myself in a little house in a palm grove near the sea.
In the mornings we walked into town to visit people Mrs. MacBean knew, or went swimming in the warm sea. To reach the curving white beach we used a narrow foot path that ran between cactus hedges, past a strange little graveyard, across a crumbling bridge over a stream in which it was said that there were crocodiles; then on past several pretty, whitewashed thatched huts, along the edge of a lagoon, finally bursting through some bushes to a sandy beach on a calm stretch of sea, which was protected by small, rocky islands several miles off shore. I remember clearly the different plants and flowers and the tall Egyptian palms and the blue mountains shimmering in the white morning mist. One Saturday morning we saw five or six young couples dancing in front of a thatched hut to a banjo, the horses of the guests tied to trees; it was a pretty picture. Within sight of where we stayed was a cock fight arena built of bamboo thatched with palm leaves. On week-ends hundreds of men in white linen came on horseback to spend the day cheering and betting on these fights. Every afternoon we stayed at home to receive seekers interested in learning about our Faith. At night we were lulled to sleep by the sound of many drums, mingled with the roar of the sea and the wind in the palms. For it chanced that the nine days we spent in Aux Cayes were days of special celebration, and oddly enough, on our return to Port au Prince, we drove through triumphal arches of palms and flowers erected in honor of a government official.
Mrs. MacBean had a wonderful gift for making friends with people and almost immediately gaining their confidence. Her interest in others was genuine and her sympathies warm and spontaneous.
Joan was my oldest child, then four and a half. She made friends with everyone from the humblest peasant to the candidate for president. I was accepted immediately, simply because I was her mother. And, because she represents both races, she was my sign of good faith. Recently we received a letter from the Blackwells saying that hardly a day went by but that some one spoke of Joan, and they wondered at such a young person making such a lasting impression.
One morning while Joan and I sat in the sun, drying our hair after swimming, a man and a boy came to gather coconuts. We watched the boy climb the palms with a machete, and the man direct him. This man was handsome, with unusually graceful and vigorous movement that gave him the air of a dancer. His faded blue jeans were very clean and he wore a large pearl-handled machete, different from any I had seen.
Mrs. MacBean came out of the house and fell into conversation with him. Soon she turned to me and said, "He has heard that we have come with a new religion and wants to know about it.” Then we talked and she interpreted. But I found I knew what he was saying before she had time to tell me. As I was marveling at this, she said, “He says, although he knows no English, he understands you.” His name was Emile Laguerre. Before he finished gathering up the coconuts, he let us know that he felt we spoke the truth and wanted his friends and family to hear about it. Later they came—a group of curious peasants—also three women we had met on the beach. Emile Laguerre spoke eloquently in favor of the Cause. I searched his face for some sign of weakness and found none. He displayed unusual power and clarity of thought. Later, we were joined by an attractive, welleducated youth, named Wills Lubin, who, after reading Esslemont—the only book we had in French—was most enthusiastic about the Faith. His gentle and friendly attitude towards the peasants was refreshing.
During one of our afternoon gatherings,
there was some embarrassment caused by
the upper class resenting the fact that we
[Page 914]
made the poor people welcome. So I spoke
with considerable feeling on the oneness of
mankind and the need of mutual respect
and consideration. This, of course, won the
love and confidence of the poor and, I
believe, more respect from the others than
would have been the case had we catered to
their prejudices.
On the eve of our departure, we said good-bye to our friends and prepared to pack before it grew too dark, for there was only one small lamp and the mosquitoes were fierce. We were to leave before dawn the next day; so we hurriedly crammed the gifts we had received into our already over-stuffed panniers. My heart was heavy and torn between many desires. In the midst of this physical and mental confusion, we were interrupted as, one after another, nine people came to ask that we write down their names and remember them as believers in the Cause of God; the significance of the number nine, coupled with the fact that we had been there just nine days, made this spontaneous display of faith seem the more wonderful, and filled us with confidence and wonder at the power of the spirit of the Faith.