Chapter 10 No.10

Some Weird Stories.

NO account of Cuba would be quite complete without some reference to the superstitious observances of the negro population, which have not failed to affect, by a kind of reflex action, the ideas and customs of the white inhabitants of the island.

The negroes have a smattering, of course, of Catholic teaching, and a tincture of the superstitions which affect the lowest order of Catholic mind. Super-added to these-or perhaps I should rather say, underlying them-we find a great mass of Voudistic legend and tradition, and a consequent observance and practice of those dark, weird, and blood-curdling mysteries known as the worship of Obi. The origin of this form of idolatry is lost in antiquity. It was known in ancient Egypt, where the serpent was called Ob or Aub. Traces of it appear even in Holy Writ. Moses charges the Israelites "not to inquire of the demon Ob"-described in the Vulgate as "divinator" and "sorcilegus." The Witch of Endor is called Oub or Ob in the original, and the word appears translated as Pythonessa, or Witch.

The African slaves imported their strange rites into the West Indies when they were carried into slavery, and clung to them with all the tenacity of an oppressed and cruelly handled race.

The occult power possessed by the Obi man or woman is believed to be hereditary, but it rarely develops until the individual attains an advanced age. Fetish worship is a fundamental doctrine, and the Obi man has the power of causing the Obi, or evil spirit, to pass into any object he may select, such as the jaw-bone of a horse, or the body of a monkey. To these objects, living or dead, the worshippers offer fruit, fowls, and flowers. The ceremony of calling the spirit into its new abode is full of mystery and horror, and is generally performed at dead of night, and in some lonely and sequestered spot, far from Christian and profane eyes.

Many a curious story have I heard, of strange fate and cruel misfortune, connected with the dark practices of negro witchcraft. The following tale, which was related to me by a relative of the victim, will serve as an instance of Obi power. I need scarcely say I do not ask my readers to believe it, but I am quite sure my informant, by no means an uneducated man, placed the most implicit faith in every word he spoke.

A certain wealthy Cuban planter, whom I will call Don Pablo, once suspected an old negro in his service of being an Obi man. He had but recently returned to his estates, from a long sojourn in Europe, and was determined to suppress, so far as in him lay, the diabolical ceremonies which, his overseer assured him, were frequently performed by certain of the negroes on his plantation, who had thus acquired a vast influence over their fellows. One night, Don Pablo followed his overseer into the forest, and reached a deserted hut, evidently used as a fetish temple, just as the rites began. He hid himself among the jungle, and watched his opportunity. The assemblage consisted of some twenty to thirty negroes, of both sexes, plentifully bedecked with beads, shells, and feathers, but otherwise stark naked. They opened proceedings by performing a sort of Pyrrhic dance, shouting as they whirled round and round, and brandishing their torches. Presently the door of the hut opened, and the Obi man appeared. He was very old, and quite greyheaded. His naked body was marked with white paint to represent a skeleton, and his appearance under the pale moonlight and the livid glow of the torches was weird beyond description. Don Pablo half wished himself at home-for, like all his race, he was both excitable and superstitious. In due time, the Obi man brought forward a huge toad, in which, after many ceremonies, he declared the Obi or fetish to be embodied. This done, he began to worship it, and to indulge in certain strange and obscene antics. Don Pablo, in his indignation, burst from his hiding-place, pistol in hand, commanding the Obi man to desist, and disperse the gathering, or take the consequences. To his surprise, the old priest utterly defied him, and boldly told him that if he persisted in disturbing the strange rites, the most fearful misfortunes would befall him. The audacious speech was answered by a ringing shot, which ended the Obi man's career, and broke up the meeting in wild confusion. A few days afterwards, whilst Don Pablo sat at dinner, his wife fell suddenly forward and expired. In less than a fortnight his only daughter died, of some quickly developed and mysterious disease-probably poison. Broken-hearted and alarmed by these crushing blows, following in such swift and merciless succession, the unhappy man betook himself to a neighbouring plantation, and sought to propitiate the offended deity through another well-known and potent Obi man, but the attempt failed absolutely. The wizard declared he had no power to undo the mischief, for, he alleged, the deceased Obi man was far more influential with the spirits than himself. The miserable Don Pablo returned to his desolate home to find a letter announcing the death of his only son, who had been suddenly carried off in Paris, whither he had been sent for his education.

The number thirteen is considered an unlucky and even fatal one in Cuba. If you have a fever, the Obi man or woman will give you a little bag containing twelve seeds of garlic, which you put under your pillow, and in the morning you are sure to awake quite well,-unless, indeed, the witch has maliciously inserted a thirteenth seed, in which case you may as well order your coffin at once.

The evil eye is as prevalent as in Naples, and most houses are protected from it by a horseshoe, such as we often see, for the matter of that, in non-superstitious England! An Obi man or woman always has the evil eye-mal de ojo-and can do harm by mere force of will power, even if the object be many miles removed. If you have incurred the Obi man's anger, your undertaking, whatever be its nature, is sure to fail; and on your return home, you may find your favourite child has been stung by a scorpion, or is dying of the fever, that your blacks are afflicted with some fell disease, and your herds stolen, or decimated.

Some Obi women are famous as prophetesses. There was a negro witch on the plantation of Do?a Mary d'O--, an American lady, the widow of an exceedingly rich Cuban planter, and a most kindly and hospitable lady. One morning our hostess took us down to the negro quarters, to visit the dusky pythoness, whom we found sitting in the shade of some huge banana plants, smoking her cigarette. She rose to greet her mistress, and I was struck at once by her tall, commanding figure, and the stately manner in which she wore the long draperies of scarlet and white calico, which fell in ample folds (none of the freshest, I am forced to add) down to her feet. Her name was appropriate to her profession-Proserpina-Pina, for short. In answer to our greeting and inquiries after her health, Proserpina informed us she was well, but that owing to certain portents, she dreaded the near approach of some misfortune. Sure enough, very shortly afterwards, the vomito nigro appeared among the plantation hands, and many of them were swept away. Proserpina was a skilful palmist, and told us our future with a fair degree of success. She informed my fellow-traveller, and quite truly, that he would die within eight years, and assured me I should live to be very old and very rich. I would fain hope the oracle may yet come true! "Pina" persistently refused to work, but her mistress, thinking it well to be on good terms with a personage so greatly looked up to by her fellows, allowed her to take her own way. She was in great demand among the plantation hands, in cases of sickness and childbirth, and she was not above accepting her fees, like any other lady doctor, exacted them, in fact, under threat of awful penalties. This venerable dame, like most of her profession, was an adept in the compounding of philtres and deadly poisons, the ingredients of which recall, in some cases, the uncanny mixtures prepared by the weird sisters in Macbeth-scorpion's blood six drops, the head of a toad, the belly of a snake, the poison of a black spider, and strange herbs gathered by moonlight. The whole mixed in a cauldron over a fire fed with dead men's bones, and boiled between midnight and dawn.

Every thoroughbred Cuban believes in ghosts and haunted houses. To this day certain plantations stand desolate, because nobody will face the spirits which haunt them-proof, if proof were needed, of the awful crimes committed within their walls. Before Tacon's time, such high roads as there were in the interior of the island were very unsafe, and gangs of banditti infested various parts of the country. They waylaid travellers, murdered them, and stripped their bodies. Many years ago a well-known lawyer at Porto Principe was arrested and charged with organising and financing a gang of monteros who had turned highwaymen, and killed and plundered various wealthy travellers on their way to certain plantations in the interior. In the course of his trial it transpired that the bodies of the victims were buried under the kitchen floor of a wayside fonda (inn), the precise spots having been revealed to a negro seer by the ghosts of the slain. To this day, nobody will pass that fonda on All Souls Eve, because they are sure to see the spirits of the murdered men barring the road, and supplicating the passer-by to have a mass and de profundis offered for the repose of their unshriven souls.

Divers plantations have an evil reputation because negroes have been burnt there in days long gone by for practising the rites of Obi, or because their cruel masters desired to get rid of them, for reasons of their own. When the tempest is at its height, you may yet see, wandering among the palm trees, a black form wreathed in flames, whose wailing shriek rises even above the howling of the storm.

The superstitions of the blacks affected the whites: it could hardly be otherwise; for, however strong caste prejudice may be, the dominant race must absorb some proportion of the prejudices inherent in those who have nursed and waited on them in their tenderest and most impressionable years. Cases have occurred, and may occur even now, in which white men and women of the lowest class have joined in the strange and repellent rites of the African religion, if so it can be called. But I need hardly say that the more educated Cubans, though they admit the existence of a strange and mysterious faculty in certain of the negro priests and priestesses, hold themselves utterly aloof from such demoniac and degrading practices.

Whilst we are on gruesome subjects, I may be excused if I take the opportunity of saying something about Cuban funeral customs, which have, however, been greatly modified of late years, in the large towns, owing to the advance of education, and to some slight improvement in the popular appreciation of hygiene. Twenty years ago, however (and even now, in the interior), the corpse used to be dressed up in its best clothes, the man in his frock-coat, white cravat, and patent-leather boots, the woman, if married, in her Sunday go-to-meeting best, or if she were a young girl, in white, with a wreath of flowers round her head. Thus arrayed, the body, after being exposed in a sort of lying in state in one of the principal apartments of the house, would be conveyed to the cemetery, with the lid of the coffin open, so that parents and friends might be able to admire the final toilette. This custom, which is still general among the Eastern orthodox Greeks, led in the course of time to the formation of a singular band of resurrectionists, who, after some wealthy person's funeral, were wont to steal away by night to the cemetery, dig up the body and despoil it of its fashionable garments, which constantly found their way to the second-hand clothiers. At present, among the educated classes, and in the large cities, the coffin lid is closed. But a compromise has been devised by the introduction of a plate-glass lid, through which the pleasing spectacle of the deceased lying at rest, bedecked with this world's finery, can be enjoyed without risk. A Cuban funeral procession is generally of very great length, and usually accompanied by a band of musicians, the town band for preference, playing operatic airs and even dance music. I once saw a young lady borne to her last home, her coffin covered with splendid wreaths, and surrounded by weeping friends, to the tune of the then popular Baccio waltz. Formerly, as in the East, men and women used to be hired as mourners, and being trained for the purpose, howled dismally enough to raise the dead. But they have been abolished, except in country places, where, in Cuba as elsewhere, old fashions die hard.

Among the guajiros, monteros, and poor whites generally,-and I believe also amongst the Catholic negroes,-a ceremony takes place on the night between the death and the funeral (which, by the way, always occurs within twenty-four hours), which bears a strong resemblance to an Irish wake: it is called a velorio; literally, watch or wake. The friends and relatives gather round the coffin, and spend the night watching by the body, which is placed in the centre of the chamber, the coffin being unclosed, covered with wreaths of flowers and bouquets, and flanked by six lighted candles. Originally this ceremony, like the Irish wake, was doubtless intended to be of a highly devotional character, but it has degenerated, by degrees, into a sort of orgie. A table covered with viands is set at one end of the room, and close to it stands another of still greater importance, bearing numerous bottles of aguardiente, gin, and wine. Frequent libations to the health of the departed soul soon produce their effect, and the family begins to express its grief in the most uproarious manner, by dismal exclamations, hair-tearing, and breast-beating. They address the dead as if he were still living.

"Ah! my poor darling," they say, "don't make any mistake. We are sorry indeed to lose you, but at present you see we are preparing the funeral baked meats for those who loved you less than we do. When they have all got their drinks, we will return, so don't be impatient. By and by we will howl dismally enough to please you." (Luego te vamos gritar.)

As the night wanes, and the aguardiente grows lower in the queer-looking bottles, the company can no longer restrain its grief. Everybody becomes inconsolable at once. When dawn comes, and with it the confraternities and the cura, to fetch the coffin, they not unfrequently find the company singing, dancing, and shouting as if possessed. And here I may observe that the Cubans can drink more aguardiente and gin, without showing any unsteadiness, than any other people on the face of the earth. They contrive to keep their legs at all events, though I am afraid they very frequently lose their heads.

Nothing more dismal can be imagined than a Cuban cemetery, which is usually located in the most arid spot in the neighbourhood of town or village. The Cubans never dream of planting a tree or a shrub near the graves of their lamented, for whom, by the way, they wear official mourning about six times as long as in any other country. At one extremity of the cemetery invariably stands the unpretentious chapel. In the centre is the common field, where the poor and the coloured Catholics are buried,-no heretic being allowed to rest in this cheerless campo santo. The wealthier among the departed are commemorated by funereal monuments and slabs inserted in the wall surrounding the grave-yard, which give their titles at full length, and most unstintingly commend their virtues.

In the cemetery of Santiago, which, by the way, is one of the dreariest fields of death I have ever beheld, there is a very interesting monument erected to the memory of the celebrated Doctor Antomarchi, who attended Napoleon I. at St Helena during his last illness. It is not remarkably artistic, but is sufficiently imposing to attract attention. I must say I felt greatly interested to learn why and wherefore Antomarchi elected to pass the last years of his life in Santiago de Cuba. This is the information I obtained concerning him. It seems that, shortly after the Emperor's death, he made a tour of the world, in search of a missing brother, whom he had not seen or heard of for many years. Chance threw them together in the streets of Santiago, and Antomarchi determined to take up his abode in the same town as the only other surviving member of his family. As he had a considerable fortune, he took handsome apartments in one of the best streets of the city, set up as oculist, and received patients for eye diseases, in the treatment of which he seems to have been fairly successful. He often spoke of his illustrious patient, and described his last hours. Dr Antomarchi was a generous man and charitable to the poor; and although he only lived a few years at Santiago, where he fell a victim to the yellow fever in 1826, he was so greatly esteemed that this monument was erected to his memory by public subscription.

The friend with whom I was travelling was, like myself, an ardent admirer of Napoleon, and ordered a magnificent wreath to be placed on the tomb of the man who closed the great Emperor's eyes, and who, like his imperial master, was destined to end his days in a tropical island.

In these Cuban cemeteries you may occasionally notice certain large land crabs sidling along with a lazy air, as if they had had an exceedingly good dinner. All I will say anent them is, that they are often suspiciously covered with earth, and that I would not eat one of them to save my life. The negroes, however, declare them to be of exquisite flavour.