Any one who has ever paid a flying visit to New Orleans probably knows something about those various culinary preparations whose generic name is “Gombo”—compounded of many odds and ends, with the okra-plant, or true gombo for a basis, but also comprising occasionally “losé, zepinard, laitie,” and the other vegetables sold in bunches in the French market. At all events any person who has remained in the city for a season must have become familiar with the nature of “gombo filé,” “gombo févi,” and “gombo aux herbes,” or as our colored cook calls it, “gombo zhèbes”—for she belongs to the older generation of Creole cuisinières, and speaks the patois in its primitive purity, without using a single “r.” Her daughter, who has been to school, would pronounce it gombo zhairbes:—the modern patois is becoming more and more Frenchified, and will soon be altogether forgotten, not only throughout Louisiana, but even in the Antilles. It still, however, retains originality enough to be understood with difficulty by persons thoroughly familiar with French; and even those who know nothing of any language but English, readily recognize it by the peculiarly rapid syllabification and musical intonation. Such English-speaking residents of New Orleans seldom speak of it as “Creole”: they call it gombo, for some mysterious reason which I have never been able to explain satisfactorily. The colored Creoles of the city have themselves begun to use the term to characterize the patois spoken by the survivors of slavery days. Turiault tells us that in the towns of Martinique, where the Creole is gradually changing into French, the Bitacos, or country negroes who still speak the patois nearly pure, are much ridiculed by their municipal brethren:—Ça ou ka palé là, chè, c’est nèg:—Ça pas Créole! (“What you talk is ‘nigger,’ my dear:—that isn’t Creole!”) In like manner a young Creole negro or negress of New Orleans might tell an aged member of his race: “Ça qui to parlé ça pas Créole: ça c’est gombo!” I have sometimes heard the pure and primitive Creole also called “Congo” by colored folks of the new generation.
The literature of “gombo” has perhaps even more varieties than there are preparations of the esculents above referred to;—the patois has certainly its gombo févi, its gombo filé, its “gombo zhèbes”—both written and unwritten. A work like Marbot’s “Bambous” would deserve to be classed with the pure “févi”;—the treatises of Turiault, Baissac, St. Quentin, Thomas, rather resemble that fully prepared dish, in which crabs seem to struggle with fragments of many well-stewed meats, all strongly seasoned with pepper. The present essay at Creole folklore, can only be classed as “gombo zhèbes”—(Zhèbes çé feuil-chou, cresson, laitie, bettrav, losé, zepinard);—the true okra is not the basis of our preparation;—it is a Creole dish, if you please, but a salmagundi of inferior quality.
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For the collection of Louisiana proverbs in this work I am almost wholly indebted to my friend Professor William Henry, Principal of the Jefferson Academy in New Orleans; not a few of the notes, Creole quotations, and examples of the local patois were also contributed by him. The sources of the other proverbs will be found under the head of Creole Bibliography. The translations of the proverbs into French will greatly aid in exhibiting the curious process of transformation to which the negro slave subjected the language of his masters, and will also serve to show the peculiar simplicity of Creole grammar. My French is not always elegant, or even strictly correct;—for with the above object in view it has been necessary to make the translation as literal as is possible without adopting the inter-linear system. Out of nearly five hundred proverbs I selected about three hundred and fifty only for publication—some being rejected because of their naïve indecency, others because they offered mere variations of one and the same maxim. Even after the sifting process, I was partly disappointed with the results; the proportion of true Creole proverbs—proverbs of indubitably negro invention—proved to be much smaller than I had expected. Nevertheless all which I have utilized exhibit the peculiarities of the vernacular sufficiently to justify their presence.
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While some of these proverbs are witty enough to call a smile to the most serious lips, many others must, no doubt, seem vapid, enigmatic, or even meaningless. But a large majority of negro sayings depend altogether upon application for their color or their effectiveness; they possess a chameleon power of changing hue according to the manner in which they are placed. (See for examples: Prov. 161, 251, or 308.) Every saying of this kind is susceptible of numerous applications; and the art of applying one proverb to many different situations is one in which the negro has no rival—not even among the Arabs themselves, whose use of such folklore has been so admirably illustrated by Carlo Landberg.
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No two authors spell the Creole in the same way; and three writers whom I have borrowed largely from—Thomas, Baissac, and Turiault—actually vary the orthography of the same word in quite an arbitrary manner. At first I thought of remodeling all my proverbs according to the phonetic system of spelling; but I soon found that this would not only disguise the Creole etymology almost beyond recognition, but would further interfere with my plan of arrangement. Finally I concluded to publish the Creole text almost precisely as I had found it, with the various spellings and peculiarities of accentuation. The reader will find cabrit, for example, written in four or five different ways. Where the final t—never pronounced in our own patois—is fully sounded, the several authorities upon Creole grammar have indicated the fact in various fashions: one spelling it cabritt; another cabrite, etc.
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The grammatical peculiarities and the pronounciation of the several Creole dialects are matters which could not be satisfactorily treated within the compass of a small pamphlet. Some few general rules might, indeed, be mentioned as applying to most Creole dialects. It is tolerably safe to say that in no one of the West Indian dialects was the French “r” pronounced in former days; it was either totally suppressed, as in the word “fòce” (force), or exchanged for a vowel sound, as in bouanche (for branche). The delicate and difficult French sound of u was changed into ou; the sound en was simplified into é; the clear European o became a nasal au; and into many French words containing the sound of am, such as amour, the negro wedged the true African n, making the singular Creole pronounciation lanmou, canmarade, janmain. But the black slaves from the Ivory and Gold Coasts, from Congo or Angola, pronounced differently. The Eboes and Mandingoes spoke the patois with varying accentuations;—it were therefore very difficult to define rules of pronounciation applicable to the patois spoken in all parts of one island like Guadaloupe, or one colonial province like Guyana. Not so in regard to grammar. In all forms of the patois (whether the musical and peculiarly picturesque Creole of Martinique, or the more fantastic Creole of Mauritius, adulterated with Malgache and Chinese words)—the true article is either suppressed or transformed into a prefix or affix of the noun, as in femme-la “the woman,” or yon lagrimace, a grimace;—there is no true gender, no true singular and plural; verbs have rarely more than six tenses—sometimes less—and the tense is not indicated by the termination of the verb; there is a remarkable paucity of auxiliaries, and in some dialects none whatever; participles are unknown, and prepositions few. A very fair knowledge of comparative Creole grammar and pronunciation may be acquired, by any one familiar with French, from the authors cited at the beginning of this volume. I would also recommend those interested in such folklore to peruse the Creole novel of Dr. Alfred Mercier—Les Saint-Ybars, which contains excellent examples of the Louisiana dialect; and Baissac’s beautiful little stories, “Recits Créoles,” rich in pictures of the old French colonial life. The foreign philological reviews and periodicals, especially those of Paris, have published quite a variety of animal fables, proverbs, stories in various Creole dialects; and among the recent contributions of French ethnologists to science will be also discovered some remarkable observations upon the actual formation of various patois—strongly resembling our own Creole—in the French African colonies.
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Needless to say this collection is far from perfect;—the most I can hope for is that it may constitute the nucleus of a more exhaustive publication to appear in course of time. No one person could hope to make a really complete collection of Creole proverbs—even with all the advantages of linguistic knowledge, leisure, wealth, and travel. Only a society of folklorists might bring such an undertaking to a successful issue; but as no systematic effort is being made in this direction, I have had no hesitation in attempting—not indeed to fill a want—but to set an example. Gouïe passé, difil sivré:—let the needle but pass, the thread will follow.
L. H.
☞ The selection of Haytian proverbs in this collection was made by kindly permission of Messrs. Harper Bros., from the four articles contributed by Hon. John Bigelow, to Harper’s Magazine, 1875. The following list includes only those works consulted or quoted from in the preparation of this dictionary, and comprises but a small portion of all the curious books, essays, poems, etc., written upon, or in the Creole patois of the Antilles and of Louisiana.—L. H.
Bruyère (Loys)—“Proverbes Créoles de la Guyane Française.” (In l’Almanach des Traditions Populaires, 1883. Paris: Maisonneuve et Cie.)
Baissac (M. C.)—“Étude sur le Patois Créole Mauricien.” Nancy: Imprimerie Berger-Levrault & Cie., 1880.
Marbot—“Les Bambous.” Fables de La Fontaine travesties en Patois Créole par un Vieux Commandeur. Fort-de-France, Martinique: Librairie de Frederic Thomas, 1869. (Second Edition. Both editions of this admirable work are now unfortunately out of print.)
Thomas (J. J.)—“The Theory and Practice of Creole Grammar.” Port of Spain, Trinidad: The Chronicle Publishing Office, 1869.
Turiault (J.)—“Étude sur le Langage Créole de la Martinique.” (Extrait du Bulletin de la Société Académique.) Brest: Lefournier, 1869.
De St.-Quentin (Auguste)—Introduction à l’Histoire de Cayenne, suivie d’un Recueil de Contes, Fables, et Chansons en Créole. Notes et Commentaires par Alfred de St.-Quentin. Étude sur la Grammaire Créole par Auguste de St.-Quentin. Antibes: J. Marchand, 1872.
Bigelow (Hon. John)—“The Wit and Wisdom of the Haytians.” Being four articles upon the Creole Proverbs of Hayti, respectively published in the June, July, August and September numbers of Harper’s Magazine, 1875.
[Most of the proverbs quoted in Martinique are current also in Guadeloupe, only 90 miles distant. All proverbs recognized in Louisiana are marked by an asterisk (*). The indications, Mauritius, Guyana, Martinique, Hayti, etc., do not necessarily imply origin; they refer only to the dialects in which the proverbs are written, and to the works from which they are selected.]
1. Acoma tombé toutt mounn di: C’est bois pourri. (Quand l’Acoma est tombé, tout le monde dit: C’est du bois pourri.)
“When the Acoma has fallen everybody says: ‘It’s only rotten wood.’”[1]—[Mart.]
[1] The Acoma, says Turiault, is one of the grandest trees in the forests of the Antilles. The meaning of the proverb appears to be, that a powerful or wealthy person who meets with misfortune is at once treated with contempt by those who formerly sought his favor or affected to admire his qualities.
2. A fòce macaque caressé yche li ka touffé li. (À force de caresser son petit le macaque l’étouffe.)
“The monkey smothers its young one by hugging it too much.”—[Mart.]
3. Aspère[2]