Creolization of Language and Culture

Creolization of Language and Culture Creolization of Language and Culture is the first English edition of Robert Chaud...

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Creolization of Language and Culture

Creolization of Language and Culture is the first English edition of Robert Chaudenson’s landmark reference Des îles, des hommes, des langues, which has also been fully revised. Focusing on major French Creoles of the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, Chaudenson argues against traditional accounts of creole genesis and for a more sophisticated alternative that takes full account of the peculiar linguistic and social factors at play in the European settlement colonies. This is an accessible book which makes an inspiring contribution to the study of pidgin and creole language varieties, as well as to the development of contemporary European vernaculars outside Europe. Key features include: • • •

Analysis of current debates on the development of creoles Discussion of many aspects of creole cultures, including music, medicine, cuisine and folklore Translation of all French sources, from which Chaudenson quotes extensively

Robert Chaudenson is Director of the Institut d’Etudes Créoles et Francophones, Aix-en-Provence, and Professor of Linguistics at the Université d’Aix-Marseille. His publications include Les créoles in the collection “Que saisje? ”, Les créoles français, and Vers une approche panlectale de la variation du français. Salikoko S. Mufwene is Professor and Chair at the Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago. His publications include The Ecology of Language Evolution and African-American English (co-edited with John Rickford, Guy Bailey and John Baugh), published by Routledge.

Creolization of Language and Culture

Robert Chaudenson Revised in collaboration with Salikoko S. Mufwene Translated by Sheri Pargman, Salikoko S. Mufwene, Sabrina Billings and Michelle AuCoin

London and New York

First published 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. French edition originally published 1992 by L’Harmattan Publishers, Paris, as Des îles, des hommes, des langues: essai sur la créolisation linguistique et culturelle. English edition © 2001 Robert Chaudenson and Salikoko S. Mufwene All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Chaudenson, Robert. [Des îles, des hommes, des langues. English] Creolization of language and culture / Robert Chaudenson; translated and revised by Salikoko S. Mufwene, with Sheri Pargman, Sabrina Billings, and Michelle AuCoin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Creole dialects. 2. Cultural relations. I. Mufwene, Salikoko S. II. pargman, Sheri. III. Title. PM7831 .C4813 2001 417’.22–dc21 2001019242 ISBN 0–415–14592–9 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–14593–7 (pbk) ISBN 0-203-44029-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-74853-0 (Adobe eReader Format)

Contents

List of illustrations Editor’s foreword Preface 1 Creole people and languages

vi vii xii 1

2 Concepts and settings: the case of French creoles

14

3 Theories of linguistic creolization

34

4 Toward a theory of creolization: the sociohistorical and sociolinguistic approach

53

5 Linguistic creolization

142

6 Creolization of cultural systems

194

7 Creole music

198

8 Creole cuisine

225

9 Creole folk medicine and magic

243

10 Creole oral literature

261

11 General conclusions

303

References Index

316 331

Illustrations

Tables 1.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 8.1 10.1 10.2 11.1 11.2

Variation in the meaning of the word créole Intrafamilial and interfamilial interactions Dynamics of Phase I binary relationships Dynamics of Phase II ternary relationships Colonial French dual tense system French creoles’ pronouns The meanings of kari and rougay Model grid for a cross-creole comparison of cultural features Summary of introductory expressions in French creoles’ tales and riddles Why the lexicon is more osmotic than morphosyntax A cross-domain comparison of osmosis

7 109 122 123 160 177 235 265 285 312 314

Figures 3.1 4.1 4.2 5.1

Similarities among creoles Phase I ‘Homestead society’ Phase II ‘Plantation society’ Kinds of linguistic appropriation

50 124 125 157

Editor’s foreword

Creolization of language and culture is more than a translation of Robert Chaudenson’s Des îles, des hommes, des langues (1992). It is an improved edition, providing more information (some of it updated to reflect current debates on the development of creoles) in a more accessible style. This is one of the reasons why the title of the present edition is not a literal translation of the original – another is to make clear that the book covers more than the linguistic aspects of the creole worlds. However, a number of practical considerations, not least space limitation, have prevented us from incorporating all the improvements into the main text, though all the more substantive additions have been so incorporated. Some corrections or additions are in the form of notes, a subset of which are clearly identified as contributions of the ‘Editor’. Some readers will ask, Why publish this English edition of Des îles, des hommes, des langues (1992) almost a decade after the French edition? There are a number of reasons. The first is that Chaudenson’s book deserves all the attention it has received among Francophone creolists, students of creolization in other cultural domains, and students of naturalistic second-language acquisition. Unfortunately, however, most such experts outside France and its former colonies have not been able to read the French original, and their references to it typically have been based on citations in other English publications. Among the few who have read it in the original French, some seem not to have understood much of Chaudenson’s complex prose and have missed a great deal of the wealth of information that Des îles, des hommes, des langues provides. The poor, virtually unedited presentation of the French edition did not help either, notably because of the absence of an index to facilitate returning to specific passages that would interest different users. To maximize the intelligibility of the book, we have also translated all the French sources from which Chaudenson quotes extensively; the reader can always tell where this has been done from the apparent inconsistencies between the French source titles and the English texts of the quotations. On the other hand, we have made every effort to identify the English originals of French translations that Chaudenson (1992) also quotes. In the interest of preserving the original nuances of meaning, we now quote from these original publications. The only exceptions are Bateson (1977) and Ligon (1684), the original English

viii

Editor’s foreword

versions of which were not accessible to us; here we have had to translate the quotations back from French and take the risk that these retranslations may not preserve the original meaning intact. Another reason for producing Creolization of language and culture is that Chaudenson’s contributions to advancing knowledge of the development of creoles go beyond what has typically been presented in any book of this scope since the beginning of genetic creolistics. Never before has a book attempted to show that the development of creole vernaculars is not isolated from the development of other aspects of creole cultures, such as cuisine, folk medicine, music, and oral literature. Chaudenson is quick to observe that, in terms of the relative weight of contributions from different cultural (including linguistic) backgrounds, what took place in one cultural (sub)domain is not necessarily paralleled by creole systems that emerged in other (sub)domains. While congruence typically played an important part in the selection of features into the creole systems, ecology always played the most critical role: that of determining the model to be followed and the timing of when and how other influences, external to the model, could prevail or be incorporated. In the end, what emerged has always been something new, (somewhat) different from both the model and the other influences. Perceptive readers will notice that the matériaux de construction (roughly, ‘building materials’) often had to be customized to the larger system in which they would fit. Making good and useful sense of Chaudenson’s approach and hypotheses involves embedding the development of creole vernaculars and other cultural systems into the right colonial social and economic histories, and realizing that nothing happened overnight. Things proceeded gradually. At varying speeds, different territories proceeded from homestead societies to plantation societies, and later on to post-Emancipation societies. This periodization of history highlights the important fact that each phase was associated with different rates of immigration, different ethnic proportions within the colonial populations, different patterns of social interaction, and different linguistic targets, all of which cumulatively yielded different linguistic consequences. Some societies never went through all three phases of socio-economic organization, and therefore exhibit different patterns and degrees of language restructuring and evolution. Thus, what took place on Réunion is different from what took place on Mauritius; what happened on these Mascarene Islands is different from what took place on Haiti; and what happened in the French colonies that have had majority slave populations since their early plantation-society phases is even more different from what happened in Cuba and on St Barths (St Barthélemy), both of which had very long homestead-society phases. In any case, each territory has its own specific ecology, determined by its particular economic history. It is in this context that one also learns the importance of cross-colony migrations and learns what Chaudenson means by second- and third-generation creoles. Here too the reader learns that it is not just language that could be exported from one colony to another, where it would be adapted to the local ecology. Other cultural domains too could be exported, as initial models that would even-

Editor’s foreword ix tually adapt to local conditions. Aside from the wealth of facts made available to the reader, one should not overlook the main motivation for this cross-disciplinary approach to the development of creole phenomena. Although Chaudenson observes that we now know more about the development of creole vernaculars than about other creole cultural systems, we should not be led into thinking that the state of the art about creole vernaculars sets up the model for investigating the other systems. Indeed there are a number of interesting facts in other cultural domains that should prompt us to rethink our present research methods and conclusions concerning vernaculars. For instance, what is the role of the colonial cultural ecology in determining the development of different aspects of a language variety? Is there any justification for assuming that a language must evolve uniformly in the overall population of a territory? The domains of music, folk medicine and magic, and cuisine in particular, offer plenty of opportunities to reassess our research paradigms, especially if we believe in uniform developments within specific domains. Chaudenson also reminds us that data from naturalistic second-language acquisition, especially among immigrants in Europe, are useful in understanding what took place in the development of creole vernaculars and other cultural systems. Although the socio-economic ecologies are not the same, there are enough similarities for us to learn something about structural and ethnographic factors that bear on the restructuring of the target language into a new variety. Among the ethnographic factors are the variety that the learner is exposed to, how regularly he/she interacts with speakers of the target, whether he/she is integrated in the host community, and whether or not he/she immigrated as a teenager or an adult. Every theory generalizes from a limited body of facts. So does the model that Chaudenson proposes here, which is based on the analysis of French creoles, especially those of the Indian Ocean. So also do many hypotheses based on the study of primarily English creoles. What matters most here is how much can be extrapolated from Chaudenson’s study of the linguistic and other cultural consequences of French settlement colonization to similar forms of colonization by other European nations. How can the facts be used to improve our present hypotheses on the development of creole vernaculars and other cultural systems? These are among the enticing questions that make this book an outstanding and, in some respects, a leading contribution to genetic creolistics even almost a decade after publication of the first edition. In this English edition, when a hypothesis or conclusion seems to bear on more than French creoles alone, the Editor chose to substitute ‘the lexifier, the acrolect’, or ‘acrolectal’ for the original word ‘French’.1 Just as the positions of some adverbials and parentheticals have been reshuffled for more clarity, (quasi-) redundant words or phrases have been omitted in the interest of a more fluid English prose – when semantic integrity was not compromised. Such cases are, however, rare. The translators and Editor have generally tried to be faithful to the original style of the author and even to preserve his wit, as long as the English prose permitted it. I hope that readers of this edition will enjoy the

x Editor’s foreword beauty of some of Chaudenson’s narratives of his experiences in the ‘world of creoles.’ The demographic information on the different territories described in Chapter 2 has also been updated. Likewise, deictic time reference devices such ‘over the past decade’ and ‘ten years ago’ have been adjusted for this edition. May every reader derive from this rich book whatever bears on their research in genetic creolistics,2 naturalistic second-language acquisition, and why not genetic linguistics, where I am sure genetic creolistics belongs (Mufwene 2001). This edition would not have been possible without the dedication of my students, Michelle AuCoin, Sabrina Billings, and Sheri Pargman. They worked meticulously, making sure that as little as possible was lost in the translation (traduttore traditore!) and pointing out problems in the first edition when they arose. Sabrina Billings joined the team in the later stages, when the Editor thought that an additional person would help move the translation faster, after so many hiatuses in the project. Sheri Pargman made it possible for us to meet the final deadlines by working hard on translations that other members of the team could not finalize for various reasons, double-checking with the Editor the final text, to make sure it didn’t smack of literal translations, scanning the original bibliography before more work could be done on it, and tracking up to the copy-editing stage some of the bibliographical entries that were still missing from the French original edition. The Editor is very grateful for their invaluable assistance. As a team we feel indebted to Suzan Love for feedback on our translation and especially to John Wheelwright, our copy-editor, whose meticulous attention to stylistic details and coherence has saved us some embarrassments. He has contributed to making this book not only more accessible but also truly a second edition of Des îles, des hommes, des langues. Robert Chaudenson himself is to be thanked for being cheerful and patient throughout the slow process of this project, which started in 1997 but was intermittently suspended when one reason or another prevented the Editor from attending to it. He gave feedback on the translations and changes introduced here and there, and mostly was willing to answer all sorts of questions and invitations to rewrite some French passages before the translations became final. In the end he was very co-operative in providing missing and additional bibliographical information and making sure his book remained current. As usual, I am indebted to Pat and Tazie for allowing me some of the time I could have spent with them to work on this project. The project would not have started without seed funding in 1997 by the Agence de la Francophonie, then Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique, through the now defunct CIRELFA. Their support is very much appreciated. SALIKOKO S. MUFWENE July 2000

Editor’s foreword

xi

Notes 1

2

It may be useful to clarify at this point that the lexifier is the language from which a creole has inherited the overwhelming majority of its vocabulary – typically an ensemble of non-standard dialects of the colonizers’ language. In the case of French creoles, the lexifier was colonial français populaire ‘folk French (speech).’ The acrolect is the educated counterpart of the lexifier that is spoken in the same population that uses a particular creole. Readers should remember that the acrolect is unlikely to have played an important role, if any at all, in the development of the deeper forms of a creole (see below), though it probably developed concurrently with it. The way structures of creoles have been studied has led linguists to identify a basilect in each creole community. It is the deepest local creole variety, which is structurally the most different from its acrolect. Between the basilect and the acrolect lies a continuum of lects, or (individual) varieties, which has been called the mesolect. Both the basilect and the mesolect are parts of the creole continuum. The acrolect has usually been excluded from it for reasons that are debatable but need not be discussed here. The term genetic creolistics is adopted here for the part of creolistics that focuses on its development – especially how it is related to, or has diverged from, its lexifier, notwithstanding influences from the other languages the lexifier came in contact with. This is the general subject matter of this book.

Preface

In his Editor’s foreword Salikoko Mufwene explains quite clearly the spirit of the present undertaking. The one aspect of it that he sheds no light on is the critical role that he himself has played in the conception and fruition of the project. I think the very idea of producing a second, English, edition of my book Des îles, des hommes, des langues owes its origin in part to the fact that Mufwene is among a handful of linguists who are linguistically and scientifically bilingual. Parochialism has fostered many misunderstandings among Anglophone and Francophone creolists, and accounts for several cases of mutual ignorance. Even though the bibliographies of many publications suggest that Anglophone and Francophone scholars are aware of relevant research in the other linguistic community, overall, Francophone scholars are better informed about Anglophone scholarship than vice versa. Few are scholars like Mufwene, who have closely followed the research of Francophone creolists and Africanists and brought it to the attention of their Anglophone colleagues. I am flattered that he not only read and liked Des îles, des hommes, des langues but also deemed it worth translating into, and disseminating in, English. I have a hunch that the Editor underestimated the nature and extent of the work he was taking upon himself and his students when he undertook both to translate a book written over ten years ago and to update it and keep it current with present scholarship on the subject. We have integrated into this English edition insights gained from later publications by Mufwene and myself and by other scholars, not only in creolistics but also in areas such as naturalistic secondlanguage acquisition, a research area that deserves more attention by genetic creolists. Mufwene’s contribution to this book is so significant that I wanted to list him as a co-author. He declined, because he thought his contribution to the substance of the work was too belated to deserve this kind of association. However, there may also be a tacit reason why he declined the invitation. Although in many respects our positions on the development of creoles are very similar, our approaches and the paths we took to reach these conclusions are different – aside from the more obvious fact that we have not worked on the same language varieties, and our theoretical backgrounds are different. His wisdom and natural moderation may have advised him against being identified

Preface xiii with some of my positions that he might prefer to formulate otherwise. Nonetheless, I am very grateful to him and his students for the time, effort, skill, and dedication they have invested in this meticulously produced English edition and for their commitment to a wider dissemination of my views. ROBERT CHAUDENSON Aix-en-Provence July 2000

1

Creole people and languages

The current etymology of the word creole was proposed a long time ago. Recent lexicographic attempts to determine its origin more accurately have not been successful. Nonetheless, it is useful to start this study of creoles by citing two alleged sources. They are obviously false, but, in their respective ways, they illustrate perfectly how often extreme ideological fantasies can divert serious thinking, even in debates that are reputedly scientific. I will present them chronologically, starting with Jules Faine, an eminent Haitian and learned Mulatto, fiercely opposed to the African origins hypothesis of French creoles upheld at the time (the 1930s) by a fellow Haitian, Suzanne Sylvain. Faine (1974:11) perceives in the ‘universal unity’ of such language varieties an essential argument for refuting the mistaken claim, also endorsed by Melville Herskovits, that Creole is a product of the West African linguistic mold. Although, as we shall see, Faine’s basic position is in principle commonsensical, he gets carried away regarding the term creole. He formulates a strange hypothesis which discards a priori the established etymology of his time, which he knew.1 According to Faine: The general opinion is that the word creole comes from Spanish criollo … French créole was apparently borrowed from Spanish in the seventeenth century. In Spanish, the word criollo meant ‘a person of European descent born outside Europe.’ It seems strange that Creole, a language variety that developed from dialectal French, was thus misidentified with a foreign name. Still stranger is the repetition of the same process, during the same period, in other places where Spanish was yet unknown. This is why the creole French varieties of the Mascarenes [i.e., Réunion, Mauritius, and Rodriguez] are identified as creole patois … It is significant that the word creole was able to transmigrate from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean … Under such conditions, it is fitting to seek the origin of the term creole elsewhere than in Spanish, that is in the Patois ascent line – in other words, in the maritime language, which was shared by all these creole varieties. Thus, in the Norman patois, the verb creire means ‘yes’ or ‘no’ depending on whether or not it combines with negation (Moisy 1886). These forms are not unknown in the Haitian language. For instance, Vous viendrez ce soir? ‘Will you

2

Creole people and languages come this evening?’ – Oui, ous a-vini à souè ha? ‘Yes, we will come this evening’ M’crei ça oui! ‘(I think) yes’ – Non, je ne viendrai pas m’pas crei ‘No, I won’t come (I don’t think).’ In French itself one says naturally je crois bien ‘I think so,’ je vous crois ‘I believe you’ for oui ‘yes.’ Creire is the corruption of Latin credere ‘believe.’ Credere produced credo ‘I believe,’ and credo became creo ‘I believe’ by syncopation of d. The Romance pronoun lo, the equivalent of French le, was affixed to the base creo, which finally produced creolo, hence créole. Thus creolo must mean ‘I believe it.’ Usage of créolo for oui ‘yes’ would follow the old Romance tradition that designated its dialects by the word they used for ‘yes.’ Thus langue d’oïl for the northern group, langue d’oc for the southern group, langue de cia for Italian, langue de si for Provençal, Catalan, etc. Likewise, the creole language would be that amalgamation of patois that we have identified as maritime language … We can conclude from all the above observations that it is not the term criollo that produced our term créole but rather the latter that produced criollo. (Faine 1974:148–19)

Even though the Spanish etymology is not inherently dangerous and does not imply ‘African influence,’ it appears that Faine seeks this extravagant hypothesis in order to assign the word an exclusively French etymology. It is in fact not impossible for words of Portuguese or Spanish origin to have migrated from the Caribbean Sea to the Indian Ocean. The logic of such contributions can easily be demonstrated (Chaudenson 1974a:591–632). The second etymology, even quainter and more unexpected, was proposed in the Rideau de cannes (May–July 1963) by an anonymous author who is, most certainly, R. Nativel, follower of another Réunionnais scholar Jules Hermann (1846–1924). Hermann was a prominent local personality in his time: notary, Mayor of Saint Pierre, President of the General Council, first President of the Réunion Academy (founded in 1913), and member of the Malagasy Academy and of the French Astronomical Society. Interested in everything and author of many works on the most diverse topics, he fits, because of some of his theories, into the category of ‘mad scientist’ (homologue of the ‘fous littéraires’ who fascinated Queneau). His major work, Les révélations du Grand Océan ‘Revelations of the Great Ocean’, published posthumously (probably around 1927), clearly illustrates the dominant characteristic of his production: extensive and infinitely diverse knowledge produced by an overflowing imagination that was itself governed by a mind obsessed with systems. What is important to us is that, starting with reflections on the ‘Franco-Malagasy’ creole of Bourbon, Hermann negotiated a hazardous and complex path through anthropology, ornithology, geology, history, cosmogony, and linguistics, to demonstrate the prior existence of a ‘southern continent where Réunion, South America, Africa, and the eastern parts of Madagascar and Hindoostan formed one country.’ Based on this, he considered Malagasy to be the ‘primitive language of humanity’ (p. 157), which led him to elaborate a large chapter on ‘global etymologies.’ With some amazement, we learn from this that, for instance, Pologne ‘Poland’ ‘comes from

Creole people and languages 3 Malagasy polo ina: ‘that which has been divided into ten [parts]’ – an admirable foreshadowing of the later breakups of this poor state! The word Manche ‘Channel’ is derived from mantsa: ‘sly, astute, cunning,’ which allegedly demonstrates that the prehistoric Normans already deserved their later reputation. His explanation of Suisse ‘Switzerland’ with soïtra: ‘penetrating something with a crochet-hook or a pointed stick’ would prove unequivocally that prehistoric people already used alpenstocks. Hermann concludes: ‘I stop. I am myself confounded by such a revelation.’ How could his readers not be equally confounded? Surprisingly, these theories of Hermann’s gave rise to a school, at least in the Indian Ocean. He exerted influence as much on literature – for instance in the works of R.E. Hardt or M. de Chazal – as on studies of local creoles – for instance, on M. Julien’s study of Réunionnais toponyms (one of Hermann’s specialties), on B. Gamaleya in the beginning, and on Nativel. This brings us back to our initial subject matter, on which the foregoing sheds some light. The anonymous author of the article in the Rideau de cannes submits indeed the following etymology for the word créole: The word gris is quite French, the word grey is English. If we consider grec or grek ‘Greek,’ we also find the word gris. Others more knowledgeable than us in linguistics have proposed and established that when the Hellenics or Hellas of the Peninsula made conquests, they set aside from those that they had defeated thousands of women whom they crossed with their men in order to have beautiful hybrids who made Greek plastic glory. These bastards were gris or greks … Pounding in the same crucible gris/grey/grek and Malagasy giri, we get the word gre, which, adjoined to Malagasy ol (from olona ‘person’), indisputably produces creole or grey person. It is by brute force that Larousse seeks to make a creole a person of pure white race born in the colonies. Nonsense! (Rideau de cannes, May-July 1963) Despite some reservations,2 the etymological approach is clearly similar to Hermann’s. As may have been suspected from the biographical information already given, Hermann belonged to the Réunion’s white bourgeoisie (such classifications are not very clearly determined on social or ethnic grounds). Nativel’s goal is precisely the opposite of Faine’s, however: he was absurdly and blindly eager to deny the established European origin of the word creole in favor of a Malagasy etymology – which, since the word was first attested in the AmericanCaribbean region (ACR), is daring, to say the least. And yet his attempts are identical to the Haitian scholar’s endeavors to assign it a ‘purely’ French origin. Both these approaches to etymology exemplify the ideological confrontations that arise in studies of creole languages and cultures. In reality, the facts about the word creole are now well known, even though experts can still discuss some details of its etymology. Is the original etymon the Spanish criollo, or the Portuguese crioulo (whose older form, according to Guy

4


Hazaël-Massieux, is creoulo)? Isn’t the former a borrowing of the latter into Spanish? One is tempted to think so. However, although the original etymology is probably Portuguese, the first attestation of the term criollo in French is a citation from Spanish, in R. Regnault’s 1598 translation of José de Acosta’s book under the title of Histoire naturelle et morale des Indes. Arveiller (1963) established conclusively the history of the term in French. He showed that it was only toward the end of the seventeenth century that criollo lost its Hispanic character through Gallicization; criole and criolle were commonly attested around 1670. It is undoubtedly at that time, or perhaps a little earlier, that French colonists in the Caribbean orally borrowed criollo or crioullo, among other Spanish and/or Portuguese terms (the etymology of the term on the Islands may be different from that of the scholarly borrowing in French). It was modified to créole, which in French eventually superseded the scholarly word criolle, although the latter can be found in printed texts of the eighteenth century both in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. La Roque still uses it in his Voyage de l’Arabie heureuse (1716): ‘The air of this Island [Bourbon] is wonderful for health; yet crioles, the locally born, do not ordinarily live to old age.’ In any case, since then créole has been attested in French written documents (Histoire générale des voyages, vol. 9, p. 155, 1703) and on the Islands. This is the form that is most widely attested. On Bourbon (today’s Réunion) it is the only one that appears in archival documents. The sometimes quaint glosses or comments provided by the authors who use the term underscore its rare and exotic character. French lexicography has recorded its existence and highlighted its phonetic evolution. While Richelet’s (1680) and Furetière’s (1690) Dictionnaires enter criole, the Dictionnaire de Trévoux lists only the form créole, which has been without alternatives since then. However, an often attested semantic opposition arose, which would lead to an interesting and significant diversification of the meaning of the term. French lexicographers have assigned to créole the meaning of ‘European born on the Islands’ – thus broadening the original meaning, which was sometimes retained, particularly in the beginning (according to Furetière, criole ‘is the name that the Spaniards give to their children who were born in the Indies’). In the colonies themselves, though, créole was used to designate Whites and Blacks, as long as they were locally born. According to Histoire générale des voyages (vol. 9, p. 155, 1703), on Bourbon, ‘by the word créoles, one mustn’t expect reference to deformed persons, men or women; some of them are very pretty and well built. Their flesh color is somewhat brown [my emphasis] but soft.’ In Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amérique (vol. 4, p. 146, 1722), Father Labat wrote of the Antilles: ‘The Créoles themselves [black slaves in this context], that is, those who were born in the country, regard them as their fathers.’ After 1725 the usage on Bourbon of Mascarin, to refer to slaves born on the Islands, was replaced by créole.

Creole people and languages 5 These examples show that the word was used on the Islands to designate individuals who were apparently of mixed (white and black) descent (1703) or Blacks (1703, 1722, 1725). In both the Caribbean and the Mascarenes, during the first half of the eighteenth century the modifier créole applied to Whites, Mulattos, and Blacks. Although the French lexicographic tradition has until very recently restricted the application of this designation to Whites, the term has evolved extensively, depending on the place and time, in different creoles and in the different regional French varieties that coexist with them. Constant misunderstandings and infinite polemics have of course arisen out of the use of French dictionaries as the ultimate and definitive references for the meaning of créole by individuals who lacked sufficient knowledge of these facts (the last sentence of the above quotation from Nativel is a case in point). The evolutions of the meaning of this word are interesting, since they often illustrate for a very sensitive term the influence of social factors on semantics – such cases are very rare in a lexical set. In Haiti, where the Revolution and Independence (1804) led to the disappearance of the white population, the meaning of the term has been maximally extended, so to speak. Faine’s dictionary (1974:148) gives the following information: ‘Créyiole, créiole, langue pays la, paler créole, langue créole; Moune, bète, plante qui fait, qui natif-natal lans tel pays. – D’où êtes-vous? Je suis de Camp-Perrin – coté ous moune? Moin cé créole Cam-Perrin’; ‘language of the country; creole speech; creole language; person, animal, plant native to such a country. – [from French:] Where are you from? I am from Camp-Perrin – [from Creole:] Where are you from? I am a Creole of Cam-Perrin.’ Even more generally, the word also has the meaning of ‘offshoot, offspring’ in the domains of flora and fauna, implicitly admitting indigenity. In other language varieties such as Réunionnais or Seychellois, créole applies indiscriminately to locally born Whites, Mulattos, or Blacks, but it cannot be used of individuals belonging to recent groups of immigrants, even if they were born on the Islands (Chaudenson 1974a:89). Besides, especially in older periods, the term was also used, as in Haitian Creole, to designate local flora and fauna, e.g., ‘creole horse or cow’ (although péi is more often used for this purpose today). In these diverse language varieties, it appears that the word can apply to any native, regardless of his/her ethnic affiliation. In other types of societies, on the other hand, one has the feeling that different meanings have evolved because it seems impossible that the same term can be used to designate Whites, Mulattos, and Blacks alike. Thus, on Mauritius Island, kreol (like créole in the local regional French) is used to qualify any individual who is neither Franco-Mauritian (White), nor Indo-Mauritian, nor Sino-Mauritian. This term is reserved either for Mulattos or for individuals of the Malagasy or African type, which is relatively well marked. One can then specify, depending on the case, Malagasy Creole, Mozambican Creole, and even Rodriguez Creole. When necessary, a distinction is also made within the creole ensemble for ‘people of color’ (dimoune, koulère in Creole), who have a weak degree of hybridity. Thus, in the local regional French variety, one can hear people say une femme de couleur bien blanche ‘a

6


woman who is quite white in color’. Strictly speaking, creoles are those who by their own phenotype cannot claim the term white. A person of color will never be integrated in the white category, regardless of how weak his/her degree of hybridity is. Integration criteria are not phenotypical but genealogical. Any deviation from the strict endogamy of the white group is completely irreversible. The boundary, which is so easily crossed from white to black, is absolutely impassable in the other direction. This fact is easily illustrated with the study of race vocabulary. It is characterized by the abundance of terms, always offensive, which describe light-skinned Mulattos, even Whites, whom a non-Mauritian would obviously consider white. One can cite in the local regional French the most common creole descriptors: frontière ‘boundary,’ faire blanc ‘to make white,’ blanc fesse noir ‘White [with] black buttock,’ peau gratté ‘scratched skin,’ mélange ‘mix,’ quatorze carats ‘fourteen karats,’ etc. (see Chaudenson 1974b for details). In the Lesser Antilles, the semantics has evolved in the opposite direction. The term créole is reserved for Whites only, although over the past few years things have evolved concurrently with affirmations of Antillais identity. However, the evolution is limited. Joséphine de Beauharnais (a White woman) remains the historical stereotype of la belle créole ‘the beautiful Creole.’ Recently an Antillean author, who was locally identified as chabin ‘a Mulatto with kinky hair,’ was ridiculed for publishing his picture next to the portrait of Joséphine and titling it le beau créole ‘the handsome creole.’ The very importance of the Antilles, the fact that they are closer to and have more intense relations with the metropole, has led this local usage to strengthen the French lexicographic tradition somewhat without taking into account the different meanings that the term could have in other regions. The most curious case is undoubtedly that of Louisiana, which is peculiar for the coexistence of the two essential meanings of the word créole, something that has not failed to arouse polemics periodically. As in the Lesser Antilles, in New Orleans, and more generally in Louisiana French, créole designates a white born in the colony. The good old white society of New Orleans refers to itself as créole. Usage of this term was strengthened, if not introduced, by close relations with the Lesser Antilles. Note, in addition, that this Louisiana society was among those that did not tolerate usage of the same term to classify both Whites and Blacks. (Local law still considers anyone who has one-thirty-second of black blood as a person of color.) On the other hand, in western Louisiana, créole designates Mulattos or Blacks. Parler créole ‘to speak Creole’ is equivalent to parler nèg ‘to talk black.’ This usage has spread to Cajun French, which is distinct from Louisiana French, due to frequent interactions between francophones (Cajuns) and creolophones. The origin of this is not easy to determine, and several hypotheses can be considered. Dominguez’s (1977) explanation does not seem convincing; according to Neumann (1985:11), who cites her, the word allegedly had a purely local meaning (i.e., ‘born in the colonies’), then a cultural connotation (‘Creole’ vs. ‘American’), and later acquired a racial implication (White vs. Black).3 The facts are undoubtedly more complex, as evidenced by the information collected by Woods:

Creole people and languages 7 A century or more ago Creole, as used in Louisiana, designated a native of the state, regardless of his racial origin. In 1840, for example, the New Orleans Picayune used the term in reference to nonwhite slaves. But, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, George Washington Cable, the New Orleans novelist, excluded the descendants of French or Spanish stock who had a Negro strain, and his restricted application of the term became popularly accepted. (Woods 1972:7) There seems indeed to be more of a conflicting juxtaposition of two different traditions than a historical evolution of the meaning of the word. The first, créole as White (similar to that of the Antilles), tends to disappear along with the francophone community of New Orleans; the second, créole as Mulatto or Black (proper to creole communities as they refer to themselves, and to Cajun communities, by borrowing, due to contacts), may have been introduced into Louisiana by the important immigrations from Saint Domingue (Santo Domingo) in the early nineteenth century (see Chapter 4). Leaving aside the case of Louisiana, whose complexity seems to be related more to the twofold way it was settled than to the local evolution of the word créole, the above data can be summarized in the following table: Table 1.1 Variation in the meaning of the word créole Region

Indigenous

White

Black

Martinique Guadeloupe Haiti Réunion Seychelles Mauritius

+ + + + + +

+ + + + -

+ + + +

However, these situations are not set in definitive form and deserve frequent specific studies, which may themselves be revised as a result of possible evolutions (Chaudenson 1974b, Hazaël-Massieux 1977). Usage of the term créole appears to have been distrusted because it generates misunderstandings, especially in Louisiana and, even more so, on Mauritius (where the publication in the journal Hérodote of an article showcasing Mauritius as a ‘creole island’ aroused vivid, though low-key, irritation among some Indo-Mauritian intellectuals who read it). This distrust is expressed in the desire of those – like Virahsawmy (1986), for instance – who wish that on Mauritius people would no longer speak of their ‘creole’ (language), but of Mauritian. Their intent is to see a consensus develop on the truly national character of this language variety. The ‘ethnic’ usage of the term créole seems to be an obstacle to this desideratum; as was

8


pointed out above, the Island’s population uses the term to identify a specific group. In the Antilles, and on Réunion, there is a tendency to often substitute for the word créole terms which are derived from names of territories: viz., Martiniquais, Guadeloupéen, Antillais, and Réunionnais. The use of such terms stems both from claims to specific identities and from a desire for ecumenicity aimed at transcending the social and/or ethnic cleavages that the word créole implies everywhere. On the other hand, Bann Zil Kréol committees have emerged from meetings of the Comité International des Etudes Créoles since 1976. The name Bann Zil Kréol itself reflects an ambition for ‘pancreolism’: the Bann Zil part of the name comes from Indian Ocean creoles (in which it means ‘islands’), whereas Kréol is characteristic of American-Caribbean creoles. The Committee’s present views are somewhat less radical than its initial aims: the common use of a pancreole, or the dream of a mythical mutual intelligibility of creoles. However, its ongoing activities show that there exists a ‘creole world,’ – which still does not at all imply that one must deny the specificities of its diverse components. The very title of this chapter reminds one that, in the history of colonization, creole people preceded by many years the languages that are identified by the same name. On Bourbon the first creole children were born less than two years after the Island was settled. It is thus quite logical that the adjective used to describe realities specific to the Islands (people, animals, and vegetation) was later on also extended to language varieties which exhibited the same endogenous character. According to Arveiller (1963), the first historical attestation of such use of the term créole occurs in Voyage de la Courbe (1688) referring to ‘a certain jargon’ spoken in Senegal that, although ‘only remotely similar to the Portuguese language,’ was nonetheless thought to be genetically related to it. The Natives spoke it in interactions with Europeans. Note the following passage: ‘Besides their local language, those people [the Natives] also speak a certain jargon which is only remotely similar to Portuguese and is called créole, like Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean Sea’ (p. 192). For French creoles, the first attestations are much more recent, in the late eighteenth century, although the existence of local varieties was signaled much earlier, when they were generally identified as bad varieties of French. The case of the Antilles must in this respect be distinguished from that of Bourbon, because the Mascarenes were uninhabited when the French arrived. In the Antilles, the problem is complicated by the presence of the Carib population, and particularly by the development of relations between the Caribs (who themselves had invaded the Islands earlier) and the Europeans, which lasted quite a while before the French settled permanently. Numerous documents emphasize that a very rudimentary language variety called baragouin or jargon was used in those exchanges – though, unfortunately, the narratives are often quite vague. One of the oldest is Bouton’s, which observes: ‘They [the Caribs] have a peculiar language that is very difficult to learn, but they also have a certain baragouin mixed with French, Spanish, English, and Flemish’ (1640:130). The author even gives some examples of this (1640:107–117): ‘Magnane navire de France (‘a big

Creole people and languages 9 ship will arrive tomorrow from France’) … Non ça bon pour France, bon pour Caraïbe (‘this is not good for France; it is good for the Caribbean’) … Mouche bourrache (‘quite drunk’) … Mouche manigat mon compère, moy non faché à toy (‘very strong, my friend; I am not angry with you’). Du Tertre seems to have used both words indiscriminately (baragouin on p. 105; jargon dont les sauvages usent avec les français, ‘[a] jargon that the savages use with the French,’ on p. 210). de Rochefort’s (1658) report is more precise and extensive: The Caribs have an old and natural language … But, besides that, they have developed another one which is not pure and is a mixture of several foreign words from the trade that they have had with the Europeans. Mostly, they have borrowed words from the Spaniards, because they were the first Christians they encountered. They always use their old and natural language when they speak to each other. But when they converse or negotiate with Christians, they use their corrupted language. Besides this, they have a very pleasant baragoin when they want to start speaking a foreign language. de Rochefort gives several examples which are reminiscent of Bouton’s, though they are not absolutely identical. Anonyme de Grenade (1659/1975) uses the word jargon and also provides some attestations of it: Il n’estoit pas bon d’avoir vendu à mariniers de France terre à luy c’est leur langue qui veut dire que c’estoit un méchant homme (p. 61). ‘It was not good to have sold one’s land to French sailors. This is their language for it was a mean man.’ Les autres Caraïbes vouloient matter luy (le tuer) parce qu’il estoit bon aux mariniers France (statement of the Carib Thomas, 1650: 67). ‘The other Caribs wanted to kill him because he was kind to French sailors.’ Un sauvage se mit a crier que mariniers France mattaient caribbes (p. 103). ‘A savage started to call out that French sailors were killing Caribs’ Saint Amour qui estoit mouche bon à eux (p. 205). ‘Saint Amour who was very kind to them.’ It is evident that more or less the same formulae were used. Either some documents were inspired by each other, or else this ‘corrupted language’ essentially consisted of a limited set of stereotypical formulae. Hazaël-Massieux undoubtedly documented a more or less exhaustive list of these attestations, and I hope that analysis of them will shed some light on this complex question. So far as this chapter is concerned, what matters is whether there is a genetic connection between the baragouin or jargon that the Caribs used in their interactions with the Europeans and the French Creoles of the Lesser Antilles. In the

10


absence of sufficient linguistic evidence, I am forced to posit a hypothesis that is contingent on sociohistorical considerations. In this connection, a clear distinction must be made (even if the facts succeed each other historically in the same geographical area) between, on the one hand, the colonization period strictly speaking, during which creoles started to develop, and, on the other, the preceding period that is marked by extensive contacts between the French and the Caribs. Indeed, French settlements in the AmericanCaribbean region (ACR) started in the late sixteenth century. The first French were perhaps those sighted on the ‘Cannibal Coast’ (today’s Guyane, or French Guiana) in 1580.4 However, these initial settlements were numerically of little significance, and in a few cases they were fortuitous and provisional; most often they consisted of the crews of wrecked ships or of ships that were in too bad shape to risk a sea crossing. This is how Captain Fleury and his crew spent nearly a year on Martinique (1619–1620), perfectly understanding the local Caribs. Like other witnesses, Fleury noted that ‘they are very eager to learn foreign languages and customs’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797:96), which explains both the existence and the composite nature of ‘baragoin’ (an alternative spelling in the literature) because French was of course not the only language involved. Sometimes these forced stays by Europeans were the result of demotions and desertions; the settlers were sailors who had been punished, had deserted or been expelled from their ships, or had been abandoned. This is how the same report of Fleury’s comes to mention a sailor ‘named Chevalier, who had been abandoned on the so-called Sainte-Allouzie Island [today’s St Lucia] and went to find Captain Fleury on Martinique’ (Moreau 1987:83). It was among such abandoned sailors that cabrittiers were recruited; they were ‘men that the [Spaniards] abandoned at, or exiled to, certain places that warships to Peru or Brazil passed by’ (Moreau 1987:57). This practice was not at all specifically Spanish, and some individuals took up buccaneering after one or other of the misadventures invoked above. Such situations which preceded colonization strictly speaking were also very different from it, although some of these first French settlers were able to become colonists (which seems to me not to have been generally the case). It is not clear why they would have spoken this ‘baragoin,’ whose expressive possibilities were very limited, except in their interactions with the Caribs. Early documents such as Father Pelleprat’s (1655) seem to make a clear distinction between ‘the language of the Negroes’ (obvious approximations of French) and the composite ‘baragoin’ of the Caribs: The Negroes transported to the Islands are from various African nations, [from] Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea, and from a few other coastal lands. There are up to thirteen nations of these infidels on the Islands. They all speak different languages and do not understand the savage slaves from the coasts that are the most distant from the Islands, which are also diverse nations. It would be an infinite task to undertake teaching them in their natural languages. One must be gifted for language in order to succeed.

Creole people and languages 11 That is why we wait until they have learned French before teaching them, which they do as soon as possible in order to be understood by their masters, on whom they depend for all their needs. We accommodate to their way of speaking, which is ordinarily with the verb in the infinitive, for instance, moy prier Dieu ‘I pray(ed) to God,’ moy aller à l’Eglise ‘I went/go to church,’ [and] moy point manger ‘I have not eaten.’ Adding a word that marks future or past tense, they say demain moy manger ‘tomorrow, I (will) eat’ [and] hier moy prier Dieu ‘yesterday, I prayed to God’ (Pelleprat 1655:52–53) Unless one can provide linguistic justification for such a hypothesis, one need not postulate a genetic link between ‘baragoin’ and ‘the language of the Negroes,’ although there were cases where Caribs and Blacks interacted with one another and there were lexical transfers from one group to another. The confusions actually stem from the fact that baragoin, and to a lesser extent jargon, denote both the contact language used by the Caribs to communicate with the Europeans and the approximative French varieties produced by the slaves in their efforts to learn French. The latter was then the only target language of the slaves, as Pelleprat and other witnesses make clear. The same words are obviously also used for the slaves’ language variety; Father Mongin (1679:135) uses jargon in this case, and Labat (1722:81) refers to the ‘ordinary baragoin of the Negroes.’ The most precise is Father Chevillard (1659:121), who calls it a ‘jargon of the French language.’ The distinction between the Caribs’ contact variety and the Blacks’ approximative French appears in late seventeenth-century documents: I told the Carib to turn but he was content to tell me in his baragoin: ‘Compère ne pas tenir peur, si canot tourné, toi tenir coeur fort.’ The Negroes who spoke better than him told me that it was impossible for the canoe to overturn (1696, quoted in Labat 1722:83) This example, which, like several others, I owe to G. Hazaël-Massieux’s systematic and thorough research, reveals that the Carib’s utterance is more complex than those found in the works of the authors I cited earlier. It seems in fact to be closer to ‘the language of the Negroes.’ Under the new sociolinguistic conditions the latter must have tended to become the target for the Caribs, in place of the European languages themselves. New colonial societies replaced the often sporadic contacts between the Caribs and the Europeans and their limited, functional need for pared-down and specialized communication, for which a pidgin is, after all, sufficient and adapted. Very different needs, related to the constant and complete interaction between Blacks and Whites, were associated with these new societies. The slaves were often uprooted from their native lands at a very young age and isolated among other slaves speaking different languages in very small habitations, ‘homesteads,

12


dwellings,’ which constituted semi-isolated social and economic units. There, they interacted constantly with the white families, on which they were dependent ‘for all their needs’ (Pelleprat 1655) but whose precarious living conditions they shared in a ‘Robinsonnade’ style of daily life (i.e., the destitute style of Robinson Crusoe marooned on his island). As we will see in more detail, in such situations the Black slaves were subjected to very strong linguistic assimilation, due to constant and intense contact with the French model. It is not clear how under such historical conditions a genetic relationship could have developed between the Caribs’ ‘baragouin’ and ‘the French spoken by the Blacks.’ This is after all a variety of French variety and not at all a ‘mixed language,’ as some have sometimes liked to imagine. Intercommunication between Blacks and Whites was thus probably established on a fluctuating continuum of approximations of French. In any case, and even making some allowance for some Gallicization in transcription, early documents on the language of the Blacks seem to indicate that these language varieties were closer to French than the utterances of today’s creole-speakers on the same topics. This impression is confirmed by the fact that the languages of Blacks are generally not mentioned among local peculiarities or oddities – despite the fact that the witnesses (mostly priests and travelers) were, if not fond of the quaint and the exotic, at least often attentive to peculiarities of the territories and societies that they described. In both ACR and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), these local language varieties are always presented as corrupted French. A tourist arriving in Fort-de-France, Pointe-à-Pitre, Port-au-Prince, or Saint-Denis on Réunion would surely not define linguistic productions in the various creoles of the respective Islands in the same terms today. There is probably a twofold explanation for this. First, the distance between Creole and French has increased somewhat in both directions, both because Creole has autonomized (which is typical of creolization) and because French has normalized (i.e., has developed its own norms). Second, present-day Frenchspeakers have no doubt become accustomed to much less variation than that of francophones in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The generalization of a standardized French in the national metropolitan territory, the diffusion of the standard model via formal education, the generalization of the print medium, etc., have over the centuries considerably reduced the ability of speakers to adapt to French varieties different from their own. To be sure, some witnesses underscored the exotic and deviant nature of the French spoken by the Blacks. Father Labat (1722:169), for instance, defined it as a ‘baragouin,’ although he emphasized that their intention was to speak French: ‘They [the Blacks] never learn French correctly, and they have only a baragouin that is the most pleasant and the most natural in the world.’ There are also curious convergences between the assessment of ‘the French of the Blacks’ on the Islands (’corrupted’ or ‘altered’) and the terms used in Abbé Grégoire’s survey (Gazier 1880) to describe the nonstandard French of Poitou in the late eighteenth century: ‘Usage of the French language is universal in our region [the Bas-Poitou], but generally people speak poorly. … City and rural people speak an altered, corrupted French’ (p. 273;

Creole people and languages 13 my emphasis). On the Islands, other witnesses are less harsh about the language of the slaves. Without formulating the same criticisms, de la Bourdonnais (1743:163) invokes ‘French-speaking Blacks’ who, to him, made excellent soldiers for the India War: ‘Four hundred faithful French-speaking Blacks are as adequate as Whites to handle a machine or tackle a canon.’ We will see that other witnesses are even more enthusiastic, and submit that some Blacks could teach French to some French people. Somewhat oversimplifying things and without claiming to reconstruct a precise chronology, we can admit that the sequence of the terms corrupted French, altered French (approximative would be more exact and less ideological), creole patois, creole, and even creole language emphasize the emergence of creoles as autonomous linguistic systems. They highlight a sociohistorical process of creolization that is significantly different from the traditional scheme that views creoles as evolutions from pidgins, which are associated with the first decades of colonization.5

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

One should not be misled by the 1974 publication date. Jules Faine died in 1958, and the work was published posthumously by Gilles Lefebvre. The magazine was very closely aligned with the Communist Party. More curious readers should read Dominguez (1986), which presents a more complex state of affairs (Ed.). Captain Fleury’s report published by J. P. Moreau (1987) is important proof of this. For such a sociohistorical discussion of the terms pidgin, jargon, creole, and koiné, see Mufwene (1997a).

2

Concepts and settings The case of French creoles

This book is intended as a contribution to studies of creolization in general, and, although I focus on French creoles, references to other creole language varieties are not excluded. Let us start with a description of the basic terminology and a brief examination of how the terms are used. In lay language the terms pidgin, sabir, lingua franca, and creole are used indistinguishably as near synonyms, but specialists use them to designate languages that either have different functions or are in different stages of evolution. (For a comparison of this microlinguistic system among some ‘classic’ authors, see Bal 1975.) Interest in the study of creoles began around the end of the nineteenth century, springing from the assumption that this research area could shed light on, or provide arguments for, the theoretical debates which had divided European linguists. Baggioni (1986) discusses this clearly, so it is unnecessary to dwell on it here. Suffice it to note that, in the mid-twentieth century, the classification of creoles in Bibliographie Linguistique still reflects uncertainties that stem from conflicting views of their genetic status. The 1957 edition of this important reference work includes a section entitled ‘mixed languages,’ in which creoles and pidgins are placed side by side with Jewish and Romani languages.1 In subsequent editions this section has been removed, and its content is presented under various titles, one of them ‘creolized languages,’ which is organized into five subcategories: Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English creoles, as well as Pidgin (English). The change in theoretical viewpoint is noteworthy, even if the classifications remain somewhat disputable. The inventory of languages that can be classified as ‘creoles’ is not established. Reinecke’s (1975) monumental Bibliography of Pidgin and Creole Languages includes works on over a hundred such languages; Hancock (1977a) identifies 127 pidgins and creoles, grouping them in lexifier-based sets. More recently Holm (1989) and Smith (1995) have produced more extensive inventories, although Smith’s identification criteria are not clear (Mufwene 1997b). Hancock, whose classification seems to have inspired Holm’s, groups them as follows: English-based varieties: 35, including not only the English creoles of Jamaica and Hawaii, which are spoken by 1 million and 500,000 people respectively, but also Pitcairnese, spoken by 150 descendants of the Bounty mutineers

Concepts and settings: the case of French creoles

15

who settled in Pitcairn in 1790 (it is interesting to note also that in the nineteenth century some of those mutineers’ descendants emigrated to Norfolk Island, where approximately one thousand people now speak an English creole related to Pitcairnese). French-based varieties: 15, including not only varieties traditionally classified as creole (viz., Louisiana Creole, Haitian, Guyanais, the Lesser Antilles varieties, Seychellois, Mauritian, and Réunionnais) but also many others much less known and whose existence or survival are uncertain. These include: Souriquois (now called Micmac – (formerly used between French fishermen and native Nova Scotians)), Michif (born out of contact between the French and Cree Indians, spoken in Manitoba), Franco-Icelandic pidgin, ‘Petit Mauresque’ (from North Africa), French Pidgin of Guinea (relexified from the Portuguese creole), ‘Petit-Nègre’ of Côte d’Ivoire and former French possessions of Africa, Tai-Boi (a Franco-Annamite pidgin), and the French pidgin of New Caledonia or Bislama (probably a relexification of an English pidgin; Charpentier 1979:42). This inventory highlights the problem of how to count such languages. For example, Hancock groups together all the Antillean French creoles (viz., Guadeloupéen, Martiniquais, Dominican, Saint-Lucian, and the creoles of Grenada, Saint Thomas, and Trinidad, though he does not take into account subvarieties spoken on smaller satellite islands, such as St Barths); and yet these varieties are often as different from one another as Seychellois may be from Mauritian – both of which he lists as separate creoles (though he ignores Rodriguais). All this shows that a realistic inventory of these creoles cannot be established in the absence of previously established criteria that make it possible to distinguish those cases where regional variation corresponds to two or more separate languages, as opposed to those where the varieties can be identified as dialects of the same language. Portuguese-based varieties: 14 creoles or pidgins, including Papiamento (supposedly a Spanish relexification of a former Portuguese pidgin); some varieties of creolized Portuguese from Brazil; the Portuguese creoles of Cape Verde, Senegal, Guinea, and the Gulf of Guinea Islands (Annobon, São Tomé, and Príncipe); varieties of pidginized Portuguese in Africa (‘Broken Portuguese’), particularly in Angola; and the Portuguese creoles of the Indian Ocean (Daman, Sri Lanka, West Malaysia, Macao). Spanish based-varieties: These are appreciably less numerous (only 7, of which the best known and best described is Palenquero of Columbia). The small number of Spanish creoles is one historical linguistic enigma to which I will return. It is hard to explain a priori why, especially on the sugar islands, Spanishbased Cuban or Dominican Creoles did not emerge, whereas Haitian and Jamaican Creoles developed on the French part of Hispaniola (Saint Domingue) and on Jamaica, respectively. Varieties based on other European languages: 5 have developed apparently from Dutch;2 3 are of Italian origin; 6 of German origin (including Yiddish, which suggests that he could also have included ‘Judeo-Spanish’ and

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‘Judeo-Italian’ in his inventory); 1 of Slavic origin (Manchurian Sino-Slavic); 4 from diverse lexifiers (including Russenorsk and Mediterranean Sabir). Varieties based on Native American languages: 6 languages from various lexifiers, including Chinook (dear to R. Queneau) and ‘Lingua Geral,’ which has a Tupi-Guaraní base. Varieties based on African languages: 21. This is undoubtedly the section that gives rise to the most heated controversies, because Africanists are divided; many refuse to consider lingua franca varieties of various African languages as pidgins or creoles (Mufwene 1989, 1997a). Hence, authors differ over what they include in this category. Some will accept only two or three varieties (though not necessarily the same ones) as ‘creolized’ or ‘creole’ (e.g., Pidgin Hausa, Sango, Fanagalo, or Juba Arabic of the Sudan, Lingala, KikongoKituba), whereas others, such as Owens (1998), have extended the category to include all lingua francas possessing certain features typically associated with creolization. Diverse varieties from other non-European lexifiers: 10 or more. In principle, Holm (1989) provides more recent information than Hancock, although in a few respects it is no more reliable. In any case, the classification itself remains uncertain. Thus the total number of language varieties included in the category of pidgins and creoles exceeds 200. (Smith (1995) lists over 500 varieties.)3 However, as noted above, such estimates are of little significance. Since the debate on the distinction between language and dialect remains open (and, in any case, is beyond the scope of this study), it is necessary to define more precisely the terms we are using, terms whose usage and meanings are far from clearly and unanimously established. (See also Mufwene’s 1997b critique of Smith’s 1995 enumeration of pidgins and creoles.) Pidgin The etymology of this term, in contrast with that of creole, remains mysterious and controversial. It has long been admitted that its most likely etymon is the English word business, distorted in the pronunciation of Chinese-speakers during the first half of the nineteenth century. In fact, in the phrase it’s your business, the word business is produced in Pidgin English as pidjin. Numerous other hypotheses have been proposed, however, none of which appears wholly convincing. Thus the term pidgin has also been related to the Portuguese term occupação, ‘occupation, business’ (Leland 1876, cited in Todd 1974:20), though with no clear explanation of its phonetic evolution. It has also been linked to a tribe of Oyapock Indians, the Pidians; the term pidian was supposedly diffused as early as the seventeenth century from South America, through vernacular English (Reinecke 1959, cited in Valdman 1978:3). According to another hypothesis, pidgin can be traced back to the Portuguese pequeno, ‘small,’ in the phrase pequeno Português, which is used to characterize ‘corrupted’ Portuguese varieties in Africa and elsewhere (a phrase resembling petit français). It has even been linked to the


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Hebrew word pidyom, ‘barter’ used to designate the English spoken in the ghettos of London. This hypothesis is unlikely, given the relatively recent attestation of the term. Hancock (1979:81–86) provides a brief critical examination of these etymologies, with more detailed discussions (see also Baker and Mühlhäusler 1990 – Editor). Regardless of the hypothesis one adopts, the term pidgin seems to have been used first of all to designate a language or language variety, before being used to characterize a language type – which is essentially a functional, rather than a structural, classification. (Pidgins are always contact languages for speakers who otherwise speak their native languages.) One of the sources of confusion therefore lies in the fact that the word designates either a type of language, as defined above, or particular languages, generally lexified by English, which differ among themselves. The latter are distinguished from each other by the name of the place where they are spoken, as in Nigerian/Cameroon/Chinese Pidgin (English), etc. (exactly what one must in fact do with French creoles to avoid confusing them with each other). Sabir and lingua franca The problem is similar, though simpler, with the terms sabir and lingua franca. Indeed, these terms are applied, with differentiation, to languages which, like pidgins, serve as means of communication for speakers of different languages. The main difference is that lingua franca is generally used for a contact variety of what is otherwise the vernacular of a community. Thus, Dioula is originally the vernacular of an ethnic group in Côte d’Ivoire, consisting of hundreds of thousands of members, identified by the same name. However, the language also serves as a trade language in West sub-Saharan Africa. It is spoken among itinerant merchants, who, regardless of their origin, are also called Dioulas. The same is not true of a sabir, which may be closer to a pidgin, because it has been noticeably restructured. It designates an approximation, somewhat simplified (if a precise and established meaning can be attributed to ‘simplification’), of a pre-existing language. Differentiating more finely, one could say that a contact language is a sabir when it is still in its initial stage of emergence through the restructuring of a pre-existing language; it becomes a pidgin after it has stabilized to some extent. All that said, Sabir and Lingua Franca were originally the designations of particular languages that are now extinct; and those languages must be briefly taken into account, because some ingenious minds have assigned them roles in creole genesis. For lingua franca, the main reference is Schuchardt (1909), which has been translated and annotated by Markey (1979:26–47, 113–121). (The problem has also been approached by several authors – e.g., Hancock 1977b:283–291, Whinnom 1977:295–310 – from the perspective set out above. Whinnom includes an extensive bibliography on the subject.) It is generally agreed that lingua franca and sabir designate more or less the same linguistic reality, with the second term having a more recent usage.

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However, it should help to consider Schuchardt’s observations, as translated by Markey: Lingua Franca is the communicative language formed of a Romance lexicon that arose in the Middle Ages between Romans and Arabs and subsequently Turks; it appears to have spread along the whole of the southern and eastern Mediterranean coasts. At the present time, it is unknown in the Levant. It is now restricted to the Berbers with the exception of those in Morocco. Many scholars share the opinion that it extends to all Mediterranean ports, while others contend that Lingua Franca does not actually occur anywhere. It is not difficult to resolve the contradiction between these two opinions. On the one hand, if one considers that the traveling speakers of Lingua Franca were seamen, then it was occasionally heard everywhere. On the other hand, one might object to recognizing Lingua Franca as a fixed, fully fledged language, but rather consider it a more or less individualized aberration from which, to be sure, it can scarcely be distinguished in specific cases. (Markey 1979:26) Creolists have striven to push the origin of the Lingua Franca back well before the period proposed by Schuchardt. Hancock echoes these theories: One opinion is that Lingua Franca originated at the time of the Crusades (AD 1095ff) on the Jerusalem battlefields, later spreading westward along the shores of the Mediterranean with the military and merchant vessels. Basing her hypothesis upon a study of early documentary clues, Noeljeanne Adkins at the University of Texas at Austin believes that the beginning of the Lingua Franca is to be sought as many as a thousand years earlier than the Crusades. (Hancock 1977b:283) There have undoubtedly been contact languages (i.e., ‘lingua francas’)4 since the Roman Empire, but this by no means proves a historical continuity from these lingua francas to the Lingua Franca which Schuchardt investigated. The problem, in some respects, is similar to the one discussed in the preceding chapter: the fact that, in the ACR, ‘Baragouins’ (spoken by the native Caribs in their interactions with Europeans) and ‘black varieties’ (spoken by Africans in French colonies) succeeded each other does not in any way demonstrate a genetic relation between the former and the latter. The term ‘Roman,’ which seems to have overlapped in meaning with the term ‘Frank’ did not specifically identify the Romans themselves; in some cases it seems to have designated people who lived in parts of the Roman Empire. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the former Gaul (today’s France) was for some time under Frankish (Germanic) domination, and the term ‘Frank’ was used to refer to those who lived in the western part of the former Roman


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Empire. Besides, in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the most common language was certainly Greek. We should therefore not be misled by the apparent Latinity of the term lingua franca. Schuchardt seems to have established the etymology of the word ‘Franca’: The Arabs termed the language of the Europeans with whom they came into contact the language of the Franks, lisan al faranž (al-frandž) or Frankish, as the Romans were called, while the name rm applied to the Greeks or Byzantines, and certainly these ‘Romans’ were primarily Italians. It is particularly prevalent in Genovese and Venetian trade with the Levant …. The Europeans imitated the Oriental in this use of the expression lingua franca only when in contact with them. When they made use of the term among themselves, they applied it to a fractured Romance spoken by those with whom they came into contact. Thus, the original meaning was narrowed to that which is accepted as valid here, and this meaning was then finally expanded in another direction; that is, by lingua franca, one usually means any widely spread commercial argot. Thus, it has been translated as ‘free speech’; just as porto franco is translated as ‘free port.’ (Markey 1979:32) Schuchardt conducted a large survey of citations and attestations of Lingua Franca, from which it can be inferred, as he himself does, that in the eastern and central Mediterranean it was lexified essentially by Italian, whereas later, in the western Mediterranean, it was apparently lexified by Spanish. It is the first of these varieties which is illustrated in the famous turqueries ‘pretensions’ of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Molière was allegedly inspired, if not given the idea, by the Chevalier d’Avieux, who was the Minister Plenipotentiary to the Dey of Algiers and who, in his memoirs, reports that he was received in this language (Perego 1968:600). These two varieties of Lingua Franca were of course in contact with and influenced each other. As Schuchardt emphasizes, Algiers played a central role in the seventeenth century: The geographical mid-point of this essentially uniform Lingua Franca is formed by Algiers, though not due to the fact that it was here where Italian and Spanish spheres of power came into contact, but rather because it was here that there was a firm citadel whence a network of piracy spread over the Mediterranean. The commercial argot became chiefly a slave language. (Markey 1979:35) According to Schuchardt, there were 25,000 Christian slaves in Algiers in the early seventeenth century and Lingua Franca served as a medium of communication between masters and slaves, as well as, undoubtedly, among slaves speaking different European languages. Lingua Franca remained in usage in Algiers until the French conquest. In 1830 a Dictionnaire de la langue française ou petit mauresque was published in Marseilles, providing evidence of the state of the

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language as it was observed ‘in seaboard towns of Algiers.’ Under the French occupation, Lingua Franca evidently Gallicized and took the name Sabir. It is likely that this evolution was influenced, through convergence, by strategies that speakers of Arabic used while learning French, a phenomenon that is evidenced particularly by lexical contributions from Arabic that are attested in Lingua Franca in the seventeenth century. It is thus necessary to clarify and determine both the meanings and usages of these different terms (applied, of course, to types of languages, rather than to particular languages). Perego (1968:604) introduced an additional term in proposing the name pseudo-sabirs for ‘language varieties resulting from unilateral efforts made by individuals or groups of individuals to reproduce, when necessary, a prestigious or socially superior language in a given situation.’ The existence of such language varieties is certainly evident. However, taking into account the intentions behind such productions, it seems preferable to identify them simply as approximations of the target language. The term interlanguage is also to be avoided, because some scholars apparently use it when focusing on interference, rather than more generally on second-language acquisition strategies (Chaudenson 1986). Ducrot’s Dictionnaire ency^clopédique des sciences du langage (1972) proposes some definitions which merit attention insofar as they include a classic theory of creolization: The existence of regular relations between communities speaking different languages often brings about a mixed language which makes possible direct communication without recourse to translation. The resultant language is called sabir (not without a negative connotation) 1 2

when it is used in sporadic relations with limited functions, especially for trade; and when it does not have a well-defined grammatical structure and allows mostly juxtapositions of words.

On the other hand, once a grammatically coherent language emerges, it is called pidgin. Like national languages and dialects, it meets its speakers’ communicative needs (with the potential to support literature). When such a language becomes the primary (or unique) language of a community, it is called a creole. These definitions are not easy to accept, because, perhaps inadvertently, they suggest a premature typological classification of these languages as ‘mixed languages’ and they establish among these terms relations and a historical succession that are hardly admissible, as will be shown below. Such views implicitly refer to the most ‘classic’ theory of creole genesis, as formulated especially by Hall (1962:162), which posits a three-stage ‘life-cycle’: pidginization, creolization, and (eventually) decreolization. From this perspective, the initial pidgin is a rudi-


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mentary linguistic system (with elementary grammatical structures and a reduced lexicon); its functions are limited, and it is not the mother tongue of any of its speakers. (This definition corresponds to what the above-cited dictionary calls a sabir.) Accordingly, a creole emerges when a pidgin becomes the mother tongue, first of part of the community that speaks it, then of the whole. This ‘nativization’ is accompanied by the stabilization and complexification of its system, as well as by the diversification and extension of functions. The language is no longer associated with reduced functions, nor is it any longer reserved to particular circumstances of communication. The link between structural and functional evolution is of course difficult to show, but a language adapts to the conditions in which it is spoken and becomes fit to meet its functions. (The notion ‘language’ is, of course, used here not only for the linguistic system itself but for the language/speaker combination.)

Terminology and theory The study of creolization leads one to formulate reservations about the validity of the above hypothesis and to wonder whether the proposed pidgin-to-creole evolution is conceivable. Bollée (1977:11) was the first to put forward a clear critique of Hall’s theory (about which my study of the genesis of Réunionnais had raised some skepticism): ‘Let us, thanks to the work of Chaudenson, ask a question which we will also attempt to answer. Is it necessary to posit this intermediate pidgin stage in the genesis of this Indian Ocean creole?’ Bollée points out justifiably that pidgins, as Hall imagines them, are for the most part, trade languages; that is, they are used in settings of very specific and limited communication, in which even before the self-service era, one could get by without an elaborate discourse. Hall uses the term slightness of contact, i.e., rare and superficial contacts, to describe social relations among speakers who communicate with one another by means of a pidgin. Consequently, pidgins are reduced languages which are fit only for reduced needs of communication. Taking some examples from cases discussed above, the baragouin used by the Caribs in their interaction with the Europeans can be considered a pidgin. So can the Mediterranean Lingua Franca, at least before it ‘found a home’ in North Africa. On the other hand, as I suggested above and will demonstrate in detail, the varieties spoken by Blacks in the French colonies of the Antilles and Indian Ocean do not fit into the category of ‘pidgins.’ In addition, they did not in any way develop from baragouins, even if usage of the terms jargon or baragouin may create ambiguities. There is thus confusion which has arisen out of more or less complete ignorance of the real sociohistorical conditions of the genesis of creoles. The advances in our knowledge (though nonetheless significant) have not produced the results we might have expected on the theoretical level. This shortcoming

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can be illustrated through such works as Thomason and Kaufman (1988) and Holm (1989). They use the term pidgin as a synonym of trade jargon and apply it to linguistic systems utilized sporadically in trade between groups speaking different native languages and maintaining their social autonomy. Hall’s model does not suit French creoles at all, and, in broader terms, not even those varieties that I shall define below as exogenous. It is well known that partners speaking different languages can effectively engage in trade without linguistic communication. Calvet (1987:107, 123) cites examples from regions as diverse as West Africa in the Middle Ages and Latin America today. As a matter of fact, in order to uphold the model proposed by Hall, one would have to completely change the definition of the sociohistorical conditions which are typical of the initial phase of creolization, and also to stop using the word pidgin, which has created confusion, unless one had already defined it precisely. These suggested changes are too radical to make it feasible to adapt Hall’s hypothesis to historical and social facts. It is therefore preferable to formulate another hypothesis – which is the primary goal of the present book. One of the conclusions of this examination of descriptive terms (pidgin, sabir, pseudo-sabir) is that, in order to shed light on the subject under debate, it is necessary to propose certain guiding principles: These are: Pidgin will be used only in the sense of ‘a language with reduced structures and lexicon, used for a limited number of functions by speakers who dispose of, and also speak, (an)other language(s) for full-fledged communication, and who belong in social groups which are largely autonomous.’ This definition may seem rather complicated, but it is intended in principle to account both for trade languages (trade jargons as well as the baragouin of the Antilles, or Lingua Franca of the Mediterranean) and plantation varieties in, for example, non-settlement colonies. Sabir will not be used, nor will pseudo-Sabir; the linguistic reality to which Perego applied the latter term is identified here as ‘approximation of the target language.’ I can now raise an important, though largely ignored, distinction which I highlighted in Chaudenson (1974b:389), between two types of pidgins and creoles. 1

The first type consists of endogenous pidgins and creoles that have developed from contact between an indigenous population and an immigrant group; in the context of colonial expansion, this is the case of a colony based on trading posts and centers. No French creoles are connected with this type of setting, although there are Portuguese creoles (for instance, those of the Casamance river in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau) which seem to have developed in similar settings. Their main activity was the slave trade, and, except when interpreters were used, a Portuguese pidgin served as the contact language between the African and the European, regardless of their native language.

Concepts and settings: the case of French creoles 2

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The second type of pidgins and creoles, characterized as exogenous, developed out of contacts among immigrants and the transplanted populations. They are often insular varieties, as was the case with all French creoles – if we view Louisiana and Guyane (French Guiana) at the outset of their colonization as ‘continental isolates,’ since these colonies, which were almost exclusively coastal, so to speak ‘turned their backs’ to an unknown and hostile continental environment. In the case of Louisiana, exploration and even contacts along the Mississippi do not contradict this view, because they were essentially adventurous. In the second case, to refer to Cayenne as an island is not playing with words; it really is one. The native population played only a limited role here, as it was rapidly driven out or exterminated by the colonization process and slave labor was imported (largely because it was impossible to enslave the local indigenous population). In the case of the Indian Ocean, the question of a native population did not even arise, because the archipelago was uninhabited.

Having clarified the terminology, it is also necessary to justify the phrase French creoles, which I have used and to dispel any equivocation about it. A generally unacknowledged reticence has often led to the avoidance of this otherwise clear and concise phrase. Non-francophones do not seem to have had the same scruples. The index of names of creoles established by Hancock (1979:362–391) shows a diverse terminology. English creoles are always identified as ‘Creole English,’ this term being preceded by an adjective or a noun specifying the place where the variety is spoken or identifying some other peculiarity (e.g., Hawaiian Creole English, Guyanese Creole English, etc.). On the other hand, French and Portuguese creoles are identified sometimes as ‘French Creole’ or ‘Portuguese Creole’ and at other times as ‘Creole French’ or ‘Creole Portuguese’ (thus, Seychelles French Creole, but Mauritian Creole French; Senegal Creole Portuguese, but Malacca Portuguese Creole). In each case Hancock undoubtedly follows the authors that he cites, and he himself organizes the varieties according to their European lexifiers, under categories titled ‘English-based,’ ‘French-based,’ etc. Over twenty years ago, when the Comité International des Etudes Créoles was founded in 1976, the phrase créoles à base lexicale française ‘French-lexifier creoles’ was proposed. However, it quickly appeared that, although it was originally justified by scientific considerations (viz., to avoid prejudging how creoles developed by classifying them according to their lexifiers, which was hardly disputable), this formulation actually served some ideological goals. The intention was actually to give the phrase the following meaning: ‘creoles whose lexicon is predominantly French but whose morphosyntax has another origin.’ Thus, without necessarily agreeing with the first part, one recognizes in the second the celebrated and absurd definition according to which some creoles are allegedly languages with an ‘African syntax and a French vocabulary.’ This highlights the double inadequacy of this designation, which not only suggests that only the lexicon would be French but at the same time fails to recognize neologisms and innovative structures in creoles’ lexica which, compared to the French lexicon, are as

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original as the morphosyntax. The phrase créoles à base française ‘French-based creoles’ would be the most adequate, but créoles français ‘French creoles’ has the sheer advantage of being shorter (unless one adopts the Anglo-Saxon abbreviation style of rendering, for example, ‘French Creole’ or ‘Haitian Creole’ as FC or HC). Clearly such terms as ‘French Creole’ do not challenge the linguistic autonomy of these systems, and in no way make them French dialects.

The situation of French creoles We can now define more precisely and more fully the geographic areas in which French creoles are spoken. I sometimes refer to them as the world of creoles, thereby underscoring a kind of linguistic and cultural unity among them – which need not, however, overshadow the fact that each constituent of this ‘world’ maintains its own peculiarities. Historically, creolization is linked to colonization in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, French creoles are also spoken in territories that have never been colonized by France. This point highlights at the outset the significance of diasporas, whose role has always been underestimated, if not ignored. Creole-speaking populations are numerous and diverse, spread over several geographical areas, and subject to political situations that vary and change, regionally and over time. It is probably simpler to give an inventory of creole-speaking areas and introduce them briefly, focusing on the features most relevant to our purposes. American Caribbean Region (ACR) Louisiana Although a French colony since 1672, Louisiana was sparsely settled, and sometimes under unfortunate conditions, until 1717, when, under the leadership of J. Law, it began to develop. Louisiana remained French until 1763 and was then ceded to Spain, which ruled it until In 1800. It was returned to France, which ruled it only for three years, before Napoleon Bonaparte sold it to the United States in 1803. According to the most recent and reliable estimates (Neumann 1985:20), Louisiana Creole is spoken by 60,000–80,000 people, about 50,000–60,000 of whom are Blacks and 10,000–20,000 Whites. These speakers are located in four regions: in Pointe Coupée Parish, on the German Coast along the Mississippi, in a central area on both sides of the Atchafalaya Basin, and in Tammany Parish north of Lake Pontchartrain. Their creole, also called parler nèg ‘Negro speech,’ Black French or Gombo (now an obsolete term) should not be confused with Louisiana French, which is spoken mostly in the New Orleans area and has almost disappeared. Nor should it be confused with Acadian French (also called Cajun), which was brought to Louisiana by the Acadians, French settlers driven out of Nova Scotia by the English and relocated in the colony toward the middle of the eighteenth century during the ‘Grand Dérangement.’ Although Louisiana


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Creole is strongly influenced by Acadian French, the two varieties have remained distinct. However, it is feared that the latter may absorb the former, because it has many more speakers (around 300,000–500,000). Both varieties are seriously threatened by American English in spite of some francophone revival. Haiti Occupying an area of 27,750 km2 in the western part of the island of Hispaniola – an area conceded to France by the Treaty of Ryswick in 1679 – the Republic of Haiti (formerly called Saint-Domingue) has an estimated population of 7 million that constitutes the most important of the creole-speaking communities. It is also worth noting that, due to significant and continuing emigration that started a long time ago, a considerable number of Haitians have been living abroad. As d’Ans (1987:321) puts it, ‘since the American occupation (1915–1934), emigration has become an essential safety valve which makes it possible for the country to survive at all costs.’ As early as the 1970s approximately 40,000 Haitians and Haitian descendants lived in the Bahamas, 30,000 in Cuba, and 350,000 in the Dominican Republic (the eastern part of Hispaniola – referring to the period before it became independent; this is also referred to in this book as San Domingo, to distinguish it from the western part, Saint Domingue, which became independent as Haiti). In recent years, there has been extensive emigration to Canada and the United States; New York now has the second largest Haitian population of any city in the world after Port-au-Prince (and some of its banks offer their customers forms printed in Haitian Creole). Other French overseas departments in the area – Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Guyane – have also attracted many Haitian emigrants (there are allegedly more Haitian than Guyanese children born in Cayenne). Colonized in 1492 by the Spaniards, Hispaniola was an important source of precious metals (15,000 tons in the first thirty years) and was a useful strategic base for the conquest of America. The Spaniards’ colonial practices, but above all epidemics of European diseases (to which the Indians had no resistance), and the famine and impoverishment of the countryside that ensued (d’Ans 1987), pushed the original inhabitants towards extinction; by about 1520 only a few thousand remained. The Spaniards, and later the French, imported African slaves to develop colonial agriculture (sugar cane, indigo, and coffee), but agricultural development did not proceed smoothly, and it was not until the early eighteenth century that African immigration began to increase little by little (I will return to this below). One of the consequences of the French Revolution was the birth of the first black republic – achieved without an organized revolutionary movement among the slave masses. Nevertheless, since hatred of the Whites led to their massacre or departure, Haiti became unique in having a population that is only either Black or Mulatto. Since Independence in 1804, Haiti has kept French as its official language. The 1918 Constitution proclaims this, and that of 1964 upholds the position of French, although recognizing ‘cases or conditions’ where Creole can be used by

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people ‘who don’t have sufficient knowledge of French.’ These conditions have never been specified, but a decree of December 1979 did authorize the use of Creole – which is ‘spoken by 90 percent of the Haitian population,’ – as the medium of education and as an academic subject (at least in the early years of schooling).5 However, this decision was implemented only experimentally in some, but not all, schools. Progress toward official recognition of the local linguistic situation was confirmed by the 1983 Constitution (Article 62), which recognizes French and Creole as the national languages (although the somewhat ambiguous wording does not place both languages on the same level). Haiti is one of the examples chosen by Ferguson (1959) to underpin and illustrate his concept of ‘diglossia’ – which he applies to situations where in the same linguistic community two related languages have unequal status (one dominating the other) and complementary functions, with the ‘superior-status’ language used in official, public, and/or formal situations. Like most other creolophone areas, Haiti has two coexistent social groups. One is bilingual or trilingual, speaking Creole and French, or (more and more commonly, as a result of increasing Anglo-American influence) Creole, French, and English – the ruling class, which used to send its children to study in France, now often sends them to the United States. The second group, monolingual and creolophone, makes up 90 percent of the population and is essentially rural, although an exodus of many of its members has increased the urban proletariat of the capital, Port-auPrince. Sociolinguistic problems, such as how such situations might be ‘managed,’ are beyond the scope of the present study. I have considered them for a long time and have characterized as utopian the wish to evolve toward a bilingual equilibrium (Chaudenson 1979b). Even though his positions are not exactly identical with mine, the views that d’Ans puts forward in his chapter ‘Langue, culture et identité nationale’ (‘Language, Culture, and National Identity’; 1987:297–311) have the essential merit of being realistic and rejecting a Third-World demagogy whose motives are not always acknowledged. Guadeloupe and its dependencies Covering 1,780 km2, Guadeloupe is a French Overseas Department (FOD) with 422,467 inhabitants in 1999. Several satellite islands are administratively attached to it: Marie-Galante (157 km2, 15,000 inhabitants), La Désirade (20 km2, 1500 inhabitants), Les Saintes (14.5 km2, 2500 inhabitants, predominantly White descendants of French sailors and fishermen), St Barths (25 km2, 2500 inhabitants, 80 percent of them White and 20 percent Blacks from other islands). Settled by the French in 1635, Guadeloupe lost its native Carib population a quarter of century later, due to emigration and extermination. In order to settle and develop the island, the French colonial system resorted first to French indentured servants and later to African slaves. The small proportion of White settlers on Guadeloupe is explained by semi-permanent underdevelopment throughout its history and by a degree of exploitation by its neighbor Martinique, as well as


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by violent riots during the revolutionary period. One of the consequences of this history is that the average phenotype of Guadeloupe’s population is clearly less mixed than in Martinique. Whites may constitute only 7–8 percent of the total population and even this estimate may be too high, because the French law forbids the inclusion of information on race in censuses. East Indians, descendants of the indentured servants brought over from India in the late nineteenth century, number about 25,000 and are concentrated in some parts of the Island. The linguistic situation is, with some nuances, that of classic diglossia. Despite active cultural militancy in favour of creole, the only domain where this language has made notable progress is the radio, owing to the development of privately owned radio stations. Print and audio-visual media have remained almost exclusively French. Martinique With an area of 1,100 km2 and 381,467 inhabitants in 1999, Martinique is also an FOD. It was settled some months after the initial colonization of Guadeloupe and also had a small native Carib population of 1,000–2,000. During the first phase of its colonization, the colonists mostly struggled to survive, as they did elsewhere, living essentially from fishing and hunting, and trying to grow subsistence crops that would enable them to develop a minimum infrastructure from which to start ‘colonial’ agriculture. Relations with the Carib population were not good, and there were frequent fights. Toward the middle of the seventeenth century a number of Caribs left the Island, while those who remained took refuge on the southern and southeastern coasts. Although it was forbidden to enslave them, one does find mention of some Caribs in censuses of slave population (49 in 1865, but none afterwards – although a few dozens are registered as indentured servants: 97 in 1692, according to Father David 1973:22). Though small during the first decades of the colony, the Black population reached parity with the White population around 1665. The considerable growth of the number of Blacks, of course, reflected the economic development of the Island and the beginning of colonial agriculture (sugar cane and tobacco), which called for abundant manual labor. On the other hand, emigration reduced the number of Whites, who left for Saint-Domingue, whose economic prosperity attracted them, and for Trinity (now Trinidad) and Dominica at the end of the eighteenth century. The proportion of Whites was further reduced by the eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902, which caused 30,000 deaths and destroyed the city of Saint Pierre (the Island’s center of administrative and economic activity), where a significant part of the White population was concentrated. The demographic significance of the European group in the history of Martinique is, however, attested by the very mixed phenotype of the average Martiniquais.

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Dominica This island of the Lesser Antilles, located half way between Guadeloupe (to the north) and Martinique (to the south), has a 100,000 inhabitants. The majority are Black or mixed, but, because of its particular history, Dominica is one of the few islands where a small Carib population has remained. Because the English and the French had agreed from the start to abandon it to the Caribs, Dominica was colonized relatively late; it served as a refuge for outlaws from neighboring islands. From 1763, when the Treaty of Paris accorded it to the English, until the end of the First French Empire, France and England were in dispute over the Island and held it by turns. It ultimately became English in 1805 and was made a British Crown colony in 1898; it was granted autonomy in 1967 and became independent in 1979. The presence of a French creole, very similar to those of the neighboring French Antilles, can be explained more by immigration (see above) than by the French settlement, which lasted only a few years. Curiously, the creole of Dominica is the one whose description is best-known, since it is presented, by way of example, in the article ‘Le langage’ in the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade (1968). This study (pp. 1022–1049) is the work of Douglas R. Taylor, who in the 1950s and 1960s helped to stimulate research on creoles by his controversies with Robert Hall. Non-creole French has long been completely absent from the linguistic situation in Dominica, although the state has participated regularly in francophone meetings and is a member of what used to be the ‘Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique,’ now ‘Agence Internationale de la Francophonie.’ As on St Lucia (see below), its local diglossia involves Creole and English. St Lucia With an area of 616 km2 and 150,000 inhabitants, this island of the Lesser Antilles lies some 30 km south of Martinique. During the first decades of the seventeenth century the English made several attempts to settle there, but they failed because of the hostility of the Caribs. The French settled around 1640, having reached an accord with the Natives. Some twenty years later Saint Lucia became another of the colonies claimed by both French and English, and the rivalry continued for half a century until the two parties finally acknowledged the island’s neutrality at the Treaty of Breda in 1723. French colonists and their slaves remained on the Island, however, and many others settled there throughout the eighteenth century. The French regained the island in 1735, kept it at the Treaty of Paris (1763), lost it again, and regained it in 1783. In 1803 St Lucia was passed definitively to the English, later becoming a Crown colony, and then gaining independence in 1980. St Lucia has kept French Creole as its vernacular, but French itself has completely disappeared, so the sociolinguistic situation is very similar to that in Dominica (Carrington 1984). However, its Creole, which is close to vernaculars of the French Lesser Antilles, has undergone more and more influence from


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English on the lexical level. This evolution can be explained not only by the role of English in education and tourism (which is mainly anglophone) but also by the role of anglophone radio and television in the area (particularly broadcasts from Barbados). Nevertheless, Creole still maintains, and often strengthens, its position both through the local radio programs and through inter-island exchanges. The different Creoles of the Lesser Antilles are largely mutually intelligible. French Guiana (Guyane) This FOD had 117,000 inhabitants in 1999 and extends over an area of 91,000 km2. Its colonization started much earlier than generally assumed, since the first French expedition landed on the island of Cayenne in 1604. The expedition abandoned the territory a few months later, but others followed it, and a permanent settlement was eventually established. Nonetheless, colonial rivalries (in this case with the Dutch) and the effects of the harsh climate (fever and colonial diseases) made development of the territory difficult. For all that, the Island’s natural riches (sugar cane, indigo, annatto, coffee, but also rare woods, silver, and, in the mid-nineteenth century, gold) attracted colonists both from Europe and from the Antilles. (There were immigrations from the English Antilles, especially St Lucia, during the ‘gold-panning’ era, and from Martinique after the eruption of Mount Pelée.) More recent and significant immigrations have been from Haiti, Brazil, and Surinam. (Twenty percent of the population of Guyane is allegedly from Haiti, but such estimates are vague, since the arrivals are clandestine.) In 1982 the ‘creole’ (Guyanese, Antillean, and Haitian) part of the FOD’s population represented approximately 60 percent of the total. Indian Ocean Region (IOR) Réunion Covering 2,512 km2 and with 795,072 inhabitants in 1999, Réunion is an FOD. The island (part of the Mascarene archipelago) was originally uninhabited. It was settled several times between 1640 and 1665, but it is this last date that marks the beginning of its definitive settlement and colonization by the French, who named it Ile de Bourbon. Despite differences in the origins of the slave population (which was mostly Malagasy and Indian), the history of the early settlements is quite reminiscent of that of Martinique. It took half a century for the proportion of Blacks to equal that of Whites, and slave immigrations became significant only when colonial agriculture developed – in this case with the introduction of coffee planting around 1725. On the economic and social levels, a white proletariat emerged from the mid-eighteenth century (a development which has often been linked, incorrectly, to the abolition of slavery), and this still constitutes one of the peculiarities of Réunion’s population. Although the end of slavery in 1848 may have contributed to the proletarianization of certain Whites,

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the exodus of these petits blancs, ‘little Whites,’ or blancs des hauts, ‘highlands Whites,’ toward the Island’s highlands, had started much earlier, due to the progressive decrease of concession land awarded to settlers. From the start of the nineteenth century the development of the sugar industry, combined with increasing difficulties in slave trading (officially prohibited from 1815), created a shortage of manual labor. This led to the organized immigration of free labor, the indentured servants, starting in 1825. The abolition of slavery increased the exodus of Whites and provoked an influx of foreign workers, in particular Indians. In 1887, of the 210,000 residents of the island 70,000 were recent immigrants! The characteristics and composition of the current population reflect all this. Integration of the diverse ethnic groups occurred so long ago, and so rapidly and pervasively, that it is almost impossible today to assign a distinct identity (ethnic or otherwise) to any particular group. The only exceptions are very small, homogeneous minority communities of recent immigrants, mostly Chinese and Indian Moslems (locally misnamed Zarabs). Nonetheless, this long-standing and thorough hybridization has not erased the phenotypes traditionally associated with specific ethnicities or races. It is still possible to identify, in individuals, dominant features on which groups are formed, although their boundaries remain fuzzy. For example, the Malabars (non-Muslim Indians), the petits blancs, and the cafres (individuals of African descent who are more or less mixed with other races) can still be clearly distinguished from each other and from other Réunionnais). The Whites (or those treated as such) make up approximately a quarter of the total population; the Indians are slightly less numerous; the Chinese number 15,000, and Muslims 6,000; the remaining Réunionnais, about half the total population, are of mixed and diverse ethnic origin. The island’s linguistic situation is quite similar to the classic Fergusonian diglossia, in that French is the language of official and public functions, whereas Creole is used for private and informal communication. However, things are more complex (Chaudenson 1979a), especially since part of the population consists of passive bilinguals (who understand French, more or less, but speak it hardly, if at all) and of monolingual Creole-speakers. Réunion’s most original linguistic peculiarity is the presence of a continuum from French to Creole. This is due in part to an intermediate fluctuating variety that Carayol and Chaudenson (1973) call ‘creolized French’ (a term intended to distinguish this mesolect from decreolized varieties that have been identified elsewhere as créole de salon ‘living-room Creole’ or créole urbanisé ‘urbanized Creole’). I shall return to this language variety, which is less an ethnolect (the speech of the ‘petits blancs’) than a sociolect associated with the white proletariat (which may very well include Blacks). This variety has certainly been transmitted since the eighteenth century, and it has been acquired as a mother tongue by ‘petits blancs’ and Blacks alike. It is also mutually intelligible with basilectal creole varieties, and can therefore be called an acrolectal creole.


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Mauritius Another island of the Mascarene archipelago, and formerly known as Ile de France, Mauritius extends over 1,865 km2 and has a population of 1,100,000 inhabitants. It became independent in 1968. Colonized by France from 1721, it was taken over by the English in 1810 and became a British possession in 1814. This explains how its official language has remained English de facto, although the 1968 Constitution does not specify this. In 1835, at the time of the abolition of slavery, the Island had a population ethnically similar to that of its neighbor, Réunion, since the slaves there had been brought from Madagascar, Africa (mostly the eastern part), and India. Under English rule Mauritius benefited fully from the immigration of Indian indentured servants, more than 450,000 of whom arrived between 1835 and 1907, with a good portion of them staying. This influx transformed the population, so that more than two-thirds of today’s population of the Island can be identified as Indo-Mauritians. Nevertheless, all the Indians have adopted the local Creole as the language of everyday communication, although in some rural areas a vernacular language of Indian origin, Bhojpuri, (itself heavily influenced by Creole), is still spoken. French, the native language of the group of Whites, most of whom are called franco-mauriciens, is acquired by its speakers at the same time as Creole. A ‘néo-francophonie’ movement seems to have been emerging not only within the population of ‘color,’ where it already existed, but also among certain Indo-Mauritians (Baggioni and Robillard 1990). Most of the latter seem, nonetheless, still very much attached to English, which remains the language of administration and, in principle, the medium of education; it is also the medium of communication with India, to which many remain culturally and sentimentally connected. Tensions and misunderstandings have arisen around créole as a Mauritian language variety. Along with Bhojpuri, its ethnographic status among the languages spoken on the Island is at the bottom of a complex, non-unilinear ranking that nests several diglossias (Chaudenson 1984). However, it is widely spoken within the total population. The reason is that, as shown in Chapter 1, créole (as an ethnic term) applies to a particular group, to which Indo-Mauritians do not belong, whereas créole (as a vernacular) is spoken by members of all ethnic groups. It is considered the national language of Mauritius, and any association of it with ‘créole’ ethnicity is disputed by the ‘non-créoles.’ The solution could be what Virahsawmy (1986) recommends: to call the language mauricien and avoid the term créole. Rodriguez Rodriguez, 100 km2 in area and with a population of 35,000 inhabitants, is the third island of the Mascarene archipelago and the smallest and least known. It and Mauritius make up a single state, but the population of Rodriguez is entirely creole (in the Mauritian sense of the term). Not being a sugar island, it did not receive the large Indian immigrations in the nineteenth century. Although it had

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long been known and visited, it was settled on a permanent basis only in the late eighteenth century. At the beginning of the nineteenth it had 495 residents: about 50 of them descendants of colonists and slaves who had come from Isle de France and Bourbon during the preceding decade, about a hundred being Mauritian fishermen who had settled on the coast, and 350 Malagasy and African slaves (Chaudenson 1981b). The population of Rodriguez has always increased only by birth, since there has been no immigration – though there has been significant emigration. As a result, the Rodriguais Creole has some peculiarities that distinguish it from the Mauritian, with which it has been rather too hastily confused. Isolated from all maritime routes (it lies 600 km east of Mauritius), until recently the island’s only connection with the wider world was a little cargo ship plying once a month between Port Louis on Mauritius and Port Mathurin on Rodriguez. The completion of the linguistic and ethnographic Atlas of Rodriguez will eventually shed light on linguistic and cultural peculiarities of this small Island. The Seychelles The Seychelles group consists of approximately 90 islands spread over an area as vast as Madagascar. It has a population of 80,000, most of whom reside on the three main islands, Mahé (the largest, where the capital, Victoria, is located), Praslin (known for its ‘coconuts of the sea,’ called cocos-fesses – literally, ‘coco buttocks’ – by non-Seychellois), and La Digue. This archipelago was settled by the French in 1770 and peopled partly from Isle de France and Bourbon. It became a British possession in 1814, like Mauritius, from which it was governed, before gaining independence in 1976. The Seychelles differ from the Mascarenes in having a population of a more pronounced African phenotype and in lacking a significant Indian population. These facts can be explained by the archipelago’s history (Chaudenson 1979a). Peopled in the late eighteenth century, in part from Isle de France and Bourbon,6 the territory received significant numbers of Africans. In the first half of the nineteenth century English ships dropped slaves off here – mostly Mozambicans seized from clandestinely operating slave ships that had been stopped for inspection in the Indian Ocean.7 Like Rodriguez, the Seychelles are not sugar islands, and so did not receive significant immigrations of Indian indentured servants in the nineteenth century. Because of such differences, the Mascarene and Seychelles archipelagos constitute an in vivo laboratory where linguistic evolution is experiment brought about by accidents of colonial history. The French Creole of the Seychelles is spoken by all nationals. English, however, is more important here than in Mauritius, and French has been receding noticeably for several decades. Although clearly more similar to Mauritian and to Rodriguais than to Réunionnais, Seychellois Creole shares with the last some features which, in spite of some developments, reflect the development patterns of Mascarene creoles. There are obvious historical and genetic links between them (Chaudenson 1981a, 1988).


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Notes 1 2

3 4 5 6 7

Obviously, this classification itself reflects a position in the scientific debate! The main theoretical problem here is posed by the probably controversial status of creolized varieties of Afrikaans in South Africa. Some scholars, such as Hesseling (1899), posit ‘Malayo-Portuguese,’ spoken by the slaves brought to the Cape, as one component in the formation of Afrikaans. See Mufwene (1997a) for a critique of the classification. This plural is preferable to linguae francae because the Latin origin of the phrase is doubtful. (The Italian plural lingue franche is rarely used.) The formulation of the 1979 decree is also subject to caution because Creole is not spoken by 90 percent of the population but by the entire population; 90 percent is actually the proportion of monolingual creolophone Haitians. The first definitive French settlement was in 1770. The slave trade had in principle been abolished in 1815. However, since slavery itself was abolished only twenty or thirty years later, first in the English colonies and then in the French colonies, illegal and opportunist trafficking continued.

3

Theories of linguistic creolization

The history of creolistics is not yet a very long one. The first description of a creole language appeared in 1869: a discussion of Trinidadian Creole, by John Joseph Thomas, inaccurately titled The Theory and Practice of Creole Grammar. (Since then, quite a number of theories have been put forward, often without adequate and precise knowledge of facts!) Over the last twenty-five years research has significantly increased; creoles appear to constitute a noteworthy research area for conceiving and/or verifying theories that bear on the formation and evolution of languages. The genesis of most languages is lost in distant historical periods – if not in the darkness of time – but that of creole language varieties took place in the near past, in sociohistorical conditions that can often be determined with great accuracy. To take up an earlier metaphor of mine, but one that I would not like to overuse, one could say that creolization is a human and social tragedy characterized by three unities similar to those of French (originally Greek) classic tragedy: 1 2 3

unity of place: they emerged typically on islands; unity of time: they developed typically within approximately a century; unity of action: they evolved in colonial slave communities.

Insularity and ‘exogeneity’ (Chapter 2) characterize all French creoles, even those that may be considered mainland creoles, such as the Creole of Louisiana. This point is fundamental, because the subject has been polemical, partly because of the effects of migrations from different places and settlement patterns, compounded by the question of when a particular Creole can be claimed to have formed. While it is impossible to determine a creole’s ‘date of birth’ (because creolization is a process, not an event), one can, nonetheless, identify specific landmarks. For instance, Réunionnais Creole did not exist before 1655. On the other hand, it can be established that it had already developed by the late eighteenth century, in forms very close to its present state. This is an important point, because it sets up an essential distinction among creoles that has generally been ignored and which underlies the concept proposed in Chaudenson (1979b, 1981a) of ‘generations of creoles’ (by analogy with computer-science terminology that


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distinguishes, for instance, first-, second-, third-, and fourth-generation computers from each other). A second-generation creole is one whose development is marked by contributions from an earlier creole introduced by immigrants from another, creole-speaking territory (Chaudenson 1981a:259; the role and significance of the contribution remain to be determined, on a case by case basis); a third-generation creole is, of course, one whose genesis involved a second-generation creole. This hypothesis, illustrated below with specific examples, seems necessary in order to take into account relationships and migrations between territories which were creole-speaking or in which creoles were developing. Moreover, and crucially, it sheds new light on genetic and structural relationships among these language varieties which would otherwise remain inexplicable. Although ‘unity of action’ is a rather inadequate trope (what metaphor isn’t?), in my opinion, it emphasizes the underlying homology of sociohistorical processes that have been observed everywhere that French creoles developed and, one may add, the historical and social logic of linguistic creolization, on which I will try to shed light. Before elaborating this particular approach to creole genesis, however, it may be helpful to briefly examine various theories of creolization. In the process I shall focus more on a rough typology than on details of each, since such details have been presented several times over the last few years, either by those attempting to write a history of creolistics and/or to summarize the state of the art, or by those who, wishing to propose a new point of view, wanted to highlight how it resembled or differed from the views of previous writers. The latter is the most common but the least interesting, because it relates to particular cases. As examples of the former type of treatment, one can cite among recent works Vintila-Radulescu (1976), Todd (1974),1 Valdman (1978), Chaudenson (1979b), Stein (1982), Mühlhäusler (1986/1997), Holm (1988), Romaine (1988), and Arends et al. (1995). One may include in this group Baggioni (1986), who studied late nineteenthand early twentieth-century works on creoles so as to situate them in the current context of changing ideas and in general linguistic debates. The interest of such an approach transcends the actual knowledge of the authors he examined. Some, like Hugo Schuchardt, have often been misrepresented as leading toward the progressive autonomization of the study of creoles. This evolution in the practice of creole studies, based on a misinterpretation of the spirit of Schuchardt’s work, is not due to any proof that creoles have features or structures peculiar to them (pace McWhorter 1998). Rather, it is due to the fact that the study of these languages has ceased to be, as it was in the early twentieth century, an area in which one hoped to find arguments to support or refute theories of general linguistics. The study of creoles used to be a domain of reflection and of original discoveries that could renew and generate theories, in particular theories bearing on linguistic change and innovation. (Mufwene 2001 is an interesting return to what Schuchardt hoped could be gained from creole studies.) In attempting to clarify and simplify a complex set of points of view, I pose

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three kinds of questions (and mostly answers) that make it possible to relate them to each another. 1 2 3

What is the dominant genetic relationship between languages? Is it monogenetic or polygenetic? What does ‘creolization’ mean?

We will see shortly that these three questions overlap with one another. The justification for listing them separately here is to avoid getting completely lost in the multitude of relevant hypotheses.

The dominant genetic relationship It is on this subject that the most passionate controversies have arisen, as might have been guessed from Chapter 1. The harsh confrontations over the innocent etymology of the word creole are evidence enough of the vigor with which various positions are held. I am borrowing here from Prudent (1986)2 a very simple classification – maybe a little too simple, but nonetheless a useful starting point for discussion. He distinguishes three ‘main geneticist positions,’ and defines the first (which he characterizes as ‘Romanist’ or ‘Eurogenetic’) as follows: Stemming from the first compilations of Adolfo Coelho in the late nineteenth century, the first hypothesis about the genesis of creole languages can be identified in the contributions of Leonard Bloomfield, Jules Faine, and Robert Hall. Creoles are viewed here as original systems, born out of conflicting sociological conditions which have led a standard language to engage in a process of pidginization. The key concept for this school is simplification, and creoles are classified genetically as daughter languages of standard European languages, spoken by masters during the initial intercultural contact. In the face of aggressive attacks from their monogeneticist opponents, the simplificationists (to coin a term on Bickerton’s model) have not only had to abandon little by little the strict domain of lexical evidence to undertake syntactic comparisons, but have also had to investigate the history and sociology of sociétés de plantations ‘plantation communities.’ Brilliantly defended nowadays especially by Robert Chaudenson and Albert Valdman, the Eurogeneticist school has abandoned the idea of the requisite phase of pidginization before creolization. Instead, it has focused on: 1

taking scrupulous account of the demographic facts concerning the formation phase of the languages;

Theories of linguistic creolization 2 3

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issues related to the grammar of ‘child language’ and the mechanisms of second-language acquisition by an adult population; and the grammar and lexicon of seventeenth-century folk and regional French, which was becoming free of the usual normative pressures.

Prudent locates the second position in a line of hypotheses initiated by Adam (1883) and identifies it as ‘Afrogeneticist.’ This label is debatable. In the very title of his book Adam – an ardent defender of ‘linguistic hybridology’ – distinguishes between ‘Negro-Aryan’ languages (creoles of the ACR) and ‘Malayo-Aryan’ languages (IOR creoles). In the second case he seems to identify a definite influence from Malagasy, which is not an African but a MalayoPolynesian language. General use of the term ‘Afrogeneticist’ might lead to the presupposition that African languages played a major role in the genesis of IOR creoles, and some authors have gone astray for a while pursuing this hypothesis, though none seems to have followed it to a successful conclusion.3 Obviously, Prudent was thinking here primarily of ACR varieties, but he should have certainly specified it. This reservation aside, his presentation is clear: The second position also began in the late nineteenth century, especially in the comparative works of Lucien Adam. As a result of subsequent contributions by Suzanne Sylvain, Douglas Taylor, Jan Voorhoeve, and German de Granda, all Caribbean creoles were found to show more and more conspicuous similarities in their syntactic structures. Attempts were made to trace them to some of West African languages that apparently possess the same kind of grammar. Since then the ‘European mother language hypothesis’ has been categorically rejected. In the few cases where some scholars have been forced to admit lexical contributions from the ‘superstrate,’ they have done so only to support the common African origin of the creoles, sometimes referring to an initial Afro-Portuguese pidgin. Monogenesis too, followed by relexification, will change, because it is not falsifiable and because there is scant formal evidence. Today, Africanists are happy to propose comparative lists of some syntactic structures (Lefebvre, Magloire-Holly, and Piou 1982:9), to invoke typological approaches (Baudet 1981:104, 106), or still to list some features shared by African and creole languages (Dalphinis 1985:8–9). This is the most naive position of all, which rests primarily on linguistic evidence. Nonetheless, Fleischmann (1983) and Alleyne (1980) show great concern about an informed historical and sociological context that can make the transmission of linguistic elements plausible (1986:153). The third and last position, identified as ‘universalist’ or ‘neurogeneticist,’ is the most recent, and Bickerton is the only author that Prudent discusses in this connection. This position has developed more rapidly than the others and is also criticized by Prudent as follows:

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Theories of linguistic creolization The third school, known as ‘universalist’ or ‘neurogeneticist,’ will not be discussed extensively here. Suffice it to observe that Bickerton has borrowed from the monogeneticists their comparative arguments and syntax as the privileged domain that helps invalidate the simplificationist model. Having demonstrated how regular the Tense–Mood–Aspect system is in the verb phrase of creoles, it was enough for him to ‘summon to court’ creoles without an accepted historical Afro-Portuguese antecedent pidgin and conclude that the bioprogram plays a fundamental role in the formation of all these languages. Even if it is conceivable to posit the existence of a universal, biological, and archaic organ to explain the organization of a creole grammar in the brains of pidgin-speaking children, it is opportune to raise two objections. First, along with Alleyne (1980:138), we can ask why all contact languages that developed from English have not had the same outcome. One would expect Anglo-Indian, Anglo-African, or even AngloAsiatic varieties to have the same final mold, which is not the case. The second criticism of Bickerton stems from all truly sociohistorical approaches. Can we be sure that a whole pidgin-speaking population was in the same situation, needing a creole language at the same time? The detailed historical [information] available to me about the Lesser Antilles is absolutely not consistent with Bickerton’s hypothesis about Hawaii (1986: 154).

I will not engage in a detailed discussion of this point of view (which is quite a stimulating one), first, because I critiqued Bickerton in my review of Roots of Language (Chaudenson 1982), and, second, because I shall return to his theory below. Note, however, that the adjectives ‘universalist’ and ‘neurogeneticist,’ which have been used to characterize his theory, are not totally synonymous. Also, although Bickerton is the first to account systematically – though perhaps excessively – for creole genesis from a neurogeneticist point of view, ‘universalist’ theories of creolization began well before him; limiting myself to the bestknown, let me cite here Jespersen (1922) and Hjelmslev (1938), whose accounts cannot be reduced to Bickerton’s ‘neurogeneticist’ approach. It thus becomes necessary to choose between these two terms. Either we espouse ‘neurogeneticist,’ if – as is the case here – we take into account only this point of view, or else we prefer ‘universalist,’ if we want to examine other theories that approach the subject more or less the same way. As noted above, Prudent’s classification shows how difficult it is to clearly sort out the issues I mentioned at the outset. His presentation, whose shortcomings I cannot ignore, is a consequence of looking for a simple and quick way of exposing issues arising from theories of creolization.

Monogenesis or polygenesis? Arguably, this question has more to do with the history of the study of creole languages than with true scientific inquiry. According to the monogenetic hypothesis, all creoles would in some way have the same unique origin, which


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remains to be determined. One could indeed say very simply that the proponents of creole monogenesis have founded their hypothesis on observable similarities among these languages. Any study purporting to prove such a position should in principle rely on a comparative analysis of the relevant creoles, but plainly, this has not been the case. I have long emphasized the absolute necessity of producing a truly comparative grammar of creole languages as the only way we can validate hypotheses on their genesis (1974a:421–440).4 It is also common knowledge that even languages without genetic connections among them show similarities. Joseph H. Greenberg, who has systematically studied this problem, estimates the percentage of such non-genetic similarities at between 4 percent and 8 percent, depending on the degree of proximity of phonological systems. On the other hand, since Franz Bopp in the nineteenth century, researchers in comparative grammar have amply demonstrated both the rigor of their methods and significance of their findings. One can only be amazed by the methodological indigence of creole studies in this research area. The only exception is Goodman (1964), which, while not exemplary, has the merit of pioneering the approach at a time when information itself was scant, especially on Indian Ocean varieties. Most monogenesis theories have had almost no serious linguistic foundation, and, since their historical bases have been little studied, we clearly need not give them very much attention. In the present discussion at least, I do not count as monogeneticists those authors who otherwise fit in the category of ‘neo-Romanists,’ discussed above. One such is Faine (1939; discussed in Chapter 1), who considers all French creoles to have originated in a ‘nautical patois’ spoken in French ports in the seventeenth century. The authors whom I have in mind are those who postulate monogenesis for creoles that have apparently developed from different European languages and involve a non-European source language. The most ‘monogenetic’ of these theories is, of course, Bickerton’s language bioprogram hypothesis. In order to account for ‘similarities’ among creoles lexified by European languages of colonization, all such approaches posit an original pidgin which would have spread around the world via maritime routes, ports, trade centers, etc. This historical aspect has always been taken for granted (which provides the considerable advantage of not having to adduce any supportive evidence). However, authors differ over the nature of this original pidgin. The starting point of the theory itself is not well established, although I suspect it to lie in Lichtveld (1954:xxxv, 59–71), which was then followed by Valkhoff (1960), Stewart (1962), Taylor (1963), and many others. Undoubtedly the most committed to this view is Valkhoff, who posits as the source language not an African koiné but an Afro-Portuguese pidgin or a Portuguese lingua franca. Undoubtedly lingua francas were spoken in the West African slave trade area; there is in fact evidence that some of them were spoken in ‘the kingdoms of Arda and of Juda’: (Labat 1722, vol. II: 45, cited in Chaudenson 1974a:413). According to an undated manuscript apparently of the eighteenth century (Chaudenson 1974a:413) ‘a creole language which is corrupted Portuguese’ was

40


then ‘spoken from Joal to Sierralionne,’ and references to this form of ‘corrupted’ Portuguese can be traced back to the late seventeenth century (La Courbe, around 1688, Chapter 1). However, none of this evidence in any way justifies drawing conclusions without reference to other Portuguese varieties of that time. The only ‘proof ’ would be linguistic, relying on obvious ‘similarities’ between these languages. This is obviously a weak line of reasoning. It is impossible to take such assumptions into account so long as they are not supported by the requisite concurrent historical and linguistic evidence. This type of theory has been taken up in a slightly different form by Whinnom (1965). Without dismissing hypotheses which posit a proto-Portuguese as the source language of certain creoles, he extends the scenario by tracing their origin further back to the Mediterranean lingua franca. It is in anticipation of the presentation of this hypothesis that I dwelt somewhat on this language in the preceding chapter. According to him: Certain pidgins and creoles are relexifications of an advanced Portuguese pidgin, others may be relexifications of a more primitive Portuguese pidgin which originated as a relexification of Sabir, or possibly, directly of Sabir itself. (Whinnom 1965:522) Fortunately, Whinnom is cautious enough not to claim that all creoles stem from Mediterranean Sabir. However, it is disturbing to note that, as always, the justifications for the hypothesis are structural similarities for which neither an inventory nor a study is provided. Also of concern is the fact that Whinnom further supports his position by claiming that French creoles are mutually intelligible, thus downplaying the common observation that they are not mutually intelligible with Standard French. In his own words, ‘The various French creoles are mutually intelligible from Louisiana to Haiti, to Dominica, to French Guyane, to Mauritius and Réunion’ (Whinnom 1965:509). I have witnessed several encounters in which speakers of these different creoles could not use them successfully to communicate with each other, and instead had to resort to standard French. The alleged mutual intelligibility of French creoles is of course a myth. Numerous and varied experiences of mine have always absolutely contradicted the claim. The source of this misconception lies in written documents of various creoles: etymological graphic conventions give anybody who is ignorant of these languages the obviously misleading feeling that they are quite similar. The misconception has sometimes been encouraged by bilinguals in Creole and French who, when visiting another creole-speaking territory, have honestly felt some familiarity, a real one indeed, with its language. However, they have not realized that this feeling was based not on language alone, but on a global perception of a human and natural environment which certainly shares a good number of features with the one they came from. All the valid scientific experiments that I have conducted with monolingual creole-speakers have shown that


41

ACR and IOR creoles are hardly mutually intelligible at all. Furthermore, within the same region, Haitian and Martiniquais monolingual creole-speakers, for example, barely understand each other, just as Réunionnais and Mauritians of the same socio-cultural level in the Indian Ocean have trouble understanding each other. To be sure, Whinnom’s research was primarily on Lingua Franca, to which he refused to apply the term ‘Sabir,’ and he recognized that the debate on the origins of pidgins and creoles remains open: ‘The monogenesis theory of the origins of European-based pidgins is still a controversial issue’ (1977:295). However, based on literary texts and historical studies, Naro (1978) attempts to link Portuguese creoles to the ‘reconnaissance language,’ examples of which are provided in sixteenth-century documents. After reviewing some of the origins theories, Todd (1974:39) concludes: The monogenesis theory, envisaging a Portuguese pidgin, deriving ultimately from Sabir, as the originator of both Atlantic and Pacific pidgins and creoles through a process of relexification, has many attractions, most notably is comprehensiveness: but the case for this theory, as for the others considered, calls for a verdict of ‘not proven.’ Judicious as it sounds, this conclusion does not seem to be sufficient on an epistemological level. It must be critiqued in more detail, since this type of problem will arise again elsewhere. A scientific hypothesis in any domain should always satisfy at least two conditions: validity and necessity. The former requisite is so evident that one hardly needs to dwell on it. A hypothesis derives its external validity from its compatibility with facts outside its domain of application and its internal validity from its explanatory power within its own domain as well as from how its elements cohere. Nonetheless, necessity is an equally important condition. The formulation of a hypothesis responds to a gap, so to speak – or at any rate to an inadequate explanation of a fact or set of facts. Any hypothesis that does not meet any of these conditions should therefore be rejected. Do monogenetic explanations that trace the origin of creoles to an (Afro-) Portuguese proto-pidgin or to Lingua Franca meet these conditions? In order to invalidate these hypotheses, one need not discuss both the conditions of validity and necessity; it is enough to show how inadequately they meet one of them. Obviously such hypotheses would become necessary only if one could show a set of features which could not be explained adequately without invoking them. In the present case, those facts would consist of an inventory of features shared by creoles lexified by a European language (the ones that the origins debate has essentially been about) which could not be explained from knowledge of the lexifiers themselves. This fundamental prerequisite of a hypothesis is not met. Proponents of monogenetic hypotheses have always contented themselves with ‘similarities’ identified without the kind of rigorous methodology worked out in, for instance, classical comparative grammar. Besides, even if such an explanation

42


had been provided, it would not be enough. European languages are genetically related and have relatively similar structures from a macro-typological point of view. To oversimplify, but maybe to clarify: French, Portuguese, and English are certainly different languages, but they are undoubtedly less different from each other than are French, Chinese, and Wolof. Hence, there is a priori no reason to be astonished by similarities among creoles that have developed from these languages, especially if putatively there are language-learning strategies that are remarkably convergent, if not universal. One would thus have to prove not only that noticeable similarities among creoles exist, but also that these could not be explained by independent creolization of each of these languages. Then the proposed monogenetic explanations would really be indispensable. Such points of view have been expressed here and there in articles or, at best, in a short series of publications, but nobody has tried to integrate the fundamental arguments that would legitimize such hypotheses – a considerable scientific investment. So the hypotheses are like soap bubbles, whose ephemeral, sparkling, iridescent flight one can follow with pleasure and amusement, but which burst on contact with the first obstacle. The conceptual foundation of monogenetic hypotheses is thus so flawed that it is unrewarding to critique them extensively. They are not even historically or sociolinguistically grounded. Prudent (op. cit.) emphasizes that the AfroPortuguese pidgin hypothesis is, at least for some scholars, an ‘emergency exit’ from the obvious impossibility of finding the African ‘substrate’ that they are seeking. Among some linguists who are native creole-speakers, the quest has to do more with personal or collective identity than with scientific truth. Besides, such hypotheses have the advantage of reconciling two needs that are apparently irreconcilable: on the one hand, the desire to find in creoles common features which are not of European origin, and, on the other, the obvious need to claim that the slave populations of the IOR and the ACR are totally different. Unfounded as it is, the putative Afro-Portuguese proto-pidgin has the advantage of making it possible, against the historical and linguistic evidence, to satisfy the first need (motivated by ideology and identity) while avoiding the reality of the second. Thus Indian Ocean creoles too would have an ‘African base.’ Polygenesis is in some ways the ‘natural’ hypothesis, if only because of the wide geographical dispersion of territories where (French) creoles have emerged. (I discuss this question more specifically below.) It is, however, worth emphasizing that this poorly chosen (though well-established) term should not cause one to forget that all of these languages have developed from French or other lexifiers. ‘Polygenesis’ simply means that these diverse language varieties have developed independently of one another. Thus one cannot unreservedly admit Valdman’s remarks about ‘polygenetic’ hypotheses: Polygenetic hypotheses present a number of difficulties, even if one augments them with the notion of diffusion. First of all, there are striking similarities between pidgins and creoles of the same lexifier. Although they


43

are several thousand kilometers apart, French creoles of the Indian Ocean and the Antilles share the same structural features – for example, the postposed definite determiner, whose base form is la everywhere – and the same basic vocabulary (Valdman 1978:13) The above lines are over twenty years old, and Valdman would undoubtedly no longer write in the same way today. However, because the work is a classic, they deserve some brief comments. One recognizes here the very foundation of the monogenetic hypotheses, whose obvious inadequacies I underscored above. Plainly, the common rural origin of the colonists accounts for the lexical identities noted, and this should not be surprising. Regarding structural features, the only example cited is hardly a convincing one, as we shall see below: it is also attested in North American French varieties, which are not creoles at all. Although the ‘globally’ polygenetic hypothesis is undoubtedly the more compatible with historical reality, it is admissible, in my opinion at least, only if it takes into account the phenomenon I invoked with the concept of ‘generations’ of creoles. This polygenesis (if one wants to preserve this term – which is useful only because it is opposed to monogenesis) should certainly take into account the evidence that some creoles developed by integrating as one component a language variety that was undoubtedly already creolizing and was introduced by speakers from an island that had already been colonized. These facts have been observed in the Indian Ocean, where during the eighteenth century French colonization spread from one island to another (to a large extent the colonization process was launched from within the islands themselves, and their populations were forced to participate in it). They are less well known for the ACR, but are undoubtedly significant there too. They should shed light on cross-variety comparisons within and between the IOR and the ACR.

The processes of creolization Over and above the claims different hypotheses make about the filiation of creoles (neo-Romanist, Eurogeneticist, Afrogeneticist, or universalist) and the historical relationships between them (monogenetic and polygenetic), the hypotheses also diverge regarding the very processes of creolization that they posit. Forced again to oversimplify things, I must explain briefly a distinction between two polar points of views: a b

Creoles allegedly developed from the interference of two or several linguistic systems; and Creoles are putatively the results of the restructuring of European languages.5

I used the modifier ‘polar’ to suggest that there are some positions, including my own, which fall somewhere between these extremes. Although proponents of the

44


interference account could be characterized as subscribing to a theory of language mixing, one must nonetheless point out that interference can denote things that are significantly different. Regarding French creoles, the most uncompromising theory of their structures as mixed systems have been proposed by authors such as Adam (1883) and Sylvain (1936). The publication dates are sufficient indication that this view is completely outdated. However, this theory has for some years been undergoing an inexplicable resurgence, especially in the work of Claire Lefebvre (see the latest version in Lefebvre 1998), who is apparently influenced by Sylvain (1936). As for Adam, the very title of his work (Les idiomes négro-aryen et maléo-aryen. Essai d’hybridologie linguistique) renders any comment unnecessary; according to him, creoles of the ACR are ‘Negro-Aryan languages,’ while those of the IOR are characterized as ‘Malayo-Aryan.’ Sylvain develops a similar position for Haitian Creole, using the term ‘mixed language’: ‘In linguistics, one calls creoles a series of mixed languages born in the colonies out of contact between a white person and a Native or an imported slave [all] speaking a European language’ (1936:77). She specifies her conclusions at the end of her book: ‘Comparing in detail Creole’s structure to those of French and West African languages, we see that although French influence is evident in many respects, that from African languages is generally preponderant’ (ibid., 175). She concludes with the well-celebrated formula apparently borrowed from Herskovits (1941): ‘We are in the presence of a French cast in the mold of African syntax, or, since one generally classifies languages according their syntactic similarities, of an Ewe language with a French vocabulary’ (1936:l78). Although I do not intend to crush this author, I can nonetheless underscore how outlandish it is to see her discussing ‘African’ (as a language type) in one chapter – a formulation that she repeats in one of the excerpts cited here, when she speaks of ‘African syntax.’ It seems that the word ‘mixed’ has been used in two different meanings: on the one hand, ‘mixing of two linguistic systems’ (Adam), and, on the other, ‘usage of the grammar of language A with the lexicon of language B’ (Sylvain). Adam: A B = X (Creole) 2 Sylvain: Grammar A Lexicon B = X (Creole) In reality, the latter hypothesis in no way proves the African character of the whole syntax of Haitian Creole. However, applying what has since been named the ‘cafeteria principle,’ it invokes here and there vague analogies between Haitian and this or that African language. To avoid confusion, I will differentiate between, on the one hand, ‘theories of mixing,’ which postulate (without ever demonstrating) a mixing of systems (with positive transfers from one to another), and, on the other, ‘theories of relexification,’ which claim that the grammatical system of a language (or a pidgin) is used with the lexicon of another.


45

The above brief remarks are not new. In Histoire de la langue française, Brunot formulated in connection with Lucien Adam a fundamental methodological criticism that could apply in the same terms to today’s works: While we would not want to criticize here a study that is very praiseworthy, we should remember that it is not good methodology to adduce analogies now from a language of Guinea and now from a different language to explain positive or negative data of the same language variety. (Brunot 1966, vol. 8:1142) It is impossible to even begin to validate theories of language mixing. Thus, some have turned to theories of ‘relexification,’ though less naive in form than Suzanne Sylvain’s. Taylor (1956) seems to have been one of the first to have reformulated it in terms reminiscent of Sylvain’s: creoles are allegedly ‘genetically orphans,’ although they have been assigned ‘two foster parents: one that provides the basic morphological and/or syntactical pattern and another from which the fundamental vocabulary is taken’ (1956:413). In several later articles, Taylor goes on to try to find in a proto-pidgin syntactic models that are obviously not identifiable in African languages. The various monogenetic theories of the 1960s all interpreted creoles as ‘relexifications’ of former pidgins. In and of itself, relexification is not a surprising process. History provides examples of it in several languages: English, for example, is a Germanic language partially relexified with a Romance vocabulary. A clearer and more classic (but also quite different) case is that of Armenia’s Romani, cited by Meillet: Armenian Romani is purely Armenian in pronunciation and grammar, but there is nothing Armenian in its vocabulary. Thus, because they know Armenian, the Romani of Armenia utilize only the Armenian system. However, when they wish to speak a special language that is unintelligible to the rest of the population, they utilize their traditional vocabulary, which they have kept. (Meillet 1921:95) The above case is very different from (indeed the opposite of) the case of creoles, since – if the process was homologous – creoles would have preserved the French system relexified in the slaves’ languages. The term ‘relexification’ seems to designate different phenomena: Armenian Romanis use Armenian grammar and a Romani lexicon when they are seeking to be cryptic, as in slang. In general, slang-speakers use the same grammar as in the vernacular that they share with the other members of their communities, though their slang vocabulary is very small compared to the general vocabulary, even in cases where encrypting resorts to formal strategies of neologisms (clippings, suffixation, metathesis, etc.). One can argue, with Calvet (1994:72), that a slang is a ‘lexical

46


subsystem.’ Armenian Romani are simply fortunate enough to have at their disposal a complete Romani lexicon. The English case is quite different. To begin with, it is an endogenous evolution, because the English were colonized at home. In fact, one could say that it was the French invaders who adapted to the local ecology [they eventually shifted away from their own language (Ed.)]. The Germanic lexicon was certainly highly contaminated by the Romance vocabulary, but, according to some logic, mostly in non-basic and non-vernacular areas. The influence of Norman French on English was also more extensive in the standard variety than in other dialects. Moreover, it was more significant in some cultural domains than others. As a matter of fact, French lexical influence on English is, mutatis mutandis, somewhat comparable to present-day English lexical influence on French (which is resented by militants of la Francophonie), although the French influence on English was more extensive. Anglo-American influence on French is primarily in the domains of economics and technology, and in some aspects of culture, such as the media. Similar processes have been observed in numerous colonial situations where the colonial languages have provided to the local vernaculars and lingua francas lexical items in domains where colonial domination was particularly strong: for instance, administration and technology. On the other hand, as will become obvious in Chapter 5, naturalistic appropriations of European languages by adult immigrants, which have been investigated longitudinally over the past fifteen years, do not seem to support the relexification hypothesis. A Turkish immigrant who learns German certainly does not speak it by combining Turkish grammar with the German vocabulary. There is no justification for assuming that relexification was the case in colonial territories where creoles developed. In fact the sociolinguistic conditions favored rapid learning of the target language. The cumulative shortcomings of such ‘language-mixing’ approaches have made it necessary to elaborate theories of the development of creoles that diverge from these accounts. Alleyne’s (1980) positions are quite different from Sylvain’s extravagances and strive toward a methodological rigor that is quite rare among proponents of any version of the substrate hypothesis. Alleyne’s first chapter is titled ‘The Comparative Method,’ and he seems to have adhered to the scrupulous methods of his ‘European’ training and his days at the Institut de Linguistique Romane de Lyon. It is therefore surprising that he hardly addresses the question of the origins of putatively African features in creoles where the African substrate could not be invoked. This element – essential for validating and/or refuting his hypothesis – is hardly mentioned, and he ends up acknowledging in passing that some developments which he has associated with the African substrate can have different causes in other contexts. (See also Alleyne 1996 for the latest of his substratist views.) Gabriel Manessy’s work, which hinges upon substrate theories and those that tend to privilege instead the restructuring of the European language, shows more rigor. The differences lie in the way he presents facts and sheds light on them but are also apparent at the level of comparison. On the level of semantic and/or syntactic structures, his conclu-


47

sions are presented with extreme caution. Manessy can certainly not be criticized in this respect. However, most scholars are very far from possessing his vast knowledge of African languages and his scientific rigor. Although I have simplified things, the substrate hypotheses do postulate that, for the most part, creolization has occurred through collective, imperfect, and approximative ‘learning’ of French (or, more generally, any other lexifier), which ultimately led to the emergence of new systems: creoles. All the same, even if (given the heterogeneity of the slave populations) one admits, as Manessy (1987:153) emphasizes, that the postulated process has to do less with the appropriation of specific linguistic features than with a ‘way of looking at things and organizing facts,’ it is not clear how creoles of both the IOR and the ACR, which had such radically different slave populations, share structural features. Just as hypotheses which state that creoles are mixed systems have been totally abandoned today, so have theories which claim that they are simply varieties of French. In Réunion, for example, a local scholar, Volcy Focard, wrote in the midnineteenth century, ‘No! The language of Bourbon, Creole, owes nothing to the dialects that the Hovas and the Macouas speak; it is all French – bizarre French, eccentric French, but quite smooth and gracious’ (Volcy Focard 1855:8). Writing half a century later, Jules Faine, a contemporary and opponent of Suzanne Sylvain, supported the same point of view in his Dictionnaire français-créole: Haitian Creole is a neo-Romance language, developed from dialects and patois of Langue d’Oïl, notably from Norman, Picard, Angevin, and Poitevin, and comprised in addition of words borrowed from English, Spanish, and American Indian languages, and, to a lesser extent, African languages. (Faine 1974) Most of the more serious theories examined claim that creolization is a process marked essentially by the ‘simplification’ of the French system. However, ‘simplification’ is a term whose meaning is not well established in linguistics (Chaudenson 1994a). Thus, Jespersen (1922) observes that the grammatical system of creoles is reduced to a minimum of features that no natural language could do without. Much later, Richardson (1963) posits a theory very similar to Jespersen’s, claiming that the system of Mauritian has resulted from the contact of very different systems (French, Malagasy, and Bantu), which allegedly could not merge together because of excessive heterogeneity, but neutralized each other instead. On the other hand, criticizing Jespersen’s position, Hjelmslev (1938:281) claims continuity from French to creoles: Transformed as it is, the French system must be considered as a continuation of the Latin system, and that of French creoles as the continuation of

48

Theories of linguistic creolization the French system. It is not possible to show that the origin of the grammatical system would lie anywhere than in the original system.

Hjelmslev (1938:285) defines creolization as ‘optimization’: It is significant that in creole languages the expression of morphemes are at an optimum; these languages have neither declensions nor conjugations; each morpheme has only one form; in a speech chain, each morpheme is a separate word; there is no fusion of morphemes into one word. There is absolute ‘univocity,’ to use a term forged by Couturat. It also seems well indicated a priori that this simple and neat situation must be considered as the optimum. Penetrating as Hjelmslev’s insights are – especially if one remembers how limited were the facts available to him – one must seek to state them more precisely and to complement them with the knowledge accumulated over more than half a century since he wrote: knowledge both about creoles themselves and about language acquisition and learning. How should one proceed in comparing creoles? What comparisons are likely to be more informative about either the restructuring processes or features that may be claimed to be ‘creole peculiarities’ (which is a controversial notion)? I return to this topic at the end of this chapter.

Toward a comparative study of creoles Koefoed (1979:48–49) proposes, after Whinnom (1965) and DeCamp (1971), a ‘list of correspondences between the European-based pidgins and creoles’ which, according to these authors, would not be found in contact-language varieties lexified by non-European-based languages – ‘Fanagalo, Kituba, Sango, Lingua Geral and the Chinook Jargon’ – which ‘are all more complex.’ Let me quote here the ten features or sets of characteristics which are putatively peculiar to all European-based pidgins and creoles: a b c d e f g h i

lexical correspondences, including syntactic function words; elimination of inflections for number in nouns and for gender and case in pronouns; a system of preverbal particles to express tense, mood, and aspect; identity of adverb and adjective; iteration for intensification of adverb-adjectives; the use of an ‘all-purpose preposition’ na; development of compound prepositions of the type na noun de or some other genitive marker (as foe in Sranan); the word for ‘thing’ as interrogative (cosa in Philippine creoles, sani in Sranan); the word for ‘much’ derives from a model language word that means ‘too much’: tro, tumsi, maisa;

Theories of linguistic creolization j

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the overall simplicity of these languages as such. Whinnom argues that ‘linguistic simplicity is an astonishingly rare phenomenon … We do not want to have to suppose that such miraculous simplicity was achieved independently twice.’ (Whinnom 1965:522).

Clearly, these characteristics should all be attested in all the French creoles that are the focus of this study. Yet, we notice the following: a and j are so general that nothing much can be concluded from them. The notion of ‘simplicity’ remains undefined and is therefore difficult to use consistently when comparing European-based pidgins and creoles with contact varieties lexified by non-European languages. For all its apparent convenience as a criterion, it is uninformative. b and c seem to be typical of lingua-franca varieties of many languages; folk and spoken French have characteristics that are rather different from the standard written French which has generally been used as a reference system. d, e, and i are well attested in both folk and/or regional French. f and g are apparently not attested in French creoles; and h does not correspond to current usage in most of them. To be fair, Koefoed himself also criticizes this list from another perspective. I have somewhat misused it in order to prove the fragility or non-existence of inventories of features that are allegedly common to creoles.6 For the sake of clarity, it seems vital to distinguish between several sets of creoles, so that one can be well aware of those within, or between, which comparisons are made. The first set is, given the perspective of this book, that of French creoles, and it may be called S1 (Set 1). It can also be distinguished into two geographical subsets: (a) the ACR, and (b) the IOR. The second set, S2, consists of creoles lexified by Romance languages, including French, Spanish, and Portuguese creoles. Because the Romance languages are genetically related, creoles which developed from them are likely to share characteristics that are worth highlighting. The third set, S3, is comprised of creoles lexified by other European languages. Thus, to S2 we add English and Dutch creoles which could count as a Germanic subset (S3–S2). The S3 creoles are therefore of an Indo-European base. However, as a result of their history, some creoles can participate in several of the proposed sets: for instance, Papiamento, which may be characterized, according to (Hancock 1977a:380), as ‘a lexically Spanish-related creole deriving possibly from an earlier Portuguese-based pidgin … influenced by Dutch and, to a lesser degree by English.’ Some others can develop from two elements of the same set, for instance, the Spanish creoles of the Philippines, which, according to some linguists, have a Portuguese base. A fourth set, S4, would be constituted by adding to S3 all pidgins and creoles with a non-Indo-European base. Here too, one could divide the set into a number of subsets: those lexified by Native American languages, by African

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languages, etc. This may justify Heine’s (1979:89–98) identification of ‘some linguistic characteristics of African-based pidgins.’ Note, however, that he specifies from the outset that: The examples given are taken mostly from Kenya Swahili Pidgin and Fanagalo with which the present writer is most familiar. This does not mean, however, that the statements made refer to these two pidgins only. (Heine 1979:89) This qualification may also imply that these characteristics are not necessarily attested in all African pidgins, and it makes the very title of Heine’s paper, ‘Some linguistic characteristics of African-based pidgins,’ somewhat misleading.

Figure 3.1

Similarities among creoles

Note: DC = Dutch creoles EC = English creoles NIEC = Non-Indo-European creoles PC = Portuguese creoles S1a = Set 1a S1b = Set 1b S2 = Set 2 S3 = Set 3 S4 = Set 4 SC = Spanish creoles


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The alignment submitted in this discussion would, of course, have to be adjusted if one’s focus (unlike that of this book) were more on, for example, English or Portuguese creoles. Otherwise, it is obvious that the alleged similarities among creoles can be observed within different sets and, depending on what set one focuses on, the theoretical significance of one’s conclusions varies stupendously. To successfully demonstrate a significant number of features shared by S3 and S4 would amount to, for instance, proving the existence of linguistic universals. This would help demonstrate Bickerton’s language bioprogram hypothesis, particularly if these characteristics appeared to be specific to creoles. On the other hand, identifying common characteristics of French creoles (S1) is but of limited interest, unless these characteristics are completely foreign to French. Under such conditions, one could almost postulate their existence in S3 or S4, taking into account differences in the slave populations of the two subsets of S1. If one re-examines the list of features proposed by Koefoed (based on Whinnom’s and DeCamp’s works), one immediately notices that the mistake stems from assuming, before examining carefully, that features shared by some English or Iberian creoles (e.g., Sranan or creoles of the Philippines) are necessarily attested within the whole S3. This is not true. There is obviously a hierarchy of results in possibly highlighting features shared within the different sets or between them. They may be summarized in the following implicational scale (assuming one common feature): S1a or S1b < S1 < S2 < S3 < S4 Clearly, this amounts to saying that displaying common features is less significant within one of the two subsets of French creoles than within the whole of S1; and in turn this is less significant than within S2, and so forth. It is equally necessary to develop rigorous procedures of comparison within every set. In this respect, the geographical spread of creoles is a very important factor, because it reflects the fact that French came into contact with various languages in quasi-identical sociohistorical and sociolinguistic conditions. Hence, the conditions of a true historical experiment obtained, from which some inferences must obviously be drawn. I have proposed and used some procedures of comparison (Chaudenson 1974a:435–440) which distinguish the different cases from each other and make it possible to draw conclusions from them. This approach is of course akin to classical methods of studying linguistic genetic relations, as explained lucidly and in detail by Manessy (1968:814–864).

Notes 1 2 3

This work discusses French creoles only very cursorily. Prudent is a ‘native’ linguist (i.e., one born in creole-speaking territory). Paradoxically, while no serious author directly engaged in research on French creoles dares to postulate the existence of an African substratum common to the ACR and IOR, works of synthesis and popularization, such as Thomason and Kaufman (1988) and Holm (1989), interpret dubious data uncritically, which leads them to present such unfounded hypotheses as established facts.

52 4 5 6

Theories of linguistic creolization Corne (1999) is a significant step in this direction (Editor). Although my focus of interest remains French creoles, I will take into account hypotheses formulated about other creoles. This is the point made by Mufwene (1986), now supported also by Thomason (1997). Mufwene observes that the so-called ‘creole features’ are shared by several other noncreole languages, and adds (1991) that creoles vary among themselves in the way they exhibit those features. Thomason concurs that ‘identifying creoles by means of a laundry list of grammatical features has proved to be an elusive goal: there are no features that are exclusive to, nor universal in, languages thought generally to be creoles’ (1997:73).

4

Toward a theory of creolization The sociohistorical and sociolinguistic approach

My doctoral thesis research on the lexicon of Réunionnais almost thirty years ago led me to address the question of creolization, not only because I intended to describe the lexicon of this language, but also because I wanted to explain its formation. This interest, in turn, prompted me to consider the overall processes involved in its genesis. Although my research had focused only on the IOR varieties,1 I proposed, after consulting all available documentation on the ACR, a genetic hypothesis that nevertheless aimed at some generality (at least for the relevant subject matter). The basic outline of this theory remains valid today, despite numerous attempts to refine, adjust, or modify it in light of subsequent research over the last twenty-five years. Moreover, later research on various ‘cultural systems’ (e.g., magic and oral literature) has convinced me that a rigorous and detailed approach to the histories of the relevant societies is absolutely necessary to a genetic investigation of any form of creolization. The primary basis of such work is therefore a precise examination of the sociohistorical conditions of the formation and evolution of colonial societies. Admittedly, in the Mascarenes, my task was certainly facilitated both by a wealth of archival resources (which were spared the devastations of the revolutionary period), and by the remarkable works of historians such as Barassin (1953) and Lougnon (1956), whose vast, painstaking investigations are invaluable to nonspecialists. Such a sociohistorical approach seemed the more justified because it exposes blatant errors underlying some hypotheses. Apart from Jourdain’s (1956) appalling inquiries into the possible role of the language spoken by indigenous people of Bourbon in the formation of Réunionnais (the Island was uninhabited when the French arrived!), one of the most significant errors was committed by Valkhoff, who states: ‘In 1671, it [Bourbon] had a population of 90 inhabitants, of whom 50 were Whites, while half a century later there lived on the Island 1,550 Whites against 10,050 Negroes and half-breeds’ (1960:230). Since Valkhoff incorrectly assumes that he is dealing primarily with Africans,2 he attempts to demonstrate the existence of an Afro-Portuguese or Afro-French proto-pidgin (he wavers somewhat on this point). Thus he overlooks the material error in his source, Brunot’s Histoire de la langue française. Remarkable as this reference may be, it still contains errors. The passage Valkhoff relies on reads: ‘The population of 90 inhabitants in 1671, of whom only 50 were Whites,

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Toward a theory of creolization

increased to 2,000 in 1717 and to 12,500, of whom 1,550 were Whites, four years later’ (Brunot 1966, vol. 8:1050). The error lies in the fact that Brunot both mistakes the year 1724 for 1721 and provides an inaccurate figure for the size of the population. Some documents, such as Maillard (1862), give the same figure, but Lougnon (1956), who bases his study on census data, states, ‘in 1725, the overall population certainly did not exceed 3,000 individuals’ (1956:293). In any case, a six-fold increase in population in just four years should have appeared suspicious at the very least – except that Valkhoff found in it an additional argument for his theory. We will see later that, during the period in question the white and black populations were actually quite far from being numerically disproportionate (contrary to Valkhoff ’s claim of a ‘discrepancy between the two races,’ which is essential to his theory). The case thus illustrates how crucial it is to examine the formation of colonial societies in as much detail as possible, at the demographic level as well as the sociological and anthropological levels.

Demographic development in the first colonial societies Analyzing the ethnic composition and demographic development of White and Black communities in early colonial societies is clearly one of the fundamental aspects of understanding how these societies were structured. The importance of this factor is all the more evident when we consider that several authors have been unduly influenced by the demographics of later populations and have failed to realize that populations must have been entirely different in the initial settlement periods, which bears on the formation of creole languages. I focus here generally on those territories where first-generation creoles developed, because, according to my hypothesis, these demographic factors are less important in the formation of second-generation varieties, since the presence of first-generation varieties (introduced by immigrants from other colonial territories) changed the nature of the process considerably. On Bourbon (now Réunion), which will be the primary reference point for most of this study – because of the quality and breadth of data available for it – the White population was larger than the Black population for the first fifty years (Chaudenson 1974a:452–465). This hitherto uninhabited Island was occupied by the French from 1665, and the White and Black populations became numerically equal around 1720. The details of these data are somewhat uncertain. La Barbinais-Legentil lists 900 Whites and 1,100 Blacks for the year 1717, while Father Brown (writing around 1720) indicates ‘1,500 or 1,600 free men and more than 1,100 slaves’ (Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, vol. 13:302–319). In any case, contrary to what Brunot proposes, the figures given by the Chevalier d’Albert, which purportedly come from the Governor of Bourbon, Desforges-Boucher, show 3,178 inhabitants in 1725, of whom 1,402 were Whites (200 of them soldiers) and 1,776 Blacks (Lougnon 1956:339). These figures seem to be the most accurate, since they match the figures of partial censuses (the inaccuracy of the previous figures is most likely due to the fact that sometimes soldiers and


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employees of the Compagnie des Indes were counted among the white population, and sometimes they were not). I will also examine the case of the Lesser Antilles, although it is difficult to state for certain whether one is always dealing in this case with first-generation creole vernaculars. As we shall see, some of the first immigrants here came from St Kitts, about the colonization of which there is very little information. I will thus focus on Martinique, for which reliable data is easily accessible, thanks to Father Bernard David. The French first settled Martinique in 1635, and the White and Black populations reached equal proportions after approximately thirty years: in 1664, there were 2,722 Whites and 2,660 Blacks or Mulattos. After nearly half a century, in 1680, Blacks became slightly more numerous, totaling 4,900, against 3,102 Whites (David 1973:24–30), but the gap was still quite modest. One should certainly be careful not to fall victim to an obsession with numbers and consider the moment when Whites became less numerous than Blacks as a decisive point. Differences of 1:2, or even 1:3, are not that significant unless one also takes into account the overall pattern of population growth and the nature of interracial interactions that bore on language divergence. On the other hand, it is crucial to recognize that these colonial societies were disproportionately comprised of Whites: something that most authors who have constructed theories of creolization appear not to have realized (e.g., Valkhoff 1960). The explanation for this lies entirely in the fact that it was economically and socially impossible to proceed directly from a tabula rasa, so to speak, to a full-fledged colonial agricultural industry. It was, of course, this later stage of development that led to an enormous need for manual labor, and this is in turn was what caused a reversal in the size of the white and black populations. The cases discussed above have all been known for a long time, and they are corroborated by new examples from our increasing knowledge of creolespeaking areas. Louisiana is a good one. Its colonization began when the area between Fort Niagara and the Gulf of Mexico was first explored between 1679 to 1682 by Cavelier de la Salle (he unfortunately perished on a later expedition in 1687). Several attempts at settlement followed at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but colonization of the territory did not really take hold until around 1717, under the aegis of John Law. At that time, the colony consisted of ‘600 Whites and a hundred Black slaves’ (Griolet 1986:16), most of whom were located on the future site of New Orleans. This was nothing more than ‘a hundred randomly placed shanties, a large storehouse made of wood, and two or three houses that would not even adorn a village in France’ (Charlevoix, cited in Griolet 1986:16). In 1743, almost half a century after the beginning of colonization, there were 2,000 inhabitants of New Orleans, of whom 300 were soldiers and 300 were Blacks (Griolet 1986:336), while there were 4,000 Whites and 2,000 Blacks in the colony as a whole. The details are, however, occasionally inconsistent. Thus, Griolet (1986:22) gives as 5,552 the number of inhabitants of New Orleans in 1766, while a city census in 1769 lists 3,190, of whom 1,225 were Blacks (ibid.:336). This

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inconsistency is most likely due to the same factors observed in the case of Bourbon, but the scale here is larger than the numbers themselves. The fact remains that when Louisiana was effectively ceded to Spain (around 1769–1770, though the official act dates to 1763), its population still included equal numbers of Whites and Blacks. This situation persisted until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although colonization had begun more than a century earlier, the census of 1806 lists the total population of Louisiana as 52,998 (23,574 slaves, 3,355 Creoles of color, and 26,059 Whites).3 Keeping in mind the reservations expressed earlier about Martinique, all the above cases represent areas where first-generation creoles were formed. The extremely short initial period during which White and Black populations were numerically equal on Martinique (approximately thirty years, compared to fifty years on Bourbon and a hundred years in Louisiana) is partly the result of the way in which this Island was initially colonized. (The same is also true for Guadeloupe.) I have pointed out the generally overlooked significance of population movements between colonies; in fact, such ‘creole diasporas’4 can be divided into two different types. The first type involves migrations that are in some sense occasioned by the new colony and correspond to a colonization strategy. The second type consists of spontaneous migrations, motivated by conditions in the original colony. Migrations and colonization Migrations of the first type are more relevant to the present stage of the study. Several cases have been documented where settlement in a new territory was aided by the voluntary, or somewhat coerced, transfer of colonists or slaves from a previously settled colony. This is not surprising, given how tremendously difficult it would have been for French people, disembarked one fine day on a tropical island about which they knew nothing at all, to start a settlement colony. One only has to look at the considerable number of failures of such endeavors to realize the extraordinary difficulty involved. Such failures quickly led the authors of colonial policies to understand that the simple and immediate survival of a colony, and a fortiori its economic development, required a long and difficult period of settling in, acclimatizing, and developing the means of survival (e.g., crop cultivation and animal husbandry). Resources for harvesting, hunting, and freshwater fishing became exhausted very rapidly, especially on the smaller islands. Moreover, such activities tended to distract colonists from developing agriculture and establishing the minimal infrastructure needed (e.g., clearing land, building roads and harbors, etc.). All this required much effort and investment. Remember that these new colonies being settled were in tropical environments, which were poorly understood, especially by colonists who were usually not even farmers. The environment was hostile and dangerous, marked by fevers, diseases, and hurricanes. All material culture (e.g., housing, farming equipment, medicine, food, etc.) had to somehow be invented, or at least adapted, in what were often the


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most precarious conditions and almost total isolation. Nothing highlights this more than correspondence from the colonies, which at first may seem like long and repetitive catalogues of the difficulties, hardships, and sufferings of the unfortunate settlers. I will cite only one example of the many sent from the Islands to the homeland drawing attention to the misfortunes of the colonists and soliciting aid. It is a letter sent by De Fleurimont, Governor of Bourbon, to Louis XIV’s chief minister Colbert in 1678, fifteen years after the colonization of the Island had begun: With regard to the Island, Your Highness should know that the people are experiencing a great shortage of all commodities, such as strong cloth for making clothes, linen, clay and copper pottery, seeds, and tools of all sorts for working in the woods and on the land. With respect to people, we need workers, families who would profit more here than young people, of whom there are already a good forty, and who would be more valuable in service to His Majesty. Your Eminence, you should likewise know that, for three years, there has been such an infestation of rats that nothing can be done to stop these miserable creatures from spoiling and destroying everything, even in the most unpopulated areas. Accounts such as these are easy to find for the first decades of the colony, and the problems described in them clearly occurred everywhere. Because of them, the officials who determined colonial policies (the recipients of these letters) realized that part of the solution to the problem of creating a new colony was to transfer inhabitants (both colonists and slaves) from older colonies to those that were being started. In the case of French colonization, the settlement of Martinique provides a good example of the implementation of this strategy. Below is an account by du Tertre (1667): Monsieur d’Esnambuc has resolved to postpone no longer taking possession of Martinique in the name of His Majesty and under the authority of the Compagnie. To succeed in this enterprise, he has taken approximately one hundred men from among the experienced settlers of St Christopher. All are physical men accustomed to the air, work, and fatigue of the country, men who, in a word, know everything there is to know about clearing the land, cultivating it properly, planting crops, and maintaining homesteads. The passage is perfectly clear; we should, however, point out that the French word habitant, ‘settler,’ is used here in its colonial sense and most likely actually means ‘farmer’ (du Tertre himself emphasizes that the selection of men was based on their experience of the land and colonial life). It is not certain what became of these ‘experienced settlers of St Christopher’: did they remain on the island, or did they go back, once their mission of adaptation had been completed? This is not clear, but what is clear is the crucial role played by the

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tiny island of St Kitts (St Christopher) during the European colonization of the Caribbean area. The French settled this Island in 1618, but the English took control of it in 1623 before sharing it with France from 1627. In some sense, it became the site for adaptation to colonial life for both the French and the English, and Burns has very appropriately called it the ‘Mother Colony of the West Indies’ (1954:187, cited in Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985:36). In fact, it was from St Kitts that the English set out to colonize Barbados, Nevis, Montserrat, and, finally, Jamaica, while the French used it as a point of departure for colonizing Martinique and Guadeloupe – the last two in turn played an important role in the settlement first of Saint Domingue and then of Dominica and St Lucia. Moreover, this colonial diaspora helped to realize (in a somewhat modified form) the initial plans of Belain d’Esnambuc (referred to in du Tertre’s text above), who founded the Compagnie de Saint-Christophe in 1626,5 whose goal was to ‘settle and populate the islands of St Christopher (St Kitts) and Barbados, as well as others located at the entrance to Peru’ (Jardel 1984:34). It is easy to understand why the order in which these islands were colonized and the relations they maintained with each other is such an essential topic in the comparative study of French creoles of the Caribbean. Surprisingly, it has not been seriously explored to this day.6 The strategies discussed above are exactly equivalent to the strategies carried out (or at least attempted) in the Indian Ocean. The only appreciable difference is this: at the time that St Kitts was used as the starting point for the colonization of Martinique, the French had been present on the Island for roughly ten years only, whereas in the Indian Ocean, Bourbon had been colonized for more than half a century when settlement began on Ile de France. It is this that prevents us from stating with certainty that the varieties spoken on Guadeloupe and Martinique are second-generation creoles, while we know that this is the case for the variety spoken on Mauritius. This relationship between Bourbonnais7 and Mauritian Creole has been vigorously denied by Baker (1982) [and recently by Corne 1999 (Ed.)], and I have responded fully to his objections and provided evidence for the inconsistencies of his viewpoints.8 The debate is therefore closed in my opinion, and the only important thing to note for our purposes is that the strategy carried out on Ile de France clearly illustrates the colonial policies discussed above. The same strategy that had been used earlier in the Antilles was repeated later in the Seychelles. Lougnon (1956) shows well that the plan to occupy Ile de France took shape at a time when the situation on Bourbon was hardly favorable. The latter could not support the anticipated colony. In October 1721, just when a decision was made to build a 25-ton ship to carry a Bourbon expedition to Ile de France, the construction of another ship of between 50 and 60 tons was undertaken ‘to sail to India to seek remedies’ for ‘the unfortunate situation of poverty which had stricken the colony for several years, to the point where many settlers were so deprived of clothing that they could not even attend church’ (Lougnon 1956:196). The plan to occupy Ile de France took shape quickly, because it was


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feared that a foreign nation might settle the island, which lay ‘windward of Bourbon’, in a critical strategic location. Everything thus points to a desire on the part of French officials to occupy Ile de France, as well to as orders for Bourbon to provide decisive support for the operation. It is also clear that there was very little enthusiasm for the plan among the Bourbonnais, for the reasons outlined above (and see below for more details). Orders from the Compagnie des Indes to the Governor of Bourbon, Beauvollier de Courchant, leave no doubt as to the existence of this conflict and the determination of its leaders: The Compagnie has no doubt that you have selected some individuals from among the residents of Bourbon to go to Isle de France to settle there, notwithstanding what you have indicated in your letter of 10 October 1720; we must assume that they will offer themselves more willingly once they see that we are seriously intending to settle the latter. … You should choose four to six families to transfer, granting them concessions proportional to their strengths. … It is, as you know, extremely important that a few families transfer there to teach the new colonists how to cultivate coffee and other crops and to determine the appropriate seasons for sowing and planting, since conditions are nearly identical on the two Islands. (Letter from Directeur Le Cordier to Beauvollier de Courchant and DesforgesBoucher, 31 May 1721, Archives de la Réunion, C. 11; my emphasis) And support from Bourbon was not to consist solely of people. The island also had to provide ‘Mocha coffee shrub seedlings, vegetable seeds, wheat and rice seeds, male and female horses, heifers and bulls, sows and boars, pigeons and all species of male and female fowl’ (Lougnon 1956:185). Because of the difficulties Bourbon faced, it is easy to understand both the lack of enthusiasm of the local authorities there for this plan, as well as their overt resistance to its implementation. Having scarcely recovered from the very difficult initial phase of settlement of their own colony, the Bourbonnais were being invited to start the process all over again somewhere else! (Le Toullec, who landed on Ile de France with his Bourbonnais on Christmas Eve 1721, wrote a scathing description of the country which could have put his employers off their project, declaring the Island ‘uninhabitable because of its rocks.’) Indeed, no settler volunteered to help in settling Ile de France – though this fact did not discourage the Compagnie. Governor Denyon, who had only just landed on Ile de France on 7 April 1722, went back to Bourbon on 4 May and was immediately authorized by the Company to recruit ‘six Creoles and thirty slaves,’ who were embarked shortly afterwards (3 June) and shipped to Ile de France. In the absence of any volunteers, the services of such men, all of whom had experience of colonial life in tropical settings, had to be hired. The ‘Creoles’ received a daily sum of twenty sous, and the slaves were rented from their owners at a cost of ten sous per day, with food provided (16 May 1722; Archives de la Réunion, C. 1, f. 73). Three other settlers from Bourbon joined them in November 1722

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(Lougnon 1956:213), to supplement those from the first expedition who had not returned to Bourbon. Baker misunderstood the role played by these Bourbonnais, and he tried to base an argument on the fact that they stayed on the Island only temporarily and did not become colonists there.9 There is no doubt that the Compagnie des Indes’ attempts to colonize Ile de France from Bourbon were not entirely successful. However, the fact remains that the Compagnie was quite aware of the importance of doing so, since, at heavy financial cost to itself, it imposed on the Bourbonnais a ‘technological and cultural’ role – and this had the (unintended) consequence of making Bourbonnais speech an important element in the formation of Mauritian Creole. The condition that the ‘Creoles’ of Bourbon laid down upon their departure for Ile de France was that they would ‘be in charge of the Blacks.’ The first slaves imported to the Island were 65 Malagasies who arrived in the beginning of December 1722; they joined the thirty slaves from Bourbon who had arrived in June and had constituted the only source of slave labor. During the first ten months of the new colony’s existence, the Bourbonnais, Whites and Blacks, clearly filled the role allotted to them and initiated the newcomers from both Europe and Madagascar into their new life on the Island. They did this using the language native to their island, and in under a year they had had enough time to diffuse the rudimentary features of their dialect, making it the primary basis of Mauritian Creole. It was probably the excessive cost of these Bourbonnais’ upkeep and salaries (or ‘leases’) that eventually led the Compagnie to repatriate them, but it was also perhaps because the Compagnie considered them to have completed their ‘initiating’ function. I have gone into some detail about this process, because it both illustrates the concept of ‘generation’ of creole and underscores the importance of knowing the relevant sociohistorical facts. In fact, not only is the hypothesis I have been discussing ‘cogent and valid,’ in the sense that it integrates the historical, social, anthropological, and linguistic aspects of the issue, but it is also absolutely ‘necessary.’ This is true first and foremost at the economic level, because it provides an explanation for significant differences in the demographic development of the two Islands. On Bourbon, the White and Black populations reached numerical equivalence after about half a century. The demographic evolution of Ile de France was different: in 1766, after 45 years of settlement, there were 18,100 slaves, but only 1,998 Whites. Such a disproportion shows clearly that economic development was already very advanced. It confirms the important contribution of Bourbon to the development of the new colony, even though the Bourbonnais were reluctant to accomplish the goals of the Compagnie and – contrary to the original plan – did not transfer people permanently. The necessity of this hypothesis is even greater and more obvious at the linguistic level. In fact, it alone can account for the indisputable, though complex, relationships between Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole. These can be differentiated in several respects: I believe I was the first to insist on this by emphasizing, for example, that (contrary to popular myth) mutual intelligibility


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was nearly impossible between monolingual creole-speakers of the two Islands. Nonetheless, these languages do contain common features so original and specific to them that we could not seriously claim them as the coincidence of separate developments. These include: similar basilectal phonologies; nearly identical borrowings from Malagasy; use of the word bane as a marker of nominal plural and zot as the personal and possessive form of the second- and third- person plural; several shared lexical idiosyncrasies; and so on (for more details, see Chaudenson 1981a, 1983b). The similarities are even more obvious when one compares earlier stages of these creoles from the documents that are available (see Chaudenson 1981). However, in other situations, the possibility that we are dealing with a secondgeneration creole is less evident, because detailed information is lacking. As noted above, this is true of Martinique, since we know very little about what occurred on St Kitts between 1725 and 1735. In the case of Bourbon, though, the information available is extensive. For instance, Barassin (1953) has devoted an entire thesis to the first fifty years of colonization on this Island, and the period of the Regency was the topic of Lougnon’s (1956) thesis and several of his publications. The problem concerning San Domingo is somewhat akin to that concerning the Lesser Antilles, although the information available – especially concerning the history of the area – is much broader. Between 1625 and 1640, there were important migrations between St Kitts and Tortuga Island (now Ile de la Tortue: a small island about 1 km off the northwest coast of Haiti, where the first French settled). Thus in 1640, when the French were driven from Tortuga, they took refuge on St Kitts, whence they were again expelled by the English after a brief period of peaceful co-existence. Those French who had been driven out of St Kitts subsequently went to Saint Domingue around 1688–1690, where a large portion of the Island had in the meantime been occupied by other French settlers. This influx from St Kitts (estimated at approximately 2,000) was significant, considering the small size of the population on the French side of Hispaniola. Even if some of the incomers went on to Martinique in 1692,10 their number leads one to wonder whether the variety of language spoken on St Kitts could have contributed to the formation of Haitian Creole. Unfortunately perhaps, no French creole is any longer spoken on St Kitts [if one ever developed there (Ed.)], so it is impossible to carry out the same kind of comparative analysis we made for the Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, the numerous exchanges and migrations during this early period between territories where French creoles developed must be taken into account, since they are probably not unrelated to similarities and structural correspondences between the creoles of the area, although these themselves may also have experienced independent developments.11

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The case of Saint Domingue The colonization of Hispaniola is a very interesting process, marked by international rivalries. It had been permanently settled by the Spaniards in the late sixteenth century. The French arrived on Tortuga Island during the second quarter of the seventeenth century, followed by the English, and the two groups competed for control until today’s Haiti, then named ‘Saint Domingue,’ was successfully settled by the French. The demographic evolution of Saint Domingue during the early years of its French colonization provides an interesting case for my position. The first French to settle on Tortuga Island in 1630 were buccaneers, pirates, and sailors who had been shipwrecked, ‘downgraded,’ or dismissed from their crews. Living alongside them were other Europeans of various nationalities. The overall population was mostly white with very few slaves – in fact, the conditions and lifestyles of the Europeans neither required nor permitted the development of a slave population. In 1638 the Spanish,12 who took offense at the settlers’ somewhat boisterous presence on the Island, launched an attack and killed or forced out the majority of them (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797:577). The Island had scarcely been cleared when approximately 40 French who had been living on Hispaniola arrived. They were soon joined by 300 English, who, after two years of peaceful cohabitation, drove them out in 1640. Some of the French returned to Hispaniola, while others, as noted above, took refuge on St Kitts, which they quickly abandoned to return to Port Margot on Hispaniola’s northwestern coast. Shortly thereafter, the French forced the English out of Tortuga island and ‘officially’ established themselves in the area, settling primarily on Tortuga Island, at Port Margot, and at Port-de-Paix nearby. The nature of this settlement gradually began to change, and it was transformed from a collection of precarious pirate encampments to embrace a permanent colonial way of life. As always, this initial period was difficult – as evidenced, for example, by numerous failed attempts to plant cocoa beans in Port Margot in 1665–1666. It was also at this time that a rudimentary administrative structure began to appear: the Governor, M. de Cussy, received 49 of the ‘first soldiers’ in 1688, and they were joined in 1690 by 82 soldiers who had been forced out of St Kitts by the English. (The first sign of the exodus that would gradually deplete that tiny Island of its residents, even though it had once been the point of departure for French colonization and the ‘headquarters of the American Islands.’) Moreau de Saint-Méry (1797:671) provides a quantitative chronology of the arrival of the former residents of St Kitts: 140 on 11 August 1690; 128 on 13 August 1690; 200 on Cap Haïtien on 20 August; 250, most of whom went to Léogâne, on 28 August 1690; and, in October 1690, ‘a thousand more of them arrived in the colony.’ Some left for Martinique in 1692, but this population growth was still significant, both because of its numerical ‘strength,’ and because it was effected by colonists already accustomed to colonial life, some of whom had certainly been born ‘on the Islands.’ One senses the impact that their arrival could have had on the formation of Haitian Creole when one takes into account the population figures for the


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portion of Hispaniola that became French under the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. Based on data provided by d’Ans (1987), the development was as follows: 1665: 1,500 individuals, most of whom were Whites; 1681: 4,546 Whites and free individuals, 2,102 Blacks; 1700: 4,000 Whites and free individuals, 9,000 Blacks; 1713: 5,700 Whites and free individuals, 24,000 Blacks. (In all these cases, the number of ‘free individuals’ is negligible.) If we compare these totals with those for Bourbon (coincidentally, the periods in question are exactly contemporary), it becomes apparent that Saint Domingue benefited greatly both by acquiring colonial experience (from the Spanish who had been on the Island since the late sixteenth century) and from the migrations from St Kitts (it was around 1690 that real economic development began). Although a thorough comparative study of all the relevant cases is necessary, it seems that the colonies which experienced rapid development (the sign of which is accelerated growth of the slave population) were territories that benefited from the support provided by migrations from older colonies. There is therefore reason to believe that the creoles spoken in such areas are secondgeneration varieties. Jamaica appears to be such an example. Three years after the Island had been taken into possession in 1658, there were 4,500 Whites and 1,400 Blacks, while less than twenty years later, there were already more Blacks than Whites: 8,564 Whites and 9,500 Blacks in 1673 (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985:46–47). Examining more closely the conditions under which the colony was formed, we find that, in the conquering expedition of 1655, there were 2,500 soldiers, and 1,200 sailors, plus a number of volunteers who came from St Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat, all of which had been occupied and populated for more than twenty-five years. The attack on Hispaniola, the expedition’s primary goal, led to the loss of a thousand men. The rest took control of Jamaica and forced the Spanish colonists and their slaves into the mountains. (The majority of these subsequently took over Cuba.) Then, in the following year, 1656, 1,000 more colonists arrived from Nevis with their slaves. Thus, among the 6,000 inhabitants of Jamaica in 1658, at least a quarter, and perhaps a third, of the population had lived or had even been born in another colony of the Lesser Antilles. Showing whether a particular creole is a first- or second-generation variety obviously entails nothing on the structural level. Nothing in the structure of a creole reflects this distinction. On the other hand, it may be critical in investigating genetic relationships between creoles, especially when alleged parallel innovations may be simple transfers from one to the other. The historical relationships in the ACR discussed above should instill caution in those who would posit an African proto-creole based solely on the fact that some varieties of the area share specific features. As noted above, aside from these ‘initial’ migrations,

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there were later population movements, which, if they postdated the genesis proper of these vernaculars, can nonetheless explain some shared features. The notion of ‘generations of creole’ also appears to be useful for marking various differences between areas where the two different types are spoken. Areas where first-generation creoles are spoken were generally characterized by lengthy homestead periods during which the French population was numerically dominant and approximative French varieties were spoken by Europeans and non-Europeans alike (though not to the exclusion of basilectal variants). They were also marked by slow economic development. On the other hand, areas where second-generation creoles are spoken were generally characterized by accelerated growth in the slave population, relatively rapid development of Creole (since the target variety ceased very quickly to be French proper, and a more accessible, ‘imported’ means of communication already existed), and by very rapid economic development. We can therefore conclude from demographic investigations of the initial phases of these colonizations that, for areas where first-generation creoles are spoken, numerical equality between the White and Black populations was achieved after a relatively lengthy period (50–100 years), whereas in areas where this period was short (Mauritius and Jamaica, for example), it is likely that a second-generation creole is spoken. In these latter areas, the transfer of colonial culture and technology from one colony to another (through temporary or permanent immigration) was the primary factor in the acceleration of development. The introduction into these areas of an adapted medium of communication, developed elsewhere in a similar society,13 was certainly one of the elements of this transfer of knowledge and technology. It also constitutes the foundation of a new vernacular which, in the course of its evolution, naturally developed its own peculiarities. Let me clarify, however, that numerical balance between the European and slave populations does not in any way entail a magical decisive point in the evolution of these societies. It has often been assumed that the genesis of vernaculars such as creoles depends on a sort of mathematical relation between the numerical strengths of the social and ethnic groups in these societies and the ‘contribution’ of their original languages to the resulting linguistic system. This assumption is absurd and must be dismissed. Very simply stated, several creolists ask, ‘How could creoles not have been formed primarily from the languages of the slaves, since they were much more numerous than the Whites?’ Of course, nobody would dare state this opinion so simplistically, but it does underlie many theoretical approaches, and there are several authors like Valkhoff (1960) who come quite close to expressing it. Examining the start of these colonial societies reveals that, in the case of firstgeneration creoles, the duration of the period during which Whites were more numerous than Blacks was considerable, and conditions did not change on the very day that the black population outnumbered the white population by one person. It is economic change that was the decisive factor, and demographic evolution was merely one of its consequences. Moreover, in the case of second-


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generation creoles, a linguistic medium developed elsewhere was introduced at the very start of the colony and served as the target language of newcomers in the colonies. Still, in the majority of these cases, there was an initial phase of about twenty years during which Whites were in the majority. All the examples show that, in situations that have already become linguistically stable, even very massive immigration has very little effect on the extant systems. The clearest case of this is Mauritius, whose population was only 90,657 in 1835, when massive immigration from India began. Over just 67 years (up to 1902), more than 450,000 Indians had immigrated to the Island. Although this resulted in a considerable change in the makeup of the population, which today is primarily Indo-Mauritian, Mauritian Creole was affected only very slightly and superficially, with minor lexical borrowings, and it has become the daily vernacular of nearly all Indo-Mauritians. Origins and characteristics of populations If investigating the demographic evolution of the initial periods of colonization is a prerequisite to understanding these societies, it is obviously also necessary to determine the origins and characteristics of the immigrant populations. The Europeans For reasons that are easy to guess, the information available on immigrants from France is the most extensive and precise. It includes records of arrivals and departures, marital status, etc. I will again draw on examples from Bourbon and Martinique, since details concerning these areas are the most reliable. Not surprisingly, the majority of settlers there came from langue d’oïl regions, as in North America. Without going into a lot of unnecessary detail, the principal facts are as follows:14 Bourbon: From 1665 to 1715, Normandy, Brittany, Ile-de-France, Orléans, Anjou, Saintonge, Aunis, Poitou, Boulogne, and Picardy provided 73 percent of the heads of family whose origins are known. Martinique: From 1640 to 1660, 90 percent of the French came from Normandy, Brittany, Ile-de-France, and Saintonge. These demographics are very similar to what we find for other regions: Haiti: Commenting on the influence of French regional dialects on Haitian Creole, Alleyne (1969:257) notes: ‘After consulting the work of G. Debien, renowned historian of French colonialism, Pradel Pompilus came to the same conclusion: the French of Saint Domingue came primarily from western and central provinces.’ Quebec: According to Gendron (1970), more than 80 percent of the colonists were originally from langue d’oïl regions: of those from the northwest, 20 percent were from Normandy, 12 percent from Poitou, 12 percent from Aunis, and 8 percent from Saintonge and Anjou; of those from the north-central regions, 14 percent were from Ile-de-France. For more details, see Brunot (1966, vol.

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8:1071). Recent work by Barbaud (1984) gives a specific account of Lortie’s data for all French immigration to Canada throughout the seventeenth century; 90 percent of the colonists came from the same regions. Thus, the overwhelming majority of French who set off for colonial adventure to the Islands and to North America in the seventeenth century came from regions of France lying northwest of a line running from Bordeaux to Paris, an area where langue d’oïl dialects were spoken. This is an important fact in making comparisons, because it allows a whole new perspective on the connection between French creoles and French in North America (Chaudenson 1973). In addition, it sheds light on the particular forms of French that the first colonists spoke. One of the biggest and most appalling mistakes in research on French creoles has been to use the present French norm as the point of reference. However, although we do not know much about the varieties of French spoken by the colonists, we can be sure that they were very different from modern standard French. I will return to this important issue in more detail below. What we know about the linguistic situation in France in the seventeenth century is its native population was far from being entirely francophone. However, the colonists’ adventurous spirit and the tribulations they had to endure (the journey to the Islands lasted from two months to a year!) inevitably put them in contact as much with Parisian non-standard French as with other dialects of langue d’oïl15 that were more or less similar to their own ‘patois.’ Various facts make it clear that in Canada French prevailed over the ‘patois’ toward the middle of the seventeenth century, although French/patois bilingualism remained common (Brunot 1966, vol. 8:1054–1058). There has been much discussion in Canada about how the relative unification of French could have arisen out of such probable initial dialectal diversity. According to Rivard (cited in ibid., p. 1058), ‘as early as the eighteenth century, the development was in large part completed; our language [Canadian French] had already acquired uniformity.’ The strong presence of langue d’oïl varieties probably favored the emergence of this uniformity. However, we do not know (and opinions are divided on the subject) whether there was at first a kind of langue d’oïl ‘koiné,’ or whether a folk French variety somehow ‘absorbed’ the various dialects. The issue is not important here, but we can guess that homologous evolutions occurred in the island colonies, in which more divergent French varieties developed, thanks to the minority of slaves who were learning the language of the Europeans. We know, moreover, that the Europeans did not hesitate to adopt some restructured French constructions and forms produced by Blacks in order to facilitate communication, at least when it was with this group (‘ We accommodate to their way of speaking,’ stated Father Pelleprat [1655:53]). This was definitely what happened in the context of evangelization, where missionaries had to systematically use the ‘language of the Negroes’ to convert them to Christianity. There is no reason not to believe that the same thing happened in daily life, where Whites and Blacks lived and worked side by side constantly. Besides, as noted above, everything suggests that Blacks tried to speak French, or at least what passed as French at that time and in those places. Some of them managed to do it so well


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that Father Mongin noted, not without a degree of satisfaction, ‘I am entirely confident that the people from our country can learn to speak French from the Negro population’ (1679:55; emphasis mine). ‘Some people’ would have been less surprising than ‘the people,’ but we should remember that Mongin was born in 1637 in Carcassonne, and his native province was certainly far from being francophone. His statement is therefore not as exaggerated as it may seem. Another factor to note about the French immigrants is that the vast majority of them came from modest social backgrounds. (I am not even referring here to the indentured laborers of the Antilles, since the Indian Ocean provides no counterparts for them. Their situation was almost worse than that of the slaves who succeeded them; they did not represent valuable capital for their employers. Mongin (1679:129) says of them that they were ‘poor people’ who were taken on board ‘at seaports.’) However, the initial condition of many of the colonists does not appear to have been much better. The one-way passage to the Islands was full of dangers, and, because of the enormous risks colonization involved, most of the French who went to the colonies were in some sense already adventurers. Many colonial settlers had been former sailors or soldiers who abandoned the idea of returning to the home country only face poverty. Many were illiterate (as old documents testify), and most were unmarried, even though the settlement of families was encouraged. The fact that French immigrants during the first decades were predominantly male inevitably led to the formation of mixed couples (White and Black), which – legitimate or not, fleeting or lasting – would obviously bear significantly on processes of ‘creolization,’ both in biological terms (mixed races) and in cultural terms (creole languages and cultures). There exists an exceptional document about the French who resided on Bourbon, including both those who had been born off the Island and ‘Creoles.’ It was produced in 1710 (thus, at the end of the period we are concerned with) by Antoine Boucher, storekeeper of the Compagnie des Indes. It is a memoir in which he paints a detailed portrait of each of the settlers, and the overall tableau – which is not kind but is full of warmth – is sketched with such incisive detail that it remained unpublished for a very long time (there was a real fear that publication would cause an outcry on the Island). When I arrived in Réunion in 1963 it was practically under oath of secrecy that the Curator of Departmental Archives allowed me to read the entire text, only excerpts of which had been published previously in 1941. Boucher specifies very clearly that the French were divided into ‘old settlers’ (people born off the Island) and ‘Creoles’ (people born on the Island), ‘some Whites, others Mulattos.’ He goes on to say that the Mulattos, well aware of their French paternal ancestry, considered themselves equals of the White Creoles. Other people did not distinguish between the Creoles: They are generally lazy, corrupted, and indulge in all the vices, upon which they thrive, because they have not yet been broken of them. They are uneducated and unaware of life’s mysteries; they scarcely know that there is a God, a Church, and Laws. I know some who, at thirty years of age, do not

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Toward a theory of creolization know of their Lord. The Governor himself, Antoine Parat, barely knows how to write his own name! (Boucher ‘Mémoire’ (1710), cited in Rosset 1972)

The following brief passages illustrate the general tone of the time and emphasize the socio-ethnic aspects that I have alluded to, allowing us a glimpse of the human and social functioning of the Bourbonnais ‘homesteads’ during the period: Louis Caron is a Lower Breton aged 68, a notorious and severe drunk … who, apart from the liquor, is a very honest man, though without education. … His wife is Monique Péreire Indienne [i.e., Indian], who is conceited, like all the women of that country, though she is unsophisticated and uneducated. Old as she is, she still gives cause for gossip. However, since the Whites no longer want her, she has been forced to turn to the Blacks, to those who are still quite happy with her. She has two full-grown daughters who have followed in her footsteps exactly and who have no more education than the four full-grown boys with whom, along with three Blacks and a Negress, the aforementioned Louis Caron cultivates his fields, which produce for him the means to live comfortably. (ibid.:191–192) Anne Caze is a Negress from Madagascar, aged 60, the recent widow of Gilles Launay, an old settler from Madagascar who was one of the strongest and hardest-working on the whole Island. This woman lives an exemplary life, as devout and charitable as she can be, a hard worker who governs her Blacks like her own children. (ibid., p. 220) Marie Caze is a Negress from Madagascar who was the Compagnie’s slave. She is Michel Frémont’s widow, aged 55. She lives very prudently and is very devout and committed to divine service. She is very well off and, with only the help of her one Black slave, she cultivates more land than many others who have more help. (ibid., 220–221) The slaves The non-European populations, almost all of whom were slaves, merit a closer examination in certain respects. Several of the hypotheses that have been formed about them are based on errors or ignorance. Details concerning the slaves are certainly less numerous and precise than details about the Europeans, and easily become the subject of controversy. However, an examination of various sources makes it possible to discuss a number of important points. The first point, which is fundamental, is that the slave populations in the two


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large creole-speaking areas were completely different. The overwhelming majority of slaves brought to the ACR came from West Africa, while almost all of those brought to the Mascarenes and Seychelles were originally from Madagascar, India, and East Africa. This point is decisive, because it makes it impossible to posit a common slave origin for any particular cultural or linguistic feature. Exceptions to this general rule are of little significance, and I myself called attention to them a long time ago (see Chaudenson 1974a: 453–454, in particular). In order to distance slaves from their homelands (Malagasies in the Mascarenes), to increase ethnic heterogeneity, and to make certain maritime routes more profitable, attempts were made to transport slaves from West Africa to the Indian Ocean and, conversely, from Madagascar and East Africa to the Antilles. Thus it was that a few hundred Blacks from West Africa were brought to Ile de France.16 For the period 1729–1735, there were 695 of them according to Baker (1982) or 446 according to Chaudenson (1983b) – the estimates differ because we do not know for certain whether or not some ships followed the Compagnie des Indes’ orders to divide the slaves equally between Ile de France and Bourbon. However, things immediately fall into perspective when we note that, from 1715 to 1768, some 45,000–50,000 slaves were introduced to the Mascarenes, and that at best fewer than 5 percent of these came from West Africa. During the same period (around 1734), the Compagnie attempted the reverse operation in the Antilles: ‘There were some Negroes from Monomotapa [Mozambique] and the island of Madagascar in Saint Domingue, but their masters made very little profit from them. The former died right away, and the latter were nearly uncontrollable’ (Histoire générale des voyages, vol. 15:490). This text indirectly highlights the primary reason why such transfers were quickly abandoned. It was also recorded that ‘We must no longer consider Blacks from Senegal and Guinea. The dispatch of them that the Compagnie had agreed to make upon the urgent requests from Ile de France and Bourbon has cost it too dearly’ (Archives de la Réunion, C. 133). The excessive cost came mostly from the considerable losses caused by the longer voyage. All slave-trade historians agree that there was a direct relationship between transit time and the loss of human lives. In the eighteenth century, the average death rate for the crossing between West Africa and the Antilles was 12 percent, not including deaths occurring after arrival, from fatigue and illnesses acquired during the trip (David 1973:51). According to Filliot (1974) the rate for shipment between West Africa and the Mascarenes was 25–30 percent, and sometimes almost all of the Blacks died, as on the voyage of La Badine in 1731: 200 slaves had been taken on board at Gorée in Senegal, but only 37 were landed ‘in very bad shape,’ and eight of these died almost immediately. Thus it is easy to see why less distant supply sources of slaves were preferred, even if West African Blacks were valued by the colonists in the Mascarenes for their robust and hard-working nature. In any event, the West African slaves brought to the Mascarenes comprised fewer than one out of every thousand of the entire imported

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workforce throughout the history of the archipelago. It is simply ridiculous to try to base on such facts a theory of a West African substratum common to all the languages of the ACR and IOR. The fundamental difference between the slave populations of the two areas is undeniable and unavoidable. This explains why some authors who have tried to find a common African base for French creoles (Valkhoff, for example) have had to appeal to the deus ex machina of an Afro-French or Afro-Portuguese pidgin, whose existence, nature, and manner of diffusion remain extremely vague. There is thus no good reason to discuss such a hypothesis, at least not until it can offer the justification we should expect from it, both by comparing the creoles with each other and by taking into account their histories. Slave groups: ethnicity, culture, and language Numerous works about slavery as well as recent studies of creole societies (Petitjean-Roget 1980; de Cauna 1987), give one the impression that a general consensus is developing about how these societies were organized (especially during their initial stages) and about the conditions of the slaves. However, these advances in historical scholarship have, for the most part, run counter to theories considered to be ‘anticolonialist’ – mostly attributed to Melville Herskovits. In general, this author serves as an acknowledged or implicit benchmark for scholars who wish, at all costs, to defend the idea that ‘black heritage’ played a major role in creole societies. This notion is implicit in the title of the 1966 French translation of one of Herskovits’ works, L’héritage du noir, mythe et réalité, (‘Black heritage, myth and reality’), which is different from the original English title, The Myth of the Negro Past (1941). I could have selected this book as the basis of discussion, but two factors dissuaded me. The first is that, ironically, this work is not well known to those who draw their inspiration from it: usually because they rely on other authors who have used it. The second, and for our purposes more important, reason is that the debate involved would be rather disingenuous, since it would be too easy to ridicule certain of Herskovits’ observations, especially those concerning the linguistic situation. A case in point: in trying to demonstrate the importance of the role played by the African substratum, the only reference Herskovits cites concerning African linguistics is Werner (1930), a ‘series of lectures given to the trainees of the British Colonial Office’! He essentially concludes from it that ‘the apparent linguistic differences found between the tribes of the slaving area [from Senegal to Angola!] are in reality but local variations of a deeper-lying structural similarity’ (1941:79). This sets the tone for subsequent work. Clearly, one could not have a serious debate on grounds such as these. I therefore looked for a more recent account written from a similar point of view. Fleischmann (1983) provides an accessible and convenient synthesis of ideas that are more or less directly related to Herskovits’ theories, although the author does not refer to them explicitly. Moreover, in the forty years since Herskovits wrote, new sources of information had become available to


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Fleischmann, and these inevitably render several of Herskovits’ earlier hypotheses obsolete. I thus thought it would be useful to examine the nature and characteristics of non-European populations based on the issues raised by Fleischmann’s article. Thus, we will generally not have to return to these questions later on, although every now and then my discussion leads me to violate this self-imposed chronological constraint. Fleischmann proposes several ideas which, for the most part, differ in many respects with the viewpoints of historians of slavery and the slave trade. They concern the following six points: 1 2 3

4

5 6

Ethnic homogeneity of slaves was maintained and even promoted within various units of agricultural industry Certain plantation owners learned African languages, and these were used for communication between members of the slave community Maroons (fugitive slaves) played an important role in ensuring ‘indirect links between different plantations’ (p.33) and constituting a true ‘African countersociety’ The ‘bozal,’ a recent arrival, is socially dominant: he ‘dominated the more or less decultured older slaves, the Creoles without a “nation,” and, to a certain extent, even the Whites’ (p. 34). (I will make use of the term bozal, although it was not used in the Indian Ocean.) ‘Slow and difficult cultural and linguistic adaptation (of the “bozals”)’ (p.34) ‘It was only with the domestication of the Maroons and the abolition of the slave trade that the Creole was able to acquire the stability of a cultural and integrative instrument’ (p. 43)

These points, all of them relevant to the subject matter, call for several remarks. The first and most general is that such a hypothesis, which has far-reaching consequences and claims to provide historical and sociological foundations, is based on only very few historical sources.17 The small number of historical and geographical references is surprising. Most of the data come from Debbasch (1962) and Debien (1961) – which in itself is not significant – but we are almost never told where or when the various events actually occurred (unless I am mistaken or overlooked one; none of the examples is given a date). In addition, although the author claims to make ‘a contribution to issues regarding the genesis of creole languages’ (p. 29), he does not refer to any of the older classic documents on the Lesser Antilles (e.g., Jacques Bouton (1940), Pelleprat (1965), Chevillard (1659), du Tertre (1654), Rochefort (1658), Mongin (1679), etc.).18 Is it possible to conduct research on creole genesis beginning only in the middle of the eighteenth century, 120–130 years after colonization had already started? Is it possible to ignore detailed geographical references? For example, regarding the Maroons, did they encounter the same physical conditions whether they were on tiny islands, as in the Lesser Antilles, or in vast territories, such as Saint Domingue, Jamaica, or even Brazil? Having expressed these methodological reservations, we can take up a meaningful discussion of the remaining important points. They will contribute along

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the way to a better understanding of the nature and characteristics of the nonEuropean populations. Ethnic homogeneity or heterogeneity? I admit that what we are dealing with here are tendencies, and that Fleischmann is not claiming that slave populations were linguistically and culturally homogeneous. Still, he would have it that they were less heterogeneous than is claimed, for a number of reasons, including the following: 1

2

a presumably limited number of trading posts in Africa, where slaves were originally purchased ‘from a much more narrowly-defined region than one would imagine’ (p. 32); and the desire of the plantation owners to establish homogeneous ateliers, ‘workshops’, which were ‘more stable and easier to manage.’

Nevertheless, Fleischmann does note that: The ethnic distribution of slaves was subject to differences between, on the one hand, the administration, concerned with general security, and, on the other, the plantation owners, for whom forming the atelier was a practical problem bearing directly on the profitability of the plantation. (Fleischmann 1983:32). For the sake of the debate, however, we must distinguish between, on the one hand, general ideas and theories concerning the ‘governance’ of colonies and, on the other, observable realities at the level of production units. (I am avoiding the word plantation for reasons that will soon become apparent.) What has been said above about colonization strategies adopted by the ‘Compagnies’ shows clearly that such enterprises, risky and dangerous as they may appear to us, were not undertaken without forethought, as the economic interests at stake were considerable. I have maintained that, since the beginning of these colonies, ethnic divisions within the slave community provided a strong guarantee of security. The Compagnie des Indes’ instructions for settling Ile de France, for example, were clear in this respect. They recommended not introducing too many Malagasies onto the Island, in order to prevent what happened on Bourbon for want of other sources of labor. (Given the short distance from Bourbon to Madagascar, the Malagasy slaves had attempted to escape back home. In general, a preponderance of slaves from the same ethnolinguistic background also facilitated revolts and Maroonage.) The desire for ethnic diversity, so as to ensure that slaves would not escape, was one of the reasons for the attempts made to introduce slaves from West Africa to the Mascarenes:


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The Compagnie supplying Blacks from Guinea to Ile de France feels it is not advisable to transport any more there from Madagascar, at least until there are enough of the former not to worry about the introduction of others. (13 August 1728; Archives de la Réunion, C. 35) This same concern, based on common sense and the most elementary caution, shows up just about everywhere. It seems to be most prevalent (but not according to Fleischmann) in connection with the most basic social units. For example, Freyre (1943) remarks that, in Brazil, efforts were made to avoid reuniting ‘a preponderance of slaves from the same country in one harbormaster’s office’ (Maîtres et esclaves, p. 249). Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, one of the first scholars to denounce slavery, and one who observed well how the system operated during his stay on Ile de France, describes the arrival and sale of slaves in his Voyage à l’Ile de France: The resident [owner of a rural farm] comes to inspect them and purchases those that suit him. Brothers, sisters, friends, and lovers are all separated; crying, they say their good-byes and leave for the homestead. (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b [1773]:191–192) These deliberate separations affected the author so much that, several years later, in Empsaël, a drawn-out tragedy in which he tries to denounce the horrors of slavery, he writes about Whites in Morocco who were slaves of Blacks19 and attributes to the African masters exactly the same reasoning and behavior as the Europeans: not only did they separate slaves of the same origin, but they even put together enemy ‘nations.’ He writes: The merchant [speaking to the buyer]: Lord Hannibal, these ones here are the hardiest. I guarantee you, you’ll be happy with them. Just make sure you separate them. Since they’re Spanish, you should put them together with some Portuguese, their good friends.(The slaves are untied.) One of the slaves: We’re Spanish. Oh, don’t put us with the enemies of our nation! (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986a, 2:542) The systematic nature of this ‘policy’ has been shown both by historians of slavery and by historical and literary documents. For instance, Ransford, an expert on the history of slavery, notes: ‘The planters made a deliberate attempt to break the slave’s spirit and loosen the links with Africa by judicious separation of tribes, by teaching them to speak only the master’s language’ (1971:104). Quotations such as this could be multiplied, because similar opinions are expressed in many places. They even appear in early texts. Ligon (1684:80), as cited by Petitjean-Roget, describes the situation on Martinique: ‘Every effort was made to mix [slaves] taken from places in Africa where different languages were spoken, because that way they would not understand each other’ (Petitjean-

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Roget 1980:501). Much later, Maillard makes the same observation for Réunion, although in a somewhat more general fashion: ‘The mixture of races and castes among the slaves on Bourbon greatly contributed to peace in the country’ (1862:182). The history of creole societies, both real and imagined, is full of such examples in which these kinds of divisions were responsible for quelling plots and preventing revolts.20 It is clear from this that, even for the work groups that Fleischmann discusses, things did not operate at all as he describes. Although it involves a later time period than the one we are concerned with here, we can consult the valuable work of de Cauna (1987) on this matter, a history of a plantation on Saint Domingue in the eighteenth century. Although this book deals with plantation life in the latter half of the eighteenth century, at a time of intense activity in the colony’s sugar industry, de Cauna recalls that one of the ‘golden rules’ was ‘to purchase slaves of the same age and ethnicity only in small groups of a dozen, in order to facilitate assimilation’ (1987:109). It is easy to see from this how an erroneous interpretation of the facts could develop. At a time when the plantations had become very important and their slave workforce very large,21 purchasing slaves in groups of a dozen from the same ‘nation’ did not in any way lead to homogenization of the whole workforce. Also, as I discuss in greater detail below, maintaining the unity of a small group formed in this way during a period of ‘acclimatization’ does not necessarily mean that such cohesion was preserved later on. On Saint Domingue at this time, as de Cauna notes, the newcomers, or ‘bozals,’ were put to work only after six months, when their period of adaptation had ended. This allowed them to recover from the fatigue of the journey – they tended to die in greater numbers if made to work in the fields soon after being disembarked. Thus, the newcomers received a kind of ‘training’ – known in anglophone creole literature as ‘seasoning’ – in socialization and adjustment to their new life, under the guidance of creole slaves. At the end of this period, having been initiated into the local language variety, they could easily be trained in the workshops (ateliers), where slaves from many different ‘nations’ were present. This ‘policy’ did not, therefore, lead to ethnic homogenization of the homesteads, something which is quite evident even in the case of the ‘Fleuriau homestead’ (a plantation rather than a regular, small homestead), the one that had put the policy into effect. In fact, on this estate there were 27 Congos, 24 Nagos, 24 Aradas, and 16 Hausas, as well as Bambaras, Igbos, Tacouas, Coromantis, Thiambas, Ayas, and, of course, Creoles, who were proportionately less numerous on this estate than on the Island as a whole. The latter constituted two-thirds of the slave population (de Cauna 1987:92–93). At this point, we need a closer examination of the term nation, upon which Fleischmann forms his ill-founded hypothesis. According to him, nations, or African ethnicities (1983:35), were ‘social groups’ making up a ‘countersociety’ (p. 34). Later on, though, he expresses the rather less precise opinion that the putative ‘nations’ corresponded to ‘lingua francas’:


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What were labeled with terms such as Arada or Congo were actually just shared and poorly-defined languages from relatively vast areas. It was only the ignorance of plantation-owners, who were not aware of the linguistic situation in Africa, that permitted the establishment of a classification. For them, a new slave who could be understood by a ‘Nago’ was himself a ‘Nago.’ (Fleischmann 1983:41) On this last point I tend to agree with Fleischmann, although I fail to see how it can be reconciled with his earlier claim that ‘nations’ represented real ethnic differences. In fact, it is well known and agreed by experts on the slave trade that labels of ‘nation’ had absolutely no correlation to any real ethnic group. According to de Cauna, They are most often ‘guesses,’ which slave traders made, based on trade posts or ‘country marks,’ [which are] traditional cuts made on the chest or face. The terms Arada and Congo, for example, represented a very vast geographical area. (de Cauna 1987:94) Such labels were often paired with stereotypes related to collective psychology: The Igbos and Coromantis were considered suicidal; the Aradas were considered hard-working and loyal, but not very sociable; the Congos were considered gentle and cheerful, but insolent and thieving; etc. In fact, as de Cauna states, on the plantations it was in particular ‘the available merchandise that determined what particular slaves one could buy. One took what one found’ (ibid.:106). A later case – interesting because at first glance it appears to totally contradict my point of view – is that of ‘les Ibos de l’Amélie.’ This is also the translation of the title of a 1986 book by F. Thésée, a scholar who meticulously studied this cargo of slaves, which was secretly transported to the Antilles in 1822. The slave trade had been abolished in 1815, and the Amélie was seized with 227 Blacks who had embarked in Boni, ‘east of the River Niger delta, in the “Igbo country” trading area’ (now Biafra). All the captives were reported to be of the ‘Igbo nation,’ and, since an account of their condition was fortunately taken when they arrived in Martinique, we know their African names. Thésée submitted a list of these surnames to the Nigerian Professor Obichere, who ‘was willing to check it over for names that appeared to be Igbo.’ Of the 212 names submitted, only 100 were recognized by the Professor as ‘sounding Igbo’ – in itself a rather vague response. Undismayed by this, however, Thésée states that ‘the unity of the Igbos was based primarily on a language shared by all those calling themselves Igbo’ (1986:41). Such an assertion is not only presumptuous, but completely unfounded. It is clear from examining a linguistic map of the Boni region that three substantially different linguistic subgroups converge in this area (including the Ijo and Izickpeye languages of the Kwa family and Benue-Congo languages). It is likely, therefore, that the slaves on the

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Amélie who were reported to be ‘Igbo’ because they were purchased in Boni, the trading center of Igbo country, were actually members of diverse linguistic groups and were not in any way ‘united by language,’ contrary to Thésée’s claim. Designations in the Indian Ocean region were just as imprecise, but the trading areas were less vast: Blacks were identified as ‘Malagasy’ or ‘from Madagascar’ (in fact, most of them came from the southeastern or eastern part of the island). For the few slaves imported from West Africa around 1730, the name of the port of embarkation was used to designate them, for instance, ‘Juda Black,’ ‘Guinea Black,’ ‘Gorée Black,’ etc. The term Guinea Black, or Guinea Cafre on Bourbon, was rapidly imposed on slaves from the western coast of Africa. Both terms were shortened everywhere simply to Guinea. Sometimes what appeared to be more precise labels were used, such as Bambara or Yolof. The latter appeared relatively late, in the late eighteenth century, as a synonym for Guinea, rather than in reference to a specific ethnic group (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b:398). For the slaves imported from eastern Africa, the term Mozambique Black was used most often without further qualification, and it eventually came to be used to refer to any African-looking individual in Mauritius and the Seychelles. One also encounters terms that are more specific (though not more precise), especially in Réunion: Macoua (see Chaudenson 1974a:640), Bibi, Iambane (from the name of the port Inhambane in Mozambique), etc. Thus, it seems that, in most cases, such names referred to places or trade areas and not to the precise origins of the slaves. The history of the French word nation is not entirely irrelevant to this discussion. Often, scholars make the mistake of equating the meaning of this term in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with its modern meaning. Since Old French, nation had actually been used to designate ‘infidels and idol worshippers’ (Walter von Wartburg, Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1928) – hereafter FEW – vol. 7:41b). When the French arrived in Canada, they naturally used it to refer to the indigenous populations, but they did so without making any reference to ethnic divisions (ibid.). It was eventually used in the Islands in the same way to refer to the ‘outsiders,’ the transplanted slaves. Use of the term nation became both more generalized and diversified in most creoles (Chaudenson 1974a:819), although it is generally no longer used today. Its earlier usage was even more uncertain, as shown by the way Bernardin de Saint-Pierre used it on Ile de France. In one instance it appears in its earlier sense, referring more to people than to ethnicity: ‘There are some Malabars [here]. These people are free and come from India … This nation is lazy, prone to flattery, weak, and cowardly’ (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b:397). At other times, however, he uses nation with a meaning close to ‘ethnic group.’ Thus, of the ‘Antanachimes,’ he says that among the ‘Madagascar Blacks’ they were ‘the most gentle, humane, and honest nation’ (ibid., p. 399). Almost immediately afterwards, however, he uses the same term to refer to Malagasies as a whole when he writes, ‘a nation as suspicious and vindictive as the Malagasies’ (ibid., p. 399). It is thus important not to equate nations with homogenous ‘social groups’ –


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pace Fleischmann (1983) – or, even worse, with ‘ethnic groups’ or ‘linguistic groups.’ Scholars often succumb to the illusion that they can base their analyses on accounts (rigorous though they may be) of representatives from the same ‘nation.’ Apart from the inherent fuzziness always entailed in the use of the term in early documents, this approach loses sight of, or even obscures, an important fact about colonial societies. For a fairly long period in the early stages of their developments, they consisted largely of a sort of juxtaposition of semiautonomous social units, the ‘homesteads.’ I am in full agreement on this point with the analysis given, from a slightly different perspective, by d’Ans (1987:138–139): Throughout Afro-America, neither the social bonds that were formed during slavery, nor those that were reconstituted after slavery was abolished, have anything in common with the ethnic solidarities existing in Africa. It is significant that slave ‘nations’ generally do not bear the names of ‘ethnic groups,’ but rather those of trading posts on the African coast where slaves were brought together before they were transported to America. Also, it is a well-known fact that having crossed the Middle Passage together on the same ship gave rise to an intense and lasting feeling of fellowship among the Blacks. Afterward, a kind of ‘citizenship’ was forged in the colonies, and this was the final step needed to push to the background memories of tribal bonds in Africa. In short, slaves throughout America before the nineteenth century exhibited many types of ‘concentration camp’ solidarity, but none of these involved the maintenance of ethnic ties. Finally on this point, I will give one example of the confusion surrounding the names of slave ‘nations.’ This case is especially interesting. A passage in the journal of the eighteenth-century Danish ‘slave merchant’ L.F. Römer, whose business was based on the Guinea Coast, notes, ‘When we receive slaves from nations that we recognize from appearance as being Dunkos or Cassiantes …’ (Dige-Hen 1989:211; my emphasis). Concerning this passage, the translator and publisher of the journal, Dige-Hen, states in a note: The Ashanti called all the slaves they brought to the coast ‘Dunkos,’ and this explains why Europeans assumed that there existed a country by the same name (Bowdich 1819:182–183). Dunko comes from the Akan word donko, plural ndonko, which was applied to any non-Ashanti man or woman bought for the purpose of slavery. (Dige-Hen 1989:211) Examples such as this show clearly the string of misunderstandings that could arise out of the ethnic or national identification of slaves, as well as the excessive haste of some individuals in assigning precise ethnic identities based on such names.

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African languages and communication The preceding remarks already make it clear that Fleischmann’s hypothesis about the use of African languages is untenable. His claim that slaves were ‘originally from a much smaller area than previously thought’ (1983:31) is not founded on any precise information. It is at odds with all scholarship on the African slave trade, which actually emphasizes that slaves were often brought to the ports from a long way into the interior and that the very expansion of the slave trade forced ‘traders’ and their middle men to search out their victims in very far-off regions. For example, Walter Rodney, an expert on the history of (former British) Guyana and not likely to sympathize with colonialist ideologies, recalls that captives often traversed dozens of miles before boarding their ships (1970). These sorts of facts are too obvious and well established even to be debated. The small number of trading posts that existed therefore proves very little. There were indeed very few ports of embarkation, but the very way in which the slave trade was organized created a trading zone along the West African coast that was 5,000 km long and at least 300 km wide (Rodney 1970). The way some authors (e.g., Philip Baker on Mauritius) speak of slaves from West Africa easily leads to the false impression that the slaves constituted a single social group. They overlook the fact that nearly 3,000 km separate Gorée and Juda (Ouidah), whence the slaves that these authors so carelessly lump together set sail. In addition to such oversights of geography, some authors also show a poor understanding of history. Thus, Baker (1982:199) counts Wolof among the main languages spoken by slaves on Ile de France around 1730, because the slaves who had sailed from Gorée were reported to be ‘Senegalese.’ For several reasons, each sufficient in itself, such a claim should be viewed with caution, to put it no higher. For one thing, calling these slaves ‘Senegalese’ is obviously disputable, because they probably came from areas quite far from Gorée. The slave trade had been active in these regions for two centuries, and the areas closest to the trading centers had most likely been depleted of their human resources. Baker (1982:244) seems to acknowledge a problem with this nomenclature, but this still does not prevent him from identifying the relevant slaves as ‘Senegalese.’22 To go on from this to assume that these Africans spoke Wolof because they were ‘Senegalese’ reflects another common methodological mistake: equating the linguistic situation of two-and-a-half centuries ago with the present-day linguistic situation. The ‘Wolof ethnic group’ represents only slightly more than a third of the current population of Senegal. The expansion of Wolof as a lingua franca is also a relatively recent development: an essentially urban phenomenon, in which the growth of Dakar has played a very significant role (Dumont 1983:25). The above debate on the ethnolinguistic identities of the slaves has been going on for quite some time. Herskovits questioned the ‘1,000 miles’ theory, which is accepted by most historians of slavery. Slaves were putatively often dispatched from very long distances in the interior to trading posts, which themselves were often separated by thousands of kilometers. Casting doubt on such historians, though without solid arguments, Herskovits (1941:40–43) quotes


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works by experts such as Puckett, who wrote in his Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (1926:3): Roughly speaking, the six to twelve million Negro slaves brought to America came from the part of the West Coast of Africa between the Senegal and Congo rivers. True enough these West Coast slave markets did in turn obtain some slaves from far in the interior of the continent, but the principal markets were the mouths of the Senegal, Gambia, Niger and Congo, and the majority of the blacks were obtained from this West Coast region. Indeed, more than 6,000 km – over twice the distance between Paris and Moscow – separate these two rivers, and from each point of embarkation its total area of trade forms ‘a vast fan-shaped hinterland’ (Phillips 1918:31, quoted in Herskovits 1941:40) which opens out into the interior regions to a distance of 1,000 miles or more (hence the ‘1,000 miles’ theory). The total involved thus amounts to 7–8 million km2, or nearly the surface area of Australia. There is a certain amount of physical evidence to corroborate Herskovits’ position. In central Africa datable graves have been discovered containing West African ‘cowries’ (small porcelain-like shells used for money). They probably served as payment for the only ‘merchandise’ these regions could export to the West: slaves. Römer’s account – again particularly valuable, since it comes from an eighteenth-century slave merchant – totally supports these conclusions: We have seen nations [note again the use of this term!] brought by natives from south of the Volga River who, according to the Blacks, were born at least 500 miles inside the interior regions of the country. But the further away they come from the sea, the more stupid they are.23 (Dige-Hen 1989:55) Like many others, Römer also emphasizes the linguistic diversity of the slaves. Although he was familiar only with the coastal region of the Gulf of Guinea, where he had established his business, he states, ‘What surprised me more than anything is how many different languages there are among the Negroes’ (ibid.:35). It is rather tiresome to have to return to the topic of the linguistic diversity of the slaves – something on which almost all sources, from documents of the time to early and modern historians, unanimously agree. Even the television show Roots (by Alex Haley) demonstrated this fact admirably (movie-makers sometimes have good historical consultants too!), especially in the scene on the slave ship where the hero tries to stir up his companions in misfortune against their captors and discovers with despair that they cannot communicate with each other, and only by drumming together on the planks of the ship can they express their common revolt. I will cite only Father Pelleprat’s (1655) perfectly clear account of the matter, which also illustrates my earlier remarks about the use of the word ‘nation’: ‘The Negroes transported to the Islands are from various African nations, [from] Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea, and from a few other

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coastal lands. There are up to thirteen nations of these infidels on the Islands’ (Pelleprat 1655:52). (Note the historically interesting connection between ‘infidels’ and ‘nations’ that speak completely different languages.) Nonetheless, Fleischmann advocates a somewhat paradoxical position on the linguistic situation: ‘In order to prevent unwanted surprises, some plantationowners, such as Father Labat, learned African languages … On his plantation, at least, there was absolutely no break in the linguistic history of the slaves’ (1983:33). This appears to be an exaggerated interpretation of the facts. Why say ‘some’ plantation-owners, when only one example is given, especially when that one example is so specific? In fact, it is probably actually a ‘counterexample,’ since this sort of attitude on the part of a plantation-owner was exceptional. According to what is known of Father Labat, this peculiarity stems from a particular curiosity that centered more on a preoccupation with religious proselytizing than an initial concern for knowing what slaves were saying to each other in African languages. Apart from the fact that one particular language would have had to be chosen as the common lingua franca to learn, since there were so many of them, there is an obvious contradiction in Fleischmann’s statement: if the plantation-owner wished to ‘prevent unwanted surprises,’ his knowledge of an African language would have had to be unknown to the slaves, so that they might use it in front of him. It is difficult to see how this circumstance – which is more than just a hypothetical case – could really have prevented a ‘break in the linguistic history of the slaves.’ A more serious issue, though, one that was relevant even in the initial periods of colonization, was the problem of deciding which language to use to convert the ‘infidel nations.’ Thus, Father Mongin was highly delighted to find that in the Antilles one could evangelize in French ‘to nations other [than the Caribs]’ (1679:55). And, nearly twenty-five years earlier, Father Pelleprat expressed a similar sentiment when he noted, ‘we wait until they have learned French before teaching them’ (1655:52). It was situations like this that helped priests in the Antilles avoid the difficulties associated with learning the languages of the people they were trying to convert. In relation to this, Father Mongin (1679:55) also recalls ‘the volume of passions of Father Caussin, who highlights the unpleasant effort that the poor missionaries make to learn these languages as being among the rarest examples of patience.’ In fact, rather than being favored by plantation owners, the use of African languages was actually rigorously forbidden. Chatillon points this out in his preface to Father Mongin’s Lettres by insisting (once again) on the linguistic diversity of the African population and the role of the ‘local Black dialect’ (here too, I am intentionally avoiding the term creole): In this Babel, where there were often a dozen different ethnic groups, the most important thing for the newcomer to learn was Creole. As Mongin has indicated, speaking African languages was forbidden, because slave owners feared rebellions. (Chatillon 1984:26)


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This ban was probably not fully enforced, and slaves who spoke the same language must have been able to exchange a few words now and then, if they happened to be located on the same plantation. According to the available evidence, though, such opportunities were few and far between. In addition to suffering the isolation caused by the autonomous nature of the homesteads, slaves were also forbidden to move about freely. Of course, such a policy may not have been strictly upheld, but it is still important to acknowledge that it existed. Further, Fleischmann’s reference to ‘markets that were essential in order for slaves to restock’ (p. 33), which he claims provided a potential meeting place, appears to me to be a great anachronism in the debate. Clearly, such markets developed at a much later date. Slaves lived only on crops produced on the homestead (e.g., corn, rice, and cassava), so they surely did not go shopping in order to take a stroll or for entertainment, and, in any case, all activity off the ‘homestead’ was forbidden to them unless they had obtained express permission. I also wonder where they would have found the money or the time to make such purchases – in markets that very likely did not even exist! On Rodriguez, where very old social structures were maintained for a long time because of the Island’s isolation, there were, until recently, no vegetable markets (this greatly dismayed Mauritian state employees stationed on the Island, who sooner or later had to start a small garden of their own!). Thus, difficulties continue to arise from the fact that neither the locations nor the relevant time periods are exactly specified (facts about Jamaica tend to be carelessly extrapolated to the French Antilles). The period that was critical to creole genesis did not ‘witness the movement of thousands of slaves,’ as Fleischmann claims – and, even in later periods, these thousands of slaves were divided into smaller, perfectly organized social units: something his vague and globalizing vision either omits or ignores. All these factors account both for the rapid disappearance of the slaves’ native languages and for their weak contributions to the creolization of French. The Maroon ‘countersociety’ Relatively recently, there has developed a somewhat poetic and literary, though not scientific, trend toward glorifying and mythologizing the Maroons. In the literary arena this is perfectly legitimate; it demonstrates the desire and need of certain members of creole communities to claim descent from heroic ancestors, combatants for liberty and independence, and their rejection of colonial servitude. This is not the place to examine the origin and development of this myth in any great detail, but it should be pointed out that, little by little, this myth has passed from the realm of literary fable into that of ‘historical truth.’ I have examined the origin of stories about Maroons on Réunion and discovered that their evolution can be traced from pure novelistic fiction to historical half-truths. For example, reputedly serious works such as Robert’s La Réunion, combat pour l’autonomie (1976) and Leguen’s Histoire de l’Ile de la Réunion (1979) refer to such events as the ‘election of a king of Maroon slaves.’ The former claims

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that the event was preserved through ‘oral tradition,’ and the latter that it is a ‘historical’ event. However, I was able to uncover neither the origin of accounts such as these, nor the way in which they have been passed down (Chaudenson 1981b, vol. 1, p. 34). They seem to have simply been uncritical copyings of something related in Eugène Dayot’s (1844) novel Bourbon pittoresque. These ‘events’ were actually reported around the end of 1975 in a local leftist newspaper, Témoignage Chrétien de la Réunion, which claims to have quoted them from a story told by a ‘Mauritian traveler residing in Cilaos in the last [i.e. nineteenth] century.’ The author is not named but is identifiable. His story appears to be a plagiarism combined with a serious falsification of history. Unfortunately, everyone has cited it but no one has checked it for accuracy. In his Voyage à la Réunion (1878:76–90), C.H. Leal claims that it is based on oral accounts collected on location, but it is really nothing more than a pure and simple plagiarism of Dayot’s historical novel Bourbon pittoresque! Under the circumstances, Fleischmann’s study must be read with caution, since it may feed this trend of mythologization (or mystification), providing it with a pseudo-scientific basis. The point of view is very simple, although the author attributes to the phenomenon a complexity that he hardly takes into account: allegedly the Maroon troops consisted primarily of ‘bozals’ who had arrived some years earlier, and they formed a ‘countersociety based on ethnic and linguistic solidarity’ (1983:35). This view, which Prudent (1986) characterizes as a ‘heroic stereotype,’ in no way corresponds to reality. For one thing, all indications are that the Maroons were generally not ‘bozals,’ or even ‘seasoned slaves’ (in which case they would no longer be ‘bozals’), but rather Creoles. As Prudent remarks: ‘Heroic stereotypes aside, becoming a Maroon was associated more with Creoles than with bozals’ (1986:17). de Cauna also emphasizes this fact with regard to the ‘homestead’ he examined:24 It was generally the slaves who were experienced, if not downright aged (30–50 years old), who became Maroons, and it was rare to find cases involving newcomers. Among the Africans, there were four Bambaras, two Congos, and two Aradas, but Creoles were by far the most numerous. (de Cauna 1987:133) For the historian at least, it seems necessary to dismiss the mythical image of the Maroon as a proud and hostile ‘bozal,’ unwilling to put up with slave life. (The literary creation may remain intact.) It was not the later arrivals, reduced to the difficult conditions of ‘pickaxe Blacks’ and ill at ease in a society where they were unfamiliar with local customs, who attempted to escape, but rather Creole slaves, who were actually given more favors. de Cauna also notes this point: Cases of large-scale Marronage were on the whole carried out by slaves who did not belong to the least privileged group of Blacks, but rather those who possessed a certain enviable social status in the hierarchy of slavery. (de Cauna 1987:131)


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Moreover, such cases were less frequent than one would think, even in Saint Domingue, where there were only three escapes in ten years on the ‘Habitation Fleuriau,’ which was inhabited by 250–300 slaves. In order to accurately reflect the reality of what happened with the Maroons, it is once again important not to lose sight of facts and locations. On the small islands that constitute the majority of creole-speaking territories (with the exception of Saint Domingue, Louisiana, and Guyane), Maroons had no real chance of forming the ‘countersocieties’ that Fleischmann fancies. In the case of Bourbon, whose rugged terrain otherwise seems favorable to fugitives, numerous reports by ‘detachments’ (individuals responsible for ‘hunting down’ Maroons) and trials of recaptured slaves present quite a different reality. One of the first questions asked of all the accused (the interrogations were always the same) pertained to what they ate while they were ‘in the woods.’ Their responses were nearly all identical: all said they were sustained by roots and leaves, and some who were either naive or fatalistic even confessed to thefts committed on the outskirts of the ‘homesteads.’ While the mountains provided a natural refuge, they were nearly devoid of food sources, and they often provided only a temporary shelter, since detachments would scour the Island and Creole ‘hunters’ were tireless hikers. By the end of the seventeenth century the Creoles of Bourbon had – to the great despair of the Compagnie des Indes, which would have preferred to see them in the fields – emptied the Island’s rivers and streams of their fish and shellfish and had depleted its forests of all their fowl. (There were no mammals on this island.) The Maroons were thus limited either to staying close to the ‘homesteads,’ where, at risk of being caught by dogs or guards, they could steal the food they needed, or to disappearing in the mountains, where they could try to live for some time on slim pickings while they waited for the few stalks of corn (and later cassava) that they planted to grow. They would take shelter in a cave or build an ajoupa out of leaves for protection against the frequent rain and often bitter cold (most often, it was these rudimentary but necessary dwellings, along with fires that they built, that gave them away and put the detachments on their trail). If they did manage to elude their pursuers (who were armed, knew the mountains well, and were aided by dogs), the latter would often destroy the ‘ajoupas’ and the crops, forcing the escapees once again into a life of wandering and famine. Under such conditions, it is easy to see why Maroon slaves would return on their own, driven by hunger back into a life of servitude. Familiarity with these realities and irrefutable archival documents have led me to wholeheartedly accept d’Ans’ observations that even on Saint Domingue things were hardly different, although it was a bigger territory: Becoming a Maroon was always a last resort, done to escape a grave shortage of food or imminent severe punishment. In any event, after a usually prolonged period of roaming, it ended either in surrender or death, and it never led to real prospects of freedom. As vast as the Caribbean area may appear to be, there are actually few places that can shelter fugitives

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Toward a theory of creolization long enough for them to build an independent society capable of resuming any sort of relations with the outside world. It was only in the interior of Jamaica and in the forests of the hinterlands of Guyane that the colonial system tolerated – and used for its own profit – ‘Maroon Republics’ which were recognized by treaties. Never did this occur on Haitian soil, nor in the Lesser Antilles, where space was both more limited and more densely populated. It was relatively easy for police in these areas to prevent ‘fugitive villages’ from springing up by destroying houses, fields, and reserves, even if they were not able to immediately recapture the fugitives themselves. Such oppression forced the Maroons to resort to stealing as their only means of survival, and this in turn justified an even harsher form of repression. As a result, the only possible outcome was, sooner or later, the annihilation of these Maroons … (d’Ans 1987:106–107)

This presents an image most unlike that of the ‘Maroon countersocieties’ proposed by Fleischmann, who, as we have noted, does not even specify where these could have been located (although the title of his article explicitly evokes the Antilles). The life of the Maroons was completely different, as was their ideology. On this latter point, although Fleischmann is rather cautious, one gets the impression from his work that the ‘Maroon countersocieties’ were in some sense the ‘seed’ of the ‘revolution’ on Saint Domingue: an idea that other, less informed authors do not fail to fasten on. He is content to advocate such a position based on James (1963:21), who, he says, ‘explains in like manner the case of the Maroon Makandal’ and, later on, the revolts of 1791 on Saint Domingue (ibid., p. 86). This point of view does not appear to be shared by historians of Haiti, particularly not by Pluchon (1987). Were the Maroons, as some have claimed outright and others have implied, resolute adversaries of the slave societies from which they had attempted to flee? It seems unlikely, considering the mass ‘surrender’ of Maroons on Saint Domingue in 1785, of which Moreau de Saint-Méry has left us a detailed account. One of the few places on the Island where Maroons were able to survive for several decades (some were even born ‘in the woods’) was in the ‘mountains of Bahoruco and Beate and the surrounding areas’ (p. 1131). Numerous raids were carried out against them, leading to the destruction of their campsites and crops, and causing great losses. They were forced to constantly change their places of residence, and on several occasions they were able to escape only because the ‘detachments’ sent out to capture them had problems finding water. The Saint Domingue Maroons inspired tremendous fear amongst the colonists, especially because of the large number of fugitives the group reputedly included. ‘Fear estimated their number to be nearly 1,800,’ de Saint-Méry (1797) states jovially. When, after long negotiations, the fugitives finally put down their arms in 1785 their true numbers became apparent: ‘There were 130 Negroes, of whom 125 were French or descendants of French Negroes.’ What is most noteworthy


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for our purposes is that these Maroons themselves immediately became ‘Maroon-hunters’ for the colony: ‘These Negroes promised to track down and arrest Maroon Negroes from the two nations in exchange for a dozen gourds’ (1134–1135). (The ‘two nations’ refer here to the French and Spanish parts of the Island – the region in question being located on the border between them.) This case is entirely typical, both in terms of underlying historical facts and the later manipulation of details for ideological purposes. Contrary to the bestfounded historical viewpoints, Herskovits still sees the Haitian Revolution originating among the Maroons, citing ‘the constant smaller uprisings that laid the groundwork for the final thrusts which drove the whites from the island.’ What seems to me significant and reprehensible about this is Herskovits’ partial and biased exploitation of facts which he obviously knows very well. Referring to the Maroon slaves discussed above, he ‘summarizes’ the text by de Saint-Méry that I have cited as follows: Moreau de St Méry recounts the strength of runaway groups living in the mountains behind the great central plain of the island; he also tells of a group in the south who, when finally subdued, was found to number among its members men of fifty years or more who had been born in the freedom of their retreat. (Herskovits 1941:93) Herskovits is clearly truncating and manipulating de Saint-Méry’s text here. He cites only those statements which support his thesis: that there were groups of Maroons living for decades at the margins of colonial society. On the other hand, he omits other crucial details that de Saint-Méry mentions: the enormous overestimation in the popular imagination of the power of the Maroons, who survived only with great difficulty under extremely harsh conditions; the total absence of a ‘revolutionary’ mindset among the fugitives, who, once freed, actually became Maroon-hunters themselves; etc. One final and surprising point to mention regarding the Maroons is that, in the ACR as well as in the IOR, the first Maroons were actually Whites. Such facts fit poorly with the myths noted above, but they are indisputable. They also remind us that, in the Antilles, the establishment of slavery was preceded by indentured servitude, which was not much better. Recent works, including Petitjean-Roget (1980) and d’Ans (1987), remind us of the presence of these White indentured servants (called les trente-six mois, ‘thirty-six months,’ because of the length of their contracts) and their living conditions in the ACR colonies. One wonders when reading these texts whether the indentured servants’ situation was not in certain respects worse than that of slaves – in any event it foreshadows it. In fact, the indentured servant who could not afford the cost of his passage to the islands was paid only in kind: 300 pounds of pétun, ‘tobacco,’ for his three years of service (and that was forthcoming only at the completion of his contract). Petitjean-Roget quotes a report from 1646 by Father Maurile, who notes that

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Toward a theory of creolization The French serve for three years whoever paid for their passage … after which they are given only 300 pounds of pétun, the exact price they must pay to the ship that brought them. (Petitjean-Roget 1980:711)

Becoming an indentured servant was justified only by a desperate desire to escape from one’s lot in France (or elsewhere in Europe). Those who chose to return after three years of slave-like work would often find themselves in exactly the situation that they had been in when they left! The three years of indentured service were far from easy. The contract took effect only upon arrival (though, since the vast majority of indentured servants could not read anyway, its exact terms mattered very little!). Moreover, as du Tertre noted in 1667, whoever enlisted a man could ‘sell’ him: Whoever brings over another person not only has the right to use his services for three years, but can also sell him to whomever he wants, and this latter can in turn sell him to another person. (quoted in Petitjean-Roget 1980:714) Further, there was always the temptation not to pay an escapee or dead servant what he was owed at the end of his contract. This stemmed from a fundamental difference from the slavery system that was to follow. Indentures, although truly slave-like in nature, were only temporary (some indentured servants even became settlers themselves after completing their contract). While under contract, indentured servants did not represent for their masters the same capital that a slave did; on the contrary, they represented a debt that one could always hope would disappear. D’Ans notes that the progressive development of rural space during this initial stage of colonization led to the following situation: since the best land had already been taken, the new settlers (including indentured servants who decided to take their chances after the end of their contracts) wound up with less desirable plots and needed greater investment. This directly paved the way for slavery. In the meantime, it was the indentured servants who were hit hard. Fewer and fewer lived long enough to face the bitter experience of finding that a return to economic freedom at the end of their indentures was impossible. They died in great numbers during their three-year term, with fever, scurvy, pulmonary disease, and privations ravaging their population. Moreover, historical accuracy obliges us to admit that their coexistence on the plantations with the first African slaves did nothing to improve their condition. The reason for this lies in a brutally economic logic: since African slaves were still extremely rare at this time, they were very expensive. They therefore became assets that one took great care of, while the indentured servant was by contrast a concession that was practically free. In the master’s eyes, it thus made sense to spare the slave,


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who was costly enough to be kept in good shape, rather than the indentured servant, who was one of many and therefore easy to replace … In addition, the fact that the indentured servant’s remuneration was given only at the end of his term could only have been an incentive to prevent him from reaching the day of his liberation. (d’Ans 1987:105) The first Maroons in the Antilles were thus White indentured servants fleeing the miserable condition that was created for them – which surely lasted much longer than initially promised by the terms of their indenture. (Their misadventure must have been akin to that of Voltaire’s Candide, who was duped into enlisting in the Bulgarian army in the expectation of alleviating his misery but wound up in a worse mess.) The system was so perverse that even Maroonage involved loss for the indentured servant. If he was not captured, he would lose the benefit of the requital promised for collection at the end of his term; and if he was captured, the length of his indenture was lengthened by double the time he had spent as a Maroon. The first White Maroons on Bourbon were not indentured servants, because this system of White manual labor was not used there. Instead, they were Frenchmen who took refuge in the mountains in order to escape authority and the orders of the Compagnie des Indes. For this reason, they were called quivis (see Chaudenson 1974a:501 on the use of this term), and some of them appear to have ‘Marooned’ with their slaves. In December of 1674, Jacob de la Haye authored an ordinance whose 21st article decreed ‘That all who have deserted and become quivis in the mountains shall be excluded and stripped of all compensation, salary, and payment, and their belongings shall be forfeited to the King’ (Archives Nationales F3, 208, f. 17-20, cited in Barassin 1953:107). Clearly, the situation on Bourbon differed from that of indentured servants in the Antilles. These Whites refused to comply with official demands and, instead of the agricultural labor that was forced upon them, preferred to hunt and fish on an island whose forests and rivers had not yet been depleted of their original fauna. For all that, these men were the first ‘Maroons,’ even if the term did not come into use until about fifteen years later in 1690 (in reference to slaves). ‘Bozals’ and creoles Fleischmann contradicts all expert opinions on this issue as well. His claim is that there was a hierarchy of importance among groups of new arrivals. He states that in this ‘countersociety’ based on ‘African nations’ and Maroon societies, the most powerful was the recently-arrived, the ‘bozal,’ who, because of the particular knowledge he had, dominated the more or less deculturated older slaves, the Creoles without a ‘nation,’ and, to a certain extent, even the Whites.25 (Fleischmann 1983:34)

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The basis for this hypothesis is extremely weak, if not non-existent. We have dealt with the problems of ‘nations’ and of Maroons. What remains, therefore, is the condition and social role of the ‘bozal.’ Let’s turn first to the word itself. The term bozal, like many others associated with the slave trade and with slave societies (e.g., Creole, Maroon) comes from Spanish: bozal/negro bozal. The derivation stems from the word, boza, ‘muzzle,’ and the term was apparently applied to those who were unable to express themselves in the local vernacular. (We could also mention the Ancient Greek etymology that underlies the Spanish: ‘barbarian.’) In Spanish, bozal was used to refer to new slaves who were unable to speak that language comprehensibly, thus, distinguishing them from the ladinos, defined thus by the Enciclopedia del Idioma: Ladino: a term applied to a foreigner speaking Spanish … ; a term applied to a slave who has spent more than one year in slavery. The latter term was used in Cuba to refer to African Blacks who were already ‘acclimatized to the country,’ and in America it referred to Indians who spoke Castilian. Thus, three different categories can neatly be distinguished, determined in large part by linguistic and cultural features: bozal ‘a slave introduced less than a year ago, speaking the language of the country poorly or not at all’; ladino ‘a slave brought a long time ago (more than a year) whose linguistic competence is judged to be sufficient’; and criollo ‘a creole slave, i.e., a slave born in the country.’ Fleischmann’s hypothesis is supported by no evidence. On the contrary, it is easy to oppose to his image of the bozal (the validity of which remains to be demonstrated), the image which comes across from the totality of reports from the period and from work by historians. Everyone agrees in recognizing that, upon arrival in the colony, the bozal experienced psychological and social trauma. He was in a position of inferiority, accentuated certainly by his total and absolute dependence, but also caused by his poor physical condition: the result of his recent journey and the pain and fatigue he experienced prior to that. Even Fleischmann recognizes this in passing – in reference to the Maroons, he says, ‘Horrified and disoriented by colonial life, the newcomer only rarely succeeded in escaping from the plantation without being caught’ (1983:35), and (though it seems rather extreme to me) he adds that in the first five years spent in the colony, ‘more than 50 percent of slaves died because they failed to adjust physically or psychologically.’ If this figure seems a little too high, it is nonetheless true that many bozals died during the first year. Epidemics often raged in places of trade, just as they did on board slave ships. The water was putrid, mosquitoes transmitted diseases, and scurvy was apparently a major scourge. On the other hand, yellow fever, so dreaded in the Atlantic, occurred less frequently in the Indian Ocean. All means of battling these illnesses were sought out, for obvious economic reasons. However, along with deaths suffered during the voyage (on average, 15–25 percent of the captives died during the Middle Passage, depending on the duration of the transatlantic voyage), these deaths during the first months of colonial


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life added up to great losses Consequently, in an attempt to lower the mortality rate, slaves were not immediately put to hard labor in the fields, as we have already noted. Sometimes suicides added to the number of deaths, and these were reported to be especially high among certain ‘nations,’ such as the Igbos. Physically at a low ebb, the bozal slave was also a social misfit who was still unfamiliar with all the chores and the life that awaited him. He did not even have at his disposal a means of linguistic communication that would allow him to understand what was required of him. Moreover, the term bozal always had a negative, even insulting, connotation everywhere it was used (in Haitian Creole, for example, bosal meant ‘brutal’ or ‘savage’). As shown by the Spanish example above, a clear social hierarchy was established very quickly, but it was exactly the opposite of the one posited by Fleischmann. Instead of placing the bozal at the top, it actually placed him on the bottommost rung of the social ladder. Inevitably assigned to the toughest menial jobs (e.g., the ‘pickaxe Black’ or ‘crew Black’), he was the object of scorn for slaves who were already seasoned (the starkly contrasting ‘ladinos’ or ‘old hands’) and, especially, for creole slaves. The sometimes elevated sale price of bozal slaves is in no way an argument against this claim; the commercial evaluation of a slave’s ability to work does not necessarily correspond to social hierarchies and depends in large measure on market fluctuations. This situation was widespread and was reported for Bourbon by Antoine Boucher in 1710. Things had not changed roughly 150 years later when Maillard noted of antagonism in the slave community: The mix of races and castes among the slaves of Bourbon have contributed greatly to peace in the country. Since the ‘Cafres’ and the Malagasies generally do not get along with the Indians and the Malays, and since all of these are considered to be inferior castes by the creole slaves (emphasis mine), there exists a constant antagonism between them all which does not permit any of them to plot a disastrous scheme without being denounced by the others. (Maillard 1862:182) One could easily uncover the attitudes reported by Maillard by examining the vocabulary of race in the majority of these societies. In any case, things are quite clear regarding the French creoles of the Indian Ocean, where both interethnic antagonisms and the systematic disparagement of ‘non-Creole’ characteristics, one of the most obvious manifestations of which is ‘Africanness,’ are exceedingly apparent. Length of adaptation Clearly, the topic of this section is closely related to the preceding one. Here again, Fleischmann’s viewpoints clash with a relatively well-established consensus. He writes:

90 Toward a theory of creolization Field slaves, the majority of whom were African ‘bozals,’ appeared as a structured mass, out of reach of the plantation owner, who saw them only occasionally. Their cultural and linguistic adaptation was slow, and it occurred through the intervention of ‘Creoles’. (Fleischmann 1983:34) I agree partially with these statements, except on two essential and related points. The first concerns the length of the adaptation process, which, on the contrary, was still relatively rapid. The second, and more important, is that the author fails to distinguish between the main phases of colonization. What he says here is partially true of what I shall later call ‘Phase II’ (’plantation society’), but it is totally inadequate for ‘Phase I’ (’homestead society’). Without unduly pre-empting a discussion that will follow later, we can note here that in the first phase of these societies, the small number of slaves and their total integration into the White community makes unnecessary the arguments about the specific manner in which new arrivals were seasoned. In the second phase, on the other hand, greater experience and the greater importance of slave immigration occasionally led to the development of techniques aimed at facilitating the social integration of the ever-growing number of bozals. But, in both cases – and this is the point I wish to stress here – this ‘integration’ of slaves into colonial society still occurred relatively quickly. The remarks above about the opposition between ‘bozal’ and ‘ladino’ in Spanish are relevant here. The distinction was based primarily on the acquisition of linguistic competence in Spanish, and all the available evidence suggests that a bozal became a ladino after residing only one year in the colony. Such an opposition was less common in the French colonies, although some references to ‘Gallicized’ slaves imply that this term was a sort of synonym for ladinos. In any event, though, numerous facts and early texts attest to the rapidity with which the bozals adapted socially and linguistically. Regarding the first phase of colonization, it is enough to cite Father Pelleprat once again: we wait until they have learned French before teaching them, which they do as soon as possible in order to be understood by their masters, on whom they depend for all their needs. (Pelleprat 1655:52) Remarks like Mongin’s that many of the French could learn to speak French from the Blacks convey the same idea. Apart from the Spanish case discussed above, this relative speed of adaptation is confirmed in work on other creoles, including work by Rens (1953:85) on the language spoken in Surinam: The willingness of the African to learn the language of the European cannot be set forth in figures or concrete data of any kind. We can only assume that it was present, basing this on the total linguistic change


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completed in a few years and on the behaviour of the creole Negroes toward the ignorant bozal. First and foremost, ‘Gallicization’ was in the interests of the master, since a ‘Gallicized’ slave who could understand the tasks required of him was obviously more desirable. But ‘Gallicization’ was important for the slave also, not only because it allowed him to avoid repeated punishment for poor performance of work he was ordered to do, but also because it opened up access to various forms of ‘social promotion.’ When slave immigration became very important, as it did in Saint Domingue in the eighteenth century, a rationalization and systematization of ways to season bozals gradually emerged. Many of the ideas I have defended against Fleischmann appear in descriptions of this process. For example, Ransford notes: The planters made a deliberate attempt to break the slaves’ spirit and loosen their links with Africa by judicious separation of tribes, by teaching them to speak only the master’s language. … At the end of seasoning, the usual result was the slaves’ past had been annihilated and their tribal mores abrogated. (Ransford 1971:104) I have already described how this seasoning operated in a dual pattern of deculturation (loss of native language and culture) and acculturation (acquisition of the local language and adaptation to slave life). Although it was not ‘organized’ in any sense until later on, it functioned very efficiently from the very beginning of the colonies (Chaudenson 1979b:54f). During the initial phase, masters and slaves (and/or, in the Antilles, White indentured servants) were in constant contact. As soon as the size of homesteads grew, it became customary to entrust the seasoning of a new slave to one of his companions in misfortune who was already Gallicized or a Creole. Chatillon notes this in his edition of Mongin’s (1679) letters: The master would entrust the newcomer to a [seasoned slave] who would introduce him to the work, and Mongin asked a Christian whom he trusted to inspire the newcomer to become a Christian and to teach him the basics of the Catechism. (Chatillon 1984:26) While the bozal slave was being familiarized with his job, the religion, and the entirety of his new social role, the ‘local language of the Blacks’ (a collection of unstable French approximations) clearly played a significant role. The process of systematic seasoning that de Cauna describes for Saint Domingue, for instance, bears directly on this issue:

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Toward a theory of creolization The bozals were not immediately put to work. They were allowed a period of at least six months to become acclimatized and to recover from the fatigue of the journey. This respite took place in a corner of the plantation, on a bluff and out in the ‘fresh air,’ in small groups led by a seasoned slave, or, in the worst case, in the hospital. … A Creole would teach them how to cultivate a small garden of provisions, as well as the basics of the language, but mortality struck them particularly hard the first year. (de Cauna 1987:107)

It is clear from this that six months was sufficient time for the slave to learn enough to be integrated into ordinary activities and plantation life. This underscores the fact that one of the most sought-after qualities in a slave was the ability to adapt. This was translated into a predilection for young individuals, who offered not just the potential for a lengthy period of exploitation but greater adaptability as well. Despite its obvious importance, this factor is often rather overlooked. Father Labat’s (1730) Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinée includes remarks on the subject that are all the more interesting because of the author’s familiarity with the Antilles and with problems regarding the seasoning of slaves to colonial life (his cynicism is entirely characteristic of attitudes that prevailed in the colonies at the time): Children who are ten to fifteen years old are the easiest captives to manage in America. The Portuguese take only those who are this age. … One at least has the advantage of raising them as one wishes; they are made to take whatever shape and appearance suit their masters; they learn the language and customs of the country more easily; they are more responsive to the principles of religion; they forget their native country and the vices that abound there more quickly; they are affectionate towards their masters; and they are less likely to go Maroon – that is, to run away – than are older Negroes. (Labat 1730, vol. 2:106–107) Relatively precise data are available regarding the slave population of Bourbon during the first decades, and they confirm the fact that young slaves were in high demand. Between 1669 and 1714 the vast majority of slaves brought to the island were under fifteen years old (over 60 percent of those whose age was recorded). Comparable figures are not available for Martinique during the initial period, but a study by Father David, based on baptismal records, shows that, for three parishes of the island between 1794 and 1829, 59 percent of the girls who immigrated were 10–14 years old, 46 percent of the boys were 8–12 years old, and 18 percent were 18–20 years old; adults of 30–40 years old accounted for less than 4 percent of the total. de Cauna points out the same thing for Saint Domingue in the second half of the eighteenth century:


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Young men were in particularly high demand for working sugarcane fields. The largest age groups consisted of those who were 20–22 years old and adolescents of 13–16 years old. Another advantage of having young slaves was that it was easier for them to become accustomed to the routines of the homestead. (de Cauna 1987:105) To cite a final specific example, perhaps somewhat late in the discussion, we can recall ‘les Ibos de l’Amélie’ mentioned above. Thésée notes the youth of the slaves – on which, for once, precise information is available: ‘The number of young people 8–14 years old was very high, 36 percent’ (1983:43). More than 60 percent of the slaves were under 20 years old, and, of the 212 carried on the Amélie, only 18 were over 30. The preponderance of youth among the immigrant slave population is certainly one major reason why most of the non-European cultural traditions that one might have expected to survive on the Islands were not passed on. By disregarding sociohistorical facts and contradicting known evidence, some scholars have tried at all costs to show that the African phenotype characteristic of most of the population of the Antilles, especially Haiti, constitutes proof of its cultural ‘Africanness.’ I have long tried to debunk this myth of the creoles’ ‘Africanness’ – a claim that is all the more outrageous when based on a comparison of all the French creoles. My position has found significant support in d’Ans (1987). In the case of Haiti, a reputedly impregnable bastion of African cultural features, this author puts forward a brilliant argument, which has the advantage of being based on a large-scale synchronic and diachronic study of its society. Though the myth of ‘Africanness’ is criticized throughout the study, I will cite only an excerpt from a chapter devoted to kinship, property, and work: Up to this point, whenever scholars have attempted to give a rational explanation for the strong feeling of cultural ‘otherness’ evoked by Haiti, they have consistently turned to Africa. And apparently not without good reason, since the physical appearance of Haitians lends itself to such a comparison. Don’t two Blacks who do different things resemble each other as Blacks sufficiently for minds of an imprecise or fanciful nature to be led into confusion by the similarity between what they are and what they do – to the point of concluding in good faith that the two do identical things? … Moreover, the closeness between Haiti and Africa is not simply visual: nobody is unaware of the fact that Haitians’ ancestors were brought from Africa. There are many who – being not very scrupulous in their use of historical argument, and espousing a primarily conservative and defensive view of culture – have let themselves believe that, at the end of a history that was not particularly favorable to them, Haitians are characterized by their success in preserving

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Toward a theory of creolization – against all odds – a certain number of African cultural features upon which their identity rests. And, the basis of this conviction of the underlying ‘Africanness’ of Haitian culture is argued to be found in a dozen or so ‘relics’ that are often unverifiable, sometimes improbable, and always purely anecdotal or lexical in nature. The irony of this is that the Africanist – and a fortiori the African – who looks at Haiti from the point of view of a comparativist never sees Africa in it, unless he is speaking about features that are so general that they could apply equally well to any other area in the world. Thus, unless one considers, for example, that dancing, trances, drums, sorcery, and kinship organization are found only in Africa (and, similarly, that whenever these are found somewhere they are due to African influence: as in Siberia, for instance), we must face facts: the only way that Haiti can be identified as African is by the physical origin of its population. (d’Ans 1987:237–238)

One can see how this text represents a perfect critique of Fleischmann’s views. At the same time, its conclusion raises the problem that certain linguists would do well to consider: that of researching the genesis of creole cultures – and, by extension, languages – within an epistemological perspective. Limiting myself here to my central argument, it seems to me that the foregoing observations illuminate rather well the causes underlying the deculturation of non-European populations, who obviously played a role in the emergence of the new systems that creole cultures constitute. It remains incomprehensible to me that most creole ‘cultural militants’ have found that to posit non-European cultural sources, albeit unjustifiably, is more gratifying and exciting than to assert creole-specific dynamics. Timing of creolization I completely agree with Fleischmann (1983) regarding his rejection of a ‘unilinear development’ (p. 42) from a pidgin to a creole. However, I take exception to his implausible definition of the first phase of colonization, which he associates with ‘generalized multilingualism’ (p. 41). I also disagree with his general periodization, which seems to me extremely strange: ‘It was not until the Maroons were domesticated and the slave trade abolished that Creole was able to acquire the stability of an integrative cultural instrument’ (p. 43). This statement is most surprising, less for its extravagant ideological overestimation of the role played by the Maroons than for the ‘historical’ importance it attaches to the abolition of the slave trade. It is well known that, in most of the colonies, this had only a limited social impact, since it was closely followed first by illegal trading, and then by indentured servitude (the latter often differing very little from slavery in its day-to-day realities). My main criticisms of Fleischmann’s position can be summed up as follows:

Toward a theory of creolization 1 2

3 4

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There was a vast difference in slave populations between the ACR and IOR; The slave populations in the colonies themselves were heterogeneous (as on the homesteads); the term nation corresponded to no real ethnic or linguistic divisions; The role played by Marronage was minor; it was a limited phenomenon that mostly affected creolized or creole slaves; The bozals assimilated rapidly, due to the prevailing social structure, the youth of the slaves, and the very processes of acculturation and deculturation that characterize these societies.

The timing of creolization is an important issue, and I will examine it separately by looking more systematically below at the evolution of colonial societies.

The development of colonial societies Now that the general patterns of demographic evolution have been outlined and the main characteristics of the immigrations made clear, we can attempt a more precise reconstruction of the development of social structures. This development is a decisive factor in the genesis of creole languages and cultures. As noted above, one of the main weaknesses of Fleischmann’s study was a certain temporal confusion that mixed up observations made during very different periods in the history of these societies. A rather recent generalization regarding the concept of the plantation society (due primarily to Mintz 1971) has encouraged such errors. In fact, this model does not address the initial periods of the societies, during which the conditions leading to the appearance of first-generation creoles began to obtain. It is for this reason that I have suggested distinguishing between ‘homestead societies,’ which occurred in the beginning, and ‘plantation societies,’ which did not appear until the colonies began to develop a full-fledged agricultural industry. From the very beginning, the French word habitation ‘homestead,’ has been used in association with the initial period.26 This term, found in all French creoles (in slightly different forms), has always referred in the colonies to the ‘basic’ rural farm. The creolized forms of habitation and habitant everywhere denote ‘agricultural activity’ and ‘farmer,’ respectively. In Réunionnais, for example, the term plantasion occurs, but it is relatively rare and never refers to the same thing as the term plantation refers to in the expression ‘plantation society.’ It is always used to refer to an area that has been planted with a particular crop, and this is usually specified: e.g., plantasion zerniom is an area planted with geranium. The term plantèr (from the French planteur ‘planter’) is more common, but it denotes farmers who specialize in industrial crops, such as sugar cane, geranium, cuscus, and vanilla; if it appears without qualification, it always refers to ‘sugar-cane farmers.’ The term never designates the owner of a large estate (a plantation in the standard English or French sense), but rather the owner of a

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small property or a ‘colonist’ who actually ‘plants’ sugar cane or geranium, often by himself. Because of this, I will completely avoid the word plantation in describing the first decades of colonial societies, during which processes involved in forming first-generation creoles began. Although I do not totally reject the use of this word, it is important to bear in mind that, even when colonial agricultural industry was in full development, some parts of the colonies maintained the structures of the homestead society. The first phase: the homestead society In my earlier publications (especially Chaudenson 1974 and 1979b), I regretted not having at my disposal historical studies of the ACR that were as reliable and extensive as Barassin (1953) and Lougnon (1956) for Réunion. This gap has now been filled for Martinique (which I am retaining as a principal term of comparison for the other region), thanks to a thesis by Petitjean-Roget (1980) which covers precisely the period crucial for our discussion (1635–1685). I was delighted as much by the title of this work, La société d’habitation à la Martinique: un demi-siècle de formation, 1635–1685, which absolutely accords with my viewpoints, as by its contents, which provide total confirmation of my hypotheses. Within my framework, the first phase extends from the early settlements to the time when colonial agro-industrial cultivation (primarily sugar cane and coffee) began to develop. That boom then led to a radical social transformation, characterized in particular by an enormous increase in the slave population as a result of economic expansion. Throughout this first phase, Whites were as numerous as Blacks, or more so. It was only toward the end of this period that the proportion changed, making the Blacks 2–3 times more numerous than the Whites. But we must remember that the first phase did not end on the day the Black population surpassed the white population! We have seen that, in the Antilles, White laborers (indentured servants, or ‘thirty-six months’) were recruited to help develop the Islands in the initial period. Even at this early stage, however, this in no way excluded the presence of Black slaves, who were gradually introduced by the Spanish and the English, before the French began to do the same. Moreover, the system of White indentured servitude eventually failed in the Antilles. Opinions are divided over the economic implications of this: d’Ans believes the indenture system was economically more advantageous to the landowners than Black slavery, but Petitjean-Roget disagrees somewhat: ‘From a long-term economic perspective, purchasing a slave proved more advantageous to the owner of a tobacco homestead than hiring a French indentured servant, though only by a slim margin’ (1980:1146). Nonetheless, the fact remains that ‘settlers’ preferred Black slaves, and the difficulty of the indentured lifestyle, combined with the general absence of any real prospects for the future, made candidates for indenture exceedingly rare. As a result, the system disappeared


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around 1680 – which explains why White indentured servitude was not practiced at the time Bourbon was colonized in 1665. Economically, the first phase was a time of settling in, becoming acclimatized, and developing the minimum infrastructure needed by the colonial agriculture that would define the following period. As a result, this phase is characterized by two primary features. The first is a demographic evolution marked by a slow rise in the size of the slave population, which was sparse initially but gradually became more important. First the slave population caught up numerically with the White population, and then it surpassed it, but the difference remained rather small (2:1 in Martinique after fifty years: approximately 5,000 Whites to 10,000 Blacks in 1685). The second characteristic of this period, a socioeconomic one, is that conditions of daily life were very difficult and tended to put Whites and Blacks on a nearly equal footing. The economic plan in place at the beginning of this first period is very clearly articulated by du Tertre (1654): ‘Clear the land, cultivate it well, plant provisions, and construct homesteads’ (see above). This is confirmed by Petitjean-Roget’s observations: ‘The colonists’ plan of action was well defined: begin by clearing one’s plot of land, then prepare it for building a homestead, and finally produce crops, especially those intended for export’ (1980:561). Thus, measures were instituted in the Antilles, and later in Bourbon, to force the clearing of the land and the planting of crops (see above for the case of the Bourbonnais quivis). As Petitjean-Roget notes, the expedition leaders themselves took part in these tasks as a symbolic gesture: An anonymous author in Grenada describes in detail the first hours that this Island was occupied by Du Parquet, in an operation similar to that carried out by Esnambuc in Martinique in 1635. Du Parquet, he writes, ‘after giving thanks … picked up a billhook himself, and, with his men assisting him (some grabbing billhooks, others axes), all began to work to clear the woods’ … Nearly a century later, when Martinique officially occupied the island of St Lucia, the ceremonial again included performing symbolic acts of clearing the land, preparing crops, and taking hold of untamed nature to domesticate it. (Petitjean-Roget 1980:561–562) A program such as this was far from easy to carry out in a place where very little was known about the natural environment. This is why efforts were continually made to help new colonies benefit from experience gained in nearby settlements with similar conditions. St Kitts fulfilled this role for Guadeloupe and Martinique, and then for Grenada, while Martinique did the same for St Lucia. In the Indian Ocean, it was Bourbon for Ile de France, and then the Mascarenes for the Seychelles and Rodriguez. Efforts were generally made to benefit from the experience of earlier European colonies, and later from their technological development, as well as from the material cultures of the local populations (although these people were later driven out or exterminated). The colonists

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were thus able to acquire from the Natives knowledge that was extremely useful to their survival. This is somewhat similar to the situation on Bourbon. Although the Island was found uninhabited, the first Malagasy slaves introduced there rapidly became familiar with a natural environment that was close to their own and could transmit knowledge adapted from their native cultures to their masters. Whites and blacks: ‘Robinsonnade’ conditions 27 The initial period is characterized by two important features that might be thought incompatible: the total domination of Blacks by Whites and their nearly identical daily lives, marked by total interaction between the two communities. The domination of Blacks by Whites was total not only because of slavery (which is obvious) but also – perhaps especially – because of the direct and constant integration of Blacks in the white milieu. In Martinique in 1664, nearly thirty years after colonization had begun, 529 of the 684 homesteads had fewer than six slaves. Very often, therefore, the number of slaves on a homestead was fewer than the number of ‘settler’ family members. On Bourbon the same type of records were not kept for the initial period, but a similar situation can be noted from other sources, such as Firelin’s (1690) census. We can cite two cases as examples of the forty-one homesteads that are described: Guy Roger, married to a White woman who is a Creole from the Island, has four children, two boys and two girls, and a Negro … Mr Carré-Talhoit … , married to a woman from France, has four children … with two Negroes, one of whom is married and has a child, the other an old Negress from the Indies. (cited by Barassin 1953:198) Inheritance inventories confirm this pattern. Antoine Royer, who was considered a ‘rich settler,’ owned at his death on 2 February 1697: ‘Seven Negroes – two men, one woman, and four children.’ The livestock on his ‘homestead’ included one horse (probably brought from the Indies), eight pigs, ten ‘Indian cocks’ (i.e. turkeys) and seven geese (cited by Barassin 1953:235). Several years later, at the time Boucher conducted his census (1710), there were on average fewer than four slaves per homestead, even though colonization of the Island had begun nearly forty years earlier. Here again it should be noted that, on the majority of farms, Blacks were fewer in number than members of the master’s family. This average number of slaves on each homestead increased dramatically with economic development, but, even in the initial phase, there were already some homesteads that owned many more slaves. This is the case with the ‘Messieurs’ of Martinique discussed by Petitjean-Roget (1980:959–976), for


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example. During this period, they constituted only 8 percent of residents but owned, on average, three-and-a-half times more slaves. Throughout this period, most slaves were not only totally dependent on their masters (a feature characteristic of slavery), but also, because of their permanent contracts, they were confined to the narrow and isolated environment of the homestead. Another, rather overlooked (or at least often underestimated) feature related to Whites’ superiority involves what might be called the ‘sexual domination’ of Black women. When colonization first began, French immigration was primarily a masculine phenomenon. All indentured servants in the Antilles were men, and the lack of ‘women to marry’ was a constant problem. (Later, attempts were made to remedy it through the system of ‘convoys’ of prostitutes and other women of low repute sent to the colonies as potential matches for the male colonists – a practice well described in Abbé Prévost’s 1731 novel Histoire de Manon Lescaut et du chevalier Des Grieux.) It is easy to guess that the scarcity of white women, along with the fact that masters dominated their black female slaves, would inevitably lead to racially mixed unions. Whether fleeting or lasting, secret or openly recognized, these were of considerable importance in the beginning of these societies. The information we have for Martinique is not very precise, but Petitjean-Roget notes that, ‘female slaves escaped their fate not only by becoming settlers’ concubines, which was forbidden by religious law, but also by becoming their wives’ (1980:822). The rapid appearance of the category ‘Mulatto’ in the censuses (which, of course, does not include all those who should belong to it) shows this rather clearly. The facts for Bourbon are fuller; the 1686 census of families, for example, is very precise on this matter. Of thirty-six families headed by a French man, there were ten (totaling 53 people in all) in which the wife was French, twelve (totaling 66 people) in which she was a ‘Portuguese from the Indies,’ i.e., an ‘IndoPortuguese, of mixed blood,’ and fourteen (totaling 78 people) in which she was a ‘Madagascar Negress.’ More than two-thirds of French ‘settlers’ were thus living with non-European women, and nearly a hundred creole children (who were biracial in this case, although always classified as White) were born in such families, scarcely more than twenty years after the start of the colony. We can imagine that, in this type of family, the Malagasy and IndoPortuguese wives made the greatest efforts to adapt to their ‘lord and master,’ in order both to strengthen their position as the ones chosen for marriage and to set themselves apart from their former companions in servitude. This was probably also true of the women who, with less official sanction, had to be content with the more modest and intermittent role of concubine. We might expect this to be the case on grounds of simple general psychology, but historical documents confirm it on all points. The detailed census of 99 ‘settler’ families in Bourbon carried out by Antoine Boucher in 1710 contains precise statements about the behavior of Malagasy and Indo-Portuguese women married to Whites. They come across as expected, diligently seeking integration for themselves and their children. One such is the

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wife of Athanase Touchard: ‘Elizabeth, a Negress from Madagascar, who has always had everyone’s respect and who, without an education of her own, has given to her children the good sense that they have’ (cited in Rosset 1972:184). It is, however, striking to note that many of the French and creole women find no grace in Boucher’s eyes; on the contrary, he willingly points out their lack of education and piety, and sometimes even their debauchery. Marie Anne Fontaine is described as: A creole blacker than a devil with all the same inclinations. She is a drunk, she curses, she swears oaths that even the lewdest would not dare utter, and she commits enormous sacrileges that everybody knows about. She’ll be the woman of any man who shows up, even if he’s Black. (Boucher ‘Mémoire’ (1710), cited in Rosset 1972:190) All the Malagasy women, by contrast, appear to be exempt from such reproach, to the extent that Rosset notes, ‘One cannot help but admire the virtues and courage of these Malagasy companions of our first French colonists’ (1972:222). One even gets the impression that these qualities were somewhat exaggerated, as in the case of ‘Anne Caze, a Negress from Madagascar, who lives an exemplary life and is as devout and as charitable as one can possibly be’ (ibid.:220). The same is true for ‘Marie Caze, a Negress from Madagascar, … who lives very sensibly, is very devout, and is committed to divine service’ (ibid.:222) and ‘Thérèse Soa, a Negress from Madagascar, … without education, but a good woman, as devout and hardworking as possible’ (ibid.:222). According to Boucher, the Indo-Portuguese women were characterized less by their good sense and piety than by their pride. He notes in his description of Monique Péreire that she ‘is conceited, like all the women of that country, though she is unsophisticated and uneducated’ (ibid.:191). All these remarks seem to fully confirm my hypothesis. In such a context, it would be ridiculous to claim that the Malagasy and Indo-Portuguese wives of White men could be a social or linguistic force for resistance to assimilation and acculturation. The way in which the Malagasies conformed to the White community, and the ‘pride’ of the women of mixed Indo-Portuguese descent, show that they did not identify with their ethnic origins. The complete numerical, ethnic, social, and even sexual domination of Blacks by Whites did not, however, lead to the kind of social ‘distance’ one is likely to envision from inopportune reference to much later stages of these societies. This is especially true at the linguistic level, since the slaves, who were generally isolated due to the heterogeneous nature of their community, were confronted with a target language, the French koinè d’oïl that was constantly and permanently imposed upon them. For the women discussed above, the use of this language was probably even the clearest way for them to show their social ascension out of the servile world. These men and women, Whites and Blacks who we might have thought belonged to two worlds lacking in mutual communication – the world of masters


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and the world of slaves – actually lived in constant contact in conditions of daily life that were close to what I call Robinsonnade. They worked in the fields, fished, and hunted together, lodged in the same wood-and-leaf ‘huts,’ suffered from the same ills, and experienced the same food shortages in the same destitution. (This is not an idealization, however. As soon as Whites could secure for themselves more material comfort, live in more comfortable houses, eat better, take better care of themselves, and no longer work the land themselves, they did so. A social gap would emerge between masters and slaves, but in the initial phase it did not yet exist.) We should also consider whether Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s reflections comparing Ile de France to Bourbon should be interpreted with this in mind. This author has frequently been labeled a dreamer, but he was actually often a keen observer, as shown in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1986b). He notes quite rightly (and other evidence confirms it) that the relationship between Whites and Blacks was not the same on Bourbon as it was on Ile de France. In short, slavery seemed to him less hard and less cruel on Bourbon, where, from his point of view, a patriarchal way of life prevailed. On Ile de France, on the other hand, the colonists, who had arrived from Europe seeking rapid fortunes, exploited their slaves to the maximum. He is clearly mistaken, however, in his explanation of certain facts observed around 1770, fifty years after colonization had begun on what would later become Mauritius. According to his natural bent, he saw acts of ‘virtue’ in the behavior of these ‘former settlers of Bourbon,’ whom he describes with obvious pleasure: The customs of the former settlers of Bourbon are very simple – most houses are not even locked up. Even a padlock is a great curiosity. Some of them put their money in a tortoise-shell above the door. They go around barefoot, dressed in blue linen, and live off rice and coffee. They take almost nothing from Europe, content to live simply, as long as their needs are met. (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b [1773]:263) Because Ile de France benefited in its initial development from support and experience gained on Bourbon, as we have noted, it moved rapidly through the first phase of colonial development. At the expense of Bourbon, it became the center of commercial activity with the outside world and attracted speculators of all types, an economic phenomenon described in detail by Bernardin de SaintPierre (ibid.:163–167). Its initial period was difficult, but this colony did not experience the usual fifty years of life so severe that collective survival depended on the effort of all. Here is an example from Bourbon of this equality in misery and daily life. In 1715, after fifty years of colonization, the Provincial Council issued injunctions that applied equally to Whites and Blacks and made virtually no distinction between them. It decided that, when what we would today call the ‘Coffee Development Plan’ began, ‘every working man, whether White or Black, would have to cultivate one hundred wild coffee plants’ (Lougnon 1956:115). Similarly

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at this time, bans on hunting applied equally to Whites and to Blacks, the only difference being the penalties imposed for infraction: fines for Whites, corporal punishment for Blacks. We need not rely on ‘scenarios’ to reconstruct daily life in Bourbon in the late seventeenth century, after more than thirty years of settlement. We can make use of archival documents and texts to note some features which characterize the social lives of the settlers and the physical conditions they experienced. One indication that slaves were completely integrated in this first colonial society is the way in which their civil affairs were recorded: a process which fell under the exclusive domain of the Church (parish registries). On Bourbon, where these types of documents were preserved, there are baptismal records of slaves in due form – very precise for the first decades, a little less so for the following years. They show that Whites often served as godparents for Black slaves, and this phenomenon emerged early on: May 25th of the same year, 1670, I, the undersigned priest of the Congregation of the Mission, solemnly baptized in the chapel of Mascarin Anthoine Théo, son of Raingeouvangombo, his father and mother both Blacks from the country of Guabade Mangabe. His godfather was Anthoine Royer, of Bransion … Marie, of Ethiopian nationality, a Negress owned by François Cozan, born in Madagascar to faithless parents, around 6 or 7 years old, received the baptism in the parish church of Saint-Paul on March 2nd [1698], with the ceremonies performed by me, the undersigned. [The godfather was Bernard Hoarau.] (Baptismal records of Saint-Paul, Archives de la Réunion, G1) That baptismal records became less and less precise was certainly a development related to the increase in the number of slaves, and their numbers grew even more rapidly in the second phase of colonization, with the start of massive slave importation. The same is true for the Lesser Antilles, as Chatillon (1984) points out. Discussing documents uncovered by Father Mongin about sacraments administered to slaves, he adds: It is important to keep in mind that we are dealing with a statistic pertaining to the late seventeenth century, and things changed greatly from the eighteenth century on. Only the baptism was still regularly administered, and the practice of the other sacraments was nearly abandoned. This is especially true for slave marriages, which virtually disappeared in the nineteenth century, before Abolition. (Chatillon 1984:19) Regarding the baptisms themselves, the practice of ‘collective’ sacraments also testifies to a change that was quite significant in comparison to what occurred on


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Bourbon in the seventeenth century, whence there are individual records of baptisms and marriages. Daily life The ‘proximity’ of Whites and Blacks in the first phase of these colonial societies is marked by many other features – especially, of course, the physical conditions in which they lived. For example, a ‘homestead’ comprised several ‘huts,’ all made of ‘wood and leaves,’ with scarcely any distinction made between the homes of masters and slaves or the ‘storehouses.’ The living quarters of Whites were certainly not the vast and luxurious colonial mansions whose image has been popularized by novels and films such as Gone with the Wind. Masters’ huts (which included at most one or two rooms) were of ‘lying wood’ – i.e. the walls were made by stacking roughly squared-off tree trunks on top of one another – whereas slaves’ huts and storehouses were of ‘standing wood.’ The difference between them was thus rather slight, and all the buildings were covered with leaves, usually from latania trees, a variety of fan palm with very broad leaves. If doors had no locks, this was not so much because of trust in the honesty of the community (as Bernardin de Saint-Pierre imagined) as because even the most ordinary objects were not available, as we shall see. More to the point, a lock was useless, because a thief would only have to get through the leaf covering of a roof to accomplish his larceny. This ensemble of a few wooden huts, plus the kitchens that were always located off the house, formed the ‘compound,’ and this constituted the social part of the economic unit that was the homestead. Beginning in the first phase of colonization, several features of the organization of domestic and social space changed: the construction of houses, the organization of the ‘compound,’ the dispersion of the homestead, etc. Nonetheless, the situation was still very far removed from the elegant opposition between casa grande, ‘the Big House,’ and senzala proposed by Freyre (which is relevant later, for a segment of these societies). Masters and slaves were thus in the same boat, so to speak, and lived in nearly identical physical conditions, despite the fact that masters sometimes had in their possession a certain amount of capital that the slaves obviously did not . One constant and dominant feature of this lifestyle was the continual lack of greatly needed objects produced by European technologies. All the letters sent from the ‘Islands’ to metropolitan authorities were long, repetitious lists of everything the colonists were lacking. They continually asked for tools of all sorts (including axes, knives, and other various implements), as well as for kitchen utensils (such as pots and pans), but they never made mention of medicine or clothing. That such requests were well founded is confirmed by looking over their inventories. These show clearly that the ‘settlers’ lacked everyday objects, even though they may very well have been in possession of great wealth in the form of gold, silver, jewels, fabrics, etc. The following is the unexceptional (in fact, quite ‘average’) inventory of the ‘effects and personal belongings’ of Marie Martin, written at the time of her remarriage in 1708:

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Toward a theory of creolization Inventory of all effects and personal belongings and property belonging to Marie Martin, widow of the late Jacques Richard … before her marriage to Jean Baptiste Dailliau: two Negroes named Jean Pierre and Anselme; four cows and one bull; ten golden buckles; one golden cross; four pieces of heavy Salempuri; two pieces of gingham; four skirts made of printed cloth; eight chittes; two-and-a-half pieces of muslin; two half-pieces of Machilipatnam handkerchief; one piece of checkered cloth; one piece of silk-and-grass teppaye; two half-pieces of sucreton; one whole piece of fine white cloth embroidered with yellow silk flowers; one piece of blue cloth; two pieces of sarsenet; two bedspreads made of printed cloth; one cushion; one mat with trimming; three adzes; one old quilted covering; six cotton bed sheets; one bed round made of handkerchiefs; three copper pails, one with a lid; one iron pot; one saucepan; one copper skimmer; three tin platters, two small and one large; ten tin plates; one silver spoon and fork; two silver cups; two small mirrors; three lockable trunks; three hatchets; two pickaxes; two billhooks; two empty boutiches; one demijohn; thirteen flasks; seven bottles; ten scales of salt; 800 pounds of rice; one balaçor jerkin; 500 pounds of wheat; the possession of a homestead which must be shared with the brothers and sisters of the aforementioned Marie Martin. (Archives notariales, 29 December 1708; Archives départementales de la Réunion)28

This document calls for some clarifications and comments. The most striking feature is the almost total absence of furniture (in the present sense of the word). Included are only a few trunks in which one could store precious items, especially fabrics (which often comprised the bulk of the ‘settler’s’ wealth). There was no bed (only straw mattresses or simple vacoa mats), no table, and no chairs (these were not even listed in the inventory of the ‘rich’ Antoine Royer cited above). Kitchen utensils were rare and often in poor condition, as were the most basic tools (such as hatchets, ‘scrapers,’ adzes, etc.). The care with which the most insignificant of manufactured items (bottles, flasks, etc.) and all utensils were inventoried clearly illustrates the general destitution that prevailed.29 Spoons and forks were also very rare. Marie Martin’s silver spoon and fork must have formed part of her ‘capital,’ and she certainly would not have used them on a daily basis. In the estate of the reputedly wealthy Antoine Royer one finds, in total and for the whole family, ‘two spoons, two forks, one cup, and one pot of silver.’ Eating must most often have been done with the fingers (there were no eating utensils) from a banana leaf (no plates) and seated on the ground (no chairs). This ‘creole’ custom disappeared only recently, and some aspects still linger today. For example, one may eat at a table and from a plate, but with one’s fingers, or one may eat from banana leaves if there are many dinner guests in the house. In such conditions, daily life (in terms of diet, rest, and work) was nearly the same for both masters and slaves. As mentioned above, fabrics were the colonists’ primary form of wealth, and they held a considerable position in the ‘commerce of Guinea and the Indies.’ They can be divided into three main groups: silks from India, Lyon, and the


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Near East; linens that came principally from northern Europe; and cotton fabrics, called ‘Indian cloth’ or ‘printed cloth,’ that originally came from the Coast of Coromandel and Bengal. The stockpiling of such fabrics by the ‘settlers’ was not only a way of accumulating wealth, but also a way to guard against the shortage of textiles that often plagued Bourbon. In a society bordering so closely on ‘Robinsonnade’ conditions, the possession of fabrics was both an ‘investment’ and a protection against a shortage of clothing. Clothes were essentially one of the only material goods to indicate the superior social status of the slave owners, although they did not always have them. Because of this, in 1717, the ‘settlers’ felt ‘helpless and abandoned,’ and some could no longer even attend church, ‘since they did not have anything to wear’ (Lougnon 1956:138). The inventory of Marie Martin’s belongings is a good illustration of this concern with collecting stocks of various kinds of material. In such a destitute environment, Whites frequently had to borrow elements of material culture from their slaves to compensate for the lack of crucial European objects that were unavailable. This occurred easily on Bourbon, where Malagasy slaves happened to be in a physical environment similar to what they were accustomed to. This naturally explains not only the transfer of cultural features and technologies, but also the reason why many of them were designated by terms of Malagasy origin. Because they did not have beds or mattresses, and also because of the tropical climate, the colonists slept on sézis (in old documents, this word, from the Malagasy tsihy, ‘mat,’ always occurs as saisie, by folk etymology). To prepare these mats, as well as the type of baskets that were used (tante, from Malagasy tanty), they adopted the Malagasy technique of weaving pandanus leaves called vacoa (mandaré, ‘to weave’, from mandrary, but also mandif and tandif; see Chaudenson 1974a). Since cooking pots and items of pottery were rare, they learned from the Malagasies how to use plant containers, such as zampone (palm-kernel spars, from Betsimisaraka ampondra) and kalbas. Water was boiled in the Malagasy fashion by plunging heated stones into water contained in such vessels. It is also most likely that smoking techniques were acquired from the Malagasies, both boucanage (although the term itself is obviously not Malagasy) and certain methods of cooking meat and rice. And it is with the Malagasies that the use of numerous plants for both consumption (human and animal) and folk medicine originated. The integration of these cultural features right from the initial phase of colonization is confirmed by the fact that they are found to the same degree in Mauritius, where the Malagasy population was less significant. This evidence supports my theory of the role played by ‘Bourbonnais’ in the genesis of Mauritian Creole. These features of material culture, as well as lexical contributions from Malagasy dialects, must have been present in Bourbonnais language and culture from the beginning of the eighteenth century – even before the colonization of Ile de France – it is otherwise impossible to justify so many specific and systematic ‘coincidences’ between the linguistic and cultural systems of the two Islands (Chaudenson 1988).

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The situation during the first decades in the Antilles was probably similar, with borrowings occurring in the same way from the material culture of the Caribbean, perhaps even before the start of colonization proper. However, the ‘settlers’ in this region benefited from a generally more favorable situation than obtained in the Indian Ocean. This is because France is geographically closer (the voyage was on average one-third as long), and, more than anything else, the environment allowed for more exchanges. Still, there was nothing luxurious about the living quarters of Guillaume Le Febvre, despite the fact that, in 1660, he had control of the important ‘La Montagne’ sugar refinery on St Kitts, which was owned by Commandeur de Poincy. As Petitjean-Roget (1980:1166–1169) notes, the significance of this operation was ‘greater than that of any in Martinique,’ since its atelier consisted of 131 slaves. The residence of the manager did have three rooms, one serving as an armory, where, apart from muskets and spears, there were only ‘two mahogany tables, three benches, and one armchair’ (p. 1169). In another room, there was ‘a large old table and two benches, a lockable trunk containing three clay bottles, a large glass bottle with some olive oil in it, and a copper lamp.’ Finally, the ‘bedroom’ contained ‘a bed made of acoma wood, a copper candelabrum and lamp, a medium-sized mahogany table, and an acoma table with two benches’ (p. 1169). The inventory of linens was rudimentary: ‘six tablecloths, 31 napkins, four large and two small hand-towels – some good and some bad.’ The kitchen, however, was better equipped, containing: nine plates, three large platters, one shallow bowl and another small platter, fourteen spoons, one salt shaker, one large and one small porringer – all of tin; four iron boilers, one pie plate, one large broiler pan, one copper washing spoon, two iron andirons, two large and one small iron spit, one copper poislon, and one oven cap, also in copper. (Petitjean-Roget 1980:1170) Modest as they may appear to us, the furnishings of this residence were surely not representative of the average belongings of a settler, since they probably formed part of the sugar refinery itself, all of the equipment for which was quite remarkable. In fact, quarters such as these belonged only to a tiny minority, including ‘officers and rich settlers.’ As Petitjean-Roget points out, these would later become the ‘ “grandest” of the homesteads in Martinique’ (1980:1083). In the vast majority of cases, living conditions were more modest, although slightly better than on Bourbon. du Tertre’s description (1667) is very precise: The huts of simple settlers are fenced in only by reeds … [The houses] of the poorest ones are covered with the leaves of reed cane, latania, and palmkernel … The kitchen is always separated from the hut. It is built with a small sloping roof, five or six paces to leeward. In the homes of poor settlers,


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a pot is hung on a large stick between two small pitchforks and all the meat gets cooked out in the open … Some chest or other, a table, a bed, and some benches make up all the furniture of the huts. Married couples have the same beds as in France, but others have only hanging cotton hammocks in which they sleep like savages. (du Tertre 1667, vol. 2:424–425) Linguistic interaction Let’s return to Bourbon and discuss, within the familial setting of the ‘homestead,’ the characteristics and conditions of daily interaction. Fortunately, we have at our disposal very precise data concerning the composition of families. This is thanks to Barassin (1953), who compared the information on a census carried out by Firelin (1686) with the findings of research that he was able to conduct in registry offices (1690). Differences between the reports are very minimal and, in any case, not important for our purposes. One can thus say that Bourbonnais families fell into four categories: A

‘French,’ ‘Franco-Creole,’ and ‘Creole’ families in which either both parents were born in France itself (7); one parent was born in France and the other parent was born on Bourbon (3); or both parents were born on Bourbon (2). In addition, were three families in which the father was a ‘foreigner’ (Dutch, Portuguese, Venetian) and the mother either a ‘French woman born on the Island’ (2) or a ‘Franco-Indo-Portuguese mix born in Bourbon.’ The total number of these families is 15 or 16 (the sixteenth family consisting of an ‘Indo-Portuguese man and a Franco-Malagasy mixed-race woman born on Bourbon’). This category includes approximately 70 people. B ‘Franco-Malagasy’ families in which the father was French and the mother was Malagasy (14 families totaling 72 people). C Families that were ‘Franco-Indo-Portuguese’ (12 families totaling 58 people). The wives were ‘Indo-Portuguese,’ born off the island, as opposed to the two women mentioned in Group A (one married to a Dutchman, the other to a Venetian), who were ‘Creoles.’ D Malagasy families in which both the father and mother were Malagasy (eight families totaling 40 people). This category, of course, comprised slave families. Each family was ‘immersed’ in a ‘homestead,’ so they did not together form any kind of autonomous group between whose members relationships could be established (unlike the others). In fact, if there were any ties between these slave families at all, they were probably only weak ones, because of both the slaves’ inability to travel and the extent to which the ‘homesteads’ were autonomous. Nonetheless, in order to include even the conditions most unfavorable to my hypothesis, I have decided to treat this group in the same manner as the others. This ‘Malagasy’ group, whose existence and unity are thus more hypothesized

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than real, should be the most likely candidate for maintaining the use of slaves’ languages (Malagasy, in this case). To avoid making up scenarios ourselves, we can refer here to the abundant research that has been conducted over the last several years on verbal communication within migrant-worker families, especially regarding the linguistic behavior of ‘second-generation’ children. According to Billiez, the following reflects how intrafamilial interactions take place: According to the adolescents, the most common situations in Spanish and Algerian families seem to be the following: parents address the children in either the native language or in a sort of ‘mixture’ that is difficult to define in the present stage of our research, since young people have a lot of trouble giving examples. The adolescents usually respond in French, and less commonly in the ‘mixture’ of the two languages … . Therefore, within the realm of intrafamilial communication, the native language plays a limited role in verbal interaction. This tendency becomes more pronounced in verbal exchanges between peers. (Billiez 1985:48–49; my emphasis).30 We can add here that, in families in which the parents arrived in France too recently to have acquired French, it is the younger children who play the role of ‘linguistic mediator’ for their elders. In fact, Billiez states, ‘the use of French increases in indirect proportion to the age of the children’ (1984:25). She also notes that: One can imagine – though the subjects did not expressly state it – that this pedagogical role of the children was also encouraged, to a lesser extent, by the parents. This would account for such homogenization of familial linguistic practices over the course of time. (Billiez 1984: 26) We should remember that the majority of Malagasies who were introduced at this time were very young (less than 15 on arrival). In addition, those who became parents in Malagasy families had probably previously lived for several years on ‘francophone’ homesteads. It is therefore easy to see that the status of the native language must have decreased even more rapidly in this type of family on Bourbon. Everything thus seems to indicate that intrafamilial and interfamilial communication was oriented in a highly centripetal fashion towards French. And French, in addition, served not only as the language of the colony, but also as the language of communication at the heart of the basic social unit formed by the homestead. In addition, there was a factor that, though more widespread and systematic in the second phase, already existed during the first phase of colonization (but perhaps in a slightly different form). The plantations had a system reminiscent of


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our modern daycare centers. Many female slaves had to work in the fields, so childcare had to be organized, and children were placed with sitters as soon as they were weaned. de Cauna discusses such a system in Saint Domingue, citing a statement by the overseer of the ‘Habitation Fleuriau’: There is a Negro hut there where an old Negress lives who watches the weaned children all day long. In the evening, each mother takes her own child back to her hut … As for the weaned children, I keep them all day long in the big hut where the servants take care of them, and they are fed in the way I already had the honor of telling you before. (de Cauna 1987:100–101) This clearly reflects the organization of a large plantation, but the care of children aged between 2 and 6 or 7 (the age at which young slaves were put to work, often in the house or in the ‘courtyard’) was in any event a necessity. During this period (which is critical for the acquisition of language), the small children of slaves, regardless of their parents’ ethnicity, were kept in the master’s house and exposed primarily to approximative varieties of French rather than to the languages their ancestors might (possibly) have used. For a more detailed examination, let’s now reconsider the four groups above, only the first three of which actually represent families who headed ‘homesteads’ (the group of Malagasy families being scattered among other social units). The somewhat sibylline table below calls for discussion. From the outset, it shows clearly that most communication occurred in French (F) or approximative French (AF). In particular, it shows that the competence of children born on the island developed only within these systems, which together probably formed a type of linguistic continuum. Table 4.1 Intrafamilial and interfamilial interactions Communication

Situation

A

B

C

D

Intrafamilial

Parent to parent Parent to child Child to child A B C D

F F F/AF F F/AF F/AF AF

F/AF F/AF AF F/AF F/M/A/F F/AF AF/M

F/AF F/AF AF F/AF F/AF F/AF AF

M M/AF AF AF AF/M AF M/AF

Interfamilial

Notes: Family category: A: French and/or Creole B: French and Malagasy C: French and Indo-Portuguese D: Malagasy

Language: F: French AF: approximations of French M: Malagasy

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It is interesting to consider situations in which Malagasy might have been used, assuming that it was not theoretically impossible. The only possible ones are the following: 1 2 3 4

exchanges between Malagasy parents in slave families; communication from parent to child in the same such families; exchanges between Malagasy adults from various families in Group D; exchanges between the Malagasy wives of French ‘settlers’ and Malagasy adults from Group D families.

For reasons already discussed, the existence of the latter two cases is highly unlikely. Malagasy families lived on different homesteads and thus had no chance of making contact with one another. In addition, except under unusual circumstances, the Malagasy wives of White men were surely not inclined to use their native language with Malagasy slaves, since this would have highlighted an ethnic heritage that they probably wanted to minimize. The only cases that remain viable are therefore the first two. They are quite similar to the cases studied by Billiez (1984, 1985) among Algerian and Spanish immigrants, for whom, even in a more ‘liberal’ environment, the loss of the native language occurs rapidly. It must have occurred infinitely faster in the context of slavery. During the critical period for the acquisition of linguistic competence, slaves’ children too young to work in the fields passed very little time with their parents on a daily basis, since the latter left for work at dawn and returned only at night. The only communication that could have possibly taken place in Malagasy was that between pairs of Malagasy parents, and that represents only very small proportion of all interactions. This claim – which, although slightly theoretical, is based on hard historical and demographic facts – allows us to make two important statements. One concerns the existence of a ‘centripetal’ system of intrafamilial and interfamilial communication based on French and its approximative varieties. This system was possible because the youth of the immigrants and their constant contact with ‘francophones’ allowed them to acquire the local language rapidly. The other is the fact that, even if one tries to call these approximative varieties of French ‘pidgins,’ this name must be rejected, since the functions of approximative French (AF) were in no way the same as the functions which define a pidgin. In fact, for most speakers (the one exception being perhaps French-speakers from France), AF was not a ‘supplementary’ language used for particular functions or communication situations, but rather the only habitual means of communication. It was probably used as a primary language by many speakers (for more details, see Chaudenson 1986b). These conclusions find confirmation in old documents. I have already cited from several of these, especially in regard to the Antilles. One of them, Father Pelleprat’s text, is crucial, both because of its date – 1655, which is roughly in the middle of Phase I – and because of its precision. He writes:


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It would be an infinite task to undertake teaching them in their natural languages. One must be gifted for language in order to succeed. That is why we wait until they have learned French before teaching them, which they do as soon as possible in order to be understood by their masters, on whom they depend for all their needs (Pelleprat 1655:52–53; my emphasis). The following slightly later text of Father Mongin was written at the end of the period in question. It echoes the same sentiment precisely: This facility [to instruct slaves] follows partly from the language, which is none other than French here, since it is the language of the masters. There is hardly anyone among so many different nations who has not quickly learned enough of it to understand us and to be understood. The particular jargon of the beginners does not form a significant obstacle to this. I am entirely confident that the people from our country can learn to speak French from the Negro population. (Mongin 1679:55; my emphasis) This latter text, which went unpublished until it appeared recently in Chatillon (1984), is central to the problem under discussion. However, both of quotations illustrate in a formal and unequivocal way that new slaves experienced a rapid linguistic adaptation and that their target language was French. This is true despite the fact that Mongin clearly points to the existence of a continuum from local French proper (which, according to him, could be taught by certain slaves to the French from France!) to the ‘particular jargon of the beginners’ (which may be defined as approximative varieties produced by learners, but certainly not as a pidgin). The last, but not the least, point that should be made in discussing the first phase of colonial societies concerns the extreme importance of the creole population – those born ‘on the Islands,’ regardless of their specific ethnic background. One generally would not suspect how rapidly this population grew in number. In less than ten years on Bourbon (1689–1698), there were 187 births in a population that grew from 324 in 1690 to 488 in 1696 (Barassin 1953:233). In 1689 more than half the population was born on the Island, and some of these Creoles already had children themselves! At the time of Boucher (1710), there were Bourbonnais who even had one creole grandparent, and families in which both the mother and father were Creoles were common. In the 1704 census, out of a total population of 734 people, more than a third of the 311 slaves (109 to be exact) were Creoles. The number of Creoles among Whites (a large proportion of whom, as we have seen, were probably of mixed blood) was much higher. The total number of Creoles (Whites and Blacks together) certainly represented more than half the population of Bourbon. And, it is necessary to add that several French, Malagasies, and Indians were on the Island for ten or twenty years and were thus at least creolized, if not fully Creoles.

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The increasing numerical importance of the creole group was matched by an increase in their social status, especially within the slave population. As noted above, the creole slave and, to a lesser extent, the ‘Gallicized’ slave (counterpart to the ‘ladino’ in Spanish colonies; ‘creolized’ would be a more precise term) acted as social ‘tutors’ and ‘models’ for the bozals, whose youth and isolation made them very malleable. The economic growth that occurred at the end of Phase I contributed significantly to the heightened status of the creole and Gallicized groups. In Martinique, for example, from around 1665 until the end of the homestead society period, ‘commanders’ were apparently all Whites. As Petitjean-Roget notes, these were indentured laborers who ‘gained experience with time spent on the Islands’ (1980:1421). They were still few in number (5–6 percent of the settlers in Martinique in 1680) and were often employed by settlers who owned several ‘homesteads.’ In most cases, an intermediary was not necessary because of the small slave workforce on each farm and because the masters themselves worked in the fields. A semantic shift in the term commandeur points to the beginning of economic expansion. One of the terms belonging to the ‘vocabulary of the Islands,’ it spread very rapidly to Bourbon (see Chaudenson 1974a:608). In the Antilles, it originally referred to one who was in charge of a homestead in the place of its owner – the overseer. Petitjean-Roget writes, ‘The commander was the substitute for the house master, more often still for the one in charge of machinery around the slaves’ (1980:1421). This is also the meaning cited by Savary des Bruslons in his Dictionnaire universel du commerce (1741): Commander: in the French islands of the Americas, a name given to one who looks after the affairs of a homestead, in general, or of a sugar refinery, in particular31 Petitjean-Roget himself quite correctly points out the semantic shift in this term when he states that ‘it had not yet undergone the semantic extension after which it would refer to a simple foreman’ (1980:1421). The change was, of course, triggered by an increase in the number of slaves on each homestead. The general task of managing the farm was assigned to the ‘manager,’ while the ‘commander’ was demoted to ‘a simple foreman.’ Indentured laborers in the Antilles, whose numbers would diminish and who would soon disappear entirely, obviously could not perform all the functions of a commander. These functions were entrusted to slaves and, in both regions, were always assigned to men who were accustomed to local life and to work in the fields – which meant, usually, to Creoles. For the bozals, Creoles were thus models, ‘teachers,’ and sometimes ‘bosses,’ whose authority was symbolized by the whip they carried, as recalled by the Réunionnais poet, A. Lacaussade, in Les Salaziennes (1839): Vois-tu ce commandeur, hélas! Comme eux esclave, Du fouet armé, debout sous l’arbre du chemin …


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You see this commander, alas! Like them a slave, Armed with a whip, standing under the tree in the road … At the time that the economic growth of the second phase of colonization began, accompanied by massive slave immigration, the proportion of creole slaves within the black population started to diminish significantly (at least for a time). In spite of this, the social role played by the Creoles began to widen. Their function as agents of integration, socialization, and management for the bozals was essential, as explained in several places above. It can also be seen from the first settling of Ile de France, in June 1722, when the Compagnie des Indes brought in 30 Bourbonnais slaves. This was done at great cost to the Compagnie, since the slaves had to be rented out from their masters. Their role was clearly not just that of providing a source of labor while awaiting the arrival of the first Malagasy slaves on the Island at the beginning of December 1722 – if it had been, they would immediately have been sent back on the Rubis, which brought the Malagasies, in order to take full advantage of the ship and to save the Compagnie money.32 On the contrary, the slaves from Bourbon remained on Ile de France for over four months more. The reason was certainly that they fulfilled other roles, as official texts make perfectly clear. Their costly stay of nearly one year on the Island was a very profitable investment, because it spared new colonists countless difficulties when the colony was first being developed. The system described by de Cauna for socializing and training the bozals in Saint Domingue in the eighteenth century also illustrates well the function and role of creole slaves during the second phase of colonization, to which I turn now in greater detail. The second phase: the plantation society I emphasize once more that the change from one phase to the other was neither abrupt nor absolute. Even in the ‘homestead society,’ one sometimes finds true plantations, such as the one owned by Longvilliers de Poincy on St Kitts in 1660 (see Petitjean-Roget 1980:1166). Similarly, small homesteads survived into the second phase. In 1787, even Martinique had an average of only 15 slaves on its 1,320 homesteads. Therefore, the chronology itself is somewhat imprecise. Petitjean-Roget assigns fifty years to the homestead society phase in Martinique. In Bourbon, which was more remote, isolated, and forced to survive on its own, this period was prolonged to over sixty years (1665–1735). The transition had scarcely taken hold under de la Bourdonnais, whose General Government lasted from 1735 to 1746. The case of Bourbon, which is quite similar to those of Martinique and of the islands on which first-generation creoles emerged, is associated with an important phenomenon. Its development was accompanied by a proletarianization of a segment of the white population (this was in no way connected to the abolition of slavery, despite frequent and incorrect claims to the contrary). The

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first petits blancs, or ‘Whites of the Highlands,’33 were, in some ways, the first ‘victims’ of the economic change. This is indicated in their name itself (literally, ‘little Whites’), which comes from the fact that, since there was a shortage of land, they were forced to retreat to the elevated regions of the Island. Defos Du Rau states: The increasing number of new colonists from 1723 led to a progressive shortage of concessions. Those who arrived late and the younger sons of colonists started receiving plots of land that were insufficient for maintaining the easy ‘settler’ way of life. Thus began a movement that would result in the petit blanc. (Defos Du Rau 1960:145) By examining censuses dating from 1735 to 1779, Pérotin was the first to demonstrate the emergence of the White proletariat on Bourbon during the eighteenth century. In 1735, 1 in 57 Whites owned two slaves or less (a condition tantamount to basic economic survival); in 1779, this proportion had increased tenfold. Efforts to cultivate new land and to create new ‘districts’ were hindered by the Island’s very size and mountainous geography. At the end of the eighteenth century, emigration to the Seychelles temporarily appeared to be a solution, but difficult economic conditions once again worsened the poverty of Whites. The failure of the coffee crop (which would soon be replaced everywhere by sugar cane), a population explosion, with high birthrates among the White families and division of land based on inheritance34 all contributed to an increase in the number of petits blancs, whom most observers have described as fiercely independent and isolationist. What is most significant for our purposes is that, within the society that was developing, this group appears to embody a sort of survival of a previous state of affairs. After all, in the early nineteenth century, these Whites still lived as their ancestors had done approximately one hundred and fifty years before. Although the facts he discusses pertain to a slightly earlier period, Billiard’s text (1822) is interesting in this regard. In fact, while giving a highly accurate portrayal of the petit blanc lifestyle, he actually provides us with a sample of the language they used. On a visit to the ‘Highlands’ of the Island, Billiard encountered one of them and wrote: A rather good-looking man, dressed in blue cloth, was sprawled on a cadre with his head in his hand and smoking in the most stolid and independent manner. His property, which was about one-eighth of an acre at the most, was surrounded by Indian pines, which provided fuel for burning. Banana trees offered a little shade, and there were some tobacco plants in one corner of the compound. A thick layer of sweet potatoes covered the rest of


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his small property. The smoker barely acknowledged my greeting, but he nevertheless returned it with a ‘Salaam.’ I said, ‘Sir, could you please get me a glass of water?’ Rising on an elbow, he said, ‘Petit noir [‘little Black’], get that white man there some coconut water to drink right away’ (Petit noir, donne tout’suite coco à ce blanc-là pour lui boire). A ragged petit noir came out of the house holding a calabash in one hand and a glass of coconut water in the other. After taking a drink, I continued, saying, ‘You have a nice little homestead here. What do you get from it?’ ‘Oh! Yes, I have a good field of sweet potatoes’ (Oh! Oui, n’en a bon champ de patates). ‘And your petit noir, what do you feed him?’ ‘Oh! The petit noir eats those same sweet potatoes’ (Oh! Petit noir mange patates même). ‘What do you do for clothes?’ ‘I have tobacco plants; I make one, two, or three plugs from them and take them to that damn farm to sell, and then I buy blue cloth to make clothes for myself. I also have two small pigs’ (N’en a pieds de tabac; moi y fais une, deux ou trois carottes, et puis moi porte vendre à la ferme que le diable emporte, et puis achète toile bleue pour faire z’habits à moi. N’en a aussi deux petits cochons). ‘How do you feed your little pigs?’ ‘With the field of sweet potatoes of course’ (Avec champ de patates donc). ‘And who is it that works your field of sweet potatoes?’ ‘That very petit noir’ (Petit noir même). ‘And what do you do?’ ’Me, Sir? I stay here just like this’ (Moi, Monsieur? Moi reste là comme çà même). ‘But you don’t have a wife, you must get bored?’ Then, smiling with an air of mystery and satisfaction, he said, ‘Oh! But yes, I have a friend. The Negress of Monsieur Chose of course’ (Oh! Que si, moi n’en a camarade. La négresse de Monsieur Chose donc). This Monsieur Chose was a wealthy proprietor who cared little if his neighbors took it upon themselves to multiply the slaves on his homestead. (Billiard 1822:444–446) For those familiar with the Réunionnais ‘Whites of the Highlands’ and their language, this little scene dating back one hundred and fifty years is remarkable for its accuracy and truth, despite the fact that certain details have obviously changed. Of course, no one any longer wears clothing made of this blue cloth, which is called perkal in Réunionnais and Seychellois, though reminders of it are still present in all the IOR creoles.35 The cadre too has nearly disappeared, but the lexical item and the object it denotes are still well known (the term is rare in Mauritian Creole, but very common in Seychellois). We noted above that beds and mattresses were uncommon in the early eighteenth century. The petit blanc

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described above remained loyal to this improvised bed of posts tied together with ropes or gaulettes, ‘long thin sticks,’ upon which a straw mattress or mat would be placed. (Earlier, it was facetiously referred to as lit court pas, ‘short-step bed,’ but its official name was lit paquet, ‘packet bed,’ or kad (< Fr. cadre, ‘frame’).) The pipe is always seen as a characteristic of the ‘White of the Highlands,’ to such an extent that, according to some authors, it was originally the basis for some of the insulting and satirical names used to refer to him: pip, pip lé o, pip la so (Chaudenson 1974a:1066). Billiard’s description of spatial organization, too, demonstrates his powers of observation, evident throughout his book. The tiny ‘homestead’ he describes is dedicated primarily to agricultural crops (sweet potatoes and banana trees), to breeding a few pigs, and to tobacco, which, after separating out the ‘plugs’ necessary for personal consumption, assures a complement of resources.36 The utensils he mentions are still often found in kitchens today, although items made of plastic now offer heavy competition to calabashes and coconuts (which, until recently, were still used very commonly in Rodriguez and the Seychelles). More interesting, however, is the language that this ‘White of the Highlands’ uses, since it confirms the validity of Billiard’s account. Some of the features include the use of donc (as in avec champ de patates donc; we should also note the rising pitch characteristic of the ‘Highlands accent’), même (as in petit noir même), deux, trois (which can refer to several dozen or even several hundred!), and comme ça même. The latter is also characteristic of Mauritian Creole, as Baissac noted early on: comme ça même – it is one of the idioms that strike the foreigner most. This very common saying is the equivalent of twenty French expressions. It could be translated as: ‘neither good, nor bad,’ ‘for no particular reason,’ ‘I don’t really know why,’ ‘just because,’ and many others. (Baissac 1880:71) Of course, despite the fact that they are tremendously important, it is impossible to know exactly what the sounds were. Given Billiard’s keen powers of observation, however, one might assume that the entirely French representation he provides is an accurate account of Highlands speech. Thus, we find champ, mange, deux, achète, bleue, cochon, chose, and not the corresponding ‘basilectal’ creole terms san, manz, dé, asèt, blé, koson, soz. A hypothesis that one could propose (and one to which I shall return below in a discussion of the linguistic facts) is that, because of their isolation and impoverishment, these Whites preserved early forms of creolized French. Moreover, such forms might have been maintained because they were the only social marker of this group’s previous ethnic superiority. In any case, this proletarianization of the petits blancs was both a specifically Réunionnais phenomenon37 and a consequence of the economic development that characterized the second phase of the history of these societies. Lougnon’s thesis deals with the end of the first phase, as indicated by its title, L’Ile Bourbon pendant la Régence. Desforges-Boucher, les débuts du café (‘Bourbon Island


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during the Regency: Desforges-Boucher, the Beginnings of Coffee’; 1956). It focuses less on the beginning of expansion than on the preceding years, emphasizing clearly the very willful nature of the policy of the Compagnie des Indes. The latter tried to cultivate the Island not only to ensure the continuation of settlement and to supply the ships that were docked there, but also to turn it into a center of production for colonial goods. Because of this situation, it is easy to understand the variations in length of Phase I which were due primarily to external factors. The initial ‘semi-natural state’ could have lasted for a long time if the colony was left on its own. In the case of Bourbon and Ile de France, economic growth resulted first from the central political will and then, some years later (starting in 1735), from the arrival of Mahé de la Bourdonnais, whose role would be decisive. Around 1720–1725, all bets were placed on coffee in Bourbon. From the outset, there was endless and very theoretical speculation about the riches this crop would surely bring. Fifty years later, they surrendered to the same speculations (in every sense of the word) over spices. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who was on Ile de France at this time, participated in the trend like everybody else. He describes it in a text that remained unpublished until 1986: During my time there, 22,000 germinated nutmeg seeds and some fully grown clove shrubs were brought. They were given to every settler; some received one dozen, others received two. Everyone planted them with the greatest of care, hoping they would yield a great fortune. Some people promised freedom to the slave who was in charge of them if they grew well. It was like an intoxication. In his small courtyard in the Port, the Marquis d’Albergati had eight holes dug out, of four square fathoms each. He informed me that, since this place was very hot, nutmeg would thrive here better than anywhere else. Each tree would yield two harvests, and, even if they were deemed to be only 1,000 pounds in weight, with the pound equal to one crown (which was quite low), it was clear that he would make 15,000 pounds of rent from his small courtyard. Everyone was obsessed with such thoughts, in fact. I thought to myself that if the 22,000 seeds brought to the Island grew successfully, then the Island would produce twelve million pounds per year, which was more nutmeg than all the French could consume. I was very careful not to say what I was thinking. (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b [1773]:195) In spite of his common-sense reflections, the author too tried cultivating nutmeg – modestly, it is true, for he limited himself to planting one germinated nutmeg seed in ‘a large bucket of good soil.’ His attempt was a failure, ‘as happened frequently with the other settlers also.’ Although there was much enthusiasm on Ile de France in 1770 for growing spices, the ‘settlers’ on Bourbon in 1720 were less eager about implementing the Compagnie’s policy, which aimed at developing coffee cultivation on the Island. Understandably, the Bourbonnais felt exploited by the Compagnie, whose

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‘exclusive privilege’ assured it a monopoly on imports as well as exports. This plan of agricultural development thus got off to a rocky start, especially since it took five years for the coffee shrubs to begin producing. In September 1723 there were 106,232 coffee plants, but the yield was still very small. In spite of this, the population grew dramatically. It doubled between 1715 and 1725, at which time the White and Black populations became equal – there were 3,178 settlers, 1,602 of them Whites, including 200 soldiers (Lougnon 1956:339). Investments made by the Compagnie were significant: 1,800,000 pounds of ‘goods and armaments’ for the Mascarenes between 1719 and 1726 (ibid.:336). However, difficulties were considerable. There was a shortage of labor, and Blacks, whose number in the fields was already insufficient, had to be summoned for collective, team tasks, since these were becoming more and more indispensable. It is clear that, when this trend began, there were hopes of rapid profits at every level, though at the same time, intentionally or not, the delays and difficulties that could arise were underestimated. The results of this became apparent around 1735, and one of the most obvious signs was a growth in the slave population. The number of slaves increased dramatically: 1,100 in 1717; 1,576 in 1725; and 22,611 in 1779. The very detailed census of 1735 shows how the workforce of slaves grew on each homestead. In particular, it points to the emergence of farms employing many Blacks. Inevitably, this led to another form of work and lifestyle organization on the homesteads, and these farms became what are generally known as plantations. One obvious consequence of these slave migrations was a fall in the number of creole slaves, at least for a time. Around 1715 they comprised 30 percent of the slave population (a figure confirmed by Scherer 1966:27–28), but only 7 percent in 1735 (ibid.:28). However, while proportionately their numbers were decreasing, their social status was increasing: Creoles became the primary agents in the socialization and adaptation of the newly arrived bozal masses. In any case, the drastic reduction in the number of creole slaves was only temporary, and in the years to follow, the trend would quickly be reversed, for the procreation of slaves was encouraged. For example, the practice (not always followed) of emancipating female slaves who had given birth to seven children was symbolic of such a policy. Regarding the case of the ‘Habitation Fleuriau’ in Saint-Domingue, de Cauna notes that Creoles: … formed a major segment of the labor pool and increased in proportion with every year. They comprised 35 percent of the men and 56 percent of the women in 1777, and 43 percent and 63 percent respectively in 1786. In all of the colony, they represented two-thirds of the slaves in 1789, especially on the sugar plantations. (de Cauna 1987:92–93) This phenomenon had begun in the first phase with units of production that generated important commodities. It did not occur to such an extent on


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Bourbon, but in the Antilles the cultivation of sugar cane and the processing of sugar led much earlier to relatively large-scale agro-industrial production. Long before 1655 Commandeur de Poincy owned sugar plantations on St Kitts, and on his death in 1660 his main sugar plantation, ‘La Montagne,’ included 246 slaves (Petitjean-Roget 1980:1167). The Antilles also profited from external support, particularly in the area of sugar-refining technology. The migration to the Antilles (particularly to Guadeloupe) of Dutch settlers driven from Brazil by the Portuguese is extremely significant, not so much in terms of population as in terms of what we would today call ‘technology transfer.’ In fact, there arrived ‘approximately 1,200 people, among whom were only fifty native Dutchmen,’ the others being slaves or ‘mestifs,’ (i.e., Mulattos; Biet 1653, cited by PetitjeanRoget 1980:1153). Since the majority of these would eventually leave, they changed the overall population very little, but they played a decisive technological role. As Biet notes, ‘they were all highly skilled in the process of refining sugar.’ Thus, they were partly responsible for the rapid acceleration in the growth of the sugar industry that occurred in the Antilles during the last decades of the seventeenth century. This development led to a need for more slaves and, therefore, to the purchase of bozals. Based on observations made by Father Mongin, Chatillon describes this phenomenon very well: The development of the sugar industry … led to the establishment of production units, plantations, on which significant crews of slaves labored. Mongin tells us that sometimes there were more than a hundred, assembled in what was called the atelier. … The atelier was the place where the newcomer from Africa would go to become acquainted with the creole lifestyle. The master would entrust the newcomer to a seasoned slave who would introduce him to the work. (Chatillon 1984:26) We see, therefore, how a new social organization gradually emerged: one in which the bozal was no longer tightly woven into a small agricultural unit that blended so indistinguishably with the White master’s family. He was now squarely situated within an entirely slave group, dominated and controlled by creole or previously-Gallicized (i.e., seasoned) slaves who were in charge of socializing and assimilating the newcomers. Also, bozals who had arrived most recently were assigned in a fairly systematic fashion to work in the fields. Depending on the colony, they were variously called ‘pickaxe Black,’ ‘hoe Black,’ ‘crew Black,’ ‘atelier Black’ (one who works in the workshop) or ‘field Black.’ They no longer had significant contacts with Whites, who became more and more removed from the actual chores involved in agriculture because of their burgeoning prosperity. The bozals were surrounded by ‘commanders’ (Creoles, usually), who received orders from the ‘manager’ or the owner. These team leaders were responsible for teaching the chores, and, as

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we saw above, their authority over their companions in misfortune was marked by their brandishing of a whip – a symbol for and instrument of their power. As Debien (1961) recalls in reference to the Antilles (although the same thing is observed nearly everywhere), the newcomers always started out as ‘field slaves’ (those working in the ‘garden’).38 But if they displayed any skills or ‘talents,’ they could hope for a certain amount of ‘social ascension.’ On the other hand, creole slaves who were assigned to the fields always remained there, probably because this very assignment showed that, from the start, they were not considered suitable for other tasks or were being punished for some reason. Creole and ‘Gallicized’/seasoned slaves made up the majority of those who worked in the house or in its immediate surroundings (the ‘courtyard’). They were the domestic staff, coachmen, ‘courtyard men,’ artisans and craftsmen, etc. This type of organization occurs in many different places, so, to avoid multiple examples, I will focus only on the case of the ‘Habitation Fleuriau’ in Saint Domingue, which de Cauna (1987) describes in detail. At several points in the discussion, he refers to the existence of two principal categories of slaves: ‘non-farming Blacks (domestics, craftsmen, caretakers, … ) and field Blacks’ (p. 111). In the ‘Big House’ on the homestead there were only seven domestics in 1777, three of whom were six- or seven-year-old children employed as servants or valets. de Cauna notes (p. 116) that for domestic work, ‘very young creole children were preferred,’ which is confirmed by the fact that five out of seven of them were indeed Creoles. It is clear that the other children, because of their age and their position, had to learn French from contact with their masters, near whom they lived from the time they were weaned, as we saw above. Although the baker and his assistant were Cangas, the former was 55 years old and had lived in Saint Domingue for 35 or 40 years, so he was certainly thoroughly ‘creolized.’ He was one of the ‘talented’ slaves who, along with the domestics, formed the pinnacle of the slave hierarchy (conversely, a slave who did not perform well at these jobs was ‘demoted to the field,’ i.e., put back to hard labor in the fields). It was primarily Creoles who worked in the house and the ‘courtyard.’ Noncreole slaves assigned there had usually been in the colony for a long time (like the Canga baker) and had had enough time not only to become Gallicized but also to demonstrate their abilities and talents. Learning such trades usually occurred on the homestead. … All these positions were held by slaves who were mature and experienced (thus in the colony for a long time), … primarily Creoles. … The lowest rung in the hierarchy was occupied by young Blacks 20–30 years old, often bozals. (de Cauna 1987:113–114) The ‘automatic assignment of bozals to the lowliest jobs in the field’ (de Cauna 1987:116) and the fact that desirable jobs were reserved for creole or seasoned slaves points to a clear social hierarchy. ‘Acclimatizing’ and adapting were seen by the bozals as the only means of climbing up in the system and of obtaining the small material perks that went along with ‘non-field jobs.’ These included


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food, clothing, lodging, and leisure activities, not to mention escape from the overwhelming fatigue of agricultural work. There were a few cases of attempted (unsuccessful) escape, but the bozals’ youth, isolation, and confusion inevitably made them the resigned victims of a formidable system of forced acculturation and deculturation. They were not the heroes of revolt and escape, the ‘leaders,’ that Fleischmann (1983) imagined. Given that, as noted above, Maroons were usually Creoles, it follows that the most dreaded type of revolt was the kind that stirred up creole slaves. de Cauna cites the following text from 1790: If such an event occurred [i.e., an uprising of slaves], Negroes born in the colony would be the dangerous ones, while the bozals would stay behind the scenes waiting for the outcome. This would be as much because of their own natural stupidity as because of the lack of concern the others had for them during the first years after their introduction to the colony. (de Cauna 1987:204) This text is interesting for two reasons. First, contrary to what Fleischmann asserts (1983:34), it shows that ‘bozals’ did not in any way ‘dominate’ or intimidate Whites. Second, and more importantly, it illustrates the contempt that Creoles felt toward bozals and the ‘lack of concern’ they had for them. Change in social structure We come now to the main point of our comparison of the two phases of these colonial societies. The social changes described here can be reinterpreted, in less strictly historical terms, according to a model proposed by Bateson (1977) in discussing other issues, a model that I will enrich with ideas borrowed from Goffman (specifically, the notion of ‘asymmetric relations’; 1974). In this analytic framework, Phase I is characterized by constant contact between the White community (in the broad, social, not strictly phenotypic sense, since it includes individuals of mixed race) and the community of Black slaves. This relationship can be defined as complementary and asymmetrical. According to Goffman’s definition, the asymmetry resulted from the fact that the members of the two groups treated each other differently – this type of relationship contrasts with symmetrical relationships, in which each individual has the same expectations and obligations that the others have toward him (p. 48, French edition). Nevertheless, as I have shown above, this particular asymmetrical relationship emerged from a situation in which the daily living conditions of the two groups were nearly identical in terms of work, leisure activities, diet, etc. A diagram inspired by Bateson illustrates the dynamics of the relationship.

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Table 4.2 Dynamics of Phase I binary relationships Whites

Blacks

Domination Assistance Model

Submission Dependence Imitation

Notes: Domination/Submission. This characteristic is so obvious as almost to go without saying. However, we saw above that some individuals who played a crucial role at the beginning of colonization, such as the non-European wives or concubines of French men, experienced more than one type of domination (both social and sexual). Assistance/Dependence. This is just as obvious. So suffice it here to recall the words of Pelleprat, who rightly pointed out how necessary it was for slaves to adapt, especially to the language of their masters, ‘on whom they depend for all their needs’ (1655). Model/Imitation. In terms of what concerns us here, this feature is particularly significant at the linguistic level. The white community had the power and, in the beginning, the privilege of speaking their dominant language. Blacks, who experienced an initial situation of ‘voyeurism’ (at least the bozals), were forced to approximate to the model that was presented to them. When necessary for communication, Whites could also modify their own speech to facilitate comprehension (’foreigner talk’), or, in their interactions with slaves, could even adopt the restructured systems used by the Blacks. Here again Pelleprat’s text (’We accommodate to their [the Blacks’] way of speaking’) is interesting because of the very ambiguity inherent in its wording. ‘We accommodate’ can be understood in both a ‘passive’ sense (‘we are used to their way of speaking’) and an ‘active’ sense (‘we adopt their way of speaking when we need to communicate with them’). This latter sense is confirmed by the appearance of forms of evangelization ‘in the language of the Blacks’ beginning in the seventeenth century.

Phase II is marked by a change from this binary system to a ternary system. According to Bateson’s approach, the basic types of ternary system are: 1 2

a simple serial ‘hierarchy’ with – in a system with three elements A, B, and C – all communication between A and C necessarily passing through B; a ‘triangle,’ a non-serial system in which relationships are established between A and B, B and C, and A and C.

Bateson gives the example of the parent/nurse/child system in Great Britain, which has properties of both types of ternary system. It is a serial model that doesn’t preclude triangular relations. What is interesting is that the middle term plays the role of educating and forming the third term according to behavioral norms adopted/assimilated from the first term.


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It is apparent that the colonial societies in Phase II experienced immigration by non-indigenous masses who did not speak the local language and were themselves quite heterogeneous. These were widely assigned to labor in the fields, and therefore precluded from regular direct contact with the white community (unlike Blacks in Phase I). Consequently, a primarily serial ternary system emerged, in which, as we have seen, the community formed by creole or seasoned slaves functioned as the middle term. One might even say that the ternary system actually consists of two binary systems linked by the middle group. Table 4.3 Dynamics of Phase II ternary relationships Whites

Creole slaves

Bozal slaves

Domination Assistance Model

Submission/Domination Dependence/Assistance Imitation/Model

Submission Dependence Imitation

This system is not strictly serial, in the sense that one cannot claim that all contact between A (Whites) and C (bozals) necessarily passed through B (Creoles). However, its serial nature prevailed during the first few months after the bozals arrived and for as long as they had not acquired from their contact with, and dependence on, creole slaves, the rudiments of the ‘language of the country.’ Creole slaves participated fully in such a system, both as managers (as ‘commanders’ on the homesteads) and as ‘socializers’ of the bozal newcomers. In addition to serving in this way as ‘explicit social models,’ they also served as ‘implicit models.’ This was because they largely held all the ‘prestigious’ and ‘specialized’ jobs in these colonial societies, positions such as the ‘off-field’ jobs which assured material benefits and a less severe way of life. As we saw above, the system could regularly and temporarily become more complicated, as during initial periods of adaptation. When dealing with a new bozal in an atelier or ‘crew,’ the commander might substitute for the binary commander/bozal relationship a temporary ternary relationship, delegating part of his role to another creole slave, thus forming a commander/creoleslave/bozal system. Similarly, during the development of the plantation system, another kind of ternary relationship was created between Whites, commanders or creole slaves, and the ‘manager’ figure. Change in sociolinguistic situation This section is primarily concerned with language transmission and its appropriation in such a social context. Situations which correspond to each of the two phases and each of the two social structures can be represented with two simple figures.

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Figure 4.1

Phase I ‘Homestead society’

Zone A comprises francophone speakers. These included settlers from France, indentured servants in the Antilles, employees of the Compagnie, soldiers who often became settlers afterwards, white Creoles born in French families, etc. Zone B corresponds to the Black group represented in the first binary model discussed above. This group was involved in a process of appropriating the language of group A (imitation). The structure was thus highly centripetal, with different ‘layers’ of B reflecting a continuum of approximations of French. This continuum ranged from the most divergent approximations (in the most peripheral area of Zone B) to approximations which were more or less similar to those of Zone A. Father Mongin’s text (dealing with the Antilles in 1679) is extremely valuable on this point, because it shows clearly that, in the area of B furthest from A, there were Blacks who initially produced ‘the particular jargon of beginners’ (Chatillon 1984:55). However, the text emphasizes that this jargon did not impede mutual comprehension, because they ‘quickly learned enough of it [i.e., colonial French] to understand us,’ and their speech ‘did not form a significant obstacle’ (ibid.). On the other hand, at the inner boundary of Zone B closest to Zone A, there were also Blacks who knew French so well that they could serve as models for many French people from France. Father Mongin observed: ‘I am entirely confident that the people from our country can learn to speak French from the Negro population’ (Mongin 1679:55). The important points here are that: 1 2 3

French was the target language for all speakers in B. All speakers in B interacted directly and regularly with speakers in A. Bozals in B, who were for the most part very young, isolated, and highly integrated in a system where the European family (or primarily European


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male mixed family) and the ‘homestead’ tended to blend together, quickly appropriated approximative forms of French. They used these forms in all communicative situations – unlike the case of a pidgin, which speakers use for only a limited set of functions while maintaining the use of their native language for most other functions. The longer the bozals were in the colony the closer their speech approximated the local French koiné. The creole slaves, of course, spoke like the locally born Whites with whom they interacted regularly.

Figure 4.2

Phase II ‘Plantation society’

This figure illustrates the primarily serial nature of the system (although, as noted above, this was not an absolute). Zone A’ roughly corresponds to Zone A in the preceding figure. Zone B’ is formed by realizations of approximative French spoken primarily by Creoles, but also available for use by speakers of Zone A’ in their exchanges with speakers of B’. Zone B’ fall into two subcategories. Subcategory B’1 includes ‘house slaves,’ or domestics (cooks, bakers, gardeners, coachmen), who interacted regularly with the Whites and spoke close approximations of the colonial French koiné. Zone B’2 includes ‘field slaves,’ who did not interact regularly with the Whites and whose numbers were increased in part by bozals. Their approximations were less close to the French koiné than those of Zone B’1 speakers. Nonetheless, these are the varieties that were targeted by the majority of the bozals. As will become clearer in Chapter 5, creolization is marked by a continuum of approximations of approximations; not everybody appropriated the same kind of local variety. It is likely that children of group A (or A’ in Phase II a fortiori) acquired French and the approximative varieties concurrently, the latter of which were used by their nannies at first and their slave ‘peers’ later. These interethnic relationships were carefully studied by Freyre (1943), but, without going into detail, we can note here that the (reputed) dual competence of White creole children was

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largely due to the Black ‘wet nurses’ who took care of them during their first few years. I will not succumb here to the imaginings of Father Labat, but he must nevertheless be credited with bringing to light the important role of these das and nénènes: The climate in which they [White Creoles] were born, the manner in which they were raised, the milk they suckled, their temperament, and their disposition make them completely unsuitable for celibacy … The milk which nearly all of them suckle and which leads them to indecency of the flesh comes from Negresses, their wet nurses. Everybody knows the latter to be of an extremely hot and amorous constitution, and they transmit this passion to their sucklings through their milk. (Unpub. MS., p. 129) Although this hypothesis regarding the biological transmission of passions is highly suspect, the social role these women played is, to the contrary, quite certain. Father Mongin describes it more accurately and fairly: There are French women who, after training some Negress as a servant, do not give their consent for her to marry so that they will not be deprived of her services, especially during the night, in looking after the young children of the house. (Mongin 1679:89) After their ‘nannies’ (they were more than mere ‘wet nurses’), young Whites would find themselves in the company of Black peers. The latter were usually slightly older and acted as both playmates and protectors (Freyre shows how they sometimes also played the role of the whipping boy). On the ‘homesteads’ on Réunion, this custom lasted until the twentieth century. Remarkably, this tradition led to the name nénène also being applied to the boy who was responsible for accompanying and looking after the child of the head of the household. (On various occasions, I met Réunionnais who prided themselves on having been the nénène of such and such important person on the Island and on having maintained a privileged relationship with him.) Zone C’ includes recent immigrants, bozals, whose linguistic targets and models consisted of approximations of French from Zone B’. It is therefore apparent that the two schemas above represent crucial differences which clarify some of the sociohistorical data mentioned earlier. Zone B’ is always oriented in a ‘centripetal’ fashion towards A’, but, somewhat paradoxically, A’ tends to be less important, since there is a stabilized area at the boundary of A’ and B’. This results from the fact that francophones immigrating from France (administrators, new colonists, employees, and soldiers) became less and less numerous, so that the French they spoke became more and more ‘regionalized.’ A speaker from B’ who addressed a speaker from A’ had a


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good chance of being answered in B’, since the latter had dual competence in A’ and B’. We can call the approximations that were most similar to French acrolectal and the ones that were most different basilectal (the latter are what Mongin accurately termed in Phase I ‘the jargon of beginners’). From this point of view, it is easy to see that acrolectal forms (those spoken by Blacks who had been in the colony a long time) and basilectal forms (those spoken by new bozals) coexisted throughout the colonial period, but they varied in their proportions. Low slave immigration in Phase I led to a reduction in basilectal production, while increased slave immigration and a temporary decrease in the number of creole and creolized slaves at the beginning of Phase II made the basilect the majority variety (in terms of pure quantity of language production). However, the important point here is that nearly all of these bozals (in Zone C’) had only Zone B’ to serve as their linguistic model – and possibly only its outer edge, Zone B’2, at that (the area of B’ closest to A’ was comprised of house and courtyard slaves). All acquisition of second languages consists in the implementation of strategies for approximating the target language and in forming successive and provisional ‘approximative grammars’ (this, of course, applies only to naturalistic acquisition). But, the bozals in Phase II did not have French as their target language, as did the bozals in Phase I, who lived in constant contact with francophones. Instead, they had only the outer edge of B’, which was a form of language that itself already consisted of approximations of French. We see that the core phenomenon was thus a shift to the exponent of approximations of French, a square approximation which seems to me to be the true moment and place of creolization: the autonomization of this approximative system in relation to French. From this perspective, it seems that one could also reinterpret the linguistic characteristics of the petit blanc and ‘Highlands’ communities on Réunion, in reference to whom I discussed conditions of proletarianization and marginalization. In my opinion, their speech reflects the ‘ethnolectal’ or ‘sociolectal’ nature of the approximative varieties of French in Zone B’ – because Blacks who lived in contact with them apparently also spoke like them. Since these communities were outside the social context of the plantation society (as a result of their marginalization), the varieties they spoke were not ‘absorbed’ during the process of creolization proper. This interpretation supports an earlier hypothesis made by Carayol and myself (1973), in which we called the speech of the petits blancs ‘creolized French’ (rather than ‘French Creole,’ as one might have been tempted to do). The term ‘acrolectal creole’ is synchronically more appropriate, since there currently exists a continuum situation between this variety and the most basilectal forms of Creole. It is a less satisfying term from a diachronic standpoint, because one might claim that this variety has in some sense escaped total creolization. This is true sociolinguistically, at least, because at the purely linguistic level the two language states generally represent only different stages of evolution of identical processes. This hypothesis also allows for a clarification of the genetic relationship

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between Bourbonnais (the local speech of Bourbon in 1721, the year that Ile de France was occupied) and Mauritian Creole. Without repeating the details of Chaudenson (1981a, especially pp. 239–265), let’s note that the historical differentiation of Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole, of course, stems partly from their own specific evolutions. However, it is also the result of ‘basilectal erosion,’ a process which eliminated certain basilectal features in Réunionnais that some of its varieties previously had in common with Mauritian Creole. Basilectal erosion is a semi-permanent process that, at the societal level, reflects sociolinguistic strategies observable at the individual level. Thus, all bozals initially produced ‘the particular jargon of beginners’; little by little, they brought their competence in line with the linguistic model presented before them. The intensity of basilectal erosion in Réunionnais was likely due to the entirely unique presence of the numerically large petit blanc community. While remaining economically and socially close to slave communities, they preserved their ethnolect (creolized French) as their primary social marker. The figures presented above for each phase would perhaps better reflect reality if, instead of enclosed circles, the linguistic systems were represented by sections of pyramids (whose verticality would symbolize social stratification). Zones A and A’ would be the summits on each of the pyramids, Zone B’ would be the middle section on the second pyramid (Phase II), and Zones B and C’ would be the bottom sections. The ‘social dimensions’ of the linguistic situations would be easier to visualize this way, but at the cost of a more difficult graphic representation. In the second phase, the linguistic varieties of B’ (which I am still not calling ‘Creole’) were not in any way ‘reduced’ or ‘restricted’ (to use adjectives favored by some authors). Quite the opposite: the acquisition of the local variety was the crucial element in gaining access to intermediate social status in colonial society. It was the only way of gaining the small benefits that distinguished Creoles from bozals, and that allowed the latter to escape the hell of the ‘field’ and the pickaxe. It was the mark and the means of social integration. I am happy to note, once again, that d’Ans fully shares a point of view which I have defended many times, in relative isolation: The contempt that Creole slaves showed toward bozals clearly taught them that maintaining African cultural behaviors was most detrimental not only for their immediate survival and successful adaptation in the plantation system, but also for their long-term aspirations for social mobility within slave society. In sum, we must note that what structured the world of the slaves from within established the basis of prestige and justified hierarchies. This was not loyalty to ‘Africa,’ but rather adoption of white behaviors … It follows that when these slaves were freed from the grip of their masters, it always occurred under the leadership of those who had assimilated to the best freed slaves (who were themselves assimilated to Whites). Consequently, it was they who possessed a means of generalized communication with all freed


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slaves in Haitian society. On the other hand, the majority of bozals, who were still not completely purged of their African culture, did not possess a means of communication – nor thus of organization – except in a limited way with members of their own ethnic groups only, who were scattered here and there. (d’Ans 1987:238–239) The third phase: the end of immigration The third phase is much less significant in terms of the creolization of language and culture. It began at the time when large-scale immigration of labor stopped. In most cases, this was in the twentieth century, coinciding with the end of a new, post-Emancipation system of indentured servitude involving nonEuropeans, which was in many ways a disguised extension of slavery. Much scholarship on the subject has tended to attribute French/Creole diglossia to the very beginnings of colonial society and to accord creoles minority status throughout their history. Such a representation is inaccurate, and it is the reason why in Chaudenson (1984) I suggested distinguishing between creole diglossia (Phase II) and colonial diglossia (Phase III). Up until the end of the second phase, the Creole was the linguistic target and the means to social integration of first the bozals and then the indentured servants. Thus, there were actually two nested diglossias, so to speak: one between French and Creole, the other between Creole and the languages of the slaves and indentured servants. In the latter, ‘peripheral’ diglossia, Creole apparently had higher status. This situation, with Creole in the middle, was a fundamental element in the linguistic dynamics of these colonial societies. It was only with the end of immigration that Creole was demoted to Low status in a situation of the classic Fergusonian diglossia. Before concluding the discussion on this period of the linguistic history of colonial societies, we need to look at two more specific and related questions: First, why are there no creoles on the Spanish ‘sugar islands,’ where one would have also expected them? Second, what is the role of secondary diasporas in the development of some creoles?

The ‘mystery’ of Spanish colonization The absence of creoles in places such as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico is an enigma. In fact, although the Spanish spoken overseas contains regional characteristics (some varieties have dialectal features of the Iberian Peninsula), Castilian does not appear to have given rise to creoles the way English and French have. This is despite the fact that Spanish colonization proceeded in a very similar manner on islands such as Cuba and San Domingo, which I will use here as points of comparison.39 The Spanish colonists were undoubtedly of diverse regional backgrounds: Andalusian, Catalan, Basque, and Galician. In fact, the term gallego (Galician) is

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a synonym for Spanish in Cuba. However, the language of conquest was Castilian. It has been claimed that such regional distinctions were reduced and eliminated in America, contributing to the unification of Spanish – linguistic unity was seen as one of the ways of reducing the diversity of the Empire, as shown symbolically by Antonio de Nebrija’s phrase: ‘Language is the partner of the Empire.’ In 1492 (the year that Christopher Columbus discovered America), this Andalusian professor wrote the first grammar of a ‘vulgar’ European language (‘vulgar’ is used here on the model of vulgar Latin to mean ‘nonstandard Latin,’ as spoken by the common people), Castilian. Somewhat obviously, he likened the future of Castilian to Latin, and, in his preface, he predicted for Isabella the Catholic ‘the imperial destiny and evangelizing mission’ of the Castilian language. ‘Hispanicization’ would thus be one of the major preoccupations of Spanish colonization – a stark contrast to English and French colonial policies. In 1503 the Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella proclaimed an ordinance disowning D. Columbus (Christopher’s brother) for reducing Indians to slavery. Although the ordinance stated that Indians were ‘free men,’ the system of encomiendas and allocation assigned their fate to Señores, ‘Lords,’40 who could force them to do chores, but who were also responsible for educating and evangelizing them. (Although the latter goal was equally common in French and Portuguese colonies, the former was much more specific to Spanish colonies.) This policy of Hispanicization was taken up and formalized in 1543 by Charles V in his ‘New Laws.’ Without trying to idealize Spanish colonization or mask its harshness (for its primary aim was above all political rather than moral), we can say that these principles, the education and evangelization of Indians and Blacks, were practiced at least to some extent. The mendicant orders, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Augustines, made their parishes (which were more like fortified settlements and asylums) centers of assimilation and protection for indigenous people. The holdings of the Jesuits of Paraguay, true autonomous states from which Whites were excluded, were the ultimate outcome of these principles. At the same time that they studied local languages, monks taught Castilian. An extremely important phenomenon was the establishment of universities, beginning in the sixteenth century: at Santo Domingo in 1538, Lima and Mexico in 1553, Havana in 1728, etc. More than ten universities were founded from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. This is very different from what occurred in French colonies, where the educational system was still of the most rudimentary type at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Two of the most interesting cases for our purposes here are Cuba and the Dominican Republic, since these sugar Islands logically should have been places where Spanish was creolized, like Jamaica for English and the Lesser Antilles for French. The Spanish were certainly more concerned than other Europeans about the spread of their language, but historical and social circumstances also played a (perhaps more decisive) role. Despite the fact that Cuba was occupied by Spain from 1511 to 1515, the


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European population remained small there and, after the Indians were exterminated, the presence of the African slave population was also limited. This state of affairs continued until the second half of the eighteenth century, at which time the importation of African slaves increased. At the end of the century, in 1792, the demographic situation was as follows: 96,440 Whites and 76,180 Blacks (of whom 31,847 were free). It is thus clear that, in reference to the timing of events which I have proposed, Cuba appears to be a rather peculiar case, since the ‘homestead society’ continued there for more than two and a half centuries. The numerical significance of the White population (in comparison to slaves) and the exceptionally high number of free Blacks41 very likely favored the diffusion and stabilization of a system of approximations of Spanish. This system, confronted for so long by the central model, gradually became more similar to it and probably modified it somewhat, too (an effect of the retrospection that I mentioned above). Large-scale African immigration that was tied to the development of sugar cultivation and was to totally change the composition of the still primarily White population began towards the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. It is probable that, at this time, Spanish (in its Cubanized form, of course) was the language of the whole population of the Island, Whites and Blacks alike. Not until 1790–1820 did Cuba take on its current appearance of a sugar island with a primarily Black population. More than 430,000 Africans landed between 1790 and 1830; and in 1862, Blacks made up more than 80 percent of the population of the Island, with slaves representing about half this figure (slavery was not abolished in the Spanish colonies until 1886). It is tempting to compare this change in population to the change that occurred in Mauritius during the nineteenth century. When slavery was abolished the Island had 90,657 inhabitants: 29,612 of them White and free, and 61,045 of them freed slaves. Over the next seventy years (until 1907) more than 450,000 Indians arrived. They were indentured for five years, but most of them stayed in the country permanently. The character of the Mauritian population was totally transformed by this, and today Indo-Mauritians make up approximately two-thirds of the overall population. However, Mauritian Creole was only very slightly modified by this enormous foreign immigration, as a comparison with early documents shows (see Chaudenson 1981a); the only notable changes were some lexical borrowings and some minor phonetic substitutions. We may conclude from this that, when such major immigration occurs in an area where the medium of communication is stable and used by all the local population, it does not produce significant changes in the structure of the language. In the Mauritius of the time the language that was common to the entire population (Whites and Blacks) and that constituted the target language of the Indian immigrants was the already autonomized and stabilized local Creole. Therefore, the immigrants acquired it without modifying it in any substantial way. At the time of widespread African immigration in Cuba at the end of the eighteenth century, Cubanized Spanish was also characterized by the two features mentioned above: systemic stabilization and generalized usage by the

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whole local population (particularly social groups responsible for assimilating immigrants). This regional variety of Spanish served as the target language for African slaves, and they therefore learned it using ‘ordinary’ strategies of approximative acquisition. In other words, the phenomenon of ‘square approximation’ which I believe to characterize and define creolization did not occur here. Note that this hypothesis accords well with Lipski (1986). From a purely descriptive and linguistic point of view, he examined various forms of ‘Bozal Spanish,’ focusing in particular on Cuba. I am happy to say that he was able to show how Spanish varieties of this type were indeed produced by ‘bozals’ who were on their way to becoming Hispanicized. His conclusion is one that I agree with completely: In conclusion, although Africanized Spanish was widely represented in Latin America over a period of nearly 300 years, it is suggested that a high degree of homogeneity never existed from one region to another, except for those features resulting naturally from imperfect learning, and that any early Afro-Lusitanian basis either disappeared among later shipments of slaves or was subsequently neutralized once the recently arrived bozales came into contact with substantial Spanish-speaking populations. (Lipski 1986:187–188; my emphasis) It is true that the statement which I have emphasized in Lipski’s text is somewhat marginal to what he is saying; it is however crucial to my argument. Because there is not a lot of information on this subject, it is difficult to cite additional evidence. Still, it is possible to compare the case of Cuba with that of the Dominican Republic.42 The history of the latter country can be recounted very briefly. Its first phase (‘Columbine agency’) began in 1492 with the arrival of Spanish who were looking primarily for spices and gold. Although Dipp and Maggiolo (1982) characterize this period as a search for commercial exchanges, it must also have been accompanied by a certain amount of agricultural development centered primarily around husbandry and food crops. D’Ans (1987) has argued this point extensively, focusing in particular on the importance of breeding to the Spaniards’ strategy for conquering the continent. He even named one of his writings after the subject: ‘Hispaniola: une plateforme d’élevage pour la conquête du continent’ (‘Hispaniola: A husbandry platform for conquering the continent’). We know how hard it must have been for horses to cross the Atlantic at a time when even people had a hard time doing it. The horses of Cortez and the Spanish conquistadors were probably born in San Domingo, not in Spain! Sugar cane also began to be cultivated, with the first refinery being established in 1515 (d’Ans 1987:85). Sugar production, which amounted to less than 10,000 arrobas in 1520, increased to 80,000 arrobas (150,000 kgs) fifty years later. (This figure is still modest when compared to Madeira, which produced two and a half times this much during the same period (Cassa, cited in d’Ans 1987:85).) It was for cultivating this crop that the first Black slaves were introduced. In 1550


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Las Casas estimated that 30,000 had already been brought to Hispaniola. However, the burgeoning sugar industry in San Domingo suffered from competition from Brazil; the difficulty of maritime transportation favored the latter in terms of both the supply of slaves and the transport of sugar. The development of new crops (e.g., ginger and indigo) did not lead to sufficient economic growth, and in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries there was a mass exodus of colonists to other parts of the Americas. This drastically reduced the Spanish presence on Hispaniola, the western part of which was ceded to France in 1697. According to the census of Osorio, which Dipp and Maggiolo (1982:267) cite, in 1606 there were only 3,000 Spaniards and 9,648 slaves (only 800 of them employed in the sugar industry) left on the Island. Taking into account Spanish emigration at the end of the sixteenth century, the proportion of Whites to Blacks (1:3), and the particular social structure that prevailed (no plantation system developed, because the Island experienced a period of economic recession), we can characterize Dominican society at this time as a Phase I society. As Dipp and Maggiolo point out, the type of social structure and economic organization in place at this time were indeed those of a homestead society: Santo Domingo was put virtually on the edge of the colonializing scheme of world capitalism. Santo Domingo lived, thus, for a period that would last a century, forgotten by Spain. The kind of relations which were created by cattle raising and farming proved fertile ground for insurrection and increased the mixture of Whites and Blacks. In the mid-seventeenth century, many of the resident Negroes had been born in Santo Domingo, and had, thus, lost almost all of their African cultural traditions. It can be said that almost all the Africans and their descendants spoke Spanish. (Dipp and Maggiolo 1982:267) Their analysis confirms my hypothesis, point-by-point. First, there was a ‘homestead economy’ dominated by animal husbandry and food crops, accompanied by modest attempts to develop ‘colonial’ crops (such as sugar, ginger, and indigo). Second, Whites and Blacks interacted constantly and lived in close contact under difficult conditions, at times feeling abandoned by the metropole. Third, creole Blacks played a significant role in the society. Fourth, creole and creolized Blacks underwent a process of deculturation (one might add that economic stagnation, or recession, obviously precluded further importations of slaves). Lastly, Blacks assimilated linguistically, with nearly all of them speaking Spanish. The situation in Santo Domingo recalls statements that were made above about Bourbon. In the Spanish colony, where the cattle ranges were falling into decay, master–slave relationships did not show the ferocity that characterized those of the plantations. In the seventeenth century, censuses show that more than 80 percent of Negroes and Mulattos were integrated into the population of

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Toward a theory of creolization the colony. And toward the end of the eighteenth century, despite a slight resurgence of sugar production, the opinion expressed by the Archbishop of Santo Domingo was that of the 55,000 inhabitants of the Spanish part of the island, not even twelve were white Spaniards. This opinion may be exaggerated, but it calls for reflection. (Dipp and Maggiolo 1982:269)

Thus, slavery was indeed present, but, because of the well-established nature of White–Black relationships, it was less ‘ferocious’ than in the ‘plantation society.’ This is similar to the situation on Bourbon, and indicates a similar continuation of the ‘homestead society’ phase. Dipp and Maggiolo discuss this in a surprisingly parallel fashion: in Santo Domingo, as on Bourbon, the near total destitution of both masters and slaves led to a situation in which, if social hierarchies were not completely abolished, then at least all the islanders were on an equal footing in the realities of day-to-day life. ‘The culture of the master and of the slave were closely identified in many respects. Poverty played an important unifying role in respect to the style of daily life in the colony’ (ibid.:268). Economic stagnation ensured that large-scale African immigration did not occur on the Island, either in the seventeenth century or into the eighteenth century. According to d’Ans (1987:175), Santo Domingo in 1789 reportedly had 30,000 Whites, 15,000 slaves, and 80,000 freed men (‘free’ would perhaps be more precise, and 80,000 must be a misprint for 8,000, since we saw above that the total neighboring population at this time was only 55,000). It is perhaps unnecessary to prolong this discussion, since the facts are perfectly clear and confirm my hypothesis beyond all expectations. We need only note that, as in Cuba (whose history is known from detailed studies), the continuation of a homestead society (Phase I) lasted for more than two centuries. This in turn led to the stabilization of Spanish approximations into a local variety similar to the ‘central model’ (to return to my schema) and to generalized use of this language throughout colonial society. From that point on, later immigration did not have a significant impact on the language (as in the case of Mauritian Creole), and it did not lead to a creolization of Spanish, since immigrants were ‘exposed’ to a homogenous and generalized local form of the language.

Secondary diasporas We have already discussed several examples of ‘secondary’ diasporas, a case in point being that of Spanish colonists migrating from the Caribbean islands to Brazil in the late sixteenth century. I have termed such diasporas ‘secondary’ in order to distinguish them from those I call ‘initial.’ The latter apply to the period in which a colonial society is formed and can lead to the emergence of a second-generation creole, if they stem from an earlier colony. This type has already been examined and illustrated with the case of the colonization of Ile de France (Mauritius), where a second-generation creole, comprised largely of


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‘Bourbonnais,’ was introduced at the start of the colony by settlers and slaves coming from Bourbon. One of the most important secondary diasporas is certainly the one which took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries extending from Saint Domingue to Louisiana, where French colonists had already been settled for approximately one hundred years. The data are somewhat imprecise, but there can be no doubt as to the significance of the facts. ‘Events’ in Saint Domingue prompted two successive waves of emigration by colonists and their slaves to Louisiana. The first occurred from 1791 to 1804 and included approximately 1,300 people (see Revue de Louisiane, 10.2:97–141). The second, and more important, occurred in 1809–1810 and actually stemmed from Cuba, where many colonists and slaves from Saint Domingue had taken refuge at the time of the insurrection on this part of the Island. Napoleon’s invasion of Spain incited the Cubans to drive out the French refugees, who were forced into a second exile. A number of them reached Louisiana (sold to the United States in 1803), although American law forbade importation of slaves in 1808. The figures given by Griolet (1986:46) and Debien-Legardeur (1981:132) differ somewhat on the precise demographics, but they both give a sense of the overall magnitude. Debien-Legardeur lists 2,731 Whites, 3,102 mixed-race individuals (‘of color’ and free), and 3,226 slaves. Griolet lists 2,487 Whites (1,887 600), 2,060 mixed-race individuals (‘of color’ and free), and 2,997 slaves (2,113 884). Although the number of new arrivals was considerable, they did not significantly alter the nearly equal proportion of Whites and Blacks in the population of Louisiana (the Black population formed 55 percent of the total in 1840, 50.7 percent in 1850, and 49.5 percent in 1860; see Griolet 1986:346). The new arrivals did have an impact, however. Although they represented about 20 percent of the overall population at that time, they affected categories in a very uneven way. Even though the number of new Whites and Black slaves was approximately equal and balanced, the local population ‘of color’ nearly doubled. According to Griolet (1986:70), immigrants from Saint Domingue settled in New Orleans and, in particular, ‘St Martinville, in the area of the Attakapas,’ a region with a strong Acadian presence. What could the linguistic and cultural influence of the immigration from Saint Domingue have been? The only thing that could answer this question would be a comparative study of the different varieties of Louisiana Creole (St Martin, Pointe Coupée, and St James) to see if later divergences can be observed and if specific features related to the creole of Saint Domingue are present in the areas where colonists and slaves from this Island settled. Neumann (1985) was not able to tackle this problem, since she had at her disposal only ‘fragmentary material on the creole of Pointe Coupée parish’ (p.1). The issue is further complicated by the fact that there was a very large population of Acadians, and their language undoubtedly influenced the local creole, as well. In any case, such migrations must be examined and taken into consideration, especially when carrying out a comparative study of creoles. They may shed light on such a study, even though their role was certainly not as crucial as the

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role of initial migrations, which form the very basis for the notion of ‘generation of creole.’ Secondary migrations were probably less important at the linguistic level than at the technological and cultural levels. In fact, we can say that secondary migrations led to ‘transfers of technology’ in many cases. This phenomenon was certainly present in initial migrations (it was one of the principal justifications for them), although in this case technological transfers were both more general and less ‘technical,’ so to speak. More than anything else, initial migrations were centered around ensuring the immediate survival of the new colonists and establishing the social order of the new colony. Secondary migrations were usually associated with more classic ‘transfers of technology.’ For example, the migration of the Dutch to the Lesser Antilles after they were driven from Brazil around 1655 (even though this was not a permanent situation for all of them) played a crucial role in introducing the sugar industry there. As Petitjean-Roget notes, these colonists, who were ‘experts in processing sugar,’ brought with them ‘a model for organizing and running a sugar refinery’ (1980:1153). Another example pertains to the cultivation of sugarcane and pétun by Spanish colonists in Hispaniola beginning in the sixteenth century. They gained experience in this area from French colonists, for, as shown above, exchanges with St Kitts, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint Domingue were quite numerous throughout the seventeenth century. In addition to migrations, transfers of technology also occurred when ‘technicians’ from other, more agriculturally or industrially developed colonies were welcomed, or even forcibly transferred. du Tertre, for example, speaks of ‘a Portuguese sugar refiner, a very skillful man’ (1654:172). And when there were hopes of developing the indigo crop in the Mascarenes, as in Saint Domingue, the Compagnie des Indes decided to seek experienced technicians for help: The Compagnie has, at great expense, had two Negro slaves who are very skillful indigo-growers purchased and sent from Saint Domingue to Ile de France … so that they will establish here, as on your Island, the proper method of cultivating this plant and of processing it successfully. (Letter from the Compagnie to the Conseil Supérieur of Bourbon, 17 February 1738) Similarly, it is clear that the first attempts at cultivating sugar on Bourbon in the eighteenth century made use of technology from the Antilles (Chaudenson 1974a:1093). This explains why early specialized and technical vocabulary pertaining to the sugar industry is virtually the same in Réunionnais as that of the Lesser Antilles, and the latter itself was borrowed mainly from Portuguese and Spanish (e.g., bagasse, ‘crushed, juiceless, fibrous remains of sugarcane’; batterie, ‘cooking pot traditionally used to distill sugar-cane juice’; guildive, ‘raw cane juice, rum’; gros sirop, ‘dark, viscous residue left after draining sugar from sugar-cane juice’; ponche, ‘punch made with rum and sugar-cane syrup’; sirop, ‘syrup’; sucrerie, ‘sugar(-cane) refinery’; sucrier, ‘sucrerie owner’; vesou, ‘cane juice in the initial stages of filtration’, etc.).


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Conclusion The sociohistorical and sociolinguistic approach outlined in this chapter, which is fundamental to all research on the development of creole societies, cultures, and languages, may be summed up with the following principal conclusions: 1

2

3

4

The demographic evolution of most creole societies includes an initial phase of variable length (usually between 50 and 100 years), during which Whites are more numerous than Blacks. Toward the end of this phase, the size of the Black population grows and exceeds that of the White population, but the proportion is never more than two or three Blacks for every White. This situation is markedly different from the one that emerges afterwards, during the ‘plantation society,’ in which the proportion may be 1:10, or even higher. This demographic shift is quite clearly nothing more than the result of an economic change. The first phase, the ‘homestead society’ (the term ‘homestead’ used here in its colonial meaning), involves the initial settlement of the colony and the establishment of the minimum facilities and infrastructure necessary for development. Colonies which, as a result of migrations from other areas, benefited from experience acquired elsewhere and technology already in use in other colonies, may have had a significantly shorter initial phase. Linguistically, these were areas where second-generation creoles may have developed, with the language variety of one colony serving as the primary component in the genesis of another. This phenomenon is illustrated well with the case of Mauritian Creole. The origins and characteristics of immigrant populations (French, as well as slave) are an important factor. While French immigrants constituted a relatively homogenous dominant group both culturally and linguistically,43 the slaves had very diverse backgrounds and were often very young. Consequently, they did not form coherent groups, but were rather highly integrated into the independent economic units of the ‘homesteads’ and were subjected to very rigorous processes of ‘deculturation’ and ‘acculturation,’ which were partly justified by colonial society. Such circumstances were responsible for the fact that, in the initial phase of the development of these societies, non-European languages (the use of which was actually forbidden) played only a very limited role. The use of French, on the other hand, was widespread among all speakers. Of course, this language was most likely very different from the standard language of today and, even for native French-speakers, represented a ‘marginal’ variety that still had to be learned. However, the system of communication was obviously French and was arranged along a continuum of approximations. The easiest way to envisage this situation is as a centripetal structure, with folk and regional French at the center. These varieties were used by the French themselves and also by slaves who were generally probably ‘Creoles’ or ‘Gallicized.’ The outer edge of the structure was formed by the ‘jargon of beginners.’ The examples of Cuba and the Dominican Republic lead one to believe that, if this type of situation continued for an extended period of

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5

Toward a theory of creolization time, the regional variety of the European language would become stable and generalized enough to avoid all later process of ‘creolization.’ The classic model of the ‘creole life-cycle,’ in which a pidgin becomes a creole when acquired as the native language of a particular social group, can no longer be supported. Within the framework proposed here, creolization occurs primarily as the result of a socio-economic change, the shift from ‘Phase I’ (the ‘homestead society’) to ‘Phase II’ (the ‘plantation society’). Above all, it is characterized by a change in social organization: the ‘binary’ system of Phase I, in which Whites and Blacks lived in constant contact, being partially replaced by the ‘serial ternary’ system of Phase II, in which the creole slave community occupied the middle space between Whites and bozals. The linguistic aspects and implications of this theory will be examined in the next chapter, with a focus on establishing its historical, demographic, economic, and anthropological bases. From now on, however, it appears that creolization of French (i.e., the emergence and autonomization of a new linguistic system in a community where the European language remained in use) occurred when the target language of new learners was no longer French, but rather approximative varieties thereof. These varieties were used by slaves who, from that point on, served as the only ‘linguistic models’ for masses of bozals brought to the islands by the development of colonial agriculture.

Notes 1

2 3 4

5 6 7

8

I had previously conducted parallel investigations in Mauritius, Rodriguez, and the Seychelles; the latter two had hitherto never been thoroughly described. Since Prudent (1993), we now have for the ACR more extensive and complete sociolinguistic and historical information and analyses. Prudent’s general conclusions seem to converge with the positions defended in this book. This is evident in Valkhoff ’s use of the terms ‘Negroes’ and, especially, ‘African French Creole,’ a term he uses to describe the creoles of the area. The situation on Barbados seems fairly similar to the cases described here. According to Alleyne (1980:146), there were 6,000 Blacks and 40,000 Whites on the Island after twenty years of English occupation. The term ‘creole diaspora’ is convenient, though slightly inadequate. In reality, not all migrants, whether voluntary or forced, temporary or permanent, were ‘Creoles’ (born on the islands). They were all, however, ‘creolized,’ i.e., familiar with the colonial realities of the Islands. This company became the Compagnie des Isles d’Amérique some years later. It went bankrupt in 1649. Recently Baker and Bruyn (eds., 1998) have provided not only studies of early Kittian English Creole but also some history of the Island (Ed.). I have used ‘Bourbonnais’ to refer to the probable continuum of French approximations spoken on Bourbon in 1721, the date when Ile de France was definitively colonized (note that I am intentionally avoiding the term ‘creole’ here). It was clearly the language used by Whites and Blacks on Bourbon which played a major role during the initial period of colonization on Ile de France. The details of my argument can be found in Chaudenson (1983b, 1988). In any case, Baker has since toned down his position, though without explaining why. The evidence has led him to acknowledge the connection between Réunionnais and


9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20

21 22 23 24

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Mauritian Creole as ‘influence’ of the former on the latter. However, Baker claims that such influence is limited to the lexicon, and he attributes it to periods following the initial stage of colonization. This hypothesis is untenable for two reasons: first, the only period in which a true Bourbonnais influence could have had any impact at all was the initial period of colonization, since after that time the historical connection between the two Islands was limited and certainly not sufficient to allow any linguistic diffusion; second, the relationship between Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole is not limited to the borrowing of a few terms, but rather consists of a whole cluster of very specific features that could neither have been borrowed nor formed as the result of parallel innovations. Baker misinterprets the French word colon, which means a person who participates in the founding of a colony but not necessarily a landowner who settles there permanently. Moreau de Saint-Méry (1797), who discusses this, does not mention the number of immigrants to Martinique. Interested readers will find it useful to read Calvet and Chaudenson (1998) on the complex cross-island relations in the Lesser Antilles. The major conclusions of that study are as follows: The creole of St Barths, where a true ‘plantation society’ hardly developed, is a second-generation, if not a third-generation, vernacular. It was introduced to the Island especially from Martinique, the source of the majority of St Barths’ slaves. Since St Barths was not an important market, it did not attract slave ships, hence it never got bozal slaves; only creole or creolized slaves were imported there. The modern countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic together form Hispaniola. Again, I am avoiding for now the use of terms like pidgin and creole. For more extensive and detailed information on Bourbon, see Chaudenson (1974a:462–463); for Martinique, see Father David (1973:14–24). This is the name often used to identify non-southern French varieties; southern French varieties are identified as langue d’oc (Ed.). I have chosen here the location that has become the subject of debate, although Bourbon was also involved. These basically include Moreau de Saint-Méry and, for the issues we are concerned with, an article by Debbasch (1962) and a book by Debien (1974). There are three other sources concerning the Maroons cited in the notes of Fleischmann’s article, but they are not given in full detail (p. 45). The oldest document that exists is by Labat, to which I return below. This is not too far-fetched. 25,000 Christians were slaves in Algiers in the early seventeenth century. For a true story, one might recall the case of Figaro, a slave who informed the authorities about an uprising on Réunion and received his freedom and some land in return (Archives Nationales). For an imagined story, one could cite Alexandre Dumas’ Georges, in which the betrayal of the Malaysian stems from interethnic divisions within the slave community. The ‘Fleuriau homestead’, for instance, owned a total of 250–300 slaves between 1777 and 1790 (de Cauna 1987). The reader should be interested in Baker’s (1996) review article on the French edition of this book and his responses to some of the issues raised here (Ed.). It is impossible to know for certain what sort of miles these ‘500 miles’ actually were. Sometimes Römer uses the ‘nautical mile,’ and sometimes the ‘Danish mile.’ The distance cited is therefore either 800 km or 3,750 km. I have decided to cite more recent studies, in order to avoid continually referring to the same texts. Although references may change, realities do not.

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25 A note provides the only justification for these statements about ‘domination’ and refers the reader back to Labat (1722), Ducoeurjoly (1802), and Moreau de SaintMéry (1797). 26 In its colonial sense, the term habitation is first attested in Canada (1645), but it occurs in the Antilles from the middle of the seventeenth century and on Bourbon during the initial stages of the colony. Like habitant, ‘settler,’ it is part of ‘island vocabulary.’ For a detailed discussion of the origin and use of these terms, see Chaudenson (1974a:589–600). 27 As explained in Chapter 1, I use the term ‘Robinsonnade’ to refer to harsh and destitute living conditions akin to those of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. 28 We can identify some of the fabrics listed above: Salempuri: ‘cloth made in several locations on the Coast of Coromandel; it comes in white and in blue’ (Savary des Bruslons, Dictionnaire universel du commerce, 1741). gingham: ‘cloth made from cotton thread, sometimes mixed with the thread of tree bark, which is neither fine nor coarse; it comes in blue and in white’ (ibid.). chittes: the most beautiful of printed or Indian cloth. The creole term, like the Portuguese chita, is probably a borrowing from the languages of India (Hindi chint) and occurs as Anglo-Indian chintz (see Chaudenson 1974a:577). Machilipatnam handkerchiefs: ‘the name of certain fine cloths found in the Indies; they come from a city by the same name on the Bay of Bengal’ (Savary des Bruslons, ibid.). silk-and-grass teppaye: see gingham above (for the method of weaving). blue cloth: a synonym for ‘guinea cloth’ or ‘percale’ (it was used specifically for making slaves’ clothing). printed cloth: Indian cloth (see chittes above). 29 Even items that were barely usable were inventoried – ’a bad scraper’ and ‘a bad pot’ are commonly occurring designations. 30 I have referred on this topic to Billiez (1984, 1985). Of course, social conditions in the initial phase of colonial societies and in present-day France are not identical. It is these differences themselves that show a fortiori that the conclusions reached in the cases discussed here are valid. 31 The discrepancy between the meaning of this term on the islands (see below) and the meaning listed in this lexical entry dating from 1741 results from the fact that the lexical entry was based on earlier written attestations. In the colonies, in the middle of the eighteenth century, commander no longer had the meaning ascribed to it by Savary des Bruslons, but rather meant simply ‘foreman.’ 32 All indications are that the men who ran the Compagnie were extremely prudent administrators. 33 On Réunion, the term Highlands (leo in Creole < French les Hauts) refers to elevated regions of the Island, as opposed to the coastal region. 34 In the French tradition, the eldest male child inherited all, and the other children got nothing. Regardless of their father’s wealth, many children were doomed to start from scratch (Ed.). 35 In gossip that circulated among slaves, a ‘public rumor’ was called gazèt perkal, ‘percale gazette,’ in Réunionnais and gazèt sifon blé, ‘blue chiffon gazette,’ in Mauritian Creole and Seychellois. This ‘blue cloth,’ called percale or ‘guinea cloth’ (see note 25), was used especially for clothing the slaves. 36 All these characteristics are particularly reminiscent of life in Rodriguez (the third Island of the Mascarenes), where a traditional creole way of life similar to that described by Billiard was still being maintained in the 1960s. Pork was an important dietary item a surplus of which, like the tobacco surplus for the ‘White of the Highlands’ described here, allowed one to meet one’s clothing and living expenses. Hence, a classic Rodriguais joke addressed to someone dressed unusually elegantly is: to fine vand koson zordi? (Fr. tu as vendu ton cochon aujourd’hui?, ‘have you sold your pig today?’).


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37 This is true at least in terms of extensiveness; it occurred also, on a smaller scale, among the ‘rusty Whites’ (blancs rouillés) of the Seychelles and the ‘Matignon Whites’ (blancs Matignon) of Guadeloupe. 38 On the islands, the term garden has a meaning associated with agricultural work, especially the kind associated with sugar cane. 39 It is completely impossible to follow Holm (1989) and view the languages of Réunion and Cuba as ‘semi-creoles.’ In my opinion, such a view stems from a total ignorance of the linguistic realities. The use of terms such as semi-creole and creoloid presupposes that creoles can be defined structurally or typologically – a position disputed by Mufwene (1986, 2001). Sociolinguistically, Réunionnais Creole is certainly not French (and nobody would dare claim that it is, not even those who have occasionally disputed the ‘status’ of Creole). On the other hand, the language spoken in Cuba is undeniably Spanish, although it has been ‘Cubanized’ in some respects. It seems to me that this point of view is validated by the work of specialists such as Lipski (1986). 40 Spanish colonizing practices were particularly aristocratic. 41 Free Blacks comprised more than 15 percent of the overall population in Cuba, while in many French colonies, for example, their number was much more negligible during the same period. 42 My primary reference on this topic is Dipp and Maggiolo (1982), which seems to provide solid and trustworthy information on the origins of Dominican culture. 43 They spoke French and/or patois from the langue d’oïl area, located northwest of a line running from Bordeaux to Paris.

5

Linguistic creolization

From the point of view of a global approach to processes of creolization, the preceding chapters have had little to say about strictly linguistic facts. My discussions of the languages spoken in the societies I have been dealing with have referred almost exclusively to sociolinguistic aspects, but this strategy in no way implies that my hypothesis lacks a solid foundation in language structure. This book aims at a general explanation of the creolization of language and culture, so it was necessary to start by grounding it in the sociohistorical context: an obvious prerequisite for all research in this field.

Pidgins and creoles My discussion of this topic from the sociolinguistic perspective makes it clear that approximative varieties of French, even in the form of ‘beginners’ jargon,’ are not at all associated with sociological factors that have usually been invoked to define a pidgin. The schema that posits a creole as the result of the evolution of a pidgin through ‘complexifications of the external form,’ ‘expansion from the internal form,’ and ‘expansion of the domains of use’ (Valdman 1978:11) is therefore quite incompatible with the sociohistorical and sociolinguistic facts that characterize the initial phases (I and II) of colonial societies. Data on the slaves’ actual linguistic productions during this period are almost completely lacking. It is imperative to adopt the sociolinguistic approach. Nonetheless, one must be prepared to come across old documents that are likely to shed new light on the question of what counts as evidence and how to use it. Quite recently, in an old book, F. Moreau, Professor at the University of Dijon, happened upon an eleven-page manuscript written in an ACR creole. Entitled ‘Passion de Notre Seigneur selon Saint Jean en langage Nègre’ (‘Passion of our Lord according to Saint John in Negro Language’), it was analyzed by the late Guy Hazaël-Massieux, who was certainly the best specialist to study this kind of document. His conclusion (corroborated by paleographic examination of the handwriting and paper quality, which dated the document to the early eighteenth century) is that it appears to have been written in the late seventeenth century or early eighteenth century (by 1725 at the latest) – which makes it the oldest Antillean Creole text. It contains nothing surprising, since ecclesiastics


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have long been our best informants regarding the slaves’ linguistic behaviors. Renouncing from the outset the idea of instructing slaves in their native languages, they often sought, instead, to expedite evangelization and make it more effective by accommodating to ‘the way they spoke’ (Pelleprat 1655:52). The ‘Passion … en langue Nègre’ undoubtedly reflects this disposition and evangelization strategy.1 Some reservations are inevitable regarding texts of this nature, which were obviously not written by the slaves themselves. However, this document is of critical importance, and initial attempts to use it scientifically in studying the genesis of Caribbean creoles have proved extremely interesting (Guy Hazaël-Massieux 1986:114–126). Without going into too much detail, we can note that, just like the sentences cited by Father Pelleprat (1655), the ‘Negro language’ seems closer to French than present-day creoles. Hazaël-Massieux’s (1986) article, specifically concerned with the morphology of the future tense, formulates in a more scholarly fashion and demonstrates scientifically what I have tried to prove naively here. His remarks accord with those I have already made concerning old creole documents in the Indian Ocean (Chaudenson 1981a) and provide additional evidence – if any is needed – to counter the theory which claims that French creoles result from the ‘nativization’ of erstwhile pidgins. (However, it should be noted that my hypothesis applies to French creoles; I do not deny that there may be cases – such as that of Tok Pisin – where a pidgin has become the native language of a population.) The problem with this is that it in no way corresponds to the historical and social reality in the French cases considered here. Unless one takes into account the radical differences in the sociohistorical conditions of creolization and pidginization, lumping them together is more a matter of playing with words (based on a misuse of the term pidgin) than of rigorous comparison. Even after the question of whether creoles developed from erstwhile pidgins has been definitely settled, details remain largely to be worked out. Not only do we unfortunately lack facts on the languages spoken by slaves in both the ACR and in the IOR, the French spoken by the Whites themselves is almost unknown as well. That we do not know much about the evolution of creoles over their short histories (works on this subject are rare) illustrates why it was necessary to address the linguistic problems themselves only after determining as well and as completely as possible the historical and social conditions surrounding the genesis of these languages. Let me now submit three tentative axioms: a

Creolization is defined less by a set of structural features or by a particular linguistic type of change than by the autonomization of a creole’s system in relation to French: i.e., an evolution that leads its speakers to determine the well-formedness of their utterances based on their own local norms rather than on those of (in this particular case) French.

144 b

c

Linguistic creolization Creolization results not from a linear and continuous linguistic evolution but from sociolinguistic changes, one of whose consequences is linguistic mutation; Creolization by itself does not explain all of the present-day characteristics of creole languages, which, like all languages, have also known an internal evolution despite the relative brevity of their existence.

These axioms deserve comment. I have already briefly addressed the question of whether creoles can be defined by structural features. This cannot, of course, be discussed without rigorously applying the comparative method. Without going into detail, a common-sense observation can be made: if there indeed exist features peculiar to creoles that on the linguistic level define them as a special structural type of language, then they must meet two requirements: 1 2

They must be unique to creoles; They must be attested in all creoles. No circular or specious reasoning should lead us to deny a priori the creoleness of those languages which appear to be exceptions.

Mufwene (1986:136) argues likewise, focusing on three of the points identified by Markey as typical of creoles (see also Mufwene 2001): a b

c

As a general rule, nouns are pluralized by the addition of the third person plural pronoun (178); Every true creole has three (and only three) tense-aspect markers preposed to a nuclear, uninflected verb format … : 1) anterior … , 2) irrealis … , and 3) non-punctual … (183); Semantic repartitions (Possession Existence: Location Ownership). A commonplace (universal?) feature of creole copularity is that possession and existence are expressed by the same form, while location is expressed by a different form. … in creoles generally the locative copula tends to mark the progressive; rather, both location and progression tend to have the same marker. … Another commonplace (universal?) of creoles is Ø-marking or absence of the equative copula before adjective COMPs. Here the adjective may be considered a verbid … (193). (Markey 1982:178–201)

Most of Mufwene’s discussion centers on the first of the two requirements specified above (that creoles are the only languages to have these structural features) and his position, after examining the facts, is quite clear: The features which hitherto have been associated with creoles cannot distinguish these languages from noncreole languages. There are many of the


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latter which have not only the same features but also almost the same combinations thereof. (Mufwene 1986:131) We can now consider the other requirement: that these features are characteristic of all creoles. I will discuss only French creoles, focusing especially on those of the IOR. Indian Ocean creoles do not have the first of Markey’s structural features quoted above. Their nouns are pluralized not ‘by the addition of the third person plural pronoun,’ but by preposing the morpheme bane, common in the four creoles of the IOR. As Mufwene (1986:137) also observes, creoles lexified by Bantu languages do not utilize this putatively typical creole strategy; instead, they resort to the traditional Bantu system of attaching a plural prefix to the noun. Mufwene’s (1986:137) conclusion contains nuances consistent with my own position: I claim that there are truly no structural features which define creoles independently of the sociohistorical circumstances of their genesis. Neither structural nor sociohistorical considerations alone suffice to characterize creoles. To really understand the development of these new vernaculars, both considerations must be combined. The fundamental quality of creolization is detectable in the various legacies of French colonization. North American varieties of French show that the ‘spontaneous’ historical evolution of seventeenth-century French has not produced creoles there, any more than it has, for example, in Africa, where approximations of French are spoken. These places produced different varieties that can be identified as ‘français marginaux,’ in the case of North America, and ‘indigenised French,’ in the case of Africa. To understand the process of the genesis of French creoles, one must examine and compare the facts collected about both the vernaculars called creoles and these other varieties. Hence, one can assume that the requisite and basic feature of creolization lies not in particular linguistic structures, which for the most part have partial counterparts, and sometimes even homologs, in ‘français marginaux’ and in ‘indigenized French.’ It lies in the ways that the creoles autonomized into separate systems, which, even though they have not existed for long, have their own specific dynamics, and in the particular sociohistorical conditions of these changes.

French and creoles The mistake of many creolists has lain in their constant inability to understand how, in societies where francophone Whites seem to have been a small minority, creoles could have developed whose basic linguistic materials obviously originated from French. Moreover, many of these creolists have not been ‘native’ francophones (and even those with a good command of the standard language obviously do not know its nonstandard and/or regional varieties), so it is thus easy to see how, until recently, the relationship between French and French-lexified creoles has generally been framed in the wrong way. This applies even more

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significantly to creole cultures, with which scholars, most of them Anglo-Saxons, are less familiar. A historical sociolinguistic analysis makes it possible to show some essential facts, the chief of which is the development of a system of approximations of French. These approximations were in turn approximated by the next generation of slaves, who largely did not get to interact with speakers of French proper. Such circumstances and processes resulted in the ‘autonomization’ of these approximations in relation to French, with which learners no longer had constant direct contact. Therefore, the terminus a quo of French creoles was in no way an Afro-French pidgin, in the case of the ACR, or a Malagasy-French pidgin, in the case of the IOR (despite Hermann’s hypothesis, which is based on the migration of ‘fragments’ of the French colony of Fort-Dauphin to Bourbon). It actually lay in varieties of nonstandard French from the north and west of France, about which our ‘direct’ knowledge is very limited. Our research should thus focus on three essential points: A B

C

the characteristics of this initial French, to which modern French shows only a distant resemblance; the evolution of French in settings where a predominant social model and ‘normative pressure’ have decreased; [ ‘ have been less strong than in standard French’?] the nature and direction of the approximation processes which produced creolization, on which work on the acquisition and/or learning of French can certainly shed some light.

The first point already makes clear the exceptional opportunity that research on French creoles offers to a scholar. Even if one does not know much about the language that was probably spoken by French colonists in the seventeenth century, the fact that the colonists of North America, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean came from the same social classes and emigrated from the same regions of France at the same time offers unexpected research possibilities. A long time ago, in Chaudenson (1973), I pointed out the relevance of comparing the structures of creoles and extra-metropolitan French with those of French itself. North American French varieties, not only in Canada but also in the USA (especially in Missouri and Louisiana), are of critical importance, notwithstanding their separate evolutions over the last three centuries.2 This comparison offers three major areas that have rich potential for interesting discoveries. 1.

Comparisons with North American French varieties reveal facts about seventeenth-century French that we have ignored or tended to overlook (Chaudenson 1973, 1994b). These data are obviously highly relevant to knowledge of the genesis of Canadian French, for example. In Canada the scientific debate on this issue has been reopened, although it had been thought that the question was closed since Rivard (1914). Rivard admitted


2.

3.

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that a great number of French colonists spoke ‘dialects’ – which he did not consider to be French (Ed.).3 However, he assumed that they were equally capable of understanding and speaking French, that they were for the most part bilingual (with the ‘dialect’ as their mother tongue and French as their second language), and that they putatively abandoned their ‘dialects’ little by little for French – which was, moreover, the language of the nobility, clergy, Church, and royal administration. This position has been accepted, with some amendment, by most of those who have addressed the problem (e.g., Wittmann 1973, Poirier 1975). Today this hypothesis has been disputed in two ways. Asselin and McLaughin (1981, 1994) mostly doubt whether the langue d’oïl dialects (spoken in the northern half of France) were actually distinguished from each other in the colonies. They assume that the dialects imported to New France (the North American French colonies) were largely mutually intelligible from the beginning. On the other hand, relying on Grégoire’s 1790 investigation (see Gazier 1880), Barbaud (1984, 1994) disputes the claim that the colonists spoke French rather than patois. Instead, he underscores the role of women (the majority of whom were francophone) in the spread of French in New France. With the case thus reopened, progress in the knowledge of creole genesis can, now more than ever, contribute to growth in the knowledge of the former state of spoken French, which, for Canada, can be used to validate current hypotheses. Unfortunately, the debate among Canadian scholars has been based primarily on social and historical facts and has accorded only a minor role to strictly linguistic facts. The proposed comparison reveals common features of two sets of languages – creoles, on the one hand, and non-metropolitan French varieties, on the other – and it makes it possible to avoid any misinterpretation. A systematic comparison of Québécois terms with my lexicon of Réunionnais enabled Poirier (1979) to show that the meanings of a large proportion of Québécois terms are attested in Réunionnais, and that English influence (which has often been invoked to account for divergence of Québécois from standard French) was undoubtedly not the reason for differences between these varieties – or, at least in many cases, it was not the only one. Likewise, creoles present numerous linguistic facts that are attested also in North American French varieties, which proves that they are probably survivals from colonial French. This point is obviously closely related to the preceding one. Finally, such a comparison underscores the extreme peculiarity of creolization. The evidence shows that, ‘marginal’ as they sometimes seem, North American French varieties nonetheless remain French. It is therefore certain that the appropriation of French by non-francophone speakers played a critical role in its creolization. However, this finding in no way leads on to the conclusion that creoles developed by a mixing of systems or by relexification. The question is not whether slaves played a role in creolization (they

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Linguistic creolization obviously did, and comparisons with ‘marginal’ French confirm this) but what the nature of that role was; clearly there are almost no positive ‘transfers’ of obviously non-European linguistic features.

The terms of comparison include not only North American French dialects but also the French varieties spoken in creolophone areas themselves, which should not be overlooked. North American French dialects Although these varieties are relevant to understanding creolization, the reverse is equally true: research on the creolization of French can shed significant light on the genesis of, for example, Canadian French. The primary regions of initial settlements of French colonists were Quebec, (today’s Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island in Canada, as well part of Maine in the USA), and Louisiana. However, later migrations drove parts of these populations toward other regions. Thus the Acadians went to Louisiana following the ‘Great Migration’ of 1755. Some Canadians emigrated to New England mostly during the first half of the nineteenth century; and some Louisianans and Canadians migrated to the Missouri Old Mines in the eighteenth century. The case of Frenchville, Pennsylvania, is quite different; it involved the later migration of a population of lumberjacks and farmers who came directly from eastern France (Haute-Marne, Haute-Saône, Vosges, Haut-Rhin). These French dialects have been studied in works that are not easily accessible. Basic information on them comes from articles by Brault, Thogmartin, Hull, and Valdman, writing in Valdman’s (1979) Le Français hors de France. However, recent publications of oral literature (such as Rosemary Hyde Thomas 1982, Guidry 1982, and Ancelet 1980) now make possible more accurate investigations, which gaps in previous documentation often prevented. (For example, the second volume of Conwell and Julliand’s Louisiana French Grammar, which was promised to be a lot more interesting than the first, was never published.) Whatever the specific evolutions of these language varieties may have been (and, in particular, those evolutions that were triggered by contact with English), they constitute a critical reference point in the study of creolization, for two reasons. First, they share some features with creoles, and naturally these features can be traced back to older French varieties from which they all developed (some common features may perhaps also be attributed to homologous evolutions). Second, they differ from creoles in respects which have contributed to making the latter autonomous systems in relation to their lexifier: an autonomy that American French varieties do not have. Despite some misuses of the term creolization and some paradoxical approaches to the subject (e.g., Wittmann 1973), no one has seriously claimed that any of these French varieties is a creole.


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French varieties in creolophone areas French varieties in creolophone areas are equally worth taking into account, because they have developed in the same geographical settings as the creoles themselves. In fact, the topic is a complex one, since undoubtedly the presentday structures of these varieties are hardly representative of their initial state. An exception to this observation is found in St Barths, where a very archaic form of French has been preserved, under the name of Patois, in the western part of the Island. Until recently, it has attracted mostly anthropologists, and Gilles Lefebvre’s important lexical data, collected in the 1960s, have remained unpublished. The only fairly extensive linguistic description of this, though somewhat indirect, was Highfield (1979), dealing with the speech of immigrants from St Barths who settled in the US Virgin Islands. Rare articles, by Gilles Lefebvre (1976) and Maher (1990) address the sociolinguistics and history of St Barths, and the first book-length linguistic study is Calvet and Chaudenson (1998). St Barths is a tiny island of about 25 sq. km, with a population of 5,000 inhabitants, the vast majority of whom are Whites. It was settled by the French in the mid-seventeenth century and presents the surprising peculiarity of having two coexistent vernaculars: Creole, spoken in the eastern part, and an archaic form of French called patois, spoken in the western part. The following are the major conclusions that Calvet and Chaudenson (1998) submit to linguists: The Creole spoken on St Barths did not develop there, because the Island was not a large enough market to attract slave ships. As evidenced by archives, the vast majority of its slaves were imported from the other Antilles, especially Martinique. From a sociolinguistic perspective, St Barths is peculiar in having maintained throughout its history a homestead society (société d’habitation), because its very dry climate and broken ground hardly made it possible to develop plantations. Its situation is thus somewhat comparable to that of Cuba and the Dominican Republic during the first centuries of colonization (see Chapter 4). The presence of a creole in the eastern part can be explained by repeated unsuccessful attempts to introduce colonial agricultural industry to this area, which is more favorable to such ventures because of its relatively better climate and soil. The western part has stuck to traditional activities of homestead societies: subsistence crops and fishing. Consequently, its archaic social structure has perpetuated the patois, since its less numerous and better integrated slaves spoke their masters’ vernacular. The other Antillean creoles imported to the Island have undergone substrate influence from the local patois, which accounts for most of the present features of St Barths’ Creole, especially on the phonetic and lexical levels. They distinguish it from Guadeloupean and Martiniquais Creoles, although a more precise study will show that it is closer to Martiniquais, despite the influence on St Barths of Guadeloupe, to which it is administratively attached. The paradox that St Barths’ Creole is spoken by a majority White population in the eastern part of the Island can be explained by the massive departures of the Blacks after the abolition of slavery.

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All these circumstances underscore the critical relevance of this tiny island to elaborating or verifying theories of creolization, and to reconstructing colonial French speech. While it is mistaken to consider St Barths’ patois as Old Norman, it is, along with some North American French varieties (to which it is very similar), structurally quite close to seventeenth-century colonial French. The regional French varieties of creolophone territories are now better known thanks to such studies as Pompilus (1961) on Haiti, Chaudenson (1978) on the creolophone archipelagoes of the Indian Ocean, Carayol (1977) on Réunion, Tirvassen (1986) on Mauritius, and Mougeon and Beniak (1994) and Fournier and Wittmann (1995) for Quebec. It should be noted, though, that most of these studies only cover limited aspects (phonetic, phonological, lexical, etc.) of the linguistic systems of these varieties. It is certain that the French varieties of these regions are in no way the same as the language of the first colonists, but one should not therefore rush to attribute their present peculiarities to interference from the creoles spoken in the same settings. On the one hand, there are intrasystemic variations that are in no way regional and are attested almost everywhere (for example, je vais au coiffeur, ‘I am going to the barber’s’, which is not geographically marked, pace some claims). On the other hand, there are more particular features that pose problems, insofar as the related creoles possess homologous structures – one such is the construction pour (SUBJECT ) TONIC PRONOUN INFINITIVE , as in pour nous manger, corresponding to Standard French pour que nous mangions, ‘so that we may eat; in order for us to eat.’ A homologous construction, pou nou manzé, is attested in creoles of the Indian Ocean. Both these new French varieties and related creoles find their origin in older and/or regional French varieties. The above construction, which existed in older French, has survived in administrative jargon – as in pour la requérante en faire tel usage que de droit (standard French: pour que la plaignante/requérante en fasse l’usage que le droit lui donne, ‘so that the plaintiff may make use of what the law entitles him/her to’) cited in Grevisse (p. 1024) – but mostly in Wallonia (southern Belgium) and a good part of northern and eastern France. Bearing in mind that folk language is conservative, and taking into account the colonists’ regions of origin, this construction was probably used by them, and this is why the construction is attested in these varieties. That said, has this trait been maintained permanently in the French varieties of these regions since their origins? This is very difficult to confirm or deny. In any case, the homology of French and creole has undoubtedly been a factor facilitating the continuation or reappearance of this pour NOUN PHRASE INFINITIVE variant. Usage of il y en a in Mauritian French, corresponding to il y a, ‘there is/are’ in standard French, calls for similar observations. (Mauritian Creole has éna, which is related to nana or na in Réunionnais and anna in Seychellois.) The presence of a nasal in all these varieties leads to the speculation that il y en a was used for il y a in the French of the first colonists. An argument for this hypothesis can be made based on uses of y en a for il y a in Montreal French, as well as of n’na for a, ‘has,’ or il y a in the French variety of Missouri – as in trois milles d’écitte n’a enne fontaine


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‘there is a fountain three miles from here’ (Rosemary Hyde Thomas 1982). Such examples underscore well enough the decisive role that comparative approaches can play in shedding light on the development of both creoles and ‘français marginaux.’

The terminus a quo: the language of the colonists If the language spoken by the colonists were known and described, the study of creole genesis would be greatly facilitated. Alas, this is not the case; descriptions of seventeenth-century French focus, of course, on the literary language. True, there is some evidence from the learned,4 but the documents are limited to the folk French of Paris and some of the provinces. Very interesting indirect evidence is found in manuals on the correct use of language and the works of grammarians: the degree of relentlessness with which they discourage defective (folk and/or regional) expressions often tells one much about the frequency and validity of those expressions.5 I do not intend to document all characteristics and trends of seventeenth-century folk French for which there are survivals in French creoles. Instead, I will limit myself to just a few examples in this chapter. More are provided in Chaudenson (1974a:1120–1141). The reader will certainly have noticed that, even though I sometimes speak of the ‘French of the colonists,’ I refer more systematically to their language without necessarily identifying it as French. The majority of the French may have come from the same geographical area (the Oïl area, in northwestern France, bounded on the southeast by a line running from Bordeaux to Paris) and from the same social class (the lower class), but one certainly cannot conclude that all the colonists spoke the same French – or even that they all spoke French. Although the sociolinguistic situation in seventeenth-century France is very poorly understood, we do know that, outside the periphery of Paris, the use of French (in various degrees) was very far from generalized. In his study of the language of the colonists in New France, Barbaud (1984) refers primarily to the texts of Abbé Grégoire (see Gazier 1880), which describe the linguistic situation in France in the eighteenth century. Barbaud assumes, rightly, that French would have been even less widely spoken a century earlier. All the same, interesting linguistic evidence from the seventeenth century does in fact exist. For example, La Fontaine, in describing his journey to Limousin, claimed that French was barely even spoken beyond Chavigny (Vienne). The young Racine’s unexpected misfortunes while in Lyon also come to mind: he asked a servant for a chamber pot and instead she brought him a hot plate. Barbaud (1984) posits that the colonists of the seventeenth century fell into three groups: les francisants, ‘speakers of standard French,’ les semi-patoisants, ‘speakers of a semi-standard French,’ and les patoisants, ‘speakers of patois, or non-standard French.’ Barbaud’s view is that in the colonies standard French would gradually have become dominant in relation to ‘dialects’ or patois, through a process fueled by linguistic exogamy. Women were for the most part Francisantes – even before the arrival of the filles du Roi (prostitutes) – and standard

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French would have thus become widespread, thanks to the critical role that women played in its transmission. Although this is an interesting explanation, such exogamy is undoubtedly only one of the factors involved in the evolution of the language. In any case, the limited number of French women in the Caribbean prevents us from extrapolating this hypothesis to that area. Note also that, because of internal diversity, the langue d’oïl dialects were bound to peter out over time, especially since French was the language used for all official and formal functions. On the Islands, conditions were rather different from those in New France: for instance, there were significantly fewer French women there. Nonetheless, the overall evolution of French was similar throughout the colonies. This is because it is relatively unimportant whether a non-standard French variety, heavily marked with dialectal features, prevailed, or whether instead an interdialectal koiné emerged early on. This koiné would have gradually converged with the dialectal French of the francophone minority. It seems to me neither possible nor necessary to postulate, as some scholars have, the existence of a ‘nautical jargon’ (Faine 1939) or a ‘maritime French’ (Hull 1979a). Such hypotheses remind us, mutatis mutandis, of those studies which posit the existence of a single, original pidgin in order to explain structural similarities among creoles. All such hypotheses are inadequate, not for lack of data to support them, but because it is not necessary to resort to such postulations. Thus, until there is proof to the contrary, one need not presume that there was a ‘nautical French,’ even though the voyage to America and the Islands was a far from negligible factor in shaping the subsequent linguistic environment. First of all, except in the unusual case that his departure was absolutely necessary, anyone in the seventeenth century who decided to become a colonist must have had a definite taste for adventure and a quick-wittedness to match it – and such a disposition would certainly entail linguistic consequences. A monodialectal peasant, bound up in his life and land, would not decide overnight to leave his home for a distant place where no one was aware of his existence. The sort of person who took off on such a journey would inevitably have had a modicum of information and contacts, and this would be likely to mean that he was not monodialectal. No one seems to have noted that the Compagnie des Indes recruited skilled artisans and professionals, and most of these, according to the rules of their trade guilds, could not be monodialectal (Chaudenson 1990b). Moreover, the preparations for departure to the New World, delays in embarkation, and the long journey itself (which took from three months to a year, depending on circumstances) ensured that the process of learning French began six months to a year, or more, before the colonist ever set foot on his new land. Thus, although it is excessive and unnecessary to postulate the existence of a nautical French, it is also absurd not to consider the critical role that the voyage played in colonists’ likely learning of French. The language of the colonists was thus most likely nonstandard French, marked by langue d’oïl dialectal features. It had probably already undergone the kind of restructuring associated with the strategies of informal learning. It seems


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to me that focusing excessive attention on identifying the colonists’ linguistic competence has led us to overlook a more important aspect: one which has to do with the sociolinguistic conditions of interaction. Before discussing this aspect – which involves a more general exploration of the question of variation and the variability of French – we must take into account a second group of factors critical to the study of creolization: strategies of linguistic appropriation. It is generally agreed that, as a generic term, ‘appropriation’ encompasses both ‘acquisition’ of French as a native language and ‘learning’ of French as a second or foreign language (Chaudenson 1994c, 2000). In instances where colonists’ original linguistic competence was essentially dialectal these processes of approximative learning could have played a role at a very early stage of the colonists’ new lives. Of course, these factors were to be even more important for the slaves, who were confronted with French as the target language in the strongly centripetal society described in the preceding chapter. The appropriation of French The research that is most likely to shed light on these aspects of our approach clearly has to do with the appropriation of French. In this regard, African French deserves special attention, because part of the non-European population in the New World came from the African continent. The acquisition of French I have long argued that it is useful to undertake a more systematic comparison of features of linguistic creolization and those of child language acquisition. My brief 1978 study went a little further than this, as underscored by the title itself, Créoles et langage enfantin: phylogenèse et ontogenèse. Nonetheless, it steered cautiously clear of the ideas presented a little later in Bickerton’s 1981 Roots of Language. My review of this book (Chaudenson 1982) highlights the relative proximity of our two points of view and the possibility of partially ‘reinterpreting’ Bickerton’s theory from my perspective. Indeed, if French creoles are compared with the provisional grammars that children use in acquiring our idiom, one cannot help but be struck by a number of significant similarities. On this point Bickerton’s observations and mine are completely in line. Our point of divergence (and it is a major one) is that Bickerton claims these restructuring processes operate in the same direction for all languages, owing to the fact that they are somewhat ‘inscribed’ in the ‘language bioprogram.’ Verifying Bickerton’s hypothesis would constitute a huge task, given that, of course, data only exist for a very few languages. The much more limited nature of my hypothesis, and the fact that I am dealing only with one language, French, make it easier to verify my position, which is not critical to my theory anyway. The main idea, which the reader has

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probably gathered already, is that for any given language there are similarities between the two modes of linguistic appropriation – acquisition and/or learning. This approach should not be confused with Ferguson’s (1977) notion of ‘baby talk,’ a simplified language used by adults to address very young children. Note, however, that ‘baby talk’ does share some features with ‘child language’ proper, just as ‘foreigner talk’ (another form of a ‘simplified register’ or ‘broken language’ according to Ferguson) surely originates in some ways from the imitation of non-native speakers’ way of using a language. The existence of what could be called ‘dog talk’ or ‘cat talk,’ cases in which the performances of the interlocutors cannot be invoked, might seem to give the lie to this idea, but these are undoubtedly only ‘misappropriations’ of baby talk. In my kind of approach to the subject matter, one is not expected to proceed with a complete survey of studies on the acquisition of French. I have, therefore, limited myself to comparisons with the classic works only (Ferreiro 1971; F. François, D. François, Sabeau-Jouannet, Sourdot 1977; and especially Clark 1985, whose work, in my opinion, deserves credit for synthesizing the earlier, established principles). Learning French In trying to evaluate precisely the role of conditions and spontaneous strategies of learning in creolization, the most interesting studies are, of course, those focusing on informal learning in a non-institutional environment, which is akin to the process of creolization. I was not able to use this kind of approach in my thesis (1972), as this type of research did not exist then. The few works on French language learning that I was able to consult, including Bouton (1969), did offer certain insights, but they bore exclusively on observations made in an institutional setting. In such contexts, a completely fixed strategy is imposed, in which the language learner is only exposed to preordained linguistic productions. Naturalistic learning situations are a priori much more relevant, even though the sociolinguistic conditions in these cases are very different from those of creolization (immigrant workers constitute the most common study subjects). These can bring us much closer to situations and modes of creolization over the past few centuries. It would seem that the study of creole genesis could be elucidated by the very theoretical approach, developed in the late 1970s, of comparing the classic ‘pidginization–creolization–decreolization’ schema with the process of secondlanguage learning. The prototype for such analyses was Schuman’s The Pidginization Process: A model for second language acquisition (1978), whose hypothesis I critiqued in Chaudenson (1986b). It becomes clear, though, that these works pertain much more to second-language acquisition than to creolization, and the insights and information on creolization offered therein are often very limited. More concrete and precise research on immigrant workers’ acquisition of European languages, and in particular of French, undoubtedly has a richer potential for elucidation. What I have in mind is the vast GRAL (Groupe de


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Recherches sur l’Acquisition des Langues) project, conducted by researchers from the Université d’Aix-Marseille I and Paris VIII within the framework of the European project ‘The Ecology of Adult Language Acquisition’ (cf. Perdue 1982 and the papers of the annual GRAL Conference). Due to this research project’s particular circumstances and methods, the exploitation of these immense corpora has only just begun. The project was based on longitudinal studies on the learning of several European languages by speakers of various languages; the analysis of this data should enable the uncovering of certain ‘intersections.’ Thus, it should be possible to compare, on the one hand, the strategies of, for example, native Arabic-, Spanish- and Portuguese-speakers learning French, and on the other, those employed by immigrants with the same mother tongues learning other European languages. Regarding creole genesis, the ideal materials of comparison would be studies of naturalistic acquisition of, say, French by immigrants who are native speakers of the same non-European languages spoken at the time that present creole-speaking territories were settled (three to four centuries ago). Clearly, this is a moot point. However, observations made on the strategies used by Arabic-speakers offer interesting analogies with the facts presented by French creoles (Véronique 1983, 1988; Deulofeu and Véronique 1986). Until the 1980s, there were very few studies of informal language acquisition by adults. Yet for studying creole genesis this case is quite important, because, although today’s immigrant workers in Europe are subject to much less social pressure to shift languages than slaves in eighteenth-century colonies, the conditions of language appropriation are clearly of the same, informal nature. From 1981 to 1988 a big project on language acquisition by adult migrant workers was undertaken in five European countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Holland, and Sweden. It was funded by the European Science Foundation and run by the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen. Its goal was to study both the various modes of appropriation of the same language by immigrants speaking diverse languages (e.g., Arabic- and Portuguese-speakers acquiring French) and strategies of appropriation of different languages by speakers of the same language (e.g., Arabic-speakers acquiring French and German). This huge project was based mostly on longitudinal studies, which had never been undertaken before, at least not with as much breadth or rigor. Several conferences were organized while the project was underway, and numerous publications have ensued. Perdue (1993) is a ‘balance sheet,’ so to speak, of its methods and results. If relexification theories (from Suzanne Sylvain to Claire Lefebvre) are valid, a Turkish immigrant worker learning German in a completely informal fashion, without any prior exposure to it (which is the case of the individuals in the above-mentioned project), should roughly speak German using Turkish syntax and a German lexicon. The conclusions of studies in the European project are quite different. Without going into detail, one can say that they have minimized the often exaggerated role attributed to source languages in the development of interlanguages. These largely result from learners’ hypotheses, based on discourse to which they have been exposed in the target language.

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Clearly, in the specific cases of French and French creoles, it should be interesting to compare strategies used today by adult immigrants, Arabic- and Portuguese-speakers, with those which produced the kind of restructuring associated with creoles. A major inconvenience is undoubtedly that the above project has focused on Arabic- and Portuguese-speaking immigrants rather than on Ewe- or Malagasy-speakers. However, this is a minor detail, because one of the findings from this research is that the structures of interlanguages are generally not determined by the learners’ source languages. Instead, the problem lies in the fact that the French to which arabophone or lusophone immigrants have been exposed is not quite that spoken by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French colonists. This may be explained with a simple example. All creoles’ tense-aspect markers are periphrastic, selected from nonstandard French constructions such as être après INFINITIVE and être pour INFINITIVE , which are no longer used in the urban French varieties to which immigrants are exposed. One cannot therefore be surprised at not finding such constructions in the immigrants’ interlanguages – although there is evidence that, when learners come across such constructions they show the same predilection for them, as is the case with the periphrastic future using aller INFINITIVE (Valdman 1986). This discussion demonstrates the relevance of research on language appropriation in general to understanding processes associated with creole genesis. It sheds light on the evolution of languages that have been creolized, noting of course that their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century structures were different in some respects. Other noteworthy observations can be made by comparing child languageacquisition strategies and creolization processes. Such comparisons have been made by researchers on child language acquisition and by some creolists, chief among the latter being Derek Bickerton. [The volume recently edited by Michel DeGraff (1999) is a significant contribution to the subject (Ed.).] However, for clarity in the discussion, it is necessary to establish a rather useful distinction, although one that has generally been disregarded by languageteaching specialists. In Chaudenson (1986b, 1994c) I submitted the following terminological scheme. There are two major modes of linguistic appropriation (as a generic notion): (first) language acquisition and (second, third, or umpteenth) language learning. Once this critical distinction is accepted, we can, on the one hand, discuss language appropriation strategies that are common to acquisition and learning, and, on the other hand, distinguish those aspects of acquisition where it is irrelevant to invoke source languages from those aspects of learning where source languages are a relevant factor. I quite understand that didacticians prefer to make a distinction that opposes (informal) acquisition to (guided) learning. This is undoubtedly useful to them, but it is not useful to those who, like creolists, attempt to highlight both spontaneous appropriation strategies and the relevance of source languages. From this perspective my distinction, I submit, is helpful. When observing learners in guided contexts, one can see that their strategies are largely determined by selected pedagogical paths. I will thus stick to my distinction, which is summarized in the following schema:


Figure 5.1

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Kinds of linguistic appropriation

I will not take a position on the question of possible language appropriation universals, or on issues regarding Bickerton’s (1981, 1984) ‘bioprogram’ or Pinker’s (1994) ‘language instinct,’ although I already discussed some of them in Chaudenson (1978, 1982). I wish simply to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed distinction with an example. As is well known and recalled above, French creoles have formed their tenseaspect systems not from standard French verb conjugations but from nonstandard French periphrastic constructions (I shall have more to say about these below). It is not difficult to prove that these periphrases were common in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century folk speech; restructuring homologies in creoles confirm this point, which was already noted by Gougenheim (1929). Periphrastic constructions were vigorously opposed by grammarians, who more or less excluded them from written language, although they persist in folk and/or regional usage. But why have these periphrases been retained in creolization? Although they were used in colonial French, they were surely in competition with ‘normal’ conjugation in French. The following arguments can be advanced, in light of French appropriation strategies. In language acquisition, the structural evolution of the target language shows a predilection for periphrasis, although it is no longer used today in metropolitan French (the only, interesting, exception to this is the future tense, where the ‘simple future’ je mangerai, ‘I will eat,’ alternates with je vais manger, ‘I am going to eat’). Studies on this subject, and my own observations on the language of my granddaughters, show that the periphrastic alternative is acquired first. Regarding language learning, let me just quote Véronique (1986:575): ‘The essential tense–aspect distinctions are marked, based on our initial observations

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[of adult Arabophone immigrants], by adverbs and sometimes markers such as va and a before V and V-e.’ In appropriations of French, there is thus an initial preference for periphrastic future, just as composite forms are globally acquired before simple forms. Why does creolization naturally follow this tendency? The answer is relatively simple. Homology, and identity, between acquisition and learning strategies shows that source languages (L1) are generally not the cause, as creolists might assume, since the same evolutions are observable in ACR and IOR creoles. Language appropriation, i.e., the elaboration of approximative systems, does not proceed by simply transferring syntactic structures of the first/source language to the target language (which would not account for first-language acquisition), but by elaborating hypotheses on the structure of the target language. This is why the term interlanguage, used by didacticians for over twentyfive years, seems rather inadequate. It evokes a segmentation, part of which is the source language. The very form of the term accounts for why ‘interlanguage’ is sometimes mentally represented as intermediate between the source and target languages. This is inadequate, of course, because child language acquisition has interlanguages without source languages. I find approximative system a more adequate term than interlanguage. It offers a double advantage: it provides a term that designates the approximation process; and it evokes centripetal imagery that seems more suited to language appropriation. How does language appropriation proceed (in acquisition and learning)? The acquirer or learner proceeds by identifying perceptible elements in utterances of the target language to which he/she has been exposed. He/she grasps them, rather as a shipwrecked person holds on to floating driftwood or other objects, and organizes these elements into a communication system. Understandably, the individual appropriating the language will identify elements that are frequent, salient, meaning-bearing, etc. It is not surprising that such features are also those that have been highlighted in relation to self-regulation in French in Chaudenson (1985a, and especially in Chaudenson, Mougeon, and Beniak 1993:23–27).6 In the case of self-regulation in French, the following oppositions, among others, are noteworthy: regular vs. irregular, frequent vs. infrequent, transparent vs. opaque, salient vs. non-salient, meaning-bearing vs. semantically empty, and specific vs. general/non-specific. In principle, self-regulation should tend to favor elements that are regular, frequent, transparent, meaning-bearing, etc. Languages would thus rapidly evolve toward an ideal state – which of course is not true. Most cases are marked by contradictions of these factors. For instance, the most frequent French verbs, être ‘be,’ avoir ‘have,’ and aller ‘go,’ are also the most irregular. One may even add that they are so irregular precisely because they are so frequent. Spoken language tends to restore regularizations in its conjugations (e.g., je vas for je vais, ‘I go/am going’) or to modify their usage (e.g., the tendency to substitute the auxiliary avoir for être, or, rarely, to do just the opposite, as in saying je suis été instead of j’ai été ‘I have been’). If we think about it, it is logical to find these same factors in the self-regula-


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tion and appropriation of the same language. For French, let us re-examine the example of the future construction already invoked above. The co-existence of the two future constructions is obviously due not to semantic nuances (such as INDEFINITE FUTURE for the ‘simple future’ or DEFINITE FUTURE for the periphrastic future) but to speakers’ tendency to use a form/construction that is semantically transparent and, especially, regular. Which francophone is sure of the future form of the verb bouillir ‘boil,’ or mourir ‘die’? The ordinary Frenchman, like speakers engaged in the appropriation process, shows a preference for periphrastic constructions, although he does not allow them to prevail, given the normative pressure in favor of simpler forms. This is a situation rather similar to that of creolization, which selects as a base form a variant from the lexifier. Although this is certainly a convenient strategy, its norm prevents the selected form from generalizing, despite the fact that the French have used it for centuries. Let us re-examine the example of the development of creole tense–aspect systems. The colonists undoubtedly used two systems, the ‘normal’ conjugation and periphrastic constructions, as in Table 5.1. It is no longer possible to verify the hypothesis in all these respects, because the target language has changed. However, in the face of this dual system, speakers in the process of appropriating the target language have naturally developed their approximative systems on the basis of the second, periphrastic paradigm, which – we should note in passing – continues to thrive in North American and Caribbean French varieties and on St Barths. This system was indeed regular (X INFINITIVE in all cases), meaning-bearing, semantically transparent, and based on invariant elements. It also had a fixed word order. Structural convergence with source languages is not precluded in the case of bozal slaves learning the target. However, this explanation is not sufficient, because this type of construction is also observable both in creoles developed by slaves who spoke radically different languages and in child language acquisition. It is attested even in varieties of French spoken in France and in the ACR. French varieties in Africa I am especially concerned here with black sub-Saharan Africa, where research has developed considerably over the last few years. The sociohistorical context in this area is nonetheless very different from that of creolization, in that, except for certain isolated cases, continental Black Africa has generally not experienced settlement colonization. Consequently, this area should be associated with studies on learning French, and in no way should it be concluded that I subscribe to the idea that French was creolized in sub-Saharan Africa. A few points justify why this area is specifically being considered. First of all, for more than twenty years, a very specific line of linguistic and sociolinguistic research on French spoken in Africa has developed. This research program was initially put forth by Bal (1975) and then elaborated upon by Manessy and Wald (1979, 1984), and Manessy (1994a, 1994b). Furthermore – although it is not, in my opinion, accurate to speak of ‘creolization’ of French in Africa (even though

je suis après manger / je suis à manger ‘I be (PRESENT) after eat’ / ‘I be (PRESENT) at eat’ j’étais après manger / j’étais à manger ‘I be (IMPERFECT) after eat’ / ‘I be (IMPERFECT) at eat’ je vais manger / je suis pour manger ‘I go (FUTURE) eat’ / ‘I be (FUTURE) for eat’ j’ai fini de manger [lit. ‘I have finished eating’] ‘I have finish (PAST PARTICIPLE) of eat’ allons manger [lit. ‘let’s go eat’] ‘go (EXHORTATIVE, 1st person plural) eat’

je mange

I eat (PRESENT)

je mangeais

I eat (IMPERFECT)

je mangerai

I eat (FUTURE)

j’ai mangé

I have eat (PAST PARTICIPLE)

mangeons

eat (EXHORTATIVE, 1st person plural)

Table 5.1 Colonial French dual tense system

‘let’s eat’

‘I have eaten’

‘I will eat’

‘I was eating’

‘I am eating’


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some authors, in particular Hattiger 1981, have done just that) – several aspects are surely relevant to the study of creolization. For example, français tirailleur (French used in colonial armies), so dear to Houis, is evidence of deliberate simplifications of the language by French native speakers, but these simplifications were undoubtedly based just as much on how French was actually being restructured by the Africans who approximated it. Finally, the French varieties spoken in a few large urban centers in Africa (Abidjan and Yaoundé in particular), varieties which were perhaps in the process of vernacularization, are surely points of comparison that research on creolization of French cannot do without. However, the major differences that exist between the two historical and sociolinguistic situations deter us, a priori, from equating them. What remains in any case fundamental to our approach is taking into account the ‘terminus a quo,’ that is, the state of French (folk, regional, etc.) that was spoken by the colonists. Both sociolinguistic and linguistic problems arise here, and one can only hope to clarify them by way of a comparative analysis of data from many sources. In addition to the traditional (both historical and modern) sources on French varieties, dialect studies (linguistic atlases) and corpora of ‘regional French’ (although defining this term poses numerous problems) should be more systematically explored. These kinds of data, for example those collected by Brasseur (1989) on French spoken on the island of Jersey, seem to be of considerable importance and interest.

The evolution of French and creolization The ‘natural’ evolution of French is also pertinent, even though, as shown above, French creoles cannot be considered as the outcome only of such processes – which, in order to avoid the metaphor implicit in ‘natural,’ can be defined as ‘self-regulatory’: that is, resulting from a self-restructuring process within the language (Chaudenson 1982). This perspective overlaps with Bateson’s (1977:233–234) concept of ‘self-corrective unit’. We can thus hope to uncover, throughout the operations of a language and capture in its historical and geographical diversity, the interplay of intrasystemic factors in variation as well as evolution. Variation is, of course, the synchronic sign of evolution as well as one of its primary causes (the others being extra- or inter-systemic). The crucial point here is the constancy of certain modes of restructurings.7 It is very striking to see how a language, at several periods in its history and in various social contexts, is affected by restructuring processes that, even when different methods are employed, affect the same areas of the system, regardless of time or place. The existence of constants in the modes of language appropriation should not eclipse the obvious differences in conditions of creolization, both in terms of the target language itself and the sociolinguistic conditions of appropriation. In every case, at least until the creole had reached a certain stability which brought it relatively close to its present state, appropriation was carried out from linguistic targets that were undoubtedly composed more of continua of approximations of French than of homogenous and stable language states. This holds true for

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creole children as well as for immigrant slaves. These sociolinguistic conditions were also present in the most isolated francophone communities in North America (Missouri and Louisiana), which supported sizable slave populations. Undoubtedly such factors played an important role in the evolution of these French varieties (Chaudenson 1985b). Although the first version of my hypothesis (1974a) was inadequate on this point, it nonetheless emphasized the significance of ‘language contact’ in creolization: ‘The presence of language contact was a decisive element in the evolution of the speech of the European colonists’ (1974a:1145). My study simply failed to examine sufficiently the role of contact. This shortcoming is due to the fact that, at that time, not a single pertinent study was available. I got the chance in my subsequent publications, from 1978 on, to discuss more thoroughly these aspects (Chaudenson 1978, 1979). The entire study of the relationship between French and creoles must therefore strive to integrate these various aspects into a hypothesis of creolization, which as far as I am concerned can be formulated thus: Creolization is the result of sociolinguistic processes peculiar to the development of societies which were born out of seventeenth-century European colonization. Furthermore, it is characterized by the emergence of new autonomous systems, which arise from initial continua of approximations of earlier folk and/or dialectal French. These new systems are distinguished by the acceleration and radicalization of self-regulating processes, illustrated by ‘marginal’ French varieties of, especially, North America. But even more crucially, creolization is characterized by restructuring and specific innovations. It is the latter which, resulting from the conditions and modes of informal appropriation of these approximative varieties of French, sanction the linguistic autonomy of creoles by affecting elements of the system which are located outside the area of ‘normal’ variability of French. This perspective strikes me as diverging from classic theories of creolization, which for the most part define it as ‘nativization’ and/or ‘complexification’ of a pidgin – leaving aside those that claim only simple relexification of ‘substrate’ languages. The marked evolution in creolization toward systems which are not simpler8 but are at any rate more regular (tending toward ‘univocity,’ to use a term that Hjelmslev borrowed from Couturat 1938:285) is one of the characteristic tendencies of all forms of linguistic appropriation. Therefore, independent of sociolinguistic conditions, creolization results from a convergence of factors which bring about the following: 1 2

the likely emergence of a koiné, already marked by restructuring – American ‘marginal’ French varieties illustrate this; the emergence of a continuum of approximations of the target language in communicative situations in which a strong centripetal system is found; and

Linguistic creolization 3

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a system in the process of autonomization, constituted by relatively constant strategies of language appropriation, from ‘peripheral’ approximations of the preceding phase of development.

Evolution and norm The various realms of appropriation distinguished above reveal a remarkable convergence at several points, and the restructuring that takes place in them is also often similar, in spite of different conditions of usage. All these situations present, to varying degrees, the common characteristic of very little exposure and/or sensitivity to the norm, which is obviously a factor that is very favorable to restructuring in a system. In fact, this phenomenon is attested in expatriate francophone populations in environments that lack a cultural superstructure, which helps to explain the obvious differences between French and Spanish colonization, as already discussed. Lack of normative exposure is also the case in child language acquisition and in adult ‘second’-language learning. It could even be said that Phase I of colonial societies encompasses both these characteristics. Therefore, it seems useless to privilege the role of children, as Bickerton does. In many ways, the restructuring that occurs in child language is akin to what is produced by adult speakers in other contexts. As stated in Chaudenson (1974a:1145): ‘The fundamental tendencies of folk language (brevity, expressiveness, and invariability), once freed from the constraint of the norm, are pushed to the extreme’ (p. 1145). One can consider creolization to be in part a special case of divergence from a language, to the extent that restructuring has affected areas that were already variable in the original system. However, at the same time, creolization is a radical linguistic mutation, since structural changes touch other areas that are not, in principle, affected by change associated exclusively with internal linguistic factors. The first aspect is surely predominant in Phase I, in which, as shown above, the organization of the system of interactions is strongly centripetal (toward French). The second aspect, that of radical linguistic mutation, is probably dominant in Phase II and leads to the autonomization of the new system. I have briefly invoked the problem of variation in French (in the terminus a quo stage) by saying that in the seventeenth century French-speakers’ tolerance for linguistic variation must have been much greater than can be observed today. Surely this is what explains the fact that a good deal of historical testimony asserts that Blacks in the colonies spoke French, whereas it is quite likely that they would have only managed approximations. At this point the descriptors applied to the French of the Black Islanders (‘corrupted’ or ‘altered’) come to mind, and these adjectives are curiously identical to those that are used in France itself to describe folk French varieties (Chapter 2). The crucial issue of the terminus a quo of creolization is actually comprised of three aspects:

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Linguistic creolization the linguistic competence of the French colonists (francophone and/or Oïl dialect-speakers); the nature of the system of communication employed by the ‘francophone’ speakers; and the sociolinguistic conditions of interaction.

I have primarily discussed the first two aspects, for which the comparison between ‘marginal’ French varieties and French creoles is the best tool of investigation. Paradoxically, it is the third aspect, that of conditions and modes of interaction, which provides the surest footing. A general principle is at work there, and one that could almost be expressed as a sociolinguistic law: in a linguistic community, the frequency and abundance of variation are, as it were, inversely proportional to normative pressure. It is necessary at this point to elaborate on what I metaphorically call ‘normative pressure.’ There is no need here to discuss the concept of a norm itself. In this work I use the word in its most trivial sense: ‘a dominant social group’s practices, which are coercive in nature and are imposed primarily by means of a sociocultural apparatus.’ In modern societies, these ‘dominant practices’ constitute ‘an explicit norm’ that consists of three major components: 1

2 3

‘discourse on the norm, that is, a notion or view of language according to which linguistic facts can be classified in terms of the categories of good, bad, correct, pure, incomplete, standard … ’; ‘a referencing apparatus comprised of examples of proper usage among speakers invested with authority or prestige in matters concerning language’; a diffusion system permitting the imposition of the norm, ‘due to its hegemonic role of legitimate reference in strategic places such as schools, the media and public administration, including courts of law.’ (Aléong 1983:270)

I have deliberately chosen this particular description of the explicit norm in modern society in order to elucidate fully the difference between the nature of a norm in contemporary society and in insular colonial societies of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the latter societies, there was no explicit norm, in that the dominant social group, comprised of Whites, was itself relatively heterogeneous and made up essentially of illiterate individuals of humble origin and modest social conditions. Nor was there a socio-cultural apparatus – schooling in particular was lacking, and government was also limited. Note, in addition, that the seventeenth century was precisely the period during which the process of stabilization and normalization of French began to take effect in France itself (there is no need here to recapitulate the classic analyses of this process by Gougenheim 1929, Guiraud 1965, or Brunot 1966). Furthermore, in a number of different cases a significant time lag has been observed between the official datings of older French structures and those that can be inferred for the French spoken by the colonists from comparisons between creoles and French


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varieties of North America. In light of this, the aforementioned ‘stabilization’ and ‘normalization’ occurred much later than is typically claimed (Chaudenson 1974a:733–4). In the early stages of these colonial societies, normative pressure was unquestionably at a minimum. We should, however, distinguish normative pressure from what could be called sensitivity and/or exposure to the norm. However, at the heart of a linguistic community, speakers – depending on their age, role, and social status – are not equally exposed and/or sensitive to this pressure, however intense it may be. For example, if we consider the appropriation of French in these societies, both children in the process of acquiring the language and adult immigrants learning it were not so sensitive to normative pressure, since sensitivity to the norm presupposes some degree of linguistic competence, which would make one aware of the relevant norm. Moreover, they were relatively unexposed to the norm. For children, normative pressure comes from school, whereas for adult learners language classes are what imparts maximal normative pressure. During language appropriation, these speakers benefit, so to speak, from a certain exemption – provisional for children, statutory for adult learners – from the normative constraint. Generally, various social factors bear on how one is exposed to and becomes sensitive to this pressure. The initial phase of colonial societies (Phase I in my periodization) brings together these factors that reduce normative pressure (for creole children and immigrant slaves). This point seems to approximate to certain observations of Bickerton’s. According to him, children born in such societies can put their ‘bioprogram’ to use all the more readily, and necessarily, because the language productions to which they are exposed are very heterogeneous, if not entirely anarchical. I do not completely agree with him, and a good deal of sociolinguistic historical data justify my reservations, at least insofar as French creoles are concerned. I see a homology between the restructuring illustrated by what Frei (1929) calls français avancé, ‘advanced French,’ and what turns up in various forms of appropriation of French (except that, in the case of language learning, one must take into account the role of intersystemic factors). As noted above, it does not seem accurate, despite internal variation, to consider the more or less dialectal French of the first colonists as linguistically so heterogeneous as not to constitute a sufficient target for children acquiring the language. Toward the concept of ‘français zéro’ (F0) The primary effect of normative pressure is to neutralize tendencies toward intrasystemic variation. It is certainly tempting to represent these antagonistic forces as working from bottom to top. Since norms generally come from a socially dominant group, we tend to consider them as moving from top to bottom (‘pressure’), and this representation is in some ways ‘natural’ and comfortable. However, it must not lead us to imagine linguistic change as a Manichean struggle between an intralinguistic Caliban and a normative Prospero!

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The causes and constituents of normative pressure are easily brought to light and analyzed, but it is an entirely different story for the forces that work against it. As already briefly noted, one of their most prominent characteristics is their permanence and constancy. A few years after first formulating my hypothesis I was very heartened to read Baron’s Language Acquisition and Historical Change (1977), which reinforces my stance considerably. In fact, it emphasizes, in the context of English, the resemblance between a language’s historical evolution and the provisional grammars formed during its acquisition (not an entirely new idea – in some ways it is reminiscent of the often-invoked connection between ontogenesis and phylogenesis).9 For French, this hypothesis has been confirmed (Chaudenson, Valli, and Véronique 1986). The geographical dispersal of French throughout the world and its survival over many centuries in isolates such as those in North America (i.e., its presence outside France and in different social contexts) enable us to also note that there is some spatial stability in the distribution of these variants and restructuring processes, which have, rather sloppily, been called ‘errors,’ ‘imperfections,’ ‘regionalisms,’ ‘dialectalisms,’ ‘archaisms,’ etc. Interpretations of such data are marked by a certain anthropomorphism. What surely originates with speakers is attributed to the system itself. ‘Needs’ (Frei 1929) and ‘tendencies’ (Chaudenson 1974a), manifested in (or even by) language, are described. Frei is careful in this respect. In the conclusion of his book, he invokes ‘needs which are the raison d’être of language and which, by their action on it, endlessly create and recreate it’ (1929:291). He immediately adds: ‘To go further and wonder where these needs come from and why they can, from one idiom or one epoch to another, vary in force, is to approach the external linguistics problem.’ It is legitimate, and indeed cautious, not to speculate upon the causes of such facts, even if one recognizes their existence. However, this does not do away with the basic difficulty of naming them. Manessy (1983) approaches the problem from a perspective similar to mine, as underscored by his title, ‘Français, créoles français, français régionaux.’ His hypothesis is this: ‘It is a question of processes whose operation is linked to the use of language, and which are thus universal (and not determined by the characteristic structure of a particular system) and permanent’ (1983:3). These ‘processes,’ in his opinion, are due to functionalization: that is, they manifest a tendency to seek ‘the narrow equivalence of linguistic means used in communication for immediate communicative efficacy.’ This position is similar to that of Hjelmslev, who called this tendency ‘optimization’ and believed that ‘all language tends in theory toward an absolute optimum’ (1938:281). According to Manessy, ‘Regional French varieties are far from attaining ‘absolute univocity,’ but they are close to it in different respects (1983:7). These observations are very much in line with my own, with only a very slight difference. In fact, Manessy characterizes as ‘conservatism’ all that stands in the way of functionality of language and this is, in his opinion, attributable either to the pressures of a prestigious norm or to the weight of cultural tradition (1983:15). A minor reservation I have concerns the term


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‘conservatism.’ It seems that in a number of cases, due to the very permanence of the relevant ‘tendencies’ toward a particular system, archaisms and innovations are not easily distinguished from one another. It was for this reason that I gave my 1973 article the title (with hindsight rather too sibylline, at least for those who were not going to read the text) ‘Pour une étude comparée des créoles et français d’outre-mer: survivance et innovation’ (‘Towards a comparative study of creoles and overseas French: Survivals and innovations’). My point of divergence with Manessy concerns the role of the system itself. For him, the processes are ‘universal’ and ‘not determined by the characteristic structure of a particular system’ (1983:3). This I find hard to accept without reservation: even if the processes are universal and permanent, the very structure of the system within which these forces operate must inevitably play a role and must at least influence their particular modes of operation. Thus the ‘needs’ (for brevity, expressiveness, etc.) which Frei presents as general, and even suggests as almost universal, show up in languages in ways so diverse that an underlying unity is hard to find. A parallel example from outside linguistics will help to illustrate this point: art from different cultures can take such varied forms that one has great difficulty finding a common matrix for it. One of the conclusions in my 1982 review of Bickerton’s Roots of Language (1981) was that the traits characterizing the reputedly universal model, which itself reflects the linguistic bioprogram, may actually have been linked instead to the variational and evolutionary tendencies of English, for the great majority of examples in this text were taken from linguistic systems originating in English. Herein lies another, previously mentioned, problem: bringing to light the specific linguistic features that serve to establish either a typological group (creoles) or an initial structuring process of all linguistic appropriation (the ‘bioprogram’). Bickerton’s innovation was to assert that the two are identical, or at least similar. At this point, the only course of action is to maintain the absolute necessity for such approaches to be enriched with a rigorous comparative methodology. The comparative grammars of Indo-European languages provide a noteworthy example of the kind of approach we should be wise to emulate. Returning to the object of our discussion, I have not forgotten the epistemological reservations that may arise from the use of the term ‘evolutionary tendencies’ in relation to a linguistic system, because of its anthropomorphic connotations. I have therefore long preferred the expression ‘self-regulating processes,’ which seems more adequate and invokes the ‘self-correcting’ systems of cybernetics. Such systems lay the foundations of Bateson’s approach: ‘Any system based on events and objects, which lays out a complex of causal circuits and adequate relational energy, certainly represents “mental” characteristics’ (1977:231). Certainly the point is not the same, and these days the ‘pure’ descriptivist linguist does not hesitate to state his firm intention not to venture outside of his own (self-defined, of course) discipline. This is exactly Frei’s attitude. Having discussed ‘needs’ – which, in his own terms, are ‘the raison d’être of language and, by their action on it, endlessly create and recreate it’ (1929:291) – he is reluctant

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to reflect on their causes and their modalities of action, leaving these questions in the ‘terra incognita’ of ‘external linguistics’ (ibid.). Today, such investigations are consigned to the field of ‘cognitive’ studies, a handy mind/language alternative, which Bateson’s work has the primary merit of abandoning. An interesting point in his theory is the idea of putting ‘mind’ in the ‘Man Environment’ unit: ‘Finally we can say that … mind is immanent in a vaster system: Man Environment’ (1977:233). He illustrates this idea with the example of the man who cuts down a tree with a hatchet, or, better still, that of a blind man and his cane. Bateson reuses this example in other passages of his work: Where does the self of the blind man begin? at the end of the cane? or rather at the handle? or even at some intermediate point? All of these questions are absurd, since the cane is simply a channel along which transformed differences are transmitted, so that if this channel were cut off, a part of the systemic circuit which determines the blind man’s potential for locomotion would be abolished. (Bateson 1977:234) It is clear why those committed to ‘internal linguistics’ (regardless of their framework) are so concerned by areas to which their hypotheses do not apply. Their idealistic obsession is to construe ‘linguistic systems’: objects whose neat and fixed structures are unavoidably and constantly disrupted by their importunate users. These linguists’ most obvious concern is therefore to exclude from the field of research the actual ways in which such ‘systems’ are used. Depending on one’s cultural background, this approach can be compared with the ‘Wonder Battery’ (which wears out only if used) or Le Franc de Pompignan’s poems (which, says Voltaire, are ‘sacred because nobody touches them’)! The vis loquendi of man creates language and, as Frei insightfully observes, ‘endlessly recreates it.’ Therefore, ‘the speaking man’ is a unit in which ‘man’ (the ‘cognitive’) and ‘language’ (the linguistic) are isolated and even partitioned for the convenience of certain scientific approaches. All the descriptivist schools of language try desperately to convince us that languages are rigid and fixed systems that can be completely codified and formalized, although evidence shows that, in actual use, they are messy and fuzzy systems. This same desire drives these linguists to deal almost exclusively with written languages, whose form is, by definition, decidedly fixed. The homology between an algebraic formula and a linguistic ‘rule,’ even one bristling with mathematical and logical symbols, is only superficial. An algebraic equation can be applied, over millennia, to an infinity of factorial valorizations without any modification, whereas the slightest glance at the history of any language proves that the application of a linguistic rule eventually leads to its inevitable transformation. A language, unlike the Wonder Battery that wears out with use, changes as it is used. Linguistic structure is eminently self-corrective and self-regulatory, and this capacity is due, in particular, to gaps in encoding and decoding, for which ambiguity is only a form tolerated by the norm itself. To use my earlier terminology (for lack of a better term), the self-regulatory


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processes are not located exclusively or entirely in the human mind or in the linguistic system. The system is presumed to be inert outside the speaker, and yet its structure plays a role in the application and direction of these processes. In this respect, one of the weak points in Bickerton’s theory is that it is not clear why languages should be so thoroughly removed from the bioprogram. The argument that they have evolved over the course of time hardly holds, because, in contrast to biological adaptation in a particular environment, it is difficult to imagine what could be considered a linguistic adaptation in this environment, especially on the syntactic level. It would seem more realistic to posit universals that are perhaps more cognitive than linguistic. Such universals could, in typologically different languages, lead to restructuring processes that are sometimes similar, sometimes very different, depending on how different the relevant systems are. What is in any case certain is that the search for strict descriptive approaches to language has led to very reductive perspectives. This is itself bizarre, since there is a certain paradox in wanting to reduce languages to ‘rigid’ systems. It is clear that actual language use allows a significant amount of ‘flux,’ and also that diachronic change implies synchronic variation. To be sure, the study of variation, fundamental to any understanding of change, illustrates the ‘feedback’ from performance to competence, from speech to language. In fact, in fluent communication, linguistic operation tolerates relative approximations or variations in encoding, as well as in decoding. If a speaker, as in the following contemporary example, says C’est moi qui a fait …, ‘It’s I who did … ,’ and the interlocutor has in his idiolectal competence only the rule which produces C’est moi qui ai fait, the comprehension of the message is in no way affected. This example has been chosen completely at random, and the fact that one can construct a so-called ‘variable rule’ that allows both constructions is not important here – despite the bizarreness of the expression ‘variable rule.’ In this case variation is connected with a clash of rules, between normative usage (which requires the verb to agree in person with the personal pronoun before the relative pronoun) and ‘folk’ or ‘current’ usage, as Frei would call it, which exhibits two different types of variation. One involves generalizing the third-person singular verb form to all singular subjects (c’est moi/toi, qui a fait … ) and the third-person plural form to all plural subjects (c’est nous qui ont fait … ), or even the wholesale generalization of the third-person singular verb form to subjects of any person and number (c’est nous qui a fait ça …). The other variation, studied by Frei (1929:188), is connected to the elaboration of a paradigm of the type C’est moi que je …, c’est toi que tu … by decoupling the relativizer into an invariant complementizer que and a resumptive pronoun. Due to a lack of exact analysis, it is not well understood whether we are dealing here with a different competence acquired by imperfect appropriation, a variable performance despite a competence conforming to the norm,10 or a different competence acquired by direct exposure to such utterances (for instance, the individual, in his social milieu, could very well have been exposed only to articulations of the ‘folk’ type during the acquisition stage). Solving such

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problems calls for preliminary research, and one of the most urgent lines of inquiry is a closer study of variability in French and other lexifiers. Independent of time and place, the parts of the system where variation is attested remain remarkably permanent, for French and very likely for all languages. Frei does not address this at all. Rather, he neutralizes these parameters, in a body of work unfortunately almost devoid of exact references. The systematic and exhaustive cataloging of ‘sectors’ where variation is found should make it possible to identify the set of variables, which, depending on place and time, will be recognized as variants, equivalent or nonequivalent, obsolete or recurrent. Of course, for a given variety of French, not all the variables will necessarily be involved. I have proposed to call the set made up of these variables français zéro (F0). This label is not transparent, a priori, and it has even been understood in a derogatory sense! It approximates somewhat the Indo-European theory of roots. F0 is the set of variables which can, hic et nunc, be realized by diverse variants – for example a zero-degree root may have various vocalic or semi-vocalic realizations. This term is not entirely satisfactory, because in root theory zero degree is itself a variant; I am therefore quite ready to renounce this nomenclature in favor of a more adequate one. Although I could be wrong, I have decided not to succumb to current fashion by adding a ‘model of statistical variability of French’ (MSVF) to the Anglo-Saxon LAD (language acquisition device), TMA (tense-mood-aspect), etc. This model seems very useful to me, as much for the definition, for example, of regional French as for the linguistic study of creolization (Chaudenson 1986a). In fact, from the latter perspective, creolization begins when variability extends to parts of the system located outside F0. Thus the use in IOR creoles of the single form zot for second- and third-person plural personal pronouns and possessive adjectives is a restructuring which exists in no variety of French, even though an evolutionary sketch of this process can be partly observed in some of them (for instance, the suffixation of -autres to personal pronouns in North American French varieties). Although this outline of a linguistic definition of creolization may seem to contradict my aforementioned position, in fact it is in no way typological and does not claim to provide definite features of all creoles and only of creoles. Rather, it makes it possible – and this is significant, I think – to bring to light the linguistic criteria for defining a creole in relation to its lexifier. My starting hypothesis is therefore that the French varieties of North America and St Barths constitute the state of French that is closest to the terminus a quo of creolization. It is a French variety of this kind, spoken by the colonists who arrived on the Islands in the seventeenth century, which provided the target language for the imported slaves. A continuum of approximations of this variety – which itself surely had already undergone specific changes from French (outside F0) – developed during Phase I, even to the extent that a significant proportion of the linguistic community consisted of learners. But this was not the case in North American French communities, where almost the entire population spoke this French variety as a native language. Réunion has the peculiarity of preserving, to a certain extent, traces of this approximative French in


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‘creolized French,’ its present-day acrolectal creole. This was originally preserved by the rapid proletarianization of a part of the so-called petits blancs (discussed above). The term ‘creolized French’ (Carayol and Chaudenson 1973) remains the most appropriate for designating this linguistic variety, which today can be regarded as the acrolect of the Réunionnais continuum but, diachronically, is a sort of social ‘fossilization’ of the core of the continuum of approximations of French spoken on eighteenth-century Bourbon. This hypothesis rests not only on the sociohistorical analysis proposed in Chapter 4 but also, of course, on linguistic data presented in, e.g., Carayol and Chaudenson (1973). It can therefore be said that creolization is the result of three sets of overlapping processes: 1

2

3

The ‘radicalization’ and ‘transmission’ of restructuring processes, for which ‘marginal’ French varieties offered variants and provided the direction. These varieties are, in some ways, the missing links in the reconstruction of an evolution that goes from French to creoles, affecting some aspects of the system but not the whole system. The emergence (outside F0) of structures not attested in French varieties spoken in communities where French is transmitted as a native language. These new structures are due to readjustments tied to learning and linguistic contact. (This somewhat oversimplified formula avoids the problem inherent in Bickerton’s ‘bioprogram,’ which equally concerns the preceding point.) This perspective does not exclude the fact that the direction of these restructuring processes could be partly determined by convergences with the learners’ original linguistic systems, depending on how typologically heterogeneous the languages previously spoken by the subordinate population were. Internal evolution linked to the system’s own dynamics – which, in certain cases, we can study, thanks to the existence of historical documents (Chaudenson 1981c). Réunionnais thus exhibits a tendency toward ‘basilectal erosion,’ which led, among other consequences, to accentuating the differences between it and Mauritian Creole. Furthermore, this dialect itself underwent a different evolution, in part linked to Indian immigrations during the second half of the nineteenth century.

The study of the dynamics of creolization thus involves the examination of the ensemble of these processes, which are not always easily distinguishable from one another.

Linguistic dynamics and processes of creolization The easiest thing to do here is to discuss an example. I have somewhat simplified the data and avoided the specialized debates on particular issues associated with certain creoles, in order to focus more specifically on the dynamics and processes of change. In a preliminary version of this chapter I presented an analysis of

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determiners and demonstrative pronouns in French and the various French creoles. This took up 14 pages – which were very dense and dry, even for the most zealous and experienced reader of linguistic reconstruction – so I decided to eliminate it, even though I found it quite exemplary, in terms of etymology. By so doing, I hope to have made things more straightforward.11 One of the elements of simplification will be the absence of complete references for examples from North American French varieties.12 An example: French and Creole verb systems In order to retain a general focus and discuss a broad grammatical category, I have chosen as an example the tense–aspect system, which is recognized as one of the principal ‘distinguishing characteristics’ of creoles in relation to their lexifiers. This means I am approaching the subject matter here at variance with all substratists, from Sylvain (1936) to Bentolila (1970),13 who have used the verbal system of French creoles as the primary foundation for ‘demonstrating’ the existence of an African substrate. Of course, these authors, in an effort to demonstrate the impossibility of a genetic relationship between French and creole verbal systems, use the standard conjugation of the modern French verb as a basis for comparison. Thus, two radically different systems are unjustifiably compared. When a French verb is conjugated, nearly all, if not all, morphology occurs after the verb stem, and so the pronominal person marker, placed before the verb is often redundant: nous (FIRST PERSON PLURAL ) chant-ions (VERB STEM IMPERFECT MARKER and FIRST PERSON PLURAL ). For the creole verb, in general, everything occurs before the verb stem, which itself is nearly invariable. So in Mauritian Creole, for example, we have nou (FIRST PERSON PLURAL ) ti (PAST TENSE MARKER ) santé (VERB STEM , < chanter). The contrast between these two verbal systems is radical, and the reason for this is allegedly the African substrate. During his 1981 inaugural address at the third Colloque International des Etudes Créoles in St Lucia, Bernard Pottier brought up this question and brilliantly demonstrated that, in the French verb, a lot of things do in fact occur to the left of the verb stem, even in the contemporary standard language. If we systematically try to establish the ‘terminus a quo’ of creoles, things become even clearer. We will now examine our two primary frames of reference: older folk and/or regional French, and ‘marginal’ French varieties of America. The history of the French verbal system, like the study of ‘marginal’ varieties, reveals speakers’ constant efforts to modify and reduce the language’s complexity. I will limit myself to two crucial and interconnected grammatical features: conjugation and the expression of tense and aspect. Conjugation: person and number Following (and preceding) many other scholars, Brunot (1966) emphasized the tendency of French-speakers to alter the verbal inflections for person. With


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regard to creoles, he noted: ‘The most surprising simplification is that of person and number. Didn’t French provide the model for it in mange, which is used by four out of six persons, leaving aside peasants’ confusions?’ (p. 1141). The confusions are not limited to ‘peasants,’ and Brunot himself cites the following quotation from François I: ‘J’avons espérance qu’il fera beau temps’ (p. 335). In fact, such constructions were abundant in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century folk French. In order not to multiply the number of examples, I will for convenience sake quote Brunot again: In the present indicative, the plural form tended to replace the singular: j’allons. This usage, obviously borrowed from Patois, was very common in Palsgrave. … In the eighteenth century, upper-class people were already saying j’avons, while the true peasants were saying j’ons. In the Berry region, people still say j’ons point d’ouvrage … Jolibois: J’ons été là et là. Sans Regret: J’ons été … N’est-il pas vrai qu’il faut dire j’avons été? La Ramée: J’avons, tu gn’es pas non pus, toi, avec ton j’avons. On dit nous ont été quèque part. (Vadé, Les Racoleurs, scene X, cited in Brunot 1966:335)14 The similarities between the language in Vadé’s text and North American varieties of French, with which I am rather familiar, seem to me striking. This observation supports my global hypothesis. Regarding the verb, ‘marginal’ French varieties exhibit features similar to those of creoles, and they give evidence of a systemization of these facts and of intrasystemic developments. Although it is very close to standard French, Louisiana French (LF) progresses toward the end result described by Brunot (one single form for the verb stem): five persons take the same inflection ( je, tu, i, on, i, parl; vou parlé ), something that is almost true of spoken French today. In authentic ‘marginal’ French varieties, the ‘aberrant’ folk forms of the seventeenth century have become ‘normal’: je sons, j’étions; j’ons, j’avions in Acadian French; and i sontaient, i onvaient in Missouri French.15 In the present-day French of the island of Jersey (which, thanks to Patrice Brasseur, I know a little bit about) forms such as the following are still spoken: Je pouvons, je sommes à monger, je nous rencontrons, etc. As we have seen, my position is that the examination of older, folk and regional facts should not be separated from strategies of appropriation, which I believe have contributed to the restructuring of French since colonial times. Without giving a detailed account (which can be found in Chaudenson 1989), note that in all restructuring the third-person singular plays a decisive role. I had already formulated this hypothesis for Réunionnais, in which both the generalization of dislocated constructions of the type (SUBSTANTIVE or PRONOUN il … ), and the emergence of forms like lé (= être), na/la (= avoir) as unique verb stems, have been verified (Chaudenson 1974:a966–969):

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Linguistic creolization Missouri French: vous l’est or vous aut l’est (= vous êtes), ‘you-PLURAL are’ Réunionnais: vou lé (= tu es), ‘you-SINGULAR are’; zot lé (= vous êtes), ‘youPLURAL are’ Acadian French in Louisiana: in’na (= il a), ‘he has’; tun’na, vous n’a (= tu as, vous avez), ‘you-SINGULAR /you-PLURAL have’; Réunionnais: i na (= il a), ‘he has’; toué na, zot na (= tu as, vous avez), ‘youSINGULAR /you-PLURAL have’ Mauritian Creole: li éna, i éna (= il a), ‘he/she has’; to éna (= tu as), ‘youSINGULAR have’; zot éna (= vous avez), ‘you-PLURAL have’.

More astonishing still are the parallels with the French of Jersey. I will only give a few examples, with the Réunionnais equivalents indicated in brackets: Nous sait [nou i koné] ‘we know’; nous est [nou lé]; ‘we are’ nous peut [nou i pé] ‘ we can’; nous dit [nou i di] ‘we say’; nous y va [nou i va]; ‘we go’ nous devise [nou i koz] ‘we talk’; etc. … (personal communication, Patrice Brasseur) Two conclusions emerge. The first is the hypothesis that Réunionnais, particularly in its acrolectal variety (‘creolized French’), preserves certain structures close to the language of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French colonists. The second is the confirmation of the role of the third-person singular in the verbal restructuring, which is observable in regional or folk varieties of French today, like that of Jersey, and in ‘marginal’ varieties (like those in Louisiana and Missouri). It is attested, a fortiori, in creoles, because the language of the colonists must have already possessed structures of this type. This tendency can be observed even at the level of linguistic appropriation in general, as claimed by Mougeon and Beniak (1981) in a work which at the beginning brings up Ontario French: In languages with verbal inflections, it is the third-person singular forms that the child learns first and that he, in his ignorance, will over-generalize to other contexts [there follow examples borrowed, for the acquisition of French, from Grégoire]. Simoes and Stoel-Gammon report very similar observations with regard to children’s acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese verbal morphology. Based on these facts, Hooper (1980) sets out the hypothesis that in the history of languages it should be possible to find signs of a reworking of other verbal forms on those of the third-person singular. (Mougeon and Beniak 1981) The facts that I have adduced are pieces of evidence that bear on Hooper’s research. The comparison with the acquisition of Portuguese is also interesting


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for the study of creolization. Not only are French and Portuguese typologically very close, they apparently also undergo similar appropriation strategies. Insofar as it preserves archaic features that have essentially disappeared everywhere else, what we see in Réunionnais is the ultimate outcome of self-regulatory tendencies of French, of which language varieties such as Louisiana and Missouri French constitute intermediate stages (evolutionary ‘missing links’). The examination of person markers leads to the same conclusion: Standard French: je, tu/vous, il/elle, nous, vous, ils/elles Creoles:16 moin/mo/m, to/ou/vou, li/i, nou, zot, yo/yé (ACR)/zot (IOR). Therefore, creoles have substituted the tonic pronouns for the atonic pronouns ( je, etc.). We will proceed, as before, by examining older varieties of spoken French, then ‘marginal’ French varieties, and finally strategies of appropriation. I will be brief in discussing the older varieties, because, as always, information is rare on folk language. Nevertheless, the facts clearly show the existence of this type of evolutionary tendency: Very early on, the forms of the objective case: moi, toi, lui, eux which, being ‘heavier’ than the forms of the subject case ( je, tu, il, ils pronounced ‘j, t, i, i’), replaced the latter before the verb. From the end of the thirteenth century … moi was the subject of a verb. In the fourteenth, Froissart writes indiscriminately ‘il et ses gens,’ ‘lui et ses gens.’ (Brunot and Bruneau 1993:225) North American French varieties show evidence of the same restructuring, although it is not systematic yet: lui travaille ‘he works’, toi es venue ‘you came’ in Louisiana French; moi, j’peux pas parler ‘I cannot talk’, Eusses i parlont pas français ‘they [do] not speak French’ in Acadian French of Louisiana; and moin, j’vas la lever ‘I’m gonna get up’, moin m’a aller essayer ‘I’m gonna try’, parce que lui connaissait pas ‘because he didn’t know’, lui il a avancé ‘he moved forward’ in Missouri French. These attestations call for a few remarks: 1

2

The substitution of tonic pronouns for the atonic series was probably gradual, and, once more, North American French varieties show evidence of rule conflicts. Brunot and Bruneau’s explanation is undoubtedly the best: that the atonic pronouns ‘lack weight and are highly variable ( je, j’, ej, etc.).’ The reinforcement of the forms nous, vous, eux by autres, very prevalent in the French varieties of America and also attested in creoles, can be similarly explained. Missouri French has the form moin, which is very common (moins, j’sus ben …, ‘I am fine’; à l’entour d moin, ‘around me’) and deserves some attention. Indeed, it is found in creoles of both regions, but it does not seem to be attested in France (see article ‘moi’ in von Wartburg 1928, vol. 6:565). This lack of attestation does not actually prove anything, since it was certainly an oral form. In other words, moin is undoubtedly the simple nasalization of

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3

Linguistic creolization moué, which was the normal pronunciation of moi in the seventeenth century. This is an instance in which the comparison of ‘marginal’ French varieties and creoles permits us to postulate linguistic facts about French that were previously neglected or unknown. Situations of ‘exolingual’ communication surely reinforced the tendency toward over-representation of the person markers. Research on expressiveness shows this tendency even in standard French: Lui travaille (alors que toi tu ne fais rien) ‘Him, [he] is working (whereas you, you are not doing anything’; Toi tu prends ça, lui il prendra ça ‘You, you take this, him, he will take this,’ etc.

This invocation of situations of ‘exolingual communication’ (face-to-face ‘verbal interaction characterized by particularly significant divergences between the respective linguistic repertoires of the participants’)17 leads us to consider strategies of appropriation in terms of this issue. In the acquisition of French, usage of the tonic form moi distinctly precedes that of je, with the form moi je, and even exceptionally moi il, forming a sort of transition (Sabeau-Jouannet 1975:112). In informal learning, ‘the tonic forms are acquired before the atonic ones’ (Véronique 1986:571). The broad order of acquisition is as follows: reference to the speaker: moi

PREDICATE

/ (moi) li

PREDICATE /

0

PREDICATE

reference to the addressee: (toi) (il/tu) PREDICATE reference to a third party: N (li) PREDICATE / (lui) li PREDICATE (Véronique 1986:571) It is important to note both the remarkable similarities between these strategies of appropriation and, especially in the case of learning, the importance of the third person in restructuring.18 As I indicated above, the colonial situations of exolingual communication surely accentuated the evolution. In such contact settings, the native speaker has a tendency to over-use the person markers, as for example in the distribution of tasks: Toi tu fais ça, moi je fais ça, eux (or rather eux-autres) i font ça, etc. ‘Foreigner talk’ or ‘xenolect’ can be even more radical in this respect: Toi faire ça, moi faire ça ‘you do that, me, I do this’, etc. However, one need not conclude from the constancy and generality of these self-regulatory processes that all creoles possess exactly the same systems. Table 5.2 is intended to highlight similarities and differences among creoles, based on the following points: 1 2 3 4

Substitution of French tonic forms for atonic forms; Use of the form zot (from vous-autres, in fact pronounced [vzot] in North American French) for the second-person plural; Use of tu/vous for second-person singular; Use of a third-person-plural marker of the type yé (from eux, ‘them,’ which, being unrounded according to the general creole rule, becomes é ). The


5 6

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forms yeux or yaux are widely attested in French, particularly in western France (von Wartburg 1928, vol. 6:551); Use of the third-person plural marker zot (from eux-autres pronounced [ézot], consistent with the phonetic rule in Point 4; Use of the form nou for the second-person plural. Table 5.2 French creoles’ pronouns CREOLES

VARIABLES 1

2

3

4

5

6

Réunionnais

+

+

+

-

+

–

Mauritian

+

+

+

-

+

–

Rodriguez

+

+

+

-

+

–

Seychellois

+

+

ou

-

+

–

Haitian

+

-

vou

yo

-

+

Guyanais

+

+

+

+

-

–

Martiniquais/ Guadeloupéen

+

+

ou

yo

-

–

Louisiana creole

+

-

+

+

-

–

This table calls for some brief comments The existence of regional similarities is particularly clear for the IOR. The facts are identical for its four creoles, confirming once more my hypothesis on the genesis of these varieties. The differences among them are phonetic in nature and for the most part due to ‘historical’ differentiation. Variable 5 brings out very clearly the individuality of the IOR Creoles (the same form for second- and third-person plural markers). The facts are more complex in the ACR. Haitian Creole, with its exceptional use of nou as a second-person plural marker, is notable. This feature could be a matter of a recent ‘basilectal’ form, and the possibility of African influence cannot be excluded – pace Faine, who sees it as a survival from Picardy (Chaudenson 1989:120).

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Tense and aspect Tense and aspect are trickier to compare and reconstruct than person and number, for two major reasons. The first, connected to the creole systems themselves, is that description of systems may be influenced, at least partly, by ideological assumptions. That is, everyone agrees that in most French creoles, the form zot is a second-person plural marker. However, the structure of the verbal system and the specific values of tense markers, or combinations of them, are the subject of much debate. Furthermore, methods of description can be chosen at will to make the creole system more different from, or more similar to, the French system (even without taking account of possible intrasystemic variation). I am therefore concerned mostly with physical details of the forms, because each system’s dynamics have produced evolutions that can often be identified from studying older creole documents (Chaudenson 1981a). The second difficulty regards the extent to which particular evolutions from French forms to creoles’ markers can be explained by general strategies of language appropriation. Indeed, it seems clear that these strategies are at least in part determined by the linguistic productions to which speakers are exposed. In contrast to the case of markers of person, one cannot expect to find in adult learners’ approximative French any structures that no longer exist in the target language. Thus, être après or être pour – the models for French creoles’ preverbal markers ap(e) and pu – do not occur in learners’ utterances today, because these constructions are absent from the urban varieties to which these speakers are exposed (though they do occur in certain regional French dialects). That said, however, the method of comparison is applied in exactly the same way. The creole verbal system is largely based on the use of markers that precede the almost invariable verb stem. These markers, alone or in combination, assign tense, mood and aspect – bearing in mind once again that each creole is a unique language, and each system is different from the next. My definition is a little imprecise because it is intended to be general; roughly speaking, everything occurs ‘to the left’ of the verb stem. I have already mentioned Pottier’s point of view, that the situation of modern French is not as different from the creole system as one might imagine. Things are clearer still if we examine older characteristics of folk French. The markers attested in both the IOR and ACR (which, according to the comparative method, justify postulating their common French origin) are the following: alon/anou, apré/pé, té/ti, va/a, pou, and fèk. Pa belongs here too, but will be discussed separately, because it has a different value, as a negative marker. It is clear that all of these markers came from French verbal periphrases and constitute a parallel verbal system to standard conjugation: allons INFINITIVE = ‘first-person plural of the exhortative’; je suis après INFINITIVE or je suis après à INFINITIVE = ‘progressive’; étais à INFINITIVE = ‘past’; j’ai fini de INFINI TIVE = ‘perfect’; je vais (vas) INFINITIVE or je suis pour INFINITIVE = ‘future’; je ne fais que INFINITIVE = ‘immediate past.’ Fortunately, these verbal constructions were in Gougenheim’s (1929) remarkable work, from which I will discuss a few conclusions. Having cited some instances of how complex and inadequate


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French is in regard to, especially, verbal aspect, Gougenheim remarks: ‘The language has tried to remedy these imperfections with verbal periphrases … The value of verbal periphrases is largely linked to their folk origin’ (1929:378). He continues: ‘It is necessary to recognize that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, verbal periphrases faced hostility from grammarians, who succeeded in dispelling several of them from the literary language’ (ibid. 379). In light of evidence from one of the leading experts on older folk French, it does therefore seem that in the colonists’ language a verbal system based on these periphrases did compete seriously with the ‘standard’ system. (It should be added that, on a more general level, such a system had the advantage of an invariable verb stem, thanks to systematic usage of the infinitive of the main verb.) Regularization of forms (résoudre replaced by solutionner) and avoidance of complex conjugation are constants in language self-regulation. Aller INFINI TIVE has a different meaning from the future conjugation only in the minds of grammarians; its primary function is to prevent speakers from wondering what the future form of mourir or bouillir is. All the same, these forms do not completely eliminate verbal conjugation, since the auxiliary (être, avoir or aller) must still be conjugated, and often presents a great complexity of forms. However, speakers easily accommodate to complexity of forms if these occur very frequently. This is clearly true of auxiliary verbs, which are the most frequent verbs in French. Furthermore, the conjugation of these verbs has itself been largely restructured, as shown by North American French varieties (Chaudenson 1989:96–102). These points are confirmed by rare evidence on the folk language of the seventeenth century, and even more so by ‘marginal’ French varieties and by creoles. Etre après, être pour, and aller are still used much more frequently in North American French varieties than they are in standard French, where these phrases have almost disappeared (except for aller INFINITIVE ). The future with aller is often the only form used in these varieties, the ‘synthetic’ future being rare. We also sometimes find constructions curiously close to those observed in some creoles. For instance, in the French of Montreal, in the first- and second-person singular future, ma and ta (M’as changer ma couleur [de cheveux], ‘I will change the color of my hair’; T’as payer ça d’main, ‘You’ll pay [for] this tomorrow’) are identical to forms in Réunionnais (ma fèr sa) and in Haitian Creole (Ma manger, ta manger, cited in Faine 1974). The similarity to appropriation is less applicable in this case, because, as noted above, almost all these periphrases are no longer used in the current target language. It has usually been noted that one of the characteristics of a child’s acquisition of the verbal system is the primary role of aspect. Most of the periphrases cited above have an aspectual value. Ferreiro emphasizes that ‘young children’s uses of verbal tense seem above all to take aspect into consideration’ (1971:237). She notes that these points support and extend those of Decroly (1913): ‘Concerning the use of verbal tenses, Decroly first refers to forms that can be identified as past participles without auxiliaries, or as infinitives.’ Father Pelleprat’s observation concerning slaves comes to mind here – ‘We accommodate to their way of speaking, which is ordinarily with the verb in the infinitive’

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(1655:52) – and Cohen’s remarks are along the same lines. However, it is not worthwhile laboring the point. I will only state that these ‘strategies’ seem to be found in various languages – this is observed by Ferreiro with regard to German and English (1971:236) and confirmed in Slobin (1985). This tendency of folk language to develop a ‘parallel’ system of periphrastic tense–aspect markers is attested not only in French but in Portuguese as well, and this is obviously extremely relevant to the study of creolization. Cella’s book Système verbal français et système verbal portugais (1978) offers doubly interesting observations, since some of them concern Brazilian Portuguese. He identifies a set of phrases, almost all involving the infinitive, which seem similar to those that I discussed in French: Estar (ir, vir, andar …) GERUND ; estar a INFINITIVE , ir INFINITIVE ; acabar INFINITIVE ; ter de (que) INFINITIVE and haver de INFINI TIVE . About the first of these Cella observes that in Portugal the construction is regarded as an archaism and has been replaced by estar a INFINITIVE (1978:116). He remarks, however: ‘The periphrase estar GERUND is not only very frequently used (mostly in Brazil), but it also constitutes a general category, extending to all moods and all tenses’ (ibid. 70; my emphasis). All these observations point to the conclusion that the major types of restructuring and change which ultimately led to the verbal structures of French and perhaps Portuguese creoles (among others), existed in the colonists’ language, as well as in the strategies of appropriation thereof. The bulk of the linguistic material, word order, and semantic values, is common to all regional and/or older folk French varieties, marginal French varieties, and creoles. Of course, by pushing the developments beyond F0, creoles have ‘radicalized’ the changes to the point of constituting autonomous systems. The examination of a few creole facts will illustrate this point. I have intentionally limited the preceding analysis to markers that are attested in both the IOR and ACR. When markers (such as ka of the Lesser Antilles) appear in only one region, and then not even in all varieties, we are forced to examine more seriously the languages of the original slave population. This is not, however, absolute proof of a non-European origin of such forms. Within the limits of F0 itself, there are always, by definition, several ‘variants’ of the same ‘variable.’ Different variants can therefore ‘triumph’ in various creoles or groups of creoles.19 The forms allons/à nous and fèk may be surprising. The first (first-person imperative) is found in all creoles, and is attested in Picardy. There could have been, even in French, a violent collision between this form and a construction of the type à nous de INFINITIVE , whose meaning is close to that of the firstperson plural imperative. Réunionnais has both forms alon and anou – although the second seems to be less frequent and more basilectal. The majority of the other creoles have anou. In Mauritian and Haitian, for example, fèk/fék indicates that the action has just been completed. Our focus should not be on the meaning of ne faire que, ‘do only,’ in modern French, but rather, of course, on the older uses of this construction, whose grammatical function was to mark IMMEDIATE PAST .


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For substratists, the position of the negative marker also signals a complete typological difference between French and creoles. In French, the negative marker is found to the right of the standard French verb ( je ne mange pas ‘I’m not eating’), but in creoles it is usually found to the left (mo pa dansé ‘I have not danced’ / ‘I did not dance’). Certain scholars even regard the absence of ne in creoles as an additional argument in favor of the rift between French and creoles. These are generally the same authors who claim that creoles are radically different from French, since creoles have interrogative forms without inversion – To fin manzé?, ‘Have you eaten?’ – whereas standard French must use subject inversion, as in As-tu mangé? Apparently they are not aware that the majority of French-speakers actually say Tu as fini de manger? ‘I have not eaten’, which curiously resembles creoles, and j’ai pas fini de manger? ‘have you finished eating?’ which is not completely dissimilar to ma pa fine manzé ‘I have not finished eating’. All this can be accounted for quite easily when one realizes that most of these scholars speak neither French nor creoles. As noted earlier, the substratal ‘argument’ based on the position of the negative marker is absurd. With negatives, as with interrogatives, the entire argument depends of course on the French variety with which the creole structure is compared. In the system of periphrastic forms that functioned as the terminus a quo to creoles, the negative marker was always preposed to the main verb: je (ne) suis pas après faire, je (ne) suis pas à faire, j(e n’)ai pas fini de faire, je (ne) suis pas pour faire. The order is always NEGATIVE TENSE - ASPECT MARKER VERB , that is to say, exactly the order of the constituents in Mauritian Creole that I use here for reference: mo pa pé fer, mo pa fer, mo pa fine fer, mo pa pu fer.20 The only exception is je (ne) vais pas faire where the order is different from that of the creole mo pa va fer. We could conjecture that analogical influence and the internal dynamics of this system are at work here. Since the negative marker almost always precedes the tense–aspect marker, the creole would have regularized its system. However, the comparison occasionally presents some surprises, as in the negative future. We can be almost certain that the negative form of the periphrastic future did not exist in the language of the colonists. This assertion is based on the claim that Réunion has as the affirmative construction ma manzé (= je mangerai), or mi sa manzé, but that, very curiously, the negative construction is mi manzra pa (or mi manz rapa/arpa, if one wants, despite the evidence, to deny the existence of any trace of verbal inflection). This feature could be unique to Réunionnais, except that the same form is also found in North America. Seutin’s (1975) work on the French variety of the island of Coudres, a study comprised of extensive and precise data, indicates that the periphrastic future, very dominant in the affirmative form, never appears in the negative form. It is therefore probable that Mauritian Creole did not have to ‘restructure’ a *mo va pa VERB construction, which certainly never existed in the French of the colonists. Réunionnais possesses a very interesting ‘imperfect’ construction moin té/lété ki manzé (= je mangeais ‘I was eating’), which does not appear in any other creole. Today, this marker is basilectal and stands in contrast to the acrolectal construction mi manzé, with the same meaning. Constructions such as j’étais qui … are

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attested on St Barths. In the region of Cayes, one finds J’étais qui li dire (= j’étais en train de lui dire ‘I was telling him’), whereas in Flamand, as in the rest of the Sous le Vent region, one finds j’étais qui lui disais (Gilles Lefèbvre 1976:143). This usage is confirmed by Highfield’s (1979) study on the French of St Thomas. Research on the evolution of Réunionnais suggests that this structure probably became basilectal due to the disappearance of more basilectal forms of the type été/té VERB STEM , identical to that in Mauritian (Chaudenson 1981a:206–208). This last example shows that systems continue their development beyond the ‘historic’ moment of creolization. I have thus been able to show that Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole were much closer to each other in the beginning of the nineteenth century than they are today. One of the features of this reciprocal distancing is the combination of tense markers. This characteristic deserves a close historical examination or, at any rate, more serious treatment than it has been given in the past.21 The process of creolization The above analysis (and even more so the demonstrative subsystem that I ultimately had to cut) shows how immense the task of analyzing the ensemble of all French creoles’ systems would be. Above all, it makes plain the relevance of ‘marginal’ French varieties to the construction of hypotheses on the terminus a quo of creolization and the role of the dynamics of the systems, based on various possibilities of earlier and/or intermediate systems. It should be added that, during their development period, creoles were also marked by variation and rule conflicts. Therefore, today’s cross-creole differences may correspond not to initial structural divergences, but rather to the ‘victory’ of different variants of a particular variable. As one might expect, creoles show two principal types of innovation in relation to French. The first consists of the continuation of forms or processes which were, and occasionally still are, present in certain French varieties. In this respect North American French varieties are, on many points, the most advanced state of French (in Frei’s sense of the term). At the same time, these varieties are the closest to what the colonists may have spoken. The subsystem of demonstratives in the IOR creoles illustrates this point perfectly. That is, ‘grammatical material’ exists in these creoles that is very similar in form and function to what is found in American French varieties. However, the extension of the use of ça in the IOR creoles goes well beyond what can be observed in American French varieties, where this type of extension is firmly in place: Acadian French (in Louisiana): dans ces temps ça/la, ‘at/in those times’; tout ça alle avait dans ces temps- ça, ‘everything she had in those times/days’; ça qu’on pouvait pas faire ‘what we could not do’ (Guidry 1982:11–13).


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Missouri French: avec ça l’app’lait ses ptsits frères [= ceux que], ‘those he called his little brothers’; tout ça j’ai peur [= ce dont] ‘what I am afraid of ’ (Rosemary Hyde Thomas 1982:28, 65). The emergence of bane as a plural marker in IOR creoles (from Bourbonnais) illustrates the same process. Unlike in the standard language, the term bande in folk French in no way implies ‘numerous plurality’: bande d’abrutis! can also refer to two individuals only. Therefore, IOR creoles are testimony to the radical extension and systemization of a potential development in the spoken language. The second type of innovation consists of forms or processes external to F0 as a variation model. It is evidently in this area that the slaves’ languages can be claimed to have influenced their appropriations of the target language. However, this type of innovation could also encompass more general phenomena due either to restructuring tied to exolingual communication or to general (indeed universal) strategies of language learning. (These influences are of course not mutually exclusive.) An example will help to illustrate this type of innovation. All four IOR creoles have a completely unique feature that does not exist in any ACR creole – the second- and third-person plural forms of the subject and possessive pronouns are identical. In all these creoles, zot means ‘youPLURAL /they, your-PLURAL /their.’ This phenomenon did not, to my knowledge, exist in a single variety of French, although it is plain to see how the type of French that the colonists were speaking could have created the linguistic conditions for such a restructuring. The only information that we have on the ‘French of the Islands’ – vague and late, but nonetheless precious – is Baissac’s (1880:17) remark regarding Mauritius: ‘In the third-person plural, some old Whites say eux-autres for eux.’ Fortunately, this modest bit of information is confirmed by the North American French varieties, which all show a clear predilection for the pronominal subject forms nous autres, vous autres, and eux autres. These forms are very widespread in Quebec French, as indicated, for example, by Offroy (1975:268). She also recalls the use of such forms in the folk language of older French-speakers, but mostly in the west of France. She cites in particular Maze’s (1903) Etude sur le langage de la banlieue du Havre, which states that ‘French also allows the emphatic forms nous-autres and vous-autres, but their usage is optional, while in Patois it is obligatory’ (63; my emphasis). Seutin (1975) indicates that in his corpus, the form eux-autres occurs in 122 out of the 124 contexts in which eux or eux-autres could be used (154); the il/elle opposition has practically disappeared in favor of i, just as eux/elles has given way to eux-autres: les grosses compagnies, eux-autres, i sont protégées, ‘the big companies, they are protected’ (155). We might also add that, in spoken language, an ear unattuned to this North American French (by personal experience) does not always distinguish vzot and euzot (a fortiori when the latter is unrounded to ézot). The case of leur(s) should also be taken into account. We know that the earlier pronunciation of this form was leu, from the seventeenth-century attestations discovered by Poirier (1672, 1676, TLQ, 1975:214). These forms, which figure in legal documents, confirm Juneau’s (1972) view in his study on the pronunciation

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of French in Quebec. In the eighteenth century the French spoken in Quebec was still the same as French in France itself, according to Vaudelin (Seguin 1972:40). Even today, leu for leur is well attested in Quebec, as well as in other places, such as Missouri. The ‘creole’ unrounding of leu into lé is another example of a form that is known to be acquired late by francophone children and adult learners alike. These facts make it possible to understand certain conditions that were favorable to restructuring, such as ambiguity or ‘weakness’ areas in the French system. However, they do not provide a complete explanation. This merger of the forms for second- and third-person pronouns probably occurred because, as they were used, zot was almost the only part constantly perceived from the personal pronouns vzot and ezot. Zot was then extended by analogy to the possessive pronouns. Only the third-person singular (li/son) has truly resisted this tendency, undoubtedly due to its frequency. In fact, the markers of the other persons have tended to converge, if not merge, particularly because of the substitution of the series of personal tonic pronouns for the atonic ones. As shown above, leur was ‘weakened’ by its evolution into lé. Votre and vos constituted both a troublesome alternation (but one which could have been resolved like nou/nout) and an approximate homophony with vzot, both of which were threats to the survival of these forms. The specialization of ou/out as the second-person singular possessive (either alone, as in Seychellois, or in complementary distribution with forms of the type ton/to, as in Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole) is naturally in keeping with the use of zot as a second-person plural possessive. All of this, however, is not sufficient to account for the observed facts. Although I must admit to being completely convinced myself, I have tried to furnish an explanation which invokes convergence with the slaves’ languages. In fact, Malagasy possesses second- and third-person plural forms with the same type of homophony as vous-autres and eux-autres: ianareo (second-person plural subject), izy ireo (third-person plural subject), anareo (second-person plural object), azy ireo (third-person plural object). Moreover, Telugu has a second-person plural form identical to the feminine and the masculine third-person plurals: ru, ri (second-person plural), ri (third-person plural masculine and feminine).22 Malagasy is certainly a more likely influence than Telugu, but we still know nothing of the language spoken by the first ‘Portuguese women of the Indies’ brought to Bourbon (they came from southwest India and could have originally been Telugu-speakers). This question is not resolved, but the point that interests us here is that there is restructuring in IOR creoles that is found in no other French variety. The idea that a model of variability of French can aid in determining specific structures of French creoles is thus confirmed. Of course, this does not mean that we should expect to find these structures in all these creoles, even though that possibility is not, a priori, excluded. A global view of French creoles always oscillates between two extremes. The first, whether or not based on monogenesis hypotheses, tends to treat the different forms of speech as varieties or dialects of one French creole (this is the


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perspective of Vintila-Radulescu 1976 and Valdman 1978, as the titles of their works show). The other, less represented, considers each creole (or small groups of creoles) individually, without taking into account the historical relationships that may exist between diverse languages or possible similarities in developments. The above observations show that, under the very particular sociohistorical conditions described, creolization was brought about by a complex interplay of diverse natural and directional forces, which are in essence: •

•

self-regulating processes of French in the absence of all normative pressure and sociocultural superstructure; these processes operated, of course, within the language of the colonists. strategies of language acquisition and learning, perhaps universal but undoubtedly, in my opinion, related to the self-regulating processes mentioned above.

Assuming that the French which was in use from the terminus a quo to creolization was virtually the same in both the ACR and IOR, due to identical geographical and social origins of these colonists, then that language variety must also have been characterized by intralinguistic variation, as North American French varieties to some extent illustrate. This internal variation was in part due to partial diglossia between langue d’oïl dialects and French for the majority of the colonists, which quite quickly dissolved into an emergent French marked by langue d’oïl dialectalisms. But the internal variation was also due to the conditions of initial exolingual communication. Such communication led to a rapid emergence of approximative French forms whose usage was not necessarily univocal (cf. Father Pelleprat’s ambiguous comment regarding the ‘Blacks’: ‘We accommodate to their way of speaking’). Without wanting to overuse a somewhat imprecise term, we can say that the linguistic system of Phase I of these colonies (‘homestead society’) was formed by a continuum that extended from folk and/or dialectal French to ‘commercial jargon,’ in which restructuring linked to learning strategies (including, of course, interference and convergence) dominated. Thus, coexisting in creolization, within the two broad areas, are factors of convergence (such as relative identity of the terminus a quo, self-regulating processes of French, and relative homology in language learning strategies), and factors of differentiation (including eventual internal variation of folk/dialectal/approximative French and different slave languages). This approach sees the relationships among French creoles on an ‘interlinguistic continuum’ (Chaudenson 1981c). Its view of facts avoids the myth of a globalizing description of a single French creole, on the principle that ‘Creole always has, in a given respect, Rule A, except in the numerous languages which use different rules, B, C, D or E.’ It also allows us to sidestep the impossibility of classifying creoles, even regionally, into well-defined categories: a creole X behaves like Y in one respect, but differently in another. Attempts to classify the ACR varieties (for example Goodman 1964:14–17)

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show the ‘insubordination’ of creoles and the impossibility of putting them into coherent and discrete categories. So, for instance, the feature ba/bay, ‘give,’ (also a relational element) exists in all language varieties of this area, except Louisiana Creole, and the possessive pronouns are formed by postposition of the personal pronouns in all ACR varieties, except Guyanais and Louisiana Creole, etc. Therefore, it would probably be productive to try to approach the classification of French creoles in terms of an interlinguistic continuum as proposed in Chaudenson (1981c). Of course, this approach requires the development of a true ‘comparative grammar’ of French creoles. The examples discussed here show that the dynamics of creolization involve two major aspects which bring to light, on the one hand, the relationships between French and creoles, and, on the other, the relationships (similarities or differences) among the creoles themselves. We might be tempted to say that – on account of the probable relative proximity of the French varieties spoken by the colonists in various territories, and of broad similarities in the socio-economic and sociolinguistic conditions which characterize the initial phases of these colonizations – the similarities among creoles could be explained by their common genesis from French and, more particularly, by the self-regulating processes of this language. In contrast, the differences among creoles would be due to the influence of non-European languages. It is an analysis of the type that largely inspired the propositions of comparative methodology made in Chaudenson (1974a:435–440), propositions that initially did little more than define and systematize Brunot’s (1966) proposal (8:1142). In the twenty-five and more years since then, scholarship has progressed very unevenly. We have become increasingly better informed about creoles themselves, thanks to numerous descriptions. We also know more about the French of the colonists, even without direct evidence. However, our knowledge of the slave languages is extremely sparse, especially for the ACR, for which the particular conditions of their journey prevent us from knowing much about the slaves’ origins. These gaps in our knowledge are, however, not a sufficient reason to renounce this kind of analysis. For the Indian Ocean, we do have specific facts on the slaves’ origins. There is even some information about the languages they may have spoken, particularly in the case of Madagascar. Flacourt’s Dictionnaire de la langue de Madagascar dates from 1658 and was based on varieties of this language specific to the regions of the ‘Big Island’ in which a good portion of the slaves later transported to the Mascarenes originated. The comparison of creoles in this region has permitted me to examine some of Flacourt’s data – which have been contested by contemporary Malagasy lexicographers – and sometimes even to side with him. In this context, the case of the creole word maf should be discussed. This term has the same meaning in all four IOR French creoles: something close to the French word blet (fruit or vegetable with a spongy or watery flesh). A Malagasy origin for maf has long been claimed, in particular by Mérédac (L’essor, PortLouis 1931–1934), although there are no historical attestations of the word, and this etymology was later adopted by various authors. Apparently, no one was


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bothered by the fact that the invoked Malagasy etymon mafy (pronounced a bit like maf in French) means ‘hard’ – which is completely different from, even opposite to, the definition put forth. This fact does not trouble amateur etymologists but does cause problems in Malagasy itself. Two of the oldest lexicographic works on Malagasy, Houtman Van Gouda’s Vocabulaire, portugais-malais-malgache (1603) and Flacourt’s previously mentioned dictionary (1658), include a term maffy whose meaning puzzled subsequent publishers of these works. The first work notes: ‘maffy: to sink (speaking of a fatty substance).’ Given the conditions in which data for this work was collected (the author, who did not know any Malagasy, interviewed a Malagasy informant, who evidently did not speak Dutch, in Malaysia), the publishers did not hesitate to assume that this definition was mistaken, and, for want of something better, corrected it with ‘mafana: hot.’ Flacourt gives: ‘mafe: slobbering, slow.’ The same situation again faced the publishers (who would have been able to make a comparison with Houtman Van Gouda’s ‘error’). They proposed a different correction, ‘mafaita: unpleasant,’ which they followed by a question mark, thus revealing how little confidence they had in their own hypothesis. (Moreover they also show a certain inconsistency, because, when Flacourt uses the term again: ‘viscous, slow: mafe,’ they propose ‘mafy: hard, solid’ – apparently forgetting their earlier correction.) It is clear that in the seventeenth century, a word pronounced [maf] with the meaning of ‘soft, sticky, viscous’ existed in the east (Antogil region for Houtman Van Gouda) and south of Madagascar (area of Fort-Dauphin for Flacourt). None of the many Malagasy dictionaries that I have consulted mentions it, except for one. Father Dubois’ 1917 Essai de dictionnaire Betsiléo gives: ‘mafe: undercooked, that which has become insipid, watery, over-ripe: ovy mafe = over-ripe potatoes’ – a meaning and usage that are exactly the same as for the creole term. Given that the regions from which Van Gouda’s and Flacourt’s varieties come are the same regions where most of the slaves transported to the Mascarene Islands originated, it becomes clear that we should follow these authors rather than their later publishers. French creoles of this area offer supplementary evidence to validate Van Gouda’s and Flacourt’s claims. The issue of Malagasy lexicography is thus resolved (this case is far from being the only one, but it is certainly the most characteristic). Unfortunately, it is not often that we have such precise data on the language spoken by the slaves – which makes it clear that on the sociohistorical level the Indian Ocean is an exceptional area for the study of creolization. However, it is virtually only with regard to the lexicon that we can speak of ‘direct transfers’ from non-European languages. Again, it is better to treat the facts in terms of ‘contributions’ and not of ‘origins’ (Chaudenson 1974a:591–632). In the IOR creoles, the presence of Carib, Galibi or Tupi words (ajoupa, boucan, roucou, atte) should not lead one to posit any kind of direct influence from these languages. Rather, according to the evidence, these terms were transferred via the French spoken by the sailors, soldiers, colonists, and colonial administrators who were familiar with the ACR. Although the French spoken by the colonists who went to the ACR and IOR

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was without doubt almost the same, it should not be concluded that this state of French was homogeneous and stable. Comparative study of North American French varieties shows that the specific forms are often diverse, even if the general tendencies (self-regulating processes) are similar. Studies of differences among creoles and hypotheses on the role of non-European languages in this differentiation must therefore take the internal variation of French into account. We can propose a classification of linguistic features that are typical of creoles according to the following principles, proceeding from characteristics that have purely and simply been retained from the original target language to their most innovative features: 1

Retention of French features 1.1 those preserved in contemporary French 1.2 those preserved in regional and folk forms 1.3 those that have disappeared from French

2

Restructuring resulting from self-regulating processes (within F0) 2.1 without convergence with other languages 2.2 showing convergence with other languages

3

Restructuring outside F0 3.1 showing convergence with other languages 3.2 universals of language appropriation; language universals (?)

4

Certain and direct transfers from languages other than French

One must not, however, exaggerate the significance of such a classification, insofar as historical facts (sadly quite rare and fragmented) reveal its weaknesses. Thus, the Haitian construction chat la yo, ‘the cats,’ which one might imagine classifying in Category 3.1 (although, following Sylvain, it should be put in Category 4 instead) could also be grouped in 2.2. Indeed, the Passion text ‘in Negro language’ provides evidence for the emergence phase of this grammatical structure, which seems to have developed from a ‘resumptive’ construction: tous zapotes la yo dire ‘all the apostles, they said’ (1.19), is clearly distinguishable from faire macé avec pères jouifs ‘strike a deal with the Jewish fathers,’ and reveals that -la yo only appears after the subject of a verb. Here is an area of inquiry and research that goes beyond the example quoted, and, furthermore, reminds us of the role of i in the IOR varieties (Chaudenson 1981a:197–206). All these observations, in a still broader perspective, lead us to question the role of the third person, as much in the formation of creole systems as in children’s acquisition of French. I have already discussed this point, but a systematic study of the facts would surely be revealing. Likewise, the emergence of -la as a definite or demonstrative marker is perhaps partially related to the fact that the same kinds of elements were postposed in the


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slaves’ ancestral languages. However, the most conclusive factor is that this -la is surely a more salient and/or more frequent element than the preposed markers (either articles, which are not always clearly distinguishable from the noun itself, or demonstrative adjectives, which are variable and often subject to phonetic reductions that render them almost imperceptible in certain environments). The highly evolutionary path of the North American French varieties in this regard also shows that, although convergence with other systems could have played a role, in these specific cases it is undoubtedly neither a necessary nor a sufficient explanation for the formation of these creole subsystems. Another relatively simple example may help us grasp the facts better. Valdman describes the system of possessive determiners as follows: ‘In all creoles, the possessive Det[erminer] is expressed by the use of personal pronouns preceding or following the determined Noun (1978:196).’ Although his description with preceding or following is problematic in the statement of such a rule, what follows shows that in fact things do not always occur in such a way. Valdman very honestly makes a statement which suffices to do away with an already insecure rule: ‘In the varieties of the Indian Ocean, Guyane, and Louisiana, the possessive determiner is preposed to the noun … In these varieties the series of possessive determiners differs from that of personal pronouns’ (196–197; my emphasis). Things can be explained more simply if we do not try at all costs to formulate a single rule for languages that, according to the evidence, have different systems. Obviously, in terms of possessive determiners, French creoles fall into two groups. The first group (Guyane, Louisiana, Indian Ocean) preserves a system based on preposing determiners developed from French possessives. This system underwent an extension or modifications of forms, brought on by the similarity of personal pronouns and possessive determiners. These changes reached the second- and third-person plural, where the influence of the ‘model’ (moi/mon; toi/ton; nous/nôtre dialectally realized as ‘nout’ or even ‘nou’ (Chaudenson 1974a:823)) led to possessive forms that are identical to personal pronouns (as shown above). However, in all cases the original third-person singular form son (sometimes realized as so) is maintained, preserving a contrast with li/i. Here as elsewhere, the salience of this opposition (lui/son) and its frequency of usage have preserved it against the ‘normalization’ that affected other possessive forms. To repeat, irregularity is perfectly admissible when it is combined with high frequency. The second group (the Lesser Antilles and Haiti) has a system based on postposing the personal pronoun preceded by a. We can adopt here Bernabé’s formulation: ‘The marker of possessive relation has the full form a in Guadeloupe Creole, northern Dominican Creole and northern Haitian Creole, and the zero form in all other ACR creoles, when dealing with a relation toward the left’ (1987:24). This final restriction is aimed at Guyanais and Louisiana Creole, which, as already shown, have kept preposed possessive determiners. This rule can be illustrated with two examples: manjé-mouen ‘my food’; manjé-anmouen (with contextual nasalization of a).

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According to Adam (1883), the possessive system of the IOR creoles shows incontrovertible Malagasy influence: Except for the third-person singular, where so (son, sa) has been maintained, the French possessive adjectives have been replaced by the personal pronouns: mo, to, nous, vous, zaute … In Malagasy the pronouns of the second series are postposed to the possessed noun, for example, trano ko ‘my house,’ trano nao ‘your house.’ The change of position which French syntax imposed on the creole is a fact of no importance, because we will see later that subject pronouns can precede or follow the verb. (Adam 1883:59) It is fruitless to dwell on Adam’s errors or approximations. In Mauritian Creole, for example, for the first- and second-person singular, the forms of the personal pronouns and possessive adjectives have been distinct for a long time, based on Mauritian Creole texts of the early nineteenth century (Chaudenson 1981a:182–185): Tous les zours dans ç’ temps mon berloqu moi donné vous la viande salé French: Tous les jours pendant mon repos, je vous donne de la viande salé ‘Every day while I am resting, I give you [some] salt meat.’ As shown above, the evolution of this subsystem can be fully explained. While in this passage Adam claims that the position of grammatical elements (elsewhere decisive) is here ‘a fact of no importance,’ it is clear that the forms unjustifiably attributed to the IOR creoles and reputedly of Malagasy origin, are exact homologs of those observed in Guyanais and in Louisiana Creole, where one could hardly appeal to a Malagasy substrate. Thus, it seems that the substratal theories face two obstacles: • •

The ACR creoles, for which a common influence from West African languages can be posited, possess two different types of possessives. The ACR creoles with the ‘minority’ type of possessive (preposed possessive in Guyanais and Louisiana Creole) share this construction with the IOR creoles. There is therefore no real reason to regard this subsystem, characterized by partial identity of the personal pronouns and preposed possessive determiners, as being of Malagasy origin (and this is all the more true because actual Malagasy usage is completely different from that of creoles, and because possession in Malagasy is always marked by the postposition of the personal element).

Consistent with the principles stated above, we can try to see, in particular for North American French varieties, whether this problem can be resolved. All


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these marginal varieties show a clear tendency to reinforce the possessive adjective with the postposition of the corresponding person marker: Louisiana French: son papa à lui ‘his father’, tes mots à toi-même ‘your own words’, ses petits à elle ‘her own kids’, sa femme à lui ‘his own wife’ (Conwell and Juilland 1963:134, 184); Acadian French (of Louisiana): Not’ magnière de parler à nous aut ‘our own way of speaking’, (Guidry 1982:1), mes enfants à moi ‘my own children’, dans mon temps à moi ‘at my own time’, (ibid.:7–9); Missouri French: sa cuisse à lui (Rosemary Hyde Thomas 1982:31). This tendency likewise occurs in Canada where usage of à as a preposition marking possession dominates. Although it certainly cannot be claimed that this construction is systematic, it is a lot more frequent than in standard French. Much the same occurs in the acquisition of French, as Clark emphasizes: ‘Children acquiring these languages [Romance languages] do show a marked preference for constructions with prepositions (usually ‘at,’ ‘to’ or ‘of ’) to signal possession, and this from an early age’ (1985:732). She concludes: ‘In summary, children start their acquisition of possessive forms with the analytic prepositional constructions, then add the possessive adjectives’ (733). Consequently, conditions existed which, based on the French spoken by the colonists, allowed for the emergence of two types of sub-system of possessive determinants. One is based on preposing markers derived from French possessive adjectives. However, these markers have tended phonologically to converge with the personal pronouns; the only exception is the third-person singular which, for the most part, has kept two distinct forms li/so(n). The other subsystem has evolved from the generalization of postposing personal pronouns (with or without trace of the preposition à). The causes of this divergence remain unknown. Assuming, as above, that non-European languages could, by convergence, have favored a given variant of the original French system (obviously at the expense of another variant – which, on the other hand, could have led to a distinct feature in another creole system), we should be surprised that IOR creoles belong to the first type, because Malagasy uses a construction very similar to the second type. Given that Type 2 (postposition) characterizes creoles of the Antilles, we can assume that, due to migrations in the initial phase of colonization, what is at hand is a single original type, and not separate innovations for each creole in question. The Passion text ‘in Negro language’ (from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century), has the single structure SUBSTAN TIVE PERSONAL PRONOUN : zapotes li, ‘his apostles’; poche îo, ‘their pockets.’ Now, at the end of this chapter, which may have seemed dry and arduous for the uninitiated reader of creole linguistics, we can claim that the sociohistorical and sociolinguistic grounding of the proposed hypothesis is confirmed and strengthened by the linguistic approach itself. From here on, it will be interesting to see whether what we think we know about the formation of creole languages

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can clarify the genesis and the nature of creole cultures. We will also want to see whether this theory of linguistic creolization is applicable to other cultural systems.

Notes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10

11 12 13

14

Guy Hazaël-Massieux, who died in 1993, unfortunately did not get to publish an elaborate study of this important document. The text quoted here was published in Etudes Créoles 12.9–21 (1994). Recent studies, since the publication of the 1992 French edition of this book, include Mougeon and Beniak (eds) 1994 and Fournier and Wittmann (eds) 1995. This is close to the view in some of the literature that categorizes such colonists as patoisants, ‘speakers of patois,’ and therefore not of (standard) French. For more on this, see the section on the ‘terminus a quo’ below (Ed.). The best known works are the ‘Mazarinades,’ in Les agréables conférences de deux paysans de Saint-Ouen et de Montmorency sur les affaires du temps, edited by Deloffre (1961) and ‘Chançons et Pasquilles’ by Brûle-Maison (1678–1740). Vaudelin (1715) provides later but useful textual evidence. Although they cover later periods, works such as Nisard (1872) and Gougenheim (1929) provide a wealth of information. There are numerous such manuals of good usage, and it is often preferable to consult works of synthesis, such as Brunot (1966) and Gougenheim (1929). Thurot (1881) and Rosset (1914) are useful for pronunciation. Mufwene (1991) argues for the same kind of approach (Ed.). For a more general view on this theory of variability, see Chaudenson, Mougeon and Beniak (1993). I have always delicately avoided using this term, whose meaning is not clear on a linguistic level, especially when comparing an oral and a written language. Is the creole form mon zanfan simpler than the French forms mon enfant/mes enfants? This remains to be seen, because the ambiguity of the first can be, on the contrary, analyzed as ‘non-simple.’ Furthermore, Réunionnais, like the other IOR creoles, has a plural marker bane and even, it could be claimed, a dual marker dé/kotéd. Where is the simplicity in that? I outlined this comparison in Chaudenson (1978), which was actually written some time before Baron (1977) was published. An example of such a decoupling of the functions of the relative pronoun is provided by Frei (1929: 187) from Paul Valéry’s welcoming remarks at the Académie Française: Sous ce nom difficile à porter, et qu’il fallait tant d’espoirs pour oser le prendre, il a conquis la faveur de l’univers ‘Assuming a name difficult to bear, which one would require so much hope to dare take, he conquered the favor of the universe.’ The complementizer and resumptive pronouns are in bold. This kind of detailed example can be found in many of my earlier works (e.g. Chaudenson 1981c:42–43). This information, too, can be found elsewhere, especially in Chaudenson (1989:93–112). The title of Bentolila’s work is perfectly clear on this point: ‘Créoles et langues africaines: comparaison des structures verbales’ (1970). Of course his conclusion is that these structures are inherited from African languages: a conclusion which, for Indian Ocean creoles, has the beauty of the unexpected. In passing, I should say that Seguin seems rather too hard on Vadé. Referring to an excerpt from Lettres de la Grenouillère, he remarks: Initially, nothing distinguishes such a manner of speaking from the speech of Sapeur Camember or from any typical burlesque character. But, looking at it


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more closely, one begins to notice that a good deal of the writing reflects a form of speech analogous to what Gile Vaudelin transcribed, even though the caricature exaggerates and systematizes the features. (Seguin 1972:27) 15 MissouThe study of these forms is complex. I have tried elsewhere to analyze the ‘logic’ of these restructuring processes, but it is impossible to demonstrate this approach here. For more, see Chaudenson 1989, pp.94–110 and 114–116. 16 I oversimplify things here because the specifics in the diverse creoles are complex. However, all the crucial information is presented. 17 This definition is taken from Py and Alber (1986). 18 On this point, the considerable gap with naturalistic learning could be measured with sociocultural evidence relatively close to those of the speakers involved in the processes of creolization and ‘guided’ learning. All the Danish learners observed by Andersen (1986) ‘invariably use the pronoun je as the first-person subject.’ 19 A study of this type of situation in terms of creole possessive pronouns can be found in Chaudenson (1981c:42–43). The possessive adjectives can also serve as an example: ACR creoles, for the most part, have postposed personal pronouns, while the IOR creoles, along with those of Louisiana and Guyane, have preposed possessives, based on possessive adjectives in French. For more data and a fuller discussion, see Chaudenson (1989:107–108). 20 I will add that in older Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole texts, the negative was napas. This is an additional argument in favor of my hypothesis, the trace of the auxiliary being preserved until the end of the nineteenth century. 21 I am thinking here especially of certain Anglo-Saxon creolists who I was able to see in action. During a layover, they asked native speakers, either in an awkward French or through an interpreter, to confirm or deny their hypotheses: ‘Can one say, Mo ti pou fine fek danse?’ Well, a stupid question deserves a stupid answer. The informants, caught between laughter and bewilderment at foreigners capable of asking such ridiculous questions, generally replied with whatever came to mind, most often acquiescing with, ‘If you like ...’ Of course, the academic usually had an answer already in mind. Did he want a negative response to the question? – if so, the slightest hesitation was evidence that the construction was ungrammatical. Did he want the form to be acceptable? In that case, the informant was called upon to do anything necessary to imagine a situation in which this construction could be produced. If the unfortunate creature persisted in being unable to imagine how such a thing could ever be uttered – thereby revealing his lack of cooperation, or even his ignorance – he was disqualified and turned away. Finally, our scientist, in his magnanimity, would condescend to retain from his encounter only those elements which supported his hypothesis. 22 For Malagasy, see Rajemisa-Raolison’s Grammaire malgache (1964), p. 59. For Telugu, see Vinson’s Le verbe dans les langues dravidiennes (1882).

6

Creolization of cultural systems

The term ‘cultural system’ is vague and debatable. In order not to spend too much time on it, let me define it loosely and provisionally as ‘a presumably structured ensemble of traits characterizing a cultural domain in a given society.’ The phrase can apply to a number of ensembles of very diverse sizes and characteristics, such as language, music, cuisine, folk medicine, and oral literature (which I discuss in the following chapters), as well as to social representations, folk knowledge, kinship, technology, etc. While I intend to contribute some degree of essential information, my primary goal is to articulate processes underlying the genesis of cultural systems in light of the sociohistorical conditions already established. I will provide summaries of their major characteristics, too, while considering the nature and importance of various contributions, as well as the social dynamics which can be put to use. Identifying these processes even if incompletely, is in my opinion imperative. As in the previous chapters, Réunion is the only territory on which I have satisfactory documentation. Unfortunately, the absence of reliable data has allowed free rein to an extremely wide range of ideological approaches. Increases in our knowledge should in future restrict this – at least in linguistics, which is by far the best known domain and serves here as my point of reference. The exact objective at this initial stage is not so much to show in detail the processes that bring about the genesis of cultural systems apart from language as to determine to what extent my hypothesis can be extrapolated to them. I also wish to find out whether there exist homologies between linguistic and cultural creolization, despite differences in the structure and functioning of these systems. Cultural systems are naturally not isolated from one another. Language intervenes in different ways in a number of them, either on a lexical level (e.g., in the structure of specialized vocabularies), as a medium (e.g., in oral literature), or as an ‘agent’ (e.g., in magic and folk medicine). There are complex interrelations among them, which I will not try to highlight. For instance, a folk conception of physiology can influence the choice or preparation of certain foods. Likewise, metaphysical ideas can determine the operational modes of folk medicine (we will see that one can hardly consider folk medicine without reference to magic and sorcery).


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Without anticipating any conclusions, it should be emphasized at the outset that one of the main objectives is undoubtedly to determine the extent to which, and the way in which, each of these systems is subject to the pressure of social organization. I have already stressed the importance of this factor for language, and I will maintain the same perspective here; the ‘bird’s eye’ view of these systems, imposed by the breadth of the project, dictates this kind of restriction. In these colonial societies, language was no doubt the area where social pressure applied most clearly and obviously, and, as seen in previous chapters, it was the first and the most powerful factor in the integration of the new, bozal slaves. In certain more marginal systems, such as music, this pressure was certainly less intense. At least as an initial hypothesis, one can even surmise that such domains – secret religious practices and magic, for example – have no systems. Haitian voodoo is always cited as one of those systems with a non-European origin that have ‘resisted’ colonial cultural oppression. It is certainly necessary to differentiate and distinguish between, on the one hand, pressure from the dominant social group (whether or not this is institutionalized) and, on the other, the inherent capacity of these domains to resist or escape such pressure. This capacity depends on a very large number of factors. One of the main ones is the age of the slaves: all forms of deculturation are much more rapid among young subjects who, in certain societies, have not even undergone their rites of initiation. Another constant factor has been highlighted by the linguistic approach: the greater the role of language in a cultural system, the more the system is influenced by the dominant social group whose language is imposed on all, even if only in approximate forms. Hence, music should a priori be more likely to possess non-European traits, and so, to a lesser extent, should cuisine. One may also assume that rural technology has been less clearly influenced by European elements. Such questions must be approached in a subtle manner, because the study of technical lexica has shown an evolution which I have identified as devernacularization (Chaudenson 1974a; 1981c:253), and this must be distinguished from the more purely sociolinguistic phenomenon of decreolization. The latter (whose name I would gladly dispute) is associated with a diglossic situation and linked to the tendency of the socially inferior system (Creole) to become more similar, in some structural respects, to the socially superior language (the lexifier). However, devernacularization is essentially linked to technological evolution, which, as can be expected, first affects archaic techniques – and in settlement colonies these always include techniques inherited from non-European material culture. I have thus been able to show a progressive loss in Réunionnais of lexemes of non-French origin due simply to the disappearance or modification of the techniques that they named (Chaudenson 1974a:1094–1100). I therefore intend to examine possible homologies between the geneses of creole languages and of cultural systems that are found in the ACR and IOR, as well as to determine the conditions and limits of such an approach. My aim is to keep the ‘linguistic model’ from imposing itself on the study of all forms of creolization without being subjected to careful examination. I am being methodologically

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cautious. I have no ambition to propose for the four cultural systems under consideration a theory of the same magnitude as I have proposed for language. Nevertheless, despite all the reservations, I think I have shown that the study of cultural creolization can and should be largely inspired by the methods used in the analysis of linguistic creolization, even if at the outset pure and simple extrapolation from one domain to the other seems impossible. Such essential requisites as highlighting the sociohistorical and sociocultural conditions in the development of colonial societies, identification and knowledge (as far as is possible) of the terminus a quo, and the comparative method (also precious, given differences between the slave populations of the ACR and those of the IOR) are muchneeded and effective instruments in these domains. Still, let me emphasize that I do not intend to extend the hypothesis proposed for creole genesis beyond the linguistic domain. Rather, I want to warn against any tendency one might feel to apply this almost automatically, given crossdomain homologies. Therefore, my position is in no way ‘Eurocentric,’ nor does it reflect ‘linguistic imperialism’ – accusations leveled at me by some malicious individuals who have distorted my position, often for political and ideological reasons that for them take priority over the scientific approach. In linguistic creolization, the influence of non-European languages is quite modest at the level of direct contributions and is rather of the determinative kind – a state of affairs that is largely due to the exogenous nature of the contact settings. Comparisons with North American French varieties support this observation. In any case, as underscored by comparisons with the situations in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, non-European influence can lead to creolization only in very specific sociolinguistic circumstances: the kind described in Chapter 4 – ones that are a sine qua non condition of creolization. Actually, what determined me to undertake the examination of cultural creolization was a long familiarity with the social and economic histories of creole-speaking territories, especially the Mascarenes and the Seychelles. I was also moved by the feeling that, in terms of our knowledge of creole cultures, we are precisely where we were with creole languages a century ago. The absence of reliable descriptions of these cultures, and our ignorance of the sociohistorical conditions of creolization and the terminus a quo, are such that anyone at all can say whatever he or she pleases about creole cultures. As a result, purely ideological positions, which are harder and harder to defend in the linguistic domain, have been freely advanced in the domain of culture, where everybody believes they can dream or wander as they please. Also, as already noted, I was very happy to see d’Ans’ exemplary study, Haiti: paysage et société (1987), which has the double merit (fundamental in my opinion) of presenting both a sociohistorical study (a ‘biography of the Haitian landscape,’ the first part of the book) and an integrated approach to Haitian social and cultural anthropology. The latter consists of an ‘analysis of some dimensions of the Haitian symbolic space.’ In this second part, the author (with an ethnologist’s competence that I completely lack) approaches ‘cultural systems’ – such as ‘kinship, property, [and] work’ or ‘the architecture of the body and paths of the


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soul’ – that I have cautiously left aside, despite their obvious importance. Since the original French edition of the present work was almost complete at the time d’Ans’ book was published, I was not able to benefit from it as much as I could have, and was able only to include some of his remarks and conclusions as counterpoints to others’ views. Paradoxically, it is perhaps on the domain of language that our positions diverge somewhat, although he credits me – overgenerously, to be sure – with ‘definitively settling the question of the nature and genesis of creoles’ (1987:303). My reservation stems from the fact that, since publication of the study to which d’Ans refers, I have articulated my positions more adequately and refined them. His view of the general context of creolization is however similar to mine – not surprisingly, since both are based on analyses of historical, economic, and social facts that are as rigorous and honest as possible. Apart from his vigorous disputation of the Africanness of Haitian culture (which cannot fail to make those who consider Haiti a ‘detached piece’ of Africa grind their teeth), the essential point for me seems to be his focus on the specific dynamics of creolization. This is why the cultural forms which show up in Haiti, at the end of a long period of isolation and self-reliance in the nineteenth century, are those that correspond to a reconstituted society in which elements of eighteenth-century French culture predominate – but used as components in a new construction. It is nonetheless evident that this reconstitution also includes a number of reminiscences from Africa. One could even say that it is impregnated with an Afrocentrism nurtured by nostalgic references to Africa – but to an abstract Africa, not an ‘experienced’ one, and in no way a ‘traditional’ one. One might also wonder to what extent this ideology was induced from the outside, after the elaboration of Haitian folk culture, or at least, if its original Afrocentrism was not profoundly reinterpreted, first, in the wake of the bourgeois indigenism of the early twentieth century, then of Black ethnologism of the Duvalier era … In no way can Haitian culture be counted among relics of African cultures of the same kind as those attested in Cuba and, especially, in Brazil. In these countries, these relics are due to massive, ethnically coherent and much more recent importations of slaves in the nineteenth century (Yoruba in Cuba and Bahia, and Dahomean in Maranhão). In this case contact with Africa was not so brutally broken, nor even completely interrupted. (d’Ans 1987:239–240; my emphasis) Furthermore, Blacks in Cuba and Brazil were able to preserve elements of African culture while at the same time being linguistically completely hispanicized or lusitanized. This underlines (if this is necessary) the relevance of our position that the various aspects of creolization have not necessarily proceeded hand in hand or at the same pace.

7

Creole music

The general sociohistorical framework adopted here requires us to pay particular attention to early observations and documents relating to the various domains discussed. Because of the limited space available in this book, I shall only discuss some of these. Even a work that was more specific could not produce an economical yet exhaustive review of such sources. The small number of early references to the native languages of Blacks has been noted in Chapter 4. These languages were forbidden on plantations and disappeared very quickly. Both the youth and the heterogeneity of speakers, as well as the social organization of the plantations precipitated their disappearance. Accounts of ‘Black music,’ on the other hand, are quite plentiful.

The music of the Antilles In the ACR I will concentrate on Martinique, on which Petitjean-Roget (1980) has collected and cited many descriptions made by several of the earliest authors. One such description shows that slaves on Martinique benefited from moments of freedom during evenings, on Sundays, and at holidays (although such occasions were fewer than in France during the same period). At these times slaves were allowed to assemble, make music, and dance. Ligon (1684) is quoted in Petitjean-Roget (1980:498) as saying: When their masters give them free time, they visit each other and pass entire nights playing games, dancing, and participating in other recreational activities and merry-making, including even small feasts, with each among them saving what he can in order to contribute to the common meal.1 One could add here that music and dance were not only tolerated, but almost even imposed, on the slave ships, where they were considered an effective way to keep up the morale of slaves, as well as providing salutary daily exercise outside the holds. Groups of slaves were taken up on deck by turns, where a cask or a trunk served as a drum, and they could make music and dance in the open air before returning to the hold. The therapeutic effects that such dancing must

Creole music 199 have had is obvious, although the colonists probably viewed the music as just a rather innocent collective entertainment and tolerated it. Early accounts make it equally apparent that some of these assemblies took place outside permitted times (‘in the woods’ ). Their inevitably noisy, and thus not secretive, nature suggests that, at least sometimes, the slaves enjoyed a certain amount of tolerance, so long as they showed up for work in the morning and they did what they were expected to do. The music seems to have been essentially African. Only percussion instruments (drums or gourds containing seeds or pebbles) were used. Rochefort observes: They form assemblies where they dance in their native style to the sound of the drum or calabash with such gaiety that they seem to be the happiest people on earth. The drum is nothing more than a hollowed tree trunk upon which the skin of a wolf-fish is stretched and tied with a cord. One of them will hold it between his legs and beat it with his fingers like a tambourine. He’ll play a verse, then the assembly will sing another, and they’ll continue on like this in turns. (Rochefort 1658:322) Ligon remarks on the use of the kettledrum: Their music is created by kettledrums of various sizes, but the best musicians play on the smallest ones, while the others follow in concert. I am aware that the kettledrum produces only one tone, but a variety of tones is not really necessary for this sort of music. However, they certainly can change their tempo and style! It is a real pleasure to hear them. It’s the most amazing sound I have ever heard in my life! (Ligon 1684:82) If the kettledrums that Ligon discusses are indisputably percussion instruments, the imprecision of the text does not make it clear whether they were metallic (like those of India) or varieties of tabor. Considering the age of the document, the second hypothesis seems more likely, since it is hard to see how slaves could have manufactured instruments of the first type. Music such as this always accompanied dancing and singing (as seen above). Ligon observes: [The slaves] go off to dance, with the men on one side and the women on the other, since there are no dances that allow mixing together. Their gestures seem to indicate more what they are hoping for than what they are allowed to do, and in this way they transgress less on Sunday, since their hands act more than their feet, and their heads act even more than their hands. They can dance almost all day long without overheating … When they have danced an hour or two, the men start to wrestle, with the music

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Creole music playing constantly and their movements like that of two roosters: their heads hang down to their shoulders and they push against one another trying to grab each other by the leg, as roosters sometimes do. … There are usually two or three pairs wrestling concurrently for an hour in front of women who watch them. (Ligon 1684:85, cited in Petitjean-Roget 1980:498)

Traces of the details that these authors describe are recognizable in current music and dance. The drum described by Rochefort is, according to PetitjeanRoget, the bel air drum, while the wrestling that Ligon recounts seems similar to the laghia (see below). However, in the early stages of the colonies, it was the music and dancing of the Blacks that held the attention of those who documented the period. Certainly these would have appeared picturesque and exotic to the settlers. Was European music also played in the colonies at this time, though? All the documents agree that musical manifestations such as those described here were peculiar to the Black community. They were made possible by the relaxation time the slaves were allowed on the plantations, as they had been earlier on the slave ships, and by the fact that the necessary instruments (drums and gourds) could be made locally without great difficulty. European music depended on imported instruments, which were probably not available, since most often even basically necessary objects were lacking. Moreover, the social need for such activities was unquestionably less intense for Whites. It is likely, then, that in Phase I (the ‘homestead society’ phase), the only music heard was that of the Blacks, and the music of the Whites did not appear until Phase II (the ‘plantation society’ phase). The latter period would have created more favorable conditions for Whites to play music. From an economic point of view, it was now possible to import the necessary European instruments, and from the point of view of White society (most of whose members did not work in the fields), an improved social life was developing. At this point, one might wonder about the ‘origins’ of Antillean music, which appears to mix two well-known traditions, one African, the other European. It appears to be represented by two stylistically distinct modern Antillean musical groups, one called Kassav, and the other called Malavois – though neither is representative of authentic traditions. This last remark is not meant as a reproach to such groups, for their function is not at all ethnographic. Indeed, the absence of historic references in the music and dance performed by current groups should not be surprising, since the images they present of folklores (which they are occasionally reputed to revive) are in fact usually strongly colored by a constant pursuit of exotic stereotypes. I can illustrate this best with examples from the Indian Ocean which I know better. Mauritian folk bands perform reputedly traditional segas in hotels on the beach; women in these groups dance bare-breasted. This satisfies the expectations of tourists attracted by the famous lure of the ‘three S’s’ – sun, sand, and sex – but is obviously a deviation from authentic forms of this local dance.

Creole music 201 A similar example is found on Réunion. Several years ago a group called Kaloupilé was formed to introduce people to the traditional music and dance of Réunion. This extremely well-funded but ephemeral enterprise was also marked by an inclination to sacrifice authenticity to international exoticism. Thus, I was shown female creole dancers who looked like Tahitian women, and the Réunionnais maloya dance took on a flavor of the tamouré. Judging by these two cases, it is clear that it is somewhat risky to base one’s analyses on such productions. Returning to our discussion of Antillean music, facts about its origins are neither extensive nor very reliable. The Historial antillais notes the existence of two traditions. On the one hand, it describes ‘musical practices of African origin,’ which include the dances described below. •

•

•

The calenda, a dance ‘probably originally from Guinea,’ was considered barbarous and lewd. Banned in 1654, it was ‘the object of many regulations throughout the course of history’ (492) but continued to be performed ‘in the woods.’ Clearly present here is evidence of a relative social tolerance for this type of music and dance, although it was regulated, essentially under the influence of the Church, which found it to be ‘naturally’ lewd.2 This dance seems to have disappeared around 1950, before being revived in a stylized form by present-day folk groups. The laghia, similar to the capoeira of Brazil, a dance that, though not exactly combative, is at least competitive in nature. It is perhaps derived from the dance described by Ligon (see above). The bel air (bèlè in Creole), ‘a dance representative of the rural setting of the north of Martinique in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries’ (494). According to the Historial, it is characterized by eight different styles, the best-known being the bel air, the grand bel air, the belia, the biguine, the caniguré, and the ting-bang (494).

Distinguished from these putatively African forms of dance are those regarded by the Historial as being marked by ‘European influence,’ such as the biguine, mazurka, and waltz (495). There is hardly any doubt as to the European heritage of the last two, but the ‘biguine’ is one of the forms of the ‘bel air’ and should probably be considered African in origin – especially since other authors view it as having evolved from the chica (see below). According to the Historial, the only case of ‘creolization’ (i.e., from a somewhat simplistic perspective, the ‘formation of an original reality from the synthesis of contributions from different sources’) involves the haute-taille, which is characterized as a ‘European trace in a rural setting’ (494). It states that in the ‘haute-taille’: the influence of Europe was felt more at the level of the accompanying instruments (the accordion, drum, and chacha) than at the level of the

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Creole music choreography, which was associated with the quadrilles but performed to the rhythm of a polka. (Historial antillais:494)

Everything described above, except for the percussion instruments, seems European, and it is tempting to see in the ‘haute-taille’ European music creolized by the addition of possibly African instruments, rather than the reverse. However, commentary suggesting the localization proper of this music is more significant: It is possible that, in the south, the birth of the small estate (which needed only a limited number of slaves) permitted the emergence of a folklore which was more colored by European influence. In the north, the system of large plantations that persisted would have greatly favored the maintenance of an authentic African expression. (ibid.:495) These facts seem interesting, particularly in light of the sociohistorical approach adopted here. However, they must be reformulated in two respects which reverse the terms ‘emergence’ and ‘maintenance.’ The first point is that (as noted earlier) social units similar in structure to those of the homestead phase were maintained beyond this first phase (as illustrated by Billiard’s detailed 1822 study of the Réunionnais ‘petit blancs of the elite class’; see Chapter 8). Differences existed, of course, but during this period Whites and Blacks still lived in conditions, and adhered to modes of interaction, that were not the same as those on the large plantations. This point does not seem entirely conclusive, however, since, as shown below, Blacks’ imitation or performance of Whites’ music may have developed entirely within the context of the plantation itself. More important is the idea, formulated with some ambiguity by Billiard, that the plantation favored the ‘maintenance of an authentic African expression.’ Actually, if the plantation seemed more suited to such an expression, which was always relatively tolerated, it was not because of its structure, but because the large plantation was inevitably the permanent location for receiving the primary and (more importantly) most recent immigrants. This somewhat finicky reformulation is in direct opposition to a widely held assumption that non-European relics, or, in the domain of language, basilectal forms of creoles (those that are structurally most distant from French), are the oldest. In general, however, the opposite is true, and such forms are actually the most recent. I agree wholeheartedly on this point with d’Ans, who emphasizes that the ‘relics of African culture’ found in Cuba and Brazil (but not in Haiti) are the result of ‘massive ethnically coherent importations which are especially much more recent than slave importations of the nineteenth century’ (1987:240; my emphasis). We reach a similar conclusion (in a totally different way) when we observe that Réunionnais and Seychellois use two different terms, maloya and moutya, to

Creole music 203 designate an essentially identical dance whose non-European origins are indisputable. But there is no early attestation of such a term in Réunionnais, and its presence in Mauritian Creole is highly dubious (its recent appearance is tied to musical recordings and the media). These dances have therefore not spanned the centuries of colonization, as others have claimed, but rather are among recent importations brought by non-European immigrants. This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that the creole vernaculars use two distinct terms: in other words, such terms are absent from the early lexical stock of the Indian Ocean creoles. This case differs, however, from that of the sega, a dance which I discuss in some detail below and whose name (unlike ‘maloya/moutya’) is common to all the languages of the Indian Ocean. Thus, it is not a question of denying the existence of early forms of non-European music (which I have even deemed to have developed before European musical forms); rather, it is a matter of noting that the most obviously non-European forms are likely to have been introduced at a relatively late stage. Musicological, and especially ethnomusicological, studies could probably shed some light on these issues, but they are unfortunately quite thin on the ground. Although it is not ethnomusicological, Lafontaine (1985) at least has the considerable advantage of being based on a field investigation of the ‘traditional music of Guadeloupe’ (in the Baie-Mahault area). Starting with ‘musical terminology’ (‘ what Creole tells us about the music’), she presents varieties of music which differ quite considerably from those listed in the Historial antillais. They are as follows: •

•

•

•

the léwoz, an ensemble of dances and songs performed to the sound of gwoka or gwotanbou (< gros tambour, ‘large drum’) or simply ka drums, either at parties called léwoz3 or, more commonly and informally, during what is called a kout tanbou, ‘short drum’; the kadri (= quadrille), an ensemble of forms danced under the direction of a ‘commander,’ a member of an orchestra whose principal instruments (besides various percussion ones) include the accordion and the tanbou d’bas (tambour de basse ‘bass drum’) or the ti tanbou (< petit tambour ‘little drum’); the bigin (= ‘biguine’), which no longer exists in its original form, except among the populations considered here, and the music of which is performed by experts in quadrille instruments in the same circumstances; and the chanté a véyé (< chants de veillées mortuaires ‘funerary wake songs’), a dance accompanied by hand-clapping and rhythmic throat noises (‘vocal drums’).

The author combines this inventory with interesting comments on the putative origins and ‘legitimacy’ of such musical practices (though we might wonder whether the tambour de basse mentioned above is not rather the tambour de basque, ‘tambourine’). She writes:

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Creole music One of the aspects of the research in progress is a study of terminology which will produce an inventory and semantic analysis of the terms related to this music. This study … offers a triple interest: musicological and linguistic, of course (especially since research on creole languages is in full swing today), but also touching on a very real debate in Guadeloupe, at the heart of which is the ‘legitimate’ definition of cultural identity … I have shown elsewhere that in this debate there is a strong tendency to underestimate, even deny, the importance of the ‘biguine’ and the quadrille, and to overestimate the importance of the léwoz and the chants de veillées. Proponents of this point of view claim to be justified by the bias of an opposition between ‘Western’ criteria (in the case of the first two) and ‘African’ criteria (in the case of the last two) – although the lower classes who alone perform this diverse music, indifferently consider it all as part of the heritage left by the ‘forefathers,’ and do not place its origins anywhere else than in Guadeloupe. (Lafontaine 1985:8–9)

I have somewhat belabored this example, because based on this testimony by a ‘native’ scholar (apparently from Guadeloupe), it is easy to imagine an ideological debate over these cultural questions. It is courageous of Lafontaine to resist a very strong trend among Antillean intellectuals and side with the people of BaieMahault against those who would attempt to speak in their name. Of course (as is often the case), it is the people who are right, rather than the theorists, who are so preoccupied with constructing theories that they neglect to base them on reality. It is by no means impossible, for example, that the ‘biguine’ (the object of their anathemas) is not of European origin! A few studies and a little reflection would lead them to the otherwise obvious conclusion that purging creole cultures of their European elements (if such were even possible) would be tantamount to stripping them of their substance. Regardless of differences in classification, it is obvious that, although these two forms of music (influenced by European and non-European elements) are perceived by the populations that perform them as equally characteristic of their own culture, an outsider can sometimes detect the origins of some dominant features. (Below, I make exactly the same observation regarding Rodriguez in the Indian Ocean.) As the case of the ‘biguine’ demonstrates, the attributions are not always clearcut. The classifications are based on the presumed origins of the instruments used, rather than on actual ethnomusicological criteria (the fundamental point of such an analysis). This is how the ‘misfortunes’ of the ‘biguine’ started, because today it is performed by quadrille musicians, and hence marked with the stigma of a presumed European heritage. Rosemain’s publication of La musique dans la société antillaise, 1635–1902: Martinique Guadeloupe (1986), a book with a promising title, gave me some hope of new data. Unfortunately, although the author deserves credit for transcribing the music of various Antillean songs, for reproducing several scores (primarily from the nineteenth century), and for citing a number of interesting documents

Creole music 205 (particularly from the end of the eighteenth century), her essentially musicological, rather than ethnomusicological, training has led her to accumulate anachronisms and historical and sociological errors, especially in the first chapter (1635–1714). This is unfortunate, given her stated and laudable aim of bringing together music and society. She is mistaken primarily in equating the Lesser Antilles of the late eighteenth century (the beginning of Phase II, the ‘plantation society’ period) with the later Lesser Antilles at the height of its economic prosperity. Thus, she refers to the ‘Government Hotel,’ the ‘coaches,’ and the luxurious residences where ‘after dinner … women and young girls would sit down to the harpsichord or pianoforte’ (14–16). In respect of Blacks, she portrays an opposition between ‘plantation slaves’ and ‘city slaves,’ which seems quite premature, even for the early nineteenth century. Numerous such errors (citations of texts that refer to inapplicable time periods or stem from entirely different colonies, such as Saint Domingue) compromise the validity of her analysis, as do a priori ideologies. Thus, she writes about: 1 2

3

the ‘cult’ of slaves ‘whose singing and dancing’ were their ‘sole means of resistance’ to colonial oppression (19); a quite excessive exaltation of the role of ‘Black Maroons’ who held an important position in ‘nocturnal assemblies,’ which the author continually describes as ‘cultic’ (61);4 and the myth of the bozal, who ‘created a ‘borrowed’ personality in order to resist colonial alienation’ (49). The linguistic consequences of this point of view are more than a little uncertain.

The excessive compartmentalization of Rosemain’s analysis (in which, for example, she describes the music of ‘indentured servants, plantation slaves, city slaves, people of color, rebel slaves, converted slaves, freed slaves, etc.’) does not prevent her from repeatedly demonstrating mutual influences between the music of Whites and Blacks, despite the fact that the two styles remained differentiated. Although the point is not always emphasized forcefully enough (despite its importance), it is clear that the music labeled ‘White’ was often performed by musicians who did not belong to this ethnic group, such as so-called ‘talented slaves’ or professional musicians of color. The role of professional musicians of color is very well detailed by Rosemain for the period of 1714–1789. Citing Moreau de Saint-Méry, she refers to, among others, ‘the famous Julien,’ of whom it was said that ‘a ball wouldn’t be a proper ball unless he conducted the music’ (48). Some musicians, such as Saint-Georges and Campenon, enjoyed a Parisian fame, even in more serious settings. Regarding the slaves, we might mention the ‘classified advertisements’ of Saint Domingue, advertising the sale of Black musicians, most often players of the violin, but also of the trumpet, the hunting horn, and the mandolin. Some could even read music ‘in all keys’ (for more details, see Laguerre 1962:193–194). Unfortunately, however, Rosemain relies on data that are rather too general

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regarding the contribution of these ‘creole’ musicians (who were quite often slaves) to private functions. She writes: The Antillean musician imprinted onto his music a balancing movement. Because of this, his songs were supple and graceful, qualities which historians have mistakenly attributed only to dancers. They embellished their melodies with grace notes, syncopation, accents, and other rhythmic subtleties. (Rosemain 1986:48) At all events, the ‘creole style’ seems to be identifiable, and it should be possible to push the analysis further. These musicians certainly played distinctly local tunes – which must have been inspired to some extent by the music of Africans, if their names are anything to go by: chica, menuet congo, fandango, contredanse créole, biguine, etc. Although Rosemain unreservedly acknowledges that the ‘city slaves’ and ‘people of color’ performed either European-influenced music or even, as noted above, European music itself, she nevertheless seems careful to note the ‘authentic’ character of their ‘purely’ African music, in which she sees the bastions of spiritual resistance to European colonialism. However, a number of details betray the large element of fantasy in this statement, one of the most obvious and indisputable being the remark, in a slightly lyrical discussion of African instruments, that ‘Not all gods choose drums as intermediaries; some prefer chachas, triangles … ’ (28). The author’s enthusiasm here should be somewhat diminished by the fact that the triangle is not even an African instrument! Fortunately, the documents and evidence that she cites contradict the basis of her argument that ‘each social group has its own musical forms’ (106). The upshot is that, still lacking a truly musicological or ethnomusicological analysis, we are forced to remain on a somewhat superficial level – even when, as we will see in the case of the Indian Ocean, quite precise details are available.

Creole music of the Indian Ocean The creole music of the Indian Ocean archipelagos (the Mascarenes and the Seychelles) is far from being limited to the sega, a term that can designate different (though related) phenomena according to time and place. Nonetheless, examining this word and the realities it denotes may provide us a means of approaching our problem. First, the word sega is common to all the creoles of the region, in particular Réunionnais and Mauritian. This indicates that it must have been in use since the beginning of the eighteenth century, a hypothesis supported by the absence of a well-established etymon (a problem I return to below), and also by the relatively early date of its first attestation (1770, on Ile de France). An etymology of sega proposed by Hollyman (1962:36) is Portuguese sega, ‘harvest.’ Underlying this is the idea that the dance may originally have been a

Creole music 207 harvest celebration, although we have no direct indication of this meaning at our disposal. Further, I have shown elsewhere (Chaudenson 1974) that the lexical items borrowed by the creoles of the region from Portuguese were, in fact, most probably from Indo-Portuguese. The first attestation of the term comes from Ile de France in 1770, under the form tschiega (Chefdeville 1962; Chaudenson 1974a:1069). Of an early form of the term, de Freycinet writes: The Blacks like music very much. They compose … little tunes that are almost always filled with melancholy expression and melodies pleasing to even the most highly trained European ear. These tunes are generally referred to as chega or tchega. (de Freycinet 1827:405; the voyage on which this information was collected took place in 1817) Taking all of these facts into consideration, the phonetic evolution becomes clear: [¾iega] > [¾ega] > [šega] > [sega]. This process is exactly what we would expect from the ‘natural’ transition of an alveo-palatal constriction to a dental sibilant, common to all the creoles of the area. The presence of the sound [¾] points to a Mozambican etymology. In fact, such pronunciations are given for Mauritius by Baissac in the nineteenth century as characteristic of the ‘Mozambique accent’: mo té nouar mchié Gambriéché (< j’étais noir de Monsieur Gambrièche, ‘I was Mr. Gambrièche’s black man’; 1880:105). Still, the significance of a remark like this should not be exaggerated; for example, this feature is not listed by Volcy Focard as being characteristic of the speech of the ‘Bantus’ in Réunion during the same period (Chaudenson 1981a:165–166). More important is the remainder of de Freycinet’s observation, which indicates that the word sega has denoted two forms of appreciably different musical expression of this period. The first, a ‘melancholy expression’, relates to music described by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: They [the Blacks] passionately love music and dance. Their primary instrument is the tom-tom, a kind of bow with an attached gourd. They draw out from it a sort of soft harmony which accompanies the songs they compose. Love is always the subject of these songs. Girls dance to the songs of their suitors, while bystanders clap in time and applaud. (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b [1773]:175) Bernardin de Saint-Pierre seems mistaken about the name of the instrument he describes, which is indisputably the bobre (again, this is a term and an instrument common to both the Mascarenes and the Seychelles). On the other hand, the Blacks in question were all Malagasy, as demonstrated by various cultural and physical features (e.g., spears, pagnes, women’s hairstyles, and general physical appearance). Note also that, according Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, women were the ones who danced – or, at any rate, women and men did not dance together.

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This is recognizable as a characteristic of the dances of Madagascar, which are performed by women (and especially young girls) to the accompaniment of ‘singing, music, and hand-clapping’ (Ethnologie régionale, p. 1446). Whatever the case may be, this style of music and dance is very different from the music and dance, also known as tchega, which de Freycinet vividly describes: The name ‘tchega’ is also used to denote a Mozambique dance which might be compared to the Spanish fandango. It would be less of a pleasure to watch if it were performed by different actors and if the voluptuous postures they produce did not degenerate towards the end into a shocking indecency. ‘One may,’ notes M. Pitot, ‘compare the “chega” to a little drama, since it includes the same developments and all the nuances of a passion, from the first declaration of love to the triumph of the lover. To the sound of the tom-tom, a Black man and woman spring forward to the center of a large circle. Their initial steps are slow, their figures inanimate, and their gestures expressionless. They approach each other, look each other over, and spin around repeatedly. Shortly thereafter, their gazes become animated, their movements become both more rapid and more delicate, and they gradually finish by reaching a state of amorous intoxication by which even the least chaste of White spectators are inevitably shocked. This is not true, however, of the Blacks who surround them: the fire in their gazes, their expressive grimaces, their foot-stomping, and their howls all announce both the extent to which they are a part of the scene before them and how impatiently they are waiting to participate in it. (de Freycinet 1827:405; my emphasis) This rather long quotation is of the utmost importance. First of all, it confirms the existence of social tolerance for Blacks’ music and dance, as in the Antilles. Such tolerance had already existed much earlier, as illustrated by the following account by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who also points out clandestine gatherings of the type outlined below: Sometimes they meet to rendezvous in the middle of the night. They dance under cover of a steep boulder to the mournful sound of a pea-filled gourd. The sight of a White man or the barking of a dog is enough to dissipate the nocturnal assembly. (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b [1773]:177) More than anything, though, de Freycinet’s text describes a dance form which was established and seems to have been named tchega by extension. It thus seems plausible that the semantic extension may have been facilitated by a phenomenon of ‘paronymous collision.’ In Swahili, for example, the term sega can mean ‘to lift up, roll up one’s clothes’ (Sacleux) – and the gesture of rolling up the dress or skirt is characteristic of female sega dancers. In addition, in at least two creoles, Réunionnais and Seychellois, there are other terms – maloya in

Creole music 209 the former, moutya in the latter – which specifically designate these types of dances. Since all these forms of music were introduced more recently, their designations very logically differ from one creole to the other. It also seems plausible to make a comparison with a phonetically and semantically similar term found in the ACR. This is sure to delight the proponents of monogenesis theories; however, if such a term became part of the vocabulary of the slave trade, it would not be surprising to see it appearing in both the IOR and the ACR, as many other terms have done (Chaudenson 1974a:1090–1092). Our discussion of Antillean music has already introduced the word chika, and it is tempting to compare this to the term sega. Chika was first cited by Moreau de Saint-Méry (vol. 1, p. 64), and still exists in Haitian. Note its inclusion in the entry danse chica in Jules Faine’s dictionary (1974:158). Guy Hazaël-Massieux (personal communication) studied the attestations of this term in the ACR in great detail, particularly the data compiled by Nazario in El elemento afronegroide en el español de Puertorico (317–318). In the following passage, Hazaël-Massieux outlines how these facts can be summarized and explained: Sica is the name of this variety of drum dances observed in Puerto Rico in 1798 by Ledru, who called them chica in the original French version of his text. The term is still attested in rural Black communities, according to various authors cited earlier, such as Ocasio, Guiscafré, Muñoz (who only writes sika), López Cruz, and Ríos (who writes ci cas). The term chica was formerly used among people of color in other European colonies of the New World. In Cuba, chica denoted a type of fandango dance, while in Rio de la Plata, it referred to an amorous candombe (also known as semba or baile de nación). In the French Antilles, the danse chica, whose name was reintroduced in Haiti in 1809 by Descourtilz, was a voluptuous dance, the same one that was called danse congo in Cayenne and that, according to La Roncière, led to the ‘biguine’ in the modern era.5 This author states that the ‘chica’ corresponds to the dance called sega on Ile de France and Bourbon. This older use of chica may be related to the noun bubi of Fernando Póo, sikoko, a dance performed by women, or to the Bantu verb sika/siika ‘to play a musical instrument or make sounds,’ a term found in many of the languages of this Kikongo subgroup, Umbumdu. (Guy Hazaël-Massieux , personal communication) Dancing on slave ships may have been the key factor in the dissemination of the term chika/chega, used to designate different forms of dance performed by Blacks, first on trade ships and then on land. It seems likely that on Bourbon, as on Ile de France, these dances (in their earlier attested forms) were not ‘drum dances,’ and they were undoubtedly not of African origin. Still, since they are primarily not European in nature, it is possible that the term may have been applied first to music and dance that were more Malagasy (the first meaning of tchega, which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and de Freycinet seem to evoke), and then to ‘Mozambique dances’ (the second meaning of the term cited above).

210 Creole music Early documents from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries offering precise details on music and dance are rare. They serve primarily to illustrate how these two activities were tolerated (e.g., in the Antilles). On the other hand, numerous and detailed texts from the beginning of the nineteenth century are much more frequent. The unpublished journal of Lescouble is a particularly valuable source of information on the music of the Europeans on Réunion, both for the particular repertoires that were in style, and also for the instruments. In fact, this ‘native,’ who was curious about everything and kept a journal from 1811, was devoted to music and theater, as well as to making and repairing musical instruments (see Encyclopédie de la Réunion, vol. 5:98–99). Thus, all European instruments were available on the Island: the violin, of course, as well as the guitar and the clarinet. Most amateur musicians kept abreast of European styles, and they would get together from time to time to give small concerts. It seems, however, that they did not have a particularly high regard for dance music, and they gladly called on professional, or at least specialized, musicians to perform at balls, parties, and weddings. This impression is confirmed in a later text by Maillard, which we will discuss below. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the primary dance appears to have been the contre-danse (very likely the same one as in the Antilles, even though it is hardly mentioned by Rosemain),6 closely followed by the waltz. Since the same French model was imposed, these developments were the same almost everywhere, and so the ‘contre-danse’ surfaces in Haitian folklore, as evidenced by the following definition from Patrimoine culturel: ‘During the “contre-danse” the orchestra plays alone, and a voice indicates which steps to take’ (1981:184). The presence of a ‘commander’ is entirely characteristic of a ‘contre-danse,’ but it is quite clear that this dance was performed only by Mulattos and Blacks in Haiti, which, as we will see later, was not unusual. Lescouble provides valuable information on this issue, not by informing us that Whites danced the ‘contre-danse’ at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but by describing the game played by the Blacks parodying this type of music: ‘Easter Sunday, 1812: We all passed the day joyfully, and in the evening we danced the “contre-danse,” after which the servants entertained themselves for several hours dancing and laughing.’ These slaves had heard Whites’ music and observed their dances, and had affected the same mannerisms. Therefore, it should not be surprising that Lescouble describes the following scene, which bears a relationship to the preceding one (even though it occurs ten years later in his journal): April 14, 1822: A Black slave in Hugot, drunk as the devil’s drum, amused us in an odd way one night. He got hold of a ‘bobre’ and began dancing in a manner so peculiar that it was impossible to stay serious. He got little Black children to dance, and he used such comical expressions to engage them in it that it was difficult to imagine a more hilarious scene: he shouted

Creole music 211 out naturellement ‘naturally,’ c’est fort bien ‘that’s mighty good,’ and other such expressions. This slave was parodying the Whites’ dance or dancing lessons, as is clear from his use of French phrases that were not, I suspect, part of his ordinary competence. Still, not having at his disposal a violin or other European instruments, he transposed the music and dance on the ‘bobre,’ the musical bow of the Blacks, and he actually played the role of the ‘contre-danse’ commander, who always directed the dancers in French. In the mid-nineteenth century, the ‘contre-danse’ went out of style and was eclipsed by the quadrille. The Seychelles were an exception, however, as was Haiti, where the ‘contre-danse’ continued to be danced by Blacks and people of mixed race (Laguerre 1962) (as for the Antillean haute-taille, it is uncertain whether this dance descended from the ‘contre-danse’ or the quadrille (Rosemain 1986:100–101)). I have often been able to watch these dances in the Seychelles, where they are called kamtolé in Creole. The essential instrument is the violin, but others include the triangle, banjo, guitar, and, occasionally, accordion. One of the musicians (often the triangle-player) serves as the commander and directs the turns of the dancing couples.7 We may borrow Koechlin’s analysis of the origin of the ‘contre-danse,’ noting, however, that the facts are probably even more complex, and bearing in mind that today’s Seychellois kamtolé has not remained identical to that of the early nineteenth century: It is certain that, in its initial form, the kamtolé consisted of a set of court and salon dances that were in fashion in the late eighteenth century, most notably the waltz, which had been introduced to France with the Revolutionary Wars, and the ‘contre-danses,’ which had crossed the English Channel, had been introduced to the court of Louis XV. They were interpreted in a classical manner, with two violins, a mandolin, a triangle, and a large drum. We should, however, not overlook the possibility that the people of the Seychelles rapidly enriched this form with several influences. These include new dances (the polka, the schottische and even the one-step), as well as new instrumental forms (the accordion, the banjo, and the guitar) and orchestral forms (jazz). The term contre-danse comes from English country dance. This also explains why the melodic themes in the kamtolé are often derived from English, Irish, and Scottish folklore. There had not been enough time since the introduction of the contre-danse in the Seychelles for French popular themes to be incorporated … These dances have been passed down in French folklore in the form of the quadrille. (Koechlin 1978) These remarks are interesting, but we should be wary of the diachronic perspective that is offered. As a matter of fact, the connection of the dance with England is questionable, and the author is aware of this. In a later text (1981), he

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returns to this idea, saying, ‘It is necessary to justify the assertion that certain dances are “contre-danses,” because they appear to bear a more specifically French mark’ (26). In any case, attributing ‘themes’ exclusively to one tradition or another is generally unwise and should be avoided. What seems important to me is that in the Seychelles, as in Haiti (and possibly in the Antilles), the contre-danse, originally a dance for Whites, has by no means remained limited to this community. It has, nonetheless, retained the characteristics of its origin. Not only has it kept its orchestral instruments, but also, since it is a ‘commanded’ dance, it continues to be in French, despite the fact that the commanders and dancers do not generally know this language at all. The commands are, ironically, much less intelligible to francophones than to the dancers who perform the requested movements. It is amusing to note Koechlin’s mistranslations of certain commands, in spite of the information he was able to gather from those involved with the dancing – confirmation that the dancers themselves do not understand the exact meanings of the traditional words they repeat while performing the movements. He writes: Pas à pas vos pas, madame à droite – Avais dit lâcher des dames – Scène des dames – Main à main posément … Step-by-step, lady to the right – Said release the ladies – Ladies’ scene – Calmly, hand-in-hand … (Koechlin 1981:28) In connection with a variant of lâcher des dames, ‘release the ladies,’ he mentions a call la scène pigeons ‘scene of pigeons’ and asks, ‘allusion to the release of pigeons?’ This interpretation – a strange one, to say the least – is actually based on a mistranslation: the ‘French’ word (phonetically [sen], as in la sène dé dam, which Koechlin transcribes as scène des dames) is evidently not scène (which would make no sense here), but chaîne (hence, la chaîne des dames, ‘chain of ladies’). The designated women formed a ‘chain,’ elbow-to-elbow, which also explains the reference to la chaîne [des] pigeons. Thus, it is the position of the dancers’ arms which evokes the wings of pigeons, which do not, as such, play any role in the dance! Koechlin’s Seychellois informants, who did not know French at all, could not provide him with these insights. Moreover, since he did not know Creole, he could not correctly interpret the text. For example, note the following transcription of a commander’s calls, recorded during a kamtolé dance at Anse Réunion (La Digue, Seychelles) on 18 September 1978: Deviré, déviron la kadans – Tyonbo lamin pour envoy lasène dé dam – Kavalyé frap lamin – Tou madam mété vou zan kroi. … In standard French: Evoluez, évoluons en cadence; Tenez la main pour faire la chaîne des dames … Les cavaliers tapent dans leurs mains … Toutes les dames mettez vous en

Creole music 213 croix. … [It is noteworthy that this commander, who did not speak French, preserved the right inflections on the verbs!] ‘Proceed, let’s proceed rhythmically; Ladies, hold hands to form a chain … Gentlemen, clap your hands … All ladies, form a cross. …’ (Chaudenson and Barat 1979) A statement by Maillard concerning Réunion is relevant, both because of its precision and because of the correlations it establishes between forms of music and social groups: Music occupies an important place in the leisure activities of the different classes of the population of Réunion. Among the wealthy and well-to-do, it is cultivated via the formal traditions brought by teachers arriving here from Europe; among the petits créoles, it is cultivated exclusively in the form of ‘contre-danses’ and waltzes played on the violin; among the workers who come here from India, the coasts of Africa, and Madagascar, it is cultivated with the particular songs and instruments of each ethnic group; and, finally, it has recently been rediscovered among the slaves freed in 1848, in a mixed form of European and African music. (Maillard 1862:312) Maillard’s analysis is precise and makes reference to four types of music corresponding to four social groups: A B

C

D

European music imported by wealthy Whites (as we saw when discussing Lescouble, it is considered ‘serious’ music); the ‘contre-danses’ and waltzes, usually played on the violin by the petits créoles (in Maillard’s classification, this category probably includes the petits blancs of the upper class, as well as free men of mixed race); the blend of European and African music of the ‘slaves freed in 1848,’ i.e., former creole or creolized slaves (bearing in mind that the slave trade was abolished more than thirty years before the abolition of slavery itself); and Indian, African, and Malagasy music of the laborers who arrived after 1848.

We can thus relate this model to the organization of behavior and linguistic communication of Phase II (the ‘plantation society’ phase): 1 2 3

French (koiné); approximations of French; approximations of approximations of French.

Category 1, by definition, is seemingly larger than Category A – which Maillard characterizes by wealth, or, at least, affluence. The difference is probably

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not so great, however, since the proletarian petits blancs were defined both by their poverty and by the probable use of approximative forms of French. Category 2 (approximations of French) thus actually includes both B (petits créoles) and C (former creole and creolized slaves). Maillard provides details elsewhere of the community he calls petits créoles. He writes, ‘Apart from the Europeans born in the country and elsewhere, and the class more specifically called the petits créoles … ’ (179). This shows that he distinguishes petits créoles from white Creoles (‘Europeans born in the country’), and that, in his view, they are of mixed race. It is important to recognize that racial classification on Réunion is a very complex matter (Chaudenson 1974b). In fact Category 2 is ‘sociolinguistically’ defined by the common usage of a continuum of French approximations, with ‘creolized French’ at its center and Creole proper on the periphery. Most Réunionnais spoke some form of French, a fact that made it unnecessary on Réunion in 1848 to draft a proclamation in Creole abolishing slavery, as had been done on Mauritius in 1835. Category 3 fully corresponds to D. Recent immigrants are included here, and they are always adults, compared to slaves, who were often children or adolescents (as seen above). This is one of the often unacknowledged points which fundamentally distinguish slavery from the system of indentured labor that succeeded it. The crucial difference between the two systems of labor lies less in their place in the overall social structure of the community than in the absence from Maillard’s representation of the very strong centripetal movement characterizing the slave system. This does not mean, however, that exchanges, or reciprocal influences, between Africans and Europeans were not possible. They appear mostly in Categories B and C of Maillard’s system. The fact that the music of Category A is written, seemingly almost sacred, has led it to largely escape local influences. It still remains the prerogative of performers who all receive the same European-style musical training. Category D, which is to some extent open to outside influence, still remains communal (i.e., limited for the most part to an ethnic group, as Maillard himself emphasizes). Although the material conditions of the indentured laborers were only slightly better than those of the slaves before them, there was an important difference: the former knew that they were guaranteed by their contracts the right to practice their religions. This was true for the Indians particularly, but also for the Africans and Malagasies. Nothing, therefore, prevented them from collectively practicing music, dance, or any other cultural activity. And, since these laborers were, on average, much older than bozal slaves, they were more likely to bring with them the cultural traditions of their native lands. Categories B and C are especially favorable to exchanges. Lescouble’s text makes it clear that slaves imitated, and even parodied, the music and dance of Europeans. Maillard tells us that the orchestra for ‘contre-danses’ and waltzes was formed in the same way as it is today for the Seychellois ‘kamtolé’ (‘two violins, one or two tambourines, and a triangle’; 1862:312). In addition, his

Creole music 215 comments on the ‘style’ of these musicians are highly reminiscent of Rosemain’s remarks on the style of Antillean musicians of the same era: In the early [nineteenth] century, ‘contre-danses’ and waltzes performed on the violin by fiddlers called jouars [< joueurs ‘players’] were basically the only music that was heard … The ‘jouars’ would duel, accompanied by one or two tambourines and a triangle, and one could hear the eternal Liberté being performed with tremendous richness and filled with embellishments left to the discretion of the virtuoso in charge. … The richness came from the style of music that was performed, and especially from the tradition which some of the slave-owners had left behind, which might be called sabreur, ‘swashbuckler.’ In fact, the musicians appeared to be slashing the music with sabers, as they jerked and shook all along. It would be impossible to imagine this style of playing without having heard it – and, even after hearing it, it would be difficult for another musician to reproduce … In spite of the deplorable school here, we have had fiddlers who were truly talented. After listening to a few musicians, they succeeded in taking from them the stroke of the long bow and fine phrasing, and, by combining these with precision of touch and the quality of sound they possessed naturally, they made themselves a pleasure to hear and were in great demand at all the balls of high society. Recall the Martins, the Guillaumes, etc. These men had few imitators and make the ‘jouars’ of today seem limp in their style of playing, with eternally monotonous phrasing and a small and clamorous sound. What makes the music they perform even more monotonous is the fact that they all play in unison, and no accompaniment is ever heard, no matter how subtle it might be. (Maillard 1862:318) Maillard’s observation is important for several reasons. First of all, it underscores the nature of ‘contre-danse’ music at the beginning of the century (and thus the marginal role of non-European music, even if this may imply a form of racial prejudice). However, it also indicates that, when performed by those of mixed race, or perhaps even by slaves, such music seems to have taken on a ‘creolized’ quality in its style. The spread of this kind of music, which had originally been exclusively ‘White,’ within the middle class8 was certainly aided by the introduction of the piano, which became the instrument of high society (associated with European music). Consequently, the violin was relegated to the lower class, and, like the banjo and mandolin, it started to be made locally by ‘country craftsmen’ (Encyclopédie de la Réunion, vol. 6). Maillard corroborates this, stating, ‘Music is generally taught and learnt exclusively for the piano’ (1862:314). All these details were confirmed to me by Michel Trouvain (personal communication), who inventoried and wrote a history of pianos in Réunion. ‘Contre-danse’ music thus became the specialty of ‘jouars,’ whose last representatives are still living today in the highlands of the Island. In the nineteenth century members of European high society hired them for their balls and

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general entertainment, although their professional activity naturally extended well beyond this social class. It was, however, through the upper class that the ‘jouars’ gained access to European musical innovations, since they had to familiarize themselves with what was fashionable in Paris in order to entertain its members. This is how the quadrille supplanted the old ‘contre-danse,’ according to Maillard’s observation, which is once again crucial and, under the circumstances, quite contemporary: We went to spend several days in the oases of the Island’s interior, where some families had already gathered. We encountered some young ladies in the process of teaching the melodies of the Lancier, note-by-note, to a fiddler, so that they could dance two or three times after several days of lessons. The poor scraper, totally surprised at being able to play quite fluently (by force of groping through the tunes sung out to him by the young ladies), had hitherto at most known only how to play the creole ‘segas’ by rote. (Maillard 1862:318) Maillard’s text confirms that the name sega was applied to music that, along with the ‘contre-danse’ and waltz, formed the repertoire of the creole ‘jouars.’ The word thus has the double meaning on Réunion that it has on Mauritius, as shown below. The quadrille itself, whose manner of introduction is described by Maillard, includes European dances (e.g., the mazurka, schottische, etc.); it is complemented however, by a ‘sega’ that is performed with the same instruments, as well as by an accompaniment of hand-clapping. Nevertheless, in places such as Rodriguez, it is still possible to distinguish clearly between the sega kordeon, the last of the quadrille dances (with the accordion substituting for the violin), and the sega tanbour, whose (various percussion) instruments and ‘context of production’ differ from those of the former. Unfortunately, Maillard is less precise in his description of Category D, the music of former slaves: The slaves freed in 1848 produced a mixed music which had a certain charm when it accompanied field work. The timing was irreproachable, and the rhythm and accompanying parts were from African music. (Maillard 1862:317; my emphasis) Lescouble’s descriptions show that the slaves performed music apart from work songs, which undoubtedly have nearly disappeared since the abolition of slavery. Such is the case on Réunion, at least (traces of the sega plant ariko, which provided the rhythm for the work linked to this culture, are still found today on Rodriguez). Categories B and C are thus the locus of exchanges between European and non-European music, with the apparent diffusion of the European ‘model’ (the ‘contre-danse,’ then the quadrille) among Blacks and people of mixed race. Influence in the opposite direction also occurred, especially with the ‘sega,’

Creole music 217 which was introduced in the quadrille, though it already constituted a creole musical form proper (and not simply a non-European one). (There seems to be a somewhat analogous phenomenon in the Antilles, since the ‘biguine,’ which is performed by quadrille musicians – and is thus connected to the European tradition – appears in the bèlè: the putatively African bel air.) This conclusion is supported by information contained in Roussin’s Album de la Réunion (1861), which provides facts both on music and musical scores. In a section titled Le séga quadrille créole, the author emphasizes the dual meaning of sega from the very beginning: ‘The sega, or t’sega, denotes, on the one hand, a tune or a collection of dance tunes, and, on the other, a particular dance which Africans perform.’ In connection with the first meaning, he adds: The tunes published in the Album de la Réunion in the form of the quadrille appear to belong to the domain of European music. They seem not to have assumed a character of exotic originality, except for a few modifications which were instinctively sustained for a number of years by those who adapted the tunes to the customs of dance. (Roussin 1861) This analysis echoes (albeit with less precision) the analysis given by Maillard, for whom what was particularly original was the ‘jerking and shaking’ style (syncopation?). M.P. offered the same analysis and made a distinction between the ‘civilized’ sega and the ‘pure’ (i.e., African) sega. He posited the following ‘historical’ scheme of evolution, which earlier observations by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and de Freycinet somewhat contradict: Despite the fact that I have shown the inflexibility of the rules and conventions, the ‘sega’ was nonetheless modified through contact with other, clearly later, dances: the barbarian became civilized. See how it is danced by newcomers who came ashore just yesterday: it is full of untamed energy and thrilling honesty, but it lacks the experience of life. It is the still audacious and cynical translation of a brutal passion which dreams only of its desires and worries little about offending the eyes of a public audience. Compare this fierce simplicity with the ‘sega,’ as perfect as some young creole couple can dance it for you. It is transformed without losing its passionate qualities, since then it would no longer be the ‘sega.’ It is now adorned with a thousand embellishments and shaded with a thousand clever details, the like of which the African dancers never dreamed of. The sharp angles have disappeared, and the skeleton has become a body; bones are covered with muscle, and muscle with flesh; the flesh itself is even concealed under almost decent clothing. Well, I’ll say it, without fear of being refuted by those who have been able to compare: the ‘sega’ which is nearly bare and so realistically accentuated by the savage from the coast is a thousand times less expressive than the civilized ‘sega.’ Album de la Réunion, vol. 1, 1861:68

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The chronology that M.P. proposes (from the ‘pure’ to the ‘civilized sega’) is, of course, entirely explained by the current of thought that developed in the second half of the nineteenth century and appears throughout the Album de la Réunion. One might say that it culminates in the colonial novel of the early twentieth century. The essential justification for colonization rests in the ‘civilization’ which Europe allegedly brought to ‘savage’ populations. The ‘civilized sega’ (the expression is quite clear) is both less horrible and less offensive than the ‘pure sega,’ and it is also more ‘expressive.’ Yet, the author does seem aware that his own text somewhat contradicts this hypothesis when he states: ‘See how it is danced by newcomers who landed on shore just yesterday.’ The term of comparison was not an early form of the ‘pure sega’ observed on the island – among former slaves, for example – but rather dances performed by newly imported indentured laborers. Of course, nothing in their dancing indicates that they have contributed anything to the genesis of the ‘civilized sega.’ Surely this is a manifestation of the Eurocentrist view, which mixed together all dark-skinned people into a generalized ‘savagery,’ regardless of whether they were Malagasy, Indian, or African. More interesting is the obviously unintentional confirmation of an idea proposed earlier. The creole forms of music and dance that are most clearly not European are apparently not the oldest musical forms, as some would like to believe; rather they are the most recent.9 Likewise, in terms of language, certain basilectal features are surely the result of later immigrations. This last point underscores the probable mistake of those who, like Rosemain with the music of the Antilles, would have us believe that African music was transmitted intact in a secular fashion. All these considerations remain somewhat superficial, however, – although musicological and ethnomusicological studies may yet shed some conclusive light on creole issues. It is regrettable that the ethnomusicological mission which was funded a few years ago by the Research Unit 583 of CNRS and carried out in the Mascarenes by C. Marcel-Dubois and M. Pichonnet-Andral did not produce the anticipated study and was limited to collecting a vast musical corpus. Nonetheless, this is still available for other qualified researchers who may be attracted by the issues.

An explanation of musical creolization My total inexperience in this area led me to solicit the following information from Claude Despatin, who, though himself not a musicologist or ethnomusicologist, combines a great knowledge of different forms of music (from classical to dance) with an anthropological interest in creole societies of the Indian Ocean: It is perhaps possible to understand how the sega of Réunion was formed by illustrating its very simple musical grammar. Even a young pianist of five or ten years old knows perfectly well that one hand at 6/8 and one hand at 2/4 make two eighth notes worth three,

Creole music 219 without the slightest trace of rubato (though the young pianist is still unaware of these terms and their meanings). Take, for example, the ‘sega’ fragment that was for a long time (and perhaps still is) the morning signature tune of the Saint-Denis radio station in Réunion, and perform the following simple exercise: Play both hands in 2/4 and you have an ordinary march. Play both hands in 3/4 and you have a waltz … also ordinary. Accelerate both hands to 6/8 and you get the kind of jig that Bach would have written perhaps in 12/16. Let’s not get too complicated! After these three exercises, play the tune with your right hand in 2/4, on a bass line of eighth notes in 6/8 time played with your left hand, all with a metronome set at 60 to 80 minims, according to your mood. Now you have a ‘sega.’ The principle is thus simpler than for the rumba, the samba, or the ‘biguine.’ These do not concern us particularly, except for the fact that such dances and music (which flood Bourbonnais ears on the airwaves) are in the process of contaminating the ‘sega,’ whose drummers too often attempt to go from 6 to 8 eighth notes per measure. This grammar, which was applied as often by Chopin and Debussy as it was in the balls of Saint-Philippe and Port, might suggest a hypothesis concerning the ‘sega’s’ origins. The Creoles who ‘invented’ Bourbonnais [i.e., Réunionnais] in a few generations [see above] were as weak in musical grammar as they were with French, Malagasy, Tamil, or Bantu grammar. Consider Roussin’s Album de la Réunion [1860; see above]; it does not risk mixing 2/4 and 6/8, yet it belatedly attains great erudition. The slaves, who were decultured by life on the slave ships before being introduced to some impoverished novelties, were reduced to the nostalgia of a tom-tom, which is more rhythmic than melodic. The two elements of the synthesis were thus present: two subcultures form one culture. Certainly the modest ‘sega’ did not overrun the face of the earth, but who can deny that its charm is unforgettable for lovers of dance, music, and the tropics? (Claude Despatin, personal communication, 1988) It seems to me that this interpretation is partly consistent with Maillard’s interpretation of the ‘swashbuckler’ style of the ‘jouars’ in the ‘contre-danse,’ but has the additional, and here essential, attribute of giving a properly musical interpretation of the facts in describing the process. It is obviously tempting to form a parallel with linguistic creolization, as Despatin has done. This is at least partly because of the slaves’ retention of certain former linguistic ‘habits’ (using a vague and non-technical term here) in the acquisition of French. This phenomenon is particularly obvious at the phonetic level, as I was able to show with features specific to Indian Ocean creoles. Recall the change of the French alveo-palatal fricatives [š] and [ž] to the sibilants [s] and [z] (as in chaîne [šen] > [sen]), which appears to be related to Malagasy articulatory characteristics and

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never appears in the ACR, unlike the unrounding of [ü] and [ö], which is common to all French creoles. There is, however, a considerable difference where musical phenomena are concerned: these linguistic evolutions occur in a non-systematic manner and affect only what I have termed ‘fragility points’ of the French system (Chaudenson 1974a, 1979b:88). One can thus say that the major difference between linguistic and musical creolization boils down to the following: in the case of linguistic creolization, poorly understood ‘superdeterminants’ may be invoked in the guise of language universals, the bioprogram, system ‘economy,’ language-appropriation strategies, etc., whose effects are by no means mutually exclusive (see Chapters 3 and 5). A second remark is also necessary, concerning the idea that music allows for the existence of ‘polar’ systems – one more European in nature (at least apparently), the other more non-European – and permits numerous and diverse exchanges between them. This situation cannot rightfully be connected with analyses describing continua, which are sometimes invoked to explain certain creole linguistic phenomena. Even when, as on Réunion, it is necessary to distinguish two ‘subsystems’ in the local creole (one acrolectal, the other basilectal), both acquired as ‘first languages’ by their speakers, we should not think of them as occupying identical positions in the historical process of creolization. The former, far from being a ‘decreolization’ of the latter, on the contrary surely forms a historically and linguistically ‘intermediate’ stage in the French-oriented centripetal system, as well as being an ‘ethnolectal’ and/or ‘sociolectal’ relic form of ‘historical’ approximations of French. It would thus be incorrect to see the basilectal creole as an earlier or ‘primitive’ form of this language, since, according to my analysis, the most basilectal forms are also likely to be the most recent. This point is even clearer in the case of musical phenomena. The same sort of historical continuity that we see with language clearly does not exist in this domain, and the revival of certain influences and the evolution of European genres are phenomena that must be taken into consideration. As noted above, the Seychellois ‘moutya,’ the Mauritian ‘sega tambour,’ and the Réunionnais ‘maloya’ were very likely introduced relatively recently, while, as we have seen, the ‘contre-danse’ has almost entirely given way to the quadrille under the influence of purely circumstantial factors. Language is, of course, much less susceptible to changes of this type, except when they occur through the process that I have described as devernacularization, which is limited to the lexicon. Earlier observations of non-European music and dance must be considered with a somewhat critical eye, though they do remain of great interest. Even among the most careful and precise descriptions, such as Maillard’s, one finds uncertainties which could lead to misinterpretations. Thus, in discussing the music of different non-European ethnic groups on Réunion, Maillard notes that Indians were ‘essentially anti-musical,’ whereas he thought the Malagasies ‘fairly musical,’ except that ‘their music is almost reduced to a rhythmless melody dealing with the theme of an unhappy romance or the distant homeland’

Creole music 221 (1862:315). These same Malagasies, however, seemed to him to have a tendency to assimilate foreign musical forms: ‘These people mingle with Europeans and Creoles on Réunion, and one can see musical dispositions emerge through the repetition of songs that they hear and through the great accuracy of their interpretations’ (ibid.:316). Something that is potentially important in the study of creolization is evident here: the capacity of one group to assimilate cultural elements from another. In a certain way, and generally speaking, this is the same phenomenon noted already above: all forms of colonization have sought young people for slaves, because they are easily assimilated. Maillard’s description thus supports the idea that, because they came earlier and at a younger age, the Malagasies, whom he found more responsive to melody and song than to highly rhythmical music, were more capable of assimilating and adopting European musical forms, in which the melody is also an essential element. However, Maillard does not think the same of the ‘Cafre’ (on Réunion, a person of the black African phenotype, as opposed to a dark-skinned Indian), in whom he sees the ‘true musician of tropical countries’: Everything is together in him: melody, harmony, instrumental accompaniment, a strong and proper voice, rhythm suitable for song, and irreproachable timing. If a slight coarseness is detected in his melody, it is quickly forgotten on hearing such wealth of harmony and infinite variety of accompaniment, all of which are kept in perfect time; the lowest-pitched instruments mark the fastest time, while subparts and other times are marked by higher-pitched instruments. (Maillard 1862:316) Maillard’s description of dance of the ‘Cafres’ is little different from those already cited by de Freycinet, Pitot, and M.P. Nonetheless, the ethnic distinctions which these authors introduce so confidently should probably be regarded with some caution. Still in connection with the ‘Cafres,’ Maillard, for example, points to another form of musical expression: Let us now see the ‘Cafre’ who has finished his day’s work. Seated at the door of his hut, he sings to the accompaniment of the ‘bobre.’ Sometimes this is to impress his wife, sometimes it is in expectation of the pleasure promised by the bubbling kettle on the fire, and sometimes it is just instinct. His song is devoid of the coarseness discussed above, almost approaching melancholy. Despite being played to a constant rhythm, it manages to produce impressions of sadness, hope, and strength through modifications in tempo and the accompaniment of the primitive instrument. The ‘Cafres’ also have an instrument that they make by attaching strips of bark to a bamboo knot and placing the corners underneath to serve as nuts. Isolated from the body of the bamboo and secured only at the extreme ends, the strips form cords which vibrate in several tones. There are even ‘Cafres’ who cut resonant pieces of wood of different lengths and connect

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This melancholic song is highly reminiscent of what the early descriptions (from the time of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre) tell us about the Malagasy favorite musical expression. This remark would be unimportant were it not reinforced by Maillard’s description of the instruments. The ‘bobre,’ which is a musical bow, is generally found everywhere – not only in the western Indian Ocean (where it goes by the Swahili name bombre), but also in West Africa (in Cape Verdean Creole it is called bobra) and Brazil (where it is known as birimbau). The term originally comes from Portuguese abobora (see Chaudenson 1974a:548–549 for more details). In the Mascarenes, the “bobre” is sometimes considered Malagasy – ’With the sound of the ‘bobres’ of Madagascar … ’ (Leconte de Lisle) – and sometimes African (the ‘African bobre’ of Chrestien). As I was able to show more generally (Chaudenson 1974a:637–639), such distinctions hardly make sense in this area, given the significance of contact. What is certain, though, is that the word is quite old. It occurs in all creoles. If it were not attested in Madagascar, closely related instruments probably imported from Africa would be found there instead (e.g., the lokanga or the jejy, the latter existing in the Seychelles under the inherited Malagasy name zez). On the other hand, the second instrument that Maillard describes (the ‘bamboo knot’) is indisputably the valiha: a typical Malagasy instrument whose usage was well attested on Réunion, though it has recently disappeared. We can recall Billiard’s comment of 1822: ‘The monotonous singing of a Black man accompanied by the “bobre” or “vali” … ’). The xylophone Maillard refers to is the ‘timba,’ also known from certain early descriptions of Réunion, as well as from nineteenth-century lithographs. (Xylophones such as these are characteristic of Mozambique, the best known being the marimbas of the Chopi people, who perform nearly all of this kind of music.) Two conclusions can be drawn from these remarks. First, either Maillard (who is usually quite careful) has here confused the terms Cafre and Malagasy, and used the former in the sense of ‘Black,’ or, second, musical exchanges between non-European traditions took place, with the ‘Cafres’ possibly adopting Malagasy instruments or forms of musical expression. The second hypothesis seems more plausible, even if it means admitting that it is not easy to distinguish a ‘Mozambican’ from certain ‘coastal residents’ of Madagascar who are of a very Black African phenotype. In fact, there is no reason for exchanges between non-European traditions not to have occurred, since exchanges are often observed taking place between European traditions. The most obvious case involves the borrowing of the triangle by Blacks. This instrument is indisputably European in origin and is found throughout the world, from Mauritius to Louisiana, in the quadrille as well as in the music of Blacks. The widespread nature of the borrowing can easily be explained by the triangle’s relative ease of manufacture, and by the fact that, as a percussion

Creole music 223 instrument, it is easily integrated into the ensemble of non-European percussion instruments. In conclusion, we can tentatively say that, in the ACR, as in the Indian Ocean, music and dance remain relatively communal systems (that is, groupspecific and typical of particular cultural traditions, European or non-European). They have thus developed differently from language, which is by definition and in essence transcommunal. This statement must, however, be qualified. As we saw above, even if the traditions remain relatively distinct, there have been numerous significant exchanges and mutual influences, as much on the structural level (e.g., Despatin’s analysis of the ‘sega’; the introduction of the ‘sega’ into the quadrille, etc.) as on the instrumental level (e.g., the transmission of instruments from one tradition to another). On the social level our observations were slightly different, and reliable data are lacking in most cases. Where more precise information is available, such as in the Indian Ocean, and particularly Réunion, musical traditions are specific to particular ethnic and social groups, though differences among them are tending to disappear today, as by following citations from the Atlas linguistique et ethnographique de la Réunion show: lontan i dansait chakène avek sa ras; lave le bal blan, bane noir [= les noirs] i regardé; é lavé bal noir, bane blan [= les blancs] i regardé. Long time ago, everyone stayed with his race. When there was a White ball, the Blacks watched; when there was a Black ball, the Whites watched. dan la tan si ou gagne pa linvitasion [= si vous n’étiez pas invité], ou i antré pa dan bal, é en boug noir i pouvé pa gagne linvitasion dan en bal blan. At that time, if you were not invited, or [we] did not get in the ball, and a Black person could not get an invitation for a White ball. (Atlas linguistique et ethnographique de la Réunion, vol. 2, questions 44503 and 44506) These distinctions have almost entirely disappeared today, but, in the minds of the informants, the ‘quadrille ball’ remains linked with Europeans (or, at any rate, to those reputed to be European); the ‘maloya ball’ and the ‘kabaré ball,’ on the other hand, are indisputably considered by the Europeans as festivities for Africans only: bal kabaré sété pluto bane kaf i fézé sa [= c’était plutôt les noirs qui faisaient ça], kom bal maloya; isi i fézé pa akoz la poin d kaf [= le ‘bal maloya’ c’est le bal des noirs]. The ‘kabaré ball,’ it was rather the Blacks who threw it, like the ‘maloya ball’; here we did not have it, because it is a Black ball. (ibid., question 44509)

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The case of Rodriguez clearly illustrates the disappearance of such a social rift. In fact, the population of this Island, which contains neither Europeans nor Indians, maintains the two traditions of the quadrille and the ‘sega tambour,’ and they are both performed by the same dancers and musicians. Nevertheless, a significant difference exists between the two forms of entertainment. While the ‘sega tambour’ (the equivalent of the Réunionnais ‘maloya’ and the obvious avatar of African dances) is performed and danced in everyday attire, the quadrille is always danced in one’s best clothing: ‘Sunday’ dress for women, and a somber outfit of white shirt and tie for men, who also keep a handkerchief in their hand throughout the dance. This feature also occurs on Réunion, where, in the past, one would not have dreamt of inviting a lady to dance at a quadrille ball without kerchief in hand. It is clear that this opposition in style of attire is a reinterpretation within the Rodriguais creole community of an earlier opposition between the quadrille of the Europeans and the ‘sega tambour’ of the Blacks. It shows both the social significance and relative nature of ‘communality’ versus ‘transcommunality,’ which the comparison of language and music prompted me to demonstrate. Here then, at the end of the chapter, is a preliminary illustration of the course I wish to follow. For each cultural subsystem of creole life, it will be a matter of extracting relevant characteristics, both those that might be common to all related cultural systems and those that may be specific to the domain in question. Then it will be a matter of measuring the point to which the similarity between such systems and the linguistic system (our point of departure) can be extended.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Ligon’s account was translated in 1657, earlier than the 1684 date cited by PetitjeanRoget. Not everyone shared Ligon’s opinion! Léwoz denotes one of the rhythms of this music. The text she cites here concerns Saint Domingue and appears to be of more than dubious historical significance. According to Rosemain (1986:160), the ‘chika’ led not to the ‘biguine,’ but to the ‘merengue’. She calls attention only to the fact that ‘contre-danses reappeared’ around the middle of the eighteenth century (1986:46). Recordings and descriptions of these dances are available in Chaudenson and Barat (1979), Koechlin (1978), and Nourrit and Pruitt (1981). After the abolition of slavery, the middle class was comprised mostly of Blacks and people of mixed race, as well as poor petits blancs. For the Indian Ocean area, these include the ‘maloya’ of Réunion, the ‘moutya’ of the Seychelles, the ‘sega ravane’ of Mauritius, and the ‘sega tanbour’ of Rodriguez.

8

Creole cuisine

This chapter, more than others in this book, is based primarily on facts that I have observed in the archipelagos of the Indian Ocean, especially on Réunion and Rodriguez, and on my own experience in these areas, which includes historical documentation, my thesis research, and my research for linguistic and ethnographic atlases. The only other serious reference on the subject matter is La cuisine réunionnaise (1984) by Marie Valentin – who, incidentally, was a member of our research team. It may seem surprising that I make such little use of the multitude of books on the cooking of both the Antilles and the Indian Ocean published in the last decade. Baggioni and Marimoutou discuss them, and provide the following sociological explanation for their proliferation: It is from meeting the ‘other’ that a new mutual social need arises to verbalize a cultural specificity. … This book on Réunionnais cuisine addresses two different audiences: on the one hand, a small educated Réunionnais bourgeoisie anxious to assert itself through its specificity (at least in this respect); and, on the other hand, metropolitan consumers concerned with ‘exotic’ discoveries, for whom a book on cooking is part of a travel guide organized for an extended stay. (Baggioni and Marimoutou 1988:31) Their analysis of the peculiarities of this ‘paraliterary production’ may be accepted as a working hypothesis. However, it is necessary to distinguish among the consumers of these publications between tourists proper, who stay for a short time on the Island, and zoreys, individuals from the metropole who reside temporarily on Réunion. Baggioni and Marimoutou appear to have mostly the latter in mind. According to Baggioni and Marimoutou, the year 1978 ‘marks a turning point for books on cooking.’ It was also around this time that the drive to develop tourism on the Island grew significantly, in terms of both official policy (e.g., the founding of the Regional Delegation of Tourism in 1977) and the establishment of various institutions, such as the VVFs (Village, vacances, famille, ‘village, vacation, family’) in Saint-Gilles and Cilaos (set up in 1978 and 1979 respectively), and the professional School of Hotel Management in Saint-Paul. The results of

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this drive did not always meet expectations, but the number of tourists did increase considerably – from 3,000 hotel stays in 1963, to 28,000 in 1978. Against this background, the success and proliferation of books on creole cooking and tourist guidebooks is thus understandable. Nonetheless, they are generally too numerous and of very mediocre quality. Perhaps this is most evident in the sale of deluxe editions (several of which sold for thousands of dollars) that were no more than thinly disguised reissues of previously published works with a few pictures added to provide a Réunionnais ‘flavor.’ Furthermore, the customers who tended to buy such collections (at great cost and on credit) were almost exclusively Réunionnais, while the editions sold at corner bookstores were purchased almost exclusively by non-Réunionnais. Perhaps the only work to emerge unscathed from this mess is Marie-France and Ivrin’s Le grand livre de la cuisine réunionnaise (1984), which is actually better than its somewhat pompous title suggests. Unfortunately, the authors cannot resist the temptation to ‘create variations’ of basic recipes in the local cuisine – perhaps so as to justify the word grand in the book’s title. Baggioni briefly tackles the problem of the origin and evolution of the local cuisine in his conclusion: Réunionnais cuisine is one of the few island systems to have overcome conflict with imported culture, due mainly to the ‘tacit strength’ of its flavor and richness. Is it on the way to a resurgence through commercialization, which neutralizes all its creativity and originality through standardization? For, let us make no mistake, behind the spices of creole dishes, drowned in the midst of uncertain recipes, it is a way of life and consumption that is being marketed. In such a pseudo-refinement Réunionnais culinary tradition loses its raison d’être: its embeddedness in a semiotic system (Valentin 1984), its connection to a universe (inter alia a universe of plants), from which it cannot be dissociated. (Baggioni and Marimoutou 1988:34) Baggioni seems to extend these reflections upon books on Réunionnais cuisine to the ‘cultural system’ itself. He portrays the latter as a victim of culinary – and, more generally, dietary – oppression by the metropole. This is probably not inaccurate. As a result of various factors the Réunionnais diet has changed since the 1960s (and not, as one might think, since it became a French Overseas Department). On the other hand, it seems rather misguided to postulate a ‘conflict’ between ‘Réunionnais cuisine’ and ‘imported cuisine,’ and to see the former as ‘one of the few systems to have overcome the conflict.’ Recent dietary changes on Réunion owe much more to socio-economic factors than to cultural ones; and it is necessary to distinguish clearly between ‘diet’ and ‘cuisine,’ which are far from synonymous. In any case, when we oppose ‘creole’ and ‘French,’ we must not lose sight of the fact that ‘French’ is, initially at least, one of the components of ‘creole.’ Since my position is oriented toward studying the genesis of cultural systems,

Creole cuisine 227 I will try to avoid considering the most recent developments in creole cuisine. Here, comparison with other cuisines of the area will be a precious asset, especially comparison with the cuisine of Rodriguez, since this Island was still sheltered from all outside influence at the time of my first visits.

Environment, diet, and cuisine Cooking is a cultural system that is clearly different from systems like music. Two distinguishing features are obvious: 1 2

Cooking is an immediate and constant necessity, whereas music is primarily a leisure activity – notwithstanding the existence of work songs; and Music, initially at least, was ‘community-specific,’ with Europeans and Africans practicing it separately. Cooking, on the other hand, has always tended to transcend community divisions, especially during the difficult beginnings of these societies. We have seen from our discussion of the initial (‘homestead’) phase such things as the precarious conditions of daily existence for Europeans and Africans, mixed unions (marriages and concubine partnerships), and the slaves’ better knowledge of the natural environment, and these have led to a ‘creole’ cuisine that has been only weakly influenced by European models. Cooking does not therefore have the kind of centripetal structure that we found in language.

The main point in trying to reconstruct the genesis of creole cooking is the trivial, though necessary, observation that cooking depends on dietary resources and, to an even greater extent, on the natural environment. One can imagine the first colonists, confronted with new dietary and other material realities, attempting, at the lexical level, to quasi-magically identify these novelties with items in their backgrounds. Thus, corn became known as Indian wheat or Turkish wheat, guinea fowl were called Indian roosters (India and Turkey here connoting exoticism, pure and simple), and creole cherries, figs, apples, and apricots have absolutely nothing in common with European fruit of the same name. In fact, it is clear that for flora, as well as for fauna, the naming of a large number of vegetables and animals was a concomitant of semantic shifts. Calling a carp a rabbit does not, of course, necessarily lead one to give up stew, though one would not dream of making bread with Indian corn (although, out of necessity, it was attempted in France during World War II!). The colonists who landed on the ‘Islands’ in the seventeenth century clearly had to adapt to their new living conditions and adopt a new dietary regime. The conditions they experienced during four, six, or even twelve months at sea must have prepared them for this change to some extent; after eating moldy ‘biscuits’ and more-or-less rotting cured meats and drinking only stagnant water, parsimoniously dispensed, they were no doubt disposed to find even the most ordinary fresh food delicious. As soon as they landed, of course, they began to rebuild their ‘dietary world.’ Moved by a very French dream of having bread and wine,

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they sowed wheat and planted grapes. Wheat grew well in the tropics and was cultivated up to the nineteenth century. In 1783 Réunion already produced 4,000 tons. However, grape cultivation was a failure on the Island. It took all the atavistic obstinacy of the petits blancs of Cilaos to continue producing a thin wine whose flavor not even the massive addition of sugar could improve. The first locally produced alcohol was flangourin, fermented sugar-cane juice – initially also known as vin de cannes ‘cane wine’ as a result of the process described in the preceding paragraph. The Malagasy term is the one which stuck, however. In 1705 Durot described the production of flangourin and called it ‘the common drink of the land’ (Chaudenson 1974a:505). The dietary history of Réunion (like that of other creole islands) includes other developments. In the early eighteenth century wheat competed with rice, which was not native to the Island, and corn (i.e., maize) was initially cultivated in semi-rotation with wheat. At the end of the first phase a distribution of these foods according to social criteria began to emerge. The slaves subsisted primarily on corn and roots or tubers – including a newcomer, manioc.1 Rice became the main staple of Europeans. After unsuccessful but gallant attempts to make ‘bread’ from it (really!), it was eaten Malagasy-style: once sorted and washed, it was prepared by soaking in cold water until all the water was absorbed (this prevented the grains from shrinking while being boiled). For creole eaters, though, rice had to be very ‘dry,’ and its grains well separated. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Bory de Saint-Vincent observed how Africans on his expedition to explore the Island cooked this item, and this is still the primary method that is used at the present time: Africans cook rice and corn all day long. To puff up the rice and prevent it from shrinking while it boils, it is covered with ampondres or leaves to shield it from contact with the outside air, and it is left on the fire to cook. (Bory de Saint-Vincent 1804:316) Certainly, this method of cooking often left rice stuck to the bottom of the pot and created a ranpang, a more-or-less burnt crust (the word is of Malagasy origin). Maillard confirms that ‘corn is cooked in the same way as rice’ and that it ‘sometimes serves to feed the poor populations who prefer to grow it over other crops’ (1862:200). In the first half of the nineteenth century rice consumption grew exponentially – whereas wheat imports stopped completely in 1855, rice imports grew from 501 tons in 1816 to 34,500 tons in 1858 (ibid.:300–301). While corn was six times cheaper than rice in 1783, in 1860 the prices of the two commodities were very nearly equal, with corn costing just slightly less (ibid.:298). This was certainly related to the expansion of rice consumption among the population’s lower class. Corn consumption persisted in rural areas, however, where family production remained viable. On Rodriguez, because of its isolation and its practice of maintaining hardly any stocked foodstuffs, the tradition of eating corn has continued to date. (Until fairly recently, the Island specialized in export agriculture.)

Creole cuisine 229 Inhabitants of Rodriguez believe that corn is more nutritious than rice, and they attribute to it their alleged superiority over the Mauritians in physical strength and stamina. Similar ideas surface also on Réunion and point to a time when manual laborers were corn-eaters, in contrast to the rice-eating upper class (whose members they perceived as weak), and tended to associate these alleged differences in strength and stamina with the difference in diet. A very well-known story from the Réunionnais oral tradition points to the special status of corn. Three brothers leave the Island in search of adventure, each carrying his own provisions for the journey. The first takes curried pig, the second takes masala, goat, and the third takes corn cake. These three dishes clearly symbolize the different ‘currents’ running through Réunionnais cuisine: the first symbolizes the cuisine of the wealthy (since meat is eaten only very rarely – in rural settings, ‘killing a pig’ is always synonymous with festivals or lavish expenditures); the second symbolizes Indian cooking, both its preparation (masala) and the meat used (goat); and the third corresponds to the traditional rural diet (corn). Naturally, it is the third one who makes the right choice, since his two brothers are forced to immediately throw away their provisions after they spoil and become inedible. Preservation of produce and food The above example illustrates, somewhat indirectly, the relevance of external factors (economic conditions) to a cultural system like cuisine. It also emphasizes the significance of another factor that is decisive (in the etymological sense): climate. It is, of course, the tropical heat of the Island that very quickly spoils the meat carried by the first two brothers. Climate itself also bears on (aspects of) economics. As early as 1692 Firelin observed that one of the reasons that alternatives to wheat cultivation were considered was because of difficulties in storing it. Until the recent expansion of refrigeration, preserving food posed considerable problems, and concern for prolonging the shelf-life of foodstuff and meals determined methods of both storage and preparation. Such problems were certainly not unknown to the European colonists, but they were much less significant. Smoking, drying, and curing food are probably almost universal techniques, and it would be imprudent to attribute them exclusively to one particular tradition. The process of boucanage (drying meat or fish with smoke) is an interesting case, because it illustrates both a lexical transfer from one zone to another (from the ACR to the IOR), as well as a convergence, rather than a transfer, of technology. Indian Ocean creoles contain several related terms: boucaner (to dry and smoke meat or fish, and, by extension, to smoke or fill with smoke), boucané (the smoked product), boucanage (the process itself), and boucan (the shack or hut in which the smoking was originally performed). This last term is found especially in Réunionnais and Seychellois, where it also refers to the ‘rod upon which fish is strung to be smoked’ (d’Offay and Lionnet 1982). I have studied the history of these words (Chaudenson 1974a:602–603),

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whose distant etymology (from Tupi mocaem (von Wartburg 1928, vol. 20:72a) is well known, but which all form an integral part of ‘island vocabulary.’ These are terms whose usage was established in ACR French throughout the first half of the seventeenth century. They were introduced to Bourbon somewhat later by sailors and/or the Compagnie des Indes’ personnel. I have also shown the ‘logic’ of such transfers and the absurdity of treating them as borrowings from Amerindian languages (Chaudenson 1974a:1090–1094). The main point is that these words were never part of the everyday metropolitan usage of the time, although they were subsequently admitted into French lexicography. Réunion provides an amusing piece of evidence for observation. The term boucan is well attested there from the end of the seventeenth century, first in toponyms (Boucan de Laleu (1685)), and then as a common noun (au boucan des malades, ‘in the sick hut’ (1729)). Incidentally, these examples show that the word did not refer to a shed specifically used for smoking, but rather designated a hut or thatched shelter, plain and simple. The term was so poorly understood by the administrative authorities who spoke ‘standard’ French that the toponym Boucan de Laleu was euphemized on high-level orders to Repos de Laleu – boucan having been confused with its homonym in French, which means ‘bad place’ (i.e., ‘whorehouse’)! Despite this example, it would probably be misguided to conclude that boucanage was simply introduced to Réunion by Europeans who had themselves borrowed it from the Caribs. The process of smoking was much used in France itself, and the Malagasies certainly had some familiarity with it, too. The existence in other languages of a term similar in form and meaning to the French word may also be a matter of coincidence. Judging from the earliest attestations (and keeping in mind the likelihood of convergence in such cases), the term that was introduced first was boucan (in the sense of hut). This term is synonymous with the local word ajoupa, which is Brazilian in origin, was in use in the Antilles in the early seventeenth century, and was introduced to Bourbon as boucan, by sailors or the Compagnie’s personnel. The verb boucaner and words derived from it appear somewhat later, but their presence in Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole is evidence that they were used from the early eighteenth century. The process of curing, on the other hand, does not raise similar questions, since ‘salt beef ’ was par excellence the meat eaten on the ships. It was not necessarily of very high quality, though, as Bernardin de Saint-Pierre observes in the unpublished addenda to his Voyage à l’Ile de France; in his reflections on ship’s food, ‘If I am one of the last to go down with scurvy, it is because I have avoided salt beef and subsisted for a long time on beets and beans’ (Bernardin de SaintPierre 1986b:113). The taste that Creoles have (in general, and basically everywhere) for ‘processed’ meats is likely due in part to the transmission of the French cultural practice of preserving meat, as well as to the fact that these types of dried and/or smoked preparations are well suited to the climate. The problem of preservation is not limited to meat or fish, however; most items of produce are difficult to keep in good condition. The use of the farfar in the Indian Ocean,

Creole cuisine 231 which was probably inherited from Madagascar (like the lexical item itself), demonstrates faith in the preserving qualities of smoking. The farfar – actually a large shelf, sometimes the size of a small attic – is placed above a hearth and is used to smoke produce (corn, in particular, but also onions, bananas, etc.). This not only preserves the food, but protects it from insects as well. In Seychellois, the process of smoking is even explicit, because the lexical item means ‘a rack for smoking fish’ (d’Offay and Lionnet 1982). (However, the wood-smoking process is not foreign to the French tradition: in the French countryside of the past, people always hung smoked meats, as well as strings of onions and garlic, over fireplace mantles.) The preoccupation with preservation also includes the drying of bichiques, ‘young gobiidés fish’; chevaquines, ‘tiny freshwater shellfish’; manioc, and peppers, as well as the pickling of ginger, lemons, and peppers in oil, fat, and vinegar seasoned with salt and sometimes diluted with water (confits). This last technique was also used for more elaborate mixtures, such as achars, the names and recipes of which (in Latin!) I have been able to trace to the middle of the seventeenth century (for details, see Chaudenson 1974a:544–545). Made of raw fruits and vegetables pickled in vinegar, lemon, and salt, these preparations were eaten widely, especially on Portuguese ships, and were probably an efficient way of preventing scurvy. The custom of chopping food (particularly meat and fish) into small pieces also developed partially out of a concern to ensure more rapid cooking and better preservation. Several circumstances and external constraints are responsible for this. One of the oldest is probably the general absence of forks and spoons, and even table knives, during the initial stages of the colony. (I have had the chance to witness this myself in rural parts of the Indian Ocean, and all inventories confirm it, as well.) Creoles at all social levels eat with their fingers, without knife or fork, so chopping food into small pieces makes eating a lot easier. It is possible to see in this some connection to the customs of Madagascar, where eating is traditionally done in a squatting position without the use of utensils (Ethnologie régionale, p. 1433). Still, this might be only a case of convergence, with the same causes producing the same effects. In modern times, the western model has changed things, of course, but people often still eat without setting their plates down on the table (even if they own one!) and without the aid of utensils – which are somewhat unnecessary, anyway, because of the way the food is prepared. We can say, therefore, that cooking is a cultural system on which ‘external’ factors (natural and/or economic) bear heavily, and all hypotheses concerning the various influences on it must always take into account ‘extrasystemic’ constraints. The cuisine of Bourbon: between Europe and India Creole cuisine is marked nearly everywhere by the widespread consumption of rice. Since none of the countries involved produces it, this has created enormous problems of agricultural dependency. Only Haiti has largely been spared this

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dietary change, which occurred primarily in the nineteenth century; after independence in 1804 it maintained a tradition of cultivating diverse crops: corn, millet, manioc, etc. As noted above, because of its isolation, Rodriguez presented a somewhat similar situation not long ago. However, the consumption of corn – still the main staple there twenty years ago – has been greatly reduced by social and economic changes over recent decades. Another characteristic feature of creole cuisine is the use of spices and chillies. In the Indian Ocean, the most prevalent spices are turmeric (called safran: a borrowing from Indo-Portuguese, in which this aromatic is referred to as ‘earth saffron’) and masalé (Réunion) or masala (Mauritius and the Seychelles), a mixture of spices associated particularly with Indian ‘curries.’ On Réunion, this preparation is considered specifically Indian, so that kari masalé is also called kari malbar. Other spices used include ginger; kotomili, ‘coriander’; quatre épices (lit. ‘four spices,’ Pimenta vulgaris), kaloupilé in Réunion, karipoulé in Mauritius, or karipilé in the Seychelles (Clausena anisata of the rutaceae family); and raventsara ravinsar (local/tropical spices that have no lay names in English). Throughout both creole-speaking regions pepper and chillies are commonly used in various forms: fresh, dried, pickled, crushed, or preserved in vinegar or oil. They come in several different varieties that have a multitude of names, depending on their shape (piment boule, ‘bell chilli’; piment zaiguille, ‘bird chilli’ – [lit.] ‘needle chilli’), color (piment blanc, ‘white pepper’; piment noir, ‘black pepper’), taste or fragrance (piment cabri, [lit.] ‘goat chilli,’ which actually smells like a goat!), or strength (piment enragé, ‘hot chilli’ – lit. ‘furious chilli’ – and piment sept court-bouillons, a chilli from Guadeloupe strong enough for seven successive preparations of court-bouillon). Even though it is obvious that this use of exotic spices (in addition, of course, to salt and pepper) was not originally French, it is difficult to determine where it first originated, since spices are used throughout the tropics. In the Indian Ocean, though, influence from India cannot be denied. India was undoubtedly an Indo-Portuguese ‘relay station’ at the beginning of the colonization of Bourbon. Such influence actually occurred on a very large scale. It is easy to forget that since the eighteenth century relations between the Mascarenes and India have in many respects (especially commercial trading) been more active and important than relations between the Mascarenes and France. In the draft of the second edition of his Voyage à l’Ile de France Bernardin de Saint-Pierre highlights this and denounces the effects of a situation that troubled him: It seems to me that trade with the islands is highly detrimental for France. We import from them our tobacco, sugar, coffee … The Metropole is made to depend on the islands for items of the greatest necessity, but the reverse is not true. The women of Ile de France only wear fabric from India (even the Negresses wear Bengal linens), the dishes are made of porcelain, and the furniture is made of rattan cane. Thus, France pays in silver for coffee and sugar, even though it is now possible to produce in France light clothing that

Creole cuisine 233 is suitable for the islands (even from wool or goatskin). Better yet, the Island should manufacture these items itself. (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b:245) It was not until the end of the nineteenth century (1893, to be precise) that trade with India and the Far East ceased to be more important for Réunion than trade with France and Europe. Of special interest to us here is the fact that, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century, it was often from India that several types of vegetables used to produce edible goods were introduced. Several creole words with Indo-Portuguese and/or Indian etyma reflect these origins: barbadine, bilimbi, bringelle, carambole, katéping, margose, mouroungue, patole, pipangaille, safran, tamarin, jamalac, jambos, jamblon, and gingeli (Chaudenson 1974a:986–990). The term ‘Indo-Portuguese’ requires both historical and linguistic explanation. We saw earlier (Chapter 4) that a great many of the first families on Bourbon (more than a third in 1689) included mothers who were ‘IndoPortuguese’ (i.e., of mixed descent). It has been claimed that Portuguese lexical influence on Réunionnais can be attributed to ‘Portuguese ships that sailed to Bourbon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’ (George Sand, Indiana Garnier edition, 253). But this claim does not take account of the fact that the ‘Compagnie des Indes’ enjoyed ‘exclusive’ rights to the territory, which meant that even French ships were denied access to its markets unless they were sailing on the Compagnie’s behalf. Access was thus, a fortiori, denied to foreign ships. Words of putatively Portuguese origin therefore must have come to Bourbon through Indo-Portuguese creoles. Most of these words occur in such creoles, and they are usually very similar in structure to words found in the Indian Ocean. It is likely that the ‘Indo-Portuguese’ mothers in the first families on Bourbon ‘Indianized’ the cuisine from the very start. They were instrumental in guiding and establishing culinary customs. Considering the social situation of the time, they probably passed them on to their daughters or to slaves who helped them with domestic chores. This initial Indian influence may have been prolonged and facilitated in the following years by notions of ethnic ‘specializations’ among slaves: Indians, who were considered skillful and delicate and less hardy than the Malagasies or ‘Cafres,’ were most often used to do chores in the house or ‘courtyard,’ instead of rough work in the fields.2 This practice continued until the nineteenth century (up to the time of indentured servitude). M.P. (1860) discusses the phenomenon and attributes it to personal preferences, which, originally at least, must have been unacknowledged: ‘Even though they are very good at gardening and growing cane, the Indians have a particularly strong inclination for housework. It is they who bear the brunt of most of the domestic chores’ (Album de la Réunion, vol. 3, 11). Indian influence is also very obvious in the lexicon, where the vocabulary associated with cooking contains a number of terms of Indian origin. Without repeating all the details of an earlier study (Chaudenson 1974a:544–582), it will

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suffice here to present a few examples, bearing in mind that, even if the etymologies are all Indian, the end results are most often specifically ‘creole’: Achar: this preparation of crushed vegetables and fruit (mixed with oil, onions, saffron, chillies, and vinegar) is known by the term found in IndoPortuguese (Ceylon [now Sri Lanka]) varieties and several different Indian languages. The etymon is probably either Persian (achard) or Malay (achar). Recipes for this preparation vary somewhat. Brèdes: young sprouts or leaves of various vegetables prepared in a fricassee or broth with onions, garlic, and ginger. This word has sometimes been incorrectly assigned a Malagasy origin, since there also exists a ‘Malagasization’ of the form, but this is not the etymon of the creole word that is found in all the varieties of the area. The term is Portuguese in origin (bredo or breda) and was probably transmitted through Indo-Portuguese creoles. Kari: in the creoles of the Indian Ocean, this term does not in any way refer to a particular spice, but rather to a dish of meat or fish prepared with garlic, onions, tomatoes, and occasionally turmeric. The Indian etymon is found in Indo-Portuguese creoles (Ceylon kari, karil) and in Tamil (karri, ‘stew’), in all of which it refers to a meat dish. This is the meaning of AngloIndian curry, ‘fish or meat dish’ (cf. Yule and Burnell 1886, which contains early attestations, such as that provided by Garcia (1563): ‘They made dishes of fowl and flesh, which they call caril’). Mantègue: butter cooked with a technique that ensures its preservation. Originally from the Portuguese word manteiga, this term came to the Island through the Lascars (Muslim sailors), for whom this item was an essential element of their diet. Plo: this term, common to all the creoles of the area, refers to a rice dish prepared with fat, spices, and other various ingredients. The word, whose origin is the same as that of ‘pilaf,’ is related to Persian pulao or pilao, which is also found in most Indo-European languages (Anglo-Indian pilaw or pilau). Rougay: although this term occurs in all the Indian Ocean creoles, what it refers to varies widely. In Réunion, the term often denotes a very spicy preparation that accompanies rice and kari, and it is usually called by its main ingredient: ‘tomato rougay,’ ‘mango rougay,’ etc. There are no less than twenty-five recipes for rougay in the Grand livre de la cuisine réunionnaise, most of which have a base of vegetables or fruit. The term may also denote a cooked dish that is very similar to kari, but in which the meat or fish is always dried, smoked, or salted. These may include: sausages, boucané, andouilles, salt pork, gratton, dried cod, sounouk (snoeck), bichiques, or dried chevaquines. The few exceptions to this list are all recent innovations (the most notable being ‘egg rougay,’ usually made with hard-boiled eggs). The difference between kari and rougay thus seems to lie mainly in whether it is prepared with fresh or preserved meat, fish, or crustaceans.

Creole cuisine 235 The term rougay is used differently in Mauritian Creole, in which the first meaning above does not even exist. The Réunionnais accompaniment called rougay is referred to as satini on Mauritius thus, pom d’amour satini in Mauritian Creole is equivalent to tomato rougay in Réunionnais, mango satini is equivalent to mango rougay, etc. On the other hand, the second meaning appears to be the same in both creoles, since the dish called rougay in Mauritian Creole (made with a base of tomatoes and onions) also includes preserved meat as a main ingredient. A brief inventory of the most common Mauritian rougays makes this clear: sausage rougay, salt-fish rougay, pilchard rougay, sardine rougay, salmon rougay, shrimp rougay, and egg rougay (pilchards, like sardines, are a type of canned fish; the ‘shrimp’ referred to are small and dried; and ‘salmon’ actually refers to locally-produced canned tuna). One would thus never call a fish dish rougay if it were made with fresh fish. The term is used the same way in Rodriguais (salt-fish rougay, sounouk rougay, etc.). In Seychellois, both satini and rougay are apparently used the same way as in Mauritian Creole. (Salt-fish rougay is the most popular rougay there.) In addition, kari and rougay are distinguished by two other features. First, the term kari may be used as a generic, meaning simply ‘a dish of meat or fish accompanied by rice.’ Thus, we find expressions such as Réunionnais gagné son kari ‘to earn one’s living or bread,’ and Mauritian Creole ki kari nou pou manzé? ‘what is there to eat?/what are we eating?.’ The term rougay does not have this meaning. Second, rougays do not contain exotic spices, such as saffron or, especially, masalé/masala, while karis contain both of these. Thus, Réunionnais has kari masalé or masalé corresponding to masala in Mauritian Creole. (The term masalé denotes a mixture of spices and derives from the Tamil word masaley.) We can sum up these facts as follows: Table 8.1 The meanings of kari and rougay kari

[ generic]

[ fresh]

[ exotic spices]

rougay

[ generic]

[ fresh]

[ exotic spices]

The only difference between the creoles is that the accompaniment which is also referred to as rougay in Réunionnais is known elsewhere as satini (and sometimes salad in Seychellois). In this case the etymology does not explain a lot; only Réunionnais seems to have preserved (today, at least) the meaning of the likely Tamil etymon, urukay, ‘pickled vegetable.’ The development of this lexical microfield appears to date back to the early eighteenth century, and these terms most likely spread from Bourbon to Ile de France. Indeed, insofar as one is dealing in this case with cultural features that are strictly creole, it is highly unlikely that Réunionnais and Mauritian varieties could have produced such complex and specific innovations independently. Situations like this illustrate both the problems inherent in investigating the origins of creole cuisine and the difficulties involved in providing evidence for the pertinent aspects of their description. (Of course, none of the many books on creole cuisine ever tackles the issue from this angle.)

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The Malagasy contribution While Indo-Portuguese and/or Indian influence in creole cuisine is indisputable, the role of Madagascar seems to have been much more modest. My hunch about this is that the Malagasies may have had more influence on ‘cooking technology,’ than on the cuisine itself. Studying seventeenth-century inventories shows that colonists had almost no cooking utensils, and the care with which the most minor of vessels was recorded (even ‘bad pots’) reflects this. Hence, the colonists had to borrow from the Malagasies rudimentary cooking techniques that allowed them to do without the European utensils that were unavailable on the Island. For example, the three hearthstones used in the Malagasy tradition reappear in the Mascarenes and the Seychelles, and even their name touk comes from the Malagasy term toko. (The term is no longer found in Mauritian Creole, but its presence in Rodriguais indicates that it was at one time also used in Mauritius.) The technique of cooking pieces of meat skewered on brochettes over a fire (salazana) has disappeared, but it is still referred to in Réunionnais toponymy (Salazes). Malagasy influence is likewise apparent in the use of containers made from plants: palmettos ampondres,3 calabashes, and coconuts. In addition, it was probably from the Malagasies that the colonists learned how to boil water in these containers by transferring into them stones previously heated on a fire. Also of Malagasy origin are the creole techniques of cooking rice and, by extension, corn. However, these technological substitutes have already been seriously threatened by ‘devernacularization,’ which has affected Malagasy contributions particularly hard, since they have always been linked with archaic techniques. Influence from Madagascar is also evident in the names of edible plants and animals, which is obviously related to the fact that there is a great similarity between the flora and fauna of the Mascarenes and the ‘Big Island.’ We should bear in mind that the Mascarenes are a volcanic archipelago, which means that their flora and terrestrial fauna come from elsewhere – brought by the wind, birds, or the sea – and, as the closest area, Madagascar was the primary supplier. Tubers (kanbar, zoumine, patat sonz), local vegetables (sonz), and vegetables introduced early on (vouèm, zantak, zanbrevat) all have names that are Malagasy in origin in both Réunionnais and Mauritian Creoles. The situation with freshwater and marine fauna is equally interesting, since fishing was one of the resources that were crucial to survival at the start of the colony. Several of the fishing techniques used in the Mascarenes (Réunion, Mauritius, Rodriguez) resemble those used by betsimisaraka fishermen of Madagascar, who operate less on the open sea than on coasts or coralline banks at low tide, usually using harpoons, bow-nets, or other kinds of nets and damming (Robequain 1958). In the Mascarenes, one finds the use of conical nets (the term for these, vouv, attested in all the creoles, is derived from the Malagasy etymon vovo (ibid.)), harpoons ( firang or frang, < Malagasy firango or farengo), and dams made of plant material, often made of long creeping vines from a plant found everywhere on the beaches (Ipomea pes caprae; patat a diran or batat a diran in several creoles). These dams are used to trap lagoon fish and force them ashore.

Creole cuisine 237 To my knowledge, this type of fishing is practiced today only on Rodriguez; it is forbidden, of course – and, in any event, is being abandoned as a result of the process of ‘devernacularization’ that I mentioned above. However, whereas freshwater or lagoon fishing techniques appear similar to those used off the east coast of Madagascar, sea fishing, on the contrary, reflects the maintenance of French traditions in both its technology and vocabulary, just like sailing (where this still exists, such as in Mauritius, Rodriguez, and, especially, the Seychelles). This obvious difference between the two types of fishing has a sociohistorical explanation, in which the imported Malagasy customs had a role to play. Throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the colonists did not own suitable boats for fishing on the open sea – especially around Bourbon, where the Indian Ocean is rough – and in any case they feared the slaves (who were primarily Malagasy at that time) taking control of boats to flee back to their native island. In the eighteenth century thefts or attempted thefts of ‘dinghies’ by slaves, and their clandestine attempts at constructing ‘pirogues,’ occupy a significant place in the local judicial archives. The ‘dinghy police’ were very strict, and, since the colony desperately needed rowers (Bourbon did not have a true port), people vigorously requested bambara rowers, obviously hoping that the slaves would not think of returning to Africa under oars! Thus it was – either because of their behavior or because of their masters’ mistrust – that Malagasy slaves were restricted to fishing on foot in the rivers or on the shores of the Island. As a result, the only Creole words of Malagasy origin designating aquatic fauna are those that refer to freshwater fish (bisik, marar, zamal) or animals that could be trapped on the lagoon shore (zourit, buftang, bisik). On Réunion, overhunting and overfishing, first denounced in the early eighteenth century, reduced the importance of all these activities. Setting aside genetic issues in order to attempt an interpretation of the more significant processes themselves, one cannot help but notice a split with the Malagasy culinary tradition, which appears to consist primarily of soupy and boiled dishes. (Roumazave is the most representative of these.) Still, we must be careful not to think of creole cooking in the Indian Ocean as being identical to cooking in India. Setting aside Mauritius, where recent and massive immigration from India has changed the facts of the situation, we see that on Réunion and Rodriguez many of the dishes most characteristic of Indian cooking are totally unknown to Creoles. This is particularly true of the Indian flatbreads made from wheat or rice (e.g., chappati, paratha, poori, naan). Even chutneys only distantly resemble the rougays of Réunion or the satinis of Mauritius.4 In addition, the consumption of milk and milk products (e.g., dahi, raita, lassi, ghee), one of the hallmarks of Indian cuisine, was completely unknown to Creoles until very recently, as was the Indian custom of eating sweets at the end of a meal. Furthermore, what connection there is with Indian cuisine must come primarily from south India, where the use of spices, which the Creoles borrowed, is most important. (The blood cults of the ‘Malabars’ of Réunion are also inherited from south India.) It appears, too, that it is in south India that flatbreads are often replaced with rice as the primary staple at meals (Doré

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1978:100). Finally, very prolonged cooking of food and cutting meat into small pieces to facilitate eating with the fingers, often on banana leaves (Doré 1978:101), are all features found in creole cuisine that derive from southern Indian traditions [as well from black Africa (Ed.)].

Creole cuisine The importance of rôti – or, in local terminology, roussi – is indisputable in Réunionnais (and creole) cuisine. Boiled dishes are very uncommon, and even bouillon de brèdes is not boiled. This dish is actually prepared by first making a base of roussi (onions, garlic, and ginger fried in hot oil), and it is only when the preparation of the brèdes is finished that water may be added if one wishes to make a bouillon, rather than ordinary brèdes. Even rice is preferred ‘dry,’ without the slightest trace of any water (as we have seen, it is always cooked until there is a crust stuck on the bottom of the pot). Boiling is only used in preparations (I hesitate to say ‘dishes’) for very young children or sick people. One of these is kanz, boiled rice of porridge-like consistency. (The term kanz, found in the four creoles, is of Indian origin from Tamil kanedi ‘rice starch’.) This practice is very old and has been attested in the Indian Ocean since the seventeenth century: ‘Congee is used less to quench the thirst of the ill than to nourish them’ (Dellon 1685:23). The same is true of kanz mai (‘cornmeal porridge’). Both these dishes, called pouspas in Réunionnais, may be flavored with a piece of beef or chicken to make a ‘soup’ (soup bèf, soup volay). It seems plausible to interpret this situation, as Valentin has done, with an adaptation of Lévi-Strauss’ (1967) ‘culinary triangle.’ In fact, this concept illustrates well the relationship between ‘boiling’ and ‘spoiling.’ ‘Boiling’ is usually connected with what could be called an ‘endo-cuisine’ – food prepared for intimate use reserved for small in-groups. Valentin states: Concavity, intimate usage, and small in-groups all define the recipients of boiled dishes in the cuisine of Réunion. The very low status of these dishes is shown by the reservation, or even disgust, present in the faces and comments of those who receive them: these dishes are ‘flat’ (i.e., bland). There is nothing appealing about their soft consistency, pale color, or sicklysweet fragrance. Sometimes flesh that has been boiled even comes off the bone like rotting meat. … We have noted that the Réunionnais have a strong aversion to spoiled meat, and their dislike of boiled dishes seems to only confirm this aversion. Boiling is to cooked food what spoiling is to raw food. (Valentin 1980:141–142) The cuisine of Réunion thus avoids boiling – grilling too, for that matter (since it tends to leave the center of the meat less cooked). It relies on roussi, which is indeed the primary cooking method for most dishes (e.g., kari, rougay, rôti, brèdes). Pieces of meat, fish, or vegetables are cooked in a pot in which onions,

Creole cuisine 239 garlic, thyme, and sometimes other spices (such as saffron or masalé) have first been browned in some kind of fat (usually oil) over a high flame. The introduction of new items, such as ‘beefsteak,’ has easily been accommodated using this technique. When eaten locally, ‘steaks,’ are often fried in grease until they are completely dry. As for eggs ‘on the plate,’ they are fried on both sides, and often look like the stiff and brownish disks sometimes sold in ‘Chinese’ shops. It is difficult to determine what the precise impact of ‘external’ conditions (sociohistorical and climatic) could have been on the formation of these customs, but it is certain that they played an important role. This is evident in many of the features of Réunionnais cuisine, including the following: cutting food into small pieces; long cooking times; preparation methods that extend shelf life; and the use of spices that stimulate the appetite and, it seems, aid digestion in tropical climates. Generally speaking, Réunionnais food and cooking are quite distinct from the European tradition, which was poorly suited to the natural and physical conditions that existed at the beginning of colonization. Nonetheless, we must again be careful over the terms we choose for comparison. For example, regarding basic diet, the absence of a French-style breakfast on Réunion may not be as clear-cut a difference as it seems. Not long ago, it was a traditional creole custom for children to eat a bowl of cornmeal porridge (soso mai ), while adults drank coffee and ate ‘heated rice,’ a dish of rice heated with fat made from the leftovers of the preceding evening’s meal. This custom – which I suspect is in the process of disappearing – is not that far removed from rural French customs of the past, when the morning meal often consisted of soup and a piece of lard left over from the meal of the day before. The elements of French cuisine that have been maintained in creole cooking actually fall into two different categories. The first includes items that were easily adapted locally, such as processed pork products. Thus, one finds on Réunion a whole series of traditional French processes for preparing pork, along with the consumption of items such as blood pudding, fresh sausages, dried sausages, andouilles, salted pork, smoked pork, gratons, head cheese (brawn), etc. In addition to this, classic French cuisine also appears without fail on festive occasions, when it is ‘superimposed’ on local traditional dishes. As Valentin notes: Réunionnais cuisine appears to reflect two primary influences, one French and the other Indian. The former has taken on a prestige that is imposed on all festive occasions, during which two meals are eaten in succession. First there is a French-style meal, in which the courses are all called by their original names (even though culinary styles have changed somewhat): ‘first course,’ ‘roast,’ ‘stew,’ and ‘salad.’ Then there is a meal of rice, in which the chillies, spices, tiny pieces of meat cooked in gravy, and sour condiments all evoke India (though an India that has been somewhat transformed by contact with France, for the number of spices is very much reduced and often limited to just saffron, with thyme, garlic, and onions conjuring up

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Creole cuisine Provence). It thus appears that the magnificent ensemble of Asian spices has become somewhat subdued under French influence, although it is still present in the ingredients of creole pâté. This saffrony, sweet, and salty mixture is clearly Indian in inspiration, and pâté that is made from pork or chicken is still called by the old French name of godiveau. (Valentin 1980:148–149)

This connection between ritualized festivity and European tradition is observed in many other cases. Festive cooking seems partly to represent a desire for identification with, and integration in, a dominant social model. Valentin echoes this sentiment when she notes, with a certain amount of humor: The dual nature of these meals, so distinctive and widespread, represents a tension between the desire to consume what appears to be the food of the elite, eaten to obtain power and prestige (‘in Latin, esse means both “to eat” and “to be,” observes Prof. Jean Vigne), and the pleasure of savoring dishes that give quite superior gourmet satisfaction and awaken rich and affecting harmonies. (ibid.:149) The connection between the festive and the European may also derive from a simple desire to honor a guest. In other words, a guest may be offered western cuisine instead of ordinary creole dishes. For example, one day in the Seychelles I had the opportunity to sample a dish made of spaghetti and green peas. To the person who had prepared it, this dish must have simultaneously combined the prestige of two typically European food items. In terms of status, the combination could not be more prestigious, but in gastronomic terms it was considerably less successful. Also entirely characteristic of festive meals is replacement of the daily rum by Marie Brizard, a French spirit which until recently it would have been considered improper not to offer to guests. Thus, some years back on Réunion, not even one miserable and poorly stocked up-market boutique would have failed to carry, among the cans of sardines and corned beef on its shelves, bottles of Marie Brizard – an item absolutely crucial for any creole feast worthy of the name. One can see exactly the same process at work at engagement and wedding ceremonies, among social groups who are completely and solely creole-speakers (there is stronger evidence of this on Rodriguez than on Réunion). On Rodriguez, it is socially unthinkable that a number of ritualized verbal acts associated with events such as engagement parties, and especially weddings, should not be conducted in French – even among people who have absolutely no competence in the language. The official letter from the fiancé, the marriage proposal, is always written in a French based on carefully preserved and transmitted models, as are announcements and invitations. Love songs sung at wedding banquets by monolingual creole-speakers are always in French, too, or at least in a language that the singers believe to be French. (Note the similarity

Creole cuisine 241 between this and what was said in the preceding chapter about the ‘commands’ in the ‘contre-danses’ in the Seychelles. For more details, see the Encyclopédie de la Réunion, vol. 5, 21–22, 88–89.) This digressive recollection of engagement letters and marriage proposals reminds me of Herskovits’ discussion – a beautiful illustration of substratist delirium which I cannot resist quoting: Thus the elaborateness of the betrothal mechanism has in several regions been translated into ceremonies which, even when European in form, are essentially African in feeling. The Haitian lettre de demande 5 and its counterpart in the British West Indian islands are, in their form and mode of presentation, entirely in the tradition of Africa. (Herskovits 1941:168) Since I am not a substratist, I have difficulty following the ‘reasoning’ here. The claim that the tradition is ‘essentially African in feeling’ foreshadows the underlying linguistic Africanisms invoked today as generativist deus ex machina by Claire Lefebvre and her associates. Metaphors such as ‘feeling’ and ‘underlying’ are quite significant in discourse of this kind. But I will not repeat here what I have discussed elsewhere (Chaudenson 1990a). To return to Herskovits’ statement, one may hesitate to remark, in the face of his excessive certainty, that the same customs and letters are present on the creole islands of the Indian Ocean, where African traditions and substrata, deep as they may be, are more difficult to invoke. In conclusion, and returning to the subject in hand, cooking is a system characterized by strong ‘transcommunality.’ Separate white and black cuisines do not exist in creole island communities. Creole cuisine is also a system marked by a strong dependence on external factors, historical and natural (the availability of food items, problems of preservation, mode of consumption, etc.). Apart from recent influences, particularly on Réunion (which I have not taken into account except in identifying specific cuisines of recent immigrants), the European model has been adopted only for exceptional, festive events, for reasons of prestige. Even then, it does not replace local traditions, but is merely added to them.

Notes 1 2 3 4

The cultivation of this South American tuber coincided with massive slave importations after 1735, although its consumption was hampered by risks of food poisoning. Its cultivation had been previously attempted in the Antilles. This particular Indian/Indo-Portuguese influence on Réunionnais cuisine is consistent with Mufwene’s Founder Principle (1996, 2001), which is evident in some other areas of the same domain and also in other cultural domains. Flacourt notes for Madagascar in 1658 that ampondre meant ‘wooden plate’; the word is attested at an early date in all the creoles of the area, even though it exists today in only Réunionnais and Seychellois. Chutneys are ‘sweet-and-sour thick, cooked sauces that are more or less spicy and made with a base of tomatoes, mangoes, lemons, peaches, tamarind, or ginger’ (Doré

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5

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1978:99). ‘Rougays’ and ‘satinis’ are usually not prepared with coconut, as Indian chutneys are. Here Herskovits refers the reader to pp. 107ff of his Life in a Haitian valley (1937).

9

Creole folk medicine and magic

This chapter is primarily about folk medicine. However, it is impossible not to take magic and sorcery into consideration as well, however marginally, because they play a role in both the underlying view of what sickness is and in the remedies used to treat it. In the creole world, folk medicine has been the subject of some works, of varying quality and interest. However, the genesis of the systems themselves has hardly been studied at all. Furthermore, due to the paucity of related works with which to compare their ideas, authors who do venture into this field often construct hypotheses that are tentative at best. Here again, therefore, I will refer mostly to my own research and to my direct knowledge of these societies, especially that of Réunion. Folk medicine and magic, unlike language or cuisine, are not ‘transcommunal’ phenomena and can even have a downright secretive quality. Haitian voodoo, for example, has from the very beginning typically engaged the entire community, whereas sorcery has been more of an individual practice. The position occupied by magic in creole folk medicine is in no way surprising, for this is quite likely universal. However, on Réunion, the role of magic is perhaps greater than elsewhere. The superstitious nature of the Bourbonnais population has been recognized since the beginning of this colony. Billiard (1822:455) mentions that Father Hyacinthe, the ‘Governor’ of the Island for three years in the late seventeenth century, ‘had all the more authority over the inhabitants because they were credulous and superstitious.’ In the eighteenth century Abbot Caulier emphasized the Bourbonnais’ mania for seeing ‘ghosts everywhere.’ Even today, one finds constant reference to the Réunionnais’ penchant for superstition (see, for example, M.A. Leblond’s 1924 novel Ulysse, cafre). We are certainly dealing with a survival of older attitudes, but ones that seem in no way to have disappeared from even our most advanced modern societies. The multitude of articles and reports that the media have devoted to superstition, as well as the profusion of specialized advertisements for all kinds of seers, clairvoyants and holy men, confirms that belief in the paranormal maintains a strong foothold today. However, the nature of slavery in colonial society was perhaps a factor in the development of magical beliefs and practices. Indeed, in their particular situation, the slaves could hardly expect any forces other than

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supernatural ones to improve their condition or to avenge the atrocities that they were suffering. Escaping from the Island or running away were just an unrealistic solution for the first and a temporary one for the second. Their only real hope was therefore to try to control their masters or seek vengeance on them. Their methods were either natural but secretive (poison) or else supernatural (magic potions). Sometimes the two strategies were combined.

Remedies and poisons in colonial societies Poison and sorcery were obsessively feared among the ruling class in these colonial societies. However, these fears varied in intensity and prevalence according to location. Very strong in Saint Domingue and in the Lesser Antilles, they seemed less so in the Indian Ocean. Indeed, it was on Réunion that colonists suffered least from such ‘poisoning/magic’ psychoses. I have come to this conclusion based on comparisons between the judiciary archives of Ile de France and Bourbon. The differences between the two settlements stem, for the most part, from the slaves’ conditions and their relationships with their masters, and these factors were largely dependent on social and economic systems. It has always seemed to me that the slaves’ situation was less harsh in the IOR than in the ACR. This hypothesis has been validated by Gerbeau (1985), one of the leading specialists on the social history of slaves, who notes of the Mascarene Islands: ‘The slaves’ situation was less cruel here than in the American-Caribbean region’ (1985:27). Within the IOR, the slaves’ conditions were less severe on Bourbon than on Ile de France. The conclusions that we can reach based on the judiciary archives confirm Bernadin de Saint-Pierre’s (1773) idealized description (see Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 1986b:263–264) of the customs of these ‘former inhabitants of Bourbon,’ which he contrasted with the colonists’ preoccupation with business on Ile de France. His view turns out to be accurate when the two Mascarene Islands are compared. Although colonized later than Bourbon, Ile de France rapidly became the center of commercial activity of the archipelago, largely because of its ports. A center not only of activity but also of speculation, Ile de France attracted colonists who counted on making a rapid fortune and were therefore ready to exploit their slaves to the maximum. In contrast, Bourbon – an older and more stable settlement, not as rich in the promise of immediate profit – was less tempting to sharks and speculators. These socio-economic differences undoubtedly explain, at least in part, why on Bourbon the relationships between masters and slaves were less conflict-ridden, and poisonings were less frequent than on Ile de France. They were not completely unheard of, though; I have studied in detail one of the most characteristic cases, mixing sorcery and trickery, in which the accused, guided by ‘a high society that knew the spell,’ planned to poison Whites with butcher’s meat, which evidently they alone would eat (‘Brumaire VIII,’ c. 1798; see Chaudenson 1983a:10–11). The fear of poisoning was much stronger in the Antilles. However, in support of my hypothesis about the development of social relationships between Whites

Creole folk medicine and magic 245 and Blacks, it is worth noting that there are hardly any reports of this type of episode in the initial ‘homestead society’ phase of colonization. Even in the Antilles, where this fear would become an obsession, it is only from 1692 (i.e., the beginning of the ‘plantation society’ phase) that among the various crimes there is any mention of those involving ‘venoms et poisons’ (Bougerol 1983:74). But from the early eighteenth century a climate developed of real terror of the evergrowing number of slaves who were less and less integrated into the White households: Revolt against the work regimen, direct attack against the master: the preferred weapon of the slaves was poison … Whites, outraged by events which they could no longer control, felt they were the plaything of diabolical powers. (Bougerol 1983:76) In this climate of mistrust, a direct relationship was established between sorcery and folk medicine. Social repression, which encouraged the former, was so strong that it overtook the latter. A report of July 1855 by the Conseil de la Martinique unambiguously asserts: ‘It has been recognized that those guilty of crimes involving poison and evil spells began by using medicinal plants that were thought to heal certain illnesses’ (Debbasch 1962:149). According to Bougerol, from 1720 this fear led to slaves being banned, on pain of death, ‘from being involved in healing sicknesses and administering any kind of remedy, herb, root or anything else, with the exception of snake-bite treatments’ (1983:84). These repressive measures were made official by a Royal Decree of 1746. Similar steps were taken later, as in 1767. The same mistrust existed in the Indian Ocean. On Madagascar, a deadly poison from a local tree called tanguin was used in a kind of trial by ordeal: those who took it but were innocent of the accusations brought against them were expected not to die from it. Although the tree is not found on Réunion, there are stories about it that inspired much anxiety. Yet this fear was not as obsessively intense in the IOR, perhaps due to the earlier and faster integration of slave therapies into the Whites’ pharmacopoeia. Bougerol’s conclusions about Guadeloupe may at least in part apply elsewhere: The competence of Black healers could not be acknowledged for long; it disturbed the power differential established for the colonists’ benefit, and it encroached upon their absolute supremacy: a crucial component of the social system on the Islands. These measures did not aspire to deny that there had been African contributions to folk medicine, but the French, in their desire to rule with totalitarian authority, created ways to impose their vision of the world, nature and the human body by doing away with practices rooted in other systems of knowledge. (Bougerol 1983:88–89)

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This view, although partially accurate, depends rather too much on the traditional, over-simplistic notion of ‘colonial oppression’ and obviously exaggerates the willful nature of the Whites’ attitude. In fact, as shown earlier, the sociohistorical conditions of colonization rendered useless such ‘strategies’ (which Bougerol lumps together under the name ‘colonial squaring’). According to him, ‘the exiguous insular territory was cross-ruled by all sorts of representatives of colonial power: clergy, militiamen, colonists, and their henchmen’ (ibid., 89). Similar views play a role in the ideology of ‘resistance,’ which we have encountered in other forms, most characteristically in the ‘runaway myth.’ This ideology assumes – incorrectly in light of the majority of available evidence and documents – that the slaves tried at all costs to preserve their native cultures and languages against colonial society, which in turn sought with desperate tenacity to force the slaves to relinquish them. I hope to have demonstrated that the reality on the Islands was quite different from what the ideology of resistance suggests, and that the social integration of the Blacks was a less constrained process than this ideology implies. Rather – due to cultural isolation, total material dependence, and, most often, the youth of the slaves – social integration occurred rapidly and, as dreadful as it may sound, efficiently. We can pinpoint the relative inaccuracy of some of Bougerol’s assertions by considering the following: the creation of infirmaries ‘at the hands of surgeons was part of the colonial squaring intended to control all African activity. The hospital … was a place where the Whites censored foreign practices’ (Bougerol 1983:104). This conclusion, however, is hardly in accordance with what she herself has earlier said of these hospitals, that they were places where ‘the midwife [a Negress] knew about medicinal plants and prepared infusions and syrups’ (102). The White surgeon (let’s not forget that this is an eighteenth-century surgeon ‘on the Islands’) only came to the hospital once or twice a week (103); therefore, it was actually the black Midwife who was on duty for most of the care-giving. Clearly, White ‘censorship,’ if exercised at all, was neither rigorous (though theoretically prohibited, local medicinal herbs were in fact used) nor systematic. It is now necessary to take into consideration the excesses that such a rather Manichean ideology involves, and we must also consider more thoroughly the genesis and evolution of creole folk medicine.

Medicinal ‘drugs’ and trade One of the commercial objectives of colonization, at least at the beginning, was to acquire ‘drugs’ by means of trade. Generally, these were vegetable substances widely used in European medicine, including aloe, benzoin, tacamahac, etc. The narratives of the first voyagers as well as administrative documents often mention such reputedly medicinal plants or other plants that were thought to provide similar substances. In the Antilles, the writing of Father du Tertre contains numerous mentions of the curative value of indigenous plants. In the Indian Ocean, local terms for these ‘drugs’ rapidly gained currency (benjoin or

Creole folk medicine and magic 247 takamaka, for example). At the same time, the European terms were also often used to refer to plants that were not in fact those from which these substances were usually extracted (it is not always easy to determine whether this arose from misidentification of the plant or from fraudulent misdescription, pure and simple). Scientific expeditions in search of healing plants were organized, such as those carried out to Bourbon in 1727 by the ‘doctor-botanist’ Couzier. In 1761 naturalist Pingré took care to note the medicinal properties of the plants identified in his works (Encyclopédie de la Réunion, vol. V:132). It is therefore completely inaccurate to claim that, in the early days of these colonies, an opposition existed between a learned European ‘pharmacopeia’ and a reputed folk knowledge (of African or Malagasy origin, depending on the region) among the slaves. Some of the European ‘scientific’ remedies that were imported into Bourbon in the seventeenth century should be enough to dispose of this idea: in the armory of European therapies, promoted in all official seriousness, were ‘dry wood lice,’ ‘water of blessed charcoal,’ and ‘miracle rocks.’ Since these products were rare and very expensive to import – and their therapeutic effects far from certain – ‘transcommunal’ knowledge tended to develop in the colonies, with the colonists not hesitating to appeal to the possible know-how of their slaves. Comparative experiments with European and local remedies are also sometimes attested. On Bourbon, a letter dated 30 October 1736, describes the treatment of a certain Monsieur Dumont: We have had Monsieur Petit’s pills that you sent delivered to several individuals. They have worked well for some people, and for others they did neither good nor harm. Monsieur Dumont took them for six weeks for his dreadful and chronic skin troubles, which for sixteen or seventeen years had been aggravating his other infirmities. But when these skin troubles only became worse, he resorted to a topical remedy suggested to him by an individual on this Island. This treatment provided the relief he had long been waiting for. (Archives Départementales de la Réunion, série Co) Certainly, the fear of being poisoned existed, but the remedies could be tested on the slaves themselves, and the colonists certainly did not deprive themselves of this precaution. In Bourbon, recourse to local medicinal plants was facilitated by Malagasy slaves, who found on the Island plants very similar to ones in their own country. The presence of racially mixed couples (French men and Malagasy women) also encouraged the use of these remedies, since a mother could hardly be suspected of wanting to poison her own children. Réunionnais Creole offers two kinds of linguistic evidence of the Malagasies’ early contributions in the domain of medicinal plants. On the one hand, a quarter of the Malagasy lexical contribution to Réunionnais Creole consists of terms for plants with known medicinal properties. The etymologies and virtues of these plants can be found elsewhere (especially in Chaudenson 1974a), so I will limit myself here to listing the terms: afous, boi d’andrèz, boi d katafay, boi d kivi,

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tentel, faam, fanzan, foutak, ling, longoz, mafane, mafatamboi, moufia, nat, ravensar, sonz, soudfas, tantan, vavang, zamal, zambavil, zoumine. Not only is this set of words quantitatively significant, it also shows that the introduction of these terms into Creole must have happened early on – the large majority of them (more than twothirds) are also attested in Mauritian Creole, which enables us to conclude that these words were introduced to Ile de France by the Bourbonnais in the early eighteenth century. Moreover, there are terms for indigenous plants that are similar in Réunionnais and Mauritian Creole. These likenesses suggest that the plants were identified as medicinal from the early eighteenth century. The most notable case is what is called zerb a bouk/zerb babouk (lit., ‘goat’s grass’) in Réunionnais and lerb bouk in Mauritian Creole – technically ageratum conyzoïdes. This plant was thought to possess a number of virtues; it was used for blood-cleansing and reducing fever, as well as to treat abscesses and skin eruptions and, via an herbal infusion, to fight tanbav, a dangerous infant malady (described by Baggioni 1990 as ‘infant gastroenteritis or, more generally, any infant stomach ache accompanied with diarrhea’ [Ed.]). This provides proof that the healing properties of this plant were acknowledged from the late seventeenth century and that it was given its creole name at that time on Bourbon. It must have been the Malagasies who brought it to the attention of the Bourbonnais habitants or ‘settlers,’ although its name does not appear to be of Malagasy origin (even when compared to the Réunionnais babouk, ‘spider,’ whose supposed Malagasy etymology is in no way proved). However, it is not surprising for a plant whose medicinal properties were surely recognized thanks to the Malagasies to receive a creole name of French origin. The same thing occurred with guérit-vite (Siegesbekia orientalis, lit. ‘cure/heal fast’), a name that is likewise common among the Mascarene creoles. On Bourbon, the experience of the Malagasies, who recognized plants used in their traditional pharmacopoeia, allowed for a ‘creole’ medicine based on plants to develop within a few decades (under different circumstances, the ‘normal’ development of such a system would have taken centuries). In the Antilles the African slaves were apparently less familiar with the local flora, though it should not be forgotten that in the period before true colonization the native Caribbean people shared some of their knowledge of medicinal plants with the Europeans. From the foregoing discussion we can see that not only are Bougerol’s conclusions somewhat distorted by an underlying ideology, they also lack a historical perspective. The development of a health system (a ‘colonial squaring’ element), rudimentary as it was, may very well have occurred almost entirely after the integration, within a creole system of folk medicine, of elements introduced during the first decades. This contribution was made possible in part by the particular relations between Blacks and Whites (as already noted, in the ‘homestead societies’ these were different from what knowledge of later colonial societies would lead us to imagine) and in part by the almost complete absence of European ‘medicine.’ It is precisely this absence that later, during the period discussed by Bougerol, explains both the legal prohibition on slaves ‘healing sickness or administering any kind of remedy, herbs, or root’ and, simultaneously, Black

Creole folk medicine and magic 249 midwives’ use of these very medicinal plants and infusions in the hospital. Obviously, these traditional treatments had been well integrated into the local medicine.

Folk medicine discourse The origins of discourses on creole folk medicine (on the body, anatomy, physiology, illness, etc.) are now clear. Several studies, most of them carried out independently of each other, confirm that, against all expectation, they are inspired largely by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French folk medical knowledge. Bougerol notes of Guadeloupe: ‘When the discourses on medicine in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are compared to those of folk medicine today, some striking similarities emerge’ (1983:130). Once again, Bougerol assumes here a deliberate and concerted effort at ‘colonial squaring’: Discourse on the body, situated in its social and natural environment, did not necessarily contradict the spirit of slave systems. Rather, it had to be articulated with the master’s logic and words. Consequently, the desire to dominate the slaves all the way to their sick bodies can be observed, for example, in the creation of plantation infirmaries in the hands of surgeons; these institutions participated in colonial squaring. (Bougerol 1983:109) In passing, we should remember that the presence of surgeons was quite intermittent, and these infirmaries were in fact run by Black midwives. Other less ideological approaches, including Murray (1976) and Allman (1983), reach conclusions similar to my own. Allman’s ethnolinguistic work on the vocabulary of fertility and maternity in Haitian Creole, establishes that this lexicon consists either of French terms (often unidentifiable as such) or of creole neologisms created from French lexical material. Moreover, Haitian folk knowledge of medicine appears to be based on ‘Hippocratic medicine and the medicine of Galenic humors’ (1983:465). We find the same analogies on the therapeutic level, whether with regard to ‘concerns about pregnancy’ or ‘childbearing and postpartum troubles’ (ibid.). The continual fear of eclampsia (creolized as éklansi) can be seen in seventeenth-century French works on obstetrics. d’Ans takes an interesting approach to Haitian folk medicine, showing its link with esoteric sources (another argument for not completely separating folk medicine from magic). In the face of modern ‘esoteric’ conceptions of science, he points out the existence of a ‘folk culture that was basically recomposed out of elements drawn from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European anatomy and “folk” medicine,’ and goes on to note that:

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Creole folk medicine and magic The anatomic-medical conceptions introduced by the French to Saint Domingue consisted of a complex mix of poorly integrated notions. At the root of such conceptions was the old Hippocratic theory of humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm), serving as the fundamental element of reference. This theory focused on the correspondence between the humors and the four constituent elements of the universe – fire, air, earth, and water – to which corresponded the four climates, heat, cold, dryness, and humidity, … Sickness was attributed to a break in the harmony between the environmental elements and the dispositions of the body. (d’Ans 1987:273–274)

For d’Ans, the essence of the Haitian folk conception of body and sickness has its origins here. However, he claims that this conception was revived during the nineteenth century with the esoteric works Grand Albert and Petit Albert, copies of which can still be found today in the hands of Haitian peasants. This point of view needs some adjustment for the Indian Ocean archipelagos. The term Petit Albert is certainly known almost everywhere, but people do not always know exactly what it refers to. Nonetheless, one can apply the author’s observations to other regions, and I too have arrived at some very similar conclusions (Encyclopédie de la Réunion, vol. V:132–137; Chaudenson 1983a:32–35). Haiti presents a particularly interesting situation, though, since the achievement of independence in the early nineteenth century makes it impossible to invoke the effect of Bougerol’s beloved ‘colonial squaring’ after this date. During the nineteenth century, a certain medical infrastructure was indeed maintained, as evidenced by the creation of an Ecole de Médecine in Port-au-Prince in 1810. However, the rural masses’ marginalization and isolation kept them virtually isolated from this diffusion of medical knowledge, and most of the ‘fundamental’ traits of Haitian folk medicine probably go back to the eighteenth century. Regarding obstetrics, we know that at this time, along with White midwives, there were also colored midwives – and, according to Arthaud (1768, cited by Allman 1983:465), White women often preferred to seek help from the latter. It is certainly through them that the medical knowledge found today among the masses was diffused. In sum, this knowledge of the human body originated neither from extra-European sources, nor, stranger still, from experience (d’Ans justifiably notes that the ‘atlas’ of the body’s primary organs that Murray had Haitian peasants produce diverges remarkably from observable reality). d’Ans claims ‘that the Haitian peasants could not have been any less aware [of observable reality] than anyone else who, like themselves, dissected and gutted animals on a regular basis’ (1987:277). On Réunion, the situation is very similar, despite the formidable culture shock caused by the recent universalization of modern health care offered free of charge by the Assistance Médicale Gratuite in all overseas French Départements.

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Linguistic creolization and medicinal creolization Strictly speaking, Benoist does not discuss the genesis of folk medicinal knowledge, but he does make some observations that are related to those of d’Ans: Sicknesses are, for the most part, considered to be caused by natural elements, such as cold, sun, intestinal worms, poor hygiene, and malnourishment. The Hippocratic principles underlying these etiologies provide a theoretical framework for an essentially empirical practice. (Benoist 1980:17) Of the ‘creolization’ of the practices themselves, he writes: This preponderance [of the European tradition] should not blind us to the exchanges that took place with elements from Indian and Malagasy pharmacopoeias. It is very important to distinguish between the medical system and the elements it is composed from. The system is a cognitive entity that entails coherence between etiologies and therapies, which together form a conception of illness and the agents capable of treating and preventing it. The elements of this system, in particular the therapeutic agents, can very easily be borrowed from other systems without the borrowing system necessarily being modified. This way, a European-style ‘herbalist’ can include plants of Indian or Malagasy origin in his therapeutic armory, without modifying his conception of the relationship between man, invalid, and healing agents. This is also true for all other encounters between medicinal systems. (ibid.:36) The latter quotation deserves attention, because it seems to extend to creole folk medicine ‘relexification’ hypotheses which had their hour of glory in the linguistic domain. According to these theories (see Chapter 3), the ‘relexification’ of language A from language B consists of using A’s ‘grammar’ with B’s vocabulary, and Benoist, without actually referring to this, is suggesting that a ‘medicinal system’ can be ‘relexified’ by borrowing from another system ‘the elements of this system, in particular the therapeutic elements’ (my emphasis). The quantifier ‘some’ would certainly be more acceptable than the definite article ‘the,’ but the real problem lies elsewhere. The very definition of the concept of the system is questionable. A comparison with language seems necessary, since one of my objectives, it should be recalled, is to understand to what extent and in what ways linguistic creolization can be extrapolated to other cultural systems. I largely agree with Benoist that the ‘system is a cognitive entity that entails coherence between etiologies and therapies within a conception of illness and agents capable of treating and preventing it.’ However, I would end the definition after ‘conception of illness.’ This adjustment of course changes everything, but it seems to me to be the only way to keep the full sense of the word system, at

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least for the purposes of comparing culture with language. If, as Benoist proposes, the system is centrally defined by ‘coherence’ between ‘etiologies and therapies,’ on the one hand, and ‘therapeutic agents,’ on the other, then the changes occurring at the level of these ‘agents’ inevitably affect the system. The ‘agents capable of treating the illness and preventing it’ are much more likely to constitute ‘open lists’ of ‘therapies.’ On this basis, it is not at all surprising to see borrowings put into practice, although borrowings of strictly systemic elements would be infinitely more disruptive. So, for example, the ‘system’ of modern medicine in the ‘North’ (i.e., the developed world) is in no way affected if, after research on African or Malagasy folk pharmacopoeias, a particular plant for use in a new medicine is sought after by these countries. The therapeutic armory includes in its inventory both natural remedies (plants) and synthetic drugs and treatments based on scientific techniques. For our purposes, both the Black and White immigrants, arriving on the Islands deprived of their previous repertoire of therapies, must have come up with ‘new’ medicinal plants. They did so either by appealing to people who may already have had some experience with these plants (the Caribs/Native Americans in the ACR, the Malagasy in the IOR), or by experimenting with plants that seemed similar to those with which they were already familiar. This alteration of the open group of ‘therapeutic agents’ in no way affected the representational system of anatomy and physiology. All of this is much closer to borrowing than to relexification. In light of these remarks and in keeping with the spirit of my discussion on the beginnings of medicine in Bourbon, we can reinterpret Benoist’s theory that ‘a European-style herbalist can include plants of Indian or Malagasy origin in his therapeutic arsenal.’ There is nothing astonishing about this – although ‘plants of Indian or Malagasy origin’ seems to be a dangerous abridgment of ‘local plants whose use is found in traditional Indian or Malagasy medicines.’ As with cuisine, the influence of the local environment on the system was maximal, since any strictly therapeutic knowledge that the colonists may have had would have decayed in a tropical environment containing not a single plant that they were in the habit of using medicinally. Moreover, with the change of referents, the colonists reused many of the names of French medicinal plants; hence, they continued to use the terms camomile or matricaire, chrysanthemum, to designate medicinal plants different from those known by the same names in France (for detail, see S. Chaudenson 1987). On the other hand, the system itself was in no way affected. Even without ‘colonial squaring,’ French medical knowledge was rich and prestigious – something that, as we shall see, contributed to the partial relegation of non-European medicines to the sector of ‘arranged’ illness. The French tradition was also more ‘permanent’ and the more continuously enriched from a variety of sources. Here, we can amplify d’Ans’ observations from Haiti by mentioning the apparently significant role of widely read popular works on medicine. The most familiar and common of these was certainly Médecin des pauvres, which was reprinted continually from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth. Other

Creole folk medicine and magic 253 more recent works of the same type have had considerable success, for instance Manuel annuaire de la santé or Médecine et pharmacie domestiques (1881) by Doctor Raspail (in the local creole of Réunion raspay has become a common term for a collection of remedies and herbal infusions!). Without claiming to be exhaustive we can cite many similar books, such as Le médecin et le chirurgien des pauvres (1669, with numerous reprints), La nouvelle maison rustique (1732), and Manuel des dames de charité, ou formules de médicaments facile à préparer (1747). Even in the nineteenth century, special works intended for the ‘colonies’ appear, such as the Guide sanitaire des voyageurs aux colonies by Descourtilz (1816). This book was written for Europeans planning to go to the Islands, and included, in particular, a list of medicines with which each ‘settlement’s’ pharmacy would need to be supplied. Over and above these specialized works, there were further common sources of folk medical knowledge in prayer and first aid books, as well as almanacs, all widely available. Bougerol justifiably emphasizes ‘the colonists’ immense demand for medical information’ in Guadeloupe, adding: The planter himself, or more often, his wife with the assistance of the midwife or surgeon, monitored the sanitary condition of the slaves. They put into practice the prophylactic hygiene measures suggested in various medical works. Following the directions given in these works, they prepared medications in the masters’ homes. (Bougerol 1983:107) The role of popular publications on medicine is therefore just as important in the ACR as in the IOR. Confirmation of this can be found in colonists’ library inventories (unfortunately very rare). In Saint-Domingue, Debien counts thirteen medical works among the eighteen books owned by a large plantation, and Guerra finds more than 200 medical publications (books, brochures, pamphlets, almanacs, and journals) in the Greater and Lesser Antilles (cited in Bougerol 1983:108). Less obvious, and little-known, is the therapeutic contribution made by nonEuropean practices to the European medicine that was so hugely popular (or at least hugely popularized by the works mentioned above). This contribution is much less a matter of changes to the ‘medical system’ and more one of updating and expanding the ‘therapeutic inventories’ that the original migration imposed in a large number of cases. With regard to Réunion, the remarks about medicinal plants prove that these therapeutic arsenals were very rapidly renewed, and the Malagasies’ knowledge of local medicinal flora certainly played an important role in this. In any case, it is certain that – just as Black midwives in the infirmaries of the Antilles used primarily local medicinal herbs – the popular medicine of Réunion easily took both European remedies and apparently nonEuropean practices into its therapeutic repertoire. de Lescouble, whose early text has already been quoted in connection with music, offers a good example of this. He willingly devoted himself to medicine in order to take care of his family,

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slaves, and neighbors. He acted as surgeon (‘I opened the abscess on his arm,’ 13.6.1834) and used remedies which clearly combined the use of local medicinal plants (tisane d’herbe dure, ayapana, mucilage de gombo, etc.) with European formulas and preparations, which in terms of their ingredients may themselves have been ‘creolized.’ Thus, he applied to abscesses ‘a poultice made of bread crumbs, egg yolk, okra and a bit of cassava flour.’ Clearly, then, the distinction between ‘European’ and ‘local’ has virtually no significance. The various types of preparations were for the most part European, though also perhaps relatively universal (gargles, poultices, salves, enemas, purges, mustard plasters, infusions, etc.). The only things altered were the natural ingredients from which these preparations were made: changes that were essentially determined by differences in the natural environment.

Medicine and magic Although the ‘medical system’ itself appears to be essentially European, the opposition between ‘natural sickness,’ based on the etiology discussed above, and ‘arranged sickness’ is not of European origin. In Réunionnais, the term ‘arranged sickness’ refers to a sickness characterized as ‘unnatural.’ As such, it cannot be treated by any kind of folk or more scientific medicine. This contrast does not, despite appearances, seem to correspond directly to d’Ans’ ‘bodyuniverse’/‘body-machine’ pair established for Haiti. Rather, his contrast refers to a historical evolution of conceptions of physiology: Despite the significant persistence of certain uses of language, it is crucial to see that in modern culture, which in theory is shared by Haitian citydwellers, the representations of the body and of the sickness/health pair have resolutely turned against older theories. Empirically informed by anatomical precision, and having integrated the various theories of microbial infection, we now interpret sickness as the temporary dysfunction of a bodily machine whose health must be restored as soon as possible … However, faithful to older traditions, Haitian folk concepts still see the human body as the field of expression of immaterial forces. In this field the order and disorder of nature and of society are reflected. In short, Haitian popular beliefs continue to oppose to the body-machine, individualized by modern science, a cosmological/psychological body-universe. Within the body-universe, the dimensions of nature, society, and the individual are united. (d’Ans 1987:275) Although the oppositions of ‘natural’/‘arranged’ sicknesses and ‘bodymachine’/‘body-universe’ are not exactly aligned with each other, they nonetheless bear a certain resemblance. The notion of ‘arranged sickness’ is involved in a conception of a ‘body-universe,’ whereas the folk conception of ‘natural illness’ is in large part connected to the idea of a ‘body-machine.’ To

Creole folk medicine and magic 255 substantiate these relationships, it should suffice to note that in creole folk medicinal practices the goal of all basic therapeutic activity is to produce an effect opposite the one caused by the illness. Thus, whatever a disease prevents the patient from evacuating is forced out, and (less often) whatever an illness has forced out is brought back into the body. Similarly, the normal flow is re-established of whatever substance (blood, for example) the sickness has slowed down, and the right direction of circulation, reversed by the illness, is restored. This is the logic behind the celebrated ‘revolutions’ of blood, bile, and worms. In the last instance, worms that ‘will no longer go down’ risk ‘puncturing the heart’; it is then necessary to quickly ‘make them drunk’ in order to put them back onto the right path. In articular irregularities, such as sprains and strains, the practitioner often makes a symbolic gesture of the reverse movement, thus throwing the pain far away. What the illness has heated up is cooled down, what it has dried up is rehydrated, etc. (For a more thorough discussion of these techniques, see Encyclopédie de la Réunion, T. V.: 136–137.) The distinction between the treatment of a natural illness – the result of a simple perturbation in the body’s functioning – and the treatment of an ‘arranged’ sickness – due to evil intervention – is not always easy to establish. Billiard, an excellent witness of Réunionnais life at the beginning of the nineteenth century, noted that the Malagasies, who were extremely well versed in natural medicine, always threw ‘a bit of sorcery’ into their treatments. This practice was not peculiar to Malagasy folk medicine; healers of other ethnic groups (Whites in particular) also included such practices in their treatments. Even in France, the strong ties between folk medicine and magic are quite well known. The notebooks of the White herbalist A. Payet (born in the late nineteenth century), published by Benoist, show that he used just as much sorcery in his practices as the Malagasy tisaneurs described by Billiard in the early nineteenth century. Payet recommends, for example, that the sick person carry with him constantly a ‘protective sachet’ containing, along with thorn-apple (datura) flowers and a variety of other plants, a medallion of St Benedict – a saint invoked against evil spirits (Benoist 1980:84). Such an object bears a strong resemblance to the ‘amulets’ and ‘charms’ sold by local sorcerers. Even the choice of ‘thornapple flowers’ was far from ‘innocent,’ since this plant was already well known and used for very diverse purposes from the seventeenth century onward in India (Chaudenson 1983a:29). In a large number of preparations prescribed by Payet, the digits 3, 5, and 7 appeared (which is reminiscent of Virgil’s numero deus impare gaudet, ‘God rejoices in the uneven number’), and, like magic potions, many of his preparations were based on symbolic acts: ‘Request while removing leaves [of the sensitive plant] that the plant will take away the pain’ (Benoist 1980:90). The ‘burning’ of camphor (80, 90), too, is indisputably an Indian practice and was perceived as such by every Réunionnais. In other respects, exchanges with the modern pharmacopoeia were frequent, even though Benoist notes that, ‘setting aside direct influences from other ethnic groups, Payet no longer had close contacts with the metropolitan sphere’ (36) – though this did not prevent Payet from calling many illnesses by their French names nor from including modern

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remedies such as Mycodenyl and Nematorazine in his prescriptions. This folk medicine therefore possessed a therapeutic repertoire that was open to modern medicine; and yet, in seeking to make the treatment as effective as possible, undeniably religious and/or magical adjuvants – such as prayers, signs of the cross, symbolic gestures, sacred numbers, and formulas – were completely integrated into the system. Thus, what we have here is not a purely ‘machine-body’ system, to use d’Ans’ terminology. Rather, disorders, in theory purely physical, were thought to be treated more effectively by incorporating the ‘supernatural’ into the remedy. Clearly, in this system the supernatural could also play a role even in the origin of ailments. The incorporation of ‘magic’ into the treatment of a supposedly natural illness and the belief in the existence of ‘arranged’ illness – resistant to natural and modern treatments – therefore arose from an underlying conception relatively close to that of the ‘universe-body.’ ‘Arranged’ illness can be distinguished from natural illness, first and foremost, by its exceptional resistance to the traditional and modern natural remedies used to treat it. Such resistance is the sure mark of harmful intervention, whether accidental or evoked by someone’s ill will. That is, it can be the result of an ‘evil soul’s’ pernicious work, involuntarily aroused by a patient’s clumsy or unconscious action, such as transgressing an interdiction; alternatively, it can be due to the malevolent action of a ‘spirit’ deliberately unleashed on a patient, directly or via an intermediary, by someone who wants to harm him. The ‘arranged’ illness, therefore, cannot be treated by medicine alone. Indeed, the only chance of recovery rests in specific and similarly supernatural interventions. Because of significant developments in modern medicine and the fact that it is universally given free of charge, this is nowadays a patient’s first recourse. However, persistence of the illness eventually leads to the suspicion that it is indeed ‘arranged,’ and so supernatural intervention is sought. Thus the patient’s classic treatment progression is: doctor > ‘herbalist’ > ‘sorcerer’ > exorcist (see Chaudenson 1983a:35) – though steps can be ‘skipped’: after a doctor has failed to help, a hypothesis about the origin of the illness might be made which leads a patient directly to the exorcist. The Journal d’exorcisme pour l’année 1978 by Father Franck Dijoux (then official exorcist of the Réunion diocese), discovered by Raymond Eches and published in 1995, provides many examples of different ‘routes’; I will cite just one, chosen only for its banality and brevity: Monday, 23 October 1978: A sick woman from Grand Ilet arrived in a lamentable condition. She had to be carried, as she was unconscious. The doctor diagnosed her with a heart problem, but from the beginning of the prayers, she opened her eyes and responded very strongly to the rosary. This seemed a bizarre reaction for someone with a serious heart problem. I then learned that she had been to see a sorcerer. She was wearing charms. The mystery vanished: she had the spirit. It will be necessary to bless her contaminated house with charms, to put medallions of St Benedict in it, and to return as soon as possible. (Dijoux 1995:144; the ‘charms,’ or amulets, discussed here are magical tokens of protection or healing sold by sorcerers)

Creole folk medicine and magic 257 We can maintain that the etiological schema of Réunionnais creole folk medicine is very close to Benoist’s definition of local Indian medicine there: Indian medical practices in Réunion carry no trace of ayurvedic medicine and extremely little trace of the Indian pharmacopoeia. They have borrowed their features from medical-magical activities of villages in South India, whose complex of attitudes was remarkably transmitted to Réunion, despite its transplantation into a radically different society. (Benoist 1980:19) However, as far as attitudes to illness and their treatments are concerned, the ‘analogies’ between Réunionnais creole medicine and Indian medicine need to be examined more closely. In the absence of a detailed comparative study of rural medicine in South India, on the one hand, and Indian and creole folk medicine on Réunion, on the other, it is difficult to identify characteristics that would allow us to distinguish between Indian folk medicine on Réunion and Réunionnais creole folk medicine. For example, on Réunion, Christian-inspired techniques of exorcism and ‘Malabar’ rituals are curiously similar. Intermediate forms borrowed by both traditions may completely coincide (see Chaudenson 1983a:112–113). In the same way, ‘recipes’ provided by creole and Indian healers are comparable (ibid.:100). What is more, the ‘technical’ vocabulary is very similar in the two traditions. The exchanges among the various cultures (French, Indian, and Malagasy) are facilitated by the ‘transcommunal’ nature of these practices, but also, and perhaps mostly, by their basic similarities. Most of these practices are essentially based on symbolic acts (‘extracting’ the evil, warding it off, encircling it, throwing it out, etc.) that are found in the activities of both the ‘herbalist’ and the ‘sorcerer,’ and it is impossible to establish a precise demarcation between the activities of the former (folk medicine) and the latter (magic). At best, we might allow that ‘the healer becomes the sorcerer when the symbolic prevails over the therapeutic and, in extreme cases, completely eliminates it’ (Chaudenson 1983a:40). It is rare to find a healer who does not include symbolic formulas or gestures or prayers in his treatments, at the time of either, picking the plants, or preparing the remedy, or applying it. However, the healing action always maintains its essentially material component – ‘medicinal plants’ or various other ingredients. It has also been shown experimentally that certain rites of plantgathering, which would otherwise have been considered purely symbolic, actually correspond to the periods when these plants’ active agents are at their highest concentration. For the sorcerer, on the other hand, material elements, if used at all, apparently have only a purely symbolic value. For example, the following is a sorcerer’s prescription for healing an ‘arranged illness.’ The sick person is asked to make a groove in the bark of a tree, on the side where the sun rises, and then to circle the tree three times. Next, he must slide under its bark some toenail and fingernail clippings as well as a few hairs and a bit of saliva-

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soaked cotton. Finally, he must say, ‘In the name of God, I want this tree to be impregnated with my sickness, whatever its source may be.’ I have shown elsewhere (Chaudenson 1983) that on Réunion folk medicine, as well as magic, sorcery, and diverse beliefs and superstitions, have certain qualities in which French contributions seem to dominate, but in which non-European elements have been completely integrated. Some of the elements that have contributed to the pre-eminence of the French ‘model,’ apart from social factors, are its continuity and permanence, and the existence of a written tradition. I have discussed this written tradition in terms of popular medical publications, but, rather unexpectedly, there is a similar point to be made in the context of magic and sorcery. Throughout the creole world, in the Antilles as well as in the Indian Ocean, Petit Albert, Grand Albert, and, to a lesser extent, Dragon rouge are major and constant references, even if they have occasionally become mythical. (For example, on Rodriguez nearly everybody knows titalbèr, without knowing what it refers to.) Here too, just as on the linguistic level, the comparison between the ACR and IOR is interesting because of differences in the slave populations. Most characteristics common to the two creole areas seem to be found in the French domain, as revealed by a cursory reading of Van Gennep’s Manuel de folklore français (1943). Regarding Haiti, d’Ans points out the central importance of works that I have cited. He also mentions, as I have, the role of a certain written tradition: Undoubtedly because they are constantly referred to, Haitian folk conceptions of human biology correspond almost exactly to the ideas expressed in two books that can still be found today in the hands of Haitian peasants. The existence of these books proves that one should not be in too much of a hurry to see nothing but oral tradition in folk culture. The two books in question are Grand Albert and Petit Albert, collections of apocryphal writings. They are attributed to Saint Albert the Great, teacher of Saint Thomas Aquinas and famous scholar-theologian-alchemist of the thirteenth century, to whom medieval legend imparts a dreadful reputation as a magician. This reputation made the fortune of those who diffused the sulfurous writings attributed to Saint Albert. Imperishable bestsellers of literature-pedlars as much under the Ancien Régime as in the nineteenth century, Grand Albert and Petit Albert, though quite forgotten in Europe today, are among the most popular and influential books of our [European] civilization. Cloaked in mysticism and wonder, they contain the essence of the semi-scientific notions that constituted the foundation of folk medicine in old France. (d’Ans 1987:274) This completely confirms, for Haiti, observations I have made about other regions of the creole world, and I have only two remarks to make. The first, and less important, is that it is not at all certain that these books are ‘forgotten’ in

Creole folk medicine and magic 259 France today. To be convinced otherwise, it should suffice to consult the catalogs of specialized herbalist shops that are advertised in popular daily and weekly newspapers; these two books, and many others in the same vein, always feature heavily. The second point is that d’Ans mentions the influence of these works mostly in relation to physiology and folk medicine, but their influence should probably also be taken into account when considering Haitian superstitions and beliefs, magic and sorcery, because of the inevitable relationships among these domains. Similarities or even exact likenesses can therefore be found in the medicalmagical realm among practices arising out of very different traditions. This is in large part connected to the elementary symbolism that underlies most of the traditions. Hence, it is easy to see the risk involved in assuming an exact and unique origin for a particular fact. For instance, in Réunion one frequently sees a strange object – such as a chamber pot, an animal skull, or the head or body of a doll – suspended or placed in an elevated position inside a ‘courtyard’ (the illustration on the cover of my 1983a Magie et sorcellerie à la Réunion is a photo of a partially dismembered doll used for this purpose). The object of this practice is to ward off the evil eye. Instead of adhering to the ‘house’ or its occupants, the harmful gaze is reputed to stick to the elevated object, which attracts the gaze by its strangeness. Benoist sees a specifically Indian quality in the presence of these ‘prophylactic’ objects (1980:21), but this seems quite improbable; rather, we are dealing at best with an instance of ‘convergence.’ Indeed, a completely identical practice can be observed in Rodriguez, where there are no Indians and where, because of the settlement history of the Island (see Chapter 2), any Indian origin posited would have to be attributed to influences predating the nineteenth century. What is more, similar practices are found all over France; various objects are used, from horseshoes to, in Charente, a barrel hoop that Van Gennep calls the ‘devil’s trap,’ ‘because it stops the evil eye of sorcerers’ (op. cit.:2438). Much the same applies to the poule noire ‘black hen’; this certainly appears in the Indian ritual servis poul noir or servis Pétiay (sacrifice to KarteliPetiaye), but it is also found in the Antilles, and the rite is ‘European’ too (La poule noire is one of the best known works of ‘the science of talismans’). Any hypothesis on these questions should therefore be based on extensive and systematic comparisons of these practices – however, we are a long way from being able to conduct such comparisons, because, in most cases, the available descriptions are incomplete and unreliable. The European influence is obvious, but it is also the easiest to reconstruct, since all characteristics common to the two creole regions can reasonably be attributed to it. Is it conceivable to extrapolate hypotheses made about creole languages? We can say that the ‘systems’ of medical-magical practices have such a rudimentary and especially stereotypical ‘syntax’ (due to the elementary symbolism that they employ), and so reduced a ‘lexicon’ ordered by such constrained paradigms (where symbolic action is still expressed), that one should be wary – infinitely more so than with language – of drawing premature conclusions about the origin of this or that feature (except in light an examination of an extensive and

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pertinent comparative set). Synchronic study confirms this difficulty, by showing, in addition to convergences, the possibility of almost immediate ‘borrowings’ from one tradition into another. A single example will suffice. On Réunion there is a quasi-domestic magic technique, the so-called ‘gathering’ of footprints. This belongs to a universal magic that consists of symbolically manipulating an object from the body of the person to be affected (hair, fur, blood, urine, excrement, etc.) or something that has been in either intimate or distant contact with this person (object, clothing, etc.) – this type of magic is the reason why all popular local beliefs prescribe the burning of objects that have been in direct contact with one’s body, have one’s sweat on them, etc. (for example, an old shoe, a tool handle, or a chonbli: the little ‘cushion’ of fabric or straw (called torch in the Antilles)) which is put between the head and an object being carried. It is possible to affect an individual by this technique (medical-magical practices do not abstain from it) either to his benefit (see the prescription discussed above) or to his detriment. In particular, one can cause someone harm by ‘gathering’ his footprints and subjecting these tracks to various treatments (see Chaudenson 1983a:78–79; excrement can be ‘treated’ in the same way). These symbolic procedures are carried out through a very specific paradigm (tying up, warming up, burning, pricking, and throwing), each of them producing a similar effect on the ‘victim’: for example, a thief whose footprints are found in the garden. A similar practice is found in the Antilles: the ‘pinning of bones,’ which revolves around a single element of the paradigm (pricking) but rests on exactly the same principles and symbolism. We can note (and this is the interesting point in our theory) that Comorian ‘sorcerers’ – who have a great reputation on Réunion today, but who only arrived relatively recently, due to political movements affecting the Comoros Islands – use this technique in their practice. However, what is not known with any certainty is whether this practice is a borrowing from Réunionnais folk magic or whether instead it is a feature common to Comorian and creole sorcery. Given the overall similarity of these practices, I am inclined to favor the first hypothesis. However, the second cannot be ruled out, because part of the Comoros population is of Malagasy origin, and this practice could have come from Madagascar!

10 Creole oral literature

Early documents, which I have often invoked when discussing cultural systems in the preceding chapters, give virtually no information on creole oral literature. For example, Billiard (1822:210) hardly even mentions that an oral literature existed among Blacks on Réunion: ‘The head of the household tells marvelous tales, the attentive family listens …’ All the same, on Mauritius, apart from creole texts of a religious or administrative nature (such as the Catechism of 1828 or the proclamation abolishing slavery in 1835), one of the oldest prose texts in Creole is Zistoire moucié Caraba, a ‘Mauritian’ version of ‘Puss in Boots,’ which is the work of Father Aristide de la Butte. Its unpublished manuscript was passed on to me around 1970 by H. Adolphe, then Director of the National Archives of Mauritius, who estimated its date to be 1850 at the latest (Chaudenson 1981a:121). It seems certain that this is not an original story, but rather a creole translation of a French tale (confirmed by the handwritten legend, ‘patois translation,’ on the envelope containing the document). Slightly later, in 1880, Charles Baissac published a creole version of the same story. The problem that faces us here is the reliability of the data we are considering – though the risk is less than that of, say, attempting a comparative study of creole cuisines based solely on books on this subject that have so proliferated in recent years. Questions about the credibility of facts should not be confused with those about the way oral literature is realized. We know that, in accordance with a general principle that M.L. Tenèze calls ‘regional acclimatization of folklore themes,’ all folk tales (and other forms of oral tradition – proverbs and riddles are also involved) – tend to ‘emerge in the environment to which they are transferred through a process of adopting elements of the new narrative universe.’ The process is the same, regardless of whether it concerns authentic oral productions or locally learned ‘adaptations’ of borrowed stories. Often, stories produced by scholars observe the ‘law’ more systematically than authentic oral tales: in Zistoire moucié Caraba, for example, the application of the ‘law of acclimatization’ is very comprehensive: the King’s ‘hut’ is covered with shingles, the peasants are Blacks who work at ‘breaking’ corn, the clothing of the would-be marquis is alleged to have been stolen by ‘Maroons,’ etc. Such elements are certainly not absent from genuinely oral stories, but the dynamic nature of the

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Creole oral literature

story itself enables story-tellers to accommodate much more easily than ‘learned’ writers to the presence of foreign elements in the local reality. Besides oral literature proper, I will also include in this chapter forms of expression like riddles and proverbs, which are (often in the case of the former, occasionally in the case of the latter) related to folk tales and, like them, are subject to the ‘law of acclimatization.’ These different types of oral expression offer interesting characteristics of form and content and are equally precious landmarks in the study of the genesis of traditions.

The ideological controversy over origins More than the preceding ones, this cultural system involves the ideological conflict already mentioned in connection with language. Apparently, at least, music can be divided into two rather distinct traditions: one presumably European, the other non-European. But what is most salient in the controversy about origins is the argument over ‘authenticity’ – which most creole cultural militants equate with ‘non-Europeanness.’ In the case of linguistic systems, too, the most ‘authentic’ creole is often thought to be the most basilectal – i.e., the variety that shows ‘maximum distance’ from the modern standard variety of its lexifier – though, fortunately, one sees within ‘native’ linguistics positions being drawn like those of Lambert-Félix Prudent, who is realistic, reasonable, and above all courageous in taking on the dominant unscientific demagogy. Cuisine and folk medicine are generally too little studied and too poorly known to arouse such controversies, but on the subject of literature, and the oral tradition more generally, there are once again excellent opportunities for the two ‘warring camps’ to take up ideological positions. Thus, in the preface to the collection of folk tales from Guadeloupe by Madame Schont (1935), we read that the stories presented there are ‘borrowed either from the inexhaustible funds of Oriental legends or from medieval works, of which Roman de Renart is the Prototype’ (p. vii). With even greater certainty, the author adds, ‘There is nothing that refers to ancestral traditions, nothing that reveals an African origin’ (p. ix). These remarks are followed by a note, signed with the initials L.J.B., that clearly sets out the terms of the conflict: With all due respect to the point of view advanced by the author of this preface, we can posit that a comparative study of Guadeloupean and African folk tales would uncover African survivals in popular stories of the Antilles. The importance of the comparative method is mentioned (though the approach proposed is quite inadequate). More importantly, though, we see reflected here the old linguistic conflict that for a long time pitted ‘Eurocentrist’ hypotheses (like those espoused by Jules Faine for Haitian Creole and Volcy Focard for Réunionnais) against ‘Afrocentrist’ ones, which viewed creoles as African


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languages with French vocabulary (roughly the formula Suzanne Sylvain used to define the creole of Haiti). In connection with Antillean stories, we find positions diametrically opposed to Madame Schont’s. One of the most concise is that defended by M. T. Lung Fou in the preface to his Contes: ‘Our stories and our legends are the fruit of a heritage and a transformation. They come from distant Africa … The relationship between Antillean and African stories is obvious.’ So obvious, it seems, that it is not necessary to provide any evidence, although the author does have the good sense to allow a certain role for ‘creolization’ (‘a transformation’). The work of Joëlle Laurent and Ina Césaire does not tackle the question of the genesis of folk tales with such conciseness, but this does not prevent them from making certain remarks that reveal their position quite crisply: ‘Antillean folk tales … have made use of the original African ones by adapting them first to slave and then to colonial society’ (1976:11). The same contrasting viewpoints are found in the Indian Ocean. Charles Baissac, the first to collect and transcribe Mauritian Creole folk tales, emphasized the influence of the European tradition, which to him was undeniable: Finally, in 1715, Bourbon, our sister island, sent us the first French colonists. They disembarked, opened their trunks, and laid down their stories which had been slipped between their holland shirts and their conjon bleu clothes. They are stories from Lower Brittany, from the Gallo country, Norman, Lorraine, Provençal stories, but French stories, nothing but French. Among the fifty or so stories we have managed to collect,1 we recognize only one of Indian origin and only one of Malagasy extraction. Five or six were probably born under the skies of Mauritius. The others – the evidence will certainly come from scholars corresponding from France and Germany – all the others are exclusively of French provenance. (Baissac 1887:vi–vii). We should not, however, judge Baissac’s position too severely, even if our modern ‘scientists’ do consider it good form to mock such local scholars from the nineteenth century. His text generally lacks neither perspicacity nor, as we can see, modesty or prudence. But the funny thing is that the only story he claims to be of Malagasy origin actually is not; it is quite clearly a French story. On the other hand, comparative analysis and better knowledge of non-European sources would surely allow us to identify non-French stories or elements of stories which Baissac did not recognize as such. The opposite point of view is much less well represented in the IOR than in the ACR, for the simple reason that most collections and publications of stories in the IOR were carried out by academics and researchers whose positions were generally more prudent and well founded. As has already been pointed out by authors with more subtle points of view, elucidating problems in the genesis of creole oral literature can only occur both by comparing these traditions with

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those that make up their historical components and by comparing creole oral traditions with each other.

The comparative method In this chapter I have decided to illustrate the comparative approach. In order to do use this, one needs reliable corpora of comparable size for the two areas involved (the ACR and the IOR), as well as sufficient documentation on potential historical sources (French, West or East African, Malagasy, or Indian). There is nothing very new in this method; I have already defined it and used it extensively in detail for language in my thesis (Chaudenson 1974a:435–443), and it is the same approach that Meillet (1921) and Brunot (1966) adopted earlier. Their aim was twofold: first, to establish a theoretical framework that sought to compare groups of facts rather than isolated elements; and, second, to avoid applying what would later be termed the ‘cafeteria principle’ – a phrase first used by Dillard (1970) and then revived by Bickerton (1981). This doomed principle, which was applied to the formulation of genetic hypotheses, consists of haphazardly seeking out similarities between the language in question and ‘substrate languages’ without regard either to facts considered as part of a system or to differences that could have existed between them. Thus, without any real sociohistorical basis, two languages would be considered ‘related’ if two or three (often marginal and/or non-specific) features vaguely resembled one another in their ‘deep structures,’ even though they might differ in every other respect. In addition, the role of historical evolution was often neglected, as well as the unavoidable gap between the oral mode of transmitting linguistic features and the invariably written nature of the references relied upon. As in most cases, the ‘creolists’ who indulged in this kind of exercise did not have even the slightest notion about the relevant African languages (it was upon these, after all, that such exercises were based – but this important detail apparently did not give them pause). The method I proposed for analyzing linguistic facts can be fully applied to cultural facts, as well. Table 10.1 shows in principle how a comparative table adopted for languages (Chaudenson 1974a:436, 439) can be adapted to the comparative study of relevant elements (cases) of other cultural systems.


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Table 10.1 Model grid for a cross-creole comparison of cultural features C1

NF1

C2

NF2

F

Case 1

+

+

+

+

+

2

+

-

+

-

-

3

+

+

+

-

-

4

+

+

+

-

+

5

+

+

+

+

-

6

+

-

+

+

-

7

+

-

+

+

+

8

+

-

+

-

+

9

+

+

-

-

-

10

-

-

+

+

-

Note: C1 cultural system of the ACR; C2 cultural system of the IOR; NF non-French cultural systems; F French cultural system(s).

Of course, we could make the comparison more precise by expanding the columns headed C1 and C2 to include as many sub-categories of cultural system as there are geographical boundaries. In the very general approach that I am using here, column C1 could identify either features that are present in all the creole cultural systems of the region or those that are present in only one or a few of them. The same obviously applies to C2. Column F includes, of course, the regional cultures of the areas identified as having provided the major portion of the White population. Column NF1 is associated especially with C1 and subsumes those cultural systems, West African in particular, characteristic of areas identified as having provided the majority, or a significant proportion, of the slave population in the ACR; also included in this category are cultural systems of the Caribs (though, apart from some elements of material culture, their role must have been limited). Column NF2 covers non-French cultural systems relevant to the IOR (i.e., Malagasy, East African, and Indian). The comparative method provides invaluable information for cultural systems other than language, though this is certainly less reliable than the information it provides on linguistic systems. It is actually very difficult to assign a precise origin to cultural features or behaviors that are found over a large area or in several areas (e.g., the practice of carrying loads on the head), or that (like several folkmedicine practices) can stem from a near-universal symbolism (e.g., the act of ‘removing’ evil and throwing it out). The situation is completely different when it comes to linguistic facts, because of the very nature of such systems (e.g., the arbitrariness of the sign, double articulation, etc.). Even here, though, the

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pertinence of the method is inversely proportional to the probability of ‘coincidences’; syntax is less pertinent than the lexicon or morphology, since in the first the number of possibilities is limited, but in the last two it is infinite. The way in which features are transmitted must also be considered. Take the case of West Africans in the Mascarenes, for example. Considering this group’s very small numerical contribution to the totality of slave immigration there, it would be absurd to claim that West African languages could have played any role in the genesis of the creoles of the IOR. On the other hand, it is not impossible that some elements of West African origin could have been introduced in the area of oral tradition. There are two obvious reasons for this difference: first, the diversity of West Africa is much less evident at the cultural level than at the linguistic level; second, once a story-teller from ‘Guinea’ (however vague this designation may be) became a creole-speaker, he could pass on through his storytelling tales, or elements of tales, from his country of origin. There was nothing to prevent some of the tales from being partially or totally assimilated to other traditions and continuing in them. These reservations do not call into question the comparative method itself, but rather prompt us to consider the specifics of each cultural system. The application of the method We can briefly look at the various notional cases relating to the study of creole oral literature spelled out in Table 10.1: Case 1: The comparison here, though positive, does not tell us anything. It could represent, for example, the comparison of some folk tales’ ‘morphology,’ which, according to Propp, could very well be universal. Case 2: This certainly must be a rare case. If the feature in question is specific, one could reasonably posit a common source, very likely French. In the area of language, I have come across several cases of this type, for which I posited French sources, and in many instances data discovered later confirmed the validity of my hypotheses.2 Although for language a French origin is relatively easy to determine, for other cultural systems – oral literature in particular – things are less certain because, as we saw above, a common West African origin cannot be totally excluded. Fortunately, we have available a convenient method of verification (one that is also valid for language). It involves comparing facts (linguistic or cultural) collected in North America (particularly Canada), for which there are large corpora of non-standard French data that cannot be connected with African origin hypotheses. The method does not always succeed, but if a feature common to both C1 and C2 appears also in Canada, one can be completely certain that it is of French origin, even when there is no longer any trace of it in France. Cases 3 and 6: These look similar, but the chances of their occurring are very different. For certain non-European and established West African cultural


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elements, Case 3 is a likely outcome in the two creole areas. The likelihood is low that West African folk tales, or elements of them, can be found in certain creole traditions in both the ACR and the IOR, but it is not impossible, given the very small but undeniable contribution from West African slaves in the Mascarenes. On the other hand, the likelihood of Case 6 is next to zero, even though we know that some Blacks from Madagascar and ‘Monomotapa’ were brought to the Antilles. These two situations are somewhat hypothetical, but it is still important to keep in mind that Africa’s cultural heterogeneity is in many cases much less significant than its linguistic diversity. Cases 4 and 7: These could reflect the phenomenon of convergence. However, in terms of likelihood, the above remarks also apply here, with Case 7 being infinitely less likely than Case 4. Case 5: This illustrates the final remark made about Cases 3 and 6. Some stories exist throughout nearly all of Africa, and so, in order to posit a West African origin for a feature present in the creole tradition of the IOR, it is obviously necessary to ascertain that this feature is not generalized in Africa beyond the western region (examples of such cases do occur). Case 8: This is a straightforward case resulting from common French influence in the two regions. This type of feature is all the better explained when we realize that the colonists in both the ACR and the IOR generally came from the same social classes and regions in France, during the same time period (though certainly not all features necessarily go back to the beginning). Cases 9 and 10: These represent specific influences in each of the regions (or in a particular system of one or other region) and result from the relevant nonEuropean traditions. The general method of comparison does not itself pose any problems, and, for our purposes, the real difficulty lies more in the definition of the ‘objects’ that are scrutinized for comparison. This issue presents itself in entirely different terms for linguistic systems – especially the phonological, lexical, and even morphological components, where the ‘units’ are easily distinguished and isolated (though things are considerably more complicated when it comes to syntax). We can demonstrate this point by comparing two facts. In terms of the lexicon, the example of ‘Michel Morin’ (see note 1) showed us that one can form hypotheses which may be validated later by the discovery of new data. In the area of lexical morphology, consider the use of the creole word kor (or lékor) to form reflexive verbs: tuer son corps ‘to kill one’s body,’ or tuer le corps ‘to kill the body,’ is used for se tuer ‘to kill oneself ’ (literally or figuratively). The generality of this expression in French creoles led me to posit a French origin (Chaudenson 1974a:733–734). The only difficulty was that – at least according to historians of the language – this usage, once very widely attested in Old French, disappeared around the sixteenth century: ‘The old expression son corps nearly disappeared from common usage as a substitute for pronouns … The few examples we find are almost all

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from the beginning of the [sixteenth] century’ (Brunot 1966:414). Jourdain, who described such uses in Antillean creoles and was familiar with its history in French, concluded that a French origin was not possible, and so posited an African source: ‘There may be African influence here, as certain Sudanese dialects use such an expression in place of reflexive pronouns’ (1956:139).3 Houis (1980:20) looked at the problem in much more detail: ‘In African languages, the expression of reflexivity requires either a specific lexeme (e.g., Bambara) or a phrase in which a nominal constituent meaning “body” or “head” occurs.’ The important point, as Houis notes, is that this type of construction also occurs in Malagasy. Rahajarizafy (1960:59) states that in Malagasy: ‘To mark a true action of the agent upon oneself, one uses the word tena (“body,” “oneself ”) or ny tena, followed by the appropriate suffixal pronoun attached to the verb.’ This situation could possibly represent an example of Case 1 above but two remarks are called for. The most important is that the chronological objection raised against a French origin for the expression is not valid; I showed (Chaudenson 1974a:734) that this construction survived well beyond the sixteenth century, and that it is still attested today in some dialects (e.g., Charente). The second, which has already been made several times, is that the terms of the problem are not identical among the cultural systems themselves. For the oral tradition, we will see that the area across which certain African folk tales (or, more precisely, certain characters from folk tales) are spread can be vast. In such cases, the relevance of the comparative model is limited; it is inversely proportional to the generality of the feature in the native regions of the slave populations, and the model becomes completely useless for a near-universal feature. The same is true for linguistic features. Hence, applying the comparative method to the lexicon, for example, must be distinguished from applying it to morphosyntax. Nothing precludes the existence of ‘very widespread Africanisms,’ to quote Manessy (1987:29), who himself adopted the open views of Houis (1980) on this matter. According to Houis, such ‘Africanisms’ may completely ‘transcend’ differences between languages: an insight that opens up fascinating avenues of research that do not contradict my viewpoints in any way. The use of words meaning ‘head’ or ‘body’ to form reflexive verbs may be one such example of these very widespread ‘structures’ (I am intentionally avoiding the word ‘Africanism,’ since this type of construction exists also in Malagasy, a Malayo-Polynesian language). Apart from the Old French examples already mentioned, Houis notes an identical usage of the word for ‘head’ in Homeric Greek. We might therefore be tempted to speak of a ‘universal,’ if we did not recall that this feature appears in French creoles and in Portuguese creoles of the Gulf of Guinea, but not in English or Dutch creoles (Taylor 1971:293–296). Verifying the presence or absence of similar constructions in the relevant European languages would surely be a matter of debate, since the feature seems to characterize creoles lexified by Romance languages. A comparison with Portuguese creoles in India would also be useful, as influence from African


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languages could not be invoked there. ‘Convergences’ cannot be excluded either – considering that learners tend to retain constructions closest to their native language when the target language offers several ways of expressing the same notion – but my impression is that the expression comes essentially from French. Corps ‘body’ was maintained (generally on a ‘closed list’; see Chaudenson 1990b), but tête ‘head’ was not (it is found only in Haitian Creole and with a much more restricted usage than ko). This is because, although both words are used in African languages, only the former appeared in these types of constructions in French. Tête in Haitian Creole could thus very well be a recent basilectal feature, a possibility that seems to be confirmed by its distribution relative to ko. Oral literature: the elements of comparison For this section, the most obvious strategy would be to use categories already in general use in the study of folk tales. Modern approaches to the analysis of folk tales aim to ‘reduce’ them into groups organized by ‘functions’ or actions, which to varying degrees constitute minimal units. My use of the verb ‘reduce’ (despite the careful quotation marks) reflects my opinion that this level of analysis, which indeed can be useful at times, imposes on the original data an interpretation whose consequences and effects are not always precisely measured. I feel this point is particularly important, because I have absolutely no intention of producing a ‘grammar of the creole folk tale,’ in which universal structures and functions would be the most pertinent elements. An analysis in terms of ‘function,’ whose goal is inherently of a universal nature, is thus excluded here a priori. The traditional folklorist approach appears at first glance to be more adequate. Motif (in the ordinary sense of the word) is in fact more informative (i.e., connected to a natural and/or cultural environment) than function. Nonetheless, the reduction of folk tales into groups arranged by motif, which is certainly necessary for presenting vast corpora and for collecting variants, is better adapted to the study of an oral literature that is culturally ‘homogenous’ (or nearly so, since true cultural homogeneity does not really exist). In this approach, one could thus allow the neutralization of certain parameters (the ways in which things are worded, for example, or even the ‘forms’ of folk tales), since the ultimate goal is more to produce an inventory of motifs. However, in the area that interests us – the comparison of diverse traditions among different languages and questions surrounding their geneses – this approach is less relevant. Motif, theme, and subject are all terms used in the definition, and specialists are not at all in agreement about them. Meletinsky (1984) presents a definitive and concise overview of the principal positions, as well as new definitions of motif (‘a predicate and its arguments’) and subject (‘a graph or digraph in which predicates at a deep level are manifested through their “vertical” realizations at superficial levels’; p. 32). The framework adopted here is not that of someone who specializes in the analysis of folk tales; rather, it is one that encourages me to maintain, in spite of its empiricism and lack of rigor, a trivial definition of motif similar to the one associated with the Finnish School. This decision, as

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uninspired as it may be, is actually quite reasonable, since the comparative approach itself leads us time and again to refer to the work of this School. The easiest way to illustrate is to take as an example a tale that is found in nearly all creole oral literature, Le lièvre et le bassin du Roi ‘The Hare and the King’s Pond’ (Aarne and Thompson 1946:225). This story can be briefly summarized as follows: The comes to the water from the <pool, pond> of the King. The latter, wishing to discover and punish the guilty, posts successive guards (oxen, a horse, soldiers, etc.), which the guilty either eludes or befriends. However, he finally gets caught when he is trapped by a sticky object (a glue or tar man, or a tortoiseshell coated with glue). As he is about to be punished, he escapes – either by deceiving someone else about the fate that awaits him and persuading them to take his place, or by persuading his captors to impose as a punishment a test that is not at all difficult for him to pass. Such a story could be analyzed in the form of a string of functions: interdiction transgression mediation opposite action recognition and discovery of the wrongdoing punishment/reward. But it is clear that the significance of the comparison is not in terms of this type of analysis, but rather in terms of the ‘narrative elements’ in which the different functions are realized. To take the example of the ‘opposite action’ function, we have five cases: 1 2 3 4 5

Wax man (Trinidad, Guadeloupe) Tar man (St Vincent, Montserrat) Glue man (St Lucia, Martinique, Marie-Galante) Tortoiseshell coated with glue (Réunion) Tortoiseshell coated with tar (Mauritius, Seychelles)

From these there emerge two areas defined by a different ‘attribute’: the ‘sticky man’ in the ACR and the ‘tortoiseshell’ in the IOR. Now, this ‘glue mannequin’ character is present in the hare stories of West Africa (extending down to South Africa), while the tortoise is one of the central characters of the oral literature of East Africa. If we think about the characteristics of slave importations in the two regions, it is easy to see the level at which the elements most relevant to our approach are found. We are very likely dealing with an originally African tale whose geographically differentiated versions were brought to the two creolophone regions by slaves from each of the two areas in Africa. The existence of the same story in North America appears to be a problem, but only superficially, since it does not constitute the sort of counter-evidence I discussed above in relation to Canada. The story is definitely attested in Missouri and in Louisiana, but it does not appear to exist in Canada. Because of how the story was spread, we should not be too surprised to find it in Old Mines (Missouri), where slaves were brought from Saint Domingue to work lead mines in the eighteenth century, or in Louisiana, which, as we have seen, experienced a very significant secondary migration from this same area. The African-origin hypothesis receives support from the fact that, in Missouri, the name of the


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protagonist, ‘Bouki,’ is the same name as the character in Haitian folk tales. We should note, however, that in at least one version of the story in Louisiana, the names of the characters are Compère Lapin ‘Brer Rabbit’ and Compère Renard ‘Brer Fox’ (De Felice, in Delarue and Tenèze 1977:436). Could this be a ‘relexification’ of the African story with characters from the French tradition, or is it convergence between two very similar traditions? This story leads us in the end to reconsider the alleged ‘Africanness’ and to explore the question of ‘convergences’ between different traditions. Fortunately, this story (in its ‘glue man’ version) has long attracted the attention of folklorists, from Espinosa (1930) to Brémond (1984) and Paulme (1984), and to some extent also Aarne and Thompson (1961) and Delarue (1976). As Brémond (1984:52) recalls, this story has for almost sixty years been the object of controversy and polemics, centering on Espinosa, who devoted three successive articles (1930, 1938, 1943) to it in the Journal of American Folklore. This author is particularly concerned with showing: (1) that the central core of the story originated in ancient India; and (2) that in versions found in other parts of the world, especially Africa and Europe, there are details which clearly testify to a European origin. He concludes: India is the original home of the tar-baby story. From India the original baustein, already differentiated into two or three types, passed into Europe, and later into Africa. … From Europe the tale travels to Africa directly from Spain and Portugal, and at the same time to Hispanic America and the Philippines. The African slaves then bring to America the Hispanic-African forms of the tale. (Espinosa 1930:194, 196) This hypothesis was convincing to most folklorists, including Aarne and Thompson (‘The Tar-Baby and the Rabbit,’ 1961:175) and Delarue, the last adopting it wholeheartedly: The study of this story, which was first believed to be Negro in origin, led to the discovery of European versions intermediate between forms that existed in India as early as the beginning of the Christian era and certain forms of Blacks in America. (Delarue 1976, cited in Tenèze 1976, vol. 3:436–437) According to Brémond, this was also the view held by Franz Boas and Elsie Clews Parsons. The recent publication of two articles on the subject matter has reopened the debate.4 Brémond, in particular, disputes Espinosa’s hypothesis, seeing in it traces of ‘chauvinism and possibly even racism’ (he would thus place it squarely in the ‘albocentrist’ camp – the ideological debate raises its head again!). According to him:

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Creole oral literature [T]he story is rare in modern India, non-existent in the Middle East and North Africa, and appears in only two, aberrant versions in Europe. On the contrary, it abounds in Black Africa and is found, either in an identical form or with only slight modification, in every country in the Americas, where English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Dutch colonizers brought slaves. (Brémond 1984:53)

This argument is not entirely convincing: the rarity of the story in Europe today is no more evidence against an Indo-European origin than the current ‘abundance’ of the story in Africa is evidence for an African origin. Moreover, this is not really the problem that concerns us; the issue is not so much the original birthplace of particular folk tales as the tradition through which they were introduced to the ‘Islands.’ The situation is exactly the same as in my study of the genesis of Réunionnais Creole, where I examined not the origins proper of lexical items, but rather the nature and manner of influences. The original birthplace of a particular folk tale is not relevant for our purposes, and I would not hesitate to claim African influence if it were possible to show that, despite an Indo-European origin for a story, it did not figure in the French traditions that contributed to the genesis of creole oral literatures. Within the framework adopted here, the real problem is that the application of the comparative method is obviously affected by similarities or convergences between European and African traditions, something we have already discussed several times. Colardelle-Diarassouba points out some of these similarities in reference to Aarne and Thompson, but the lack of a systematic inventory of African folk tale motifs slants the perspective in favor of European facts (the ‘index of ruses’ mentioned in Note 4 may help in part to fill this gap). According to Colardelle-Diarassouba, Tom Thumb, Bluebeard, the child promised to the mermaid, and the promises of the captured fish returned to the water are all examples found in the two traditions. There are also connections between Indian and African traditions that are perhaps not explained solely by the complex historical progression posited by Espinosa (this point of view is also evident in Cosquin’s theories, whether explicit or not). In addition, Islamic influence could have played an important role, as Colardelle-Diarassouba rightly points out: The Book of Lights or Conduct of Kings by the sage Pilpay inspired La Fontaine, and African folk tales were influenced by the Panchatantra or Five Chapters through the Arabic translation written in 757–758 under the name Kalilah wa Dimnah, which spread throughout the Sudan with the arrival of Islam. (Colardelle-Diarassouba 1975:126–127) One must also be careful in terms of the history involved, since nothing actually indicates the ‘age’ of folk tales that are collected. La Fontaine’s Fables, which served as the literary model for most of the first works written in the various creoles (Chaudenson and Hazaël-Massieux 1987), were widely spread


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throughout the creole and African worlds. Thus, ‘Le villageois et le serpent’ (‘The Villager and the Serpent’) could very well have been the inspiration for the African folk tale ‘Le serpent’ ‘The Snake’ from the hare stories, a version of which appears in Birago Diop’s Contes des savanes. Moreover, the same story appears in the IOR, in the Seychelles, as ‘Bonom ek serpan’ (Bollée 1977:156) and also in Mauritius (Baissac 1887:280). It is nice to note in this connection that Baissac sees in ‘Zistoire Zova av caiman’ (‘Tales of Zova with caiman’) a folk tale from Madagascar, especially on account of certain concrete elements, such as the name ‘Zova,’ which is vaguely Malagasy in appearance, and the character of the caiman. However, at the same time, he points out its relationship with La Fontaine’s fable, which he finally, and rightly, accepts as the most likely source. But not all commentators on such stories have Baissac’s prudence (or basic level of knowledge). In addition to a description of Mauritian Creole, Baker presents the creole folk tale ‘Tonton Bouk et Compère Renar’ (‘Uncle Goat and Brer Fox’) with the following comment: It seems likely that this story is distantly related to the Anansi stories of West Africa, better known to most English readers via the Brer Rabbit stories, since in some French Creole languages the character known as buki in the West African stories (buki is Wolof for ‘hyena’) is termed buk (French bouc = male goat). (Baker 1972:212) Without dwelling on the general incoherence of either his ‘Africanomania’ or his deliberate distortion of facts in order to establish an identity between Bouki and bouc that does not exist, it appears that Baker is unaware that the story is simply a creole version of La Fontaine’s fable ‘Le renard et le bouc’ (‘The Fox and the Goat’). (The alleged relationship with the Anansi, or spider, stories is remote at best, and the character is ‘Bouki,’ not ‘bouc,’ in Haiti and Missouri.) Moreover, the narrator, who speaks French, presents the tale as a Mauritian story, and that is what it perhaps is, after all! Many authors, including some of the most distinguished, are often somewhat rash in their conclusions and, for lack of information (which may be sparse or difficult to obtain), formulate opinions implicitly based on highly incomplete comparative analyses. For example, Condé sketches a somewhat careless classification of Antillean creole folk tales, in which French sources are opposed to African ones. She distinguishes folk tales judged to be creole proper (based, presumably, on the fact that they are of African origin) from those that cannot be so designated because, in her view, they are merely local versions of European folk tales. She states: European stories such as Bluebeard, Peau d’Ane, and Cinderella are also widely appreciated in the Antilles, to the point that Madame Schont did not hesitate to include them in a small collection called Contes créoles [‘Creole tales’]. Unfortunately, they show no modification of content, re-use of

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Creole oral literature material, or change in character which would justify their inclusion here. They are merely reconstructions of French originals without any creolization. (Condé 1978:45)

This point of view is very difficult to support. Let’s compare it with creole lexicons. All the lexical items used by monolingual creole-speakers must be regarded as Creole, whatever their origins may be. In the creoles of the IOR, tant (< Malagasy tanty), rougay (of Indian origin), and laryaz (whose French etymon, l’enrayage, is nearly unidentifiable for a French-speaker, both phonetically and semantically) are neither more nor less Creole than papa, which has the same form and meaning as in French. But Condé opposes to those folk tales which she refuses to identify as ‘creole’ only those that cannot be traced to another culture. In her view, for instance, ‘Ti Jan et sa soeur Marie’ (‘Little John and his sister Mary’) is ‘certainly of African origin’ (p. 43). She adds, ‘We can even assert that it is a version of a Yoruba folk tale cited by Ellis as far back as 1894.’ The differences between the two are, however, significant, as Condé herself realizes; she claims they result from the adaptation of the story to Antillean society, and attempts to explain and justify them with much ingenuity (1978:43–45). She also compares this folk tale with another Antillean one called ‘Ti Jean et la fille du diable’ (‘Little John and the devil’s daughter’), though she does not claim an African origin for the latter. As for the Yoruba folk tale that is the purported basis for the Antillean story, the difference between them is considerable. Almost nothing of the original text is evident, and the changes introduced by creolization are enormous. The proof lies in the basics. The story that Condé chose as an example is, unfortunately, one of the great ‘classics’ among popular French folk tales – so it is hardly surprising that so much effort was required to prove its Yoruba origins! The French story is ‘Petit Jean, sa soeur et le Diable’ (‘Little John, His Sister and the Devil’), and the second story Condé refers to is also well known: ‘La fille du Diable’ (‘The Devil’s Daughter’) (Delarue and Tenèze 1977:313–314; several French and Canadian versions were collected in Delarue 1976, vol. 1:228–234). Condé knows very little about French oral literature, and her only source appears to be Perrault’s Contes. But if one consults French oral stories, such as Delarue and Tenèze 1977 (henceforth DT), it is easy to see that the Antillean versions are very similar to the French tradition – infinitely more so than they are to the Yoruba text. It is regrettable that the example selected to prove the existence of African sources for creole folk tales was so poorly chosen. The mistake is actually worse still. Not only is it unacceptable to reject creole versions of French folk tales, for the reason outlined above, but these stories are not at all identical to the French ones on which they are based. First of all, even if their text is in French, they are always narrated in Creole (I have numerous versions of them in all the creoles, and this clearly points to their full integration in these oral traditions). Moreover, although the structure of the stories is often (though not always) very similar to that of French folk tales, the ‘concrete’ elements of the stories are diverse: in the story of Bluebeard cited by Condé


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Bluebeard’s wife ‘ties down’ her head and puts on her ‘madras’; they dance to the sound of the tom-tom and drink rum; young girls dress in ‘matadors’ (outfits worn by creole women), etc. There is a form of creolization in these stories that cannot be disputed. This analysis once again highlights the disastrous effects of the ideological parti pris ‘one-sidedness’. From the point of view of genetic research, one can only hope to see the development of a comparative analysis of creole literatures that examines how they are related to each other, as well as to the traditions that have played a role in their geneses. Although I have insisted on the comparison of narrative content (motifs and attributes), comparative study must not exclude the formal and/or stereotyped elements of folk tales. These have almost always been neglected, and sometimes even completely ignored, even though they can provide very important information. A critical problem arises in connection with this, however, one involving methods of collection and the reliability of the relevant data.

Production and collection methods Although the point is not critical for our approach, it is necessary to discuss the conditions surrounding the ‘production’ of folk tales. They have a direct effect on the validity and reliability of the facts at our disposal. Charles Baissac, one of the first to put together and publish an important collection of creole folk tales, in 1887, wrote in the preface of Le folklore de l’Ile Maurice that he was already too late in coming to such a project: One of our predecessors should have had the idea at least fifty years ago of writing this book or at least of putting together the materials. His collection would have been abundant and easy; ours is meager in spite of our efforts. (Baissac 1887:1) This disillusioned remark, made well over a century ago, avoids any discussion of the evolution of creole societies. Nowadays, though, one can all too easily see the disastrous effect of television viewing on the production of folk tales (at least two out of every three households owned a television set in Réunion in 1984). Research conducted for the preparation of the Atlas linguistique et ethnographique de la Réunion (Carayol and Chaudenson 1985) showed that folk tales have not completely disappeared. Rather unexpectedly, publication on Réunion of the collection Kriké Kraké (Barat, Carayol, and Vogel 1977) has even contributed to the rediscovery of folk tales. It has also contributed to the reputation of one of the principal story-tellers, Gérose Barivoitse, referred to as Le Roi ‘The King,’ whom we too consulted at the time of our research. He is one of a breed – hardly a fashionable one, it is true – of exceptional story-tellers capable of producing rich, complete, and relatively varied tales; the influence of such people is shown by the appearance of different versions of the same story in different time periods. I must admit, however, that a good number of the folk

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tales in Barat, Carayol, and Vogel (1977) are incomplete or fragmentary, especially those collected from the young (who tend to recount only fragments of stories that they can recall) or non-specialists in the genre. The quantity and quality of the stories collected in the research mentioned above is primarily due, therefore, to the type of informants we consulted (i.e., those who were 50–70 years old, illiterate, monolingual in Creole, and from largely rural areas). All of them recalled the situations in which such tales were told in the past: situations that are nearly the same all over the creole world. The tellings were always at night, and they were linked to two circumstances: staying up for funeral vigils and distracting, amusing, or frightening children: I tell ‘stories’ to my children. I also tell them when there’s a death or a vigil. I tell stories like that, to pass the time. Somebody will tell one, and somebody else will tell another. Old people tell them, and the children listen. Someone will remember one, and someone else will remember another. … In those days, we didn’t have radio or TV, we didn’t have all these interesting things, so we told stories. (M.L.; Bois Blanc, Réunion) Although the ‘stories’ told to children were meant for both boys and girls, at the funeral ‘vigils’ the audience was more specifically male. Women generally stayed inside, watching over the body and praying, while the men chatted, played cards, and told ‘stories’ outside: At wakes, there are people who tell stories … Their stories are ones that make you laugh. It was usually the men who told them to pass the time. Some of them played dominos and others played cards; they played for money. And did the women tell stories? The women would say prayers. For example, the ones outside would tell the Grand Diable (‘Big Devil’) stories … We [the informant is a woman] said prayers in the ‘room’ with the deceased. The others, outside, told their stories, each one in turn. (Ms T.F.; Dos d’Ane, Réunion) Some informants referred to the role of the written tradition in oral transmission. This is an important detail, because it can significantly alter the facts in favor of European traditions: ‘Sometimes I go and look in a book. There are times when you find it in a book. You read; you see if there are any stories; you make them your own’ (M.L.; Bois Blanc). Ms J. (Sainte-Suzanne) recalled, for example, the influence of readings in school (‘A little book that we had “learned” in school’). We can even note cases of ‘retroaction’ (retrospective effects) of these oral traditions on themselves through writing. Thus, Ms J. recounted the story of the ‘turkey leg’ (eaten by the gluttonous chef) and said: ‘That was a story from a book. If you ever find this book, it is a little book of fables, and in it you’ll find a


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lot of old fables from long ago.’ These details, plus a reference to a certain ‘Didier Maillot,’ enabled us to recognize Héry’s Esquisses Africaines, which contains, in addition to its celebrated creole fables, the ‘creole prose tale’ entitled ‘Didier Maillot au tribunal de Monsieur Dupar’ (‘Didier Maillot in the Court of Monsieur Dupar’, Chaudenson 1974a:1149–1151). Now and then, a little skepticism is in order. One day on Rodriguez I recorded a creole folk tale which was the exact local equivalent of ‘Aladdin and His Magic Lamp,’ although the narrator presented it to me as a genuine Rodriguais story. Some days later, I learned, by chance, that the one movie theater on the Island had shown the corresponding film a few weeks before! Had the informant wanted to make fun of a naive foreigner looking for information on Rodriguez? Or had I witnessed the birth of a Rodriguais folk tale? I never found out.

The narratives The only indisputably reliable collections are thus those which contain the necessary details of how the folk tales were collected (preferably including recordings of the tales). Moreover, they should have a text that has been rigorously and definitively established. These conditions are rarely all met concurrently – the only exception being the collections assembled by our team of researchers: Carayol and Chaudenson (1978) for the IOR; Jean-Louis (1987) and Tchang (1980) for French Guyana. Other collections can be used, even if they do not meet all the desiderata together: e.g., Ancelet (1980) for Louisiana; Rutil (1981) for Marie-Galante; Laurent and Césaire (1976), and Lung-Fou (1979) for the Antilles; Tessonneau (1980) for Haiti; Bollée (1976) for the Seychelles; Baissac (1884) for Mauritius). Certain texts have been excluded here because there were insufficient guarantees of authenticity. For example Gamaleya, in his collection Bardzour, published on Réunion in 1974, makes no mention of either the locations or the conditions in which the tales were collected; he even claims that this was necessary to protect the anonymity of the story-tellers, so as to ensure their safety – a notion that seems exaggerated at best, if not bizarre. (He writes: ‘The time has still not come to reveal and to honor these story-tellers’ – apparently readers of the communist daily newspaper Témoignages, who had addressed the text of these stories to the editors.) These narratives seem suspect for several reasons. The collection contains riddles that the editor curiously calls sirandanes, even though, in all the creoles of the IOR (including Réunionnais), they are called zé d mo ‘play on words.’ In all likelihood, the author judged these to be too French to be assigned to this creole category of play on words, because it is hard to imagine that he would be unaware of this fact. Now, this term sirandanes is the same one used by Baissac (1880, 1887) – which, as I already pointed out, is not the correct word in Mauritian Creole (Gamaleya, a Réunionnais, must have been unaware of this linguistic detail). It is thus clear that Gamaleya has adopted a bookish, Mauritian

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usage as his model. One could even wonder if his ‘imitation’ does not go even further (unless, of course, entirely in good faith, he had been duped by his correspondents). All indications are that, in order to ‘create’ a ‘narrative heritage’ in Réunionnais (which would have required the effort of putting together a collection), this editor indulged in ‘creations,’ by translating Mauritian and Antillean texts into the local Creole. This hypothesis is supported by several types of evidence. First of all, the ‘editor’ of Bardzour, Gamaleya, in his quite legitimate desire to ‘illustrate’ the Creole language, had already succumbed to an ‘exercise’ of this type some years earlier. One day, again in Témoignages, a ‘story in Creole’ had appeared which was, without the slightest indication of its origin, nothing other than a Creole translation of the beginning of Chester Himes’ novel, La reine des pommes. Stranger still, of the 150 folk tales we recorded on Réunion at the time of our research, only one had been published in Gamaleya’s collection: ‘Lièvre ek band gardien bassin’ (‘The Hare and the Reservoir Guards’). On the other hand, several folk tales in Bardzour are extraordinarily similar to tales from other creole traditions that had been published earlier. Thus, ‘Kalandiak’ shows a striking resemblance to ‘Histoire des colophanes’ by Baissac (Mauritius), and several tales are very similar to those collected by Madame Schont (Guadeloupe). There are also some lexical items that are very surprising in authentic popular works of this kind: terms such as vétérinaire ‘veterinarian,’ and autopsie ‘autopsy,’ in the story of Jako and the elephant. The accumulation of such ‘coincidences’ has led me to reject this collection from my study, quite apart from the fact that it is completely ‘atypical’ of the Réunionnais corpus. If my suspicions are correct, and we are witnessing a scholarly hoax of which Gamaleya is either author or victim, it is easy to see the risk involved in basing a comparative study of creole folk tales on this corpus. These allegedly Réunionnais folk tales seem to some to be ‘manufactured’ from other creole tales, with the precise intention of demonstrating the similarities between the various traditions!

Formal elements of folk tales and riddles The proposed comparative method rests in large measure on establishing relationships between groups of facts, rather than on a comparison of isolated elements. It also aims at associating narrative content (motifs and attributes) with formal elements that are not generally taken into consideration, although the latter are fundamental to our approach. Identifying and listing these formal elements (for example, the introductory formulas in the stories) is difficult, not only because of the very nature of the research but also because of present-day conditions surrounding the production of folk tales. The first difficulty is the most obvious. A number of collections do not contain the introductory formulas, even though we know they were still in use, at least to some extent, in the communities in question. One example is the Seychellois collection published by Bollée in 1976, Ti anan en foi en Soungoula ‘Once upon a time, there was a … ’, as well as the folk tales appended to her


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grammar on Seychellois Creole (1977). Most of these narratives were sent to the Creole broadcasting station Radio Seychelles in writing, and the authors apparently did not include formulas they considered to be specifically related to oral narration. In other cases the systematic non-transcription, or even total elimination, of these formulas is connected to the ‘cleaning up’ done by the editors. The stereotypical and sometimes repetitive nature of these formulas probably seemed to the editors to be ‘eyesores’ that should be removed from the written text, just as they would normally remove inadvertent errors and repetitions on the part of the narrator. We should not, however, blame everything on the ‘transcribers’ of folk tales. My work on the oral literature of the IOR has allowed me to see how the methods by which folk tales are collected have a direct bearing on the collected texts: many formal elements in folk tales are related – at least in creole social contexts – to what we might call the ‘interactivity’ of the narration. The primary function of many of the introductory formal elements (riddles or stereotypical formulas), which in some cases appear throughout the narration, is to establish rapport between the story-teller and his listener. Changes in the social circumstances surrounding the telling of stories and the fact that there are fewer authentic story-tellers have affected interactive stereotypes more than narrative content itself. Among Réunionnais story-tellers, those who most systematically employ these formulas are also, if you will, the most ‘professional’ and the best. The informant who tells a story for the purposes of research and in response to solicitations (and hence outside the ‘normal’ context of this type of narration) is hardly likely to include the formulas he would surely use with a real listener in an authentic situation. Because of this, for this part of the study I have had either to refer to the earliest texts on manners of narration or take into consideration formal elements that are often used only by some story-tellers and/or in some narratives. My interest in formal elements has also led me to examine riddles and proverbs, which are normally considered rather marginal areas of oral literature. This choice is justified for two reasons. First, proverbs and riddles have the advantage of belonging to relatively closed sets, something that is very important when one wants to compare groups. One can thus easily assess the generally received view of the near-identity of creole oral traditions, a parallel to alleged linguistic identities! Even serious authors, such as Goodman, sometimes imprudently allow themselves to be led astray by the assertions of less serious predecessors, like Fortier or Pressoir (Goodman 1964:128). Pressoir considers proverbs and riddles specifically to be proof of a broad ‘cultural identity’ between Haiti and Mauritius. We have at our disposal an inventory of proverbs put together by Father Bernard David and Jean-Pierre Jardel, Les proverbes créoles de la Martinique. Besides collecting Martiniquais proverbs, they have attempted to make comparisons not only with other creole proverbs, but also with French and African ones, which may be the source of this Antillean folk wisdom. Their perspective is similar to my own, which makes this collection convenient to consult, especially if it is

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supplemented with Elsie Clews Parsons’ corpus (1972), which David and Jardel made only partial use of. Taking their work as a reference for the ACR and (for convenience) my own collection on the IOR (Chaudenson 1981b, vol. 7), some observations can be made: A

B

C

Contrary to earlier assertions, very few proverbs are common to both regions (either in identical or even in similar forms). Not surprisingly, in my view, those that are appear to be similar to French proverbs. For example: Martiniquais: Lé conseilleus pa lé payeus, IOR: Conséyèr pa péyèr (this form varies a bit) = Fr.: Les conseilleurs ne sont pas les payeurs (lit. ‘Advice-givers are not payers’); Martiniquais: Cé chaudiè ka dit can-nari fesses li nouè = Fr.: La ‘chaudière’ dit que les fesses du ‘canari’ sont noires (lit. ‘The cooking pot says the canary’s butt is black’ – obviously, both have black bottoms); Martiniquais: Lhopital ka moqué lhospice = Fr.: L’hôpital se moque de l’hospice (lit. ‘The hospital makes fun of the hospice’); IOR: La pèl (i) mok fourgon (Réunionnais: La bou i mok la tay) = Fr.: La pelle se moque du fourgon (lit. ‘The shovel makes fun of the poker’). Some convergences reflect formulas which are nearly universal. Les murs ont des oreilles (‘walls have ears’), for example, is a French as well as Togolese proverb, and is found in many other places as well. David and Jardel’s work shows that there are connections with African proverbs in the ACR which are absent in the IOR (which, again, is not surprising).

A similar survey of riddles can be conducted by taking as a reference on the ACR the corpus of 136 riddles5 by Elsie Clews Parsons (1972, vol. 3:363–453), and, for the IOR, my corpus of 118 riddles (Chaudenson 1981b, vol. 7). These two sets are comparable in scope but seem to be very different from one another. There are only two cases of identity or similarity: Martiniquais: De l’eau monté mo’ne? Koko (Fr.: L’eau sur le morne? La noix de coco, ‘Water on the bluff ? Coconut’) and De l’eau douboute? Canne à sucre (Fr.: L’eau debout? La canne à sucre, ‘Water standing up? Sugar cane’); Réunionnais: Delo pandan? Koko and Delo debout? Canne à sucre. These two examples, constantly cited to prove ‘broad identity’ between cultural facts in the two regions, are in reality the only ones which can be invoked for this purpose. On the other hand, one sometimes finds the same question paired with a different response. For example, Martiniquais: Yishe batte maman? Pilon (Fr.: Le petit bat sa mère? Le pilon, ‘The little one [who] beats his mother? The pestle’); Réunionnais Piti i bat son maman? La cloche (Fr.: cloche = ‘bell’).


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There are also cases of similar responses to different questions. For example, les étoiles ‘stars’ is the response to the following questions in Martiniquais: Moin ni yun troupeau bèf moin pas ca conté li? (Fr.: J’ai un troupeau de boeufs, je ne le compte pas, ‘I have a herd of oxen, I don’t count them’); Bon Dieu ba moin yun l’argent, moins pas ca conté li? (Fr.: Dieu me donne de l’argent, je ne le compte pas, ‘God gives me money, I don’t count it’). Réunionnais: Le soir mi fane in gro paké mai déor, landmin matin lèrk mi lèv la pi in grin? (Fr.: Le soir je répands une grande quantité de maïs dehors, le lendemain matin, à mon lever, il n’y en plus un grain, ‘In the evening I scatter a lot of corn outside; next morning, when I get up, there isn’t a grain left’); Langouti mon gran pèr lé plin d trou? (Fr.: Le langouti de mon grand-père est plein de trous, ‘My grandfather’s langouti [Indian male garment consisting of a piece of cloth worn around the hips] is full of holes’). These are, therefore, two very different sets of examples, although the ‘genre’ does exist in both regions. Here again Condé seems very categorical: ‘Because of their playful nature and brisk wording, riddles were transplanted [from Africa] without modification on the Islands. At the very most, one sees foreign elements figuring in the African original’ (1978:27). This argument remains to be demonstrated, and the presence of the genre in the IOR (both the Creole-speaking archipelagos and Madagascar) renders the ‘evidence’ disputable, unless it can be shown that riddles were widespread in both West and East Africa – which is not a priori excluded. There are obvious connections between folk tales, proverbs, and riddles. Etiological narratives combine elements of folk tales and proverbs. And, more specific to the creole world, there is a relationship between folk tales and riddles based on their frequent sharing of common introductory formulas and, in some regions at least, the introduction of tales through an exchange of riddles. Introductory formulas, which are used nearly everywhere and have been rather well preserved in transcriptions, thus represent the most pertinent formal element for our study. But it is also interesting to see how riddles themselves are named from one area to the next, as discussed in the following section.

The ACR Haiti Here the riddle is called ti kont (Faine 1974) or kont (Valdman 1981). It is synonymous with devinèt, and tiré kont means ‘to tell stories, propose riddles.’ Faine gives some specifics on the earliest meanings:

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Creole oral literature Conte longue: an ordinary story … involving all sorts of subjects: fairy tales, humor … Tit conte, devinette: a sung story whose narrative is embellished with sometimes very beautiful songs. These stories are usually of the fairy-tale genre. (Faine 1974:136) The introductory formulas for tales and riddles, on the other hand, are different: The story-teller begins with: Cric. The listener responds with: Crac. Story-teller: Joli, joli conte, ‘very nice tale’. Listener: La fin, la fin joli mensonge, ‘the end is a good lie.’ Story-teller: Bel tirè, ‘good story-teller’ (lit. ‘sharp shooter’). Listener: Bel mentè, ‘good liar.’ [Taken together, the last two remarks mean: ‘a good story-teller is a good liar.’] Riddles begin with: Tim! Tim! Listeners respond with: Bois-chèche! The phrase tim tim is of unknown origin. Bois-chèche seems to be the second person singular imperative of the verbs boire ‘to drink’ and chercher ‘to look for.’ When one could not find the solution to a riddle, one would say moin bouè ly ‘I drink it.’ (Faine 1974:152)

Faine’s work is of the greatest importance, not only because it gives precise details of formulas, which most authors do not even mention, but also because it clearly illustrates their function. The Lesser Antilles In the Lesser Antilles, riddles are called titime (Lung-Fou 1979), and the introductory formula is tim tim – bois sèche (tim tim – bwa sèk, ‘dry wood,’ in Marie-Galante; Rutil 1981). For the French Lesser Antilles, lack of specific information on the locations where tales were recorded prevents a distinction being made between types of narration in Guadeloupe and Martinique. The basic formula is kri – kra. For example, Kri – Kra – La cour dort? – Non, la cour ne dort pas, ‘Kri – Kra – Is/are the listener(s) (lit. ‘court’) sleeping? – No, the listener(s) isn’t/aren’t sleeping’ (Laurent and Césaire 1976:97). This brief exchange between the story-teller and the cour aims to capture the audience’s attention at the beginning of the story and to create the ‘narrative climate’ for the tale. The formula is very similar on


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Marie-Galante: Kriké: Rété kouté … Krak: Kouté pou konprann, ‘Cric crac. [Have you] stopped listening? – [We are] listening so as to understand’ (Rutil 1981). These facts confirm the existence of the earlier ones provided by Elsie Clews Parsons: Cric crac. Celui qui dort réveillez vous, ‘Cric crac. Wake up, whoever is sleeping,’ or Bon bonne fois. Trois fois belle conte. Cric! Crac!, ‘Good, good time. Three times good story. Cric! Crac!’ Parsons also gives a Martiniquais example of a riddle in the introduction to a tale, following the introductory statement: Bon bonne fois – Trois fois bel conte – Cric – Crac – A bou bou – Bia – Ca zondoli ca porté – Faux col (in French, lit.: Ce que porte le lézard? Un faux col), ‘What [does] the lizard wear? A false collar’ (1972, vol. 1:123).

The IOR Mauritius Fortunately, we have at our disposal Baissac’s early and detailed work on Mauritius: ‘Sirandane?’ the old man would say. ‘Sampèque,’ the little ones would respond in unison, and the game would begin. First there was a series of questions, invariably the same, and then the responses would immediately follow: ‘Dileau diboute? Canne. – Dileau en pendant? Coco. – Pitit batte maman? Lacloce,’ etc. ‘water standing up? sugar cane – water hanging? coconut – the child beating its mother? the bell’ (Baissac 1887:392) As pointed out above, sirandane is not the real name for a riddle in Mauritian Creole, as is confirmed by the definition given for this term by Baker and Hookoomsing (1987): ‘Sirandan: word which opens the game of riddles and invites others to take part.’6 I will return to this term and its origins below. In Mauritian Creole, folk tales are called zistoir, and there is no mention of specific introductory formulas being used. Rodriguez Because of its particular history, this island provides information on earlier states of affairs in Mauritius. On Rodriguez I have observed in vivo authentic folk tale narrations that were identical to those described a century earlier by Baissac. Certainly, riddles (zédmo, from French jeu de mots, ‘play on words’) are completely different from folk tales (zistoir or zistoir lontan, ‘old times stories’). The two genres are, nevertheless, related, not only because of their common introductory formulas (both riddle-makers and story-tellers say sirandane, and listeners respond with sanpek) but also because the telling of folk tales often begins with an exchange of riddles that are generally known to all. One can hypothesize that it is because of this custom that the formula sirandane – sanpek was generalized to

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folk tales, even though its etymology shows that it was originally only associated with riddles. The Seychelles The terms for riddles (zédmo) and folk tales (zistoir) are likewise distinguished on the Seychelles, but sirandane tends to be used as a synonym for zédmo. The introductory formula is sirandane – san bagèt. Often a riddle is added, which is always the same and used also on Réunion: Tiktik dan koin? Balié. Kriké – Kraké (‘Sound of raindrops in the corner? Someone’s sweeping’) is also attested, according to Neumann (1979). Réunion On Réunion, riddles (zédmo) are sometimes introduced, especially at the beginning of the game, with the expression kosa in soz? ‘what is it?’ This expression is sometimes also used, as a result of the same kind of metonymy we saw above, to designate the genre itself.7 We should, however, note the existence in Réunionnais of a synonym, devinay ‘guess,’ which is now disappearing but is well attested from an early date (e.g., ‘cette devinaille’; Lescouble, 16 May 1827). Although no longer used as a synonym for zédmo, the term remains well known through the introductory saying devine, devinay, out né dans la tay (‘Guess, or your nose [is] in the manure’ – the scatological equivalent of the cat getting your tongue: i.e., punishment for not knowing how to respond).

General considerations These facts somewhat clarify the origins of the genres in the two regions, with the IOR once again being our primary point of reference because of the greater amount of data. For the sake of convenience, I have summarized them in Table 10.2.

zédmo

zédmo

zédmo

zédmo/sirandane

Réunion

Mauritius

Rodriguez

Seychelles

zistoir

zistoir

zistoir

zistoir

Réunion

Mauritius

Rodriguez

Seychelles

b. Folk tales

Name of genre

Location a. Riddles

Sirandane – San bagèt ( well-known riddle; kriké kraké also attested)

Sirandane – Sanpek ( well-known riddles)

no formula

Kriké – Kraké ( variants)

Sirandane/Sirandane – San bagét

Sirandane – Sanpek

Sirandane – Sanpek

Kosa en soz? Devine devinay, out né dan la tay!

Introductory formula

Table 10.2 Summary of introductory expressions in French creoles’ tales and riddles

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Zistoir and zédmo do not call for comment, but devinay in Réunionnais, an early synonym of zédmo, certainly deserves some attention. (Devinet is attested in Mauritian Creole, but it is probably a recent borrowing; see Baker and Hookoomsing 1987). The term devinaille appears in western French dialects (for numerous attestations, see von Wartburg 1928, vol. 3:108), and the Réunionnais Devine, devinay is also attested in the same region: ‘Devine, devinaille’ (Sébillot, La littérature orale de Haute Bretagne, 1882:299). Faine (1974:174) also notes its occurrence in Anjou: ‘Devine, devinaille / qui pond sur la paille’ (‘Guess. What lays eggs on straw?’). The term also illustrates the relationship between stories and riddles, since the scatological element out né dan la tay occurs in expressions in Réunionnais folk tales (see below, la tay dan mon sac). Although we cannot posit a French origin for these jeux de mots ‘plays on words,’ it would be very risky to proclaim an African one, since this genre is, if not universal, at least extremely widespread. Moreover, it would also be necessary to include Malagasy riddles in any comparison, because this genre is very widespread in Madagascar. Even if the latter are often more complex and literary, so to speak, than those found in the creole archipelagos of the Indian Ocean, certain similarities in detail between them and creole riddles seem undeniable. On the other hand, the introductory expression sirandane – sanpek (Mauritius, Rodriguez, Seychelles) is totally unknown in Réunionnais, and the first term (which is known) is a recent import – borrowed by Gamaleya from Baissac’s texts. Baker and Hookoomsing (1987) note the Bantu origin of these terms, which have the same form and meaning in Makhuwa. Considering the age of the genre, one could thus assume that the term zédmo already existed in Bourbonnais with this meaning (before 1721) and that it was introduced as it was on Ile de France. Seychellois and Rodriguais then kept the term, since it was already common to the varieties of Ile de France and Bourbon. In contrast, the introductory terms of African origin, sirandane and sanpek, were probably used on Ile de France during the eighteenth century and passed from there to the Seychelles and Rodriguez. These terms would not, of course, have had any influence on Réunionnais Creole, because Ile de France did not have the same ties with this Island. Here we find a new concrete illustration of my hypothesis on the genetic relationships between the creoles of the IOR. The introductory expressions of folk tales are also different. On Mauritius, folk tales do not appear to be introduced by particular expressions, while on Rodriguez sirandane – sanpek is used. On the Seychelles, in addition to that expression, one also finds Kriké kraké, as on Réunion. This is actually not surprising, since, as we have already seen, Réunionnais immigration into the archipelago is the reason for the existence of a number of common linguistic and cultural features. If one looks at the whole of the creole world, it appears that the most widespread introductory expression for folk tales is of the krik krak type (Réunion, Seychelles, Haiti, Lesser Antilles, French Guyana). One must distinguish these expressions, whose aim is to establish an ‘interactive narrative relationship’ between story-teller and listener, from those which mark the actual beginning of


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a story and whose French origin is too obvious to go into.8 Regarding the origins of interactive expressions of the krik krak type (dialogues may actually be prolonged in various ways), several authors (e.g., Faine 1974 and Jourdain 1956) have claimed it to be French because of the generality of the process. It is, in fact, easy to trace: NFr crac: interjection spoken when someone says something unreliable or vaunts his worth. Trév. 1743–71; D. Com. (von Wartburg 1928, vol. 2.2:140) On top of that, Modern French has developed the expression raconter des craques, ‘to tell cracs.’ At least initially, short introductory dialogues help the story-teller grab the listener’s attention (e.g., in the Antilles, La cour dort? – La cour ne dort pas! ). Similarly, the object of posing well-known riddles is to ensure that the audience is alert, for these tales are told at night. (This is a good example of the phatic function of language at work.) They also serve to remind listeners that what they are hearing are only ‘stories.’ Some examples of this are: in Haiti, Bèl tirè! – Bèl mentè ‘good story-teller – good liar,’ or Joli, joli conte – La fin, la fin mensonge ‘very nice story – the end is a lie’; in Réunion, Zistoir mantèr, napa nou mantèr! ‘the story is a lie, [but] we are not the liars’, or Zistoir mantèr, pa moin lotèr ‘the story is untrue, but I’m not responsible for it’. All this very closely resembles early narrative styles from western France. In this connection Delarue (1976:246) points out an interesting passage from Sebillot (1882). I have highlighted in bold features that are the same in creole oral traditions: The story begins with the customary [i.e., conventional and phatic] dialogue between story-teller and listener among soldiers and sailors: Tric! Trac! – Sabot! – Cuiller à pot! Soulier de Dieppe! – Marche aujourd’hui! Marche demain, à force de marcher, on fait beaucoup de chemin (‘Tric! Trac! – Sabot! – Ladle! Shoe from Dieppe!; March today! March tomorrow. By marching, we cover a lot of ground’). Je passe par une forêt où il n’y avait point de bois, par une rivière où il n’y avait point d’eau, par un village où il n’y avait pas de maison. Je frappe à la porte et tout le monde me répond. Plus je vous en dirai, plus je vous mentirai. Je ne suis point payé pour vous dire la vérité. … Il y avait une fois, par une bonne fois, un homme et une femme (‘I pass by a forest where there aren’t any trees, a river where there isn’t any water, a village where there aren’t any houses. I knock on the door and everyone responds. The more I tell you, the more I lie to you. But I am not paid to tell you the truth. … Once upon a time, once for all, there was a man and a woman’).

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In this ‘sailor story’ (‘one of the tales told in the holds of ships on their way to the New World from Saint-Pierre’), we meet ‘Jean le Teignous’ (‘Scabby John’), who turns out to be the main character from one of the best-known creole stories, ‘Petit Jean et son parrain’ (‘Little John and his godfather’). As for the conventional and phatic dialogue at the beginning, we find it mirrored, almost word for word, at the beginning of another Réunionnais tale: Ché Tatav, un jour, un bo jour, li avé son papa, son maman; rest li tou seul kom zanfan. [A voice]: Kriké Msyé! [Storyteller]: Kraké Msyé! [A voice]: Fast. [Story-teller]: Zistoir mantèr, napa nou mantèr, gran moune lontan mantèr. Kot a may i flot, le roch i plonj; plonj mèm le roch, kot a may i flot mèm. Ben un jour … , ‘The story is a lie, [but] we are not the liars. [It’s] our ancestors who are the liars. The net [kot a may] floats, the lead weight sinks; the lead weight sinks and the net floats. Well, one day …’ (H. Lagarrigue, Saint-Pierre, Chaudenson’s field records; Aarne and Thompson, story no. 108) Some of these expressions are almost incomprehensible (kot a may i flot = Fr. la cotte à mailles [lit. ‘the coat of armor’]). They recall the analogous, equally obscure expressions in the folk tale from Brittany. What is remarkable is that identical expressions are found among other story-tellers, on the other side of the Island (e.g., M. Copet, Bellepierre, story no. 7; Chaudenson). The theme of ‘adunation’ (having to do with impossible things), which is related to the fundamentally fictitious nature of the tale, also appears often: e.g., la forêt sans arbre, la rivière sans eau, ‘a forest without trees [is like] a river without water’ (Sébillot 1882, cited by Delarue 1976:246); in the Antilles, le pain dans les bouteilles, le vin dans les paniers ‘bread in bottles [is like] wine in baskets’; in Haiti, j’ai vu du vin dans un panier de bambou, du pain dans une bouteille, ‘I saw wine in a bamboo basket, bread in a bottle’ (Tessonneau 1980:112). Concluding expressions in folk tales also reveal striking similarities with those of the French tradition. In the ‘classic’ style, creole folk tales come to an end the moment the story-teller prepares to take some profit from the narrated situation. One of the most common examples is of a feast that the narrator is about to eat; at this point he receives a blow (most often a kick) that knocks him back into the real world and makes him fall down where he is, to recount his story. Some examples of this are: Haiti: The story always ends with the expression m’a donné un coup de pied et m’a envoyé retomber là où je me trouve maintenant (‘gave me a kick and sent me to fall right here where I now find myself ’) (Faine 1974); ‘They gave me a little kick and I fell from the other side of where it happened’ (Tessonneau 1980:45). (This type of ending is the most common in Haitian folk tales. But one also finds the ‘adunation’ mentioned above, which similarly calls attention to the distance between the narrative world and reality.)


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Lesser Antilles, French Guyana: Yo ban m’on ti kout pye, mtonbe lot bo a (Fr.: Ils me donne un coup de pied et je tombe là, ‘They gave me a kick and I fell on the other side’) (Tchang 1980). Réunion: La flank amoin in kou d pyé; moin la riv dan mon kaz lantanyé with more or less the same meaning as in Haitian Creole. Mauritius: (From ‘ Le chat botté,’ ‘Puss in boots’ (1850)) Quand so bottes fini tiré pour grand merci li f … moi enne cou d pié au qui, mo tombe ici; again, the meaning is similar to the preceding citations (Chaudenson 1981a:124). This type of ending also occurs frequently in Baissac’s work: Zotte mette liciens av moi; mo bisoin sauvé, ‘They throw the dogs on my heels; I have to save myself ’ (1988:129). Rodriguez: Ler la mo tomb la, mo rankont sa ‘As I fell, I told it’ (Carayol and Chaudenson 1978:99). Seychelles: Mo fine tayé pou al gété ki pasé, mo bat dan la rivyèr moi osi ‘I stopped defecating to go see who was passing; I too jumped in the river’ (Carayon and Chaudenson 1978:165); Zot bat moi in kou d pyé, anvoiy moi Lans Boilo ‘They gave me a kick that sent me to Anse Boileau’ (ibid., p. 154). This type of ending, a celebration, feast, or generally any pleasant situation from which the story-teller is violently ejected, generally by a kick, is also the classic ‘ending’ of old Breton stories: ‘Of all the expressions which conclude folk tales, the most varied and widely used are those which describe big feasts’ (Sébillot 1882:65):9 It is there that there were beautiful celebrations and feasts to which poor and rich alike were invited. There was no want of either marzipan or macaroons [this follows a description of feasts]. As I was hungry, I quickly attacked. A cook who was there – with his pointed shoes from Saint-Malo – gave me a big kick in the backside – and flung me onto the mountain of Bré – from there I came here – to tell you all this. (Luzel 1887:339–340) In the creole world, just as in France (where the most interesting references are from the nineteenth century), the formal elements of folk tales are the first to be lost, while the narrative content itself survives. This phenomenon can be easily explained: such expressions become ritualized and are linked to the original conditions of narration. Their loss was accelerated by the work of folklorists, who focused their attention on content and neglected the forms of narration, which they only rarely mention. The great volume of research and analyses, based on summaries of folk tales, have subsequently served to accelerate this loss, and, little by little, this has led us to forget almost entirely the very forms of narratives.

Comparing narrative content Here too we should relativize our conclusions, since the documentation is extremely diverse in terms of both breadth and reliability. There is more

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extensive and more reliable information on the IOR than on the ACR, though the immense corpus of Guyanais folk tales collected, transcribed, translated, and studied by Tchang (1980) will hopefully re-establish a balance between the two regions. On the other hand, the disproportion of information on the French and non-French oral traditions generally is very great – even though knowledge of African oral literature, for example, has increased noticeably over the last few years. In this case, the disproportion works in favor of the ACR, because the body of data on West Africa is more abundant and there are more numerous studies on this area than on, for example, Madagascar. In Madagascar, it is Merina oral literature that is the best known and described, but this cultural and linguistic component was peripheral to creolization, since the slaves taken to the Islands were generally not Merinas. Nonetheless, one cannot compare the formal aspects of African tales as systematically and precisely as those of nineteenth-century tales from western France. Studies that elaborate on these aspects are rare, since their analysis presupposes a good command of African languages, which few folklorists have. Surveys of the series of African tales published in the Fleuve et flamme collection show that the introductory formulas vary considerably. Typically a story begins with ‘This is what happened’ and ends with ‘I have returned the tale whence I took it.’ The only comparisons one might attempt remain very remote and lack precise historical grounding. This is the case, for example, with Hausa tales, which begin with a dialogue between the story-teller and the audience. ‘Story, your story,’ says the story-teller, and the listeners respond, ‘May it come, may it come.’ He ends the narration with: kan kurus kan kusu ‘head mouse head’ (an ideophone describing a mouse going back into its hole). There is a long way to go before we can obtain the numerous and exact comparisons that can be made among traditions of western France. The conclusions of the present study are therefore not definitive. The publication of important works on these non-European regions – Lee Haring’s ‘Index des ruses dans le conte africain’ and ‘Malagasy Tales Index’ (which have still not been published) – may make it possible to clarify certain obscure points. On the other hand, it is quite unlikely that this will prompt many folkorists to question some previous analyses. Despite these reservations, I submit that the comparative method will still make it possible to go far beyond the impressionistic judgments – strongly influenced by ideology – so far proposed on the origins of creole oral literature. I will not attempt here to account for the more extensive research conducted as part of CORDET’s Littératures orales créoles project, whose reference corpus consists of 120 Réunionnais tales collected and recorded by C. Barat while researching for the Atlas linguistique et ethnographique de la Réunion (transcribed by M. Carayol and myself). I will restrict the comparative approach to the following: 1

Identifying common elements in the creole oral traditions of the IOR and ACR (motifs and attributes);

Creole oral literature 2 3

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Evaluating the importance of these common elements in the relevant oral traditions; Research on the origins of these common elements (taking into account Canadian, Québécois and/or Acadian sources which call into question the plausibility of African sources).

The character of Petit Jean, central in creole and Québécois oral literatures, illustrates this point well. His French origin is certain, but his importance outside France is more surprising. There is nothing to show whether his significance in creole oral literature stems from a central role that he had in the French regional literature that was ‘exported’ through colonization, or from an internal evolution typical of these overseas oral traditions. Admittedly, African (or non-European) contributions to creole oral literature have generally been associated with ‘animal tales,’ whereas ‘human stories’ and/or ‘fairy tales’ are considered to be mostly the legacy of the ‘superstrate’ tradition. Indeed, animal tales seem to account for a greater proportion of the French creole oral tradition than they do of the French tradition. But the very notion of an animal tale is ambiguous. For example, Tenèze (1976) distinguishes among narratives which Aarne and Thompson more or less lump together. Between the tales and various types of narratives on animals she makes the following distinctions: •

• • • • •

etiological narratives, generally ending with something like, ‘And this is why the … ’ These involve two categories, the first consisting of narratives entirely constructed around an etiological theme, the second including narratives which are not structured around an etiological theme but express the information in the conclusion. To take a creole example, in ‘Ti Zan, Zann ek Loulou’ (‘Little John, Jane and Loulou,’ a Seychellois version of ‘Petit Jean et Marie’, discussed earlier in its Antillean forms), the creole text recounts how the Tortoise enjoys a good meal from a pumpkin smashed by a frog (p. 33), whereas the French translation adds an etiological commentary that doesn’t exist in the original narrative: ‘From that day on, all Tortoises have continued to enjoy pumpkin.’ The example shows how a tale can be modified in translation. mimetic narratives, in which bird songs or calls have given rise to the creation of short narratives realistic narratives legends anecdotes tales in which animals appear, but whose main protagonists are humans.

The author does not address the question of whether there is a difference in kind between human and animal stories. In which category does ‘Le chat botté’ (‘Puss in boots’) fit, for example? To take another instance, from Indian Ocean

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folklore, there are three variants of the same ‘human’ story: ‘Le petit bancal,’ ‘The little bandy-legged man’, on Réunion (Kriké Kraké, p. 39; no. 11 in my corpus);10 ‘Zistoire sept cousin av sept cousine’ (‘the story of seven male cousins with seven female cousins’) on Mauritius (Baissac 1884:192); and ‘Borgne et Bossu’ (‘the blind man and the hunchback’) in the Seychelles (Contes créoles de l’Océan indien, p. 145). Baker (1972:193), however, presents a reputedly Rodriguais version, ‘Le Roi et ses animaux’ (‘the King and his animals’), in which all the protagonists are animals, and the King is only a secondary character. This should, nevertheless, be considered in relation to the original French story type (Tenèze 1976:396), in which the animals are often the only ones in the scene. Two points must be emphasized here. On the one hand, the ‘animal tales’ are not necessarily of African origin, although this type of narrative is less common in the French tradition. On the other, to reuse an expression already encountered, a human story can be completely ‘relexified’ into an animal tale, or, conversely, an animal tale can be ‘humanized.’ In the case mentioned above, the original story type, also very well known (Aarne and Thompson 125, 1130, 210), is essentially animal. However, there exists another subtype (‘animals in the company of a man’), to which belong nearly all the versions listed in the Le catalogue du conte français en Amérique du Nord (17 out of 21) and two French versions – one of them Breton (no. 18 in Tenèze 1976:405), the other ‘Dauphinois’ (no. 48). Note that the main character in the Dauphinois variant of the story meets the animals during a trip to Provence; he carries a ‘handful of fritters’ (beignets) ‘with which he feeds the animals, and he holds the same conversation with each of them, in the long introduction in which they are enumerated’ (ibid., p. 406). In the Mauritian version the protagonist, Ptit Poucet, also carries a stock of food (rice and salt fish) that enables him to take charge over the other characters, and in the Réunionnais version the youngest child (le benjamin) takes with him some gato mai, instead of the perishable food taken by his brothers. In all these cases, the possession of food lays the foundation for the relationship of authority, so that the protagonist can make the others collect all the seemingly useless objects that will ultimately ensure their salvation and wealth. ‘Human relexification’ is, therefore, not necessarily creole. There may be two versions derived from the French original: one with a human protagonist (the Réunionnais, Mauritian, and Seychellois type), and the other with animal protagonists (the Rodriguais type). However, the Rodriguais version cited by Baker is not very reliable. Story-tellers led itinerant lives, so the story could be a creole recreation of the Grimms’ ‘The Musicians of Bremen.’ (Here the problem of the validity and reliability of certain documents rears its head again.) Likewise, in creole oral literature stories containing ‘successive exchanges’ (Aarn and Thompson 1961:1655) can have as a protagonist either a man (Ti Jean ‘Little John’), or an animal (Lièvre, ‘Hare’). The characteristics of the ‘trickster,’ whether human or animal, are also very similar. For example, the physically weak hare is constantly up against a powerful animal, and in some other stories there is the fragile and sickly (usually orphaned) Petit Jean, who is small in stature and is often stricken with various ailments (scabies, tinea, limping, etc.). Corresponding to the human


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actors Petit Jean/Poucet and their opponents Grand Diable/Parrain/Diable/Bonhomme Loulou there are the animal actors Lièvre/Malice/Lapin/Araignée/Macaque/Tortue and their opponents Zamba/Bouki/Tigre/Lion. Whether human or animal, the opponents include powerful, maleficent characters (Grand Diable, Zamba). There are even mixed types. Loulou in the IOR has both animal and human characteristics, which accounts for appellations of the type Compère NAME , such as Konpè Lyèv and Konpè Zako [similar to uses of Brer/Breda/Buh ‘Brother’ NAME in English creole tales (Ed.)]. Moreover, one of the Antillean stories presented by Lung-Fou (1979, no. 36) brings together Compère Lapin ‘Brer Hare,’ and Grand Diable ‘Big Devil,’ which perfectly illustrates how these human and animal characters are interchangeable. (There are in the same region totally human versions of this same story, in which Petit Jean is set against the Devil; see Schont 1935:13.) Nonetheless the possibility that these animal stories may have an African origin need not be completely abandoned. The following points can be noted about the IOR: •

•

•

It is in the Seychelles that linguistic and cultural influence from East Africa has been the strongest, and animal tales appear to have been the most common in the first half of the nineteenth century (Chaudenson 1979b). For example, Soungoula ‘the Rabbit,’ whose name is of African origin, is the main character in the oral tradition. On Mauritius, animal narratives are completely unrepresented among Bhojpuri tales. (This may indirectly confirm the African origin of, or influence on, such stories.) On Réunion, animal tales do not seem to be known (or, at any rate, are not told) in the Highlands, which are inhabited by a majority white population, whereas human stories and fairy tales abound there. However, the latter are well known in the Lowlands, where animal tales are told, though in an appreciably reduced number. (This observation confirms the suspect character of the previously discussed Bardzour collection, which includes only animal tales.) For Réunion, one can therefore hypothesize that human stories and/or fairy tales constitute a deeper and older layer, and that animal tales, the majority of which are of African origin, form a more recent superstratum [according to the original geological metaphor (Ed.)]. The latter are understandably located in the coastal area, which, due to its economic activity (the sugar industry), received almost all the immigrant manual labor during the second (plantation society) phase of colonization. This is a theme discussed in earlier chapters in connection with language and music: facts that are furthest removed from French linguistic and cultural systems are not necessarily the oldest.

If we compare the animal tales of the two regions, there are seven that appear in both the IOR and the ACR, although not all are attested in every tradition in each area. They are:

294 1 2

3

4

5 6

7

Creole oral literature The Hare and the King’s Pond: This tale, which has already been discussed, is the best known and is found almost everywhere. The Sale/Death of Mothers: In the ACR version, the Rabbit and Zamba/Bouki decide to sell their mothers, but the Rabbit manages to save his, deceiving his companion, who discovers the truth at the end. In the IOR the general scheme is the same, but it involves the death of the mothers (Seychelles, Rodriguez), although the selling motif also appears (Mauritius). The story is not attested on Réunion. The Rabbit (and his companion) in the Cow’s/Elephant’s Stomach: In the ACR there are 20 versions of this story (‘le Boeuf du Roi,’ ‘the King’s Cow’). In the IOR, the Rabbit enters the stomach of the Elephant alone; the Monkey plays only a minor role. The Self-accusation Song: The ‘trickster’ – Malice in Haiti, Soungoula in the Seychelles – makes his victim (Bouki or Zako) sing a song in which he accuses himself of a crime that the deceiver committed. The Hare’s Requests to God/the King: The Hare’s tricks triumph over daunting challenges that these characters impose on him. The Whale and the Elephant wrestle: The incident is provoked by the Hare. In the ACR, there are several versions; in the IOR it occurs only on Mauritius (Baissac 1884). The Hare Rides on his Rival’s Back: The ACR has several versions (Guadeloupe, Marie-Galante, Louisiana, etc.). The IOR has ‘The Hare and the Snail’ on Mauritius (Baissac 1884). This snail character is a little unexpected, though it could be that Baissac mistranslated the tale. For the animal or mythical being duped by the Hare the creole text uses the word kouroupa, which really does mean ‘snail.’ However, there may have been a ‘paronymic collision’ with Kousoupa, which, in the Seychellois Creole tradition (unknown to Baissac), is the name of a protagonist who is frequently the victim of tricks played by Soungoula (the Rabbit).

The obviously ‘exotic’ character of some of these animals (tiger, elephant, and lion) suggests a non-European origin, but this is not all the evidence: African folklore offers homologous or similar narratives for most of the cases discussed: 1

The Glue Man or the Paste-coated Tortoise: I have already discussed this problem and will recall here only the summary that Brémond (1984) gives of various localizations and combinations of elements of the motif: CENTRAL AFRICA: at a hunting camp, the Hare is captured, but the Tortoise strangles the thief.


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SOUTHEAST AFRICA: at the animal well, the Hare is pasted or the Tortoise coated with glue (IOR) WEST AFRICA: at the animal well, the Hare is pasted or a statue coated with glue (ACR). 2

3

4 5 6 7

The Sale of Mothers (Colardelle-Diarassouba 1975:52, 80): This theme is found over most of Africa (Parsons 1972, vol. 3, 71); it has also been identified in East Africa (Tanzania; see Paulme 1976: 220) The Animals in the Cow: A Senoufo tale (Colardelle-Diarassouba 1975:251); cf. also ‘Bouki châtié par les bergers’ (‘Bouki chastised by shepherds’); Leuk le lièvre series. Daunting Challenges Imposed on the Hare: Several African sources have been identified by Parsons (1972, vol. 3, p. 15). The Hare’s Requests to God/the King: No model of this type of tale has been identified. The Whale and the Elephant Wrestle, Instigated by the Hare: though the motivations of the animals are different. The Hare Rides on his Rival’s Back: See Colardelle-Diarassouba (1975:261); story 13, from Upper Volta, is very similar.

In most cases, the cultural areas in which these tales are attested are numerous and vast. Moreover, convergences could also have resulted from independent contributions from different African traditions: West Africa for the ACR and East Africa for the IOR. (This is perfectly illustrated in Case 1: The Glue Man.) These are certainly not the only contributions from Africa. Stories specific to the ACR or the IOR may also have African origins, even if they are attested only in one of the regions. For example, in the ACR there is a story in which the protagonist, in order to marry the King’s daughter, is given a forest of nettles to clear but is forbidden to scratch himself. The African and Antillean versions of this narrative are very similar (Colardelle-Diarassouba 1975:218–219). In addition, mostly in the ACR, some stories contain motifs of different origin that have been introduced into them – a case in point is ‘the head or tail of a cow being planted in the sand or mud to make someone believe that the whole animal is underneath’ (Schont 1935:70–71 for the ACR; Baissac 1884:41 for the IOR). There are also characters in the creole stories that have kept their African names: Bouki (Haiti) is allegedly the Wolof word for ‘hyena’; Zamba, according to some authors, is a word for ‘elephant’; and the names for the central characters Soungoula (‘rabbit’ in Swahili) and Kousoupa (discussed above) in Seychellois stories are perhaps also of African origin (Neumann 1979). The very structure of the tale favors the phenomena of transfer and ‘relexification.’ This can be observed within a single tradition by comparing various versions of the same story. Thus ‘Petit Jean, sa soeur, et le Diable’ (‘Little John, his sister, and the Devil’) or ‘le petit panier’ (‘the small basket’) – which I have already discussed and whose French origin is certain (Delarue and Tenèze 1977:313–314) – is embellished in some Réunionnais and Seychellois versions

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with the final motif of the ‘devouring pumpkin’ (a transformation of the ‘devouring mother’), which seems to be of African (more precisely, East African) origin. The same is true of another story about Petit Jean, in which the motif of the langouti rouge ‘red langouti,’11 is allegedly of Malagasy origin (Ottino 1979, story no. 35). The relative importance of various contributions is a point that must be dealt with, although the preceding remarks give a sense of a random and extremely simplified quantitative perspective. Ignoring narratives which are creolized versions of fables or relexifications of human stories, if it is hypothesized that animal tales are of African origin, then we should be surprised to note that the percentage of animal tales is not significantly higher in the ACR than in the IOR: ACR: Based on Lung-Fou (1979), the most extensive Antillean corpus, 20 out of 54 stories are animal tales and 34 are human stories and/or fairy tales. IOR: 35 animal tales and 70 human stories and/or fairy tales (approximately), if one considers the entire region. A case-by-case examination is informative: on Réunion, the number of animal tales is very limited (6 or 8, according to one’s definition), whereas on Mauritius (based on Baissac’s corpus of the late nineteenth century) the percentage of animal tales is clearly higher (7 out of 28). It is higher still in the Seychelles (9 out of 23, based on Bollée’s 1976 corpus). In each region as a whole, the global ratio is close to 1:2. In the case of Réunion, one gets the distinct impression that the French tradition is more heavily weighted, which corresponds exactly to what is observed in the linguistic domain. However, the significance of such deductions should not be exaggerated; everything depends on the way the variants are categorized and on how the tales have been individuated by their transcribers. Thus, the collection of Haitian tales published under the title Roman de Bouqui includes 50 stories, but many of them are actually ‘episodes,’ two or three of which make up one and the same story in the present-day oral tradition. This is the case, for example, of narratives V and VI, ‘Bouqui chez les moutons’ (‘Bouki at the sheep’s place’) and ‘La revanche des moutons’ (‘The revenge of the sheep’); on the other hand, stories VI and XIII are simple variants of the classic ‘sale/murder of mothers’ story (see above). One can, therefore, ask how valid Comhaire-Sylvain’s (1940) conclusions are when she claims that 28 out of 50 narratives are of African origin. As already noted, the relevance of the distinction between the human stories and/or fairy tales, on the one hand, and animal tales, on the other, is relative – both because many stories involve both people and animals, and especially because there are noticeable exchanges between the two traditions. Petit Jean can be replaced by Compère Lapin ‘Brer Rabbit’ in the story of ‘La fille du Diable’ (‘The Devil’s daughter’), and there are human and animal versions of the same story type. In the Antilles, the ‘the daunting challenges’ (see above) are imposed


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either on Petit Jean (Schont 1935:13) or on Compère Lapin (Lung-Fou 1979, no. 36). Although this observation must be verified, it seems that the most common substitution is that of an animal for a human; this could be an argument in favor of my hypothesis that the ‘stratum’ of the human stories must be the earliest. These substitutions are of the paradigmatic type, whereby an animal ‘trickster’ replaces a human ‘trickster,’ and, likewise, the powerful victims of the wily characters are relatively interchangeable. Petit Jean, Compère Lapin, Compère Lièvre, Malice, Soungoula, Anansi (the African spider in Guyanais stories), and Renard (‘Brer Fox’ in Missouri) are all characters of the same paradigm, whose embodiment varies between creole cultures and regions. We must specify that these exchanges are facilitated by the fact that the animals in question are not represented in any realistic fashion. Their animal nature itself is even uncertain. In the Seychelles, for example, story-tellers are quite embarrassed when asked what animal species Soungoula or Kousoupa belongs to! All these animals live and behave like people; the Rabbit eats meat, performs human tasks, and marries the King’s daughter! As a matter of fact, in the approach adopted here, this distinction only helps to determine the nature and origin of some cultural contributions. One cannot think of basing an analysis of tales on it. Syntagmatic interference (i.e., the inclusion in a narrative of episodes or elements from another narrative) is another matter. Such ‘contaminations’ of stories by other stories are well known. In the creole tale, they can incorporate elements from non-European traditions in narratives of French origin, and/or vice versa. The simplest and clearest approach here would be to study a specific case in detail, which will make it possible to highlight most of the problems and to underscore the considerable problems that hasty or partial interpretations may generate. Let us focus on a story that appears in most of the creole oral literature. There are actually two stories, each a little different from the other, but ending in almost in the same way. In the first, the protagonist, Jean or Petit Jean, a foundling, is the domestic of the Devil or of Bonhomme Loulou (Mauritius), who tries to ruin him by imposing daunting challenges on him. The protagonist triumphs, thanks to the help of the master’s daughter. Once their complicity has been discovered, the two youngsters flee, chased by the Devil. In the second version, Petit Jean, a weakling (with bandy legs and scabies in the Réunionnais version, a carrier of chigoes in the Haitian tradition – hence his name Chikata – Tessoneau 1980:17), has a sister who unknowingly marries the Devil (or, in the Haitian version, a King who is really a snake); the protagonist discovers the husband’s identity and bad intentions, and the two youngsters flee, chased by the maleficent antagonist. The tale can end with the death of the antagonist (in the Haitian version, ‘Loufé vaincu par Chikata,’ ‘Loufé defeated by Chicata,’ Tessonneau 1980), but it is often prolonged by a narrative of the flight, during which the two young protagonists use tricks, metamorphoses, and magical obstacles to fight off the attacks of their pursuer, who eventually perishes. This story is found almost everywhere in the creole world. Delarue (1976) lists

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those creole versions available at the time he conducted his research: 23 of them, most of which are also found in Parsons (1933–1943). His list includes only one story from the Indian Ocean, which appears in Baissac (1884, vol. 1:228–234) and has counterparts in North America (Louisiana, Missouri, and Canada). The presence of this story in Canada makes it dubious to assume that it has a nonFrench origin, contrary to Condé’s (1978) claim that it is ‘certainly of African origin’ in the Antilles, or to Ottino’s (1979) position that it is a Bantu and Malagasy contribution in the IOR.12 Ottino’s thorough knowledge of Bantu and Malagasy cultures and Condé’s fascination with African origins explain why each of them, to various degrees, has ventured into over-bold hypotheses that the comparative method easily proves unfounded. My focus on their positions is made more necessary by the fact that these authors became authorities in the years which followed the publication of their works. To be sure, the presence of the story in both the ACR and the IOR does not constitute an argument against a possible African origin, as far as oral literature is concerned. However, the attestation of the story in Canada implies very strongly that it has a French origin. It is hardly difficult to find French sources when the tales are well known (Aarne and Thompson’s story types 313, ‘La fille du Diable,’ and 314, ‘La fuite magique’).13 I will not discuss here the question of this story’s origin, which lies in an almost universal imaginary: the amorous alliance of Petit Jean with the Devil’s daughter invokes the myths of Medea or Ariadne, just as the magical flight is reminiscent of the Flight from Egypt. However, it is interesting to see how these stories, whose French origin cannot seriously be doubted, can very easily ‘integrate’ motifs or attributes from another source, which, in the end, is nothing other than a particular form of actualization. The ‘mixing’ of two stories, which one could take to be peculiarly ‘creole,’ does not appear to be the case. In this case, there is a narrative constant: the story’s genre lends itself perfectly to the fusion of stories – what folklorists often call ‘contamination,’ although this label is both inadequate and pejorative. In order to keep the same story type, but citing a famous example, the Grimms’ ‘Jean, l’homme de fer,’ ‘John, the Iron Man’ (no. 136) combines Type 314 (which we are dealing with here) and Type 502 (‘l’homme sauvage,’ ‘The Savage Man’). Exchanges between 313 and 314 are so common that, as we have seen, Aarne and Thompson (1971) subsume them under one general title. Thus the story very often includes ‘interpolations,’ in which, as in Homeric poetry, the storyteller enriches his narrative with an episode, a motif, or an attribute borrowed from another story in his repertoire – without impoverishing the source, since, of course, the borrowed element reappears, at the right moment, in the original narrative. Although this procedure occurs constantly within one tradition, nothing prevents it from occurring in situations in which several traditions of different origins coexist. Thus, on Réunion, two of the best known creole versions from Types 313 and 314 ‘Ti Zan langouti rouz’ (‘Ti Zan mikuikuik’ on Rodriguez) and ‘Le petit panier’ (‘Zan Zan èk Bonom Loulou’ on the Seychelles)


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provide examples in which the exchange phenomena we have discussed can be observed. Research should therefore be oriented toward very specific elements, rather than toward very general situations or universal ‘functions.’ The motif of ‘the child promised to the Devil’ (present in Réunionnais ‘Ti Zan langouti rouz,’ Mauritian ‘Histoire de Namcouticouti,’ and Seychellois ‘Kalkalandié’ (Neumann 1979), and assumed in ‘Ti Zan mikuikuik’, although skipped by the Rodriguais narrator) is one of the basic elements of story type 314 (A1, Delarue 1976:247). The similarities with African traditions suggested by Ottino (1979), but only cautiously noted by Carayol (1981:98–99), are not entirely convincing. Paulme’s (1976) chapter ‘Le conte des “Enfants chez l’ogre” et le personnage du Poucet en Afrique Noire’ diverges from creole stories in several specific respects. The similarities revolve around very general themes, such as ‘magical escape,’ ‘substitution of children,’ and ‘metamorphoses.’ On the other hand, creole stories lack very specific elements that are quite characteristic of African stories, such as the ‘extraordinary birth,’ whereby the character ‘gives birth to himself,’ or the malevolent female character ‘the ogress.’ As with linguistic systems, if one must assume a position on genetic relationships, a serious comparison must take groups of facts into account. The investigator should not be so focused on similarities of details as to overlook essential and manifold differences. Nevertheless, it is often possible to make more probing and detailed comparisons, focusing either on attributes or on motifs. In ‘Le petit panier,’ the Devil hides his long tail behind a plate or at the ‘bottom of gold breeches,’ so that it won’t show too obviously that he is not human. Carayol (1981:99) recalls that the detail of the tail coiled up in a ball and carefully hidden proves that the story is of Bantu origin, was carried to Madagascar and now serves as ‘the distinctive marker of monsters or of supernatural beings’ (Ottino 1979:10). I would like to believe this, but European statuary also offers examples of such creatures (some of which I recall seeing in the Vatican Museums). More generally, the fact that the Réunionnais tradition has a predilection for fairly tales is perhaps connected to the fact that Malagasy oral literature, which lacks animal tales, seems itself to be dominated by fairy tales. The detail of the string Petit Jean attached to the toe of his sister, the Devil’s wife, and the episode of the panier-nacelle, ‘dinghy basket,’ in which the two youngsters try to escape from the maleficent antagonist are apparently foreign to French narratives and seem to come from Bantu narratives instead (e.g., ‘The Hyena Bridegroom’ in Werner 1968:195–197). However, the motif of leaving behind, during a magic flight objects that change into obstacles for the pursuer is very common in French tales but completely absent from Bantu ones. The same is true of les bottes de sept lieues ‘the seven-league boots’ worn by the Devil in some variants of this story.14 The episode that occurs after the death of the ‘Grand Diable’ in certain Réunionnais and Seychellois versions of the story seems indisputably to be an African contribution. At the place where the Devil died, a pumpkin grows. According to these versions, Petit Jean and his sister eat it, although they have been forbidden to do so, and this transgression brings the Grand Diable back to

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life. In another version, the pumpkin itself becomes ‘ravenous’ and chases the two protagonists; none of the animals that try to stop it succeeds, except the Tortoise, on whose shell the dangerous vegetable finally breaks in pieces. This last version, found on Réunion and the Seychelles, is very reminiscent of the ‘enchanted calabash’ that Paulme (1976:277f) finds in West Africa; it unleashes terror before being stopped and broken by a ram. On the other hand, the myth of ‘the devouring Pumpkin’ from the Bantu tradition (Werner 1968:215f), as well as the character of the Tortoise (discussed above), is characteristic of East Africa. Everything indicates, therefore, that creole oral traditions have borrowed, to various degrees and in different respects, from the French and slave traditions. In cases such as that of Réunion, where one can conjecture a ‘diachronic stratification’ of the tales, the French contributions (especially human stories and fairy tales) may be considered the earliest. This hypothesis is supported by some convergent observations: ‘animal relexifications’ of human stories, rather than the opposite; the localization of this process in the ‘lower’ stratum; the less extensive diffusion of animal tales of non-French origin; extensive identities between Réunionnais and Mauritian traditions regarding human stories and fairy tales; the rarity of animal tales on Réunion; and the French origin of introductory formulas in the stories, mostly on Réunion. The close similarities of stereotypical formulas (initial, interactive, or final) in the stories also suggest that the creole traditions developed very early from a French model, although knowledge of the language was approximative. The stories could hardly be narrated in another language [due to linguistic heterogeneity among the slaves (Ed.)]. However, the very nature of the cultural system that the oral tradition constitutes greatly facilitated contributions from other traditions during subsequent slave immigrations [consistent with the author’s hypothesis of how creole vernaculars developed during the plantation phase of the settlement colonies (Ed.)]. This is how other types of stories ‘creolized,’ notably those with animal protagonists typical of the vast cultural areas that the slaves came from, e.g., the Hare and the Spider for West Africa, and the Tortoise for East Africa. They did so first through the language of narration and through the actualization that is unavoidably linked to the genre. This is also how motifs and attributes characteristic of these same traditions became integrated into the human stories and fairy tales that had already been adapted to the local reality. It only takes a comparison, within the same area, of the various versions of the same story (or sometimes even of the various tellings of the same story by the same narrator at different times) to see that ‘motifs’ can very easily pass from one story to another, or disappear from a given narrative simply because the narrator has abridged it. In the formation of creole oral literature, the integration of French contributions – undoubtedly the earliest and dominant ones – with non-European contributions – the later ones – was facilitated by the very laws of the genre. Thus one can notice clear parallels between, on the one hand, the human narratives and/or fairy tales whose typical characters are the ‘trickster’ (Petit Jean or Petit Poucet) and the powerful maleficent (the Devil, the King, etc.) and, on the


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other hand, the animal tales where the trickster is the Rabbit, the Hare, Malice, and Anansi and the maleficent is the Tiger, the Wolf, the Lion, etc. The exchanges or syncretisms between the two traditions (the first French, the second African)15 are marked by a tendency, especially in the IOR, to refer to the animal characters by titles or descriptors used for humans, viz., Compère, Bonhomme, and Pa, as in Kompè Lyèv ‘Brer Hare,’ Bonom Loulou ‘Goodman Loulou’, and Pa Loulou ‘Father/Uncle Loulou.’ They are also marked by the juxtaposition in the same narratives of human and animal characters, or even the complete shifting of certain stories from one type to another. Nonetheless, there are interesting differences between the ACR and the IOR which confirm that non-European contributions are geographically localized. There are characters in the ACR stories whose West African origin is certain: Bouki, Zamba, and Anansi. Yet in the IOR Bonom Loulou and Pa Loulou, perhaps by a paronymic collision, seem to participate in both the French character of the ‘Wolf ’ (Fr. le Loup) and the Malagasy tradition – in which Loulou (Malg. Lolo) designates ‘types of spirits,’ ‘men who have returned from the dead’ (Flacourt 1658), ‘devils,’ or ‘evil guardian spirits’ (for details, see Chaudenson 1974a:509). These exchanges were facilitated both by the presence in the various traditions of largely homologous narrative structures (which are even independent of historical connections between Indo-European and African traditions) and by the nature of the narrative genre, which has led to a good deal of osmosis between different traditions. This was possible because of the relative autonomy of the motifs in relation to one another and because of the ever-present possibility of developing one motif based on others, of removing some motifs, and/or adding others. The linguistic vectors (the creoles, since these stories are always told in these languages) and the law of actualization (according to which the narratives must always be anchored in the local reality) have assured the organic coherence of these systems, despite the probable heterogeneity of their origins.

Notes 1 2

3 4

In 1887, Baissac thought he was already coming too late! A case in point is the term Michel Morin, which, in Haiti as well as on Réunion, refers to ‘a skillful man who knows how to do everything.’ At the time my thesis was published, I posited a French origin, even though no French dialect dictionaries listed the expression (Chaudenson 1974a:811–812). Documents subsequently revealed that this phrase was used in the Bordeaux area and that, although unknown to lexicographers, Michel Morin was a ‘legendary popular celebrity,’ as shown by Tchang (1980). According to legend, he was a bell-ringer from Picardy, famous for his marvelous dexterity. We see here a vagueness in the linguistic reference (‘certain Sudanese dialects’) and a failure to consider extra-linguistic, historical, or geographical factors. It is another application of the ‘cafeteria principle.’ The two articles in question are by Denise Paulme and Claude Brémond in Le conte. Pourquoi? Comment? (1984). According to the authors, they are returning to the debate in the light of new data provided by an (unfortunately still unpublished) ‘index of ruses in African folk tales,’ examination of which would be very interesting. It is nevertheless surprising that, despite their vast knowledge of the subject, Paulme and

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5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

13

14 15


Brémond make only brief mention of creole traditions, where this story plays an important role (Brémond makes a vague reference in his notes, and Paulme refers to the Mauritian version). Some of these riddles are actually very well-known in France and could not possibly be part of a monolingual creole-speaker’s ‘repertoire.’ Baker (personal communication, 17 July 2000) confirms that ‘the response is: sampek.’ Both words are of Bantu (Makhuwa) origin, cirandani and campeteke. The [formula is the] equivalent of Krik(e) Krak(e) in many French Creoles (Ed.). This Réunionnais phrase might be related to one of the names for riddles in Madagascar. For example: eine fois, bonne fois, yé té gein in Louisiana (Broussard 1942:52); enave en fwa ke Komper Bouki … in Louisiana (Neumann 1985); bon bonne foi … in the Antilles, passim; Vwala. Gen on rwa ki te gen … (= ‘once upon a time’) in Haiti (Tessonneau 1980); i té gain une foi … in Guyane; alor enn foi dan in péi … in Rodriguez; tiéna éne foi … in the Seychelles; etc. For more details on the endings of folk tales in Brittany, see Chaudenson 1987: 237–239. The numbers hereafter attached to the Réunion stories refer to my previously mentioned corpus of 120 stories. Langouti is a term of Indian origin which in Indian Ocean creoles refers originally to a piece of cloth tied around the waist. Note, however, that Ottino is much more cautious than Condé. Although he places a lot of emphasis on the presence in these stories of elements which he identifies as Bantu or Malagasy, he does not claim that the narratives belong in these traditions. Thus, our positions are in no way irreconcilable. In Aarne and Thompson (1971), these stories have a common title: ‘The magic flight.’ Type 313 has a more specific title ‘The girl as helper in the protagonist’s flight’ (Delarue 1976:199–265). In the latter work, one of the titles of Type 314 is le teigneux, which alludes to the unappealing physique of the protagonist, who is sometimes ‘mangy’ or a ‘carrier of chigoes’ in creole traditions. The model story is the version told by sailors from Upper Brittany whom I discussed in relation to introduction formulas. Delarue lists 118 versions of Types 313, and 52 of Type 314. A ‘league’ (lieue in French) is 4 km, a little over 2 miles (Ed.). Recall that in Madagascar the stories are much closer to the fairy-tale genre.

11 General conclusions

Language has been selected in this book as the reference system for the study of creolization. The reason is that descriptions of creole languages and of their genesis are more advanced than those of creole music and literature. Were the situation different, one could still argue that, even if the linguistic approach is not the only way to develop a model of creolization, it is critical to examine linguistic facts, because language plays a fundamental role both in social evolution and in the development of most other cultural systems. We need not go all the way back to Sapir’s and/or Whorf ’s hypotheses, nor do we need to take a position on the relation between language and world-view, thought, etc. We must nonetheless admit, hic et nunc, that language is almost always a central component of any culture. Besides, in the case of the world of creoles, we have a very rare opportunity to observe the conditions and modes of social and cultural development. These geneses have the remarkable peculiarity of taking place in isolated, more or less ‘closed,’ island settings, over relatively recent time periods, with specific dates, and with demographic, economic, social, and cultural components whose variation and relevance can be determined. These are quite exceptional conditions for observation and study. The facts can be examined both in vivo, without the usual speculations and musings on language genesis, and in vitro, since a designed experiment could not have done better regarding choice and diversification of parameters. To be sure, the place of language is very variable in the relevant cultural systems. It is negligible in music and dance (except for songs of course) and a minor factor in cuisine (although the study of its vocabulary can teach us a lot), but becomes more significant in folk medicine and magic. In the oral tradition it is clearly essential. One can even imagine ranking studies of cultural systems according to how much ‘verbalization’ they require. The tentative and prospective nature of the present work has nevertheless led us to dispense with this option and treat the relevant systems more or less equally, despite the fact that language plays a role in them in different ways and on different levels. I have overlooked other cultural systems here: for instance, those that involve gestures or non-verbal behavior that entail no verbal language. On both Réunion and Mauritius, one does not use the same gesture to beckon someone as one does in France. In France, with the arm and hand extended, palm up, one

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points the index finger towards the addressee and bends it toward oneself repeatedly. In the Mascarenes, the gesture is very different: the hand is presented flat, with the palm towards the person being summoned, then the summoner sketches in the air the motion of picking something with the fingers, while slightly pulling back the wrist and forearm. This summoning style is precisely what can be observed in Madagascar and undoubtedly also in parts of East Africa; the fact that the same gesture is used on Mauritius confirms that it is probably an early contribution to creole non-verbal language (repeating Hall’s formula). In fact, one cannot assume a parallel borrowing, for, as we have seen, Malagasy influence was less extensive on Ile de France (Mauritius) than on Bourbon (Réunion). Such a remark is consistent with observations regarding linguistic borrowings in both creoles from Malagasy. This example, which is most informative, underscores both the fact that studies of diverse cultural systems can be used to shed light on one another, and also the fact that non-European contributions are probably not attested where, for a century now, researchers have sought them doggedly but in vain. The reader reaching the end of this book (if he or she has made it this far!) may be struck by the difference in nature and content between the chapter devoted to linguistic creolization, which is more technical, and those of the chapters following it. There is a simple explanation for this. After thirty years of research on linguistic creolization, I think I can explain the genesis of French creoles, and also that of other creoles that emerged from the same type of colonization. Extending the linguistic analysis to other cultural systems can be explained by two factors. The first derives from the history of my own research: as I started the study of creole languages by examining their lexica, I was led to explore all aspects of their societies, from racial classification to oral tradition, and from sugar-cane culture to navigation. The second is the result of the inevitable temptation to apply to the other cultural systems the ‘model’ set up in the linguistic analysis. Yet, even though I was driven by the circumstances to become interested in all aspects of creole life, my knowledge of its different facets was quite uneven. I then realized that this personal situation reflected the quality and breadth of information and scientific analyses in these domains in general. Works on creole languages have increased over the past thirty years, but there has been little description, and hence even less analysis of the other cultural systems. The cultural systems I have chosen to examine are thus not the best known, but they are those about which my field experience will, I hope, have enabled me to avoid talking too much nonsense. What I wanted to show above all is that in studying any form of creolization one simply must take sociohistorical factors into account. My investment of effort in reconstituting the ‘social matrix of creolization’ (Chaudenson 1977) seems to have paid off by extending the approach to extra-linguistic domains, despite the fact that in these domains the present state of our knowledge makes it impossible to reach the same level of precision with facts and theory. For the four cultural systems that I have discussed, my aim here is thus not

General conclusions 305 to provide hypotheses of the same type as I think I can submit about language. Rather, it is to start from an initial account of facts known from personal experience in some of the relevant societies and then provide other scholars with a methodological basis and framework, so that they may avoid in similar studies the bewilderment that is evident in some linguistic works. This is why it seems to me useful to conclude this book not so much by summarizing my position about creole genesis but by highlighting some ‘transversal’ factors that comparisons of the linguistic ‘model’ with the other cultural systems have revealed.

The role of the dominant cultural model The theory that views linguistic creolization as simply a ‘mix’ of coexistent linguistic systems is not consistent with the most common linguistic reality. The constant outcome of the contact of two languages in the same community is much more the domination of one by the other than a harmonious mix. This is even more so in the colonial societies where creoles developed. Language is certainly one of the cultural systems in which the centripetal attraction of the dominant cultural model is the most evident. In the case of French creoles creolization in the strict sense of the word took place at the time when masses of bozal slaves brought to the Islands because of economic development (the beginning of plantation societies, during the second phase of colonization) targeted not French itself (as in the initial homestead societies) but approximations thereof. The ‘creolized French’ of Réunion is probably a survival of such approximations. The naturalistic learning of such approximations led to a break from the linguistic model of the lexifier. Learning strategies played a role in this autonomization process, while the restructuring of the lexifier itself was accelerated and intensified. In order to formalize this process, we could create an equation that parallels a famous formula: C = A2, in which C stands for creolization, and A for approximative language strategies. Creolization is thus a consequence, or the ultimate result, of approximations of approximations of the lexifier. The centripetal attraction of the dominant cultural model is particularly strong in the linguistic domain. The earliest documents already emphasize that the slaves rapidly learned rudiments of French in response to the ‘needs’ of their new living conditions. Economic and social constraints bore less heavily on other cultural systems, although one is struck by the role of the European model in all cases. This is true, for instance, in the domain of folk medicine and witchcraft. Note that even in Haiti, where colonial domination ended in the early nineteenth century, folk medicine and anatomical and physiological concepts have largely been influenced by European contributions. Tardieu (1984:228) presents analogous situations, which led him to ask: ‘What can we conclude if witchcraft, which Mulattos and some Blacks are accused of, is authentically European, despite some secondary Indian influences?’ In the domain of religion, which I have hitherto hardly referred to, things are

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still more surprising. One notices, for instance, that Maroon communities in colonial territories where they enjoyed some stability (which was not the case in most French colonies) sometimes perpetuated Christian religious practices. Tardieu cites cases from Palenques (which are Maroon communities) in which Catholicism was maintained, with masses and baptisms (p. 265). Likewise, most of these communities of fugitive slaves continued to speak approximative or creolized varieties of European languages. Nevertheless, in the case of language, there was a problem that could hardly be avoided: few slaves could speak others’ languages (especially the creole slaves); and if some had memories of their ancestral languages, they could not always speak them, because the slave communities were linguistically heterogeneous. In the case of religion, the immediate necessities were not the same. Here we see confirmed the power of the acculturation process to which the slaves were subjected. Scholars have tried to account for such facts by invoking the Maroons’ spiritual needs. This is the kind of causation that Tardieu invokes for the examples he cites: The Palenques did not necessarily represent a symbol of rejection of everything that belonged to the world of oppression. Once freedom was recovered, some were ready to accept certain aspects of Spanish civilization: those that were synonymous with hope. This proves the strength of the impact of religion among these disempowered beings who, far away from their roots, needed to associate themselves with some transcending faith. (Tardieu 1984:275) It is clear here that Tardieu is anxious to correct somewhat the mythical image partly created by Bastide (1967), which aimed at presenting ‘Maroonage’ as the culmination of an ‘ideology of refusal.’ The debate on this topic seems to me to be closed; at all events, the question should not be addressed, as it often has been, without any geographical or historical references. Maroonage on the small Islands did not have much in common with Maroonage in Latin America. Moreover, one must always remember that many bozals were extremely young; many of them probably had not gone through traditional initiation rites in Africa, and rare were those who carried cultural values typical of their original ethnic groups. This search for ‘cultural plasticity’ is undeniable, even though it has not always been formulated as clearly as in the Portuguese saying ‘children are the best captives.’ All these circumstances, which are typical of the kinds of societies we are dealing with here, favored in the extreme the strength of the dominant cultural model – over and above the repressive nature of deliberate ‘deculturation.’ However, some systems escaped European assimilation more than others. Songs, music, and dance were permitted in a number of celebrations. Even outside such occasions they were relatively tolerated – for instance at work, if they did not adversely affect it. Consequently, the domain of music is the only

General conclusions 307 one in which the two traditions – European and non-European – have survived and have influenced each other in complex ways. In the domain of cuisine, the role of the dominant model was quite considerably reduced by the material conditions of colonial life. The French model re-emerged only at festive meals, and it contributed to a form of ritualization. Among creole-speaking groups that are totally monolingual, certain formal family ceremonies have required bits of French speech. Letters, requests, and invitations to engagements or weddings have traditionally been written in French. This is also the language in which the ‘romances,’ or songs for festive meals, have been sung, although their lyrics are often so distorted that they become more or less unintelligible. It is the intention that matters; since none of the participants knows French, the linguistic reality matters little, after all. In such cases one may feel that the coexistence of two music and cuisine subsystems – or, quite simply, the coexistence of two behavior systems – is somewhat analogous to ‘diglossia’ as Ferguson (1959) defined it over a quarter of a century ago. In this case French is the high language, typical of formal and public situations, whereas Creole, of low social status, is reserved for informal and/or private situations. I have extensively critiqued this approach elsewhere. In reality, in all creole-speaking areas only a minority of the population that is competent in both French and Creole (about 10–40 percent) faces the diglossic choice. Other speakers have at best passive competence, and often an approximative command of French. Otherwise, they are monolingual Creole-speakers. In cultural systems other than language, such speakers completely share with the bilingual speakers elements from the dominant system. Although he speaks only Creole, a ‘commander’ of Seychellois ‘quadrilles’ will use French to instruct dancing couples who really speak no more French than he does. Likewise, in a tale, there are survivals of stereotypical French formulas, such as Il était une fois, ‘Once upon a time,’ or Par la vertu de ma tabatière (lit. ‘by the virtue of my snuffbox’).1 Marriage proposals, invitations, announcements, and ‘romances’ are also transmitted from one generation to another in French. Their texts are carefully copied or learned by heart. Only when speakers rise in the social scale, which allows them double competence in Creole and French, does this lead to the use of French in their respective milieus, according to the overall ethnographic division of labor between French and Creole domains of communication in their linguistic community. However, the languages convey quite different social meanings in this case.

‘Communality’ and ‘transcommunality’ By transcommunality I mean the ability of a system to transcend ethnic or other social boundaries and to be adopted by the society at large. A communal system is thus the opposite: one that tends to remain specific to a group in which it was initiated. Language is a highly transcommunal system. The very genesis of creoles is characterized by a generalization of usage of the dominant language

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by multilingual groups of immigrants. In contrast, the systems that seem most communal are secret religions, the best-known example being Haitian ‘voodoo.’ Voodoo appears to be a perfect communal system, because Whites seem to have always been excluded from it. Nonetheless, since the beginning all observers have noted that voodoo is not purely African. Father Labat already noted that Antillean slaves preserve ‘all superstitions from their older idolatrous cults together with Christian religious ceremonies’ (vol. 4:132). Métraux (1958/ 1977:32) remarked that a century later, on Saint Domingue, ‘voodoo was only beginning to Christianize before its ritual was submerged by the Catholic religion, as it is today.’ Recent works, not on religion itself but on wood paintings, such as that by Bégot 1983), lead us to ask whether it is really possible for cult elements to be transmitted communally. Artistic representation now holds an important position in voodoo. However, Bégot emphasizes that during the colonial period the cult was clandestine, because it was formally forbidden. Consequently the planning of sites where it was practiced was precarious and hasty. On the other hand, painting was probably ‘a mode of expression of a small minority [among the slaves] compared to sculpture’ (p. 13). She concludes that the choice of pictorial representation of the sacred, which was deemed traditional and hence communal, is undoubtedly a form of innovation, from which models of Christian representation are surely not excluded. Besides, she notes that most of the characteristics or indicative signs of laws (‘loas/lois’) – Erzuli jewelry, tail coats, tall hats or chapeaux des guédés, barque d’Agwé, etc. – cannot be considered as originating in African traditions. The clandestine and esoteric nature of voodoo has therefore in no way sheltered from some degree of ‘creolization.’ Thus voodoo, often considered the sanctuary of cultural Africanity, appears to be ‘creole.’ d’Ans’ recent analysis goes even further, presenting a perspective that reverses most discussions of voodoo, from the most classic (e.g., Métraux 1958) to the most recent (e.g., Pluchon 1987). I was interested in d’Ans’ interpretation because, not being a specialist on these issues, I had been inclined until then to accept the opinions of authors who apparently had more expertise on the subject matter. d’Ans’ differs from them radically: Contrary to widespread opinion, it is not adequate to see in voodoo the product of syncretism: that is, a mixing of beliefs and practices that are respectively of African and Christian origin. … in my opinion, Africa played a very modest role in this, as it has bequeathed to voodoo only a few hollow forms, emptied of the meaning that the African context formerly provided them. Whereas Africa is absent, Christianity is omnipresent: numerous are the ritual elements, fixed phrases, and images that voodoo has relentlessly borrowed from ambient Christianity. However, anyone who sees only the meaning of each of these elements [in isolation] is mistaken and, in the full sense of the word, denatured, because in the final analysis voodoo refers to a God that is different in nature from the Christian God. (d’Ans 1987:293)

General conclusions 309 This analysis includes voodoo in a global view of Haitian society. On the ethnographic level, it is grounded in ‘the total dissimilarity’ between ‘voodoo (an urban and suburban phenomenon, so often described that it has become the dominant stereotype of Haiti)’ and the discrete worship (domestic voodoo) of lineage lois, ‘laws.’2 There is no room for remunerated professions in the latter, no priests, no houngans. Ceremonies are presided over by the head of the family, the ‘servant’ of the ‘laws’ of ‘race.’ At this elementary level of Haitian religiosity, there is never room for possession by spirits, none at all. (ibid.:290–291) Even if the meaning we have assigned to the term is not the same, note that, without consulting with one another, both d’Ans and I have used the French word communautaire ‘communal.’ I thought, apparently incorrectly, that voodoo was communal because the Black community had retained an African religion, despite numerous and obvious Christian ‘contaminations.’ According to d’Ans’ interpretation, if one can call this domestic religion communal, this is because of what it has come to be, not because it must in principle be so. The debate on voodoo – sure to be a passionate one, because d’Ans’ interpretation will unleash violent reactions – is beyond the scope of this study. The position he presents is very stimulating from many points of view. Its most important aspect is his effort to integrate the study of specific systems into the analysis of a whole that is both social and cultural. Thus described, voodoo becomes partly based on rural Haitian morale and world-views, but partly also on a conception of man and soul that seems to have been inherited largely from popular Christianity, perhaps even deliberately simplified by those who evangelized the slaves. The Gros Bon Ange ‘Big Good Angel,’ who looks after the Petit Bon Ange ‘Little Good Angel,’ is very reminiscent of the human soul in the company of its guardian angel. d’Ans also shows that the communal nature of a system in no way guarantees that it represents a pure tradition of the relevant group (which I had suspected) and that communality can also result from evolution. All these remarks lead us to ask ourselves how the ‘modes of transmission’ of the relevant cultural systems must be investigated. Language holds a special position in this respect, since it plays a role in the diffusion and transmission of many other cultural systems. Thus, creole oral literatures are creole, first because they are uttered in various creoles, but also because, like cuisine, they are manifestations and combinations of motifs that have been borrowed from traditions of diverse origins. The rapid disappearance of slaves’ ancestral languages was undoubtedly the primary obstacle to the survival of numerous elements of their original cultures. It is easy to see that the elements that have survived in material culture and music owe this survival largely to their non-verbal character. Thus it is strange that for decades some scholars have obstinately sought to identify in creoles traces of direct and positive transfers from the languages of the slaves, which are

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so obviously absent. Simple and rapid observation of material culture would have provided much more evidence of this non-European inheritance.

The influence of material factors The significance of material factors varies a lot from one system to another. At the level of material culture the role of non-European contributions is significant, not only because certain domains were largely untouched by the ‘centripetal’ movement that so affected the linguistic and even the social domains, but also because these cultures were better adapted to the natural colonial setting. Indeed, in most cases, the slaves came from intertropical areas similar to those where the colonists landed, which were, at least in the beginning, almost in ‘the natural state.’ Thus, during the first stage of colonization, the colonists had to learn a lot from the Blacks in a number of domains: agriculture, hut-building, alimentation, herbal medicine, etc. The study of specialized vocabularies confirms this, as I have been able to show for Malagasy contributions to Réunionnais. I will give only a brief example here from fishing: The structure of the fishing vocabulary [in Réunionnais Creole] depends on two concurrent series of socio-cultural factors, the first of which is the customs of the Malagasy slaves brought to the Mascarenes. Many Réunionnais techniques are reminiscent of those described by Robequain (1958) as typical of Betsimisaraka: Cr. vouv ‘net-fishing’ < Malg. vovo; Cr. firang frang ‘spear fishing’ < Malg. firango; ‘use of dams made from sticks and leaves of the patat a diran’ (< Malg. batatran, ipomea pes caprae). On the other hand, note that the vocabulary and techniques for sea fishing are of French origin. This opposition is attested in the vocabulary of aquatic fauna. Indeed, all names of Malagasy origin designate either fresh-water fauna (bisik, bordik, marar, masyak, sivakin, zamal) or creatures that are generally caught on the shore and live on the coast (bouftang, zourit). High-sea fish all bear names from French, regardless of whether they are terms typical of island French varieties or creole neologisms. (Chaudenson 1974a:1084–1085) The role of the natural setting in the genesis of creole cultural systems applies thus in the following way. First, the presence and/or availability of particular material elements prompted adaptations. For instance, the French colonists tried to produce wheat and grapes, soon after they settled. These would have enabled them to produce bread and wine, major constituents of their previous diet. Various reasons to do with the natural environment diverted them from these crops to corn, rice, cassava, and alcoholic beverages brewed from sugar-cane (vin

General conclusions 311 de cannes ‘cane wine,’ arak, and rum). Recently, in about the last thirty years, generalization of the French diet for various reasons has reintroduced mass consumption of bread and wine on Réunion. In other domains the role of strictly material factors is more obvious. Thus, in music, Blacks have everywhere borrowed from Whites the ‘triangle,’ not only because this instrument was easily integrated into a percussion-based musical practice, but also because its ease of manufacture made it accessible. The effect of the natural setting can also facilitate the retention and integration in new systems of behavior of elements of material culture that are better adapted to local realities. The near-total destitution of the first colonists and their constant lack of basic necessaries facilitated the adoption of techniques known to slaves which enabled them to meet their immediate needs. As shown especially in Chapter Eight, regarding food handling, cooking, and preservation practices, cuisine is quite obviously the cultural system the most influenced by the weight of natural factors. The creole habitat itself has developed out of a historical evolutionary process determined by the initial structure of the ‘hut.’ The ‘technological’ influence of the Malagasy slaves must have played a role here, in both choice of materials and construction techniques. It was, however, modified by later technological influences, some of them of European origin, such as ‘wall-blowing’: that is, covering walls with shingles or zampones ‘palm spathes.’ In relation to shingles, the use of the latter material is a local ‘actualization’ of the ‘wall-blowing’ technique, which was initially borrowed from nautical technology (‘doubling a ship’s bottom’; Chaudenson 1974a:868). Other additions and terms of Indian origin – such as varang, ‘verandah’ (itself a word with an Indian etymology), and the argamasse (‘very hard and smooth cement surface, originally used to dry coffee’) – supplemented the ‘hut.’ But, natural factors remain decisive, as the following confirms: What foreigner has not been surprised, on their first visit to a creole house, by its organization. The rooms are positioned side by side in such a way that they form a cube-like very compact space. Therefore one room often leads into another without clear partitioning. The design of a creole house responds largely to the climate. Because there are no vents, few partitions are used between rooms, which facilitates air circulation within the house. The compact nature of the constructed space limits the geometrical design of the sides exposed to the sun. The outer walls are good thermal insulators. The structure of the wood posts, consisting of boards fitted together, preserves air space. A false ceiling separates the ground floor from the upper floor and the latter from exposure to the roof. Since the rooms of the upper floor are warmer, their walls are taller than those of the ground floor by 0.40 m to 0.60 m. (Encyclopédie de la Réunion, vol. 5, p. 69)

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Folk medicine also reveals the direct influence of the natural setting and the initial prevalence of non-European knowledge and practice, which are better adapted to local realities. However, in this domain, the sometimes justified distrust felt towards the slaves, and especially the prevalence of the European model of scientific knowledge, have reduced the significance of the slaves’ contribution and have, above all, integrated it. These material cultures with origins often close to non-European traditions have been encroached upon by technological changes. This has led to a lexical evolution that I have proposed calling devernacularization (‘loss of vernacular character’), to distinguish it from the later evolution of systems, for which the term decreolization (‘loss of creole structure or character’) would be preserved (Chaudenson 1974a:1094–1099). Thus, in Réunionnais Creole, terms such as ansor (< Malg. antsoro), fangok (Seyc. fangof/fangor < Malg. fangaoka), mandar (< Malg. mandrary), fangourin (< Malg. fangorina), etc., which denote instruments or techniques in plant cultivation, are now known only in dead metaphors (in the case of the first two) or are completely out of use (the last two), because the items or products that they denoted have disappeared, due to socio-economic and technological evolution. Thus, non-European contributions were by definition multiple and sporadic, whereas the European model has not only had more unity and permanence, it has intensified its impact in the modern period.

Osmosis This somewhat barbarous term designates the extent to which cultural systems can exchange some of their elements with other, similar systems. This property can of course be understood in two senses: that of a system admitting foreign elements (endosmosis), or that of a system introducing some of its elements into other systems (exosmosis). Note again that the factors that have been isolated here to clarify the approach are not independent of each other. Thus, the strong prevalence of a cultural model, necessarily imposed by the social structure, is an exosmotic factor in relation to the subordinate systems, although these seem protected by strong communality. This is the case of voodoo discussed above, even if one does not go as far as agreeing with d’Ans’ innovative analysis. The osmotic factor is very easy to perceive in the case of language. It is a commonplace that the lexicon is more open to borrowings and foreign influence than morphosyntax. This is due to the contrasts presented in Table 11.1. Table 11.1 Why the lexicon is more osmotic than morphosyntax Lexicon

Morphosyntax

Finite number of elements

–

+

Closed and organized set

–

+

Dependence on external factors

+

-

General conclusions 313 This table presents facts so obvious that comments are unnecessary.3 A system with a weak degree of osmosis (or endosmosis, if one wants to be more precise) is characterized by a finite number of elements which form a closed and organized set that depends weakly on external factors. We can assume that the nonlanguage systems considered here are likewise characterized by uneven degrees of osmosis. Similar tables could be developed for them, as determined by their own ontological properties. Thus, religion seems to have a weak endosmotic capacity, being a finite, closed, and organized set of beliefs that depend weakly on external factors. Actually, this conception suffers from some ‘Eurocentrism’ – or, more generally, from an excessive attention to the most highly elaborated religious forms. In fact, folk forms of religion seem to possess a non-negligible endosmotic capacity. Again, the voodoo example is interesting here, because everybody sees in it (at least in its urban forms) the influences of Catholicism and perhaps also Freemasonry. Whichever way voodoo is interpreted, one cannot help noticing that, although it does contain African cultural survivals, it has also extensively ‘relexified’ Christian and/or European elements; it has even also reinterpreted globally the Haitian view of mankind and the world. Without pushing things too far, more or less the same thing can be observed in Réunion. In the ‘Malabar’ religion (local folk Hinduism) numerous elements of Hindu origin have been reinterpreted according to similar or homologous features of Catholicism. There are attestations of numerous borrowings from Christianity in the creole vocabulary of Indian folk religion, e.g., temple, chapelle, cathédrale, saint, and Bondieu. There are even closer connections between Mariamin and the Virgin Mary (both wear white clothing and are celebrated in May) and between Vishnu and the Holy Ghost. And there is no shortage of Malabars who, concurrently and without obvious embarrassment, practice both Catholicism and Hinduism. On the other hand, folk medicine and cuisine seem to have a strong osmotic capacity, as they are non-finite sets that are weakly structured and depend significantly on external factors. Originally, Réunionnais cuisine was little influenced by the French model, because of the radical difference in the natural setting from France. It developed from an Indo-Portuguese and/or Indian model, integrating Malagasy elements or techniques at the same time – for instance, cooking and food-preservation techniques, the consumption of some food items and larvae. European food items were often associated with festive occasions (before the recent reappearance of the French diet). They are also associated with ritualized contexts, as can also be seen in other cultural domains. Oral tradition also seems to be marked by strong osmosis, but under the clear influence of an initial French cultural model. This shows up especially in the ‘forms’ of the folk tale that were probably integrated from the beginning. Striking analogies with old formal elements of French tales prove this, as does the comparison of creole tales within and across each region. The mode of transmission (in French or in approximative varieties) undoubtedly favored the retention of this model which, besides, was as likely to be ‘relexified’ as to have motifs from other traditions ‘interpolated’ into it.

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I should reiterate that among these kinds of factors – which are isolated somewhat arbitrarily here – complex relations exist. The diversity of the combinations can be tentatively summarized as shown in Table 11.2. Table 11.2 A cross-domain comparison of osmosis System

Domination

Communality

Dependence

Osmosis

Language Music Cuisine Medicine Oral literature

++ + +-

-+ 0 -

-+ ++ ++ 0

-+ + + + ++

Notes: ++ = ‘very strong’; + = ‘strong’; + - = ‘strong in some respects, weak in others (the first prevailing over the second)’; 0 = ‘average’; - = ‘weak in some respects, strong in others (the first prevailing over the second)’; - = ‘weak’; -- = ‘very weak’.

The diversity of the combinations makes it possible to understand that it is rather hazardous to extend data and theories concerning linguistic creolization to the analysis of creole cultural systems. Nonetheless, the role of language appears to be essential at the historical level, because it is obviously the first and most important mode of socialization for immigrant populations. It is also essential at the structural level, because it is the major mode of transmission and diffusion of creole cultures. Thus, the linguistic approach to creolization remains an unavoidable element in studies of creole societies and cultures. It is particularly on the subject of language that ideologies – which have seriously undermined studies of these domains in the humanities and the social sciences – have developed over the last few decades. Even though the ‘model’ of linguistic creolization, which is now better established, cannot be directly extrapolated to the study of the genesis of other cultural systems, studies already conducted on languages are essential in two major respects. First of all, they make it possible to reconstruct as precisely as possible the socio-economic and cultural conditions of creolization. The number and quality of works vary considerably, depending on the case. Nevertheless, one can no longer construct theories or (rather) myths that are grounded only in ideology. On the other hand, such studies highlight the relevance of the comparative method, which should be one of the foundations of linguistic research on creole languages. With some adaptations it can perfectly well be transposed to studies of cultural creolization. Still, such a method must be used diligently – and here one can only refer back to model works on the comparative study of Indo-European languages, from Bopp to Benveniste, in which the cultural approach is far from excluded.

General conclusions 315

Notes 1

2 3

This phrase, which is difficult to translate idiomatically, evokes the time when the narrator took snuff (tobacco was one of the earlier cash crops in the colonies). During the transition from one story to another, he often took a pinch of snuff from his snuffbox and claimed he was pulling the next story from the box. According to a French colleague, Philippe Desan (University of Chicago), a pipe-smoking narrator did something similar, often filling his pipe between stories and claiming to be pulling the next one from the tobacco-pouch (Ed.). According to d’Ans, the spelling lois accounts for the true etymology of loa – a distortion intended to establish an African origin. I have considered the influence of external factors on morphosyntax to be nil. This point of view is disputable, since there have been attempts to establish correlations between syntactic structures and social organization.

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Index

Aarne, Antti 271, 291, 292 Accadians 24–5, 148 acculturation 91 acrolect ix, xi(n1), 127 Adam, Lucien 37, 44, 190 adunation 288 African influence: animal stories 296; Brazil 197, 202; Cuba 197, 202; folk tales 270–2, 273, 290; French creoles 159, 161; Haiti 93–4, 197; Indian Ocean Region creoles 37; religion 313; West African slaves 69–70, 72–3, 78, 79 African languages: linguistics 70; pidgins 50; plantation communities 71, 80; slave communities 78–81, 309–10 Aléong, Stanley 164 Algiers 19, 110 Alleyne, Mervyn 46 Allman, Suzanne 249 Amélie 76 American-Caribbean Region 63–4; Adam 37; baragouin 18; creole etymology 3; creole texts 142–3; creole varieties 24–9, 49, 185–6; folk tales 263–4; French settlers 10; languages 12, 44; music/social groups 223–4; possessive determiners 190; pronouns 177, 183–4; riddles 280, 281–3; slaves 68–70; tenseaspect markers 178, 180 animal stories: African influence 296; folk tales 291–2; Indian Ocean Region 293–4; Mauritius 293; trickster characters 301 d’Ans, André Marcel: Brazil 202; Creoles/black slaves 128–9; Cuba 202; cultural factors 93–4; folk medicine 249–50, 258–9; Haiti 25, 196–7, 202, 308–9; Hispaniola 132; indentured servants 86–7, 96–7; Maroons 83–4;

physiology 254; slaves 77, 128–9; sociolinguistics 26; voodoo 308–9 Antilles, Lesser: creoles 6, 7, 8; Dutch 136; folk tales 263, 273–4; immigrants 55; indentured servants 96–7, 112–13; medicinal plants 246–7; music 198–206; oral literature 263–4; population 8–9; riddles 282–3; sugar 119, 136 approximative forms of French: autonomization 146; family communication 109, 125; Maillard 214; as primary language 110; Réunion 127, 170–1; see also language appropriation Aradas 74, 75 Armenia, Romani 45–6 arranged sickness 254–6, 257–8 Arveiller, Raymond 4, 8 Ashanti 77 Asselin, Claire 147 atelier 119, 123 authenticity, oral literature 262, 277 autonomization 143, 146, 163 baby talk 154 Baggioni, Daniel 14, 35, 225, 226, 248 Bahamas 25 Baissac, Charles: folk tales 261, 263, 273, 275; Highlands Whites 116; Mauritius pronouns 183; riddles 277–8, 283; sirandane 283 Baker, Philip 273 bane 145, 183 Bann Zil Kréol 8 Bantu languages 145 baptismal records 102–3 baragouin 9–11, 12, 18, 21 Barassin, Jean 98, 107, 111 Barbados 58 Barbaud, Philippe 151–2

332

Index

Bateson, Gregory 121–2, 161, 168 bel air dance 200, 201 Beniak, Edouard 174 Benoist, Jean 251–2, 255, 257 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri: Ile de France 76, 101, 244; music 207–8; nation 76; ship’s food 230; slavery 73; spices 117; trade 232–3 betrothals 240, 241 Bickerton, Derek: bioprogram 39, 157, 169; language acquisition 153, 156, 163; universalism 37–8, 167 Begin, biguine 203, 204, 217 Billiard, Auguste 114–16, 202, 243, 255, 261 Billiez, Jacqueline 108, 110 bioprogram 39, 157, 169 birth rates 114, 118 Blacks: Bourbon 98, 105, 107–8; communication with Whites 12; domestic slaves 125–6; French-speaking 13, 90–1, 111; homestead societies 101; integration 101; languages 198; Malagasy 76, 105, 107–8, 109; Martinique 97–8; music 198; and Whites 101, 244–5, 248–9; women 99; see also Negroes; slaves bobre (musical instrument) 222 Bollée, Annegret 21 Bopp, Franz 39 Bory de Saint-Vincent, Jean Baptiste 228–9 boucanage 229–30 Boucher, Antoine 67–8, 89, 98, 99–100, 111 Bougerol, Christiane 245–6, 249, 250, 253 Bourbon: Blacks 98, 105, 107–8; Boucher 99–100; coffee 101–2, 117; colonization 58, 61; Compagnie des Indes 113; creoles 2–3, 4–5; cuisine 231–5; ethnicity 107–8; French colonists 65; homesteads 68, 113; Ile de France 58–60, 97, 101, 113, 244; languages 53–4, 107–8; Maroons 87; medicinal plants 247; population 53–5; racial mixing 99–100; slaves 92; sugar 114, 136; superstition 243–4; see also Réunion Bourbonnais 58, 105, 128, 135 La Bourdonnais, Mahé de 13, 113, 117 Bouton, Charles 8–9 bozals: acclimatizing 71, 74, 120–1, 123; age 306; Cauna 74, 91–2, 113; and Creoles 87–9, 112–13; death rates

88–9; ladinos 90; language acquisition 127; Maroons 82; Saint Domingue 113; sugar 119 Brasseur, Patrice 173, 174 Brazil 73, 180, 197, 201, 202 Brémond, Claude 271–2, 294–5 Bruneau, Charles 175 Brunot, Ferdinand 45, 173, 175 Cafres 30, 89, 221–2 Cajun French 6, 24–5 calenda dances 201 Calvet, Louis-Jean 22, 45–6, 149–50 Canada: French language 146–7, 148, 174; Ontario French 174; Quebec 65–6, 147, 150, 183–4 capoeira dances 201 Carayol, Michel 30, 127, 171, 299 Caribbean creoles 5, 8–11, 37 Las Casas, Bartolomé de 133 Castilian 130 Cauna, Jacques de: bozals 74, 91–2, 113; Creoles 118; Maroons 82–3; Saint Domingue 92–3, 109; slaves 91–2, 120–1 Cella, Claudino 180 ceremonial use: French language 240–1, 307 Césaire, Ina 263, 282 chanté a véyé dance 203 Chatillon, M. 80, 91, 102, 111, 119, 124 Chaudenson, Robert ix; associative forms of French 109–10; on Bickerton 38; comparative studies 51, 264–75; creolized French 30, 171; cultural factors 91; folk medicine 258; generations of creoles 34–5; nautical terms 311; pidgin/creole 22–3; proverbs 280; quivis 87; St Barths 149–50 chika 209 child language acquisition 163, 179–80, 188–9, 191 coffee 96, 101–2, 114, 117–18 Colardelle-Diarassouba, Marcelle 272, 295 colonies: Compagnie des Indes 117; development 95–6; ethnicity 54–6; living conditions 56–7; medicinal plants 252; native skills 97–8; poisoning 244–6; see also French colonists colonization 218; Bourbon 58, 61; drug trade 246–7; France 26–7, 55, 65–8, 232–3; Hispaniola 62–3; migration

Index 333 56–61; pidgin 11–12; Spain 25, 63, 129–34, 136 Comhaire-Sylvain, Suzanne 296 Comité International des Etudes Créoles 8, 23 commandeurs 112, 119–20, 123 communality 307–10 communication: Blacks/Whites 12; centripetal 108; exolingual 176; family 109, 125; Maroons 71; non-verbal 303–4, 309–10 Comoros Islands 260 Compagnie des Indes: coffee 117–18; colonies 117; Ile de France 59–60, 72–3, 113; indigo 136; recruitment 152 comparative grammar 39 comparative method: Chaudenson 51, 264–75; creoles 48–51; cultural system 265–6; linguistics 268–9; narrative content 289–301; oral literature 262–3, 264–75, 289–301 Condé, Maryse 273–4, 281 Congos 74, 75 conjugation of verbs 173–7 contre-danse 210–11, 213, 215–16, 220 cooking methods 236–7; see also cuisine cooking utensils 103, 104, 236 corn 228–9, 231–2 Coromantis 75 creole genesis 20–1, 147, 154–5, 307–8 creole texts 142–3 Creoles: bozals 87–9, 112–13; Cauna 118; languages 111–12; Maroons 121; slaves 120–1, 123, 128–9 creoles 4–5, 7, 14, 20–1, 182; acrolect ix, xi(n1), 127; African language-based 16; Antilles, Lesser 6, 7, 8; basilectal 127, 128, 171, 220, 262; Caribbean 5, 8–11, 37; comparative studies 48–51; ethnolects 127, 128; etymology 1–5, 36; European-based 14–16, 23, 48–9; generations 34–5, 54, 56, 58, 60, 63, 64–5, 134–5; intelligibility 40–1; lexifier 23–4; linguistic features 188–92; Native American-based 16, 49; pidgin 138, 142–5; tense-aspect markers 144, 156, 157–8, 160, 172; terminus a quo 146, 151–3, 161, 163–4, 170, 172; xenolects 176; see also French Creoles; Mauritian Creole creolization 20, 48, 162–3; Afrogeneticist school 37; autonomization 143, 146, 163; convergence/differentiation 185; cultural 48, 194, 196, 295; dominant

genetic relationship 36–8; Eurogeneticist school 36–7; Fleischmann 94–5; folk tales 275, 300–1; French language 47, 161–3; interference process 43–4; internal evolution 144; linguistic processes 153–4, 162, 171–92, 194, 251, 303–4, 314; medicine 251–4; mixing process 44, 45–7; monogenesis 37, 38–42; music 206–24, 306–7; neurogeneticist 37–8; normative pressure 164, 166; oral literature 262–3, 264–75, 309; pidginto-creole 20–1, 138, 142–5; polygenesis 42–3; relexification 44; Romanist school 36; semantic repartitions 144; socio-economics 138, 304; sociohistorical approach 53–4, 60; sociolinguistic approach 142, 144, 162; structural features 143, 144, 145; unities 34, 35; universalism 37–8, 167 Crusoe, Robinson 12, 101, 105 Cuba: African influence 197, 202; Haitians 25; homestead society 130–1, 134; language 131–2, 137–8, 141(n39); occupied 130–1; Spanish colonists 63; sugar 131 cuisine, creole 231–2, 238–41; Bourbon 231–5; cultural system 195, 227–9; festive 240–1; French colonists 227–8; homestead societies 227; Indian influence 233–5, 237–8, 239–40; osmosis 313; tourism 225–6 culture 194; d’Ans 93–4; Chaudenson 91; comparative method 265–6; creolization 196, 265; cuisine 195, 227–9; Haiti 93; language 303 dances: bel air 200, 201; biguine 203, 204, 217; Cafre 221–2; calenda 201; capoeira 201; drumming 199, 209; European influence 201–2, 210–18; gender 199–200, 207–8; haute-taille 201–2, 211; kamtolé 211, 212–18; laghia 201; quadrille 211, 216; sega 203, 206–8, 216–17, 218–19; slaves 198–9, 209; waltz 210, 213, 215 David, Father Bernard 55, 279–80 DeCamp, David 48–9, 51 decreolization 195, 312 deculturation 91 Defos Du Rau, Jean 114 DeGraff, Michel 156 Delarue, Paul 271, 274, 287, 297–8 demography: colonies 54–6; creole

334

Index

societies 137; economics 64–5, 96, 137; Europeans 65–8 demonstratives 182–3, 189 descriptivist linguistics 167–8 Despatin, C. 218–19 devernacularization 195, 312 devinay 284, 286 Dige-Hen, M. 79 diglossia 26, 27, 129, 195, 307 Dijoux, Father Franck 256 Dipp, Hugo T. 132, 133–4 domestic slaves 125–6 dominant culture model 305–7 domination, gender 99, 122 Dominguez, Virginia 6 Dominica 28, 58 Dominican Republic 25, 132–4, 137–8; see also San Domingo drug trade 246–7 drumming 199, 209 Du Tertre, Jean-Baptiste: baragouin/jargon 9; homesteads 97, 106–7; indentured servants 86; Martinique 57–8; medicinal plants 246–7; sugar refining 136 Dutch-based creoles 49 Dutch in Antilles 136 economic growth 96, 113, 137 economic history viii–ix, 64–5, 96, 112, 137 Encyclopédie de la Réunion 311 English language 46, 49 Espinosa, Aurelio M. 271 ethnicity: Bourbon 107–8; colonies 54–6; creoles 5–7; music 205, 223–4; slaves 71, 72–3, 74, 89, 118 ethnolects 127, 128 ethnolinguistics 249 ethnomusicology 218 Eurogeneticist school 36–7 Europeans: dances 201–2, 210–18; demography 65–8; medicine 249–50, 253–4; music 200; as slaves 64–5 evil eye 259 exorcism 256 fabrics 104–5 Faine, Jules 1–2, 5, 39, 47, 281–2 fairy tales 291, 299 Ferguson, Charles 26, 154, 307 Ferreiro, Emilia 179, 180 festivity 240–1 Finnish School 269–70

Firelin 229 fishing 236–7, 310 Flacourt, Etienne 186, 187 flatbreads 237–8 Fleischmann, Ulrich: bozals 87–8; creolization 94–5; lingua franca 74–5, 80; Maroons 84; nation 74, 77; slaves 70–2, 78, 81, 82, 89–90 Fleury, Captain 10 folk language 150–1, 163, 169–70, 178–9, 180 folk medicine 312; d’Ans 249–50, 258–9; Chaudenson 258; French influence 258; Guadeloupe 245, 253; Haiti 249–50, 258–9, 305; handbooks 253, 258–9; homestead societies 248–9; Lescouble’s journal 253–4; Malagasy influence 247–8; osmosis 313; relexification 251; resistance 246; Réunionnais Creole 257; sorcery 194, 243–4; see also illness, natural/arranged folk tales 261–2, 269; African 290; African influence 270–2, 271–2, 273, 290; American-Caribbean Region 263–4; Antilles, Lesser 263, 273–4; authenticity 277; Baissac 261, 263, 273, 275; collections 262–3, 275–7; concluding expressions 288–9; creolization 275, 300–1; fairy tales 291, 299; formal elements 278–81; French influence 274–5; Guadeloupe 262–3; Guyana 290; Haiti 296; human stories/animal stories 291–2, 296–7; Indian influence 271–2; Indian Ocean Region 263–4, 293–4; introductory formulas 278–9, 285, 286–8; Kriké Kraké 275; Mascarene 266; Mauritian Creole 263, 273; motif 269, 299–300, 301; narratives 277–8, 289–301; relexification 271, 292, 313–14; Rodriguez 277; see also oral literature food preservation 229–31, 232 food production 228–9, 310–11 footprint gathering 260 français marginaux 145 français zéro 165–71, 183 France: colonization 26–7, 55, 65–8, 232–3; folk tales 261, 274–5; medicine 252–3; see also French colonists Frei, Henri 166, 167–8, 169, 170, 182 French colonists 65–8, 137; AmericanCaribbean Region 10; cuisine 227–8; food production 310–11; language 147,

Index 335 152–3, 164, 185, 187–8; Martinique 55, 57, 65 French creoles xi(n1), 12–13, 34; Africa 159, 161; American-Caribbean Region 24–9; global view 184–5; Hjelmslev 47–8; Indian Ocean Region 29–32, 49, 145–51; lexifiers 23–4; possessive determiners 189–90; pronouns 177; tense-aspect systems 157–8, 172; terminus a quo 146; zot 176, 178 French Guiana 29 French influence: folk medicine 258; folk tales 274–5; lexical morphology 267–8; Réunionnais cuisine 239–40 French koiné 125, 152, 162 French language 108, 146–7; appropriation 153–9; Cajun 6, 24–5; Canada 146–7, 148, 174; ceremonial use 240–1, 307; creolization 30, 116, 127, 161–3, 171, 305; creolophone areas 149–51; dissemination 137–8; evolution 161–3; folk language 151; français marginaux 145; français zéro 165–71, 183; francophone speakers 124, 126–7; Jersey 173, 174; nonstandard 66, 146–7, 151, 152, 185; normalization 164–5; slaves 13, 67, 90–1, 109, 111; tense-aspect markers 159, 160, 172, 178–9; see also North American French de Freycinet, Louis 207–8 Freyre, Gilberto 73, 103, 126 funerals, story-telling 276 furniture 115–16 Gamaleya, Boris 277–8 Gazier, Auguste 12–13 gender: dance 199–200, 207–8; domination 99, 122; slaves 92; storytelling 276 Gerbeau, Hubert 244 gestures 303–4 glue boy/tar baby motif 270–1, 294–5 ‘The Glue Man or the Paste-Coated Tortoise’ 294–5 Goffman, Erving 121 Goodman, Morris 39, 279 Gougenheim, Georges 178–9 GRAL 154–5 Grand Diable character 299–300 Greenberg, Joseph H. 39 Grenada 97 Griolet, Patrick 55–6, 135 Guadeloupe 26–7; folk medicine 245, 253;

folk tales 262–3; music 203–4; and St Kitts 97 Guidry, Richard 182 Guyana 78, 290 Haiti 25–6; Africanness 93–4, 197; d’Ans 25, 196–7, 202, 308–9; corn 231–2; and Cuba 25; culture 93; folk medicine 249–50, 258–9, 305; folk tales 296; French colonists 65; language 1–2, 150; physiology 254; pregnancy 249; riddles 281–2; slaves 129; voodoo 195, 243, 308–9; see also Saint Domingue Haitian Creole 5, 44, 47, 61, 62–3, 177, 179 Haitian Revolution 85 Hall, Robert A. Jr 20–1, 21 Hancock, Ian F. 14, 15, 17, 18, 23, 49 ‘The Hare and the King’s Pond’ 270, 294 ‘The Hare Rides on his Rival’s Back’ 294, 295 ‘The Hare’s Requests to God/the King’ 294, 295 Haring, Lee 290 Hausa folk tales 290 haute-taille dances 201–2, 211 Hawaii 14–15 Hazaël-Massieux, Guy 9, 11, 142–3, 209 health care, Réunion 250 Heine, Bernd 50 herbalism 252, 255–6, 257, 259; see also medicinal plants Hermann, Jules 2–3 Herskovits, Melville 1, 70, 78–9, 85, 241 Highlands Whites 30, 114–16, 127 Hispanicization 130, 132 Hispaniola 25, 61, 62–3, 132–3, 136; see also Dominican Republic; Haiti Historial antillais 201, 203 Hjelmslev, Louis 47–8, 162–3, 166 Holm, John 14, 16, 22 homestead societies 95; Bourbon 68, 113; cooking 227; Cuba 130–1, 134; daily life 103–7; Du Tertre 97, 106–7; fabrics 104–5; folk medicine 248–9; indentured servants 96–7; languages 107–13; living conditions 98–104, 106–7; Martinique 113; San Domingo 133–4; slaves 11–12, 90, 98–9; social relations 101, 245, 248–9 Houis, Maurice 268 human stories 291–2, 296–7 Igbos 75–6, 89, 93

336

Index

Ile de France: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 76, 101, 244; Bourbon 58–60, 97, 101, 113, 244; Compagnie des Indes 59–60, 72–3, 113; demography 60; tschiega 207; West African slaves 69–70; see also Mauritius illness, natural/arranged 254–6, 257–8 immigration viii; Algerian 110; Antilles, Lesser 55; economic growth 113; ending 129; Indian 65; Mauritius 65, 131 indentured servants 85–7, 96–7, 112–13, 214 Indian immigrants 65 Indian influence: cuisine 233–5, 237–8, 239–40; folk tales 271–2; living conditions 311; religion 313 Indian Ocean Region: Adam 37; African influence 37; animal stories 293–4; bane 183; creole music 206–18; creole texts 143; creole varieties 186–7; demonstratives 182–3; folk tales 263–4, 293–4; French creoles 29–32, 49, 145–51; languages 12, 44, 150; Malagasy influence 190; oral literature 279; pronouns 177, 183–4; riddles 283–4; slaves 69–70; tense-aspect markers 178, 180; zot 170 indigo 136 Indo-Portuguese women 99–100, 233 inheritance inventories 98 intelligibility, creoles 40–1 interlanguage 158 inventories, domestic 98, 103–4 Jamaica 14–15, 63 Jardel, Jean-Pierre 279–80 jargon 9–10, 11, 127, 152 Jersey French 173, 174 Jespersen, Otto 47 jouars 215–16 Jourdain, Elodie 268 Juneau 183–4 kadri dance 203 kamtolé dance 211, 212–18 Kassav music 200 Kaufman, Terrence 22 Koechlin, Bernard 211–12 Koefoed, Gert 48, 49, 51 Kriké Kraké folk tales 275 La Fontaine, Jean de 272–3 Labat, Jean Baptiste 11, 12, 92, 126, 308

Lacaussade, A. 112–13 ladino 88, 90, 112 Lafontaine, Marie Céline 203–4 laghia dances 201 land clearance 97 language acquisition 156–9; adult 156–9, 165; Bickerton 153, 156, 163; bozals 127; child 163, 179–80, 188–9, 191; migrant workers 155–6; self-regulation 185 language appropriation 153, 156–9, 158, 163–5, 174–5 language learning 154–5, 156–9 languages 12; Caribs 8–11; conservatism 166–7; Creoles 111–12; folk language 150, 163, 169–70, 180; French colonists 147, 152–3, 164, 185, 187–8; homestead societies 107–13; mixing process 44, 45–7; Negroes 10–11, 66–7, 124–5, 143, 185; non-creole 52n6; Pelleprat 110–11; slaves 11–12, 79, 80, 90–1, 309–10; transmission 125, 126–7, 151–2; see also individual islands langue d’oïl dialects 147, 151, 152, 185 Laurent, Joëlle 263, 282 Law, John 55 Lefebvre, Claire 44 Lefebvre, Gilles 149 Lescouble’s journal: folk medicine 253–4; music 210–11, 213, 214–15, 216–17; riddles 284 leur 183–4 léwoz dance/music 203 lexical morphology 267–8 lexifier ix, xi(n1); diglossia 195; French creoles 23–4; non-European 16; North American French 148 ‘Le Lièvre et le basin du Roi’ 270, 294 Ligon, Richard 199–200 lingua franca 14, 17–21, 49; Fleischmann 74–5, 80; West African slaves 39–40; Whinnom 41 linguistic creolization 153–4, 162, 171–92, 194, 251, 303–4 linguistics viii; African 70; comparative methods 268–9; descriptivist 167–8; internal 168; similarities between systems 150–1; substratist 181, 241 Lipski, John M. 132 living conditions 56–7, 98–104, 244, 311 locative copula 144 Lougnon, Albert 58–9, 116–17, 118 Louisiana 146; Accadians 24–5, 148; Cajun French 6, 24–5, 34; colonization

Index 337 55, 148; Creole 7; creoles 6–7, 24–5, 34, 146, 162; French verbs 173; Saint Domingan emigrants 135–6 Lung Fou, M. T. 263 Luzel, F. 289 M. P. 218 McLaughlin, Anne 147 Madagascar 290; see also Malagasy maf 186–7 Maggiolo, Marcio V. 132, 133–4 magic see sorcery Maillard, L.: approximative French 214; Cafres 89, 221–2; music 210, 220–1; music/social groups 213, 216; slaves 74, 89 Malabars 30 Malagasy: Bourbon 105, 107–8; creole 184; French language 109; slaves 76, 105, 107–8, 109; women 99–100 Malagasy influences: cuisine 236–8; fishing 236–7; Indian Ocean Region 190; medicine 247–8, 253–4; Réunionnais 236–8, 310; riddles 286; sorcery 260; see also Madagascar Malavois music 200 Malayo-Aryan languages 44 maloya, Réunionnais 202–3, 208–9, 220 manager 119–20, 123 Manessy, Gabriel 46–7, 51, 159, 166–7, 268–9 Marie Brizard spirit 240 Marie-France and Irvin 226 Marimoutou, Jean C. C. 225, 226 Markey, Thomas L. 17–18, 19, 144 Maroons 81–7; Bourbon 87; communication 71; Creoles 121; indentured servants 87; religion 306; Réunion 81–2; Saint Domingue 83, 84–5; survival 83–4 marriage, slaves 102 Martinique: Du Tertre 57–8; economic history 112; Fleury 10; French colonists 55, 57, 65; Guadeloupe 26–7; homesteads 113; music 198–200; Petitjean-Roget 73–4, 96, 98–9, 113, 198; slaves 97; Whites/Blacks 97–8 Mascarenes 5, 8–9, 97; folk tales 266; French creoles 29–32; sociohistory 53; West African slaves 72–3 material culture 309–12 Mauritian Creole: Bourbonnais 58, 105, 128; folk tales 263, 273; immigration

65, 131; medicinal plants 248; phrases 116, 150; pronouns 183, 190; Réunionnais 60–1, 138–9 (n8), 171, 182; tense-aspect markers 181 Mauritian French 150–1 Mauritius 31, 65; animal stories 293; as creole island 7; immigrants 65, 131; language 5, 150; music 200–1; oral literature 261; riddles 283; slavery abolished 131; see also Ile de France medical manuals 253 medicinal plants 245–8, 246, 253–4; see also folk medicine; herbalism medicine: creolization 251–4; European influence 249–50, 252–3; Malagasy influence 247–8, 253–4; sorcery 254–60; traditional 105; transcommunal knowledge 247, 257; see also folk medicine Meillet, Antoine 45 Merina oral literature 290 midwives 246, 250, 253 migrant workers 155–6 migration 56–61, 135–6; see also immigration missionaries 66–7, 80 Missouri 146, 148, 150–1, 162 Mongin, Father Jean: bozals 119; domestic servants 126; French language 67, 80, 90–1, 111; jargon 11, 127; slaves 91, 102; sociolinguistics 124–5 monogenesis 37, 38–42 Moreau, F. 142 Moreau de Saint-Méry, M. L. E. 10, 205, 209 motif, folk tales 269, 299–300, 301 Mougeon, Raymond 174 moutya, Seychellois 202–3, 209, 220 Mufwene, Salikoko S. 14, 16, 35, 52n6, 144–5 Mulattos 5, 67–8, 99, 133–4 Murray, Gerald F. 250 music 195; American-Caribbean Region 223–4; Antilles, Lesser 198–206; Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 207–8; Blacks 198; creole 206–18; creolization 206–24, 306–7; ethnicity 205, 223–4; European 200; Guadeloupe 203–4; Lescouble’s journal 216–17; Maillard 220–1; Martinique 198–200; Mauritius 200–1; plantation communities 200, 213–14; slaves 205, 214–15, 216; social groups 213, 223–4; tourism 200–1

338

Index

musical instruments 199, 200, 206, 210, 221–3 musicians 205, 215 nannies 126 narrative content 277–8; classified 291; comparative method 289–301; mixing 298–9; syntagmatic interference 297 nation 74, 76–7, 79 Nativel, R. 2–3, 5 nautical terms, Chaudenson 311 Negroes: French language 67, 111; integration 133–4; languages 10–11, 44, 66–7, 124–5, 143, 185; see also Blacks nénène 126 Neumann, Ingrid 6, 135 neurogeneticist approach 37–8 Nevis 63 New Orleans 7 non-creole languages 52n6 non-verbal communication 303–4, 309–10 normative pressures 164, 166 North American French 148, 182; auxiliary verbs 179; comparisons 146–7, 165, 188; demonstrative markers 189; possessive adjectives 191; pronouns 175–6; sociolinguistic factors 162; terminus a quo of creolization 170; see also Louisiana; Quebec noun plurals 144, 183 Offroy, G. 183 Oïl dialects see langue d’oïl oral literature: adaptations 261–2; Antilles, Lesser 263–4; authenticity 262; comparative method 262–3, 264–75; creolization 262–3, 264–75, 309; elements for comparison 269–75; Indian Ocean Region 279; Mauritius 261; osmosis 313–14; written texts 276–7; see also folk tales osmosis: oral literature 313–14; voodoo 312, 313 Ottino, Paul 298, 299 Owens, Jonathan 16 Parsons, Elsie Clews 280, 283 patois 1, 66, 149, 150, 151–2 Payet, A. 255–6 Pelleprat, Father: baragouin 10–11; language 80, 90, 110–11; Negro language 10–11, 66–7, 79–80, 143, 185; slaves 12, 80, 90; verbs 179–80 Perdue, Clive 155

Perego, Pierre 20, 22 Petit Jean character 274, 291, 292–3, 295–6, 297 Petitjean-Roget, Jean: commandeur 112; Dutch 136; homesteads 106; indentured servants 85–6, 112; land clearance 97; Martinique 73–4, 96, 98–9, 113, 198; slaves 73–4; sugar 106 petits blancs 30, 114–16, 127, 171, 214 pharmacopeia 245, 247, 251 physiology 254 pickling 231, 232 pidgin 14, 16–17; African-based 50; colonization 11–12; and creole 20–1, 22–3, 138, 142–5; European-based 42, 48–9; trade language 22, 39 Pitcairn 14–15 plantation communities 90, 95–6, 113–21; African languages 71, 80; music 200, 213–14; social organization 36, 119–20, 121–3, 245; sociolinguistic changes 123–9; sugar 74 plantations, St Kitts 113 plural nouns 144, 183 Poirier, Claude 147 poisoning 244–6 polygenesis 42–3 Portuguese, Brazilian 180 Portuguese Creole 23 Portuguese pidgin 42 possessive forms 189–90, 191 Pottier, Bernard 172, 178 poverty, unifying 134 pregnancy in Haiti 249 proletarianization of Whites 113–14 pronouns: American-Caribbean Region 177, 183–4; French creoles 177; Indian Ocean Region 177, 183–4; Malagasy 184; Mauritian Creole 183, 190; North American French 175–6; possessive 189–90; Telugu 184; tonic/atonic 175–8 proverbs 279–80 Prudent, Lambert-Félix 36–8, 42, 82, 262 Puckett, Newbell N. 79 quadrille 211, 216 Quebec: French colonists 65–6; Québécois 147, 150, 183–4 quivis 87 ‘The Rabbit in Cow’s/Elephant’s Stomach’ 294 racial mixing 67, 99–100 ranpang, rice cooking 228–9

Index 339 Ransford, Oliver 91 Reinecke, John 14 relexification: creolization 44; folk medicine 251; folk tales 271, 292, 313–14; language 155–6 religion 305–6, 313 Rens, Leo Edward 90–1 resistance: folk medicine 246; see also Maroons Réunion 29–30; animal stories 293; approximative forms of French 127, 170–1; boucan 230; fairy tales 299; food staples 228–9; health care 250; Highlands Whites 30, 114–16, 127; Kriké Kraké folk tales 275; language 150; maloya 202–3, 208–9, 220; Maroons 81–2; medicinal plants 247–8, 253–4, 312; music/social groups 213; nénène 126; petits blancs 30, 114–16, 127, 171, 214; riddles 284; sega 218–19; sociohistory 53, 67–8; tourism 225–6; see also Bourbon Réunionnais Creole 5, 8, 34, 53, 141n39; arranged sickness 254; basilectal erosion 128, 171; devinay 284, 286; folk medicine 257; lexeme loss 195; Malagasy influence 310; Mauritian Creole 60–1, 138–9(n8), 171, 182; Québécois 147; verbs 173–4, 179, 181 Réunionnais cuisine 226; French influence 239–40; Indian influence 233–5, 237–8, 239–40; Malagasy influence 236–8 rice 228, 231–2 Richardson, Ian 47 riddles 277–8; American-Caribbean Region 280, 281–3; Antilles, Lesser 282–3; formal elements 278–81; Haiti 281–2; Indian Ocean Region 283–4; introductory formulae 285, 286–8; Malagasy influence 286; Mauritius 283; Réunion 284; Rodriguez 283; Seychelles 284 Rivard, Adjutor 146–7 Robinsonnade 12, 101, 105 Rochefort, César de 9, 199 Rodney, Walter 78 Rodriguez 31–2, 140n36; biguine 204; corn 228–9, 232; folk tales 277; Mascarenes 97; music 224; riddles 283; social organization 81, 224 Roman Empire 18–19 Romani 45–6 Romanist school 36 Rosemain, Jacqueline 204–6 Roussin, Antoine 217, 219

sabir 14, 17, 20, 22, 40 sacrifice 259 St Barths 149–50, 170, 181–2 Saint Domingue 134; bozals 113; Cauna 92–3, 109; emigrants to Lousiana 7, 135–6; Maroons 83, 84–5; plantation life 74; settling 58; see also Haiti St Kitts 55, 58, 61; Guadeloupe 97; plantations 113; sugar 106, 119 St Lucia 28–9, 58, 97 ‘The Sale/Death of Mothers’ 294, 295 San Domingo 133–4; see also Dominican Republic sanpek 286 Schuchardt, Hugo 17, 18, 19, 35 Schuman, John 154 scurvy 230, 231 Sébillot, Paul 289 sega 203, 206–8, 216–17, 218–19 ‘Self-accusation Song’ 294 self-regulation 158–9, 161, 185, 188 Seutin, Emile 183 sexual domination 99 Seychelles 32, 97, 284, 293 Seychellois 5, 202–3, 209, 220 sirandanes (riddles) 277–8, 283, 286 slang 45–6 slavery 70–2, 73, 121, 131 slaves: adaptation 89–94, 246; age 92, 214; Algiers 19; ancestral languages 309–10; d’Ans 77, 128–9; Ashanti 77; baptismal records 102–3; birth rates 118; Bourbon 92; Brazil 73; Cauna 91–2, 120–1; Creoles 120–1, 123, 128–9; dance 198–9, 209; ethnicity 71, 72–3, 74, 89, 118; European population 64–5; Fleischmann 70–2, 78, 81, 82, 89–90; gender 92; Haiti 129; Herskovits 78–9; homestead societies 11–12, 90, 98–9; Indian Ocean Region 69–70; languages 11–12, 79, 80, 90–1, 309–10; linguistic habits 219–20; living/working conditions 244; Maillard 74, 89; marriage 102; Martinique 97; music 205, 214–15, 216; poisoning 245; provenance 68–9; social organization 119–20; solidarity 77; sorcery 243–4; sugar 96, 131–2; transportation 69–70, 79–80, 88–9; see also bozals Smith, Norval 14, 16 social relations: homestead societies 101, 245, 248–9; music 213, 223–4; plantation communities 121–3, 245; Rodriguez 81, 224; slaves 119–20; Whites/Blacks 101, 244–5, 248–9

340

Index

socio-economics 138, 304 sociohistorical approach 53–4, 60, 67–8 sociolinguistics 26; creolization 142, 144, 162; plantation communities 123–9 sorcery 305; folk medicine 194, 243–4; Malagasy influence 260; medicine 254–60; slaves 243–4 Spain, colonization 25, 63, 129–34, 136 Spanish language 132 spices 117, 133, 231, 232, 237, 239 story-tellers 275–6; see also folk tales; narrative content substratists 181, 241 sugar: Antilles, Lesser 119, 136; Bourbon 114, 136; bozals 119; Cuba 131; Dominican Republic 132–3; Hispaniola 132–3, 136; Petitjean-Roget 106; plantation life 74; St Kitts 106, 119; San Domingo 133; slave immigration 96, 131–2; Spanish colonists 136 superstition 243–4 Surinam 90–1 Swahili 208 Sylvain, Suzanne 1, 44 talismans 259 Tardieu, Jean Pierre 305–6 Taylor, Douglas R. 28, 45 Tchang, Laurent 290 technology transfers 136 Telugu pronouns 184 Tenèze, M. L. 261, 274, 291 tense-aspect markers: AmericanCaribbean Region 178, 180; creoles 144, 156, 157–8, 160, 172; folk language 178–9, 180; French 159, 160, 172, 178–9; Indian Ocean Region 178, 180; Mauritian Creole 181; negative 181; Réunionnais 181; St Barths 181–2 terminus a quo, creoles 146, 151–3, 161, 163–4, 170, 172 Thésée, F. 75–6 Thomas, John Joseph 34 Thomas, Rosemary Hyde 151, 183, 191 Thomason, Sarah G. 22 Thompson, Stith 271, 291, 292 ‘Ti Jan et sa soeur Marie’ 274 ‘Ti Jean et la fille du diable’ 274 Todd, Loreto 41 Tok Pisin 143 ‘Tonton Bouk et Compère Renar’ 273 tools 103, 104 Tortuga Island 61, 62

tourism 200–1, 225–6 trade 232–3 transcommunality 247, 257, 307–10 transport of slaves 69–70, 79–80, 88–9 triangle (musical instrument) 222–3 trickster characters 292–3, 294, 301 Trouvain, Michel 215 universalist approach 37–8, 167 utensils 103, 104, 236 Valdman, Albert 36, 42–3, 142, 189 Valentin, Marie 225, 238, 239–40 valiha (musical instrument) 222 Valkhoff, Marius F. 39–40, 53–4, 55, 64 Van Gouda, Houtman 187 vegetables 233, 236 verbs: auxiliary 179; child language acquisition 179–80; conjugation 173–7; irregular 158; person/number 173–7; Réunionnais 173–4, 181; see also tenseaspect markers Véronique, Daniel 157–8 ‘Le Villageois et le serpent’ 273 Virahsawmy, Dev 7 Volcy Focard 47 voodoo 195, 243, 308–9, 312, 313 Wallonia 150 waltz 210, 213, 215 wet nurses 126 ‘The Whale and the Elephant Wrestle’ 294, 295 Whinnom, Keith 17, 40, 41, 48, 51 Whites: Highlands 30, 114–16, 127; homestead societies 101; petits blancs 30, 114–16, 127, 171, 214; proletarianization 113–14; Réunion 114–16; social relations with Blacks 101, 244–5, 248–9 Wolof 78 women see gender Woods, Sister F. J. 6–7 written texts 276–7 xenolects 176 xylophone 222 Yoruba folk tale 274 zédmo 286 zot 170, 176, 178, 183, 184

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