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The Orange-Yellow Diamond (Chapter34)
　　Chapter Thirty-Four. Baffled
　　Levendale paused at this point of his story， and looked round the circle of attentive faces. He was quick to notice that two men were watching him with particularly close attention――one was Ayscough， the other， the old solicitor. And as he resumed his account he glanced meaningly at Mr. Killick.
　　“I daresay some of you would like to question me――and Stephen Purvis， too ――on what I've already told you？” he said. “You're welcome to ask any questions you like――any of you――when I've done. But――let me finish――for then perhaps you'll fully understand what we were at.
　　“Purvis and I walked up and down in Oxford and Cambridge Terrace for some time――discussing the situation. The more I considered the matter， the more I was certain that my first theory was right――the Chinaman had got the diamond and the bank-notes. I was aware of these two Chinamen as tenants of Multenius's furnished house――as a matter of fact， I had been present， at the shop in Praed Street， on one of my two visits there when they concluded their arrangements with him. What I now thought was this――one of them had called on the old man to do some business， or to pay the rent， and had found him in a fit， or dead， as the result of one， had seen the diamond and the money on the table， placed there in readiness for Purvis's coming， and had possessed himself of both and made off. Purvis agreed with me. And――both Purvis and myself are well acquainted with the characteristic peculiarities， and idiosyncrasies of Chinamen！――we knew with what we had to deal. Therefore we knew what we had to do. We wanted the diamond and my money. And since we were uncomfortably aware of the craft and subtlety of the thief who'd got both we knew we should have to use craft ourselves――and of no common sort. Therefore we decided that the very last thing we should think of would be an immediate appeal to the police.
　　“Now， you police officials may， nay， will！――say that we ought to have gone straight to you， especially as this was a case of murder. But we knew nothing about it being a case of murder. We had seen no signs of violence on the old man――I knew him to be very feeble， and I believed he had been suddenly struck over by paralysis， or something of that sort. I reckoned matters up， carefully. It was plain that Daniel Multenius had been left alone in house and shop――that his granddaughter was out on some errand or other. Therefore， no one knew of the diamond and the money. We did not want any one to know. If we had gone to the police and told our tale， the news would have spread， and would certainly have reached the Chinaman's ears. We knew well enough that if we were to get our property back the thief must not be alarmed――there must be nothing in the newspapers next morning. The Chinaman must not know that the real owners of the diamond and the bank-notes suspected him――he must not know that information about his booty was likely to be given to the police. He must be left to believe――for some hours at any rate――that what he had possessed himself of was the property of a dead man who could not tell anything. But there was my book in that dead man's parlour！ It was impossible to go back and fetch it. It was equally impossible that it should not attract attention. Daniel Multenius's granddaughter， whom I believed to be a very sharp young woman， would notice it， and would know that it had come into the place during her absence. I thought hard over that problem――and finally I drafted an advertisement and sent it off to an agency with instructions to insert it in every morning newspaper in London next day. Why？ Because I wanted to draw a red herring across the trail！――I wanted， for the time being， to set up a theory that some man or other had found that book in the omnibus， had called in at Multenius's to sell or pawn it， had found the old man alone， and had assaulted and robbed him. All this was with a view to hoodwinking the Chinaman. Anything must be done， anything！――to keep him ignorant that Purvis and I knew the real truth.
　　“But――what did we intend to do？ I tell you， not being aware that old Daniel Multenius had met his death by violence， we did not give one second's thought to that aspect and side of the affair――we concentrated on the recovery of our property. I knew the house in which these Chinese lived. That evening， Purvis and I went there. We have both been accustomed， in our time， to various secret dealings and manoeuvres， and we entered the grounds of that house without any one being the wiser. It did not take long to convince us that the house was empty. It remained empty that night――Purvis kept guard over it， in an outhouse in the garden. No one either entered or left it between our going to it and Purvis coming away from it next morning――he stayed there， watching until it was time to keep an appointment with me in Hyde Park. Before I met him， I had been called upon by Detective Ayscough， Mr. Rubinstein， and Mr. Lauriston――they know what I said to them. I could not at that time say anything else――I had my own concerns to think of.
　　“When Purvis and I met we had another consultation， and we determined， in view of all the revelations which had come out and had been published in the papers， that the suspicion cast on young Mr. Lauriston was the very best thing that could happen for us； it would reassure our Chinaman. And we made up our minds that the house in Maida Vale would not be found untenanted that night， and we arranged to meet there at eleven o'clock. We felt so sure that our man would have read all the news in the papers， and would feel safe， and that we should find him. But， mark you， we had no idea as to which of the two Chinamen it was that we wanted. Of one fact， however， we were certain――whichever it was that I had seen slip round the corner of Iron Gate Wharf the previous day， whether it was Chang Li or Chen Li， he would have kept his secret to himself！ The thing was――to get into that house； to get into conversation with both； to decide which was the guilty man， and then――to take our own course. We knew what to do――and we went fully prepared.
　　“Now we come to this――our second visit to the house in Maida Vale. To be exact， it was between eleven and twelve on the second night after the disappearance of the diamond. As on the previous night， we gained access to the garden by the door at the back――that， on each occasion， was unfastened， while the gate giving access to the road in Maida Vale was securely locked. And， as on the previous night， we quickly found that up to then at any rate， the house was empty. But not so the garden！ While I was looking round the further side of the house， Purvis took a careful look round the garden. And presently he came to me and drew away to the asphalted path which runs from the front gate to the front door. The moon had risen above the houses and trees――and in its light he pointed to bloodstains. It did not take a second look， gentlemen， to see that they were recent――in fact， fresh. Somebody had been murdered in that garden not many minutes――literally， minutes！――before our arrival. And within two minutes more we found the murdered man lying behind some shrubbery on the left of the path. I knew him for the younger of the two Chinese――the man called Chen Li.
　　“This discovery， of course， made us aware that we were now face to face with a new development. We were not long in arriving at a conclusion about that. Chang Li had found out that his friend had become possessed of these valuable――he might have discovered the matter of the diamond， or of the bank-notes or both――how was immaterial. But we were convinced， putting everything together， that he had made this discovery， had probably laid in wait for Chen Li as he returned home that night， had run a knife into him as he went up the garden， had dragged the body into the shrubbery， possessed himself of the loot， and made off. And now we were face to face with what was going， as we knew， to be the stiffest part of our work――the finding of Chang Li. We set to work on that without a moment's delay.
　　“I have told you that Purvis and I have a pretty accurate knowledge of Chinamen； we have both had deep and intimate experience of them and their ways. I， personally， know a good deal of the Chinese Colony in London： I have done business with Chinamen， both in London and South Africa， for years. I had a good idea of what Chang Li's procedure would be. He would hide――if need be， for months， until the first heat of the hue and cry which he knew would be sure to be raised， would have cooled down. There are several underground warrens――so to speak――in the East End， in which he could go to earth， comfortably and safely， until there was a chance of slipping out of the country unobserved. I know already of some of them. I would get to know of others.
　　“Purvis and I got on that track――such as it was， at once. We went along to the East End there and then――before morning I had shaved off my beard and mustache， disguised myself in old clothes， and was beginning my work. First thing next morning I did two things――one was to cause a telegram to be sent from Spring Street to my butler explaining my probable absence； the other to secretly warn the Bank of England about the bank-notes. But I had no expectation that Chang Li would try to negotiate those――all his energies， I knew， would be concentrated on the diamond. Nevertheless， he might try――and would， if he tried――succeed――in changing one note， and it was as well to take that precaution.
　　“Now then， next day， Purvis and I being， in our different ways， at work in the East End， we heard the news about the Praed Street tradesman， Parslett. That seemed to me remarkable proof of my theory. As the successive editions of the newspapers came out during that day， and next day， we learnt all about the Parslett affair. I saw through it at once. Parslett， being next-door neighbour to Daniel Multenius， had probably seen Chen Li――whom we now believed to have been the actual thief――slip away from Multenius's door， and， when the news of Daniel's death came out， had put two and two together， and， knowing where the Chinamen lived， had gone to the house in Maida Vale to blackmail them. I guessed what had happened then――Parslett， to quieten him for the moment， had been put off with fifty pounds in gold， and promised more――and he had also been skilfully poisoned in such a fashion that he would get safely away from the premises but die before he got home. And when he was safe away， Chang Li had murdered Chen Li， and made off. So――as I still think――all our theories were correct， and the only thing to do was to find Chang.”
　　But here Levendale paused， glanced at Stephen Purvis， and spread out his hands with a gesture which indicated failure and disappointment. His glance moved from Stephen Purvis to the police officials.
　　“All no good！” he exclaimed. “It's useless to deny it. I have been in every Chinese den and haunt in East London――I'm certain that Chang Li is nowhere down there. I have spent money like water――employed Chinese and Easterns on whom I could depend――there isn't a trace of him！ And so――we gave up last night. Purvis and I――baffled. We've come to you police people――”
　　“You should have done that before， Mr. Levendale，” said the Inspector severely. “You haven't given us much credit， I think， and if you'd told all this at first――”
　　Before the Inspector could say more， a constable tapped at the door and put his head into the room. His eyes sought Ayscough.
　　“There's a young gentleman――foreigner――asking for you， Mr. Ayscough，” he said. “Wants to see you at once――name of Mr. Yada.”
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　　电话：010-1Culture of Haiti - history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, customs, family
Culture Name
Orientation
Identification.
Haiti, a name that means "mountainous country," is derived
from the language of the Taino Indians who inhabited the island before
European colonization. After independence in 1804, the name was adopted by
the military generals, many of them former slaves, who expelled the French
and took possession of the colony then known as Saint Domingue. In 2000,
95 percent of the population was of African descent, and the remaining 5
percent mulatto and white. Some wealthy citizens think of themselves as
French, but most residents identify themselves as Haitian and there is a
strong sense of nationalism.
Location and Geography.
Haiti covers 10,714 square miles (27,750 square kilometers). It is
located in the subtropics on the western third of Hispaniola, the second
largest island in the Caribbean, which it shares with the Spanish-speaking
Dominican Republic. The neighboring islands include Cuba, Jamaica, and
Puerto Rico. Three-quarters of the te the highest
peak is the Morne de Selle. The climate is mild, varying with altitude.
The mountains are calcareous rather than volcanic and give way to widely
varying microclimatic and soil conditions. A tectonic fault line runs
through the country, causing occasional and sometimes devastating
earthquakes. The island is also located within the Caribbean hurricane
Demography.
The population has grown steadily from 431,140 at independence in 1804 to
the estimate of 6.9 million to 7.2 million in 2000. Haiti is one of the
most densely populated countries in the world. Until the 1970s, over 80
percent of the population resided in rural areas, and today, over 60
percent continue to live in provincial villages, hamlets, and homesteads
scattered across the rural landscape. The capital city is Port-au-Prince,
which is five times larger than the next biggest city, Cape Haitian.
Over one million native-born Ha an additional fifty
thousand leave the country every year, predominantly for the United States
but also to Canada and France. Approximately 80 percent of permanent
migrants come from the educated middle and upper classes, but very large
numbers of lower-class Haitians temporarily migrate to the Dominican
Republic and Nassau Bahamas to work at low-income jobs in the informal
economy. An unknown number of lower-income migrants remain abroad.
Linguistic Affiliation.
For most of the nation's history the official language has been
French. However, the language spoken by the vast majority of the people is
whose pronunciation and vocabulary are derived largely from French but
whose syntax is similar to that of other creoles. With the adoption of a
new constitution in 1987,
was given official status as the primary official language. French was
relegated to the status of a secondary official language but continues to
prevail among the elite and in government, functioning as marker of social
class and a barrier to the less educated and the poor. An estimated
5–10 percent of the population speaks fluent French, but in recent
decades massive emigration to the United States and the availability of
cable television from the United States have helped English replace French
as the second language in many sectors of the population.
Symbolism.
Residents attach tremendous importance to the expulsion of the French in
1804, an event that made Haiti the first independently black-ruled nation
in the world, and only the second country in the Western Hemisphere to
achieve independence from imperial Europe. The most noted national symbols
are the flag, Henri Christophe's citadel and the statue of the
"unknown maroon" (
Maroon inconnu
), a bare-chested revolutionary
trumpeting a conch shell in a call to arms. The presidential palace is
also an important national symbol.
History and Ethnic Relations
Emergence of a Nation.
Hispaniola was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and was the
first island in the New World settled by the Spanish. By 1550, the
indigenous culture of the Taino Indians had vanished from the island, and
Hispaniola became a neglected backwater of the Spanish Empire. In the
mid-1600s, the western third of the island was populated by fortune
seekers, castaways, and wayward colonists, predominantly French, who
became pirates and buccaneers, hunting wild cattle and pigs unleashed by
the earliest European visitors and selling the smoked meat to passing
ships. In the mid-1600s, the French used the buccaneers as mercenaries
(freebooters) in an unofficial war against the Spanish. In the Treaty of
Ryswick of 1697, France forced Spain to cede the western third of
Hispaniola. This area became the French colony of Saint Domingue. By 1788,
the colony had become the "jewel of the Antilles," the
richest colony in the world.
In 1789, revolution in France sparked dissension in the colony, which had
a population of half a million slaves (half of all the slaves in the
Caribbean); twenty-eight thousand mulattoes and free
blacks, many of whom wer and thirty-six thousand
white planters, artisans, slave drivers, and small landholders. In 1791,
thirty-five thousand slaves rose in an insurrection, razed a thousand
plantations, and took to the hills. Thirteen years of war and pestilence
followed. Spanish, English, and French troops were soon battling one
another for control of the colony. The imperial powers militarized the
slaves, training them in the arts of "modern" warfare.
Grands blancs
(rich white colonists),
petits blancs
(small farmers and working-class whites),
(mulattoes), and
(free blacks) fought, plotted, and intrigued. Each local interest group
exploited its position at every opportunity to achieve its political and
economic objectives. From the mayhem emerged some of the greatest black
military men in history, including Toussaint Louverture. In 1804, the last
European troops were soundly defeated and driven from the island by a
coalition of former slaves and mulattoes. In January 1804 the rebel
generals declared independence, inaugurating Haiti as the first sovereign
"black" country in the modern world and the second colony in
the Western Hemisphere to gain independence from imperial Europe.
Since gaining independence, Haiti has had fleeting moments of glory. An
early eighteenth century kingdom ruled by Henri Christophe prospered and
thrived in the north, and from 1822 to 1844 Haiti ruled the entire island.
The late nineteenth century was a period of intense internecine warfare in
which ragtag armies backed by urban politicians and conspiring Western
businessmen repeatedly sacked Port-au-Prince. By 1915, the year in which
U.S. marines began a nineteen year occupation of the country, Haiti was
among the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere.
National Identity.
During the century of relative isolation that followed independence, the
peasantry developed distinct traditions in cuisine, music, dance, dress,
ritual, and religion. Some elements of African cultures survive, such as
specific prayers, a few words, and dozens of spirit entities, but Haitian
culture is distinct from African and other New World cultures.
Ethnic Relations.
The only ethnic subdivision is that of the
, the early twentieth-century Levantine emigrants who have been absorbed
into the commercial elite but often self-identify by their ancestral
origins. Haitians refer to all outsiders, even dark-skinned outsiders of
African ancestry, as
("white").
In the neighboring Dominican Republic, despite the presence of over a
million Haitian farm workers, servants, and urban laborers, there exists
intense prejudice against Haitians. In 1937, the Dominican dictator Rafael
Trujillo ordered the massacre of an estimated fifteen to thirty-five
thousand Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
Urbanism,Architecture, and the Use of Space
The most famous architectural accomplishments are King Henri
Christophe's postindependence San Souci palace, which was almost
entirely destroyed by an earthquake in the early 1840s, and his
mountaintop fortress, the Citadelle Laferrière, which survives
largely intact.
The contemporary rural landscape is dominated by houses that vary in style
from one region to another. Most are single-story, two-room shacks,
usually with a front porch. In the dry, treeless areas, houses are
constructed of rock or wattle and daub with mud or lime exteriors. In
other regions, walls are made from the eas in still
other areas, particularly in the south, houses are made of Hispaniola pine
and local hardwoods. When the owner can afford it, the outside of a house
is painted in an array of pastel colors, mystic symbols are often painted
on the walls, and the awnings are fringed with colorful hand-carved
In cities, early twentieth century bourgeoisie, foreign entrepreneurs, and
the Catholic clergy blended French and southern United States Victorian
architectural styles and took the rural gingerbread house to its artistic
height, building fantastic multicolored brick and timber mansions with
tall double doors, steep roofs, turrets, cornices, extensive balconies,
and intricately carved trim. These exquisite structures are fast
disappearing as a result of neglect and fires. Today one increasingly
finds modern block and cement houses in both provincial villages and urban
areas. Craftsmen have given these new houses traditional gingerbread
qualities by using embedded pebbles, cut stones, preformed cement relief,
rows of shaped balusters, concrete turrets, elaborately contoured cement
roofing, large balconies, and artistically welded wrought-iron trimming
and window bars reminiscent of the carved fringe that adorned classic
gingerbread houses.
Haitians in Gonaïves celebrate the deposition of President
Jean-Claude Duvalier in February, 1986.
Food and Economy
Read more about the .
Food in Daily Life.
Nutritional deficits are caused not by inadequate knowledge but by
poverty. Most residents have a sophisticated understanding of dietary
needs, and there is a widely known system of indigenous food categories
that closely approximates modern, scientifically informed nutritional
categorization. Rural Haitians are not subsistence farmers. Peasant women
typically sell much of the family harvest in regional open-air market
places and use the money to buy household foods.
Rice and beans are considered the national dish and are the most commonly
eaten meal in urban areas. Traditional rural staples are sweet potatoes,
manioc, yams, corn, rice, pigeon peas, cowpeas, bread, and coffee. More
recently, a wheat-soy blend from the United States has been incorporated
into the diet.
Important treats include sugarcane, mangoes, sweetbread, peanut and sesame
seed clusters made from melted brown sugar, and candies made from
bittermanioc flour. People make a crude but highly nutritious sugar paste
Haitians generally eat two meals a day: a small breakfast of coffee and
bread, juice, or an egg and a large afternoon meal dominated by a
carbohydrate source such as manioc, sweet potatoes, or rice. The afternoon
meal always includes beans or a bean sauce, and there is usually a small
amount of poultry, fish, goat, or, less commonly, beef or mutton,
typically prepared as a sauce with a tomato paste base. Fruits are prized
as between-meal snacks. Non-elite people do not necessarily have community
or family meals, and individuals eat wherever they are comfortable. A
snack customarily is eaten at night before one goes to sleep.
Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions.
Festive occasions such as baptismal parties, first communions, and
marriages include the mandatory Haitian colas, cake, a spiced concoction
of domestic rum (
), and a thick spiked drink made with condensed milk called
. The middle class and the elite mark the same festivities with Western
sodas, Haitian rum (Babouncourt), the national beer (Prestige), and
imported beers. Pumpkin soup (
)is eaten on New Year's day.
Basic Economy.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the
poorest in the world. It is a nation of small farmers, commonly referred
to as peasants, who work small private landholdings and depend primarily
on their own labor and that of family members. There are no contemporary
plantations and few concentrations of land. Although only 30 percent of
the land is
considered suitable for agriculture, more than 40 percent is worked.
Erosion is severe. Real income for the average family has not increased in
over twenty years and has declined precipitously in rural areas. In most
rural areas, the average family of six earns less than $500 per year.
Since the 1960s, the country has become heavily dependent on food
imports—primarily rice, flour, and beans—from abroad,
particularly from the United States. Other major imports from the United
States are used material goods such as clothes, bicycles, and motor
vehicles. The Haitian has become primarily domestic, and production is
almost entirely for domestic consumption. A vigorous internal marketing
system dominates the economy and includes trade not only in agricultural
produce and livestock but also in homemade crafts.
Land Tenure and Property.
Land is relatively evenly distributed. Most holdings are small
(approximately three acres), and there are very few landless households.
Most property is privately held, though there is a category of land known
as State Land that, if agriculturally productive, is rented under a
long-term lease to individuals or families and is for all practical
purposes private. Unoccupied land frequently is taken over by squatters.
There is a vigorous land market, as rural households buy and sell land.
Sellers of land generally need cash to finance either a life crisis event
(healing or burial ritual) or a migratory venture. Land is typically
bought, sold, and inherited without official documentation (no government
has ever carried out a cadastral survey). Although there are few land
titles, there are informal tenure rules that give farmers relative
security in their holdings. Until recently, most conflicts over land were
between members of the same kin group. With the departure of the Duvalier
dynasty and the emergence of political chaos, some conflicts over land
have led to bloodshed between members of different communities and social
Commercial Activities.
There is a thriving internal market that is characterized at most levels
by itinerant female traders who specialize in domestic items such as
produce, tobacco, dried fish, used clothing, and livestock.
Major Industries.
There are small gold and copper reserves. For a short time the Reynolds
Metals Company operated a bauxite mine, but it was closed in 1983 because
of conflict with the government. Offshore assembly industries owned
principally by U.S. entrepreneurs employed over sixty thousand people in
the mid-1980s but declined in the later 1980s and early 1990s as a result
of political unrest. There is one cement factory—most of the cement
used in the country is imported—and a single flour mill.
In the 1800s, the country exported wood, sugarcane, cotton and coffee,
but by the 1960s, even the production of coffee, long the major export,
had been all but strangled through excessive taxation, lack of investment
in new trees, and bad roads. Recently, coffee has yielded to mangoes as
the primary export. Other exports include cocoa and essential oils for the
cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. Haiti has become a major
transshipment point for illegal drug trafficking.
Imports come predominantly from the United States and include used
clothing, mattresses, automobiles, rice, flour, and beans. Cement is
imported from Cuba and South America.
Division of Labor.
There is a large degree of informal specialization in both rural and
urban areas. At the highest level are craftsmen known as bosses, including
carpenters, masons, electricians, welders, mechanics, and tree sawyers.
Specialists make most craft items, and there are others who castrate
animals and climb coconut trees. Within each trade there are subdivisions
of specialists.
Social Stratification
Class and Castes.
There has always been a wide economic gulf between the masses and a
small, wealthy elite and more recently, a growing middle class. Social
status is well marked at all levels of society by the degree of French
words and phrases used in speech, Western dress patterns, and the
straightening of hair.
Symbols of Social Stratification.
The wealthiest people tend to be lighter-skinned or white. Some scholars
see this apparent color dichotomy as evidence of racist social division,
but it also can be explained by historical circumstances and the
immigration and intermarrying of the light-skinned elite with white
merchants from Lebanon, Syria, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, other
Caribbean countries, and, to a far lesser extent, the United States. Many
presidents have been dark-skinned, and dark-skinned individuals have
prevailed in the military.
Both music and painting are popular forms of artistic expression in
Political Life
Government.
Haiti is a republic with a bicameral legislature. It is divided into
departments that are subdivided into arrondissments, communes, commune
sectionals, and habitations. There have been numerous constitutions. The
legal system is based on the Napoleonic Code, which excluded hereditary
privileges and aimed to provide equal rights to the population, regardless
of religion or status.
Leadership and Political Officials.
Political life was dominated between 1957 and 1971 by the initially
popular, but subsequently brutal, dictator François "Papa
Doc" Duvalier, who was succeeded by his son Jean-Claude
("Baby Doc"). The Duvalier reign ended after popular
uprising throughout the country. In 1991, five years and eight interim
governments later, a popular leader, Jean Bertrand Aristide, won the
presidency with an overwhelming majority of the popular vote. Aristide was
deposed seven months later in a military coup. The United Nations then
imposed an embargo on all international trade with Haiti. In 1994,
threatened with the invasion by United States forces, the military junta
relinquished control to an international peacekeeping force. The Aristide
government was reestablished, and since 1995 an ally of Aristide, Rene
Preval, has ruled a government rendered largely ineffective by political
Social Problems and Control.
Since independence, vigilante justice has been a conspicuous informal
mechanism of the justice system. Mobs have frequently killed criminals and
abusive authorities. With the breakdown in state authority that has
occurred over the last fourteen years of political chaos, both crime and
vigilantism have increased. The security of life and property,
particularly in urban areas, has become the most challenging issue facing
the people and the government.
Military Activity.
The military was disbanded by United Nations forces in 1994 and replaced
Polis Nasyonal d'Ayiti
Social Welfare and Change Programs
The infrastructure is in a very poor condition. International efforts to
change this situation have been under way since 1915, but the country may
be more underdeveloped today than it was one hundred years ago.
International food aid, predominantly from the United States, supplies
over ten percent of the country's needs.
Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations
Per capita, there are more foreign nongovernmental organizations and
religious missions (predominantly U.S.-based) in Haiti than in any other
country in the world.
Gender Roles and Statuses
Division of Labor by Gender.
In both rural and urban areas, men monopolize the job market. Only men
work as jewelers, construction workers, general laborers, mechanics, and
chauffeurs. Most doctors, teachers, and politicians are men, although
women have made inroads into the elite professions, particularly medicine.
Virtually all pastors are male, as are most school directors. Men also
prevail, although not entirely, in the professions of spiritual healer and
herbal practitioner. In the domestic sphere, men are primarily responsible
for the care of livestock and gardens.
Women are responsible for domestic activities such as cooking,
housecleaning and washing clothes by hand. Rural women and children are
responsible for securing water and firewood, women help with planting and
harvesting. The few wage-earning
Haitians expect to haggle when making a purchase.
opportunities open to women are in health care, in which nursing is
exclusively a female occupation, and, to a far lesser extent, teaching. In
marketing, women dominate most sectors, particularly in goods such as
tobacco, garden produce, and fish. The most economically active women are
skillful entrepreneurs on whom other market women heavily depend. Usually
specialists in a particular commodity, these
travel between rural and urban areas, buying in bulk at one market and
redistributing the goods, often on credit, to lower-level female retailers
in other markets.
The Relative Status of Women and Men.
Rural women are commonly thought by outsiders to be severely repressed.
Urban middle-class and elite women have a status equivalent to that of
women in developed countries, but among the impoverished urban majority,
the scarcity of jobs and the low pay for female domestic services have led
to widespread promiscuity and the abuse of women. However, rural women
play a prominent economic role in the household and family. In most areas,
men plant gardens, but women are thought of as the owners of harvests and,
because they are marketers, typically control the husband's
Marriage,Family, and Kinship
Marriage is expected among the elite and the middle classes, but less
than forty percent of the non-elite population marries (an increase
compared with the past resulting from recent Protestant conversions).
However, with or without legal marriage, a union typically is considered
complete and gets the respect of the community when a man has built a
house for the woman and after the first child has been born. When marriage
does occur, it is usually later in a couple's relationship, long
after a household has been established and the children have begun to
reach adulthood. Couples usually live on property belonging to the
man's parents. Living on or near the wife's family's
property is common in fishing communities and areas where male migration
is very high.
Although it is not legal, at any given time about 10 percent of men have
more than a single wife, and these relationships are acknowledged as
legitimate by the community. The women live with their children in
separate homesteads that are provided for by the man.
Extra residential mating relationships that do not involve the
establishment of independent households are common among wealthy rural and
urban men and less fortunate women. Incest restrictions
extend to first cousins. There is no brideprice or dowry, although women
generally are expected to bring certain domestic items into the union and
men must provide a house and garden plots.
Domestic Unit.
Households typically are made up of nuclear family members and adopted
children or young relatives. Elderly widows and widowers may live with
their children and grandchildren. The husband is thought of as the owner
of the house and must plant gardens and tend livestock. However, the house
typically is associated with the woman, and a sexually faithful woman
cannot be expelled from a household and is thought of as the manager of
the property and the decision maker regarding use of funds from the sale
of garden produce and household animals.
Inheritance.
Men and women inherit equally from both parents. Upon the death of a
landowner, land is divided in equal portions among the surviving children.
In practice, land often is ceded to specific children in the form of a
sales transaction before a parent dies.
Kin Groups.
Kinship is based on bilateral affiliation: One is equally a member of
one's father's and mother's kin groups. Kinship
organization differs from that of the industrial world with regard to
ancestors and godparentage. Ancestors are given ritual attention by the
large subset of people who serve the
. They are believed to have the power to influence the lives of the
living, and there are certain ritual obligations that must be satisfied to
appease them. Godparentage is ubiquitous and derives from Catholic
tradition. The parents invite a friend or acquaintance to sponsor a
child's baptism. This sponsorship creates a relationship not only
between the child and the godparents but also between the child's
parents and the godparents. These individuals have ritual obligations
toward one another and address each other with the gender-specific terms
konpè
(if the person addressed is male) and
makomè
(if the person addressed is female), meaning "my coparent."
Socialization
Infant Care.
In some areas infants are given purgatives immediately after birth, and
in some regions the breast is withheld from newborns for the first twelve
to forty-eight hours, a practice that has been linked to instruction from
misinformed Western-trained nurses. Liquid supplements usually are
introduced within the first two weeks of life, and food supplements often
are begun thirty days after birth and sometimes earlier. Infants are fully
weaned at eighteen months.
Child Rearing and Education.
Very young children are indulged, but by the age of seven or eight most
rural children engage in serious work. Children are important in
retrieving household water and firewood and helping to cook and clean
around the house. Children look after livestock, help their parents in the
garden, and run errands. Parents and guardians are often harsh
disciplinarians, and working-age children may be whipped severely.
Children are expected to be respectful to adults and obedient to family
members, even to siblings only a few years older than themselves. They are
not allowed to talk back or stare at adults when being scolded. They are
expected to say thank you and please. If a child is given a piece of fruit
or bread, he or she must immediately begin breaking the food and
distributing it to other children. The offspring of elite families are
notoriously spoiled and are reared from an early age to lord it over their
less fortunate compatriots.
Tremendous importance and prestige are attached to education. Most rural
parents try to send their children at least to primary school, and a child
who excels and whose parents can afford the costs is quickly exempted from
the work demands levied on other children.
Fosterage (
) is a system in which children are given to other individuals or families
for the purpose of performing domestic services. There is an expectation
that the child will be sent to school and that the fostering will benefit
the child. The most important ritual events in the life of a child are
baptism and the first communion, which is more common among the middle
class and the elite. Both events are marked by a celebration including
Haitian colas, a cake or sweetened bread rolls, sweetened rum beverages,
and, if the family can afford it, a hot meal that includes meat.
Higher Education.
Traditionally, there has been a very small, educated urban-based elite,
but in the last thirty years a large and rapidly increasing number of
educated citizens have come from relatively humble rural origins, although
seldom from the poorest social strata. These people attend medical and
engineering schools, and may study at overseas universities.
There is a private university and a small state university in
Port-au-Prince, including a medical school. Both have enrollments of only
a few thousand students. Many offspring of middle-class and
The carnival that precedes Lent is the most popular Haitian
elite families attend universities in the United States, Mexico City,
Montreal, the Dominican Republic, and, to a much lesser extent, France and
When entering a yard Haitians shout out
("honor"), and the host is expected to reply
respè
("respect"). Visitors to a household never leave
empty-handed or without drinking coffee, or at least not without an
apology. Failure to announce a departure, is considered rude.
People feel very strongly about greetings, whose importance is
particularly strong in rural areas, where people who meet along a path or
in a village often say hello several times before engaging in further
conversation or continuing on their way. Men shake hands on meeting and
departing, men and women kiss on the cheek when greeting, women kiss each
other on the cheek, and rural women kiss female friends on the lips as a
display of friendship.
Young women do not smoke or drink alcohol of any kind except on festive
occasions. Men typically smoke and drink at cockfights, funerals, and
festivities but are not excessive in the consumption of alcohol. As women
age and become involved in itinerant marketing, they often begin to drink
(rum) and use snuff and/or smoke tobacco in a pipe or cigar. Men are more
prone to smoke tobacco, particularly cigarettes, than to use snuff.
Men and especially women are expected to sit in modest postures. Even
people who are intimate with one another consider it extremely rude to
pass gas in the presence of others. Haitians say excuse me (
) when entering another person's space. Brushing the teeth is a
universal practice. People also go to great lengths to bathe before
boarding public buses, and it is considered proper to bathe before making
a journey, even if this is to be made in the hot sun.
Women and especially men commonly hold hands in public as a display of
this is commonly mistaken by outsiders as homosexuality. Women
and men seldom show public affection toward the opposite sex but are
affectionate in private.
People haggle over anything that has to do with money, even if money is
not a problem and the price has already been decided or is known. A
mercurial demeanor is considered normal, and arguments are common,
animated, and loud. People of higher class
or means are expected to treat those beneath them with a degree of
impatience and contempt. In interacting with individuals of lower status
or even equal social rank, people tend to be candid in referring to
appearance, shortcomings, or handicaps. Violence is rare but once started
often escalates quickly to bloodshed and serious injury.
Religious Beliefs.
The official state religion is Catholicism, but over the last four
decades Protestant missionary activity has reduced the proportion of
people who identify themselves as Catholic from over 90 percent in 1960 to
less than 70 percent in 2000.
Haiti is famous for its popular religion, known to its practitioners as
"serving the
" but referred to by the literature and the outside world as
). This religious complex is a syncretic mixture of African and Catholic
beliefs, rituals, and religious specialists, and its practitioners (
sèvitè
) continue to be members of a Catholic parish. Long stereotyped by the
outside world as "black magic,"
is actually a religion whose specialists derive most of their income from
healing the sick rather than from attacking targeted victims.
Many people have rejected voodoo, becoming instead
katolik fran
("unmixed Catholics" who do not combine Catholicism with
service to the
, (Protestants). The common claim that all Haitians secretly practice
voodoo is inaccurate. Catholics and Protestants generally believe in the
existence of
but consider them demons to be avoided rather than family spirits to be
served. The percentage of those who explicitly serve the family
is unknown but probably high.
Religious Practitioners.
Aside from the priests of the Catholic Church and thousands of Protestant
ministers, many of them trained and supported by evangelical missions from
the United States, informal religious specialists proliferate. Most
notable are the voodoo specialists known by various names in different
houngan, bokò, gangan
) and referred to as
in the case of female specialists. (Females are viewed as having the same
spiritual powers as males, though in practice there are more
.) There are also bush priests (
pè savann
) who read specific Catholic prayers at funerals and other ceremonial
occasions, and
, initiated females who serve as ceremonial assistants to the
Rituals and Holy Places.
People make pilgrimages to a series of holy sites. Those sites became
popular in association with manifestations of particular saints and are
marked by unusual geographic features such as the waterfall at Saut
d'Eau, the most famous of sacred sites. Waterfalls and certain
species of large trees are especially sacred because they are believed to
be the homes of spirits and the conduits through which spirits enter the
world of living humans.
Death and the Afterlife.
Beliefs concerning the afterlife depend on the religion of the
individual. Strict Catholics and Protestants believe in the existence of
reward or punishment after death. Practitioners of voodoo assume that the
souls of all the deceased go to an abode "beneath the
waters," that is often associated with
lafrik gine
("L'Afrique Guinée," or Africa). Concepts of
reward and punishment in the afterlife are alien to
The moment of death is marked by ritual wailing among family members,
friends, and neighbors. Funerals are important social events and involve
several days of social interaction, including feasting and the consumption
of rum. Family members come from far away to sleep at the house, and
friends and neighbors congregate in the yard. Men play dominoes while the
women cook. Usually within the week but sometimes several years later,
funerals are followed by the
priè,
nine nights of socializing and ritual. Burial monuments and other
mortuary rituals are often costly and elaborate. People are increasingly
reluctant to be buried underground, preferring to be interred above ground
, an elaborate multi chambered tomb that may cost more than the house in
which the individual lived while alive. Expenditures on mortuary ritual
have been increasing and have been interpreted as a leveling mechanism
that redistributes resources in the rural economy.
Medicine and Health Care
Malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, intestinal parasites, and sexually
transmitted diseases take a toll on the population. Estimates of HIV among
those ages twenty-two to forty-four years are as high as 11 percent, and
estimates among prostitutes in the capital are as high as 80 percent.
There is less than one doctor per eight-thousand people. Medical
facilities are poorly funded and understaffed, and most health care
workers are incompetent. Life expectancy in 1999 was under fifty-one
In the absence of modern medical care, an elaborate system of indigenous
healers has evolved, including
Women are typically responsible for household maintenance and
marketing garden produce.
herbal specialists know as leaf doctors (
medsin fey
), granny midwives (
), masseuses (
manyè
), injection specialists (
), and spiritual healers. People have tremendous faith in informal healing
procedures and commonly believe that HIV can be cured. With the spread of
Pentecostal evangelicalism, Christian faith healing has spread rapidly.
Secular Celebrations
Associated with the beginning of the religious season of Lent, Carnival is
the most popular and active festival, featuring secular music, parades,
dancing in the streets, and abundant consumption of alcohol. Carnival is
preceded by several days of rara bands, traditional ensembles featuring
large groups of specially dressed people who dance to the music of
(bamboo trumpets) and drums under the leadership of a director who blows
a whistle and wields a whip. Other festivals include Independence Day (1
January), Bois Cayman Day (14 August, celebrating a legendary ceremony at
which slaves plotted the revolution in 1791), Flag Day (18 May), and the
assassination of Dessalines, the first ruler of independent Haiti (17
The Arts and Humanities
Support for the Arts.
The bankrupt government provides occasional token support for the arts,
typically for dance troupes.
Literature.
Haitian literature is written primarily in French. The elite has produced
several writers of international renown, including Jean Price-Mars,
Jacques Roumain, and Jacques-Stephen Alexis.
Graphic Arts.
Haitians have a predilection for decoration and bright colors. Wood boats
kantè
, second hand U.S. school buses called
, and small enclosed pickup trucks called
are decorated with brightly colored mosaics and given personal names such
kris kapab
(Christ Capable) and
gras a dieu
(Thank God). Haitian painting became popular in the 1940s when a school
of "primitive" artists encouraged by the Episcopal Church
began in Port-au-Prince. Since that time a steady flow of talented
painters has emerged from the lower middle class. However, elite
university-schooled painters and gallery owners have profited the most
from international recognition. There is also a thriving industry of
low-quality paintings, tapestries, and wood, stone, and metal handicrafts
that supplies much of the artwork sold to tourists on other Caribbean
Performance Arts.
There is a rich tradition of music and dance, but few performances are
publicly funded.
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