FAIRY TALES AND HORROR STORIES FROM MARTINIQUE

by Précilia LELEU

   

 

Have you ever heard a noise at night and said to yourself, "well, it's just the cat, or the wind..."? You never thought that it was a bad spirit, did you? Then listen carefully to what I have to say…

 

Some Creatures From Our Folklore

 

In Martinique, there are many fairy tales and legends, some to make children laugh, and others to make them afraid. Like in every part of the world, people talk about haunted houses, ghosts, witches and so on, but this country also has its own unique horror stories about such things as Gens gagés and Souclians.

  • Gens gagés are people who have signed a pact with the Devil. They come in the form of a horse with three hooves, an ox or a pig.
  • Zombies are dead people who have come back to life, sometimes with a human appearance and who play different nasty, inexplicable tricks on you.
  • Souclians and Volants are people who transform themselves into phosphorescent birds. In transforming, they leave their skin, flying away into the night…
  • Quimboisé are wizards who deal with black magic, chant incantations in order to harm other people and make concoctions, talismans, mascots, etc...
  • Diablesses are women who gather around kapok trees when it is full moon. They are said to be married to the Devil. When they come together, they chant incantations and capture children.

However, there are also tales with friendlier characters like Compè Lapin - even if he is always teasing - Compè Toti and Compè Tigre. They are all animals who have taken a human form. In the tales, these characters make blunders (just like us!) and so reveal the moral of the story. There are tales which explain, for example, why dogs are unable to speak. When my parents were children, these stories would make them dream. They learnt how to respect life and animals by thinking about these Compè.

 

 

Old Malvin

Malvan was a bad man. He had killed a lot of slaves in a very cruel manner. One night, he had the premonition that his death was approaching so, not wanting to die sleeping, he fled from his house and rode his white horse far away.

He arrived at a beach where he saw several huts. "These are Nèg mawon* houses," he thought to himself. But he was wrong. Instead, the houses belonged to the slaves that Malvan had killed. They were all there, Dominguez with his entire family, Akollo and many others.

Coming outside, the slaves called out to Old Malvin:

"It's me! You buried me in the ground up to my head and red ants ate out my eyes."

"Do you remember me? I'm Dominguez! You beat me because I had run away, so I tried to escape again, this time with my children. We took refuge in a hole and you burnt us alive in it."

"Curse ! Curse!" cried all the slaves together.

They were horrible. The old man died without even closing his eyes.

Sometimes at night, you might hear the sound of galloping. Beware: It is the ghost of Old Malvan and his horse. For his horse never returned home either, but went to hell with his master.

*Nèg mawon: Slaves living as bandits in the wild after having escaped from a plantation.

 

Warding Off Evil

There are several ways of avoiding finding yourself as the next character in one of these stories!

  • To chase bad spirits away from your house, you can surround it with hail.
  • A grocer uses several superstitious practices to keep away evil spirits. He places a piece of bread and a flask of wine on top of a cupboard and leaves a pair of scissors open like the Holy Cross.
  • When Souclians fly away, they leave their skin behind. They can be killed by rubbing this skin down with hot chillis.

However, there are people who do not need these practices because they were born coiffé, implying that they are not afraid of ghosts or zombies or any other evil being.

Are you one of them? Are you sure?

 

 
 

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