Copyright by Ehoda Metraux 1951 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. KITH AND KIN A Study of Creole Social Structure in Marblai, Haiti Rhoda Mstraux 1951 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. La fariiro.ll * socible, 0 Criol1 o nous la La fanmill1 semble 0 nan point Guinea encore La famill' eerable. (Quoted from Harold Courlandor: Haiti Singing.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Foreword This monograph is a partial report on field research in the region of Marbial, Department de 1’Quest, Haiti, during a period of some eighteen months between April 1 948 and April 1950* The field work, carried out under the direction of Dr. Alfred Metraux, was planned and executed in preparation for s. pilot project in fundamental education under the joint auspices of the Government of Haiti and the United Nations Educational, 1 Scientific and Cultural Organisation. I jiyself was not a member o.t the fsLd team working in Marbial and, in fact, have never been in Marbial. My participation in the study was limited to the v/ork I did with Dr. Metraux in drawing up the original program; later, when I was in Haiti from December 1948 to May 1949, I took part in discussions of field problems and coilab02*ated in the writing of interim field reports. For approximately six months in 1943 Dr. Metraux had working with him a student team, supported by a grant from the Viking Fund. This group included Mr. Remi Bastien, a graduate student of the Escuela Nacional de Anihropologia, Mexico, D.F, , and several other young Haitian anthropologists in training. To them I am indebted for many of the excellent Creole notes. In addition, Dr. Metraux had as collaborators during most of the period of the survey Miss Jeanne Sylvain, a trained social worker, and Mr. Edouard Berrouet, an agronomist. Other collaborators were Miss Yvonne Oddon of the Musee de 1'homme, Paris, and Dr. Susanne Comhaire-Sylvain and Dr. Jean Comhaire-Sylvain. Dr. Robert A. Hall, Jr., of Cornell University, 1. For a brief description of the original working plan, cf. Alfred Metraux: "Anthropology and the UNESCO Filot Project of Marbial (Haiti)." America Indigana, Vol. IX, No. 3, July 1949, pp. 133-194* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv came to Port-au-Prince in the spring of 1949 to gather materials for a linguistic analysis of Creole. Dr. Hall had access to folklore and other materials collected by the team, upon which I have also drawn here. For this monograph Dr. Metraux made fully available to me the main body of his notes and those of his team, including Mr. Bastion1 e brief report to the Viking Fund. Dr. Suaanne Comhairs-Sylvain generously per mitted me to use her statistical data on a sample of 147 Marbial house holds. In the spring of 1959, when this manuscript was in preparation, Dr. Metraux did some special interviewing at my specific request to check a number of doubtful details. In the chapter on kinship usage (X), I have incorporated data from my own work in Port-au-Prince and from my interviews with one woman informant with whom I checked various points. I have also referred occasionally — usually in footnotes — to analogous material on religion (Vodou) from my observations in Port-au-Prince. Finally, I have made use of two preliminary published reports by Dr. 2 / Metraux, on agriculture, and by Miss Sylvain, on child care. / My own field experience in Haiti, although brief, has stretched out over several years. In 1941, Dr. Metraux and I worked for about two and one-half months in the environs of Port-au-Prince and in the north on the lie de la Tortus. In another short trip in the winter of 1946-47, we 2. Alfred Metraux, "Etude sur 1'Agriculture paysanne dans une Vafl.ee Haitienne." Acta Americana. Vol. VI, Nos. 3-4, 1948, pp. 173-191. Dr. Metraux* s full report covering this subject is now complete, but has not been available to me. Jeanne Sylvain, "La Infancia Campesina en el Valle de Marbial (Haiti). America Indigena, Vol. IX, No. 4, October 1949, pp. 299-332. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. V undertook a study of Vodou in Port-au-Prince. It was after this trip that I cade my first plan for a study of Haitian culture with the late Dr. Ruth Benedict, whose suggestions then have been of the greatest value in working out the ideas presented in tais monograph. I continued my work on Vodou in the winter and spring of 1948-49, but none of the material on this subject has as yet been published. In the past nine years, I have discussed Haitian problems with many Haitians, and it would be almost impossible to trace my many obligations to them. In particular, I am indebted for advice and assistance to Dr. Pries Pars, to Dr. Sujsanne Comhaire-Sylvain and Dr. Jean Comhaire-Sylvsin to Madeleine and Max Buchereaux, to Miss Joanne Sylvain, to Mrs. Odette Rigaud, and to the late Jacques Roumain. I owe thanks to the patience and persistence of my informants in the ohfo of Port-au-Prince, especially to my self-appointed teacher and ’’baptismal relative” Cicero St. Aude. All those of us who have done fieldwork in Haiti owe gratitude to Dr. and Mrs. Melville Herskovits, who laid the groundwork for further studies not only in Dr. Herskovits' book but also in their personal relations with so many Haitians, Finally, I have to thank Dr. Alfred Metraux, the best of field companions, at whose request this study of Marbial was undertaken. Rhoda Metraux Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Foreword iii I* Introduction 1* Background: Haiti, The People and their History 3 2. Statement of the Problem? Authority in Greolo Culture 22 Part 1. The Neighborhood II. Martial: The Setting 41 III. The Neighborhood 54 X?. Affiliations through Work SI V. The Lines of Authority 11? VI. Leta: The State 140 Part II. The Family FIX. The Family: Tradition and tho Living Reality 169 VIII. Marriage* Husband - Wife and Children 1SS IX. Inheritance and Ownership: Parents and Children, Siblings 221 X. Kinshio and its Extensions 2S1 XI* Conclusions: The Image of Authority 298 Appendices' A A Note on Creole Orthography 330 B Agricultural Calendar 33S C A Note on Polygyny and the Rights of Natural Children 337 D Four Martial Families 33S Bibliography S53 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I. Introduction 1. Background; Haiti* The People and their History Modern Haiti :1s a republic, the second oldest independent nation in the Hew World-, It is a small country* whose people share a cables cultural heritage of Ettrcpe and Africa* Haiti oecrapies the western third of the island discovered by Columbus ca his first voyage and Turned by him Espsanola; it is the second largest of the greater Antilles. Neighbors to the Haitians on the island are tho Spanish-speaking people of the Dominican Republic* 1 There are today some 3,500*000 Haitians, moot of them the descendants of French colonials and the myriad men and women brought from Africa to work as slaves on plantations in the eighteenth century* Haitians look to .Francs for their European antecedents- end* even while sturdily maintaining their hard-won freedom* 3herish above all the 2 contributions of French civilisation to their culture. There are two languages in Haiti*, French* the official language* is used meticulously by the educated upper class; to loam French is the heart’s desire of all who long to improve their economic condition and climb the difficult ladder of political and social success* Oracle is everyone’s language* (l) This is an unofficial estimate of the population. An official census is now (in 1950} in progress* (g) James G* Leybura in The Haitian People* Itfew Haven* Yale'University Press* 1941, p. £89, sugg^stT^M'ifltai^T’T"relati onship to France is sn isolating one* since the European ties* culturally* of Haiti’s neighbors are rather with Spain (and Portugal)* However, it may be remarked that Haiti is, like her neighbors* a Catholic country* whore Protestantism, has taken only a small hold* Furthermore* although Haiti’s links to France are more direct, one should not overlook tho proselyting influence of France among educated groups in other Latin American countries, whose second language is likely to be French* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -4~ 3 the only language spoken by the peasantry and urban lcwer class. ^ Yet each constantly enriches the other. Everyday spoken French is given zest and idiosyncratic turns by the concise and apt idioms of Creole; French supplies net? vocabulary for Creole, especially among urban speakers. On this island, the earlier indigenous people — the Arewak whom CaLumbu3 so disarmingly described an the day of his landing^ — left small mark. Some of the foods they grow are still basic in the diet. But for 5 6 the rest, a vague romantic tradition, ruins long buried, a skeleton stretched undisturbed in a cave, a carved image, a modelled sherd dug up in a field and cherished by its finder as the repository of a god, are reminders of this past; all has suffered a sea change. It was rather in their catastrophic disappearance that the Arawak played a part in the 7 future of the island. For they survived only as a handful in 1510, (3) The mo3t recent study of Creole is that now in preparation by Or. Robert Hall. This is based in part upon materials collected by the UNESCO team in Marbial. See Appendix A, A Note on Creole Orthography. (4) Samuel Eliot Uorison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea-, a Life of Chrla~ topher Columbus. Two Vols. Boston, Little firown "and Company, 1942o (5) The tradition of the Indian inhabitants of the island plays a larger rfil© in the elementary histories of Haiti than does the background history of the Negro peoples who came to replace the Indians. Cf. Manuel d'Histoire d'Haiti by Dr. J.*C. Doraainvil with the collaboration of Freres de l'instruction Chretienne, Port-au~Prince, Procure des Freres de l'instruction Chretienne, 1949, a textbook for use in the upper division of primary schools and in secondary schools. "Indians” in rich, fantastic costumes are traditional figures in the carnival processions in Port-au-Prince. (6) Cf. Irving Rouse; Culture of the Fort Lfberte Region. Haiti. Hew Haven, Yale University Press, 1941, (together with a study by F. Rainey) for a description of the largest systematic archaeological excavation in Haiti. (7) It is estimated that 200,000 Indians in Espanola died of a smallpox epidemic in 1500 alone, cf. Leyburn, op. cit. p. 273. Many fought and were killed, others died in the Spanish mines, and still others, no doubt, fled. The Spaniards had little success in their attempts to bring other Indians to the island. Consequently they were forced to look elsewhere for labor. The passionate espousal of the native peoples by a fen man like las Casas, who sought to serve and convert the Indians, t»flH8^rt£8*i§5VfuK ^rin6inS Negroes to the Hew TCerld, to Mexico os Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.