Arthur Huff Fauset, "Jumby" (1927) (short fiction)
From Ebony and Topaz, 1927
JEAN-MARIE tossed fitfully upon her bed of straw until a cock, crowing shrilly in the early morn awoke her with jarring suddenness. She raised herself slightly, and fearing to open her eyes, clutched the wall of the thatch-roofed hut, in order to steady her trembling body.
Feverishly she felt of her waist, her temples, her pale brown limbs, and her feet. She was puzzled. Assuredly there was something wrong. But where? She peeled open her eyes timorously. As the delicate brown lids slowly unfolded, she beheld the marvelous blue Caribbean, bobbing gently, playing a child's game, as it were, with the rising sun.
Jean-Marie shivered. Then from her throat came a tiny sound like the cluck of a hen. She stretched out full length on her back, and extending her clasped hands as far as possible from her body, she heaved a sigh of gladness.
Thanks be to Jumby, a dream! Suppose, now, that she had awakened to find herself bitten by a cobra, her limbs swollen double, and her pale amber brownness turned a hideous black! Just suppose Kasongo, the obeah man, could really put "nastiness" upon her, and she had awakened with Barbados Big Foot (elephantiasis), and thousands of tiny chiggers building their houses in the seams of her feet!
Ah, the chiggers! They got everywhere, and into everything. You could not move for the chiggers. And how they did bite! She gazed upon a tiny red splotch on her arm, and scratched it ruefully. The more she scratched the more it burned.
But the blacks did not mind the chiggers. Manja, sleeping over there in the corner, her almost naked body exposed to the caprices of brown scorpions, red and green lizards, mosquitoes, huge white ants, and roaches big as fingers... she did not mind the chiggers. Why, she had colonies of them, on her elbows, the sides of her hands, of her feet! The tops of her feet were live chigger-hives. But Manja did not mind....
But then, what had she to do with these folk anyway! She did not look like them, she did not think like them. They were black; she was pale brown. Their eyes were constantly red, and the whites spotted with gelatine-like masses which affected their sight. Hers were clear like the Caribbean, and soft and brown like a chewink's feathers. Instead of the brittle, harsh mat of hair which adorned their heads, rough almost to prickliness, her hair was black, and soft like velvet or silk.
Jean-Marie leaped lightly from her bed, and glided to the door of the hut. Her tall slim figure was lithe like a leopard's; her pale brown limbs moved with the grace of a beautiful race horse. She opened wide the door and gazed at the silent wonder of the island on which her home was situated.
Mateka, the sacred mount, towered in the distance, some dark green knight, hiding his crest in a thin white mist. The sun, a streak of white in a pale blue sky, peeked his head over the mountain's top.
Jean-Marie noted the light green patches by the side of the mountain, where the blacks had cultivated their cane and their cotton, and the roads, looking like brown streaks crawling up the great hill. She saw a dozen tiny sail -boats, much like geese feathers, tossing and bobbing on the Caribbean. Far in the distance, the native huts looked like cattle lying in the grass.
Frogs croaked. Crickets chirped. Tall palms, glistening in the sunlight, and looking like sentinels on the side away from the sun, bended and swayed to the occasional purring of the breezes.
Far off a boy was yodeling. Somewhere a woman was hoeing and spading. Be- tween the pat-pats of her hoe, she sang snatches of lines from hymns taught by Wesleyan missionaries:
"that Jesus doied fo' me."
Jean-Marie remained some moments entranced. The spell was broken, however, by a sudden rustling of leaves in front of the hut. Out of the shrubbery, hobbled an old woman. She was black, and she wore a head-dress of red and gold which sparkled in the sunshine. In her mouth was a clay pipe, in her right hand a gnarled stick which she carried for a cane. She wore a simple frock of brown and white, and her feet were bare.
They called her Ganga the Good.
"Hyeh, hyeh," she fairly screamed as she perceived Jean-Marie standing in the doorway. Her cry aroused Manja and two other women who dwelt in the hut.
"Hyeh, hyeh, lookit, lookit," Ganga cried again.
She pointed to a spot on the ground, some distance away from the hut. Everyone rushed to see.
"Da' he," she said. "Jumby comin' dis toime roight hyeh. Sure, Oi knows you be's de one sometoime, Miss Jean-Marie. Hyeh be's it, roight where's Jumby's put it."
Breathlessly, they crowded about the speaker who gazed intently upon an object on the ground. There lay the head of a white cock, its beak pointing to the corner of the hut where Jean -Marie slept.
"Bukra," shouted Manja, as she turned to Jean-Marie, a malicious look in her red eyes, "nas'iness shor' git you dis toime. Laf' on an' hop skippity-skip, but you kitch de chigger foot yit."
Blood mounted to Jean-Marie's cheeks.
"So!" she exclaimed. "Maybe if I have chigger foot, Babu trade my brown leg for your ugly black leg of an elephant!"
"E-yah, e-yah," screamed Manja, the whites of her eyes glistening with rage.
"You bukra bitch. You no say nas'iness come ovah you.... You see... mebbe you leg swell like banyan; mebbe breasts look like jellies (cocoanuts; mebbe you guts rot an' grow snakes... wait an' see... e-yah, e-yah."
Manja spat on the ground. She turned her back on Jean -Marie and rushed back to the hut, dragging her "big foot" behind her.
Ganga looked at Jean-Marie and pointed to the cock's beak. Then directing a warning finger towards the young girl she said, "Keerful, white chile... white cock mean badness... trouble pointin' yo' way."
Kasongo
MANJA hobbled away from the ajoupa (thatched hut) of Kasongo the obeah man.
Kasongo lived far back in the island, away from the village, away from the road, away from the sea. He had to hide himself. Were not the police everlastingly on his heels, trying to send him to Antigua for a good ten years' stretch, with twenty lashings a week?
But he had been too clever for the stupid police. Anyway, they were afraid of him, afraid of his charms. Was it not a common saying that when Kasongo looked at a man thru his dead eye (the other eye was like fire, he was sure to be caught in a squall and die by drowning? or if you caught him whistling thru his hare-lip it meant loss of a dear one?
When Flonza, the half-Indian wife of Francois died suddenly, even the police knew that Kasongo had baked a tarantula, beaten it into powder, and secreted it in Flonza's food. And why?... So that Francois might marry another woman.
There was Mariel. He was secretly hated by Kasongo, because he had gone to the States and learned powerful obeah. Fool! Mariel should have known better than to drink whiskey out of Kasongo's glasses. Everyone knew that Kasongo had a habit of slipping powders made from maggots, roaches and crickets in his whiskey. No wonder Mariel developed swelling in his right arm. What might have happened if he had not gone over to Martinique and consulted the most powerful obeah man on the island? There they slit open his arm with a knife. His hand was alive with small black worms! Only the powerful medicine of the obeah man prevented them from eating him up alive. Instead, they came jumping out of his flesh like skippers from a piece of rotten ham....
Manja hurried to a sequestered spot under some tall banyan trees. She emptied the pocket of her dress of some charms she had received from Kasongo. There were strands of hair taken from the dead body of a man who had died from " bad man's' disease (syphilis, some huge yellow-stained toe -nails, a clot of human blood, a dried chicken gizzard, and a rabbit's paw. All had been dipped in a peculiar black powder.
She bound these together in a piece of cloth torn from an old dress worn by Jean-Marie. Standing with her back to the sun, she held the bag over her left shoulder and mumbled these words:
Be some Peter
Be some Paul
An' be de Gahd dat mek us all,.
Spin ball,
Spin jack,
An' ef she don' do whut you says
May I neber come back.
Then she hastened to the hut where Jean-Marie lived. No one was about. She walked rapidly to the little plot of earth behind the hut, where every evening just before sun-down Jean -Marie tended her tiny garden. Near a favorite rose-bush Manja placed the charm on the ground, saying softly,
Not for Manja,
Not for Adova,
Not for Merve,
But only for Jean-Marie.
Then she strode briskly into the hut and prepared for evening.
Jumby
IN the heart of the night Jean-Marie woke suddenly. Her eyes felt like blazing coals.
Feverishly she gazed out on the starry firmament. The heavens were a curtain of soft velvet studded with diamonds. Moonbeams, the molten music of star-elfs, streamed into the hut, and played weird tunes in the sunken depths of her eyes.
Night, the black obeah man who sprinkles star dust in lovers' potions, drugged her with his lures, and before she was able to recover from the magic spell of soft loveliness, her body was aflame with madness and longing.
(Oh, Jungle Girl, with amber face, why do you struggle against a foe who draws you tight with bands like steel, and will not let you go? Oh, Jungle Girl, with eyes so pure, would you be a jungle lover and scoff at jungle charms? Oh, Jungle Girl, with limbs pale brown, fly, fly to your destiny! She looked in the direction of Manja and saw a dark bundle, half clear in the moonlight. Manja was asleep.
Fever mounted in her body. The spell of love added to its flame until the pallet on which she lay burned like a bed of fire.
She tried to cool the flame which was her body by crooning soft words to her lover:
Babu, my Babuji, you will come to me.
Say, Babuji, that you will come.
Oh, my Babuji, come to me... come.
Quietly, so that Manja should not hear, she murmured the words of a lovesong taught her in Trinidad by her African grandmother who had learned it from a wander- ing Zulu:
U-ye-ze, u-ye-ze,
Ma-me! U-ye -ze U-mo -ya!
U-ye-ze, u-ye-ze,
Ma-me! U-ye -ze U -mo -ya!
Nakuba
Se-ku -li-
Ba-nchi la-ke ngo-
Sha -da na -lo
Ngomte-to!
He cometh, he cometh,
Rapture! Cometh the Strong Wind!
He cometh, he cometh,
Rapture! Cometh the Strong Wind!
Let me have
But his robe,
And the marriage vows
I will utter,
By the law!
Her body moved in rapturous rhythm with each note. She imagined herself in the arms of her lover, and that she was perishing in a fire of passion.
Abruptly she ceased her chanting. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the faint din of beating. Gradually it swelled, then as gradually died away, only to swell again.
Jean-Marie listened intently. She heard. E-yah! Jumby!
Dum-a -lum -a -lum (pom -pom
Dum-a-lum -a-lum (pom-pom
a-Dum -a-lum -a-lum
a-Dum-a -lum-a-lum
Dum -a-lum-a-lum (pom -pom
E -yah! Jumby!
Eh! eh! Bomba, hen, hen!
Canga bafio te,
Canga moune de le,
Canga do ki la,
Canga li.
All of her body was aflame. Her eyes, her ears, her hands, and those pale brown limbs were like live coals of fire. Her bed had become a pyre.
Like a panther pierced by the hunter's spear, she leaped from her cot, and gliding across the floor of the hut, rushed out into the moonlight. Louder and louder the drums beat. Swifter the pale creature sped along her path.
The way was tortuous and long. The Jumby Dance must not be within hailing distance of the police, and beside, members of the village would never have it said that they believed in Jumby.
Jean-Marie sped over the dense underbrush. Her tiny feet tripped over the brambles and thorns with the lightness of a hare. Her brown body moved forward with the speed of a gazelle.
Over hills tracked with sharp-pointed stones she traveled; down into valleys where the tangled grass lay hidden neath the waters of the swamp she trod. The gray mongoose darted from beneath her feet, and occasionally a huge field rat; but these she never saw.
She came nearer the spot from whence sounded the monotonous call of the drum.
Its tones sank louder into the depths of her heart.
Dum-a-lum-a-lum
Dum-a-lum-a-lum
As she came out of a clump of forest, she suddenly espied a hut in a small open space close by the ocean. Tall cocoanut palms, and mango trees heavy ladened with fruit, sheltered it from the moon's beams.
The drumming stopped abruptly, as Jean -Marie appeared like some elfin sprite under the shadowed moon-light.
She approached the hut.
There, squatting on the ground, she perceived dimly the forms of nearly a score of men and women, many of them old. They were barefooted, and naked except for loin -cloths. All of them wore amulets, made from sharks' teeth, dried frogs, and mummified rats.
As she came near to them, they rose, then bowing almost to the ground, they murmured, "Welcome, fair daughter of the kings. Welcome."
The door of the bamboo hut opened. A tall dark man appeared. He was be- decked in leopard skins, and with charms which rattled all over his body like many sea-shells. His body was smeared with the blood and brain of fowls, and his eyelids were daubed with white paint.
Extending his arms towards Jean -Marie, he greeted her.
"Welcome, oh daughter of the kings," he said. "Many days and nights we have been waiting for you. At last Jumby has sent you forth. Enter with me, for this night we feast to Jumby, and celebrate with the dance of the leopard."
Jean-Marie clasped her hand in his, murmuring, "Babuji, my Babuji.... I have come at last... to you Babuji... at last I have come."
The head-man beckoned to the others to follow. Slowly they filed in couples into the hut.
The room was nearly bare except for a small table which was alight with the unsteady gleam of ten candles placed around its edges. The flickering flames cast eerie shadows on the walls of the hut.
In the center of the table was the body of a two -footed creature, half beast, half fowl, made from carcasses of small animals sewed together, into which had been stuffed the entrails of a cow. Mounted on its neck was the head of a white cock. A roasted pig, squatting with its fore-paws extended was to the left, and to the right was the roast carcass of a huge gray rat.
These were the gifts to the Jumby.
Jean-Marie and the company bowed in silence before the objects on the table, and formed around them in a circle. Soon the sputtering candles mixed their vapors with the stench of sweat and unwashed bodies.
"Daughter of the kings," intoned the head-man, "soon Jumby will appear. You are his daughter, and the mother of the children of men. Pray guard your children well."
He bowed and disappeared silently into the darkness.
As the door closed upon him, a drum suddenly sounded a warning note. Almost hidden, it stood with the drummer in a corner of the room.
"E-yah!" shouted the drummer. "E -yah! It is Jumby."
He commenced to beat slowly and gently, accompanied by the sound of rattles and castanets which another tall figure played upon. Softly the drummer began chanting an African melody as if imploring Jumby to enter the hut and partake of the feast prepared for him....
But Jumby does not appear. The drummer as if to coax him, quickens his beat, and raises his voice; then permits the song to die down to a low sob, while the measures of his beating become long and sustained.
Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, the door opens. In the diminishing candle light it is difficult to make out the head-man, who clad in his leopard skins, silently enters the hut. But the drummer has seen the door open. He beats madly upon his instrument and sings:
Mbwero! Mbwero! Mbwero!
Beware! Beware! Beware!
Jean-Marie steps out from the group and prepares to save her children from the ravages of the leopard, who by this time is seen almost creeping on all fours. Meanwhile the crowd of dancers move slightly, now forward, now backward, keeping time with the drummer, and shouting.
Mbwero! Mbwero! Mbwero!
Jean-Marie dances nearer the leopard. She sings:
Be careful, children.
It is Jumby in the form of a leopard.
Be careful! Mbwero! Mbwero! Mbwero!
Her "children" scream and sing, all the while stepping backward and forward to the drum accompaniment.
Slowly the leopard advances, sniffing the air, but at first ignoring the dancers and proceeding to the feast prepared for him on the table. He bows before the central figure, then proceeds to eat portions of the roast pig and roast rat. Suddenly he turns upon the crowd, and with his tongue extended and emitting terrible growlings, he throws them into convulsions of fear.
Madder beats the drum. Wilder the hissing of the snares and rattles. More hideous the screams of the participants to whom the intoxicating effect of sweat, burnt tallow, and palm oil which is poured on the candles to make them sputter, bring a strange reality to the dance.
Jean-Marie in the role of protector, steps in front of her children, and attempts to keep off the onslaught of the leopard. Her steps grow quicker, now forward, now backward. As she moves backward she motions to the children behind her to flee, calling out to them, "My children, Mbwero!"
The participants imitate her steps, her motions, her calls.
The leopard, swaying and measuring his step to the music of the drummer, dashes forward suddenly, and catches one of Jean-Marie's children, whom he sets aside. Jean- Marie screams defiance, but he brushes her aside and snatches another child from her protecting embrace.
One after another of her children he captures, until only a single child remains. Jean-Marie has become exhausted. Her steps become slower and feebler. She clings to the remaining child with fingers that are numbed with weakness and exhaustation. No use... the leopard seizes it also, and casts it aside to be devoured.
Once more the drum beats wildly. Jean-Marie the mother has become a furious tigress. Her children are all dead. Must she die also?
The leopard slowly approaches her. Jean Marie rushes to attack him, then retreats with backward steps. With claws protruding, the leopard rushes again, but the snarling Jean-Marie holds her ground, forcing him to turn back. The leopard prepares to leap.
Jean-Marie seizes a club which rests on the table for the purpose, and lifts it high over her head in order to strike the leopard and slay him....
Behold... a silver gleam from the thatched roof-top. It is the flash of a cobra's fang, which darts like an arrow straight into the pale brown arm of Jean-Marie. One shrill scream she utters, and falls in a heap on the floor.
Now she seems to be swimming against an overpowering current. Her arms and limbs become numb and heavy. She feels a terrible swelling in her breasts. Her eyes are balls of fire burning, burning, burning. There is a putrid smell in her nostrils, as of flesh rotting... and the sensation of myriads of swarming creatures....
Jean-Marie awoke from an age of slumber. Startled, she looked into the loving eyes of Ganga the Good.
"But-but-the cobra-" she gasped, feeling her arms and limbs.
"Po' chile," whispered Ganga, "dat was mighty close call. All de jumbies sho' dancin' in you."
"But Ganga... my children...
... where are they?"
"Da now, Bukra chile, you mus' a seed all dat de night we fin' you tearin' t'roo de bush. Fever mos' burn you to def!"
She held Jean -Marie close in her arms.
"Bukra chile," she said softly, "ma po' Bukra chile."
"Babuji," whispered Jean-Marie, “ my Babu-ji. ”