The Birth of Modern-Day Haiti (Part 1) (Lecture 2)
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HAT3564: Haitian Culture and Society The Birth of Modern-Day Haiti (Part 1) (Lecture 2) All right. Welcome to Haitian Culture and Society. We are in Module 5. This is lecture 2. My name is Ben Hebblethwaite. Thank you very much for tuning in to this lecture that deals with the birth of modern day Haiti. And of course this is part two of four lectures. OK. So we're going to start today's lecture on My Panama Hat Fell Off. Panama'm Tombe in Haitian Creole. And this is in the contemporary period a famous Haitian folk song that is interpreted by numerous contemporary artists, such as Reginald Policard's 2004 jazz interpretation, which of course I'd like to invite you to check out. It is a very nice jazz version of this song. It'll give you an idea of how the melody goes and how Haitians renew their musical history by hybridizing, let's say, traditional or classical Haitian material with new modern styles, like jazz. And there you see Policard's album, Jodi a, which means "today." So Louis Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite was president at the time. And he journeyed to Jacmel to try and quash an uprising headed by Merisier Jeannis, a Caco leader. So the Caco were farmers who opposed the central government and took up arms against them. Here you can see President Hyppolite charging off to Jacmel, a town in the south of Haiti on the coast. And he's attempting to squash the rebellion. But on his way, Hyppolite suffered a heart attack and fell from his horse and died. But the thing is, though, before that fateful occurrence, his hat had gotten knocked off on a tree branch, and many people took this to be a premonition for his heart attack. So these Panama hats were popular and often worn by dignitaries. Actually, they were made in Ecuador but distributed in Panama. We learned from the editors of the text. So let's take a look at this song that deals with the fall of powerful people from their positions of authority and the random, even absurd ways that they perish. "I left the city of Jacmel, headed to Lavale. As I approached the Bene crossroads, off fell my Panama hat. My Panama hat fell. My Panama hat fell. My Panama hat fell. Whoever's behind me, pick it up for me." So, OK, doesn't really make a very clear allusion to the heart attack of the president. But since that is a well-known back story that informs the song, it's commonly recounted by people. Encapsulated in this a premonition of losing his hand on the way to fight his sworn enemies, the Caco. OK, so the next song-- or let's say poem is by Oswald Durand, called God, Work, and Liberty. And Oswald Durand is a celebrated Haitian songwriter and poet, living between 1840 and 1906. He's a famous patriot and composer of patriotic songs. He authored the Chant National, or the National Song, with the composer Occide Jeanty in 1888. Today, this song is commonly referred to as the Presidential Hymn. You can hear it performed at a parade for President Preval, who was in power in the early 2000s, mid 2000s. It's a very interesting clip, so I do ask you to click on that. For the poem God, Work, and Liberty, here there is a warning that independence will be fleeting without work. And the notion of work is a fundamental cultural value in Haiti. In all of Haiti's subcultures, work is deeply valued and respected. So the language of the poem includes references to the forefathers, whose blood fed our hills. So again, the blood of the martyrs of the ancestors who died to liberate Haiti is an immutable image in Haitian patriotic poetry and throughout Haitian culture. OK. The people are referred to in this poem as yellow and black. Of course, the yellow referring to mixed-race people. There is a harking back to the founder of the nation in the text. And I cite, "Let us work the land Dessalines left us." So again, Dessalines is seen as the founder and was the founder of the nation, since he declared Haitian independence in Gonaives on January 1 of 1804. We read in the poem, "We need the strict motto-- God, Work, Liberty." OK, so poem with this evocation of God, work, and liberty really does smack of state-sanctioned poetry or a kind of poetry that aspires to please the figures in power. So work is seen as the driving force of Haiti's development. I don't think anybody would debate that. So now we don't have the animations on the screen, but that's quite all right. We read in the poem, "Salute the hero of Vertieres, Capoix la mort, great and godlike." And there on the right, you can see a postage stamp dedicated to Capoix la mort. The name Capoix la mort meaning Capoix of death, or Capoix death, referring to his brave fighting and his fearlessness. Another notion encapsulated in the expression attributed to him-- boulet fe se pousye. So [SPEAKING FRENCH]. The idea is, charge ahead, iron bullets are dust. So he expressed this fearlessness in battle against the French and encourage his troops to adopt that attitude. So he was a great inspirer, and then there, you can see he's remembered in the poem as such. The eternal memory-- sweat of slaves. OK, so the tragic enslavement of the founders of Haiti is then an abiding theme in this poetry of the 19th century, as we saw in the beginning of the 19th century. And in the 20th century and 21st century, this theme remains just as poignant in Haitian literature. The poet refers to martyr's blood. Of course martyrs are people who died for their beliefs. He mentions Chavanne and Oge on the infamous wheel of torture. "You, old Toussaint, in your dungeon at Joux." We've barely mentioned Chavanne and Oge. They are both very well-known figures of the 1780s and 1790s. Really the 1780s. They were mixed-race citizens of Saint-Domingue who fought for the rights of mixed-race people. And not so much the rights of black citizens in Saint-Domingue. So in that respect, they're seen as early partisans of the mixed-race political genealogy. Now their protest against the French was quashed. Both were killed, executed on a wheel of torture at the end of the 1780s. So actually they were executed before the Haitian Revolution began in 1791. The poem also references children in Africa. "Yellow and black, sons of the same cradle." So here we see this vision of a unified Haiti that is a part of the earliest aspirations in Haitian poetry. And we also hear a reiteration of the idea of living free or dying in a kind of updated version-- progress or death. "Watch us attempting the difficult feat from afar, working the land that in the year 1804, our ancestors conquered for us with their might." So in this short passage from Durand, we get the message of reverence for ancestors and heroes. A commitment to the ideology of work and progress. But especially, of farm work, since the expression "working the land" obviously refers to that type of labor. And then the emphasis on racial unity. The next text is the National Anthem, called La Dessalinienne, the Dessalinian, by Justin Lherisson and Nicolas Geffrard. So this is an incredibly important text, since Haitians are singing it at sporting events, at national occasions, ceremonies, and so on. So this song was drawn from a contest that was held in 1903 to establish a national anthem. And in it, you have terms like "march on," "loyal subjects," "sacred soil," "the flag," "the native land." So this is obviously a type of state poetry or a state anthem. We hear the message of unite for ancestors and country. So this honor of the ancestors is a critical feature of Haitian culture. And we see it returning over and over again, this respect for the ancestors. A gladness in labor. God of the brave is the way that the god of the Haitians is described. And then a selfless patriotism in the notion expressed here, "'Tis fine to die for flag on high." Now I want to encourage you, especially if you are able to understand Haitian Creole to listen to the incredible Haitian Creole translation of La Dessalinienne performed at this YouTube link. Or you could hear the French version of The Dessalinienne, available also on YouTube. These are very interesting, so that you can become acquainted with Haitian ideas and also the history of Haitian music. La Dessalinienne counting among the most well-known Haitian songs, of course. Well, this marks the end of lecture 2 of Module 5. And I'd like to thank you for tuning in. And don't forget that there will be two more videos in Module 5 for you to enjoy. Thank you so much. .