The creole garden
The Creole garden is like a jumble of plants behind the house, and it has everything. Indeed, different species rub shoulders and move in on each other, one plant helping the other, as if to respond to a certain connection between plants that "consent" to the power of cooperating together. It's obviously a mess, but in reality, it's an organized mess, for the Creole garden is arranged so that each layer of vegetation acts as an ecological niche, and does so by complementary association. Plants are placed in such a way as to support one another. The Creole garden is generally very busy, as it's full of different types of vegetation, and the plants are in symbiosis with each other.
According to farmer-writer Romain Bellay, "breadfruit trees, coconut palms, apricot trees, avocado trees, lemon trees and orange trees are planted at suitable distances to allow the sun to penetrate. Beneath these trees, banana trees of various varieties, such as plantain, kankanbou, makandia, apple fig banana and dwarf ti, known as Cavendish banana, are planted on a scale so that no plant gets in the way of another
The glyricidia plants will act as fences, feeding the soil with their nitrogen. The christophines, to be planted by a foreigner, will benefit from the stakes of the yam planted on a dune, a kind of pit that will facilitate its excavation when the time comes. The center of the garden is planted with dachines, Caribbean cabbage and other tubers, alongside tomatoes, eggplant and spinach. Bitter cassava will be planted at the edge of the garden, as its toxic leaves will ward off stray sheep and goats. Head cabbage is intercropped in the banana furrows. Masisi, the scientific name for which is Cucumis anguria, are small, creeping cucumbers covered in thorns, like green hedgehogs. They should be placed at the edge of the tracks. Lettuce, pearl onions, small-leaf thyme and parsley are planted high up in wooden boxes on stilts, to prevent them from being soiled by toads or dogs. The medicinal plants are close to the house, as are the large cisterns or metal "barrels" placed under the gutters to collect rainwater. Rabbits in the hutch and chickens in the caloge provide manure.
The Creole garden and nature. The association of plants attracting ladybugs has not been forgotten. These natural helpers devour aphids and mealybugs, which is no mean feat. Nature takes care of everything on its own. Here, it will help fight parasites without insecticides, while there, the giraumons and sweet potato vines will act as ground cover. The ground is already covered in places with a jumble of leaves, most of them sweet pea leaves (Inga laurina). The decomposition of these leaves will serve as manure and feed the soil with nitrogen or potassium, as well as limiting evaporation by keeping the soil cool, thus saving water. Weeds, deprived of light, will no longer grow. Don't forget to refer to the moon to plant at the right time.
Derived from Amerindian civilizations, and doubtless also from African traditions, it is in any case one of the results of colonization. Is it not possible that the Creole garden is the result of all these traditions combined? Without pesticides or fertilizers, multiple species coordinate with each other, and better controlled use of water and sunlight benefits everyone, including plants planted in such a way that one benefits the other.
These principles are reminiscent of the basic foundation of permaculture, which is also inspired by the benefits of nature. Permaculture was developed in the 1970s by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who seem to have taken the Creole garden as their model.
Creole garden and chlordecone. Today, Martinique's soil is a victim of the chlordecone molecule - which was sown in the island's banana plantations from 1972 onwards to kill the proliferating banana weevil - killing plants by eating them from the inside out. The consequence of its excessive effectiveness is that it has already killed far more humans - causing prostate cancer in particular - than weevils. This led to the chlordecone scandal. With the soil contaminated for many decades before the product dissolves, everyone is trying to remedy the situation as best they can, and increasingly trying to be self-sufficient in terms of food production, using this centuries-old tradition on their own land. The Creole garden is an enduring model of ecologically-based cultivation.
Cocoa
Cocoa or cacao tree(Theobrama cacao), in Creole piékako meaning "food of the gods". The tree produces pods containing beans. These beans, roasted, pounded and mixed with pepper, chilli and water, have been used for some 3,000 years to prepare a fermented drink that served as food for the gods during important rituals. Christopher Columbus, on the island of Guarana, was able to taste it on his last voyage in 1502.
The tree lives in the shade of others, which protects it from direct exposure to the sun. In its natural environment, it can reach heights of 10 to 15 meters. Native to Mexico, it is frequently found in the Orinoco basin and Amazonia. Throughout the year, it produces both flowers and fruit. The flowers, and consequently the fruit, grow directly on the trunk of the tree, a phenomenon known as cauliflora.
The origin of the name cacao. The French term cacao appeared in 1532, and owes its origin to the Spanish cacao, itself borrowed from the Aztec cacahuatl, with the same meaning. The pod is elongated. Its color gradually evolves from almond green when it's still very small, to yellow, then, when fully ripe, the pod takes on a much deeper orange color, turning black when the fruit is completely dry. Dry cocoa does not fall from the tree. The pod contains brown beans covered with a sweet, whitish pulp called mucilage. Cocoa powder is made from the bean, which is a bitter almond that is dried in the sun, then the pulp is removed from the dry mucilage, toasted and crushed or ground. The powder obtained after roasting and grinding the bean kernel is used to make chocolate.
The cocoa stick, baton kako dou or gwo kako. Who in Martinique doesn't know the cocoa tree and its pods? People from the countryside surrounding our towns, who hasn't experienced the harvesting of these yellow cocoa pods, generously offering their fruit directly on their trunks, often within the reach of a child's hands? Who hasn't broken their pods, certainly to hear the "pok" clatter on the ground, but also and above all to eat the soft, sweet mucilage surrounding the beans, reminiscent of a sweet pea (scientific name Inga Laurina)? Who hasn't helped spread cocoa beans out on sacks to dry in the sun? Who, troubled by the fear of someone who knows that not a single drop should get them wet, didn't watch out for rain, as a weather professional? Who didn't help to roast the dried beans, as best he could with his little arms as an apprentice? Who didn't want to grind "their share" in a small pestle and be proud to show off the result: a stick of cocoa like you can still find at the Foyal market. Each child was one of the lucky ones, and their grandmother was able to explain the secret - which isn't a secret at all - of making the cocoa stick, which, a long, long time ago, is said to have had its own accompanying song: dansé kako.
Those who heard the sound of dry leaves chirping in their own way as they trod on them, experienced real happiness under the cocoa trees (anba kako a). This Creole expression shows the importance of activity in everyday life. Another, rather disdainful, expression refers to milat anba kako, a destitute mulatto, a " field rat" whose only riches are his color, his hair and his pretension, and who cultivates a plot of land. He is contrasted with the bourgeois, contemptuous mulatto, a "city rat" who can only feed off the books that cultivate him. Their shared arrogance has long made them forget that their mother is black.
Major suppliers of beans to the Elot chocolate factory at the time, the anba kako mulatto women sold him bags and bags of beans.
The cocoa industry in Martinique. The traditional know-how of Elot chocolate. Cocoa cultivation in Martinique is rare but not non-existent, and for some time now the plant has been enjoying a definite revival. The Elot chocolate factory, well known in Martinique for its kakodou bars , is a small business that dates back to 1911. Formerly located opposite the cathedral in Fort-de-France, it has now moved to the industrial zone of Le Lamentin, where bean delivery should be much easier. She receives imported beans to balance the scales, but her product also comes from Martinique's terroir. The chocolate is roasted on site in the chocolate factory, where a master chocolatier and five employees work. No one here knows the surname Elot, so it is claimed that, like Hergé's name, the acronym Elot is simply the two letters of the alphabet L and O put together.
Frères Lauzéa chocolate. It was in 2004 that two brothers, Jimmy and Thierry Lauzéa, who had always shared a passion for mouth-watering sweets, decided to create an artisanal range of chocolates and fruit jellies to, they say, "honor the know-how of the Antilles". They call their creation "Secrets de confiseur". In the same vein, they opened their first boutique in downtown Le Lamentin in 2005. Their reputation quickly spread beyond the boundaries of Le Lamentin, with the shop in the village moving to Mangot Vulcin, and a second boutique joining the previous one in 2008, this time in the heights of Fort-de-France, in Didier. They now specialize in chocolates. Thus was born the Frères Lauzéa boutique, which at the same time changed its name. It attracts customers from all over the world, even buying chocolate for brothers, relatives, friends and allies from out of town. Their reputation is well established, and they match the taste and quality of many of the great chocolatiers. Our chocolatiers' boutique will receive several awards, first in 2011 at the Paris Fair, then at the Salon du Chocolat de Paris in 2013. On this occasion, they were recognized as being among the 20 best chocolatiers in the world!
The goal of always promoting products from the Caribbean remains their challenge. They will open a boutique in Guadeloupe, and benefit from the services of authorized retailers in Paris, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy. They will also forge various partnerships with artists. The two brothers started out with a dream, and they seem to confirm Judith Olney's statement that: "Chocolate is, of course, the stuff that dreams are made of. Rich, dark, silky-smooth dreams that unsettle the senses and arouse the passions".
The VALCACO association. The VALCACO association brings together cocoa producers in Martinique. It was created in 2015 by 10 producers who want to promote the revival of a cocoa industry of excellence in Martinique. For VALCACO, the aim is to support the Martinique cocoa industry in "standardizing the production and quality of merchant cocoa and obtaining a distinctive sign of quality: towards a label for 'Martinique cocoa'".
In the 17th century, Martinique's renowned cocoa had unfortunately suffered from the vagaries of cyclonic diseases and bad weather, causing a considerable decline in production. Over the following centuries, cocoa production remained the somewhat timid initiative of a handful of farmers. Today, Martinique's cocoa industry would like to see the same productive fervor revived. As a result, the association has decided to relaunch and increase the production of quality local beans, enable the development of innovative products, and contribute to the emergence of expertise on Martinique beans.
A training component has been set up, and in 2019, thanks to the courses provided, the association has grown to 40 members. Martinique now offers a whole range of flavors, and cocoa beans from Martinique have their own specific characteristics and aromatic notes that enable them to stand up to the competition. That's why in 2017, present at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris, for the International Cocoa Award competition, VALCACO-labeled cocoa beans were entered among the world's 18 best. VALCACO is an agricultural cooperative.
The tradition of first communion chocolate. It's known as First Communion chocolate, but the only thing that makes it First Communion is its origin. It used to be eaten during family celebrations and first communions. Things have changed since then. Nowadays, it's served at the end of the evening, or around 4 a.m. when the festivities are almost over. What makes this chocolate so special, which can be offered at any festive moment, is the bitter almond taste that enlivens its flavor. It's a liquid chocolate that requires a good quantity of grated baton-kako in sweetened milk containing cinnamon, lemon, nutmeg, a little starch to thicken it, and the peanut cream essential to differentiate it from common everyday chocolate. And of course, it must be accompanied by homemade matted butter bread. Tousa sé tété dwet ("it's all delicious").
The coffee
The coffee that we see less and less in Martinique is not unknown to us. It comes from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia. It met with great success around 500 AD, as we read in the grimoires, where legend has it that an Arabian goat herder named Kaldi followed his goats to observe what was making them so restless. The goats were feeding on the berries of a shrub. The man ate them too, and in turn became so euphoric that he told others about them. This is how Kaldi the cattle herder is said to have introduced the world to the secrets of coffee: Kaldi had just exposed his taste buds to caffeine.
In the 13th century, the idea of roasting and grinding the beans eventually gave rise to the beverage we drink today.
The first coffee to be exported. Until the 17th century, in order to maintain a monopoly on coffee production, the berries were scalded beforehand to prevent germination, and thus any new competition on the market. And so, through a variety of often clandestine dealings, dried berries began to spread. They were also officially distributed to Europe's leading botanical gardens. In 1616, a coffee plant of uncertain origin was brought to Amsterdam, where it was carefully preserved in the botanical garden, where seedlings were transplanted and cultivated. In 1714, a young plant was transferred to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and received by the naturalist Antoine de Jussieu.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the Dieppois infantry captain Gabriel-Mathieu de Clieu, who later gave his name to a square in Fort-de-France called "le Jardin Desclieux" - the well-known site of today's tax office - had the idea, on one of his trips to the West Indies, of bringing back a few coffee seedlings to establish cultivation in Martinique.
Some authors claim that on a first trip in 1720, the plants all died. In 1723, the man set sail for Nantes, more cautiously this time, taking care to place the coffee plants in a glass-covered box to maintain the heat necessary for their survival.
"He had learned to live rough in Martinique, at least in the early days of his settlement as a sugar cane planter, and could easily make do with a grabat and a bowl of hot soup.
- Where shall we put this?" the innkeeper asked suspiciously, no doubt also believing that an animal should be confined in what seemed to him to be a cage.
- Well, in my room, please! retorted the Dieppois without showing his face... Gabriel-Mathieu then removed the blanket that concealed two shrubs... " (Raphaël Confiant, Grand café Martinique, Mercure de France).
Having escaped sabotage, the coffee plants will have to endure the trials and tribulations of this long-haul voyage, with unexpected attacks by pirates criss-crossing the seas, not to mention the dreaded storms, always at the mercy of gusts of wind that put the whole crew in danger. They also had to put up with shortages of food and water, which had become a rare commodity, to the point where Clieu was practically forced to share his daily "drop" of water with his feet of coffee. On their arrival in Prêcheur, the young coffee trees were planted on Clieu's Habitation, where they quickly multiplied sufficiently to spread the coffee crop. The coffee plant is of good quality.
After holding out well, coffee cultivation spread to Martinique, the first crops were produced and coffee cultivation spread more widely in the Caribbean, eventually spreading throughout the region as plants were supplied by settlers to Guadeloupe and Santo Domingo.
Coffee, beverage and meeting place. The preparation of green coffee involves various stages. In our childhood, it was not uncommon to come across a small field of coffee trees, or even to buy green coffee in the "débit de la régie" - meaning a country grocery store - but nowadays, the berries are no longer harvested from the bushes as in the past, when slaves were assigned to this task. They collected them in large sanbouwa (bamboo baskets), whose contents they spilled into a "grager mill" that they operated by hand to squeeze them out of the cherry sheath. The beans were then washed in a basin where impurities were washed away by running water, before being drained. These beans, still covered with their parchment, were spread out over large spaces reserved for the drying stage. Next, the vertical wheel of the grinding mill loosened the parchment without crushing the beans. Finally, the "winnowing mill" was used to blow the parchments into the air. The beans were sorted on long tables before being placed in large canvas bags, ready for the long journey ahead. Roasting was not carried out at the place of production, but at the point of sale. As a result, in local production, each family roasted its own coffee, using its own know-how to produce a coffee with subtly different flavors from those of other artisans.
In 1852, with the price of sugar having reached its peak, the heavily taxed coffee sold poorly, and the colonists sacrificed their last plantations of cocoa and coffee trees to replace them with fields of sugar cane.
Coffee and the slave trade. Coffee, like sugar cane, stimulated the development of the slave trade, enriching wealthy families to the detriment of the lives of hundreds of thousands of men bent under the yoke of slavery. The abolition of slavery led to a sharp drop in coffee production, which survived by other means, driven in particular by growing world demand. Coffee even became the national beverage of the United States. In every country in the world, the coffee machine or coffeemaker became indispensable. For children, coffee, very watery, with stale bread soaked in it, was called café tjòlòlò or dlo-kafé and was much appreciated in the morning. Coffee has become a global product, and its affordable price has made it a popular beverage, much appreciated for its tonicity.
However, coffee growing has not completely disappeared from the Martinique landscape, and the quality of certain coffees remains prestigious.
La Tivolienne coffee, created in 1940, is a family-run artisanal roasting business that owes its name to the place where it is prepared: the Tivoli district in the cool Balata area. The coffee is also known to locals as "café Levert", named after Édouard Levert, the entrepreneur who founded the company and died in 1976. It produces ground roasted coffee. In Martinique, the production of Arabica typica coffee, a world-renowned grand cru, is highly sought-after. In Durivage, Ducos, the liberia typica, a tall plant renowned for its large berries that give a very strong coffee, has disappeared from the environment in favor of a much more recent crop: fields of... concrete. Japanese experts have identified one of the world's finest coffees, which still exists in Ducos, in this same area. It's a coffee that produces small berries. The plant is said to have arrived from Poland in 1925, and the current owner is a nonagenarian who can no longer keep track of it.
CIRAD (Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement) wants to re-establish a coffee industry that would plantArabica typica. This sector covers 32 of the island's 34 communes.
Toloman, the local starch
Toloman(Canna Indica) is a dictamus. It is a 50 cm to 1.30 m tall herbaceous plant of the Cannaceae family native to the Caribbean, tropical America, Amazonia and Africa. Toloman is also known as arrowroot. In Martinique, the plant is cultivated for its red and yellow flowers, as well as for its orange flowers, which have light-brown leaves that can be used for decoration. The fruits are medium-sized capsules covered with small prickles. When ripe, they turn dark brown. The capsules contain pea-sized black seeds in the shape of small hard balls. These seeds grow rapidly and can produce flowers in their first year. Archaeological evidence points to the plant's presence in Peru 4,500 years ago. Some rhizomes are cultivated to make toloman, an edible flour used as a starch for infant and elderly nutrition.
Use of toloman starch. By metonymy, the starch also bears the same name. It is extracted after harvesting the rhizome, which is washed, peeled and grated. The residue obtained is placed in a container where it is diluted several times, without discarding the water, which is passed through a sieve or a very fine, clean cloth. Squeeze the pomace, collect the water and leave it to settle overnight. The next day, carefully discard the excess water that has settled, and dry the resulting starch. This flour is used to make what is known as toloman flour, which is widely used to make "dlo toloman", a creamy base for baby food. Mixed with a little water, toloman is diluted and cooked in milk to obtain a thick cream, and to make gluten-free, easily digestible porridges, an ancestral preparation decried by some doctors in favor of certain multinationals who gained a good clientele in the process. Fortunately, those days are long gone.
Other uses. Toloman starch can also be used in chocolates as a thickener, and can be added to soups, sauces, puddings, creams or porridges. It can be diluted in milk flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon zest, to make cream.
In addition to the food it provides, the root of the plant supplies medicines and cosmetics. Its medicinal virtues are numerous.
The therapeutic virtues of toloman. Toloman was introduced to the Lesser Antilles by the Caribbean Indians, for whom it was indispensable for healing. The English name arrow-root may be due to its ancient medicinal use: the Amerindians used it as an antidote to curare, the poison with which they soaked the tips of their arrows.
Other uses. Toloman is an excellent diuretic, effective against painful menstruation and fever, and promotes perspiration. It regulates intestinal function. Dissolved in water, it relieves heartburn. The leaves are diuretic and emollient. Powdered seeds are used to treat dermatitis. They are also used as a poultice placed on the forehead to relieve headaches. Toloman is a highly effective depolluting plant, mainly for absorbing formaldehyde: formaldehyde. It's in the same family as Jerusalem artichoke, banana, ginger, turmeric and heliconias.
Musical accessory. Toloman seeds are used to make chachas. These are maracas, a kind of local rattle - often an empty metal box - into which toloman seeds are inserted to make a percussion instrument with a metallic sound. You can also use a small calabash into which the seeds are placed.
Cassava
Manioc in Martinique, a tradition. For a long time, manioc was part of the Martinican landscape, as practically every plot of land had a plot reserved for growing manioc, not forgetting the indispensable flour mill. As early as 4 a.m., the flour mill was turning to supply the neighborhood with the necessary cassava flour, cassaves and moussache. And then, as the saying goes, "After a time comes another", cane mills everywhere began to pant, at the same time and together. But the flour mills, also out of breath, soon gave up. Then, flying to the rescue of the turmoil, the supermarkets arrived with their shopping malls to introduce modernity.
Did cassava lose its considerable role in our territory? Not at all, because one courageous district, populated by indomitable Lorrinois, still holds its ground in the countryside of Reculé. It produces a magical flour that has continued to be made for five generations now. The Ragald family grows and harvests a local product that can be used to make flour, cassave à la moussache: manioc. The accompanying song, grajé manniok, is no longer in vogue, as these bards have long since left... for Galilee ("they are dead", as the Creole expression goes).
The origin of manioc. The French term manioc is attested as early as 1556. Manioc(Manihot esculenta) is a dicotyledonous plant. It is native to South America, particularly the Amazon basin. Itis a shrub that can reach 2 m in height. All parts of the plant contain a toxic white latex. One cassava plant yields 4 to 8 tubers, which are floury when grated. Cassava is grown in tropical and subtropical regions for its starch-rich root. As with toloman, the term "manioc" designates both the plant itself and, by metonymy, its root or the flour extracted from it.
History of cassava. Taking into account previous writings, we learn that cassava has been cultivated by local populations in the north of present-day Bolivia(Llanos de Moxos) for around 10,000 years. It was discovered by Europeans in 1500 when the Portuguese navigator Cabral landed in Brazil with his men. Following his voyage to Brazil in 1555 and 1556, André Thevet described cassava in a work in which he said: "Thus today our savages make flour of these roots which we have called Manihot, which are as big as the arm, a foot and a half or two long: and are twisted and oblique commonly. And is this root of a small shrub about four feet, the leaves are almost similar to those we name from par-deça pataleonis [alchemilla], as we shall demonstrate by figure, which are six or seven in number; at the end of each branch, is a leaf half a foot long and three fingers wide. Now the manner of making this flour is such. They pound or grate these dry or green roots with a large tree bark, all lined with small, very hard stones, in the same way as a nutmeg is made; then pass this on to you, and heat it in a few vessels over the fire with a certain quantity of water; then stir the whole, so that this flour becomes small suckers, like grained manna, which is wonderfully good when it is new and feeds very well.
From Peru, Canada and Florida, throughout this continental land [...] even as far as the Strait of Magellan, they use this flour, which is very common there, even though the distance from one end to the other is over 2,000 leagues; and they use it with flesh and fish, as we do with bread here"(in Les Singularitez de la France antarctique).
The great French traveller and writer Jean de Léry, author of Histoire d'un voyage fait en la terre du Brésil (History of a voyage to the land of Brazil), points out that "short of provisions, he bartered manufactured goods for food, including cassava flour".
There are many different varieties of manioc. In Martinique, two varieties in particular are grown: bitter cassava and sweet cassava.
Bitter cassava. The cassava we commonly use is bitter cassava. It is toxic because it contains cyanide. Its skin is thin, brown and rough. The raw tuber is unfit for consumption, but grated and detoxified, the root yields manioc flour, cassava and tapioca. The latter is documented in a book by Dutch ambassador and explorer Jan Nieuhof, who visited Brazil between 1640 and 1649. He mentions the manufacture of a type of cake made from cassava flour called tipiacica. La mouchas in Creole or moussache in French, a starch that owes its name to the Spanish word muchacho , meaning child. Moussache is the child of cassava. Indeed, bitter cassava is used to produce flour for cassave, moussache and tapioca, which are used to make pastries and thicken sauces. The product obtained after a long detoxification process resembles a dry semolina with medium-sized, white grains. It is a starch, a more appropriate word for "flour", which comes from a root. The preparation of cassava flour should be left to professionals, as unfamiliarity with this product is a source of serious health risks. Bitter cassava contains dangerous toxins. Its latex has been used by the Kalinagos for hunting and fishing.
Sweet cassava. Sweet cassava is smaller than bitter cassava, and is covered with a thick skin under a brown film that peels off easily from the white flesh. Called Camanioc in Martinique, it is a vegetable that can be eaten directly, like a yam. Its leaves are pale green. It contains eight times less cyanogenic toxicity than bitter cassava. Its tubers are used to make alcoholic beverages in Brazil. Sweet cassava is eaten as a vegetable, boiled in salted water after peeling. It is often served with other roots: sweet potato, yam, dachine, which can be cooked in the same water, and can accompany fish and meat in sauce. You just have to know the difference.
In José E. Mendes Ferrão's Le Voyage des plantes et des Grandes découvertes (XVe-XVIIesiècle ) éditions Chandeigne 2020, the Portuguese historian Gândavo reports that the natives also made beers from sweet cassava: "They make a lot of wine to get drunk from theaypim root [sweet cassava], which they cook and then have young virgin girls chew, then press into large pots and drink three or four days later".
Cassava in our culinary habits. We like to eat cassava ferociously. Féroce contains a little bit of chilli to enhance the taste, boneless cod, crumbled and mixed with mashed avocado and cassava flour. We also like it sprinkled over kidney beans or lentils, or as matété. Matété contains cassava flour, milk and sugar, which children love for breakfast. As a snack, it's sweetened cassava flour or sweetened or salted cassava.
Today, private individuals offer demonstrations of cassava flour, cassave and moussache to schoolchildren and tourists.
Lasotè, a special way of farming
Interview by Isambert Duriveau.
What is lasotè ? No one has been able to pinpoint the origin of this term. Lasotè is a particular way of working the land collectively to the rhythm of the drum. It's a practice that has developed and endured among farmers in the North Caribbean region. Is it a question of attacking the land, as the literal translation of the word seems to imply? No one knows for sure. In the region, it was also called britè or gaoulétè.
The activity known as lasotè is an intelligent solution devised by the people and for the people, organized around the values of solidarity and mutual aid. The sosiété enabled the population of the North Caribbean to cope with the blockade of the Second World War, known as "antan Wobè" for Martinique and "antan Sorin" for Guadeloupe, which refers to the names of the governors at the time and corresponds to the Vichy period in hexagonal France.
However, according to Bernard-Copé Dossa, a researcher from Benin, the word is both Creole and of Gun or Goun origin, a West African population living in the south of Benin in the Porto-Novo region and sometimes living in Nigeria. The word is said to derive from wémé.
Wémé (or ouémé, gbe-weme, wéménugbé) is a Gbe language spoken by the Ouéménou people, who live in the Ouémé and Atlantique departments of southern Benin.
Unpacking the syllables of the word lasotè, he explains that Lâa means a portion of farmland that a worker has to clear in record time. It's an area of land between 2 and 8 meters wide and 80 meters long that a worker has to clear in a day in return for average labor. It's also the length of a biyon (wide flowerbed) in an average field.
So = Sö and means to take or commit oneself. Tê or Atê means to compete.
Lâasötè or Ajörou is in fact a form ofcollective mutual aid in which several workers or agricultural labourers put their cultural knowledge to the test in a contest to clear the land. They stand in a row, each facing the same portion of land to be turned over and over, under the incisive gaze of the critics, made up of young girls and elders. Often these spectators have come from the village and surrounding area to witness the energy of the bravest and most experienced.
A large lasotè brings together farmers from several districts. Some lasotè may bring together more than 45 bourè (Creole for ploughman) who were not bound to participate by any reciprocal work obligation.
Participants are motivated by the festive atmosphere, the conviviality, the competition between men, the food and drink provided by the beneficiary of the operation, and the favorable environment for encounters with women. Lasotè was organized by the farmer who, to plough his field, needed greater strength than that generated by all the members of his " sosiété ", the Creole word for a group.
The " sosiété ", in turn, is an organization of farmers who exchange work "coups" throughout the year, preferably in the mornings.
Each day, they take it in turns to work for a different member of the "osiété ". For the most part, these are people with family or friendly ties.
Lasotè is an organized method. Working the land together to the sound of the drum is not exclusive to the North Caribbean. In the North Atlantic, it was called lafouy-tè. In his book Diab la, Joseph Zobel situates it in the Saint-Esprit countryside south of Martinique, where it was practiced under the name koudmen (mutual aid activity).
Lasotè , also known as lafouy-tè or britè, is a way of organizing work so as to carry out production activities together, in which solidarity and understanding are in action and harmony. In the 1960s, this collective work practice came up against the steamroller of consumer society, but the faith and valour of young people in the North Caribbean, the perseverance of certain enthusiasts, not to mention the tenacity of associations such as Lasotè, or the Lespri Lasotè association, as well as other anonymous individuals, are helping to revive hope. Because, almost like the phoenix, lasotè not only has the desire to be reborn, but also the fervor to endure, so it's coming back to life in the Mornes.
Lending ahand. Lending a hand is very common in the south, but it's done on an individual basis, and the request is just for a one-off job that will be given in exchange.
