Beliefs about animals
The lanceolate botrops or how to avoid it on the road. It's common practice to avoid naming it in order to protect yourself. This beast lives camouflaged in our forests, sometimes hiding in its surroundings, especially after heavy floods have displaced it. It can even land in the warmth of living rooms or bedrooms. If you carry three lemons with you or plant lemon trees near your home, the fruit or part of the plant, such as its crushed leaves, will (we firmly believe) protect you from a nasty encounter with the highly venomous lanceolate botrops, which you should never name. For this reason, the Creole language will give it every possible and unimaginable name from the word: betlong lan (the long beast), kravat la (the tie), lasé a (the shoelace), bet-ti-fidji a (the beast with the small face), because its name that must not be spoken - an undeniable hint of orality - contains an immeasurable mystical charge that suggests that to name it is to summon it, just as when one speaks of the wolf, it comes out of the wood. For a long time, the beast was hunted down and its head brought back, sold to the gendarmerie to be used to make antivenom serum. For a long time, thanks to the rapid intervention of snakebite healers, some people were able to avoid the loss of a leg, or at worst death, but the secret of their knowledge, often passed down from father to son, is so well preserved just to maintain exclusivity, to avoid any competition that as a result their knowledge will soon be so forgotten that it will no longer even be a distant memory.
The margouillat , one of the French names given to the gecko, is a small reptile of the Geckonidae family that dates back 50 or 60 million years. It is a species of nocturnal lizard commonly called mabouya in Creole. It is a rather timid reptile that, like the chameleon, can camouflage itself by adapting to the color of its environment. It feeds on insects, and likes to live where people are settled. The animal lives hidden during the day, going out to hunt small moths, mosquitoes and other small cockroaches and ants. It has suction cups under its legs, and can move across the ceiling without weightlessness problems. You need to arm yourself with a mirror which, I don't know how or why, will keep it away if it lands on you. It makes some rather surprising clicking noises. The margouillat is oviparous and its young are autonomous at birth.
The Reverend Father Du Tertre claimed that "the mabouya boldly threw itself on those who annoyed it, that its bite was venomous, and that ulcers occurred in parts of the body that had been in contact with the viscous humor with which it is covered". What a strange mabouya. The Amerindians attributed protective virtues to it in the carbet, their living quarters. According to legend, which still holds true today, mabouya is said to ward off evil-doers and is also a good-luck charm. Like the scolopendre, commonly known as the thousand-legged or thousand-footed beast, if you find one in your house, you have to kill it, but you have to do it while shouting "Saint Georges, Saint Georges", if you really want to have money in your pockets. As with the spider, which had better not show its face in the morning and preferably leave in the evening, beliefs are unfortunately based on this. No one believes, for example, that these insects can rid the house of certain intruders.
Beliefs about the Mexican iron dog. The Mexican ironhound, or xoloitzcuintle, or xolo, is a primitive dog of various sizes (miniature, intermediate and standard). The Mexican Naked Dog is a robust animal that can live up to 13 years. Historically, this animal was the representative of the Aztec god Xolotl (hence the name xolo). It was responsible for helping the dead attain eternal life. He arrived in Martinique with the Amerindians, who have also perpetuated this belief that the iron dog serves as a protector against evil spirits. It's a naked dog, which nowadays can be used as a guard dog, but it hasn't always barked. It only barked when it came into contact with the European dogs it imitated. For a long time, while the Ironhound served and still serves as a protector against evil spirits in front of houses, some people, perhaps also thinking that he's not at all Catholic, behaved in a most disturbing way towards him, and often the Ironhound was pelted with stones for no apparent reason. They could be seen running helplessly through the streets. They have no hair at all, except for a few stray tufts here and there, just around the head and ears. Without hair, the Mexican Hairless Dog, our Iron Dog, is a dark anthracite gray that competes well with metal zinc or sheet metal, so much so that malicious tongues have claimed that it can rust in salty air. It is true, however, that in the absence of fur to protect it, it can be easily injured.
Some may have rare white or light pink spots. It has a fine head, with a gazelle-like muzzle like Lamartine's dogfish, a truffle in good harmony with small almond-shaped eyes and long ears that are often erect. In the rare hairy varieties, the ears can be floppy. The Ironhound is well suited to those with allergy problems or those who simply enjoy hairless dogs.
Would anyone have thought that our Ironhound, despised by some, would be recognized today as a living room "dog"? He serves as a watchdog who, given his earthly mission, must continue to watch over his people. Alas, they no longer roam, and it's a pity that we don't see many of them on our streets, because recently in Martinique, a business has been picking up stray iron dogs and shipping them to France at exorbitant prices. The purchase price of a naked Mexican dog ranges from €500 to €2,500. The annual cost of maintaining an iron dog is between €250 and €500.
Practices and symbolic values of some trees
The fromager, a tree with highly symbolic value. The cheese tree, traditionally part of Martinique's landscape and culture, holds great symbolic value. Many myths revolve around the tree, giving it a role in which religion and magic blend. This does not prevent its leaves from being used to treat dermatitis.
The tree can reach 40 or even 60 meters in height, and its large aerial roots, which surround it almost like walls rising out of the ground, leave no one indifferent. Its bark is covered with thorns, to repel those who would like to get a little too close, and not forgetting the brightness of its kapok, which at midnight crackles in the darkness, it is undoubtedly for many people, especially those who believe in it, it's a cursed tree, and not a good one to have in front of your house, given that at nightfall, the tree attracts all the zombies of the earth and hell, big and small, because it's the intermediary with the spirits, and anyone who cuts it down dies. This is why the many tales told about it still haunt many a child's slumber, and why legends with a hard edge do nothing to soothe the conscience. Didn't the Caribbean Indians already avoid using their kapok? According to them, they wouldn't sleep a wink after touching them. The tree is respected, we tell you.
The Moudongue tree. It owes its name to a tribe known as the Moudongues, who are said to have been boorish, rude and lawless people. They were undoubtedly perceived as such because the Moudongues were the fiercest opponents of the white Christian slavers of Saint-Domingue. They feared nothing, least of all death, which they faced every day with calm and serenity. They didn't want their children to become slaves.
A Haitian legend recounts that "as soon as their babies were born, Moudongue mothers also prepared a tiny metal rod which they stuck into the large fontanel of the newborn's skull, dying after three days.
These religious mothers believed that this soul would be revived in Ilé Ifé, the city of the sons of heaven, the Orishas and Obatala, and they could hope so after each death. The slavers, seeing a commodity they counted on die, didn't know what else to do, and torture of any kind had no effect on these Moudongues, who had no fear of death whatsoever. So, traitorous, obedient ears dragged, eyes spied, and untied all denouncing tongues, and so each traitor could report to his master that the Moudongue has only one and only fear, and that's the fear of being amputated. They believed they could no longer be reincarnated in Ilé Ifé, if they happened to have a single part of their body altered. In revenge, the masters let the dogs loose. Since then, the Moudongues "loas" have been barking and eating dog ears.
In Martinique, the Moudongue wood (Picramnia pentandra) is known as a spirit-bearing tree, and people come to pay it for its benefits, to take a branch that will serve as a protective stick, as well as if they have inadvertently broken one of its branches. It's also respected, and at its feet it's strewn with coins that no-one will touch. Placed in front of houses, it protects against evil spirits. You should know that a volley of moudongue wood, given to a pledged person, chases away the spirit that inhabits him or her. It's a shrub that talks; it's even said that at midday, at the height of the heat, it cracks like a tormented tree, so it's often consulted by quimboizers, who no doubt come to venerate it. Any fisherman who thinks he's been cursed can place one on each corner of his seine. He is sure that his catch will be good and that he will catch all the fish he wants.
The Moudong, or Moundang, are a people of Central Africa, living mainly in south-western Chad, but also in the north and extreme north of Cameroon, and less numerous in north-eastern Nigeria. They are also known as Moundan, Mundang, Mundangs, Musembani, Musemban, Nda. The Moundang speak Moundang, a Niger-Congolese language. They are Animists, Christians or Islamists.
Originally, they were members of an African ethnic group that may have lived in Martinique during slavery, for they have gone down in history as being irascible, and it's true, as the Guadeloupe website La fleur curieuse (www.lafleurcurieuse.fr/culture/les-secrets-du-bois-moudongue) puts it, to say to someone that they are a Moundongue, in Martinique too, is not to give them a gift. It's to let them know in no uncertain terms that they're atrabilious, hot-tempered, violent, enraged, savage, and above all that they're all these things at the same time. It's to give him the portrait of the uneducated person he really is, with all the qualities that are in no way superfluous.
Even today, it's true that for some of us who don't like to remember that our ancestors were black, the word moudongue, like the words kongo, neg kongo, neg djinen or neg zoumba, is a reminder of Africa, and these expressions are still terms of contempt in some people's mouths.
The cursed fig tree of Martinique. Why do we speak of the cursed fig tree? For this, we first need to refer to the Gospels. In the desert, Jesus is said to have cursed a fig tree that became barren. The banyan is a ficus of the Moraceae family, a species closely related to the fig tree. It is an evil tree, devouring everything in its immediate environment, and is therefore associated with the cursed fig tree. In Martinique, this ficus, which doesn't bear figs and can grow into a giant tree, is known as the cursed fig tree. It generally bears small fruit after four years, and reaches full production after around ten years. It's a strangler that often needs a host of some kind to grow on. Whether it's a ruined wall or a tree, it depends on the other to strangle it in order to grow. It will phagocytose it. It sends its roots down from its perch to the ground, destroying to live. In fact, it seems to be on earth to rid it of all that has been perpetrated both by man and by nature itself. Strangler figs are becoming established everywhere, and it's said that they stand upright and grow, even if the plant is upside down. So why shouldn't the settler who thinks he's arrived in India, who sees such a destructive tree, and who seems quite tormented, who knows from his scientific knowledge that it's a tree of the ficus family, who has read the Scriptures and in particular the verses from Mark taken up by Matthew, believe that this tree is the cursed fig tree of the Bible? So how can he fail to understand, when he hears reports here and there of low masses and strange practices taking place at the foot of this tree, too?
At nightfall, any self-respecting Martiniquan will always avoid going near a cheese tree, or a foot of bois-moudongue, or a house said to be haunted. He can tell people, say he doesn't believe it, repeat with and like everyone else that it's all just childish nonsense, useless balderdash, but he also and above all knows that two precautions are better than one. If the other person, who's probably not from here, doesn't understand the need for caution, too bad for him. All this leads us to agree with Oliver Wendell Holmes that: "We are all cradled with our tribe's beliefs in tattooing, that the mark may seem superficial but it is indelible".
