Love, Anger, Madness_ A Haitian Trilogy - Marie Chauvet [174]
LOVE
1. Tonton Mathurin: Tontón is a Creole world for uncle (trans.).
2. houpland: tunic with a long skirt (trans).
3. griffe: dark-skinned mixed-race person.
4. grimelle: mixed-race person with light skin and nappy hair.
5. clairin: alcohol made with sugarcane; similar to rum but less refined (trans).
6. has: voodoo gods.
7. petit-blanc: a white Creole too poor to own a large plantation.
8. “you found yourself a woman, business is good!”: In the original, Mme Potiron uses Creole, “oil joindre femme affaire ou bon!”(trans.).
9. grumpy owls: frisés, which the author footnotes as “owls, female” (trans.).
10. halforts: handmade shoulder bags woven from fan palm fiber (trans.).
11. black hill folk: In the original, the author uses a creolism, “les nègres des mornes,” without italics. Alomes is Creole for “mountains” and, by extension, the hill country (trans.).
12. rastaquouères: flashy foreigners, slick upstarts (trans).
13. cat’s-tongue tea: a calming herbal tea brewed from borage (trans).
14. old Grandet: In Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet, the miserly father of the heroine (trans).
15. Antiphelic Milk: skin lotion used to fade freckles, but used here as a skin lightener (trans).
16. Messalina’s ardor: the Roman empress Messalina, c. 22-48, wife of Claudius and a reputed nymphomaniac (trans).
17. President Leconte: General Cincinnatus Leconte, president of Haiti from 1911 to 1912 (trans).
18. “little soldiers”: Petits soldats was the name given to the members of the lower class who made up the Haitian police of the time.
19. Sophie Fichini: the abused heroine of Les Petites Filles modèles, a novel for children published by the Comtesse de Ségur in 1858 (trans).
20. Tancrède Auguste: president of Haiti, 1912-13 (trans).
21. Cacos: revolutionaries from the north.
22. Vilbrun Guillaume Sam: Leader of the revolt that brought President Leconte to power, Sam served as president of Haiti briefly in 1915, before his execution of political prisoners led to his murder by an angry mob, which precipitated the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 (trans).
23. President Dartiguenave’s government: Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, president of Haiti from 1915 to 1922 (trans).
24. Marchaterre Massacre: On December 6, 1929, U.S. Marines opened fire on unarmed peasants during a peaceful demonstration (trans).
25. Salammbô: priestess of ancient Carthage, the title character of an 1862 novel by Gustave Flaubert (trans).
26. Emma Bovary: central character in Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel Madame Bovary, whose intensely romantic notions lead to her adultery and suicide (trans).
27. poisoned rat: Haitian expression meaning miserable and burning up inside.
ANGER
1. Lysius Salomon’s rule: president of Haiti, 1879-88.
2. loas: See note 6 on p. 375.
3. fifty gourdes: One gourde = $0.20, according to the author; this was true when Haitian currency was pegged to the U.S. dollar (1913-89) (trans.).
4. Armand Duval: In La Dame aux camélias, the 1848 novel (later adapted into a play) by Alexandre Dumas fils, Duval is the penniless lover of the dying heroine (trans).
5. merengue: Haitian national dance.
6. clairin: See note 5 on p. 375.
7. tafia: cheap rum distilled from molasses and refuse sugar (trans.).
8. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani: according to Mark 15:34, Jesus Christ’s words on the cross, meaning “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (trans.).
9. Simple Simon: “Gros-Jean comme devan”: an old expression referring to Gros Jean, a dumb sucker forever tricked and abused, featured in La Fontaine’s fables and in Rabelais.
MADNESS
1. Diderot: from Diderot’s satirical philosophical dialogue Rameau’s Nephew, written in 1762, in which the title character argues that there is no such thing as virtue (trans.).