Orpheus in Haiti

Playboy's travel editor

He was virility incarnate, an enchanting singer, a devil with the ladies: but from the moment he set eyes on the queen of his heart, no other woman had a chance. And when The Only Girl was taken from him by death (for this is a tragic story), he swore off the gentle sex for life. That life proved to be short. His ex-girlfriends, seething with jealousy and thwarted desire, drew him into a wild and mounting orgy, worked themselves into a homicidal frenzy, and, at the peak of the bacchanale, fell upon and tore him – literally – limb from limb.

His name, of course, was Orpheus, and he's been dead a long time now, but (if rumor is to be believed) there is still at least one place on this planet where the male is first worshipped, then destroyed; where a living, breathing symbol of virility is set upon by a hysterical, orgy-driven woman and killed anew, savagely, bloodily.

This place is Haiti. Try to imagine that you're in a jungle clearing. Fire flickers on tree trunks and burnished bodies. They're swaying, perhaps 200 men and women, to the beat of drums (continued overleaf) grouped near a huge tree trunk in the center of the glade: Already the houngan has chanted his appeals to the spirit and sketched a cabalistic design on the ground. Near it are tethered a goat and five roosters – black, arrogant, sure of their maleness. Tension is high and now the drums step up the beat. From the darkness to one side a man's voice shouts: "Damballa goubamba! Kinga do ki la!" Murmurously, the crowd intones the response: "Kinga do ki la!" Over and over, the invocation is repeated to Damballa, the good spirit, to Damballa, who craves blood.

A young woman stands near the fire. She's wearing a red bandana, a loose white chemise maldiocre of flour sacking, cut low over the shoulders. Quietly she begins to sway to the drums. Rooted to one spot, there is no movement except that reed-like weaving of her body. Firelight picks out now the outline of her thighs, now the swell of her breasts against the thin material.

The girl sways and weaves with an almost overpowering intensity – faster now as a wooden fetish is carried forward, the life-sized figure of a man. The drums beat on, restless, surging volumes of sound. The girl sways and weaves faster until ripples seem to flow up her body. Again and again and again, the extraordinary pulsation shakes her, building ever greater tension in the crowd.

The drums notch up faster. Now the girl moves. Still convulsed by the tremendous vibrations, she bends over backward toward the fetish. Pulsing and jerking, she arches back and back – bent impossibly over and still pulsing – until the women around her wail in sharp falsetto as the girl smothers the idol in kisses.

The chant of the crowd joins the ceaseless thunder of drums. Sweating drummers fall out as others take up the rhythm. Tension is electric through the clearing. Naked, a figure of onyx, the girl weaves along the rows of squatting, swaying figures. She's in a self-induced trance, tongue lolling from one side of her mouth, eyes fixed in a rigid, sightless stare. Now the alto drums are a tormenting staccato and pulses speed faster to the frenzy. Down the rows the girl passes, arms outstretched over the black heads as if to raise each to her own exalted state.

Here and there, eyes glaze, then turn up and grow blind white. Here and there, a body topples to the ground thrashing and foaming. But the gleaming eyes of the crowd follow only the girl back to the fire. She grasps one of the black roosters, raises him high above her head, her sweat-glistening body ebony in the flameglow. Legs apart, firmly planted, she swings him in circles about her until he dies.

Then, suddenly, the drums are still. A machete flashes bright. The victim's head flies to the ground and blood spurts against the girl. In a moment, all at once, the crowd surges about her as she drinks from the rooster's neck, trickles of red coursing down her chin, over breasts, along thighs. Other priests slaughter the remaining animals and sprinkle blood on the jostling throng. For only a baptism of blood will admit Damballa to the soul.

The drums roll on. Again, over all, comes the hoarse chant of the ceremony broken now by shrieks and moans. Slowly, the first light of dawn edges the black glade with yellow-green, and a primal ritual older than Orpheus throbs its final spasm.

This is not an exalted word picture of the rite of voodoo as dreamed up by over-enthusiastic travel writers, but a description of that ritual as it has been seen by white men – or so they say. Being addicted to the "I'm from Missouri" school of reporting only on what we've seen, we must admit the sight of a voodoo orgy has never glazed our eye. And for every William Seabrook who claims to have witnessed the spectacle, there are doubters who say they've searched for it but never found it. What is the truth?

As we see it, it boils down to two considerations. First: the fact that a man hasn't found what he's looking for is not presumptive evidence that it doesn't exist. Second: Haiti is still virtual jungle; the French influence which is responsible for the communities on its shores was always a hostile influence to the natives. The interior, still mostly steaming jungles and shaggy-sloped mountains, is among the most primitive areas of the hemisphere. What takes place during the dark jungle nights is more a matter of conjecture than of eye-witness reporting.

In any case, the chances are that, as a tourist, you won't get to see the real thing. What will happen to you is this: in Port au Prince you'll meet up with a leering cab driver who'll promise you a full-dress voodoo ceremony. He'll herd you into his ancient car, zip off past tumbledown native huts or rutted out-skirt streets dimly lit by lamps every three or four blocks. He'll stop to confer with a shadow lounging in the gloom of a side-alley, drive on – jolting and lurching – then stop again to go scouting. He'll eventually lead you to a wooden shack where le vrai voodoo is promised. As soon as you get inside, the first thing the dancers and drummers do is cluster around for a handout.

Give the drummer a gourde (20c U.S.), sit back and watch the show. Commercial? Tawdry? Pour les touristes? Undeniably. But it's still something to see, something with more primal rhythm mindlessly, even animalistically, performed that you're likely to have encountered anywhere Stateside – or this side of Africa. Just possibly, though, you'll prefer to skip the cab driver's smirk and the dancers' dubious performance. In which case, if you're still on a voodoo kick, you may sample the kind put on at the night clubs or the open-air Theatre de Verdure on a Saturday night.

The Theatre, showcase of the National Folklore Troupe, also offers you a chance to catch Ti-Roro, perhaps the greatest of the Haitian drummers. Until you've heard him, you've never heard a drum sob like a lost child, or murmur like a girl in love. The voodoo-based dance sketches put on at the Theatre are an ample reward too, choreographed with incisive, modern style, yet without ever losing the touch of earthy abandon that makes them real, the essence of this vivid land, this brightly warm people.

Haiti is still one of the least expensive Caribbean spots north of Antigua, with more to offer than all the rest put together. Though prices have doubled in the last three or four years, we still manage a thoroughly good evening for two with a gourde or so left out of $20. One of the spots you should try is the Voodoo Club (can't get away from the stuff), still relatively untouristed and complete with dirt floor and bare tables. It's dark enough so that no one can see you bumbling through a merengue among the swivel-jointed Haitians. It's only late at night that the little bars along Avenue Roosevelt liven up: the Brunette Club (we spotted at least two blondes there), Royal Palm Beach, New York Bar and Paradise.

You can find most anything you're looking for in these joints, and the waiters in most of them will try to hustle a full bottle of rum to your table, followed by other more animate objects. You're quite within your rights to shoot the full bottle back and call for the stuff by single shots (about 10c). Do whatever you want about the other objects. In Carrefour proper (a pretty improper section) you'll pass rows of houses standing back from the road and strung with colored lights. Keep right on going. Sex may be, as one fellow put it, "une industrie en Haiti," but who wants it that way? For your private dossier, however, professional ladies here are known as Dominicaines, though we're told by an impeccable source that the best ones are all from Martinique.

If you do crave some female companionship, try hunting on your own at the Casino, where the upper echelon of Haitian society gathers. The place is glossily, glaringly cosmopolitan, with French spoken all around, an open-air dance floor and a splendid orchestra. It boasts an excellent restaurant, too, and the meals are served with such allure that the waiters change white gloves virtually after every course. Also available is the usual collection of bars and gaming rooms. When you've had your fill of the place, stroll her down through pleasant gardens to the Casino's yacht harbor, or over to the illuminated fountains on the waterfront Exposition grounds. Or drive on up to the Cabane Choucoune at Pétionville.

Fun starts earlier there – with cocktails at sunset on the terrace of the Ibo Lélé, and a pink-glowing view that stretches a good 80 miles. Then, a couple of thousand feet above Pétionville, there's Kenscoff. We're all for the drive there, during which you pass from bougainvillea to pine trees in 20 minutes: it even gets cool enough to justify hot buttered rum. Beyond, at the top of the mountain, there's Furcy, where log fires are an occasional delight.

A good reason for making a separate evening of Pétionville is the food. Fabulous is the word for it and every hotel (concluded on page 52) Haiti (continued from page 48) has its specialty. So do the restaurants in town: flaming lobster at Aux Cosaques, snails at Picardie. Kalmar's runs to top-notch French cooking but also a wide variety of creole dishes. Try grillo, which is mostly pork, or tasso of beef, both in piquant sauces; or diri et donjon, a savory clump of rice and mushrooms, yam croquette and mango pie.

There are smaller, dingier spots where the eating's still more fun. We got a Haitian friend to steer us – straight, in this case – to Papa Denis', a roofless place with a dirt floor, a few blocks from the Presidential Palace. Papa mixes a rather special coctéle, then whooshes up a spread of eggplant with conch, followed by crab soup (with the fully shelled creature floating around to prove it's real), filet mignon and a dessert of yams and syrup. The tab: 90c a head, including a bottle of rum.

Other inexpensive pleasures on Haiti include spear fishing over coral reefs from the Casino pier (there's no bathing beach worth a damn closer than Carre-four Raymond) for $5, and we even tried a full clay's alligator hunting on Lake Saumatre for around $20. We've got a belt to prove it.

In Port au Prince, bargain buys include perfumes and good local recordings of Ti-Roro drum solos and voodoo incantations, inexpensive Italian spear-fishing gear and some good carved mahogany pieces. Most of our shopping is done at Mme. Paquin's, who started the souvenir business down here and still gets her pick of the merchandise, justifying slightly higher but fixed prices. Kurt Fisher's store next door is good, too.

And, of course, we also go to DeWitt Peter's Art Center. It's still a place for excellent "buys," though nowadays you'll pay up to $750 for a good canvas by Benoit, Bazile, Hyppolite or Bigaud. But with a little personal taste, you can pick up fine primitive work at "investment" prices here or at the rival Foyer des Arts Plastiques.

Instead of hopping around from cab to cab, it's wiser to pick up a permanent driver. To save gas (45c a gallon) he'll accelerate wildly for half a block, then coast as far as he can go. The art seems to be never to check momentum by using the brakes, but instead to careen through the gaudily thronged streets, just missing flashy new American cars, little bourrique donkeys with broad paniers on either side, or farm women down from the hills with head-carried loads of produce for the market.

The market, incidentally, is one of the more depressing sights (and smells) in all Haiti. It's a bright-painted turreted structure of sheet iron where just about everything is traded, including cups made of condensed-milk cans with a string handle, sandals cut from old auto tires, and cardboard suitcases decorated or reinforced with beer cans beaten flat.

(The impoverished state of many Haitians has given rise to an interesting local custom known as placage. It's so hard to accumulate money for a wedding that men and women live together to save jointly for the ceremony. This gives Haitian children the rare advantage of attending their parents' wedding along with several brothers and sisters.)

The other unnerving sight in Haiti, so far as we're concerned, are the cock fights. If that's what you want, though, a good spot is the Gaugére cockpit on the Exposition grounds where fights are held Saturdays and Sundays. We don't normally flinch from "blood sports" but we draw the line here: the birds are so damned plucky, as they gouge and slash, then somehow get up, gory and one-eyed, to fight on with a bone-pierced wing and half a beak, that we end up wretchedly rooting for the agonized creature on the ground, fighting on because it's got too much guts to drag itself away.

Every now and then, we're hell bent on sociological research, and choose a side jaunt into the hinterland. We'll go to Cap Haitien by coastal freighter or else by transport plane over a stormy gray-green sea of mountains.

"Le Cap," where Columbus qualified for some sort of Western Hemisphere first by running the Santa Maria aground on a coral reef, is so unselfconsciously flavorsome that cannon which fired on Napoleon's ships still rest in the streets along the waterfront.

We make a point of staying around there a day or two at the Hostellerie du Roi Christophe – just to stroll narrow streets, past old, balconied homes, and out to the harbor forts and the ancient lighthouse. Then we go to the Citadelle Ferriére, which is really why we come to Cap Haitien.

We'll drive out first to Milot, a small village on the edge of the jungle, that makes a living out of supplying horses for the trip up the mountain, and boys with switches to keep them moving. These small black businessmen walk the whole way there and back, burdened by a basketful of cokes which they cool off from time to time in mountain streams.

Our first stop is always at Sans Souci, a ruined copy of Versailles which the jungle is slowly trying to reclaim. Beyond, the trail grows gradually steeper and more rocky. A couple of stops were called by the women in our group, to admire tropical blossoms blazing vivid reds and blues from the trailside tangle of vegetation. We paused again about half-way up for our first view of the Citadelle.

Above us the huge gray stone structure loomed atop a glassy elevation in the midst of virgin forest. One soaring corner faced us like the prow of a ship. Here was the famous "monument to fear" where black Christophe – prototype of "Emperor Jones" – planned to fight to the last against the French. Here, dragged block by huge granite block up the mountainside, was a fortress that could maintain a garrison of 10,000 for a siege of years.

The relic loomed ever more massive as we climbed closer. Before long we were standing beside the 130-foot walls, under the muzzles of 12-foot bronze guns, beside an iron-studded door leading through the seven-foot thickness of the outer walls. We climbed to the top up flying stairways overhanging an ever more fearsome drop and came out on the towering heights of this man-made butte.

Weather-worn and grass-grown at the top of the Citadelle is the grave of Christophe, the maniac genius whose defensive creation was never used. For he died not from the French bullets he had feared; paralyzed by a stroke, beset by intriguers in his divided land, raging at his own sudden weakness, he died a suicide. More than any other single factor, perhaps, the legends that have grown up about this man have unified the Haitian people. And like Christophe at his prime, Haiti packs the biggest wallop in the Caribbean today.

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For more information, consult your travel agent, or write Haiti Government Tourist Bureau, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York. Details on Haiti are also available from Pan American World Airways (135 East 42nd Street, New York) or Delta C. & S. Airlines (Atlanta Airport, Atlanta, Ga.). One-way air fares are $75 from Miami, $120 from New Orleans. Or try Eastern Steamship Corp. (Pier 3, P.O. Box 882, Miami) or Panama Line (21 West Street, New York) whose round-trip fares by sea start at $342 from New York, $190 from Miami.