The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-05-04
The BARACOANS' SUNDAY.
Ferry FEW Intended THE MORN
ING CHURCH SERTICE.
Everyone, the Dance-This Was Held
ut the Priests House immediately
Afterward and Those Who Were Too
Old to Dance Drank Beer.

The population of Baracoa is about six
ty-fve hundred, and is made up very
largely of negroes mulattoes, quadroons
or persons with some admixture of Afri-
can blood. The dress of the common
people, although well adapted to the
climate, is neither striking nor unusual,
and there is little display of bright color
even in the gowns and headgear of the
women; most of the white men wear
either the conventional dress of the civ
ilized world or the Cuban uniform of
brown linen, while the poorer blacks
are clothed only in coarse, whitish-gray
Worn outside the latter, in Russian fash
ion--and a weather stained straw or
palm-leaf sombrero.
The next Sunday after my arrival in
Baracoa was New Years day, and,
thinking that on such an occasion
should see a considerable part of the
population, in holiday attire, at church,
/ attended divine service that morning
in the dilapidated barn-lille old editice
| on the plaza few steps east Of the
Twentieth Century Hotel. The interior
of the building was as bare and tawdry
as it's neglected exterior had led me to
expect There was the usual high altar,
covered with tinsel and artificial flowers,
behind the cast-iron chancel rail; a few
long yellow candles were burning here
and there in front of smoky pictures of
! the Mandonna stone font stood near
| the door; coarse pictures, representing
stations of the cross, hung around the
dingy walls and there We're half doz-
en- implanted wooden benches up near
the chancel under the high side pulpit;
but the church, as whole, in point of
| furnishing and decoration, would have
been discreditable to a Roman Catholic
community of five hundred souls in a
small American village. And yet it was
the only place of worship in Baracoa--a
town of sixty-tive hundred inhabitants.
| The congregation was made up of doz-
en- or more negro mulatto boys hanging
over the chancel rail, seventy-five or a
hundred women of all shades of COM
pleXion, who brought with them cane
seated chairs of their own, as we'll as
thin rugs or door-mats to kneel on, and
perhaps dozen men and half-grown
boys, standing here and there along the
side walls and about the wide-open
door.
The service was conducted by single
priest, with an assistant to hand him his
robes and Vestments and q small boy to
swing the censor, and it did not differ
essentially from the Romish service in
our own churches. except that the lam
guages used were Latin and Spanish in
stead of Latin and English. The choir
which occupied a position near the end
of the chancel, was composed Of two or
three uncultiyated male voices. sup
ported by saxophone, a kettle-drum
big brass horn and a gourd rattle, and
the music consisted of a series of slow,
melancholy chants, interrupted and en-
livened now and then by what sounded
like march from comic opera For
two or three minutes at a time the voices
would sing dolefully to the accountant
ment of saxophone and horn. and then
the whole orchestra would dash sudden
1y into the quicker and more cheerful
melody of the march, whose strongly
marked time was accentuated by the
measured throbs of the deep-toned ket-
tle-drum and the harp, staccato clicks
of the gourd rattle / subsequently
learned that what nristook for an ope-
ra bouffe march was the Cuban nation
al air known as the "Bayamesa, but |
as had never heard it before, Of course
did not recognize it. The service was
chiefly interesting to me as showing the
unimportant part that the church plays
in Cuban life, and the Insignificant in
f1uence that it exerts upon the Cuban |
population. Out of the sixty-five hun |
bred inhabitants of Baracoa there were
only twelve or fifteen men and seventy |
five to hundred women who cared |
enough about the church to attend an |
important Sunday morning service on ,
the first day of the new year. About
eleven o'clock the small congregation
was dismissed. and most of the young
girls, with a few of the men and the
whole ecclesiastical orchestra, marched |
across the street to the house of the
nriest where thew were going to haev a
holiday dance. A dance at eleven
o'clock in the forenoon. in the house of
The priest and with the church choir and
orchestra TO furnish music. was an en-
tertainment novel enough | thought to
Justify me in breaking the Sabbath-if
participation as a spectator could fairly