LA FETE DE JEANNE D'ARC

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 15, 31 July 1944, Page 20

LA FETE DE JEANNE D'ARC

400 year old Pageantry in New Caledonia

By

The month of May in New Caledonia is a month of fetes. Almost every Sunday, under the white glare of the blistering sun, some scene from history, some procession, is organized in the village square, under the massive flamboyants and tall mimosas. It is our privilege, members of the N.Z.E.F.I.P. quartered in the village, to witness these pageants. Of all the fetes the most historic, the most important, is that in honour of Joan of Arc, the young saviour of France. Preparations for this fete are well in hand months before the actual ceremony. The young demoiselle who is to play the part of the Saint has to be picked from a host of aspirants. The robes have to be cleaned and garnished. Horses have to be groomed. Old armour has to be renewed, and all have to be rehearsed in their parts. For this is the great day of the year, On this day all the housewives of the village will be attired in their best — stockings will be worn, and the latest thing in hats. Friends will come in from farms deep in the Chaine Centrale, relations will be seen who have been absent for a year. You will meet any

one you want to meet, and maybe some whom you were avoiding, in the square at the Fete of Joan of Arc. For myself, 1 have picked out a comfortable seat on the stone wall of the house belonging to one of my French friends. From here I can see everything. Opposite me is the concrete church, with its iron roof the only cool haven in all the district. In the portals under the massive tower the altar is placed, covered with white drapes. On the steps are the two small boys whom I know well, servers on this occasion, dressed magnificently in scarlet. I would hardly know their serious mien. The square itself is a mass of shouting colour. Near the steps of the church, in two groups, are the young " eleves ” of the Ecole des Soeurs. The girls on the left are like a cloud of birds in their white frocks and blue scarves. The boys, restless and animated, wear green scarves. The head girl and the head boy carry richly embroidered banners. In between the two groups are the dignitaries of the district and their wives. Here are the Mayor and the local doctor, the town clerk,

the lawyer, and the chief gendarme. Farther back society begins. The women are in front to show their new dresses, and to look at them in their catty, coteried groups, you would never dream they were thousands of miles from the Boulevardes of Paris—that, in fact, most of them have never seen the capital of fashion. In the paragons of to-day, you would not recognize the housewives of tomorrow, going about their drab tasks, gossiping the siesta time away under their shady verandas.

When we go a few yards farther back still, another rank of society sits barefooted under the mimosas, or giggles in groups on the dusty grass. This is the native population. This is as colourful a sight as any bazaar out of the East. Here are the small, piquant Javanese women, in their ankle-low batique work, so precious to-day. Sometimes they carry their “ gosses ” in native fashion, slung over the shoulder like a coil of rope. Barefoot beside them stand the diminutive Javanese men in their fryingpan hats, who, when they walk, turn their feet outwards like orang-outangs.

Here, too, are the Kanaka women, wearing the gaudy yellow and red smocks which missionary tradition seems to have made obligatory. Their great spreading toes project from under their dresses like the roots of a tree. They seem always happy, these shy, laughing people. Of the men, more anon. One group is always apart. These are the Arabs, descended, I believe, from convicts originally deported from Algeria and Morocco. They are haughty, like all the Arab race, and their women walk like queens. On the outskirts of this

motley assembly lounges a mixture of Americans, NewZealanders, and French — soldiers and sailors come on leave to see the pageant, as a change from eternal movies and the monotony of Service life. At half past one a wave of silence sweeps through the crowd. The mass has begun. It is performed by a New Zealand padre, and the choir is the group of children in front of the church. Their clear, shrill voices seem to spiral away into the blue sky, in contrast to the deeply intoned responses. Then comes the address of the

white-robed bishop, whose voice thunders across the square as he sketches the brief, ill-starred life of Jeanne d’Arc, her visions and her courage, and ends with an invocation that all may strive to emulate that peerless heroine of France. Then the ceremony closes with the “ Marseillaise,” " God Save the King,” and the American Anthem, played by an American band. For a few moments the square knows confusion. People are rushing to and fro. Officials are pushing the crowd back from lines marked on the grass. I catch the gleam of four “ eclairons,” or trumpets, lifted, waiting for the

signal. At last, the people are all arranged. Suddenly the trumpets blare, and as the last echo dies away, there is a growing din of hooves. Round the corner of the church, at full gallop, sweeps a cohort of horsemen and horsewomen, at the head of which —in full panoply of war—is Sainte Jeanne d’Arc. She rides a white horse, her two male squires on either hand. Behind them is her female entourage, and in the rear, like a mob of demons, is her retinue of knights, black, savage-looking Kanakas for the most part, reining in their steeds like Centaurs. They have knots of grass at the saddle-bow, and flower circlets round their necks. Jeanne pauses before the cenotaph as a wreath is laid upon the steps. She wears a white surplice over a blue robe. The former bears a blue cross. A fillet with a diadem encircles her hair, and in her hand she carries a banner. Her squires wear armour, white and blue robes, and silvery visors, made (even from the distance at which I sit) from cardboard. They carry spears and axes, and the horses of all three are caparisoned in white and gold. The ceremony is now carried on by a French “ aumonier,” or Army padre, who delivers a dissertation on the life of the Saint, with deductions for the present day. This time it is Hitler and

the Nazi hordes who are overriding the fields of France, and it behoves us all to make every effort to eject the invader. For a second time the trumpets blare. Again confusion. Gradually order is restored, out of which comes a procession, headed by the groups of children, which marches round the cenotaph and the horsemen, giving a salute with the right hand. Finally, the group of horsemen joins in, the cavaliers having much trouble with their recalcitrant mounts, until Saint Joan herself makes the circuit, when the whole procession, trumpeted by the four “ eclairons,” makes for the open road and the tour of the village. The crowd splits and disperses. All those bright dresses retire to the wardrobe for another year, all the relations go back to their homes in the backblocks. Soon the square is deserted, except for me, still seated on the wall of my French friend, a black and white cat, and a few small boys playing round the memorial. There is no colour but the bright glow of my friend’s oranges, and the last slants of the sun on the white-washed walls of the Army headquarters. The vision has faded, but it will come again, every year, as long as there is a France and a New Caledonia the “ France of the South.”