The dress of the gentlemen upon this eventful occasion is similar to that worn by them at their balls: brass chains and rings are rubbed up with chalk in order to restore their pristine brightness; silk stockings, dyed with the flowers of the Hybiscus to the colour of a pigeon’s legs; and shops and stores ransacked, to procure waistcoats and stocks of the brightest dyes. The bride is generally arrayed in white: if they can raise sufficient _cash_, white silk, satin, or figured “challis” is the material; but if the funds are rather _low_, white muslin suffices them. The bonnets are either white satin, or tuscans trimmed with white ribbon, and wreaths of white flowers are fashionably arranged on the left side. Veils are sometimes worn upon these occasions, (to hide their “_blushes_,”) and “parasols and sandals,” and then the lady’s dressed. The morning after the wedding, the “bride’s cake” is sent round to their numerous acquaintance; and then they return to their usual business and their dishabille, until the sound of the “Sabbath bell” bids them open their chests of cedar-wood,[32] and put on their gala-dress. It may be remarked that the greater part of these “_blushing brides_,” these “nervous fine ladies,” have been living several years in a state of concubinage with different persons, and are perhaps the mothers of several children; but still marriage is a state which “calls up all our hopes and fears,” and the black buckras[33] (as these dashing black people are called in this country) think the ceremony would be incomplete did they not shew forth some emotion, or call up from their source some of those
“——————————— drops that fall, When the young bride goes from her father’s hall.”
We now come to take a view of their burials. I have in a former chapter made some mention of these ceremonies; but still there is a great deal to be said, for be it known, a negro funeral is a matter of no small importance.
When the intelligence reaches them that one of their friends has departed to another world, many of them immediately flock to the residence of the defunct, and are very ready to assist in the melancholy but necessary offices which are required to be performed. The first consideration of the relatives is to procure a coffin, a decent shroud, and a suit of apparel to inter the corpse in. The coffin is made of deal boards, _not over thick_, and is covered with black or white cotton cloth, according to the age or state of the individual; those persons who cannot afford to purchase cotton for this purpose have the coffin painted black or white. Among the higher class of negroes the shroud is made of white mull muslin, but those of less means purchase cotton cambric, while the _very poor ones_ are enveloped in a sheet. If the deceased has a pretty good stock of clothes, the best amongst them are selected for the occasion. Should it be a man who is dead, he is arrayed in his “Sunday clothes,” with the exception of coat, shoes, and hat; but if it is a female, her best white dress is used, a cap trimmed with white ribbon is placed upon her head, a white band round her waist, silk stockings, and white gloves. The warmth of the climate necessarily obliges the interment to take place soon after dissolution; for example, if a person dies one day, he is buried the next. The intervening night is called by the negroes “wake night;” and about seven or eight in the evening a great number of persons of both sexes meet at the house of death to assist in keeping the “wake.” This is understood to mean, the singing of psalms and hymns over the corpse; but, in most cases, while the females are so employed in one part of the house, the young men are laughing, talking, or playing off practical jokes upon some one whom they deem not quite so wise as themselves. It sounds very melancholy, should you chance to be awake at the solemn hour of midnight, to hear these persons chanting forth their sacred lays, and as the breeze sweeps its strain to and from your ear, memory “starts up alarmed, and o’er life’s narrow verge looks down” upon a “fathomless abyss.” But in the midst of these thoughts the heartless laugh breaks upon your ear, like the voice of some scoffing demon; and “so dies in human hearts the thoughts of death,” for “all men think all men mortal _but themselves!_”