マルチニク島におけるクレオル社会

抄録

The Lesser Antilles are considered as a typical Creole Society-asociety of mulattos due to the plantation system of slavery attended by the extermination of Carib Indians which was ,caused by the Great European Powers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of the Creole Society in Martinique in terms of their racial and ethnic diversity. The research was based on the field work which was carried out in Martinique during the summer of 1975. Martinique has been a member of the French Overseas Department since 1946. The population is 430,000. Besides sugar and banana plantations many residents engage in tourism for their livelihood. Martinique became a French colony in 1646. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, this colony had become a wealthy sugar island. The plantation system by slavery was established step by step. At first an attempt to solve the labor problem was made by using indentured workers called Engage. From the end of the eighteenth century there were many miscegenations which led to the birth of mulattos called Mulatre. On the eve of the French Revolution, the society of Martinique had crystalized into a caste-like structure ; these were Grand Blanc (European, mainly French slave-owning planters) , Petit Blanc (European, -mainly French small farmers, craftsmen, plantation workers' descendants Engage, Mulatre (free and slaves) and Negre (slaves) . After the emancipation of 1848 about 25,000 East Indians and a smaller number of South-East Asians, some East Asians were brought into Martinique as plantation workers. Each of the groups formed an endogamous unit at least as far as legal marriage was concerned and social mobility from one group to another was difficult. Today, the ratios of the ethnic groups of the inhabitants are ; the mulattos-Mulatre (90%), the Europeans born on the island-Beke ( 2% ) , the other Europeans-Metro ( 2 %), the East Indians ( 5 % ) , the South East and East Asians and Arabs (all together 1 %). The research investigated the appellations of the ethnic groups in relation to their own and to others as well as to the factors that determined the appellation. It was found that the following factors were important determinants for referring to the different ethnic groups ; territorial status, socio-economical status, racial difference and physical appearance and geographical location. Moreover the researcher studied how these factors were related to each other within this society. The Mulatre are differenciated into three kinds of Beke in terms of their socio-economic status and each of them has a specific name. Mulatre has seven different subgroups among themselves and the Beke, the Metro in terms of racial, physical appearance and socio-economical status. In the closed society of small farmers who live in the hills and high mountains and fishermen and where the Mulatres do not have any association with the Beke and the Metro, there is no differenciation in appellation among themselves, however. The Metros are given appellations meaning "stranger" or "invader" by the Beke and the Mulatres. But the Beke and the Mulatres use different appellations for that respectably. East Indians, Asians and Arabs are not regarded as Mulatre by other groups, but they refer to themselves as Mulatre. Each ethnic group makes reference to themselves in different ways depending on whomever they are addressing. There are appellations which are used among the Beke, the Metro and the Mulatre, however the same appellation always means something different to different groups. The common usage between the Beke and the Mulatre is always the Metro. Similarly the common usage between the Beke and the Metro are found toward Mulatre.