Page 541
An.1691
Their Dancing by Moon-light.
for the scraps and fragments that come from the Table ; and if between meals the Dutch people have any occasion for them, to go on Errands, or the like, they are ready at command ; expect- ing little for their pains; but for a stranger they will not budge under a Stiver.
Their Religion, if they have any, is wholly unknown to me ; for they have no Temple nor Idol, nor any place of worship that I did see or hear of. Yet their mirth and nocturnal pastimes at the New and Full of the Moon, lookt as if they had some Superstition about it. For at the Full especially they sing and dance all night, making a great noise : I walked out to their Huts twice at these times, in the evening, when the Moon arose above the Horizon, and viewed them for an hour or more. They seem all very busie, both Men, Women and Children, dancing very oddly on the green Grass by their Houses. They traced to and fro promiscuously, often clapping their hands and singing aloud. Their Faces were sometimes to the East, sometimes to the West: neither did I see any motion or gesture that they used when their Faces were toward the Moon, more than when their backs were towards it. Af- ter I had thus observed them for a while, I return- ed to my Lodging, which was not above 2 or 300 paces from their Huts ; and I heard them Singing in the same manner all night. In the grey of the morning I walked out again, and found many of the men and women still Singing and Dancing ; who continued their mirth till the Moon went down, and then they left off : Some of them going into their Huts to sleep, and others to their attendance in their Dutch houses. Other Negroes are less circumspect in their Night- Dances, as to the precise time of the Full Moon, they being more general in these Nocturnal pa- ftimes,