NARRATIVE OF AN 



C H A ,P. I enquired of an old negro, why they paid fuch particular 

 reverence and veneration to this growing piece of timber. 

 This proceeds (faid he) mafTera, from the following 

 caufe : having no churches nor places built for public 

 worfliip (as you have) on the Coafl of Guinea, and 

 this tree being the largeft and moft beautiful growing 

 there, our people, aflembling under its branches when 

 ^' they are going to be inftru6ted, are defended by it from 

 the heavy rains and fcorching fun. Under this tree our 

 gadoman, or prieft, delivers his ledures ; and for this 

 reafon our common people have fo much veneration 

 for it, that they will not cut it down upon any ac- 

 count whatever." 



No people can be more fuperftitious than the gene- 

 rality of negroes ; and their Locomen^ or pretended pro- 

 phets, find their intereft in encouraging this fuperftition, 

 by felling them obias or amulets, as I have already men- 

 tioned, and as fome hypocrites fell abfolution in Europe, 

 for a comfortable living. Thefe people have alfo amongft 

 them a kind of Sibyls, who deal in oracles; thefe fage 

 matrons dancing and whirling round in the middle of an 

 aflembly, with amazing rapidity, until they foam at the 

 mouth, and drop down as convulfed. Whatever the pro- 

 phetefs orders to be done during this paroxifm, is moft 

 facredly performed by the furrounding multitude ; which 

 renders thefe meetings extremely dangerous, as fhe fre- 

 quently enjoins them to murder their mafters, or defert to 

 the woods ; upon which account this fcene of excefTive 

 fanaticifm is forbidden by law in the colony of Surinam, 



upon 



