Note 836 — Chapter V · THE DIFFERENCING ELEMENTS OF COMMUNAL POETRY (continued 3)

See Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, Paris, 1609, pp. 317 ff., an account of the tribal dances of the Algonquins in honour of a victory, with interesting particulars. So, too, pp. 691 ff., another account, with a dance where they “do nothing but sing Hé or Het! like a man cutting wood, with a movement of the arm; and they dance a ‘round’ without holding one another or stirring from one place, beating their feet upon the earth.” So, says Lescarbot, they make fires and jump through them, like our French peasants on the eve of St. John, who shout and dance the whole night. His fifteenth chapter, pp. 765 ff., is on Danses el Chansons, and accents the dance after a feast. Here, too, he says, “après la panse vient la danse.” Savages, he says, always sing to their dancing.