CLXXV John Canoe Dance
[Xml]
Yellow fever come in,
Me can’t walk again;
Him broke me hand, him broke me foot,
Me can’t walk again.
The “John Canoe” are masked dancers very agile in their movements. Yellow fever is now happily rare in Jamaica. “It has come and caught me,” says the patient, “and broken my arms and legs so that I really can’t walk.”
“Again” has a curious use here, which is perhaps better shown by the following illustration. A man was reported to be dead. Next day came the intelligence:—“He don’t dead again,” he is not dead after all, he is not really dead. Compare No. LXII.