The Reformed and the Lutheran churches of Paramaribo alternate in their Sunday night services, in order that competition shall not cut down still lower their congregations. From the church the crowd went, almost intact, to the “Kino,” as the “movies” are called in Surinam. The paternal government burdens these—there are three, all owned by Jews—with many stern rules. The films must be run by hand, not by motor; since the hard times incident to the World War only two performances a week were allowed; the show must be over by 10:30; and so on, until one became amply convinced that it was no happy-go-lucky Latin government that ruled over these sedate African Dutchmen. But there are limits to suppression. To me, fresh from Brazil and the blasé, drawing-room silence which prevails in its cinemas, the most striking part of this performance was the almost constant howling and screaming of the largely negro audience, now cheering on the doll-faced hero, now shrieking threats at the top-hatted villain.
A market woman of Cayenne, and a stack of cassava bread
Homeward bound from market
French officers in charge of the prisoners of Cayenne
White French convicts who would like to go to France, rowing out to our ship black French conscripts who would rather stay at home
Down at the market-place along the water front there was an incredible mixture of races, tongues, and customs each morning. Dirty, almost-naked Hindu beggars slunk in and out among buyers and sellers; Javanese paused to squander the single copper left from their gambling, and plodded noiselessly on in their bare feet, munching the mouthful it yielded; Chinese women, still in the cotton trousers of their homeland, but already wearing the gay starched bandana of their adopted country, bargained with a squatting Madrasee or a pig-tailed Mohammedan from northwestern India over a handful of green plantains. But most numerous of all were guffawing negro women, almost invariably carrying something on their heads, be it only a bottle of Dutch rum sitting bolt upright. The negroes, especially of the younger generation, to whom labor bears the stigma of the lowly Javanese or Hindu, consider themselves a kind of aristocracy in this conglomerate society. The negro girl working in a shop and dressing in modern finery is too nice to carry her own bundle; she is followed by her mother in the old native dress, bearing her daughter’s burden. A negro youth whom an American resident hired as a fireman on his launch appeared in a red tie and patent leather shoes, followed by his mother and his grandmother, carrying his baggage on their heads.