(Vol. i., pp. 321. 356.)
This word is now receiving a curious illustration in this colony of French
origin. _Rococo_--antiquated, old-fashioned--would seem to have become
_rococo_ itself; and in its place the negroes have adopted the word
_entete_, wilful, headstrong, to express, as it were, the persistence of a
person in retaining anything that has gone out of fashion. This term was
first applied to white hats; and the wearers of such have been assailed
from every corner of the streets with the cry of "Entete chapeau!" It was
next applied to umbrellas of a {628} strange colour (the varieties of which
are almost without number in this country of the sun); and it has now been
extended to every article of wearing apparel of an unfashionable or
peculiar shape. A negro woman, appearing with a blue umbrella, has been
followed by half a dozen black boys with the cry of "Entete parasol!" and
in order to get rid of the annoyance she had to shut the umbrella and
continue her way under the broiling sun. But the term is not always used in
derision. A few days ago, a young girl of colour, dressed in the extreme of
the fashion, was passing along, when some bystanders began to rally her
with the word "Entete." The girl, perceiving that she was the object of
their notice, turned round, and in an attitude of conscious
irreproachableness, retorted with the challenge in Creole French, "Qui
entete ca?" But the smiles with which she was greeted showed her (what she
had already partly suspected) that their cries of "Entete" were intended
rather to compliment her on the style of her dress.