People in between: the Matawai Maroons of Suriname

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8
Christianity

The development of Christianity has been an important factor in Matawai history. In no other Bush Negro tribal group has the impact of this religion been so strong. In this chapter we describe the history of Christianity among the Matawai. We analyse the role of the Matawai prophet, Johannes King, in the conversion of a large part of the Matawai, and that of his followers in the extension of Christian beliefs and their establishment in the upriver area. We further outline the attempts of the Roman Catholic church to infiltrate this region that was the traditional domain of the Moravian Brethren. Finally we shall illustrate the large impact of Christianity and the attraction to the Moravian church by the Matawai and summarize the organization of the local congregation.

The beginning of the mission of the Evangelical Brethren among the Bush Negroes

The church of the Congregation of the Evangelical Brethren - Moravians, Herrnhutters, or Anitri as they are called in Suriname - was long the only organization conducting missionary work in the interior of Suriname. Members of this Congregation came to Suriname early in its colonial history, with the aim of spreading Christianity among the Indians and slaves, and later also among the Maroons. Their aims were not always in accordance with those of the plantation owners who wanted to establish and maintain an effective labour force.

The Moravian Congregation was founded in 1722 by Count von Zinzendorf with the establishment of a religious community in Herrnhut,

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presently situated in East Germany. The Congregation had its roots in the so-called Czech Reformation, a religious movement with a substantial following in Bohemia and Moravia, constituting the present state of Czechoslovakia. Von Zinzendorf was greatly interested in missionary work; his relations with Denmark had led to the foundation of Christian settlements in the Danish West Indies and Greenland. When von Zinzendorf visited Holland he became aware of the possibilities of beginning missionary work among the Indians and slaves of Suriname and Berbice. Several years later, in 1734, negotiations concerning the settlement of Moravians in Suriname were opened with the ‘Societeit van Suriname’^(1.) in Amsterdam. The agreement reached had numerous stipulations: those who would be allowed to go had to be Protestant; men had to be no older than 50 years of age, while the age limit for women was 30; in addition, a good physical condition was required. In 1738, the first missionaries began to work among the Indians of Berbice and in 1754 the work among the slaves in Paramaribo was initiated. The activities of the mission expanded rapidly and in 1757 a number of Indians were brought together to reside in the newly established mission post Saron, along the Saramacca river. Already in the first years following the founding of Saron, the missionaries had more or less frequent contacts with Bush Negroes, who sometimes stayed for a few weeks in camps near the mission station. In 1760, when the government was negotiating a peace treaty with the Maroons, the head of the Congregation was invited by the governor to talk over the possibility of bringing the Christian belief to the Maroons. During that same year, the Maroons, led by the Matawai chief Becu, destroyed and burned the settlement of Saron (see p. 10) and the missionaries were temporarily forced to withdraw to town (Staehelin 1913-19, II(3): 195-9; Quandt 1807: xi).

Finally, in 1765 the first missionaries settled in the area near the Suriname river along which the Saramaka Bush Negroes had established their villages. At about the same time the Brethren were given permission to work among the slaves on some plantations in the coastal area of Suriname. In this initial period, during the second half of the 18th century, the missionaries were already making a few visits through the forest to the neighbouring Matawai, or Becu-Musinga Negroes as they were called, who lived along the Saramacca river. The Matawai sometimes

(1.) The Chartered Society of Suriname was established in 1862 by the West Indies Company, the town of Amsterdam and van Aerssen van Sommelsdijk, who together supervised the colony of Suriname (see de Groot 1977: 3).

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stayed for a while in the villages of the Saramaka Maroons (Steahelin 1913-19, III(3): 178). It seems, however, that these contacts have had little significance in the development of Christianity among the Matawai. It is clear from an account of postholder^(2.) Corsten in the year 1851, that he saw no prospects, at that time, of bringing Christianity to the Matawai. In a paragraph about their religion he writes:

Ever offering a stubborn resistance in a despicable, senseless and child murdering paganism^(3.), they do not show any willingness; indeed, they would consider it with horror if Christianity were to be taught to them. Any bridle on their deep sunken and bastardized nature evokes their annoyance; mockery and abused misjudgement would fall to the Christian teacher's share, unless barrels of rum accompanied his arrival; as long as this fire flowed maybe some of them would.... promise..... or ask hypocritically for baptism, but they would never do it^(4.) (our tr.).

(2.) After the peace treaties with the Bush Negroes the government appointed the so-called postholders (posthouders), who resided near the tribal areas of the Bush Negroes to control their movements and to insure that the peace treaties were maintained (see de Groot 1977: 16).

(3.) Corsten is here referring to the former Matawai custom of drowning a child immediately after birth, when it was born with a caul. Such a child was considered to be reincarnated by the water spirit Wata Mama, and had to be returned to the gods of the river.

(4.) LA ISIB 1852.

Johannes King and the church in Maipaston

The transformation of the Matawai into a society in which the Christian church would become a major institution, was initiated in the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century by the Matawai prophet Johannes King. Until then direct contacts with the mission had been restricted, especially among the Matawai in the upstream area above the falls. Before 1800 only two short visits to the Matawai villages were made by the mission. The Matawai, however, were well acquainted with the purposes of the white missionaries who had come to live with the Saramaka along the Suriname river.

Johannes King spent most of his youth in the downstream area, where some Europeans had plantations, as well as near Paramaribo. His mother, Adensi, originating from the village of Ameikan, or Bellevue as it was known in governmental sources, had come to town to seek treatment, when she fell seriously ill. Her illness was ascribed to a conflict in which she and a kinsman had been involved; it was said that her uncle Amani had poisoned her. Thereafter she did not return to her village of origin,

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but stayed downriver. There, Adensi married a Djuka. This man was the father of Noah Adai, who would later become paramount chief of the Matawai. Johannes King, born around 1830, also had a Djuka father.

During this period many Djuka settled in the downstream area of the Saramacca river, an area that formally belonged to the colony, since Bush Negro territory was supposed to be south of the waterfalls. At the first sign of troubles arising from this settlement of Djuka, the government proceeded to ban the Bush Negroes from this area. The command to leave was repeated again some years later, in 1849. As a consequence, Adensi and her family decided to move to the timber plantation, Maipaston, that had been abandoned by its former inhabitants. Adensi had given birth to many children and the group expanded when a number of affines came to live with them. Years later Johannes King described Maipaston in those early years, as a place of the Devil and related how he, a young man by then, had been strongly involved in all kinds of ‘pagan’ activities^(5.). In Maipaston he married his first wife, Magdalena Akuba. Shortly afterwards he also took a second wife originating from the Saramaka village of Wakibasu, situated close to the Christian village of Ganzee.

During one of King's stays along the Suriname river, he became afflicted with a serious illness. According to him the illness was due to witchcraft. It became so serious, that his kinsmen were called to bring him to Maipaston. Back in Maipaston, King began to have visions that brought him into contact with God. The first vision, which he later recorded in Sranan-tongo, is interesting in several respects. Here follows a somewhat shortened version, based on a Dutch translation made by a missionary^(6.):

While my younger brother Jacobus Vos, and Johannes Molu and Stefanus Krisjan, my brothers-in-law, were keeping guard over me, at about seven o'clock in the evening the Lord took my spirit out of my body, and brought me upwards to a place which looked like a country-seat. There I saw many dark-skinned Indians with their headman. Besides these Indians there were also many others. They all were together in a house, which looked like an open shed. Suddenly we heard a

(5.) see Freytag 1927: 18-9.

(6.) Archives of the EBG: 248.

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voice, which seemed to belong to a woman, calling loudly: ‘People look what the Lord has made up there’. We all rushed outside, looked upward and saw how the sky way up there was divided into three parts. They formed three slates on which letters were written with wax, shining in the sun. Then the spirit of God took me again and brought me to the gateway of the garden of Heaven. At the right side we passed through a narrow doorway. I saw many people in the garden. They all were happy. All of them, men as well as women, were wearing white clothes. I myself became so healthy that I suddenly did not feel pain anymore, only a feeling of hapiness. Close to the doorway was a large high house surrounded by a balcony. The house was stocked with books and on the balcony there were large tables, all having small cups with foods in them, each little cup having a little sugar spoon. The food was sweet as honey. Everybody present was given a cup. I tasted it and said that I wanted to wait a moment, because I could not contain my joy. So I walked down the balcony. And I saw how the whole house was stocked with books, large and small. Some of them had their backs gilded and glittered from the gold. It looked like a shop. As I walked around I reached the back of the house. Suddenly I saw a Master sitting behind the door. I was frightened, because he was dressed in a royal attire with a crown on his head. I asked myself how I could have approached such a high Lord without noticing, and immediately returned to the door of the garden.
Thereafter the spirit of God let me pass through a wide doorway. I went inside. I saw a big fire burning on stones. The house was also made of stone. And the fire was not burning inside, but next to the house. Then I saw a Lord sitting on a chair near the fire. His face was all red, and he spoke to me, calling me ‘Young man’, I replied, and he continued ‘I want to show you something, which you have to tell the others when you return to earth’. Afraid as I was, I stepped forward, where the heat of the fire seemed almost unbearable to me. But the Lord ordered a person inside the house to stir up the

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fire even more. This he did, fanning the fire with the bellows Consequently the fire was flared up so high that sweat was running all over my body and I started to tremble and quiver. Then the Lord asked me ‘Young man, is the fire too hot’? I answered ‘Yes, yes’, because the sparks fell down on my feet and burned me. The Lord continued ‘do you think that if I put you in the fire for one day, you would be able to stand it’? ‘No’, I said. ‘And if you had to stay in it forever, could you stand it’? ‘No’, I replied. Then he got up and said ‘Come, I want to show you something, of which you have to tell the others when you return to earth’. The Lord had many keys in his pocket and led me to a building that looked like a sugar-mill. In the house were many large kettles, placed in rows. The kettles were large, wide and deep and the Lord said to me ‘Look, I show you the kettles in which the people would go’. The kettles were half-filled with oil, - not wholly, and because they were built in stone, you had to climb upstairs to look into them. Then the Lord spoke with the man who had to light the fire under the kettles and to fan the fire with the bellows. When he had done so, the oil in the kettles started to boil so violently that it was frightening to see. But the Lord said ‘Come, I will show you still another thing’. Then he brought me to the rear of the building, where a heavy smoke was clinging. When you approached, your breast was squeezed and you could not breathe any longer. And the Lord said to me ‘Look young man, on this place your people will be punished for the evil you do. Tell the others, when you return to earth, what you have seen with your own eyes’.
When the Lord had taken me around and had shown me all kinds of horrors, he brought me back again into the garden where he had been sitting in a chair. While he sat himself near the big fire, he said ‘Let yourself be converted; for all your amusement, your dancings and what you call pleasures - all that sort of thing - will only bring you to this place’. When the Lord spoke like that, I was so very frightened that I

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started to cry out loudly and trembled all over. When I saw the doorway of the garden leading to the garden of the blessed so near, I wanted to walk away from the place of the fire, but I was not able to move my feet. Then I started to cry out louder and to beg the Lord. So great was my terror, that I thought that I would never come away from this place, and I asked the Lord: ‘Lord, do I also belong to the damned’? ‘Yes, you are one of them’, he said. ‘O Lord, what can I do to prevent it’? And he replied: ‘When you have returned to earth, go to the Brethren and give your name as a member of the church, and let yourself be baptized. Then, when you die, you will go to the garden next door. But if you do not go to the church, you will be punished here, after your death. I beg you, let yourself be converted, and when you have returned to the others, tell them also’. Then the Lord got up, entered the house and went upstairs. I kept standing and watched him go until I no longer saw him. I proceeded alone, and discovered again something frightening. On the ground flour of the house into which the Lord had disappeared, I saw a kind of prison in the form of a big round cage with strong iron bars. In the cage was a tied up creature. He looked like a human being, but not wholly. His body seemed to be of iron and his head was as big as an ox-head. When I looked upstairs in the hope to see the Lord once more, a mulatto woman appeared near the window. She answered my salute and said that the Lord had retired to take a nap. On my inquiry about the frightening, tied creature, she replied: ‘My friend, have a good look at all these things. This place is called Hell. Here, the Devil resides. Did you not hear, when you were still on earth, that God had chained the Devil? The Devil has a lot of power. If God would let him go for a while, even for half an hour, he would be able to destroy the whole world’. I looked at the Devil and saw how God had tied all the joints of his body with copper bonds, and had fastened the shackles with iron chains to iron staffs, so that he was enclosed by them. The copper bonds were glowing. The whole house looked as if it

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was filled with a firelight. It was horrible to see. I was so deathly frightened that I started to cry loudly. Then the woman turned away from the window and went inside the house again. I did not know where to go. I saw a staircase and climbed upstrairs. I had a panoramic view over a river. I rose as if I was about to fly over the river. Then the Lord let my spirit return into my body again and I awoke. It was five o'clock in the morning. It was like I had lost my mind. Terrified as I was, I started to cry, so that everybody came rushing to me. I told them that the Lord had instructed me to speak with them about what I had experienced (our tr.).

In 1857 King entered his name, as instructed in his vision, with the missionaries in town. King told them that he had been admonished by God in his dream to let himself be converted. In a dream, he had stood in front of the church and a man standing before the church doorway, had asked him: ‘King do you know what you have to do? You have to enter your name with the church’ (BHW 1861: 145).

Not long thereafter, King started to proclaim his visions. Initially, he was received everywhere with scorn. When a number of persons in King's family died (especially many children), the death were ascribed to the anger of the spirit of a papa sneki (boa constrictor), killed by King in his youth. This snake is worshipped by the Bush Negroes as a god. King's sister, Affiba, as well as her husband, the Djuka Sopo, in whom the snake spirit manifested itself, fulfilled an important role in the religious life in Maipaston acting as mediums. In fact, many of King's close kinsmen were mediums, as he mentioned in skreki boekoe (book of horrors). When King succeeded in exorcising these spirits, he gradually obtained more influence among his kinsmen. In that same year, 1861, a great change took place, when King instructed them to pull down the shrines of the old gods and gathered obia (traditional medicines) to throw in the river, thus severing all ties with the former religion.

Shortly before, stimulated by a vision, King made his first missionary trip. He went to the Upper Saramacca, where the majority of the Matawai resided, to preach the Gospel. This first trip in January 1860 was soon followed by another in November of the same year. Gaaman Kalkun

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showed himself to be kindly disposed towards King's ideas. Later King spent some time together with his wife with the Moravian Brethren in town, to be instructed for the baptism. He was baptized in August 1861^(7.). Soon he was able to respond to the summons of his visions to build a church in Maipaston. In October 1861 van Calker, the chairman of the Moravian Brethren, visited Maipaston together with Bramberg. They had become curious about the number of people from Maipaston who came to them in town. They found a church with a cross which had taken the place of the shrines of the old gods. It now appeared that King, aside from his wife, Akuba, had still another Matawai wife in the upstream area. Since Akuba was about to be baptized, and thus they would form a Christian family, the missionaries objected to King's having a second wife, who was moreover a heathen. They suceeded in persuading him to separate from her (NB 1861: 853). During this visit they also met with Gaaman Kalkun and two headmen of the upstream villages, who had come to Maipaston. Van Calker proposed to the gaaman to move the whole Matawai tribe closer to the coastal area, so that it would be easier for the missionaries to reach them^(8.). Adai, at that time headman of Maipaston, advised the gaaman to consult first with the headman of the other villages. Kalkun, however, did not expect any difficulties, and declared to the missionaries: ‘When I want to do something, they have to do it too’. He, in fact, came to reside closer to Maipaston, but the majority of Matawai remained above the falls.

Meanwhile, King had learned to read and began to make preparations for baptism in Maipaston. Life in Maipaston became increasingly dominated by Christianity. When, for example, Sopo, a baptismal candidate by then, became gravely ill, they went to Bersaba in the Para district to ask missionary Glöckner to come to Maipaston. Sopo was baptized and recovered some time later. In September 1862 missionary Drexler paid a visit to Maipaston and baptized all the candidates who had been prepared by King. It was during this time that King, having mastered the art of writing, started to record his visions and take notes on events in Maipaston^(9.).

King still had frequent visions in which he was summoned to make mission trips to the other Bush Negro groups. In addition to visiting the Matawai along the Upper Saramacca, trips were also made to the Djuka

(7.) Although it is generally accepted that Johannes King was the first Matawai to be baptized, Apé, a former headman of the Matawai village of Ameikan had already been baptized during the 1840s. Apé had become so hated among his tribesmen as a result of suspicions of witchcraft and poisoning, that people decided to kill him. He fled to Maipaston, at that time still a working camp, and later went to town to be baptized. Here he was given permission to build a house on the burial ground of the Moravians. However, he frequently stayed in the Wanica area, and complaints were lodged against him both by the Matawai Gaaman Afiti Jongman and by Adai, who at that time lived with his relatives in the downstream area. Postholder Corsten advised the government to take the accusations seriously, since he himself was frequently confronted with the consequences of poisoning (LA BIB, November 13, 1847).

(8.) We have to bear in mind that during this period the great majority of Matawai were still residing south of the great waterfalls, which were considered by the missionaries to be insurmountable barriers that would severely hamper their missionary work. The possibility of establishing a mission post so deep in the interior among these Matawai frightened them. They remembered the unhealthy living conditions which they had encountered during their missionary work among the Saramaka along the Upper Suriname river, in Bambey. After having been active for almost half a century the mission post had to be closed, because the mission council in town decided that the small success of their missionary work (as measured by the 83 Saramaka who had been baptized between 1765 and 1813, and of which only 56 were still living in 1813) was not worth the great number of missionaries (15 during this period) who lost their lives (Staehelin 1913-19: III(2): 233-4).

(9.) Johannes King left a great number of manuscripts. For the most part, these works can be found in the archives of the Moravian Brethren (Evangelische Broedergemeente) in Utrecht and Herrnhut. Many travel records have been printed in Dutch, German and English missionary periodicals and bear testimony to the impression made by King's conversion and activities within international missionary circles. Some of his notes concerning the conflicts with his brother and his mission trips have been printed in 1973 by H.F. de Ziel under the title ‘Johannes King: Life in Maripaston’. In the introduction this book also gives an overview of the literature about Johannes King. The most important works are: Freytag's biography about Johannes King (1927), Lichtveld en Voorhoeve (1958), Voorhoeve (1958), Steinberg (1933) and van der Linde (1956). Moreover, to these can be added Schneider (1893) and Burkhardt (1898). A compilation of the Skreki Boekoe, in which King reported his visions, is currently being prepared.

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along the Cottica and the Tapanahoni, the Saramaka along the Suriname river and the Gran Rio and to Berlijn in the Para district^(10.). On his journey to the area of the Djuka in August of 1864, he was accompanied by a deputation sent by Gaaman Kalkun who wanted to improve relations between the Matawai and the Djuka by formally concluding peace with them^(11.). In Diitabiki, Gaaman Beiman warned his people against the preachings of the Gospel by King. Despite his strong opposition to the Gospel being preached in his own village, he was unable to prevent the meeting, which was attended by a great number of people^(12.). In most of the villages people flocked to the meetings to listen to King's words (For an extended report on King's mission trips see de Ziel 1973: 74-109).

On their return, they visited the missionaries in town and related their experiences with the Djuka. Chairman van Calker was content with the results and insisted that King return soon. The journey, in which King would be accompanied by two missionaries was planned for 1866. News that Beiman had died shortly after King's visit and that this was being ascribed by the Djuka to the witchcraft of King^(13.), necessitated the postponement of the trip (BHW 1869: 3). Van Calker still did not want to give up his plan and insisted that the trip to the Tapanahoni be made. In 1868 King together with the missionaries, Bramberg and Lehman, arrived at the Djuka villages along the Cottica, where he was harshly hampered by the Djuka. King observed that the Djuka were acting by order of the new gaaman, and decided that it would be unwise to proceed (Freytag 1927: 55-6).

The church continued to attract many people in Maipaston, and the mission decided to install a teacher to take care of the daily church routine (instruction for baptism, services, etc.), so that church life would not suffer as a result of King's absence, and to enable him to devote his energy completely to these mission trips. In the beginning of 1864, Nicolas Manille was appointed to this function. Manille was a man of royal descent, born in Africa and destined in his own country to a high position. After being sold as a slave, the Moravians christianized him and instructed him to be a teacher (de Ziel 1973: 5). In Maipaston Manille was soon involved in the preparation of candidates for baptism; Gaaman Kalkun was baptized in October 1864^(14.). Relations

(10.) Johannes King made the following missionary journeys:

to the Matawai at the Upper Saramacca	January 1860
to the Matawai at the Upper Saramacca	November 1860
to the Djuka at the Cottica	11 August - 14 Sept. 1864
to the Matawai at the Upper Saramacca	14 Oct. - 21 December 1864
to Berlijn (Para district)	May 1865
to the Djuka at the Marowijne, Tapahoni and the Aluku at the Lawa	22 July - 1 Nov. 1865
to the Loango (Saramaka) at the Gaanlio	14 Oct. - 10 Dec. 1866
to the Cottica Djuka (his aim was to reach the Tapanahoni)	February 1868
to the Matawai at the Upper Saramacca	17 November - 10 May 1871
to the Matawai at the Upper Saramacca	18 December - 9 Jan. 1890
to the Matawai at the Upper Saramacca	26 April - 19 May 1894

(11.) During the initial period when Bojo was gaaman of the Matawai in the 1820s, the relations between the Matawai and the Djuka were very bad. The Djuka, who settled in temporary camps on the Saramacca river, downriver of post Saron, were regularly mistreated by Matawai when they passed by; their camps were set on fire and their property was destroyed. This relationship changed when Gaaman Bojo's boat capsized near post Saron, on his way back from town. He was forced to turn to the Djuka for help, and was reproached for all the abuse the Matawai had inflicted upon them. He admitted that it was true, and was finally given four boats, food and clothing to continue his journey upstream. When he came home he told his tribesmen not to bother the Djuka anymore and warned that any offense would be severely punished by him. Goods were sent to the Djuka to thank them and since then the relations improved (King in de Ziel 1973: 86-89).

(12.) When the Matawai arrived in Diitabiki, Gaaman Beiman hospitably welcomed the delegation and was willing to conclude a peace treaty with them. He inquired whether the only message they brought was the treaty proposal and insisted that he was prepared to listen to anything except matters regarding the church, because as he said: ‘I have my obeah and if I become involved in church affairs the ancestors and gods will kill me straightaway. There shall be no church in my village’ (de Ziel 1973: 24). The captains took offense at his refusal and insisted that he had to listen to the message of God, even though he did not want to affiliate with the church. On the condition that the meeting be held in another house, he finally gave his permission. Indeed Beiman himself kept aloof from the preaching and sent his son to represent him. At night his son came to Adai and explained that the chief had not attended King's public preaching out of fear that his gods and ancestors would punish him if he would listen to the Gospel in his own house, just as they had punished his sister's son, who was thought to have been killed by them after he had thrown his gods in the river and had gone over to the church. He suggested that Adai come secretly to his house to bring him the message personally. Adai consented (de Ziel 1973: 25). When most of the people in the other villages also flocked to the meetings to listen to King's preachings, the chief called Adai and King to explain his stand on this matter before they would continue their journey. He told them that he had not prohibited anyone from attending the meetings, even throwing his gods away and going to town to be baptized, if he so desired, but on the other hand he remained strongly opposed missionaries coming to baptize his people or to establish a congregation in his area (de Ziel 1973: 27-8).

(13.) We have to bear in mind the Djuka's suspicion that King had practiced witchcraft in the death of Gaaman Beiman, and the failure of King's trip of February 1868, when we consider the words of Beiman's successor at his friendly visit to the missionaries in July of the same year. The chief declared himself willing to accept the missionaries in his land. But he insisted that he did not want the Matawai, like Johannes King, to come to preach because, he claimed, these people were less significant than his own tribe (BHW 1869: 3).

(14.) A written account in German of the baptism of Gaaman Kalkun can be found in the archives of the ZZG 339, Utrecht.

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between King and Manille became strained, when Manille reproached him openly that he passed his own visions as words of God and that in this way, God's word would fall into the background. Manille was supported by the missionaries, who intervened in the conflict. In 1867 King was forbidden to use his dreams as a source of inspiration in his sermons.

Initially King's visions were viewed by the missionaries as God's hand (see, for instance, BHW 1865: 247). In a Dutch missionary journal comments made by German missionaries concerning King's visions were published. They remarked that

although we are not allowed to acknowledge in these (visions) particular revelations of God, and although we consider them more to contain the not yet wholly developed, hardly awakened Christian conscience, which filled the soul of King, yet we can not deny on the other hand, that those dreams like so many voices of God, in his hands have become the means to draw the Matawai negro and his countrymen away from paganism. Therefore we have to put up with them as they occur (BHW 1862: 11-2; our tr.).

The commentary of the Dutch editor is also remarkable

We see in the almost childlike dreams of King the influence of the spirit of God, but worked out by the human and restricted intellect of the uncivilized Negro. Another conception of Heaven and Hell the man can not make for himself, and the images are taken from things he himself had seen and heard during his life: cooking houses of the plantation, Indian feather crowns, trumpets of the Moravian Brethren (BHW 1862: 11; our tr.; his italics).

The attitude of the mission towards King's visions tended to be ambivalent. King's biographer Freytag, who is generally very favourable towards him, remarks that ‘Indeed King was in danger of losing the measure of the meaning of his dreams and of taking his own fantasies for higher revelations’ (1927: 66; our tr.). In his chapter about King's skreki boekoe he notes the strange titles of these stories: The holy town of stars; Among the spirits of the ancestors; About the

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wrath of God (The earth does not stand up vertical therefore the collapse is threatening); An archive in Heaven (in which the course of life and a picture of each individual is stored). Freytag comments ‘They show the peculiar world of thoughts in which he lived and his narrow link with the hereafter and the world of the spirits. But they are not all on the same level. Anyhow, King commits a mistake when he prophesizes the coming end of the world using the words of Jesus, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will remain forever’ (1927: 65; our tr.). Clearly King took the eschatological contents of the Gospel seriously, as did the Saramaka prophets before him (see Staehelin 1913-19, III(2): 37, 40, 54, 137). Most of the other Christian commentators stressed the divine origin of King's dreams, but were astonished by their miraculous character. This ambivalence was similarly manifested in the attitude of the missionaries towards King himself. King once told van Calker that a merchant from whom he had purchased a gun, had asked him to relate his dreams. Van Calker immediately reprimanded King for having become too proud, since he was only a poor heathen who had been called and awakened by God (BHW 1862: 15). King, however, continued to use his visions as a source of inspiration (see Burkhardt 1898: 56), and thus came into conflict with the mission.

Dreams have been important in many religious uprisings in early Saramaka society (see de Beet and Thoden van Velzen 1977: 103-11; Sterman 1978: 17). The meaning of dreams for religious renewal and innovation has been elaborated by Lanternari. He reports cases from Africa and the Caribbean, in which elements are contained from both the dreamer's own culture and the culture with which he had come into contact.

Figures, beliefs and myths, which have nothing to do with the dreamer's cultural heritage, are reshaped and reinterpreted in an original way. These processes are the result of unconscious psychic operations made by particularly sensitive individuals after the shocking experience of cultural clash; they occur particularly when the individuals are faced with new cultural models and new, fascinating existential perspectives, however disintegrating they may be (Lanternari 1976: 333-4).

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According to Lanternari the dream itself is a source of charismatic power which enables the dreamer to transform his individual experience into socio-religious change.

In the first years of King's prophetic career, his charismatic influence among the people of Maipaston - derived from his dreams and reinforced by the appreciation of the missionaries - was great. In the course of time, the church became a Moravian dominated and established institution, in which there was no room for the personal revelations of Johannes King. Consequently, King's position in the Christian Matawai congregation weakened.

The decline of Maipaston

In 1870, after the death of Josua Kalkun, King's elder brother, Noah Adai, was appointed as paramount chief of the Matawai. This man was known as a strong personality. Already in the 1840s he had acted as the most important spokesman of the group of Bush Negroes residing in Maipaston, at that time still a working camp. He was frequently mentioned in the reports of postholder Corsten. In addition, he enjoyed the confidence of the Moravian church council in town as well as that of the government. It was no wonder that Noah Adai, now representing the highest political authority, soon came into conflict with his brother Johannes King, who until that time had the authority over religious matters in Maipaston. He forbade King to make decisions about church matters, without first consulting him, so that he could present them to the missionary council in town.

Meanwhile Maipaston had become a flourishing parish. The number of congregation members grew as a result of the expansion of their own baptized members as well as the great attraction on Matawai of other villages. The old church became too small. In 1874 the parish counted already 164 baptized members. A new church would be built on a place agreed upon by King with the mission. It was planned, that, as a result of its favourable position, it would be permanently settled by the missionaries. King had already began to clear fields for some years. King's efforts were obstructed by Adai's independent decision to build the new church in Maipaston. When King reproached him, Adai banished King from

[p. 190]

Maipaston (Freytag 1927: 68). Subsequently, King retired from the religious life of Maipaston and concentrated his attention on other downstream villages.

Since the middle of the 1860s, a camp, established by Jacob Toobi at the mouth of the Pikin Saramacca, attracted many people from upriver to this area. The Pikin Saramacca was economically important for the Matawai because of its lumber resources. By the establishment of a camp on this strategic location, the Matawai were able to insure their own claims against those of the Djuka and Saramaka who had settled in the downriver area in large numbers. In 1865, King had helped Jacob to clear the bush to make a camp. In the camp of Jacob, later the village of Jacobkonde, as well as in the more upstream situated village of Muku Muku, there were people who were drawn to the church. When those resident in Muku Muku informed King that they were no longer willing to live with their heathen kinsmen, the missionaries proposed to transform Jacobkonde into a centre for all the Christians of this region. King was to be installed as head of the congregation. The people of Muku Muku were opposed to a joint residence in Jacobkonde, because, as they said, there was insufficient space to clear gardens. Clearly they did not want to be dominated by the original residents of Jacobkonde. Finally King succeeded in convincing them to establish the village of Kwatahede, built in 1874 (MBB 1927: 57-61). King also played a part in the establishment of the village of Makajapingo. Captain Baakafuuta resided in the neighbourhood of the great falls, a few days journey from Jacobkonde. When he became ill, he went to Jacobkonde where King frequently stayed. King prayed for Baakafuuta, who recovered and decided that he wanted to be prepared for baptism. In 1880, after he was baptized, he took up residence closer to Kwatahede, in Makajapingo, and was gradually followed by an increasing number of his kinsmen.

In the meantime, Adai tightened his grip over Maipaston and began to secure authoritorian control over all matters. In his role of gaaman he was confronted with people suspected of witchcraft (wisi). He purported, on the basis of Christian convictions to feel morally obliged to combat such anti-social behaviour. His actions, however, were so vigorous that he became known as the most brutal gaaman in Matawai history (a hogi té...). We will consider some of these cases in more

[p. 191]

detail because of their bearing upon the relationship of Gaaman Adai and his brother King. Moreover, the cases are relevant because of their historical implications in relation with the departure of a great deal of the Kwinti out of Matawai territory. Finally, they have had important religious consequences because of the belief in the persistence of the avenging spirits evoked during this period.

A few years following Adai's appointment, accusations were laid before him against a man named Amadja, headman of Muku Muku, who was suspected of having killed several Matawai by means of witchcraft. In a letter dated July 30, 1875 Adai turned to the district commissioner and asked him to inform the governor about the case. He pointed out that he himself was a Christian and could not tolerate witchcraft in his area. He requested that the government take the case and banish the accused from the Matawai tribal territory, adding that if the transfer was not handled quickly, he would be obliged to deliver the accused to be killed by his tribesmen. The government informed him that the case should not be settled in the tribal area, and that the accused together with the evidence, should be transferred to the governmental authorities to be further investigated in town. Amadja continued denying the accusation and since they could find no evidence against him, he was released on April 24, 1876. In town it was expected that he would return only to fetch his belongings and take up residence elsewhere - for example along the Suriname river as they had suggested. Amadja, supposing his innocence would be acknowledged, returned to the Matawai area, and remained. He was then taken into custody by the gaaman and attempting to escape, he wounded one of the headmen who helped Adai with the arrest. For the second time Amadja was condemned to death. Again Adai requested (in a letter of August 14, 1876) that the government take the case. Adai declared that he did not want to grant Amadja permission to take up residence along the Pikin Saramacca. Shortly after he had been put under police supervision in town in March of 1877, he succeeded in

[p. 192]

escaping to the Upper Saramacca. In October of 1878 the district commissioner reported the rumour that Amadja had been killed five days travelling distance from Maipaston^(15.). That the sentence had, in fact, been executed is corroborated by King, who reports in his journal further details about the sentence. He mentions that pressured by a great number of people who urged that Amadja be killed, Adai together with three Kwinti whom he had recruited for this plan - Jonas Agasanu, captain Nonu and Figranti - had attempted to kill Amadja. They beat him with sticks and shot him with arrows, until finally he fell to the ground. Still alive, Adai finally summoned still more people to bury him alive (de Ziel 1973: 72 and 118).
The involvement of the three Kwinti in the murder of Amadja has also been mentioned by the evangelist Kraag, who worked among the Coppename Kwinti from 1893 until 1902. Investigating the cause of the death of Aketemoni, headman of the village of Kaimanston that occurred in 1896, he was told that when the Kwinti were still living among the Matawai along the Saramacca river, Gaaman Noah wanted to kill someone suspected of witchcraft. He sought people to do this job for him, but nobody volunteered. Finally the gaaman found Aketemoni prepared to seek Amadja, who was hiding. Together with two others, he found and killed him. Aketemoni then fled to the Coppename, supposing that the spirit of Amadja could not follow him there to kill him. The two others were killed and now also Aketemoni was said to be drowned in the river by Amadja (Kraag 1980: 58-9).
King reports that Adai paid the three murderers in accordance with promises he had made and appointed Jonas Agasanu as headman (de Ziel 1973: 118). It is probable that the person called Nonu by King, was Paulus Aketemoni, who was already headman of one of the Kwinti villages along the Saramacca river before the Kwinti departed^(16.). King continues that not long afterwards God had taken revenge on the culprits. One of them, Figranti, hung himself in his house and the two

(15.) LA GR 1325: February 18, 1892.

(16.) LA GR 1325: February 18, 1892.

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others died after illnesses. The other people involved in the murder also died. ‘Gado srefi koti na kroetoe’ (God himself judged the case), King concludes (de Ziel 1973: 118).
King's viewpoint that the death of those who had been responsible for Amadja's murder was a punishment of God, is remarkable and bears testimony of his personal and already deeply rooted Christian conviction. According to the Matawai these deaths were to be ascribed to Amadja's spirit taking revenge (kunu). Because a great number of people from several lineages had been involved, he would even become a gaan kunu, a major avenging spirit recognized to have a range of action wide enough to make all Matawai vulnerable. In the oral tradition of the Matawai the story is told as following: Formerly there was a man, originating from the lineage of Manjabasu, who was innocently accused of having ‘bought’ wisi (witchcraft). Therefore they wanted to kill him, but he succeeded in escaping and hiding on an island. Finally they saw him downriver. They took him into captivity, forced him to dig a large hole, pushed him in and threw earth over it. They killed him and his kunu has victimized many people.
Circa 1883 Adai was informed about another suspicion of witchcraft. As far as we know, he did not bring this case before the government^(17.). Now a man named Bomboi was involved, originating from the lineage of Maipakiiki. The story is related that Bomboi, being popular among women, evoked jealousy and was innocently accused of witchcraft. When people tried to give him a beating after his involvement in adultery, he fled to the forest, where he managed to hide for a long time. A classificatory brother deceived him, however, by disclosing his hiding-place to the others. Gaaman Adai decided that he should be killed and took two persons from each village to execute the sentence. They built a large fire and he was burned alive. The incident took place near Koofaja kiiki. By inculpating all these persons in the murder, the gaaman caused all those persons who would be reborn as reincarnations (neseki)

(17.) Unfortunately we could not recover the documents referred to in the Gouvernements Resolutie of 1895 about the case of Nathaniël Mankiati. In this document a letter (20) is mentioned dating January 23, 1885 in connection with Adai's actions. It could refer to his action towards Bomboi, but also towards the punishment he meted out to Alamu and a number of other Kwinti, that resulted in their flight to the Coppename, that took place at the same time.

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of the culprits (and the neseki of their neseki, as we will see p. 290), as well as their matrilineal descendants to become vulnerable to Bomboi's revenge. Bomboi indeed became a gaan kunu and is said to have taken revenge, like the spirit of Amadja, on almost all Matawai lineages^(18.).
Another incident involved a certain Nathaniël Mankiati, a classificatory brother of captain Petrus Baakafuuta, from Makajapingo. His first wife, Adriana, had been taken from him by Samuel Koloku, Adai's son. His second wife was also stolen from him by a man named Jonathan of Maipaston. Thereafter Samuel fell seriously ill for a long time and a year following the incident Jonathan died. Adai held Mankiati responsible for both Samuel's illness and the death of his kinsman. He was sentenced to death, in 1893. Mankiati declared his willingness to undergo the poison ordeal, a common procedure in the case of suspicion of witchcraft, whereby the suspect drinks a sacred potion (sweli). Adai stubbornly refused although he knew that if the accused was in fact guilty and drank sweli, he would surely die. He was tied, instead, to the pole of the ancestors, where he was forced to sit for three days in the burning sun without eating or drinking. On the third day it was intended that he should be decapitated and burned. Baakafuuta prevented this by loosening him, so that he could escape to town. Adai punished Baakafuuta by relieving him from his function as headman.
Mankiati, made a complaint at the government^(19.). King sided with him and sent a letter to the government in which he proposed that he, together with a number of headmen and the evangelist of Makajapingo, would be willing to testify against Adai^(20.). Even the chairman of the Moravian mission interfered in the case and wrote a letter to Gaaman Adai, in which he admonished him to stop living like a sinner and pointed out that not Mankiati, but he himself was wrong. He threateningly added: ‘Otherwise I am afraid, that when you must stand before God to be judged today or tomorrow, you will not receive a

(18.) A comparison of Freytag's description of Noah Adai's action in a witchcraft case (1927: 10) and a text of Johannes King (in de Ziel 1973: 72, 118), in which the same case is mentioned and which Freytag must have used in his work, reveals significant discrepancies. It appears that Freytag, who, as he himself mentioned, was familiar with oral traditions, probably confounded the case of Amadja to which King in his text was referring, with the case of Bomboi, which played such an important role in the oral tradition. As a consequence of this he mentions the role of the three Kwinti and Albertina in the burning at the stake of Bomboi, while they were in fact involved in the case of Amadja.

(19.) LA GR 1325: February 18, 1893.

(20.) LA GR 620: January 23, 1893.

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blessing and will not be forgiven’^(21.).

The relationship between Adai and King had reached its lowest point. King's actions, heavily relying on the support of the mission, were considered to be an interference in local affairs, and the disagreements and conflicts accumulated. Adai, being conscious that he found support among his villagers, felt confident enough to banish King from Maipaston again in 1891. King thereupon retired downstream in his camp Miwanlibi, and seldom appeared in Maipaston. On the few occasions King did show himself, he was openly threatened with a gun by Adai, who publicly declared that ‘Johannes King's bloedoe moesoe ron na gron’ (King's blood will be shed)^(22.). The last years of Adai's chieftainship were accompanied by the decline of the church congregation of Maipaston. In 1891 the school had been closed, because the elders were no longer willing to send their children. The Gaan Tata cult of the Djuka began to acquire influence over Maipaston (see pp. 196 ff), and the hope of the mission that at the death of Adai, King would be able to resume work in Maipaston and revive the parish again, was not fulfilled. Maipaston could no longer be held together by communal Christian zeal, and appeared to be torn apart in conflicting groups, each striving after its own goals. Those persons who originally had been most strongly associated with King's ideals, now lived dispersed in the upstream villages, preaching the Gospel in the developing Christian congregations.

(21.) LA GR 1325: February 18, 1893.

(22.) LA GR 620: January 23, 1893.

The Gaan Tata cult at the Saramacca river

In the early 1890s a new religious cult was introduced among the Djuka of the Tapanahoni region, called the Gaan Tata cult. Shrines of the former ‘false’ gods were destroyed and obia were thrown into the river in favour of the new god Gaan Tata (Great Father) or Gaan Gadu (Great God) as he was called more commonly by the Djuka themselves. The cult developed a centralized and hierarchical organization, with monotheistic aspirations and the character of an anti-witchcraft movement. Leadership of the cult was in the hands of a small group of priests, who were both powerful and exacting. The cult spread rapidly among other Bush Negro groups (see Thoden van Velzen 1977: 82), and soon Gaan Tata took hold

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among the Matawai as well. The cult was introduced in several villages throughout the Matawai area and has been an important factor in the religious development of the Matawai. In the course of the year 1892 the cult was brought from the Cottica river to Santigoon at the lower part of the Saramacca river (MT 1895: 45). Santigoon had a population consisting mainly of Djuka, who were in frequent contact with their relatives of the Cottica and Tapanahoni regions. From Santigoon the cult spread further along the upstream Matawai villages. The Djuka of Santigoon journeyed to Matawai villages to convert them to the belief of Gaan Tata. King (BHW 1895: 12) mentions a Djuka named Kwogi who made a trip to the mouth of the Pikin Saramacca (Jacopukonde) to introduce Gaan Tata. Finally he succeeded in gaining a foothold in all the downriver Matawai villages, with the exception of Kwatahede. The scenes resembled those that could be observed previously in many Djuka villages. Old gods were thrown into the river and room was made in the temples for Gaan Tata. People submitted themselves to the priests of Santigoon, who demanded huge sums of money and large offerings of food, rum and cloths (BHW 1895: 12). The Matawai of the upriver villages on their way to the coast when they passed the village of Santigoon, also came into contact with the new cult. Everyone passing the village was obliged to pay a sum of 16 guilders to the Gaan Tata priest, as Samuel the son of Adai mentioned in a complaint to the government^(23.). Transgression of this obligation was punishable with death by the god of Santigoon. The new cult soon gained a wide following among the Creoles from Paramaribo, the Negroes from the Para district, as well as the Bush Negroes of the Saramacca river. Even Christians began to participate in some of the cult's rituals. In Maipaston, people also turned to the new god and observed his stringent laws. Attempts by Johannes King to convince his kinsmen that the sweli of Gaan Tata was only a lie (soso lei sani) were in vain. He was unable to remove the fear.

When Gaaman Adai became ill in 1893, he sent two messengers to Santigoon to seek help at Gaan Tata. On May 28, 1893, he died before their return. They arrived in Maipaston with a warning from Amadjo, the leader of the cult. He said that Noah's illness was a punishment of Gaan Tata and instructed them that if he died, they should not bury him, but should dispose of his corpse in the forest. Would they infringe upon this

(23.) LA GR 7627: October 26, 1893.

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law, Gaan Tata would strike them with illness and death. In addition, his goods should not be divided. Gaan Tata himself had to be brought to Maipaston to dispose of the estate, and to assign a new gaaman (de Ziel 1973: 124). The inhabitants of Maipaston were greatly alarmed by the news. King, who had been summoned to Maipaston by his brother shortly before his death to be reconciled with him and to reassume leadership of the congregation, took great pains to restore peace in the village. When shortly before the burial, his younger brother Jacobus Vos became possessed by a bigi gadu spirit, King exorcised the spirit by whipping him and ordering the spirit to leave Maipaston (1973: 136-7). Fear of Gaan Tata, however, remained so strong, that only a few persons dared to go to the burial ground.

Four months after Noah's death, some of his kinsmen who were servants of the church, turned against King. His sister Lydia summoned two missionaries, Staehelin and Richter, to Maipaston to accuse King. It was said that he had gone to Santigoon to call Gaan Tata and the angels to kill Noah (1973: 129). King considered Noah's death to have been caused by the anger of God, because he had made the work in the congregation impossible for a long time (1973: 130).

Meanwhile the Gaan Tata cult had gained acceptance in other Matawai villages. On February 18, 1894 the Christian village headmen of Makajapingo and Kwatahede, Baakafuuta and Jacobus Toti came to King to talk with him about the increasing influence of the Gaan Tata movement. They told him that one of the leaders of the cult in Santigoon, Kwogi had visited the village headman of Jacobkonde requesting a place near his village where he could bring the new god. Then, all Matawai could serve Gaan Tata there, since the government was planning to forbid the cult in Santigoon. Alafanti, who had been designated by Adai as his successor before his death, was willing to give the place Bookolonko to Kwogi (1973: 139). Both headmen, who viewed the spread of the cult with distrust, asked King, also in the name of the headmen of the villages above the falls, to help them to combat Gaan Tata. Afraid that they would be killed by Gaan Tata, they insisted that King come personally. King instructed his nephew Timotheus, one of the church servants of Maipaston, who at that time was married to a woman from the upstream area, to warn the headmen against Gaan Tata and to announce his intended

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arrival (1973: 138).

The missionaries in town initially viewed the Gaan Tata cult with a certain amount of esteem because of its monotheistic character. In fact they hoped that the transition to Christianity would be facilitated for the pagans who had threwn away their old gods. Soon they realized that the Gaan Tata cult formed a kind of counter-offensive to Christianity, which had been only slowly gaining some support. It became necessary to combat this cult even more than other forms of idolatry (Burkhardt 1898: 27; MBB 1896: 99). Wehle, the German missionary of the plantation Catharina Sophia who was also responsible for the mission of the Upper Saramacca, went so far as to throw ‘one of the so-called gods’ into the river in Santigoon^(24.).

The government, as well, was opposed to the Gaan Tata cult, because of the large offerings of rum, money and cloth which were demanded. For this reason, the district officer Cabenda, who was residing in lower Saramacca, urged King to combat Gaan Tata in the upriver villages.

King left his residence Miwanlibi on April 26, 1894, for a trip along all the Matawai villages. In the report of his journey^(25.) King mentioned that he performed a service in Jacobkonde, and urged the people to turn away from the new god Gaan Tata and to seek the living God. King, knowing that he had the support of the government, threatened the people with punishments by the whites to underline his words. However, the two brothers Adolf Mongi and Napoleon, who was the priest of Gaan Tata in Jacobkonde, were not impressed by King. They abused him and prevented him from throwing the Gaan Tata obia into the river (BHW 1895: 14).

At Pikin Lembe, in the upstream area, King arranged a meeting with the headmen and elders of the upper villages. He asked them to explain why they had chosen Gaan Tata as their god, and warned that God would punish them. If they did not hand Gaan Tata over immediately, he would accuse them at the government. The headmen replied that Gaan Tata had come to them as a severe master, they did not really understand why, and now they did not know what to do. While they did not want to serve him they felt that they had to (BHW 1895: 15). Gaan Tata seemed to have rapidly gained a strong influence here in the Upper Saramacca. They told King that complying with Gaan Tata's command they had thrown all the old

(24.) LA GR 7627: October 26, 1893.

(25.) King kept a journal of this trip (Archive EBG 244), parts of which have appeared in a missionary journal (BHW 1895).

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gods into the river. Having placed their confidence in him, they felt cheated when shortly thereafter some people had died. They argued that they no longer wanted to serve Gaan Tata and complained that they suffered greatly from such false gods.

We transport wood to town, sell it and buy cloths, rum and beer. Then we bother ourselves, day in and day out, to bring all these things home and when we arrive in our village, we have to offer a lot of cloths and drinks to our gods. One part, we have to carry away to offer it in the forest, another part to the river, another to the big stones and the trees in the forest. In vain we throw away all these things. We do not have a profit, nothing, nothing at all, only evil comes over us (BHW 1895: 16; our tr.).

King, who had just heard that a man in Abookotanda was punished for adultery by being whipped until he bled, took the opportunity to rebuke them and to stress that Gaaman Adai had already prohibited these things. He visited headman Anasi of Abookotanda, who related how Gaan Tata had promised that if they would dispose of the old gods and serve him instead, he would guard them from adversity. However, they had to observe stringent rules. Women were not allowed to sit in the same boat with men, during their menstrual period. They were forbidden to cut mope trees and moreover they were pressured to throw all the gods, whom they had served for so long, into the river. Gaan Tata took up residence in the house of the former god papa gadu (see p. 246). Anasi begged King to pull them out of the hands of Gaan Tata and to teach them the road to God. He did not want a single remnant of Gaan Tata to remain in the village. Johannes King and his nephew Timotheus Jau, who had joined him on this trip, set fire to the hut where they had prayed to Gaan Tata^(26.).

Many of the villagers of Abookotanda were just preparing a trip to Jacobkonde to serve Gaan Tata. Thus King had arrived just in time to dissuade them from their plan. Now many people registered with the church (29 of Abookotanda and 29 of the villages near Pikin Lembe^(27.)) and they begged King to ask the missionaries for an evangelist. King could well be content with the results of this trip.

(26.) Archive EBG 244.

(27.) Archive EBG 244.

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On February 23, 1895, the missionary Wehle embarked on a trip to the Upper Saramacca. Originally he had intended to go with King, but he had found him in bad health at his place of residence. This trip was also intended to wipe out the Gaan Tata cult. In Jacobkonde, which had become the centre of the cult in the Matawai area, he advised the Christians to leave the village if Gaan Tata would get the better of them (BHW 1895: 123). Wehle corroborated King's observations of the increasing influence of Gaan Tata in the upstream area. Wehle was not very communicative about his actions against Gaan Tata during this trip, but a report of visits to other villages in the downriver area around 1895 suggests the kind of actions which he was likely to have employed upriver. When he arrived in a village with signs of ‘idolatry’, he spoke with the people about the true God and asked them why they did not want to turn away from this ‘misery’. If they did not give him a ready answer and remained sitting quietly and undisturbed, Wehle considered it time to act. With the aid of his Christian boatmen he pulled down the local shrines and set them on fire. The winti men, thus confronted with the powerlessness of their own gods (since Wehle was not punished) were forced to justify themselves (MT 1895: 44).

The actions taken by King and Wehle contributed to the decline of the influence of the Gaan Tata cult along the Saramacca river. The cult, however, continued to play a role in Matawai religious life. Still in the 1930s Gaaman Asaf Kiné, for example, maintained close relations with Santigoon and brought people from other villages to make offerings to Gaan Tata. In the annual reports of the 1930s, various indications can be found that people from the upstream area often put their faith in Gaan Tata^(28.).

Also in the oral tradition, cases of religious dependence on the priests of the Gaan Tata cult in Santigoon are known.

When Thomas Alen of Maipakiiki died in 1923, his bongola (an oracle consisting of the hair and nail clipping of the deceased, tied to a plank, carried by two bearers on their heads), was consulted. It was revealed that his death was a punishment from Gaan Tata. When he had gone to town to sell his balata, he ‘bought’ witchcraft to kill another person. On his way back

(28.) Jaarverslagen Nieuw Jacobkondre 1930, Boven Saramacca 1934, Boslanti 1936.

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to the village he became ill, punished by Gaan Tata (whose main taboo is witchcraft). Shortly after his arrival in the village of one of his wives, he died. To settle the case, all his property was brought to Santigoon. In addition, his two wives had to spend the mourning period under the supervision of the Gaan Tata priests. Accompanied by some maternal uncles of their former husband they went to Santigoon, where they stayed a whole year until the mourning period came to an end. Before their return the bongola was carried again and one of his wives was assigned by the spirit of the deceased to his ‘brother’ Jonathan Mujeefutu, the other to his ‘brother’ Petrus Ianwooko; both had been engaged in an adulterous relation with them. When the women returned, both were pregnant and each of the brothers had to pay a fine to the spirit of the deceased, consisting of the usual tin of rum and cloths. With this paiman (fine) a great dancing was held in the village of Maipakiiki.

In the 1970s the Gaan Tata bundle was still carried secretly in some downstream villages (Makakiiki, Asanwai and Bilawata) and Santigoon remained the centre of the Gaan Tata cult along the Saramacca. In 1972 news spread among the Matawai of a new anti-witchcraft movement, which had begun to gain a large following among the Djuka of the Tapanahoni, its area of origin (Thoden van Velzen 1977). At that time, however, the deeds of the cult leader and prophet, Akalali, were not yet well-known in the upstream area. Among the Matawai migrants in town, the supernatural powers of this prophet were the subject of lively discussions and heated debates. It was said that even officials of the Surinamese government came to consult him. By 1975 inroads were made into Matawai territory, as had earlier been the case in other Bush Negro areas (Thoden van Velzen 1977: 114). During this year the Matawai gaaman negotiated with the cult leader, to cleanse the Matawai area from witchcraft. His proposal met with opposition on the part of the upstream villages, opposition that was based not so much on Christian principles, as one would expect but on practical grounds^(29.). When the upstream villagers were informed about the high costs that had to

(29.) This tendency to base oneself on practical rather than ethical arguments in religious matters is quite general. One of the main reasons given for the preference of the Roman Catholic over the Moravian church in the time that the Roman Catholics began to infiltrate the Matawai area, was that while they had to contribute provisions for the schools and churches of the Brethren, they themselves were provided with the materials and given financial support by the Roman Catholics.

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be paid by the villages communally, they argued that it was a government matter and that the Surinamese government (lanti) should pay. In addition, they were not certain that there was any witchcraft to be found and were afraid that they would then have paid the prophet for nothing, ‘soso lasi u to go lasi’ (we only would lose). The gaaman disappointed by this reaction, decided to cancel the large scale cleansing plan, in which Akalali would have come by boat with a large following. Instead he invited Akalali to come personally by airplane to Posugunu, the gaaman's village to cleanse himself, his wife and his sister, without any other Matawai present. The relations between them became thereby so close, that Akalali was invited to attend the feast celebrating the 25th anniversary of the gaaman's accession to office. The Matawai did not doubt Akalali's supernatural powers to ‘see’ witchcraft, which they considered to have been given to him by God (Gadu da en di koni).

Christianity and the appointment of political functionaries

From the onset of their missionary work among the Bush Negroes in Suriname, the Moravian Brethren have had the support of the government. The government played an important role in the attempts to introduce Christianity throughout the Matawai area. They have always tried in political successions to give support to those candidates, who showed a favourable attitude towards Christianity and who were well-disposed towards the promotion of missionary work among their tribesmen. With the banishment of paganism, the government expected to get a stronger hold on the political life of the Bush Negroes. The government systematically interfered in Matawai political successions by trying to appoint Christian candidates. To support this point we will detail some of the complications which arose concerning political successions.

Already in 1858, some years before the radical change took place in Maipaston, the government had persuaded Gaaman Kalkun to send his nephew Johannes to Beekhuizen, the mission school of the Moravian Brethren in town. The purpose, according to the government secretary, was ‘that the Bush Negroes would become attached to our government and that the children who were educated in town would bring over and

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multiply the seeds of civilization and religion under their people^(30.) (our tr.). Kalkun's nephew was chosen because he was considered to be the future successor of Gaaman Kalkun. As has already been mentioned, Kalkun later proved to be kindly disposed towards the mission under the influence of the missionary journeys of King. The gaaman had even settled farther downstream to be closer to the colony and within the ‘action radius’ of the missionaries. He was also among the first Matawai to be baptized. However, when Kalkun died in 1867, his nephew Johannes was no longer alive. Shortly before his death, Kalkun designated Zacharias Alafanti (figure 1) as his legitimate heir. The government passed over him in favour of Adai, who had been baptized and had close relations with the mission. The latter was appointed in 1870. The fact that Frans Bona, appointed as gaaman of the Saramaka in the same year, was a Christian had similarly turned the scale in his favour^(31.).

After Adai's death in 1893, when the question of the succession had to be settled, the opinions were so divided that governor van Asch van Wijk personally came to Maipaston to arrange a meeting with the Matawai notables. This council meeting held on February 1894, however, was boycotted by most of the headmen. Only two attended: Petrus Baakafuuta, the Christian headman of Makajapingo, and Jacobus Toti of Kwatahede. In addition Adai's son Samuel Koloku and Johannes King were present. Jacobus related on this occasion, that in December 1892 he had visited the upriver villages together with Adai to designate Alafanti as his successor. He said that Adai had repeated this wish during his illness. Contrary to the customary procedure that a person belonging to the same lineage becomes the successor, Adai had succeeded Kalkun. In order to redress that injustice and to prevent his enemies, Baakafuuta and King, from being appointed, Adai had designated Alafanti, a pagan lineage member of Kalkun. The governor, however, preferred the Christian headman Baakafuuta. King was the sole supporter of the governor's proposal. The others feared the anger of the deceased gaaman, since he had been involved in a conflict with Baakafuuta before his death (see p. 194) and had relieved him of his function. Adai's son Samuel accused King of desiring Baakafuuta's appointment only, in order to become the leading person behind the scenes. King in turn suspected that Samuel would, in fact, rule if Alafanti would be appointed. The governor, who noticed

(30.) LA ISIB 1859.

(31.) Also in the case of the succession of Frans Bona, the governmental officials clearly preferred a Christian candidate (LA BIB: March 16, 1871 and ARA LA 525/34: January 25, 1887).

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that King did not have much authority, was at that time unwilling to consider an eventual appointment of King as gaaman.

Some months later, in April 1894, a group of notables, among them Alafanti, Samuel, Jesajas and Matheus, went to town to defend Alafanti's claims with the governor. The governor let them know that he could not agree to it, because Alafanti's residence was too far from town. Alafanti hastily counseled with his companions and replied that he intended to be baptized and to take up residence closer to Maipaston^(32.). However, by the beginning of 1895 the matter had still not been settled. A new meeting attended by all the headmen was arranged in Maipaston. King, who had in the meantime made his trip to the upstream area and strongly impressed the people of these villages, had gained much more authority. The headmen no longer opposed his appointment, and the government agreed with them whole-heartedly^(33.). The temporary district commissioner reported that during his stay in Maipaston it appeared to him that King had acquired more authority than Baakafuuta. After taking the oath on November 1895^(34.), King celebrated his appointment as gaaman in the backroom of the church together with the missionaries.

Not long after his appointment King became ill. He feared that he was the victim of Alafanti's witchcraft. He began to doubt his double function as political and religious leader and turned to the governor to request permission to resign his office. The distict commissioner proposed Baakafuuta for the position, but Benjamins, member of the Colonial Parliament, concluded that it was preferable to follow the customary law of the Bush Negroes and appoint Alafanti (Benjamins 1916). Despite the fact that Alafanti was known to support traditional practices and opposed Christianity, he was ordained as gaaman in 1898. Three years later he died.

The government and mission continued to interfere in the appointment of later gaaman. As is evident from the foregoing cases of succesion, their interference only served to contribute to the confusion in the political life of the Matawai. We suggest that this confusion is related to the difficulty of keeping ‘church’ and ‘state’ apart in such a small-scale society as the Matawai.

(32.) LA GR 5869: August 19, 1895.

(33.) Probably King's request in his letter of February 25, 1894 to the chairman of the Moravians, in which he asked him to urge the governor to install in Maipaston a gaaman, who would be able to expell the Gaan Tata cult from the Saramacca, had achieved its purpose. Because King in his letter added that all the Matawai headmen were afraid of Gaan Tata, and were unable to do anything to oppose the cult, (Johannes King in de Ziel 1973: 198), it is clear that King thought that he himself would become gaaman.

(34.) I Johannes King,
Paramount chief of the tribe of the Becu and Musinga Negroes, promise solemny, as far as is in my power.
1) to the Queen of the Netherlands, here represented by the governor of Suriname, as my ruler and to all authorities who are appointed by her as my government, to grant all due honour, obedience and help;
2) to abstain from all unlawful actions;
3) to promote the welfare of the people of the villages under my rule;
4) to govern with justice;
5) to live in peace with my neighbours and other Bush Negroe tribes;
6) not to use violence towards anybody without the authorization of the government;
7) in conflicts which might arise between my own and other tribes or between persons, to adhere to the decision of the governor and and the authorities he appoints;
8) to grant free permission to the Christian teachers to conduct religious teaching and to protect and assist them, as well as, in general, the residents of this colony who visit the villages inhabited by my tribe;
9) to protect criminals who seek refuge, from maltreatment and all unlawful actions, to arrest them and to deliver them to the district commissioner of Saramacca;
10) to grant the gold-concessionaries and balata bleeders in the Upper Saramacca, if they want, the necessary help to pass the waterfalls, without claiming extraordinary sums for the rendered services, but asking a moderate and reasonable compensation;
11) not to seek political contact with alien powers;
12) not to permit strangers to take up residence with me, except by permission of the governor;
13) If I am wronged by an inhabitant or another person not belonging to my tribe, to lodge my complains with the government-secretary, who is charged with the supervision of the Bush Negroes and Indians, and to immediately send those who do transgress their regulations, to the district commissioner of Saramacca;
14) to behave myself precisely according to the intentions of the governor that are already known to me or are to be made known. I affirm this declaration on oath and I sign it in the presence of witnesses, on this day, Wesnesday, November 13, eighteen hundred ninety five,
JOHANNES KING (our tr.).

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Figure 1 The succession of Gaamanship among the Matawai

1	Musinga	±1750 -	1780
2	Becu	1780 -	?
3	Bojo (Kodjo)	±1810 -	1830
4	Afiti Jongman	1830 -	1853
5	Josua Kalkun	1855 -	1867
6	Noah Adai	1870 -	1893
7	Johannes King	1895 -	1895
8	Alafanti	1898 -	1901
9	Koso
10	Asaf Kiné	1924 -	1947
11	Alfred Abone	1950 -	1980

a	Jan Musinga
b	Baakafuuta
c	Martinus
d	Pompeia

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After the death of Alafanti in 1901, it was not until 1924 that a new gaaman was officially appointed by the government. Until 1916 Baakafuuta, who was, as we have already indicated, highly trusted by the government because of his close affiliation with the mission, fulfilled the temporary function of paramount chief. Baakafuuta considered himself to have the right to this title, because of his direct kinship ties to the former Matawai chief Musinga (figure 1)^(35.). The Matawai of the upriver villages, however, strongly insisted that the gaaman pau (chief's staff) had to remain in Afompay, in the lineage of Alafanti.

It is not exactly clear why it took so long before appointing an official successor to Alafanti. We do, however, know from oral accounts, that the Matawai appointed and inaugurated pretendents, but that these persons had never been recognized and officially installed by the Surinamese government. About 1913, Koso^(36.), who was said to have been designated by Alafanti's carry oracle, was appointed as the new gaaman. He was inaugurated in the Matawai area, but only held this function for a short time, because he died a few years following his appointment. This was before he had been officially recognized as chief by the government. Koso's death was related with a conflict in which he had been involved with Baakafuuta. According to the Matawai Koso died, because of the wrong decision he took in the council concerning this conflict. ‘A bangula di sondi’ (he confused things)^(37.).

After Koso's death, Baakafuuta acted once again as tribal chief. The next development took place when a certain Martinus was indicated as his successor by Koso's spirit. Martinus and his direct kinsmen had just deserted the village of Afompay and had settled in the new village of Fiimangoon, close to Kwatahede, because of the greater working possibilities downstream. Because Martinus was still quite young, he was discouraged from filling the position and was urged to ask his ‘elder brother’ Kiné to take his place. The fact that Kiné belonged to another lineage segment, that had developed into an independent lineage, was for the Matawai not considered insurmountable. However, for the government and the mission, Kiné was not considered to be the most suitable candidate, because of his obstinate attitude towards Christianity. However, soon the mission was able to get a trip on the situation.

Sprang, the resort leader of the Moravian mission in the Matawai

(35.) Petrus Baakafuuta, who was captain of Makajapingo during our fieldwork and namesake of his grand uncle, defended the rather confused claims of old Baakafuuta by pointing to the two gaaman staffs which, according to oral tradition, Mama Tjoa, the original ancestress of the Matawai, had taken along with her, when she escaped from the plantation. The staffs which originally had been designated as gaaman and captain's staff, were via Musinga and Becu given to later office holders. It is possible that the staff, that was later meant for headcaptain, was in old Baakafuuta's possession. According to genealogical data Musinga was the MMF of Baakafuuta (see also GR 856: February 2, 1894). After the death of Baakafuuta the function of headcaptain was given to the Christian, Nicodemus Schmidt of the village of Boslanti. Boslanti, at that time, was the largest village as well as the Christian centre and had taken over the role of the former villages of Ameikan and Makajapingo.

(36.) Gaaman Koso, according to the genealogies we compiled, did not belong to the lineage of Alafanti (also called be pisi), but to the other lineage (baaka pisi), which had always resided together with them in Afompai and Posugunu. Our informants, however, stressed that he also belonged to the be pisi, because as they rationalized ‘it always has been the lineage of Alafanti, thus be pisi, who have been performing the function of gaaman, except Kiné’. In Koso's time, the former matri-segments of the lineage of Afompai had sufficiently developed into two distinct lineages, that marriage relations between them began to be tolerated. In fact, one of Koso's five wives was a woman of the Alafanti lineage of his own village.

(37.) A group of men from the village of Makajapingo went to French Guiana to work in the river transport, there joining some Matawai from the upriver villages who had already been working there for some years. The latter felt threatened by the newcomers and fought to keep them out of the area. When both working groups returned to the Saramacca river, the conflict erupted again, this time violently. The upriver people argued that the gaaman had wrongfully chosen the side of the ‘Matawai’ (as the residents of the upstream villages call themselves, chauvinistically excluding the downriver residents), and thereby invoked the wrath of the ancestors.

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area, was surprised that there were only three officially recognized headmen in 1923. As long as there was no legally recognized gaaman, no headmen could be appointed. Sprang, who was informed that the government still objected to Kiné's appointment, noticed that the governmental pressure on Kiné to become christenized, was beginning to have an effect. Kiné was taking bible lessons and would soon be baptized. The mission too was suffering from the confused situation among the Matawai. In October 1923 Kiné was brought to the governor by Sprang and the evangelist of the upstream area in order to settle the matter rapidly. As Sprang declared, ‘we also very much miss in church matters the support of a tribal chief’^(38.).

Immediately after Kiné's appointment in 1924, a large number of headmen, who were recognized by the Matawai but had not as yet been inaugurated by the government, were officially installed. The government showed a clear preference for Christian and baptized candidates. One Christian headman after another was appointed. The government's appointment of Nicodemus as headcaptain in Boslanti contributed to the development throughout the 1920s of Boslanti and Mombabasu into a real bulwark of Christianity in the upstream area. Nicodemus was a stringent and fierce opponent of the traditional religion, in his own as well as in other villages, and appeared to be able to inspire others toward Christian ideas. Also in Pijeti, the former village of Maipakiiki, where public profession of the traditional religion persisted longer than in other villages, the mission was able to reinforce its grip through the appointment of the Christian headman Emelius in 1928. Moreover, the Moravian mission seized upon Gaaman Kiné's desire to be head of the church in his territory as well as tribal chief and established a church in Posugunu the residence of the gaaman.

Finally, in the appointment of the latest gaaman both the government and the church played a decisive role. After Kiné's death, in 1947, headcaptain Nicodemus who was supported by the mission temporarily filled his place. As successor to Asaf Kiné a lineage member of him, Pompeia, was designated by the tribal council. This man was already in his seventies, but what was more important, he was one of the most fervent opponents of the Christian church, with a reputation of persistent attacks upon the church. Soon Pompeia was inaugurated in the village

(38.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1923.

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and went to town for his official appointment. The government, however, willingly seized upon the fact that Pompeia was already quite old, and postponed his appointment in town as a result of illness. The Matawai ascribed his illness to the ancestors who for one reason or another did not concur with his appointment. The district commissioner organized a general council in which the government declared that candidates should not be sought from other lineages, and they urged them to keep the function of gaaman within the lineage of Alafanti. In addition, it was stated that the government preferred the appointment of younger men who could retain their function longer. In concert, it was decided to appoint Abone (figure 1), who conformed to the above mentioned requirements. In 1950 he was officially appointed. The government, however, demanded that he would return to his original religious community of the Moravian Brethren, which he had left because of his former marriage with a woman of the neighbouring Roman Catholic village. The attempt to get a grip on political appointments was so strong, that the government in appointing Abone already considered who would be the future successor^(39.). This question has recently become an actuality with the death of gaaman Abone in July 1980.

(39.) In Posugunu at the council in which the assignment of Gaaman Abone was discussed, the district commissioner also tried to ascertain his future successor. He asked about Abone's sister's son, and was informed that his only sister's son at that moment was a school boy. The commissioner proposed to assign him as Abone's successor. Not long thereafter the boy was sent to a school in town, to become prepared for his future political task. When he finished school, he was consciously chosen to act as a middleman between the Surinamese government and the Matawai, by appointing him as a kind of district functionary (onderbestuursopzichter). As all the Matawai verified during our research, he was indeed ‘someone who was able to talk with the bakaa (whites)’.

The introduction of the church in the upstream area

After the death of Johannes King in 1898, the centre of missionary activities gradually shifted to the upstream villages. Maipaston was abandoned around 1904 and its former inhabitants dispersed. In the new village of Asanwai or Commissariskonde, where, a large part of the people of Maipaston settled, a new evangelist was no longer appointed. The residents of this village visited the church of Kwakugoon, which had originally been a police post for controlling goldminers and balata-gatherers. Since 1888 an evangelist had been established in Kwatahede. In addition, Martinus, a former church functionary of Maipaston and a relative of Johannes King, had been active in this village as a congregation leader until his death in 1918. In 1917 this parish became the main station of the mission along the Saramacca river. In Makajapingo, the Creole Eduard Bern was appointed as evangelist in 1899. Jacobkonde, which at that time had 30 baptized members and was frequently visited

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by missionaries, became an independent parish after it had been shifted to the new village of Njukonde.

After King's last trip, Christianity rapidly started to gain followers in the villages above the falls, the area that is also called ganda liba. When captain Majoo of Mombabasu was baptized in 1893, there were only a few other Christians in the area. By 1899, already 80 out of the total estimated population of 300 of the six upstream villages had been baptized. The two southern most villages, in particular, Mombabasu and Abookotanda, numbered many Christians (BHW 1899: 174). This was due to the fact that two former church functionaries of Maipaston who had been prepared by King, had settled in these villages. Jacobus Vos, a younger brother of Johannes King, resided in Mombabasu. He had accompanied King both on his trip in 1864 and in 1890, and had taken a wife in Mombabasu before 1894. She was baptized by Wehle in 1895 (BHW 1895: 126-7). Probably because of his marriage, Jacobus was appointed by Wehle as local congregation leader. In Mombabasu he held Sunday services and prepared people to be baptized. However, he did not remain active there for long. The German missionary Voullaire met him and his wife in Jacobkonde in 1899 and found that he was deaf (BHW 1899: 291).

Timotheus, a nephew of King, enjoyed much more influence. This Timotheus Jau, as he was named in Maipaston, or Djemesi, as people used to call him upriver, had, as a boy, also accompanied King on his missionary trips. He had taken a wife in Abookotanda before 1888 (MBB 1888: 97). As we have already indicated, he was drawn by King into combatting the Gaan Tata cult. As a result of his fearless actions against the gods, he was soon able to gain support for his faith among the lineage members of his wife, thus following in King's footsteps. In the oral tradition knowledge of Johannes King is therefore strongly coloured by Timotheus' personal attachment.

Formerly there were places along the river that you could not pass straight away, especially places where the river was deep and at the rapids. These places had their own spirits to which you had to sacrifice rum and pimba doti (kaoline, ritually used white clay), before you could pass. But is was

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Pepe Johannesi (Godfather J. - King had actually been Timotheus' godfather and it was by this name that he became known upriver), who broke down the power of these places and lifted the taboos. He took a boat and while standing upright with the Book in his hand, he pacified the water by reading, or by immersing the Book under water. Another part of the ritual was the measurement of very deep places in the river, like those at Mabo, by tying a bottle to a roll of hammock rope. Only a small part of the rope was left over. He broke down the powers by praying to God, as Djemesi told us, who had seen this with his own eyes.

Timotheus' son William, who had been a bible reader (voorlezer) in the church of Boslanti for more than forty years, informed us about the ways in which Timotheus brought people into contact with his beliefs:

It already started in Abookotanda. Sometimes he took his Book, sat down and read in the doorway. Passers-by asked him what he was doing. Some of them laughed at him, until, after some time, a number of people sat down to listen. In the beginning mainly women, but later on also men, came to sit with him. My father read to them and told them about the visions of Johannes King. He explained all things to them. And gradually it started to look more like a church.

In the beginning there was opposition to Christianity among many people. Older people, who spent their youth in Abookotanda, remember many persons who resisted and they proudly relate how the church started to gain hold among a small nucleus of people, mainly members of the matrilineage of captain Dadi (Anasi) from which Timotheus had taken his wife. Very early many persons also went to the downstream area to be baptized there. There was a lot of mobility around the turn of the century. Men went to French Guiana, which they called Amana, to take part in the river transport, or to the Pikin Saramacca to work in lumbering. Some used the opportunity to let themselves or their kinsmen be baptized in Maipaston or in Jacobkonde. Several old people of the upstream area, spent a number of years during their youth in Jacobkonde to attend

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prepare for baptism. But many older people were baptized without previous religious instruction. They became supporters of the new belief and upon returning to the upstream area, tried to convince kinsmen and friends to come to the church. Meanwhile Timotheus waged war against ‘idolatry’.

Sometimes a person came to tell him secretly that another had a poto or agban (big earthenware pots, that were carried on the head as oracles to find out the cause of illness). Then he went to such a person, speaking politely and patiently with her: ‘Sister, I heard that you are hiding an agban in your house. But I say, such things do not help you at all. Do you want to give it to me’? The woman feared that she would be killed and said: ‘I do not want to touch it, but if you want to take it, go ahead’. In the absence of the woman he fetched the pot. He carried it along to the river side, then took his boat and threw the agban in the water at a place where the river was very deep. Sometimes the pot kept floating and spinning around. He had to beat it with his paddle under water. People eagerly awaited his return and wondered that nothing had happened to him. But there were also people who threatened him when he begged them for their amulets (obia). About all these kinds of things he admonished people in the ‘church’ and he pressed them to put their faith only in God.

William continues describing the initial period.

At first we made a kind of church of laths with a floor made of clay. Later we built a house on low piles. There we came together. Each brought along his own little bench and kerosene lamp, men clothed in kamisa and bandja koto, women in koosu, the traditional attire.

The missionaries who had previously only visited the downstream parishes, were inspired by the great number of upstream villagers who came downriver to be instructed and baptized, and started to visit the upstream area as well. Shortly after 1900, the missionary Jensen frequently journeyed in the upstream area and baptized many people^(40.).

(40.) ZZG 141 (1909).

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Meanwhile captain Dadi had died and was succeeded by Manuel, who shifted the village from Abookotanda to Boslanti, closer to the village of Mombabasu. More than his predecessor, Manuel, who was Timotheus' father-in-law, felt himself attracted to Christianity and was willing to support this religion actively. Until this time the decision to become a Christian had been largely an individual matter. Now the eventual establishment of a church upriver became a public question, forcing supporters and opponents of Christianity to vigorously debate the matter and determine a common stand. The way in which the contrasts were made manifest was typically determined by traditional Bush Negro ideology:

After captain Dadi's death guns were fired, that were said to be heard even in the villages along the Suriname river. He died a heathen. It was Djemesi who brought the church here. With his father-in-law, Manuel, to whom Dadi had given the captain's staff, he agreed that he would teach the children. This agreement was kept secret. Once my father, Abaito, went to Kaabusandu, upriver, to make a boat, and took both his wives and me with him. We intended to spend the night there. When we had made camp, a boat came. It was basia Hendi, who gave my father, the other basia of Boslanti, the news: ‘basia, the badge of captain Manuel is lost, come as soon as possible’. The following morning we returned to the village. The investigation was in full swing. All means were used. They tried naki-naki, slaughtered a chicken, consulted an aghan (various divination techniques, fii-fii, with which they try to seek out the cause of illness and adversity). But they did not find it. Now the case was that (the spirit of) Dadi had come back to the captain's staff, because he was angered that Manuel had introduced the church in the village, or as they say: ‘a tja di keeki kon poi di konde’ (he brought the church polluting the village), without informing the others about it. Finally when they had prayed to his spirit and had admitted that it was true, after three days of investigating, we suddenly heard some women start to sing adonke (traditional

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ritual songs). They said that the badge was found in the shrubs at the back of a house. Now they discussed what to do. Many people declared that now that the church had been introduced already, they could no longer prevent it. To appease the spirit of Dadi and the other ancestors a great fine was paid, consisting of a number of large tins of rum, which was offered to him and with which a dancing was held, lasting for three days. Although many people had objected to the church, we now accepted it.

This story was told by Paulus, who spent his youth in his father's village Abookotanda and was himself closely involved in the introduction of the church in the upstream area.

It is important to specify some of the implications of these events. For the Matawai, the establishment of a church congregation with its own rules, organization and ideology, was a public affair, concerning the whole community. Decisions in such vital matters could not be taken individually, without consulting the village council; not even by a village headman. Moreover, the case illustrates that significant and contrasting viewpoints are generally not made explicit in public discussions, but are revealed with the aid of supernatural means, by mediums and divination. Only decisions taken communally in a village council in which the ancestors are also consulted are, in principle, considered legal. Because generally the most widely diverging viewpoints have been smoothed out well before public decisions are enforced in a public council, former opponents tend to acquiesce to the decision. It is for this reason that after the introduction of the church, they have never reverted to the matter, despite the feeling on the part of some individuals that the mission interfered excessively in their lives. Ironically, the ancestors who were pivotal in the traditional religion and were always considered to be highly interested in the well-being of their kinsmen, became crucial in the decision involved in the introduction of the church. And we will show that the ancestors would always retain an important role in certain crucial matters concerning Christianity.

The result of the agreement to accept the church was that Timotheus was now officially permitted to teach the children and to hold church

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services and captain Manuel asked the missionaries via Timotheus for an evangelist. The missionaries knew the manner in which the decision had been taken. They reported that the question of an evangelist coming to Boslanti had been left to the medicinemen^(41.). In 1919 the first evangelist, the Creole Krolis, settled in Boslanti, and in the same year a new parish was established north of the falls in the Kwinti village of Paka Paka. By this time alsmost everyone in Boslanti and Mombabasu had been baptized. In the cluster of villages of Maipakiiki, Alenbaka and Pikin Lembe, with a total population of 150 to 200, Voullaire found only five persons who resisted baptism (MBB 1919: 178), while in the two other villages of Posugunu and Malobi, with a total population of 150, only eleven heathens remained (1919: 177). In addition to the evangelist, Timotheus would play the most important role in church life in his function as preacher (voorganger). A group of people connected with the family of Timotheus' wife^(42.) supported Krolis (SZ 1944(5): 3) and formed a nucleus from which the first church notables could be recruited.

Timotheus had always been viewed by the missionaries as an exceptional man. According to them he was very energetic, intelligent, and was able to read and write. He knew his catechism by heart and was highly gifted (BHW 1919: 108). He was, however, considered to be handicapped by his own conduct. King referred to him as a heavy drinker (de Ziel 1973: 130) and Voullaire mentioned that the misfortune of his life was due to rum and women (BHW 1919: 108). He wondered that Timotheus, more than all others, was able to convince his heathen tribesmen of the truth and the blessing of Christianity (BHW 1899: 174). Later, he seems to have changed for the better, in the eyes of the missionaries, who were themselves abstinent. Voullaire observed that he restricted himself to one wife, did not drink anymore, and worked faithfully and exclusively preaching the Gospel. His opinion is affirmed among the present-day residents of the upstream villages, who assert that it is due to the work of Timotheus that the upstream villages joined the Christian church in the course of time (BHW 1919: 108). The influence that he gradually gained in Boslanti, can probably be ascribed to the long period in which he functioned as bible reader in the church. In 1927 the former postholder among the Djuka, W.F. van Lier, met him on a visit to Boslanti

(41.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1919.

(42.) The group included the women of her matrilineage, as well as Timotheus' brothers-in-law, sons, sons-in-law and also the husbands of his wife's sister's daughters.

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and attended his sermon. It was a personally coloured sermon in which he admonished the parish to attend church faithfully and pointed to the transience of things.

All things of this world are idle. Today they are beautiful, tomorrow they are withered like a flower in the garden. Only one things is forever, that is our Lord Jesus. He has no end. He alone can give peace and blessing. No one of the ‘gods’ we serve, can give that to us. I, Timotheus, can witness it. Which idolatry dance was there, that I did not take part in. But that was all idle. It was the good that I sought, but I found only more evil. Look at me and come to Jesus. I admonish you to leave the things of this world. I am not afraid to call you to order. No, I have no fear. I was in darkness, but now I am in the light. The heathen things did not give me any profit. The profit that I found was when Jesus' voice said to me: I died for you, you do not have to fear death. Well, what more must I fear? No, Timotheus does not fear anything, nothing indeed. Well, beloved brethren, listen to Jesus' voice. He needs you. He calls you, today still. He wants that you come to him. He has organized a great party for you. Come and let's eat together. Well, do not linger any longer, but come. Do not think that you still have time, but come immediately. Remember the five virgins, who supposed that they had time enough to go out and look for kerosine in their lamps. The moment they came to their senses, the bridegroom had already gone (van Lier 1927: 13-15; our tr.).

When Timotheus died at the beginning of the 1930s his position of local preacher and bible reader (voorganger) was taken over by his son William.

During the 1920s, Boslanti had become the stronghold of Christianity in the upstream area, from where attempts were made to convert the last heathens and to expand their influence on other villages that were still bound to the old religion. Some people were not willing to let themselves be brought into the church, because they had two or more wives and were reluctant to give them up. Those who applied to be baptized, shrunk from it when they heard that they had to abandon their

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wives^(43.).

Circa 1924, Boslanti was supported in its fight against traditional religion by the village of Pikin Lembe. The headman of this village had made a clean sweep a year earlier and had delivered all his gods to the visiting chairman of the Moravian church. Now he took strong action, together with the headman of Boslanti, by smashing the apinti drums during the New Year's dancings in their villages in 1925^(44.).

In Posugunu, where preparations were made to found a congregation, the last shrines and ancestor poles were destroyed by the villagers of Boslanti, in 1924. During this incident a woman, who was possessed by four spirits, declared that the village was now polluted, and had to be deserted in order to escape the anger of the ancestors. Immediately the woman left the village, together with two others. Later she could be persuaded to return. Gaaman Asaf Kiné, who felt himself to be excessively restricted by the church of Boslanti, wanted to establish a church of his own and act as its head. Because his opinions concerning Christianity were not always in agreement with those of the Moravian mission, the church founded in Posugunu in 1926, never acquired a role in the life of the villagers equal to that of the church in Boslanti. In 1934 Asaf Kiné confessed to Nelson, the evangelist of Posugunu, that until then they had always partly followed their tribal customs and partly served God, but he promised that from then on they would serve only God. He argued that it was therefore necessary to sacrifice to the ancestors, who had been retarding the progress of the church. Nelson, however, looked askance at the subsequent dancing parties held in various villages, and considered them to be a sign of reverting towards the old religion^(45.).

Again in 1926, the parish members of Boslanti, together with the evangelist Meilise, tried to combat the traditional religion. This time they seized the two ancestor poles in Maipakiiki, that were worshipped and feared by members of the whole Matawai tribe (see p. 238). The two ancestor poles had been established by Napoleon, an uncle of the priest Olensi, in order to serve two avenging spirits. The destruction of the poles had taken place with the consent of some of the villagers, but in the absence of Olensi, whose hostility to the Christian church only increased^(46.). As a result of fear of the supernatural vengeance that

(43.) Jaarverslag Boslanti 1921.

(44.) Jaarverslag van het Surinaamse Zendings Genootschap 1924.

(45.) Jaarverslag Posoegroenoe 1938.

(46.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1926.

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had been incurred by this attack on the traditional cult, the village of Maipakiiki was abandoned and a new village, Pijeti, was established. When Pijeti was to be inaugurated, the evangelist of Boslanti was invited. The appointment of the confirmant Emelius as headman, further raised the hope of the mission that Christian life in this village would find full advantage^(47.). The priest Olensi, however, persisted in his reluctance^(48.), and was able to keep the missionaries uncertain for some time by his promise to let himself be baptized. Finally, in 1932, he was baptized (SZ 1959(6): 43). Together with the former headman of Posugunu, who also played an important role in traditional religion, he is thought to be the last Matawai to be baptized.

(47.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1928.

(48.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1927.

The introduction of the Roman Catholic church^(49.)

During the 1920s the Roman Catholic church appeared in the Upper Saramacca where the mission had been dominated until that time by the Moravian Brethren. Father Morssink, who in Catholic circles became known as the apostle of the Bush Negroes, played an important role in the process (see Morssink 1934). He had worked mainly among the Saramaka and the Djuka, but on his journeys to the Suriname river he also frequently came into contact with Matawai. In 1925 Morssink was instructed to go to Bilawata, because the leader of this village had already made a number of visits to the fathers in town requesting a school and church in his village. This request came out of disagreements with the evangelist and inhabitants of Njukonde, resulting in the fact that the people of Bilawata no longer wanted to send their children to school in this village. During Morssink's visit it appeard that almost all inhabitants of the village were willing to go over to the Roman Catholic church. Morssink ends the report of his trip noting that ‘a considerable gap has been made in the powerful stronghold of the Moravians among the Matawai at the Upper Saramacca. Deo Gratias!’ (our tr.). Morssink grasped this opportunity, at the precise moment that the last Matawai were baptized, to promote the establishement of the ‘true’ church at the Saramacca river. Already in the year 1926 father Morssink bought an old shop building in order to set up a church in Bilawata. Morssink tried to gain a foodhold along the Upper Saramacca in the

(49.) In the beginning the colony was a Protestant concern and for a long time the Roman Catholic church was excluded. Only in 1785 were they given permission to found their own community, but they were not permitted to deal with slaves. Not long before emancipation, in 1863, the Roman Catholics began their missionary work among the Indians and Bush Negroes, concentrating particularly on the Indians. Initially the Roman Catholic church had little interest in the Matawai area, which had become the domain of the Moravian church, although somewhere around 1880 Mrg. Schaap made some journeys to Maipaston, which was in that time the centre of the Protestant mission in the Matawai area. In 1930 the situation changed and the Roman Catholic mission became a real threat for the church of the Moravian Brethren. Both denominations became involved in violent competition that lasted until the end of the 1960s.

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following way. In the first place he tried to insure that Sebedeus, who was considered the leader in Bilawata, would now be officially assigned as headman, so that the parish would be independent of Njukonde. Secondly he wanted to penetrate into the upstream area to establish a Roman Catholic parish. On both points he met with opposition from the Moravians.

Gaaman Asaf Kiné, who originally had declared to the government that he preferred to appoint Sebedeus as headman of Bilawata, and who under the pressure of the Roman Catholics had even suggested to consider his eventual appointment over more villages^(50.), was gradually more and more influenced by the Moravian evangelist of his village, the Creole Meilise, who was adamantly set against the Roman Catholic church. Morssink received a letter from Kiné, in which he was forbidden to go to the upstream area. However, he came to meet with Kiné and examine the case further. At the meeting, the gaaman declared that the evangelist had written the letter and that he was amazed to hear its precise contents. Finally, in 1933, Morssink was able to induce the government to appoint Sebedeus as headman, despite the advice of the Moravian Brethren to the contrary^(51.). In addition to the people of Bilawata, some inhabitants of the village of Misalibi, situated in the same area, changed over to the Roman Catholic church, joining the church in Bilawata.

Although Morssink's journey of 1929 was intended basically to ask the gaaman about his attitude towards the appointment of Sebedeus, he used the opportunity to visit some persons in the upriver area, who had earlier given indications that they were interested in the Roman Catholic church. The gaaman did not want to have any contact whatever with the Roman Catholics, but Morssink found some support in the villages of Mombabasu and Maipakiiki (Morssink 1934: 65). The Moravian evangelist, Gessel, considered this trip to be an impudent attack on the work of the Moravians. According to him Maipakiiki was the real aim of the trip; here it was said that Morssink organized a meeting, and asked those present to accept his doctrine, while handing out drinks and other gifts^(52.).

Through several such trips to the upstream area during this period, the Roman Catholic mission was able to get a firmer grip on some elders. Curious about the rumours that were spread concerning the new church

(50.) In questions concerning the appointment of village headman, the Moravian and Roman Catholic mission would fight out their internal struggles. In a letter to the government secretary on April 7, 1928, to ask if a decision in the appointment of Sebedeus of Bilawata had already been made, father Morssink mentioned that in November of 1926 Gaaman Asaf Kiné, together with Sebedeus, had visited the Roman Catholic mission to talk about the appointment. The gaaman wanted to appoint Sebedeus as headman, so that Bilawata would become independent of Njukonde. He even suggested to the government to appoint him over the neighbouring village of Balen, and over the Kwinti village of Heidoti, where the headman had just died in 1926. The district commissioner whose advice was asked, responded negatively to the proposal. He confirmed the government's unfavourable opinion of Sebedeus, which was shared by the Moravians, and also pointed out that the three villages had never shared a headman. According to him the headman of Njukonde could continue to the the de facto head over the neighbouring villages of Balen and Bilawata, and a separate solution had to be found for the Kwinti village of Heidoti, in which appointment the Moravian mission tried to interfere (GR 214: January 27, 1927). Similar advice was received from the head of the Moravian mission (SB 135: October 11, 1928). Clearly misinforming the government, they claimed that the population was small and proposed that the captain's staff be withdrawn for Heidoti. The government then decided to reject the proposal to appoint Sebedeus over three villages.

(51.) Letters concerning Sebedeus' appointment, archive of the Bisdom Paramaribo.

(52.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1929.

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downstream, some elders had attended the church services in Bilawata, contacted the mission and made agreements with the missionaries on their own account. As a consequence a group of people of Pniël, originating from the former village of Mombabasu, seceded in 1939 and settled in a new village Padua, between Boslanti and Pijeti, that was supported by the Roman Catholic mission. At the same time the residents of Bethel, who were involved in various conflicts with the neighbouring village of Posugunu, turned to the Catholics requesting the establishment of a school. In both villages, a Roman Catholic church was founded and teachers were sent from town. Asaf Kiné, who had originally given his consent to the founding of Padua, began to resist, also under the pressure of some headmen, who feared that their villages would break up. It seems evident from Kiné's letters to the government on this matter that the evangelist Meilise had a great influence on the gaaman. Kiné declared that: 1) the people who were negotiating with the father, withdrew from the public authority and no longer acknowledged his own authority; 2) they openly opposed his orders, and 3) they provoked him. And Kiné continued: ‘I can not support “Rome” along with the already established Moravians, who have frequently sacrified their lives, and moreover, I will not be able to justify all those insurmountable difficulties that will come, before God and people’ (our tr.). He therefore ordered the Roman Catholic teacher of Padua to leave the Matawai area immediately. A meeting following this incident, held under the leadership of evangelist Meilise, failed to bring the parties together. Nathaniël, leader of the Catholic movement, was fined for clearing the forest on the place where Padua was established, he was, however, repaid by the gaaman in order to insure that the fine would not be interpreted as purchase money, as the Matawai explained us. The gaaman, who was called to town on this matter, argued: ‘Since some decades the Moravians are performing missionary work under the Becu- and Musinga Negroes, also called Matuari Negroes. And the results are such, that the whole tribe is now baptized and that all are convinced Moravians. One of the former paramount chiefs Johannes King himself was an evangelist of the above named parish. And in this way there have been established some flowering mission posts along the Saramacca river like Kwatahede and Posugunu, headquarter of the gaaman’ (our tr.). Kiné declared that

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he had been opposed to the new religious faith and its propaganda from the start, considering it to be superfluous, and expecting only confusion and discord in the small tribe, that numbered only some 700 people^(53.).

Shifts in religious affiliation were for the most part a question of opportunism rather than one of religious conviction. Circa 1914, for example, one headman declared his willingness to go over to the Roman Catholic faith in due time. He had heard that due to the war in Europe, the Herrnhutters did not have enough money at their disposal to maintain churches and schools along the Upper Saramacca - a reasonable supposition as the Moravian mission was mainly a German affair. This was reinforced by the fact that he was no longer paid for various services such as the transport of evangelists. Partly due to the fact that since about 1922 Catholics were also involved in the Surinamese government, the government purported neutrality in the conflict between the denominations and voiced the opinion that the Bush Negroes and their headmen should be free to choose. In actuality, they opposed the Roman Catholic mission and asked the father to refrain from actions on behalf of the Roman Catholic faith.

The last conflict took place in 1951 when a large number of people from Makajapingo shifted to the Roman Catholic church^(54.). This occurred after the Moravian Brethren had informed them that they were not willing to start a school in Makajapingo. Because of the troubles between the villages of Makajapingo and Paka Paka, the people of Makajapingo did not want to send their children to the school in Paka Paka, which was moreover considered to be too far away. With the help of the teacher of Bilawata and some residents of that village, the Moravian church was torn down, in order to build a new Roman Catholic church with the material so acquired. And as could be expected, the conflict between the two religious missions flared up again in all its intensity.

In Moravian missionary circles the activities of the Roman Catholics in the Matawai area were considered to be a threat to their own work. It was indeed no accident that the Catholics, especially at the beginning, turned to those people who were known to be strong opponents of the Moravian church. The annual report of 1927 mentions that the Catholic teacher of Bilawata travelled to the upstream area to talk with

(53.) LA GR 5314: October 9, 1940.

(54.) In Makajapingo a group of kinsmen of the former headman Baakafuuta, continued affiliated to the Moravian church.

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Olensi, one of the most influential local priests in Maipakiiki, and to persuade him to join the Roman Catholic faith^(55.). The thrust of the Roman Catholic mission was directed to the villages of Bilawata and Maipakiiki, both centres of the gaan kunu cult, which with all their mediums, priests, shrines and close associations with traditional religious practices, had been able to resist the pressures of the Moravian mission for the longest time.

Competition with the Roman Catholic church often strengthened the support given by the followers of the Moravian church. For example, in 1927 the amount of contributions had risen significantly. Many people who never had paid their contributions began to pay. And the feeling of unity in belonging to the Moravian church increased and strengthened among congregation members of the upstream parishes. Under the leadership of evangelists, they were prepared to combat paganism and Roman Catholicism alike.

Confrontation between representatives of the two churches did not always pass without incidents. In 1929, on a visit to the upstream area, the Roman Catholic priest walked through the village of Posugunu and stopped before the school. The evangelist teacher began to sing the ‘Luthersong’, causing the priest hastily to return to the boat^(56.). The annual reports of the Moravian mission are filled with complaints against the Roman Catholic mission, claiming that they were excessively tolerant towards several aspects of the traditional religion of the Bush Negroes, and accusing them of bribing the people with gifts^(57.). For example, the Roman Catholic mission, unlike the Moravians, did not prohibit the use of the apinti drum (see p. 328). In this way the Roman Catholic villages became centres for traditional rituals, at times visited by their non-Catholic tribesmen.

Soon after the shift of religious affiliation of several Matawai, Roman Catholic churches and schools were established in some villages. Mostly Creole and Bush Negro teachers were recruited, and a local organization, in many respects analogous to that of the Moravian mission was set up^(58.). But the conception of the Roman Catholics concerning their missionary task diverged somewhat from that of the Moravian Brethren. They considered their role to be more limited. They were less inclined to intervene in that which they considered to be the internal

(55.) It is noteworthy, that Olensi later is mentioned as one of the leaders in the separation movement of the Roman Catholics in 1939, and assisted in clearing the new village of Padua (letter from the Archives of the Bisdom Paramaribo 1940; GR 5314: October 9, 1940).

(56.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1929.

(57.) Moravian Matawai considered the way in which the fathers had come to the area with boatloads full of goods and drinks, as a form of bribery. Probably they also exaggerated. People belonging to Roman Catholic villages preferred to speak of it in terms of generosity rather than of bribery, and they readily admitted the eagerness with which they had accepted the goods of the Roman Catholic mission. The political parties, conscious of the value of the Bush Negroes as potential supporters wooed them at election time by sending boatloads of food and drinks to the villages and handing out T-shirts with symbols of their parties, all of which accompanied speeches made by a number of vigorous adherents among the migrant Matawai; the policy was referred to by the Matawai as meki popokai (propaganda making).

(58.) The local organization in Roman Catholic parishes resembles that of the Moravian congregation, although it generally has fewer offices and different functions. The tasks performed by helpers (dienaren and dienaressen) in the Moravian congregation, are performed by persons designated as sexton (kosters and kosteressen) in the Roman Catholic villages. But because of the departure of all Roman Catholic teachers, who were also conducting church services on Sundays, these villages have become wholly dependent for their Sunday services upon some of the sextons, who have thereby attained a more autonomous position that the bible readers (voorlezers) of the Moravian congregation, who are occasionally given the chance to conduct services.

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affairs of the Matawai. They expected only that those who were baptized by them would attend church and underline their faith in general ways, by rearing their children in this belief, letting them be baptized and sending them to Catholic schools. The Roman Catholic mission became weary of conflicts with the Moravians, and began to show deference towards them, considering them to be more dominant. Soon also the Creole teachers left and made room for Matawai teachers. Especially after 1960 interference on the part of the Roman Catholic church with the Matawai has declined rapidly and nowadays the Roman Catholic villages are visited only once or twice a year (on those occasions the children are baptized as well).

The decline of the Roman Catholic activities is somewhat related to the large number of people who have left the tribal area to migrate to the coast. Although it would be erroneous to state that originally people in the Roman Catholic villages were more prone to migrate to the coastal area than those of Moravian villages, in fact, the migration process has been speeded up by a specific concomitant factor. As the Roman Catholic village populations were restricted in size, schools in these villages had to be closed in the early phase of migration. In fact, not enough children remained to warrant a school. In the case of Padua and Bethel, a temporary solution was found by pooling the children of both schools. But in villages such as Bilawata and Makajapingo, where schools were closed, the process of migration was accelereted by parents seeking school facilities for their children in the coastal area. When the school in the upstream area was also closed, some people decided to change their affiliation again to the Moravians, so that their children could attend the Moravian school. Since 1960, marriages between members of the Roman Catholic and Moravian churches, which had previously been prohibited, were once again permitted. In this way, the artificial social separation, which had been set up by the missions between their respective villages, has been lifted. There remains, however, a permanent core of people resisting the decline of the Roman Catholic congregation.

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The organization of the church congregation

All Matawai residing in the villages south of Kwakugoon are baptized members of one of the two churches. The number of congregations with a resident evangelist or teacher has declined to three, all of which belong to the Moravian Brethren. These are Njukonde, Posugunu and Boslanti. The church congregation of Kwakugoon has a mixed population of railroad labourers and includes the two downriver villages, Makakiiki and Asanwai. In the other villages with church buildings (Kwatahede and Paka Paka) irregular services are held by a local bible reader (voorlezer) and a few times a year by the visiting preacher. Visits by a priest in the Roman Catholic villages, Bilawata, Makajapingo, Bethel and Padua, are irregular.

Although the changes accompanying the spread of Christianity were gradual, the Matawai are strongly inclined to consider the arrival of the church as a turning point in their history. Their historical perspective is divided into two periods: fosi ten (formerly or the time before the church) and disi ten or keeki ten (this time or the time of the church). Especially, in the area south of the large falls, ganda liba and in the congregation of Boslanti, the attraction to the church has been strong. However, despite the role of Matawai, such as the prophet Johannes King in the second half of the nineteenth century, and of his followers in the beginning of the twentieth century, the Matawai church did not develop in the direction of an independent church similar to those flourishing nowadays in African states^(59.). From the outset the work in the local congregations has been controlled and regulated from the centre of the Moravian church in Paramaribo. The focal point of this organization is the church council (kerkbestuur), headed by the chairman (preases). In this council, general decisions are taken concerning the mission in the interior. The responsibility of the mission is assigned to a pastor, who aside from his own congregation in town serves one of the districts (resort) in the interior. These formerly European and these days mostly Creole confirmed preachers, make regular visits along the villages. The church council also assigns evangelists, mostly Creoles and Bush Negroes, to reside in the congregations. The way in which the local congregation is organized is laid down in the

(59.) see Balandier 1955, H. Turner 1967.

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regulations of the Moravian church in Suriname. The evangelist has a central position in the parish, one that is reinforced by various other functions and tasks which he performs. Until recently the evangelist frequently taught school six days of the week and preached in church on Sundays. His other tasks include morning services and the regular bible lessons for those who want to marry in church or become confirmed. Most evangelists who work along the Saramacca river are outsiders: Creoles, Saramaka and Djuka. His position as an outsider in the village often enables him to mediate in village affairs and to communicate with the church council in town about village matters without immediately becoming involved in a conflict. He controls the daily activities of the congregation, observes that the rules of the church are maintained, collects the contributions and registers the vital events of the church members. The evangelist maintains contact with the resort leader and with the church council in town. The resort leader visits the congregation a few times a year to baptize new-born children, bless marriages in the church, confirm new candidates, conduct Holy Communion, etc.

Within the local congregation the evangelist is supported by the church commitee members (kerkeraad), helpers (dienaren) and major helpers (hoofddienaren), who are assigned these functions from the ranks of the confirmants. Moreover, each congregation has some local bible readers (voorlezers), who are able to hold church services in the absence of the evangelist. The helpers perform a number of tasks such as ringing the bell before church, clearing the church plaza (each Saturday performed by a group of female church notables), keeping order during the service, and collecting money in church. As a result of their obligation to report to the evangelist about offenders against church rules, they become important chains in the system of social control. One of the tasks of the evangelist is to combat, what is called in missionary circles ‘paganism’. Although nowadays the non-Christian world religions are recognized as valid religious systems, the traditional religion of the Bush Negroes is still seen as the Devil's contrivance. These local church functionaries sit in a local congregation council presided over by the evangelist. In these councils, offences against the rules of the church are dealt with and decisions are taken concerning the punishment of individual church members.

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The evangelist has, in such cases, a number of sanctions at his disposal to punish congregation members: 1) church discipline first degree, in which the individual is reprimanded by the evangelist; 2) church discipline second degree, in which the person concerned is excluded from attending Holy Communion, and 3) church discipline third degree, in which the person concerned is excluded from all rights and duties. In the interior another sanction exercised in some cases is baka bangi, in which the person concerned is only allowed to attend sermons on the back seat of the church, and is thus shamed in front of his fellow congregation members. The Matawai generally fear church punishments, believing that one who dies during such a sanction, would not be admitted to Heaven.

The Moravian headquarter in Paramaribo also regulates institutions such as medical care and education, that traditionally accompanied missionary work. In addition, the Medical Aviation Fellowship, an air service maintains connections between medical centres and town. Although the mission has always ideally endeavoured to attain an integration of all aspects of social life (religious, economic, medical and educational), attempts to support economic activities have been restricted. In the 1930s, the mission tried to promote economic relations with the Moravian mission affiliated enterprise, Kersten & Co., but these remained restricted to incidental contracts^(60.). During the 1970s, following the increased flow of migrants to town, the church council in Paramaribo felt that it was important to pay more attention to the problems of labour opportunities within the tribal areas. In 1973 they began an agricultural experiment in the upstream area, aimed at providing school leavers with work that would keep them in the villages^(61.).

From the outset the congregation of the Moravian Brethren has attempted to implant a new life style based on the ‘Christian order’, that would radically change life in the Matawai villages. The ‘Christian order’ is a set of rules and conventions containing a model for a new kind of society in which Christian beliefs could easily be incorporated and accepted. The traditional Moravian conception emphasized the communal aspect of the congregation. The order included a new chronological schedule, the basis of which was provided by the Christian ritual calendar^(62.) and the regularity of church activities. It introduced,

(60.) Jaarverslag Boven Saramacca 1933.

(61.) In Boslanti, three boys who had just left school, joined in this experiment. After a short agricultural training period in the coastal area, they started cultivating peanuts on an abandoned garden near the village. They were sponsored by the Moravian mission in town, who had set up this experiment. But when the first year's yield was disappointing, the boys abandoned the project and joined their age-mates in the coastal area to search for work.

(62.) The calendar of the Christian (Moravian) holy days includes the Christian New Year, Holy Week, Good Friday, Harvest Festival and Mission Day. Also the first of July - Emancipation Day - is celebrated in church. These annual celebrations are an important part of church life. Particular attention is given to the celebration of Easter, on which occasion the congregation assembles at sunrise on the cemetery to place a cross on the graveyard and sing liturgies. In general, church attendance on these days is very high.

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as we indicated, a new organization with a number of hierarchical positions and functions, which exerted their influence outside the congregation as well.

Already in 1861, during the first visit of the missionaries van Calker and Bramberg to the village of Maipaston, an attempt was made to introduce a Christian time schedule based on Moravian church activities. Sunday was reserved for the church and it was forbidden to go to the gardens on that day. A special service had to be held at the first Sunday of each month and a short thanksgiving service every afternoon. King, who at this time had not yet learned to write, was instructed to register all cases of death and birth with a cross on the calendar, and to remember the names corresponding with each sign. During the same visit, King was confronted with the objections of the missionaries to traditional social customs. We have already pointed out that King was urged to leave his second wife. When he came to the missionaries with the request to baptize some of his sister's children van Calker's response was: ‘One thing disturbs and troubles me about baptizing them, and that is the custom that still exists among your tribesmen, that the maternal uncle has more authority over his children than their own father’. He explained to King that this was a heathen custom which was in conflict with the ‘Christian order’ (NB 1862: 855-6). In a subsequent chapter we will return to the way in which the Moravian mission tried to change life among the Matawai and trace some of these changes.

The core of the congregation is formed by the communicants; their marriage is blessed in church and they are allowed to participate in the Holy Communion. A person who becomes confirmed changes from the category of a baptized member to that of a communicant or confirmant. In most congregations the category of adult baptized members is larger than that of confirmants, but in the congregation of Boslanti the ratio is revers ed. In 1974 this congregation numbered 155 communicants (including 35 church functionaries), 74 adult baptized members and 171 children. Adults are obliged to pay a yearly contribution of Sf 2.50 for men and Sf 1.50 for women.

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The parish of Boslanti is known for its strong involvement in church affairs. The large number of communicants is only one indication of this. It should be mentioned that the religious lessons which arere required are a rather heavy burden on people who are not accustomed to read. Moreover, during that year, men must abstain from their usual work period on the coast. Church services are well attended. On the basis of a series of observations over a period of nearly two years we estimated that the Sunday morning meetings were attended by 60 to 70 per cent of all adults present in the area. The percentage of men attending those services was somewhat smaller then that of women. On the basis of observable behaviour, such as church attendance, individual reading of the bible and praying at all kinds of occasions, it is difficult to evaluate the way in which Christian beliefs are experienced by the Matawai. It is clear, however, that most people have strong convictions and often speak with horror about the ‘heathen customs’ of the non-Christian Saramaka.

In the upstream area the church has acquired a special significance as a symbol of a new community, that brings together into one congregation people who are otherwise divided by kinship and locality principles. The terms ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ are used within the church context to refer to all those belonging to this church congregation. Indeed, may matters that would otherwise be discussed on the local level of the lineage (localized matri-segment) and village, now tend to be dealt with in the church congregation.

Sunday life differs markedly from the other days of the week. Sunday morning is dominated by the church service. The first bell signalling the nine o'clock service is rung by a helper at seven in the morning. The bell is repeated every half hour to warn the people that they have to prepare for the service. A quarter of an hour before the service, boats begin to moor and from all directions people crowd into the church. Men, who otherwise wear the traditional breech cloth, enter the church in trousers and shirts, and sometimes even jackets and scarfs. The occasionally worn shoes make a particularly unconvential impression. For women, the service is an opportunity to show off their most beautiful town dresses, and kerchiefs tied around their heads embellished with biblical sentences in cross-stitch embroidery. Some become almost

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unrecognizable because of their sleek-haired wigs and profuse make-up.

The first rows of the church are occupied by schoolboys and school-girls, flanked by a number of male and female church functionaries, who make sure that the children behave quietly. The adults occupy the seats right behind them and are also divided, men on the left and women on the right. For singing services, the choir is placed on the balcony at the rear of the church. There are also always people sitting outside the church, in particular mothers with toddlers will sit on a stone near the church, where they are still able to follow the sermon.

After the first singing, the evangelist usually starts with tidings about the school and the parish. The first Sunday of every month a so-called children's service is held, in which the sermon is given in Dutch. Only some of the young people are able to understand this sermon fully. On other Sundays, sermons are given in Sranan, which does not pose a problem, since all people, except the very old, have been taught in this language at school. After a theme from the Old or New testament is treated in the sermon, the evangelist commonly choses another theme to elaborate, that refers to events in the tribal community or in Suriname. A church service given on the occasion of the Harvest Festival related the story of a Saramaka, a heathen, who planted in his garden the food he had just offered to his god. ‘Such an offering, applied to one's own benefit, is not a real offering’, the preacher commented. During the strike in Paramaribo of 1973^(63.) the theme of the sermon was ‘disobedience as a source of all evil’ and explicit reference was made to the death of the young Djuka, who was shot down by the police during these turbulent days. A few times a year the resort leader holds a service and will demonstrate his knowledge of local events by frequently referring to village affairs that undermine church rules.

In this chapter we have stressed the way in which the church acquired a grip on Matawai society by establishing a rigid organization with a pyramid-like structure in which responsibilities are delegated from higher to lower levels, and by its encompassing approach in which several church affiliated institutions also cooperate. In this way the relative autonomy of the Matawai is affected and threatened time and again. But, as we will make clear in the final chapter of this section,

(63.) The strike of 1973 was initiated by the customs officers but grew to be a general strike. A summary of the events and the street disturbances, can be found in Dew (1978: 165-8).

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attempts to control the relationship of the Matawai with the coastal society are not accepted without resistance.

Some explanatory notes on the movement of Johannes King and the conversion of the Matawai

Voorhoeve and van Renselaar (1962) have attempted to explain the many prophetic movements that arose after 1880. They argue that the Bush Negroes felt deprived in these years: they compared their own situation with that of the former slaves who after the emancipation in 1863 could reach a level of relatively higher welfare. De Beet and Thoden van Velzen (1977) have criticized this interpretation on two points.

First the authors have overlooked evidence of prophetic movements before 1880 or even prior to 1863. Secondly, for the period after 1880, Voorhoeve and Van Renselaar have overestimated the prosperity of Creoles and disregarded the affluence of the Bush Negroes. In fact, as we will show, movements arose at a time when the Bush Negroes were better off economically than the Creoles’ (1977: 103).

The prophetic movement of Johannes King is considered to be one of the cases that does not support Voorhoeve and van Renselaar's argument. The starting-point for an explanation of the movement, that was initiated in the late 1850s, must be sought in particular historical factors that are related to the position of the group to which King belonged. Both the reports of postholder Corsten, who resided in Saron and the diaries of Johannes King, throw some light on this period. From both sources, the pariah character of the group of Adensi and her relatives to which King and his brother Adai belonged, becomes apparent. They roamed around in the plantation area downriver without their own place of residence. They lived in conflict with the Matawai of the upriver area (Freytag 1927: 13) and although some women of the group married with Djuka men, the relations with this tribe were also tense^(64.). They were finally banned from the area near the plantations of Haarlem and Mao, and settled in 1849 in Maipaston, a working place of the lumber

(64.) LA BIB 1848.

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plantation Sonette that had recently been abandoned by the slaves who returned to the plantation. Evidently King became acquainted with Christianity during this period. One of his sisters had even visited the mission school for a while. Following his marriage to a woman from the Saramaka village Wakibasu, situated near the Christian village of Ganzee, he must have been in frequent contact with the Christian Bush Negroes of this village (Freytag 1927: 17).

Life in Maipaston during these early days was later described by King as quite secular. He pointed out that his kinsmen in Maipaston were not involved in spirit possession and did not know about obia, considered to be the central concept in the religion of the Bush Negroes. The situation changed when the Djuka affines introduced and propagated the papa gadu cult; a large part of the population became possessed by papa gadu spirits and Maipaston became a centre of this cult.

As Maipaston was situated near the plantation area, may slaves and freemen came to the village to trade with the Bush Negroes. It was a turbulent time in which ideas were exchanged between the various groups who came to live in the downstream Saramaka area. The contacts with government officials also began to increase.

It is relevant to note that the attitude of the government towards the Bush Negroes and particularly towards the people of Maipaston, changed radically in the 1850s. In a letter of August 14, 1850 postholder Corsten complains about the behaviour of the Matawai and asks for reconsideration of an earlier request for some soldiers to protect him on his post. In another letter from the same year (March 7) he notes that

The family Adai and the Djuka, a man from the Saracreek and a freeman who are linked with the family by affinal ties have at present permanently settled one and a half hour upstream from Saron, at a working place of the lumber plantation Sonette that has been deserted. They persist, as they did earlier in Mao, with a lazy and raffish life; they do not cultivate gardens, and make trouble with the slaves of Berlijn; they cheat and rob everyone they can victimize. The application of the two here mentioned acts among the Matawai of the upstream area have led to fights, and I expect as a consequence of their

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swindles towards the Matawai still worse disturbances^(65.).

A year earlier, in 1849, the group to which King and Adai belonged was banned from Rosevalley in the plantation area, under threat of forceful removal by the police.

It seems, however, that a few years later, when Kalkun claimed the gaaman staff, the attitude towards the group in which Adai had manifested himself as leader, had changed. It was suggested by the government that Adai would be a more suitable candidate for the function of gaaman of the Matawai. One of their reasons was that he was living closer to the colony. Now they tried to induce the other Matawai to come to live in the downriver area, with the ultimate aim ‘to civilize them by economic activities and regular labour’^(66.).

Several other governmental sources provide further evidence of overtures towards the Bush Negroes during this time. In 1856 Adai was requested by the government secretary to bring a message to Gaaman Kalkun, informing him about the government's intention to abolish a number of restricting rules. In particular the obligation to have a pass to visit town was removed. The aim of the proposal was to bring the Bush Negroes in closer contact with civilization^(67.). We already mentioned that in 1858 a nephew of Kalkun was sent to Beekhuizen to attend the school. It was hoped that more children would follow, and that in this way the Bush Negroes would become attached to the government and the educated children would ‘multiply the seeds of civilization and religion among their people’^(68.).

It is clear that the forthcoming emancipation of the slaves played a role in this change of attitude, since the colony would become increasingly dependent on Bush Negroes for the supply of lumber. During this period the possibility of exporting lumber to Europe was also being explored (Benjamins and Snelleman 1917: 366).

We argue that King's role as prophet and religious innovator emerged out of this particular situation, in which religious orientation was in flux and in which a large degree of integration into the Surinamese society was promised to the Bush Negroes. King's response was to direct his fellow tribesmen towards the dominant religion of the colony. His movement was a reasonable response to the rapprochement of the

(65.) LA ISIB 1850.

(66.) LA BIB: June 3, 1853.

(67.) LA BIB: March 25, 1856.

(68.) LA ISIB: January, 1859.

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government towards the Bush Negroes.

As a result of King's work, a large part of the Matawai was christianized before the turn of the century. Although people living in the upstream area had long maintained a resistance to Christianity, many people of the downstream area had come under its spell. In 1894 the Gaan Tata cult, with its monotheistic aspirations, began to gain influence in the upstream villages. In his struggle against this cult, King recovered his prophetic élan and his preaching led to a new conversion movement, now in the upstream area. As had been the case 30 years earlier in Maipaston, the Matawai of the upstream area were at this time in a state of religious confusion.

Some of the ideas presented here to explain the Matawai's conversion to Christianity are convergent with the theory developed by Horton concerning African societies. Horton's basic idea is that traditional African religions adapt to the weakening of the boundaries of the microcosmos, dominated by ancestor religion and lesser spirits, by the transformation of fundamental aspects of their religious system, in which the concept of the supreme being is far more elaborated. In this way the religion is adapted towards a situation in which macrocosmic features begin to emerge (see Horton 1971, 1975)^(69.). For the Matawai in the upstream area the microcosmos of the local community, dominated by spirit cults, was opened towards the macrocosmos first by the Gaan Tata cult in the 1890s acting as a catalyst to change the religious orientation and subsequently by Christianity. We have already illustrated the factors that contributed to a reinforcement of the links with the wider society in Maipaston during the late 1850s. The new economic possibilities available to the Matawai during the 1890s, that included working periods for men from the upriver villages in the downstream area in balata and gold fields, as well as their involvement in river transports in French Guiana and along the Marowijne river (Franssen Herderschee 1905: 53), caused a new orientation, that also affected the upstream area. According to oral accounts, groups from different villages went to French Guiana around the turn of the century.

After King's visit the spreading of Christianity proceeded very rapidly, as we already indicated. In the process of conversion towards Christianity, the same kinship principles have operated as in the process

(69.) For criticism on the ideas of Horton see Fisher (1973), Fernandez (1978) and van Binsbergen (1979).

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of lineage segmentation and the break-up of villages. Thus, although individuals had their own particular reasons for adopting the new faith, a clear pattern emerged in the conversion of a larger part of the population. As in the cases of conflict or varying opinions, people tended to side with their closest lineage members, i.e. members of their matrisegment. In this way the first headmen and other notables who were converted were able to play an important role in the subsequent conversion of their lineage members.

The role of the Moravian mission in the extension of Christianity and in the establishment of the church, can not be underestimated. From the beginning of the process, they supported the early converts and took over the initiative in forming the congregation. Thus they were able to get a firm grip on the Christian life of the Matawai. In general the Matawai conversion to Christianity transformed their ideology and widened their world-view. One would expect the introduction of Christianity into a tribal and enclosed community to stimulate modernization, leading to the weakening of traditional social organization or migration. However, as wel will show later, in the upriver Matawai area, where Christianity received its most fervent support, lineage organization is less disturbed and migration is less developed, than in the downriver villages where Christianity had to compete with Djuka and Saramaka cults and where the individual identification with Christianity is less strong. In fact the Moravian church, with its strong sense of community and its strict congregational organization, led to the reinforcement of the local community, especially in the upstream area.