Suriname folk-lore

2. The Koto-Missi¹

In contrast with the African life of the Bush-Negroes of the interior, the Paramaribo Negro, as seen on the street, is no more African than are the Negroes met with in the islands of the Caribbean Sea, or in the rural districts of southern United States. In dress the men conform to European modes; and though many of the women preserve in their style of clothing the voluminous skirts which have been worn in the colony for a century or more, these are today more often reserved for ceremonial occasions such as religious dances, traditional social dances staged against a personal enemy, and the dances in the market place. The older women can be heard deploring the changing times when they can no longer afford to buy the twenty-seven ells of material required for a proper costume, and have to resort to the use of twenty ells, and even less.²

1 cf. Morpurgo, passim.

2 The Dutch or Flemish ell is 27 inches. For several excellent photographs of Koto-Missi, taken some years ago, see Johnston, (I), pp. 114, 123, 124 and 128.

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The name for this costume is koto-yaki, and in its more exuberant manifestations, it is one of the most picturesque elements in the gay panorama of the Paramaribo street. It is usually made of a cotton print, and elegance is achieved by having a matching head-kerchief, though a kerchief whose design and color harmonize with the figure in the cloth of the dress is also thought desirable. Contrast is not entirely disdained, however, so that a vivid green or purple kerchief, especially if of silk, is greatly prized. Its structure is complicated. The skirt reaches within an inch or two of the ground, and attains a circumference of more than five yards at the hem. It is made with a ruffle reaching twenty-seven inches, or more, downward from the waist and this is turned up and fastened with a draw-string about the waist-line, after a substantial pad has been attached at the back. This pad is called the famiri, the ‘family’. The effect thus obtained is that of a very generous bustle, and the famiri is often identified with the European costume of the eighteenth century.

It must be recognised, however, that women in Africa are given to the use of draperies and padding about the waist to emphasize the broadness of hips and buttocks¹, and it may well be that in this, as in many other instances, the merging of two characteristics somewhat similar aboriginally has occurred to form a unified cultural trait in the civilisation of the Suriname Negroes. That this mode of dress does carry African values to the Negroes themselves, was brought out in the comment of Granman Moana Yankuso, late headman of the Saramacca tribe of Bush-Negroes, when he was discussing what he considered to be the demoralisation of the coastal Negroes. When Granman Yankuso spoke of ‘demoralisation,’ his meaning was ‘de-Africanisation’ or ‘Europeanisation’, and the fact that the koto-yaki is met with less frequently on the streets of Paramaribo was a prominent case in point adduced by him.

If the skirt shows a blending of African and European fashions, the blouse is European, for clothing the upper part of the body is, to the aboriginal African, a foreign conceit. This blouse is well-starched, and is often made as a bolero and worn over a white, collarless chemise in such a manner as to accentuate the fullness of the bosom. The sleeves are customarily of three-quarter length, and, on ceremonial occasions, two or more silver bracelets, hammered into the shape of coiled snakes, complete the costume, though a silver pin at the neck instead of a button to fasten the bolero is a very desirable addition, and shows a final stamp of elegance.

This costume, as mentioned, must be completed by a headkerchief, and here we touch upon a phase of dress which, existing as it does in some form wherever Negroes are found in the New World,

1 As we ourselves observed in Nigeria, Dahomey, and the Gold Coast of West Africa. See Encyc., p. 403 (Art. ‘Klederdracht’) for a discussion of this costume.

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Plate II. A Koto-mɩsi.

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Plate III. Koto-mɩsi; the famiri.

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shows in one aspect, at least, definite African values. This aspect has to do with the naming of designs and of methods of tying these kerchiefs. The practice of naming designs is directly traceable to Africa. Rattray has published an elaborately detailed account of the names given to various patterns in Ashanti weaving¹, and this custom prevails in Nigeria and Dahomey, where we were able to substantiate the fact during field-work in these regions. The naming of the methods of tying head-kerchiefs is also West African, and this is something that has not, to our knowledge, been heretofore recognised. In Ashanti, we obtained over fifty proverb-names applicable to as many ways of tying head-kerchiefs, and we also obtained evidence that this practice exists, though in a more restricted form, in coastal Dahomey and in Western Nigeria.²

These kerchiefs are cotton prints, about a yard square, and of European manufacture, as is all cloth used by the town Negroes, who themselves do no weaving. Since the salability of a given kerchief depends upon the appeal to the imagination which the name given it will have for the potential buyers, the shopkeepers encourage women to come to them with suggestions for the naming of new designs.³ These suggestions arise out of current happenings, with which old proverbs are associated for purposes of satire. Often one of these old proverbs is so paraphrased as to retain its basic form and meaning, and yet to include direct reference to such an event as is singled out for ridicule. Before illustrating this process, it must be added that a shop-keeper may himself select, from a list of proverbs kept by him, a name which he considers sufficiently evocative to ensure the profitable sale of a certain cloth, without consulting any of the townswomen. In instances where two shops having the same cloth for sale give two different names to the same design, the one which has broader innuendo, or has been named or bought by a woman of greater forcefulness of character, will prevail. We are, of course, dealing here with the same psychological phenomenon as in our own culture we identify with the word ‘fashion’. In Paramaribo, however, it is the manner of wearing the kerchief that is relatively stable, and the element of change lodges in the African relish for ridicule as this is brought into play by the use of a traditional saying, which, commenting upon a current happening, is associated with a given kerchief design. It is not uncommon for a woman to have as many as one hundred of these kerchiefs, and these, in many instances, constitute her essential wealth. In the

1 R.S. Rattray, (I), pp. 234-250, and figs. 126-137.

2 Whether the inner significance given to kerchief designs and methods o tying by these West African peoples and the Suriname town Negroes is to be met with in other regions of the New World where Negro women wear head-kerchiefs cannot be said at the present time. It is a point well worth investigating.

3 A design-name, when determined upon, is printed and displayed with the cloth for sale. We reproduce such an advertising device in Plate XI.

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days before prints came to be accepted, kerchiefs and often koto-yaki, as well, were made of white cotton cloth on which designs were embroidered in colors. These hand-embroidered kerchiefs are today still very much valued, and, should an owner be prevailed upon to sell one, - this rarely occurs, - such kerchiefs bring higher prices than new ones which can be bought at the shops.

The proverbs selected for kerchief names touch largely upon situations arising out of the relationships between men and women. An example will make this clear: It is said that some years ago, a man of official rank in the church was recalled from the colony because of gossip which connected his name with that of a woman in the city. The town Negroes, who enjoy comment on the vagaries of the White people of the colony, took occasion, under the protection of the double entendre which is part of the African character of these proverb-names, to make popular a kerchief with this saying: ‘All bush animals eat (steal) cassava, but only the rabbit has the name for doing it.’¹ Though the situation afforded them amusement, there was yet sympathy for the man who was being punished for a failing which so often goes unpunished. Another of these proverb-names given to a kerchief is: ‘When the cow has eaten, she must give the horse the right to graze.’² This saying was related to an occurrence which took place among the Negroes themselves. A woman who had lived with a man for many years, found herself deserted in favor of a young girl who had taken her man's fancy. This woman was ill, and the feeling, while one of commiseration with her, was not one of sympathy, since it was felt that, having had her day, she should step aside.³ Yet another kerchief-name which had a great vogue is: ‘Anansi is cunning, yet today the Tiger rides him.’⁴ This saying comments on the experience of a Negro editor who had resorted to free criticism in his paper for many years, and on one occasion was disciplined for some especially daring comment. Another, named ‘Anansi climbed the thorny palm-tree,’⁵ describes the fate of a Negro who escaped punishment for the sharp practices he carried on over a long period of years, until one day he was apprehended and imprisoned. One kerchief-name comments on the adventures of an officer's wife with an ice-man: ‘The attraction of the Iceko (Ice Company) caused the officer's wife to lose the way to her house.’⁶ In its structure, this last proverb represents one of the forms met with again and again in the naming of these kerchiefs; examples of the way in which

1 Taki-taki proverb No. 83.

2 Taki-taki proverb No. 18.

3 The reasons for the excess of Negro women over men in Paramaribo will be discussed later.

4 Taki-taki proverb No. 115.

5 The first line of the verse which constitutes taki-taki proverb No. 10.

6 Taki-taki proverb No. 17.

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this is paraphrased may be seen in the proverbs that appear in the pages devoted to them.

Not all kerchief names need be derived from proverbs; a word or a phrase may suffice. The chief requirement for the name, be it proverb, phrase, or word, is that it evoke a situation that lends itself to lampooning. Two of these names, not derived from proverbs, may be given here as illustrating this point, and these were the names of the two kerchiefs in greatest demand at the time we were in Paramaribo. One was named ‘Porcupine’,¹ and the other, ‘Bushmaster’.² Both of these touched upon the difficulties which arose between two women who had been living together in the institutionalised form of sexual inversion found among the Paramaribo Negroes.³ After thirteen years of this relationship, one of them formed an attachment for a young boy, and there were quarrels and threats of black magic. The choice of the kerchiefs involved partisanship as well as amusement at the occurrence. Another non-proverbial kerchief name was kabugru uru, ‘brown girl wanton’.

It should be remarked that, with rare exceptions, there is nothing in the design that gives the observer a clue to its name, for the relationship between design and name is an entirely arbitrary one. The figures in themselves may be non-realistic geometric designs consisting of stripes or squares, or they may be flowers. Only in two instances where names took their meaning from the fact that the kerchiefs were brilliant red in color, and nothing more, did we come upon cloths bearing names suggested by the designs themselves, and in such instances there were no associations between the cloth and an occurrence to be commented upon. One of these kerchiefs was named fiamɩngo, ‘flamingo’, and had large yellow flowers on a red background, and the other was called fai̯a-lɔbi, a name given to a red flower common in Paramaribo.⁴ We give illustrations⁵ of a few of these kerchiefs already tied, and of the patterns of the kerchiefs employed.

To tie a kerchief requires skill, and though at puberty a girl is expected to know a few ways of tying, it is only the older women who are adepts at it. Before a kerchief can be tied, it must be washed and well starched. The tying is done on the head, before a mirror, and even the skilled woman takes as long as ten minutes to do this. Once tied and with the ends pinned into place, the kerchiefs are treated as hats, that is, they are put on for going to market and for visiting. At home, a woman wears no kerchief at all, or she may wear an old unstarched bit of cloth carelessly tied about her head.

1 Djɩndja-maka.

2 Maka-sneki.

3 See below, pp. 32ff.

4 Encyc., p. 390, gives this as Ixora Coccinea L.O. Fam. Rubiaccae, a plant indigenous to the East Indies, prized for its flowers in Suriname.

5 Plates VI-X.

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Women never appear on the street bare-headed,¹ even though, as in Africa and elsewhere in tropical lands, burdens are carried on the head.

If the names of the kerchief designs may be said to derive from the happenings of the world in which the Paramaribo Negro moves, the names of the manner of tying can be said to be related to the mood of the wearer herself. Thus, one type of tying is called trɔbi, ‘trouble’. The kerchief, folded into a triangle, is arranged carefully in front, but the ends hang loosely in back. This at once characterises a bad tempered woman, who is to be avoided if there is to be no quarrelling; and when women skilled in magic tie their kerchiefs in this way, they are approached with the greatest tact. When we saw quarrelling women in the streets, it was remarkable in how many instances their kerchiefs were tied with flapping ends. The implication of the flapping ends is that the wearer is indifferent to what people do or say, ‘all the evil wishes are spoken to the wind, and all evil the wind will blow away.’ Another style of tying is given the designation of ‘wakti mi na tap'-uku, - wait for me on the corner.’ A kerchief so tied has a straight line in back, and a slight opening to one side, and is considered a signal to men, though only for a comparatively harmless flirtation. While we have reason to believe that the men know the significance of most of the tying styles, one man, commenting on this particular style when he saw it on the street, observed that all men know kerchiefs whose significance is of this order. Another of this general category of loosely-tied kerchiefs is called motyo-ɛde, ‘prostitute’, and is the kerchief of a loose woman. It is tied so that there is a short straight line in back, which symbolizes a road, and a large opening with loose ends to indicate that the men are to follow her, and ‘be at home’. Still another is made to resemble a fan in back. Its name is ‘Yu ką wai̯ yu wɩnti lɔntu foto, ma mi no sa drai̯ baka, - You can fan your breath around town, but I will not return.’ It is worn to express a woman's sentiments toward a man with whom she has quarrelled and whom she has left, and bodes hini no good. One kerchief has a small plaited end to represent a fan, and carries the name, ‘Yu lɔbi na mąn, a no lɔbi yu, - You love the man, but he does not love you (as yet)’, and this style of head-dress signifies that the wearer is fanning some man's emotions, so that he might notice her. A way of tying kerchiefs which, it was said, is very old, is called broko hɛde, ‘broken head’. A kerchief tied in this manner used to be worn by young girls as a sign that they had already had sex relationship, but today this style is not much worn. The complement to this is the method of tying known as yungu-mei̯djɛ hɛde, ‘young girl's head’, where all loose ends are tucked in, and a girl wearing it is marked as a virgin, - to be specific, it was said that ‘this kerchief

1 The hair is worn in small braids, but there is not the variety of styles of braiding that is met with in the bush, where kerchiefs are not worn by the women.

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is worn before a girl has a man, to show that she is ready for one.’ One style of kerchief-tying is done in a fashion called frɩnskap, ‘friendship’ (really ‘love’). At the back this has two open corners but no flapping ends; one of the open places represents the woman, the other the man, and the knot made in the center of the design stands for the woman's heart, open to him. When worn, this style signifies that the wearer's love for her man is reciprocated. Other styles are brasa mi trąŋga, ‘hug me tight’; yu sa si mi baka, ‘you will see me again’; boto ɛde, ‘boat’; dɔksi tere, ‘duck's tail’; dagu tere, ‘dog's tail’.