Suriname folk-lore

3. Daily Life

Whatever phase of the culture of the town Negroes is selected for study, it soon becomes apparent that those elements in it which make the life of this group distinctive from that of other groups in Paramaribo are discernible chiefly in the behavior of the women rather than in that of the men. This may be said, at least in part, to be the reflection of the preponderance of women over men in the Negro population of the city, and this in turn may be related to the economic life of the colony, especially to the sex division of labor, which allows the man to range far in search of work, while the woman sells in the local market, or finds work in the city as a servant. The effect of this is that the greater degree of acculturation to the forms of behavior set down by the dominant White race is found among the Paramaribo men, as it is found among Negro men everywhere in the New World, and consequently, such Africanisms as have been retained are almost wholly in the custody of women, and through the women are passed on to the succeeding generations.

This does not mean that the men are not entirely at home among the Africanisms of Paramaribo Negro culture, nor that if they live to be old men they will not assume their role of guiding the young in the traditions of the group, and passing on their personal spirits to male relatives, who in their youth will be as lax in worshipping them as they themselves had been. These younger men, furthermore, even though away from home, carry with them the spiritual protection against evil magic given them by the local diviners, and once at home again, if ill, they will go to a diviner as well as to the hospital for treatment.

Where do the men go to find work? They are off in the bush ‘bleeding’ balata. They work in the bauxite mines at Moengo and elsewhere in the Colony. They act as guides for those who prospect for gold. They work wood, or become boatmen in the lower river trade. They man the small railway that runs into the interior, or they travel to the French and British colonies to get work, or range farther to Curaçao and Trinidad, the Windward Islands, and even to Harlem in New York. Those few who find work in Para-

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maribo itself act as servants to Whites and well-to-do mulattoes, they are the fishermen, they are clerks in stores, they run errands, they make copra, do carpentry work, become policemen, join the local army, and those few who have the ambition and the financial means to gratify it, study for the professions. In the main, however, the view is that men do better away from home than at home, and it is understandable that as a result of this travelling, the traditions in which the men were reared become weakened in performance, if not in sanction.

Yet another factor must be considered in understanding the importance of women as the carriers of this culture. Though a child may take his mother's name or his father's, it is with the mother's family that he identifies himself most closely, and it is his maternal relatives who will come to his aid when he is in difficulty. It cannot be said that this matter of tracing descent through the mother is as sharply adhered to as it is among the Bush-Negroes, yet it is nevertheless manifest in the Paramaribo Negroes' attitudes toward their maternal relatives, and in the belief that if a maternal relative is not given help when in need, the ancestors will be angered, and will seek vengeance.

One of the occupations followed by men, which does include ceremonial practices that derive from traditional African sanctions, is that of fishing. Fishing is done in boats manned by eight and more men, who go out after dark, and return before dawn with their catch. When the men have been successful, they can be heard singing on the river in praise of the sacred Dagowe snakes in whose power lies good or bad fortune for them. There are places in the river which are known to be inhabited by the Dagowe, - stretches of fast water, eddies, whirlpools. There, once a year, the fishermen bring offerings of rum and eggs to propitiate these spirits. This yearly sacrifice does not always suffice, for it often happens that the catch continues poor for successive weeks, and this is to be directly ascribed to the Dagowe, who, because they are offended, have withdrawn their favors. New offerings of rum and eggs are then given the Dagowe, and prayers are spoken, asking forgiveness for any unwitting offence, and asking, too, for renewed friendliness in providing an abundant catch.

When a sea-cow, as the manatee is called, is caught, a special dance called Kauna¹ is given to honor its spirit.² If, while the men are fishing, a manatee appears, disappears, and appears again, the

1 For examples of the songs to which these dances are danced, see Nos. 235-239, 244, 246.

2 This is a translation into the field of fishing of the wide-spread African custom of propitiating the spirits of certain animals which are killed, lest harm come to the hunter and those who partake of the kill. An account of this custom in the Gold Coast will be found in Rattray, (I), ch. ix, pp. 182-186. On the Suriname plantations a similar ceremony is held when a tapir is killed.

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men taunt it to make it the easier to catch, and call out, ‘Kau̯ bɩgi mɔro yu! - The cow is bigger than you!’ and the manatee, who is thus incited to come back again to prove that this taunt is not true, is then caught.

‘It's lucky, when they catch a manatee. They play music all night. The music is called Kauna, the same name as the drum.’ The Kauna drum is oblong, and is played at both ends as it hangs suspended by a cord about the player's neck. ‘If they would not play music, and have the feast, the house would burn down.’ The ‘feast’ consists of a broth made with the head of the manatee and liquor. The dancing is done with the dancers either standing or squatting against a wall, or leaning seated against a table, and both men and women participate, though not necessarily in couples. The hands and feet beat time, the body moves rhythmically, so that the muscles of the buttocks are in motion, and the dancers go through the motions of coitus.¹ We were assured that only the ‘low’ people participate, and it was characterised as ‘bad’ dancing. This Kauna dance (or Kawina, as it is at times pronounced) has a social character as well as a ritualistic one, and, as such, it is held on Saturday nights, whether a manatee has been caught or not. In addition to the recorded songs for this type of dance, we append the following further examples:

(1)
So mi yɛre Kauna 'ɛ bɔro
So mi yɛre Kauno 'ɛ lolo

So I hear Kauna is bɔro,²

So I hear Kauna is rolling.

(2)
Sɩneki beti mi,
Mi si wɔrɔ̨n, mi frede.³

A snake bit me,

I see a worm, I am afraid.

(3)
Sani mɔro Abane
A no mąŋ kɔ̨,
A no mąŋ go.

Hard times have come to Abane

He cannot come

He cannot go.

1 Our stay in Paramaribo coincided with the season of the sacred dances, so that we were unable to be present at a Kauna dance to verify this description.

2 Untranslatable.

3 This was also recorded as a proverb (taki-taki proverb No. 42).

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(4)

 

Bɔrgu, są mi kɛ?

 

Bɔrgu, są mi kɛ?

 

Dagu dɛ bari,

 

A no ką beti mi

 

Bɔrgu, są mi kɛ?

 

 

 

Fellow, what do I care?

 

Fellow, what do I care?

 

The dog barks,

 

He cannot bite me

 

Fellow, what do I care?

From the manatee itself is extracted what was described as ‘a big seed inside its belly as large as an apple’. This is dried, divided into four parts, and put into ‘high-wine’, - strong liquor. This mixture, which is white if the ‘seed’ has been dried in the sun, and black if it has been dried in smoke, is drunk by men to give them virility, and the immediate effect when it is drunk is to cause the veins to swell. The virility that is attained, however, is specious in character, since drinking the fluid is said to induce impotence, and a woman who discovered that her man used this would ‘summons him’ to the doctor. This mixture, when drunk, is also supposed to give great physical strength, for a man who takes it ‘will be able to knock down a person with his bare fists.’ Boys are given a little of the mixture in water, not rum, as soon as they begin to eat solids, and this is repeated several times a year to insure their ‘strength’, until puberty, when the practice is discontinued.

Other than in fishing, however, the occupations of the men do not bite deeply into the non-European sanctions of the life of the people.

Let us see what obtains among the women. What is the nature of their work? their relations to one another? their place in the family organisation and economy? What are the customs, peculiar to these urban Negroes, that flow through the women, and that they preserve both for themselves and the men to participate in?

For the women, the market is the most important element in their economic life. There are two principal markets in the city of Paramaribo, though other small ones are scattered at strategic places along the railway into the interior. Here the women buy and sell, and it is only rarely that a man is found behind the low-set boards on which the wares are displayed.¹ Early in the morning, the women can be seen on their way to market, carrying on their heads trays of foodstuffs and other wares. In one market they sell salt-fish, considered a great delicacy, chickens and produce, condiments of all sorts, white chalk, which is used for ceremonial

1 The African aspect of this trait of Paramaribo culture is obvious. In all West Africa it is the women who, in overwhelming proportion, are the venders in the markets.

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Plate IV. A market-scene in Paramaribo.

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Plate V. Negro and Hindu women in the Market.

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purposes, yams, rice, cassava, plantains, peanuts (pɩnda),¹ fruits, peppers, greens, melons; in the second, notions, cloths, china, cutlery, pottery. There is specialisation both in markets and in the articles sold by each woman, and the women keep their habitual places in the market, and sell their habitual wares. In pottery there is also specialisation, for there are two kinds; the Indian prapi (red ware), which is used in the daily life, and the black ‘Djuka’ pots, used for ceremonial purposes.

In the produce markets are held the dances in worship of the spirits which rule trade. The principal dance for this is the banya, participated in by those who are engaged in trade in any form, whether it be in the market or in a shop. Women who themselves are not traders dance to these spirits to propitiate them in behalf of their men who may be engaged in trade, and this is one occasion when women from the plantations come to the city for ritual purposes. For, as we shall see later, the townspeople on occasion seek freedom from official restrictions that stand in the way of following the full traditional ritual by going to the plantations or to clearings in the bush, where they can dance as the gods who possess them dictate.

Life in the Negro quarter of the city may be said to be lived in the dyari, - the yard, or compound. The dwellings of the quarter which lie closest to the heart of the city are flanked on the street side by shops, or by houses which stand so close together that there is but room between them for a narrow passage which leads into the yard. This passage, which at times is a short alley, is entered by a gate or door. Farther away from the center of the city, however, the houses are no longer so closely grouped, until when the outskirts of the city are reached, the aggregate of cabins, still conforming to the yard pattern, are grouped about a large clearing, though each is placed a fair distance from the other, with the entire complex facing on this clearing, but surrounded by open country and intersecting roads. It is clear that in the outlying districts, at least, what grouping of cabins there occurs about such a clearing is not the result of the need for crowding, but occurs because of the distaste for living in isolation. A cabin standing withdrawn from the road, and alone, is but rarely met with, and where such a one is seen, it is as often as not inhabited by a diviner, or a practitioner of magic. In the view of the people, isolation is not for the timid, and when met with, it bespeaks such assurance in the control of the supernatural that the inhabitants of an isolated house are treated with exceeding circumspectness. In the idiom of the people, ‘You walk softly with them.’

Few of the houses, wherever located, are more than one story high, and fewer yet, whether facing a street or not, contain more than two rooms. A yard may have as few as two or three cabins, or as many

1 From Kongo mpinda, as given in Bentley, p. 11.

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as will permit the housing of ten or more families. When the yard holds but few cabins, and the owner is well-to-do and himself occupies the house which fronts the street, the yard cabins may accommodate members of his own family, - an old mother may occupy one of these cabins, and a sister and her children another. The large yards may be surrounded by individual one- or two-room cabins, or there may be several of these small cabins, and in addition, one or two long single-story buildings, one room deep, divided into separate compartments, each of which has only one door which opens into the yard. There is, of course, no uniformity in the construction of these houses. Some are built level with the ground, and some are built on piles; a few may have glass windows, while others only have openings cut into the walls, which at night are closed with shutters to keep out the feared night air. Some houses may have individual verandas; others may have parapets built to enclose the several steps which lead to the door of the cabin built on piles.

Practically all the single-room cabins have attics, which are entered by ladders reaching to trap-doors. In these attics the family wealth is stored, - the woman of the house keeps a cannister there, or a box holding her kerchiefs, her koto-yaki, her beads, her bracelets; or there may be some heirloom, often kept for luck rather than for its intrinsic worth. The man places his cannister or box containing his holiday clothes there, if he is not away from home, or else leaves behind in this attic those of his keep-sakes he does not take with him, though if his mother is still living, he may prefer to leave them with her. The room itself contains a table and perhaps two or three chairs, although any convenient box in the yard, or a log lying on the ground is preferred for relaxation. The walls may be bare, or papered entirely or in part with newspaper, and as many colored lithographs as the owners have been fortunate enough to collect are hung. A well-to-do home may have a cabinet for bric-a-brac, jars, bottles, and brightly colored boxes. Either hammocks about which mosquito nets are slung, or mats which are spread on the floor, or beds, are used for sleeping, but the latter are but seldom found in the single-room cabins. A typical cabin is no larger than ten by twelve feet in size, and may accommodate as many as five people. This, of course, means that these five people sleep there, for during the day the adult men and women are away working, and the children are either at school or at play in the yard. Cooking is seldom done indoors. Each family has a coal-pot or a hearth made of stones, and there the food is cooked, for these cabins have no chimneys, and except when the weather is inclement, the smoke is kept out of the cabin. There is a well in the yard, and there may also be a ‘cook-house’ with an oven for baking which is for the use of all who live in the yard. Food consists principally of roasted or boiled plantains and stews in which a bit of salt-fish or meat is added to rice and okra, or to rice and the varieties of

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beans and peas which grow in Suriname, mixed with the peppers without which no dish is complete.¹ An equally favored way of preparing food is to shape it in small cakes, and wrap it in banana leaves, in which it is cooked. Akąnsą², the cakes made of pounded corn, and wrapped in banana leaves, asogri,³ the cakes of pounded corn made with sugar and raisins, dokųn,⁴ pudding made of bananas, young corn, or peanuts, highly seasoned, and wrapped in a banana leaf, tɔ̨mtɔ̨m,⁵ a heavy pudding made of pounded bananas, (of the consistency of dumplings) fufu, and boiled plantains, are some of these dishes. The first two of these are used ritually, since they are included in practically all offerings to the spirits, and to the third we have frequent reference in the folk-tales, where the young man setting out to seek his fortune provides himself with dokųn for the journey.

In the yard itself, the very young children seldom wear clothing, and even the dress of the older ones is likely to be sketchy. The women working about the yard go barefoot, and wear their oldest dresses, which are usually one-piece cotton garments, for the koto-yaki is not a work-dress. Unless there is quarrelling, the yard is markedly quiet during the day. It is at night that life is lived, and it is then that gossip is liveliest. Those men who are at home lounge about, sitting on the steps which lead to the cabins, and the women are with them. One group may be telling Anansi stories, the listeners joining in the accompanying songs, and each story-teller vying with his neighbor to show how many tales he knows. There may be a quarrel, or a wake which brings many people to the yard, and keeps its inhabitants from sleep the night through. If a priestess is numbered among the people who live there, and it is the time for dances to the gods, all must be got in readiness for the ceremonies, until finally the dances themselves occupy the people's time. Ordinarily, however, long before midnight the yard is quiet, and all are asleep.

A family considering the renting of a vacant cabin in any of the yards, makes inquiries concerning the ‘luck’ of that particular yard. The word ‘luck’ involves the question whether there is a sacred tree in the yard in which a Lɛba spirit lives; whether there is a snake which makes its home in the yard and brings good fortune

1 This type of dish also is a staple in West Africa, especially when seasoned with very generous portions of native peppers.

2 Cf. Encyc., p. 35. Akansa, made in the same way as described here, only served in round portions, is an important dish in Dahomey. In Haiti, acasan is the term for this dish, which like in Dahomey and Suriname, is employed in religious rites. For acasan in Haiti, see E.C. Parsons, (I), p. 173. The term akasa is also found in Eastern Nigeria to designate this dish, according to N.W. Thomas (II), ii, p. 191.

3 Encyc., p. 59.

4 Encyc., p. 273.

5 Encyc., p. 683; ‘Het woord is aan het Tsji toem-toem ontleend...’

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to all who live there; whether there are practitioners of bad magic to make trouble for the inhabitants; whether some deed has been committed in the cabin to be rented which might cause it to be haunted by a ghost or by a bad spirit. If the prospective occupants find the answers propitious, they make preparations in their old home for moving. Most important of all is the ceremony of asking the souls, - particularly the souls of the children - to follow the family to the new quarters. An offering is usually also given to the local earth spirit, - the grǫn mama of the yard - to ask it to befriend the newcomers. If the family had been harrassed at the old location, or had prospered there, a diviner is consulted, - in the one instance, to tell how to evade the bad spirits so that they will not follow the family to the new yard, and in the other, how to propitiate the good ones so that they may continue their goodwill. Not all will take recourse to divination for so simple a matter as changing living quarters, but all will seek for proper omens when making their choice.