Suriname folk-lore

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Part II Stories, riddles, proverbs and dreams

A. Introduction

1. data and informants

Folk expression among the Paramaribo Negroes may be said to be chiefly erobodied in the tale, or Anᾳnsi-tɔri, the proverb, or kɔtʾ-odo, and the riddle, or lei̯-tɔri. The collection of these which follows was made principally, in the city of Paramaribo; the proverbs and riddles in the Saramaka tɔ̨ŋgo, the language of the Saramacca tribe of Bush-Negroes, are included here in order to point to the unity of these forms in the bush and the coastal areas, as well as to indicate the basic linguistic unity of these two regions.

In collecting this material, a special problem of method presented itself with regard to informants. It is a truism that in the collection of folk-lore a large number of story-tellers assure a rich sampling of folk-literary forms, and the majority of students have sought such representativeness for their collections. At the same time, as has often been experienced by those in the field, the story-teller, when confronted with the novel situation of a collector, note-book in hand, loses all ease of presentation, and as a result of his self-consciousness and his inability to narrate effectively at the tempo at which what he is telling can be written down, the tale is given in an abbreviated form. It is not strange, then, that many suggestions have been given to overcome this.¹ This problem, moreover, presented a special difficulty in the instance of this collection, since it comprises a portion of data gathered in Suriname which, though aiming at a description of the Dutch Guiana Negroes, were essentially pointed toward a study of the problem of the extent to which there has been retention of aboriginal African cultural elements not only among the Negroes of Guiana, but of the New World Negroes in general. It seemed desirable, therefore, to work through one or two principal informants, whom we might so interest in the study, and so accustom to the mechanics of recording

1 Thus Rattray, (III), pp. v-vi, speaks of the difficulties in the way of obtaining ‘living’ reproductions of tales, and suggests that only tales which have been heard in their natural setting should be recorded. Andrade, p. 24-26, discusses this problem and suggests the tale should be rehearsed before it is taken down by the collector. See also Parsons, (II), pp. xiii-xx, and (III), pp. x-xi, for illustrations of other methods of ‘getting at’ informants.

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texts, that we could be assured of an idiomatic rendition. It did, in fact, happen that our principal informant became sufficiently interested in the making of this collection to spend entire nights at wakes where these tales are best told, in order to refresh his memory and to hear again the well-known stories. We count ourselves fortunate in our informants, for the one who gave us the longest series came of a family of famous story-tellers, and the one who seconded him was himself a gifted teller of tales, who had travelled extensively in the Colony, where he had often told these stories and heard them told.

The following list gives the names of the informants; the number before the name of each is appended to the tales they told, so that the student interested in tracing characteristic narrative style may see how one differed from the other in this respect.

1.	Frederik Bekker, our principal informant.
2.	Johan Bekker, uncle of Frederik. He is reputed to be one of the best story-tellers in the city of Paramaribo; he is a church elder whose story-telling ability is much in demand at wakes.
3.	Magdalena Bekker, aunt of Fred, who has lived for many years on the Saramacca River, in the country of the Bush-Negroes. With her two relatives named above, she identifies herself as deriving from Dahomean ancestral stock, her family belonging to the group known as Demakuku Negroes.^1
4.	Edwin Bundel, who, as guide and cook, has travelled extensively in the interior of Dutch Guiana, and has had contact with the Negroes of the border regions of British and French Guiana.
5.	Emilius Bundel, brother of Edwin.
6.	David Bottse.
7.	Lupi Horner, the only non-adult, aged 15 or 16.
8.	Jacoba Abensitt.
9.	Meli, sister of Jacoba.
10.	M.H. Nahar, a Paramaribo citizen of Javanese descent, who was Van Cappelle's principal informant. The difference between his taki-taki and that of our other informants is noteworthy.
11.	W.J. van Lier, a local student of Bush-Negro ethnology, whose publications have been mentioned in Part I of this work.
12.	Mathilde de Vries.
13.	A woman whose name we did not learn, but who, while listening to Informant 1 dictating a tale, volunteered two stories.

1 Demakuku Negroes have long been known in the colony; see above, p. 71, note 3.