Society-BUSH-NEGROES

The Bush Negroes (also called Refugee Blacks or Guiana Maroons) are
the descendants of Black slaves brought as plantation laborers from
Africa to Surinam in northeastern South America, starting in the last
half of the seventeenth century. (See Price 1976: fn. 2 on pp. 2-3,
for a discussion of the derivation and meaning of the terms "Bush
Negro" and "Maroon.") The ancestors of the major Bush Negro tribes
escaped from the plantations of coastal Surinam to the forests of
the interior in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
There they developed distinctive societies reflecting a blending and
adaptation to local conditions of various African sociocultural patterns,
and incorporating strong Amerindian influences in their material culture
-- e.g. horticultural practices, hunting and fishing techniques, crafts
such as basketry, the use of therapeutic plants, and so forth.

After a half century of guerrilla warfare against colonial and European
troops, the Bush Negroes signed treaties with the Dutch colonial government
in the 1760s, enabling them to live a virtually independent existence
until the past few decades. Their numbers increased markedly during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries so that the modern Bush Negro
population is generally estimated to be somewhere between 25,000 and
47,000, probably closer to the latter figure. For the most part, they
live along the rivers of the interior of Surinam. However, growing
numbers are now living in and around Paramaribo, the capitol of Surinam,
and they also seem to be expanding eastward into adjacent French Guiana
(cf. Herskovits and Herskovits 1934: vii; Hurault 1959: 2; Kobben
1967: 35; Price 1972: 83; and Price 1976: 3-4, 21).

Today, according to Price (1976), there are six Bush Negro tribes.
He divides them into two main groups on the basis of cultural and
linguistic differences, as well as location: (1) the Eastern Tribes,
consisting of the Djuka (Aucaner, Awka), the Aluku (Aluku nenge, Boni),
and the Paramaka (Paramacca); and (2) the Central Tribes, consisting
of the Saramaka (Saramacca), the Matawai, and the Kwinti (cf. the
tribal distribution map in Price 1976: 5). The Djuka and Saramaka
are the largest tribes, with estimated populations of 15,000 to 20,000
each. The Aluku, Matawai, and Paramaka are much smaller, with estimated
populations of around 2,000 each. The smallest tribe is the Kwinti,
with fewer than 500 people.

Three main creole languages are spoken in Surinam: (1) Sranan (Sranan
Tongo, Taki-Taki), which was once the language of the plantation slaves
and is now the "national language" of Surinam, spoken throughout the
country as a lingua franca; (2) Ndjuka, spoken by the Djuka, Aluku,
and Paramaka; and (3) Saramaccan, spoken by the Saramaka and Matawai.
It is not clear where the language of the Kwinti fits since it has
not been adequately described. The Voegelins (1977) list a fourth
language, Aucaan, but give no further information about it.

Both Price and the Voegelins agree that Sranan and Ndjuka are, with
little effort, mutually intelligible; while Saramaccan is the most
distinct of the three languages and mutually unintelligible with Sranan.
(It is not specified whether Saramaccan and Ndjuka are also mutually
unintelligible.) There is one key difference between Price and the
Voegelins with respect to the classification of these languages. The
latter classify all of them as English-based creole languages belonging
to the Atlantic branch of the West Germanic group of Germanic within
Indo-European. Price would presumably agree except in the case of
Saramaccan. If his estimate of the derivations of the Saramaccan vocabulary
is correct (i.e., 50 percent African, 20 percent Portuguese, 20 percent
English, and 10 percent Dutch and Amerindian), then Saramaccan cannot
be classified as an English-based creole. Furthermore, Saramaccan
is fully a tone language (cf. Price 1976: 35-36; Voegelin 1977: 142-44).

The modern Bush Negro tribes share a common cultural configuration,
yet manifest important differences. As Price has stated (1976: 4),
"These societies, though formed under broadly similar historical and
ecological conditions, nevertheless display significant variations
in everything from language, diet, and dress to patterns of marriage,
residence, and migratory wage labor." Traditionally, the greatest
differences were between the Eastern and Central Tribes, but "the
differential development of Suriname's interior by government and
mining interests is complicating this picture today." Price (1976:
6-42) presents an excellent preliminary analysis of the historical
processes which may account for these major cultural variations. Although
the details of his analysis will not be reviewed here, they deserve
the closest study by any serious student of the Bush Negroes.

Perhaps of greater immediate importance for our purposes are the broad
sociocultural patterns shared by the Bush Negro tribes. Villages,
which average one hundred to two hundred residents, consist of a core
of matrilineally-related kinsmen plus some spouses and descendants
of lineage men. Matriliny dominates descent ideology, with "matriclans"
and "matrilineages" ... forming the basic units of the formal social
structure. Since the colonial government signed treaties with the
Djuka, Saramaka, and Matawai [an offshoot of the Saramaka] in the
mid-eighteenth century, and placed the Aluku, Paramaka, and Kwinti
in "protectorate" relationships under these treaty tribes during the
nineteenth century, a loose framework of indirect rule has obtained.
Each tribe, except the tiny Kwinti, has a government-approved Paramount
Chief (gaama, granman) ... a series of headmen (kabiteni), and other
public officials. Traditionally, the role of these officials in political
and social control was exercised in a context replete with oracles,
spirit possession, and other forms of divination ... In general, Bush
Negroes enjoy an extremely rich ritual life, and the complex series
of shrines and cults serve as foci for groups of residentially dispersed
kinsmen. Their economy has long been based on a combination of periodic
male wage labor on the coast and swidden horticulture and hunting
and fishing ... Unusually skillful artists, performers, and orators,
Bush Negroes in general exhibit a strongly aesthetic approach to life
[Price 1976: 4,6].

Specifically, the first, modern anthropological field research with
any Bush Negro tribe started among the Djuka in 1961 with the work
of Kobben, Thoden van Velzen, and van Wetering. These Dutch scholars
have now published the standard ethnographic sources on the Djuka.
General ethnographic research among the Saramaka was conducted by
Richard and Sally Price in 1966, 1967-68, and briefly in 1974 and
1975. Part of their data has been published, and other works are in
preparation. Other anthropologists have recently done field research
with the Paramaka, Matawai, and Kwinti. A discussion of all of this
research, and the relevant citations, may be found in Price's invaluable
historical and bibliographical introduction to the Bush Negroes (1976),
which contains 1,330 entries dating from 1667 to 1975.

Culture summary by Robert O. Lagace



Herskovits, Melville Jean.
 Rebel destiny: among the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana.
 By Melville J. Herskovits and Frances S. Herskovits.
 New York, McGraw-Hill, 1934.
 366 p. illus., maps.
 Hurault, Jean.
 Etude demographique comparee des Indiens Oayana et des noirs refugies Boni du Haut-Maroni (Guyane Francaise) [Comparative demographic study of the Oyana Indians and the Boni refugee blacks of the Upper Maroni (French Guiana)].
 Population, 14 (1959): 509-534.
 Kobben, Andre J. F. Review of Jean Hurault 1961, Les Noirs Refugies Boni de la Guyane Francaise.
 Caribbean Studies, 5/3 (1965): 63-65.
 Kobben, Andre J. F. Participation and quantification;
 field work among the Djuka (Bush Negroes of Surinam).
 In D. G. Jongmans and P.C.
 W. Gutkind, eds.
 Anthropologists in the Field.
 Assen, Van Gorcum, 1967.
 Price, Richard.
 The Guiana Maroons: a historical and bibliographical introduction.
 Baltimore and London, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
 Price, Richard.
 The Guiana Maroons: changing perspectives in "Bush Negro" studies.
 Caribbean Studies, 11/4 (1972): 82-105.
 Voegelin, C. F. and F. M. Classification and index of the world's languages.
 New York, Elsevier, 1977.


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