Itrv ii-e^*!'
REBEL DESTINY
It is said: If a person stirs up a hole,
he will find what is in it.
— Bush Negro proverb
REBEL DESTINY
<iAmong the ^ush ^J\(egroes of T)utch (^uiana
BY
MELVILLE J. HERSKOVITS
AND
FRANCES S. HERSKOVITS
WHITTLESEY HOUSE
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, Inc.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1934
Copyright, 1934, by the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof,
may not be reproduced in any form without
permission of the publishers.
Published by
WHITTLESEY HOUSE
^ Division of the
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America by
The Maple Press Company, York, Pa.
To
Elsie Clews Parsons
Treface
THE pages that follow describe scenes in the lives of
a Negro people living in isolation in the interior of
Dutch Guiana, South America. These Negroes are
the descendants of runaway slaves imported from Africa,
who took refuge in the dense Guiana bush and established
African villages along the rivers whose rapids are their
fortifications. The end of the seventeenth century already
found these Negroes in constantly growing numbers up
the Suriname River, and before the middle of the next
century they were sufficiently organized to make repeated
raids on the plantations for guns and gunpowder, for
machetes and women. Several campaigns were conducted
against them, but eventually final treaties were concluded
with the Dutch owners of the colony, which guaranteed
them their freedom. Today when a Bush Negro drinks
with a white man his toast is "Free!"
Three tribal groups go to make up this Bush Negro
population. The Saramacca tribe, of whom we write, is
found in the heart of the colony along the upper reaches
of the Suriname River (called by the Bush Negroes the
"Saramacca," and hence so named in this book), and
farther south along the Gran Rio and the Pikien Rio. This
tribe has had the least contact with outside influences, and
it is the Saramacca language which differs most from that
spoken by the Negroes of the coastal region. The second
is the Awka tribe, found mainly along the Marowyne
(Maroni) River, which forms the boundary between French
and Dutch Guiana; there are in addition several Awka
villages on the lower Suriname. The third tribe, the Boni,
[vii]
PREFACE
is relatively small, and is localized in the interior of French
Guiana, not far from the Dutch boundary. In any con-
sideration of the Guiana Negroes, yet a fourth group must
be kept in mind — that of the Negroes of the coastal region,
who remained enslaved until their emancipation in 1865.
The country of the Saramacca people is reached from
Paramaribo, the capital and port [ the colony of Suriname
(Dutch Guiana), by the weekly train which goes some
ninety-five miles to Kabel, where the railway meets the
river. From Kabel transportation into the far interior is
by dugout canoe, owned and manned by Saramacca men.
The country above Kabel, which the Saramacca people
call the "big bush," is jungle. Over the watershed lie the
Amazon basin and the forests of northern Brazil. Once
in this region, the traveler has no contact with European
civilization, though he is still under the protection of the
Dutch Government.
The picture which we draw of the Saramacca people is
based upon two field trips to Dutch Guiana, undertaken
in the summers of 1928 and 1929. During our second trip
we traversed the entire stretch of the Saramacca country
from below Kabel, where the Awka villages are located,
to the last native habitation on the Pikien Rio, beyond
which are some fields, then uninhabitated miles of wilder-
ness to the Brazilian border.
The ethnological work conducted among the Saramacca
tribe of Bush Negroes and the Negroes of the coastal region
of Suriname represents a portion of an investigation into
the physical and cultural characteristics of the Negroes
of the New World. This research, which is still in progress,
has included field work in the United States, in Dutch
Guiana, and in Africa, and some comparative study in
the islands of the Caribbean. It began in 1923 with an
inquiry into Negro- white crossing in the United States.^
As the work progressed it became evident that the problem
^ For the results of this portion of the investigation, see M. J. Herskovits,
"The American Negro, a Study in Racial Crossing" (1928); and "The Anthro-
pometry of the American Negro" (193 1).
[ viii ]
PREFACE
demanded more knowledge of the sources of the slaves
who compose the Negro ancestry of the American Negroes
than was available. This knowledge, which historical
documents do not give us, was, therefore, to be sought in a
comparison of Negro cultures in the New World and In
Africa.
As the research was continued, moreover, it became
apparent that the scientific problem of the Negro in the
New World held implications of larger significance, and
that the history of the Negro in the New World has con-
stituted a vast "laboratory" experiment in the processes
of racial mixture and of cultural contacts. The Negroes
who were brought to the New World came of various
West African stocks, and here they mingled their blood
with the English, the French, the Dutch, with the Danish,
Spanish, and Portuguese who became their masters, and
they absorbed in varying degrees the culture of these
masters. At the same time, they came in contact with
aboriginal Indian peoples with whom they also mingled.
But the Negro has not only absorbed; he has also given.
The conclusion, still held by many students, that the Negro
slave came to this country a savage child with or without
his loin cloth, and as naked culturally as he was sartorially,
is one which cannot today be accepted.
At the beginning of our field work in Suriname, one of us
went up the Suriname River to study the Bush Negroes,
. and the other remained in Paramaribo to collect folk lore
(/from the town Negroes and to ascertain what Africanisms
could be discerned In their beliefs and behavior. When we
met and compared notes, some striking things came to
light, for bush and town Negroes were, as the evidence in
hand suggested, much more closely allied culturally than
had been realized, while both were seen to have many
aspects of culture that clearly link them with West African
and other New World Negroes.
Thus, in bush and town, the Negroes hold the same
concept and offer the same explanations of the soul and
[ix]
PREFACE
its influence on the life of man, and both employ the word
akra for soul, a word used on the Gold Coast of Africa
exactly as it is in Guiana. The day names associated with
the soul are Gold Coast day names, known in Jamaica
and heard in the United States, as well. In the bush the
Saramacca people are '* possessed" by the gods and by
ohia; in the town the Negroes are "possessed" by winti^ a
word meaning wind, and the use of wind as a euphemism
for the gods is common in Dahomey and Ashanti. Many
of the gods of both bush and town are the same, and they
are African gods, invoked today in Nigeria, in Dahomey,
in Togo, in Ashanti, and invoked also in the islands of the
Caribbean. Nyankompon, the Bush Negro name for the
Sky God, is the Gold Coast name. The Maroons of Jamaica
know this deity under the same designation. Dagowe is
a snake god in the Suriname bush and in town — the
Haitians and Dahomeans dance to the same snake god,
whom they call Dangbe. In West Africa the silk-cotton
and loko trees are sacred. In the Saramacca villages and
in the town of Parimaribo they are sacred as well, and the
names are Dahomean names, known also in Haiti. In bush
and town the people dance to the river gods, as do the
Negroes in Africa and the Caribbean, and the pattern of
the ceremonies has been preserved in part in Negro baptis-
mal rites in the United States. Bush and town invoke the
buzzard, Opete^ so named in Ashanti, and sacred everywhere
in West Africa, and the style of dancing resembles certain
of the dances of the "saints" who "shout" in the Negro
Sanctified Churches of the United States.
Between bush and town there is, however, this differ-
ence— the bush is Africa of the seventeenth century. In
West Africa today, for example, the roof of thatch has
almost everywhere given way to the white man's metal
roofing. In Dahomey, where thatch is still found, we dis-
covered a strip of wall made of woven palm fronds, such
as is found on the Saramacca, in a village which had been
enslaved by the Dahomean kings in the early seventeenth
century and had remained enslaved until the conquest
[x]
PREFACE
of the Dahomean kingdom by the French. All other walls
are of swish. Today in West Africa the automobile and
sewing machine have found their way into remote corners.
But more important still than these changes wrought by
European civilizations, which have made inroads chiefly
on the material life of the Africans, are those resulting from
intertribal wars, which followed the introduction of guns
and gunpowder into Africa and which helped to establish
the great West African dynasties. The result of the conquest
of one native people by another was constant cultural
interstimulation which made for changes in the indigenous
civilizations.
In the Guiana bush, however, where these runaway
Negroes and their descendants have been living, the for-
tunes of African kingdoms, the cultural contacts that have
affected the Africans, have not touched their own tribal
destinies. Neither has the civilization of the white man
nor that of the Indian introduced basic changes into their
manner of living or thinking.
There are no roads in the Guiana bush, and what foot-
paths exist to connect one village with another are difficult
to follow and, moreover, are not for the stranger, whether
he be white or mulatto. For such as these the highway is
the river, with native paddlers alert in their surveillance
of a stranger's activities. The old men on the river have
made a tradition of recalling the struggle of the ancestors
for freedom and survival, and it is not without significance
that one of the three worst crimes among the Bush Ne-
groes— one that ranks with incest and murder — is inform-
ing on a Negro to a white man.
In contrast with this isolation of the Bush Negroes, the
Negroes of Paramaribo have known close contact with
the whites, with Carib and Arawak Indians, and in more
recent years with the Hindu and Javanese laborers brought
to the colony. Only suggestions of the manner in which the
beliefs of town and bush correspond or differ can be included
here, since this account concerns itself with the Saramacca
people. Yet for the understanding of this study it must be
[xil
PREFACE
emphasized that whatever the differences, much of Africa
remains in the coastal region. Thus, to cite an instance,
at a zvinti dance in Paramaribo one night, the drummers
were grumbling about the slowness with which possession
was coming on. At last the priestess, possessed by Lebba,
the Nigerian-Dahomean god of the crossroads, began to
dance. Whereupon an elderly drummer flung up his hands
and cried out, "Praise God, idolatry is not dead yet!"
The word he used for idolatry was Dutch, and he pro-
nounced it in Negro-English, afkodrai.
The importance of the Bush Negroes for the student of
Negro cultures, then, is that they live and think today
as did their ancestors who established themselves in this
bush, which is to say that they live and think much as
did the Negroes who were brought to other parts of the
New World, and who became the ancestors of the New
World Negroes of the present day.
In planning this book, therefore, it has seemed more
important to stress the Bush Negro's attitudes toward
his own civilization, and his own logic in explaining his
customs, than to give a more conventional description of
an integrated village or the tribal life of a primitive people.
Such attitudes, moreover, whether analyzed among Negroes
in Africa, Guiana, the Caribbean, or in the United States,
can be studied most advantageously when they are juxta-
posed against the factor of outsiders — In this case ourselves,
a man and a woman, who came as friendly whites.
This book, however. Is not an ethnographic treatise.
The scientific discussion of these data will appear in mono-
graphic form, while the correspondences between bush and
town Negroes, and between these and other Negro groups
found In the New World, are included in a memoir on the
folk lore of the town Negroes of Paramaribo which is now
in press. The situations to which we have given emphasis
are those which have a direct bearing upon the beliefs and
practices of Negro peoples wherever they are found today,
but they are presented as they would — and did — actually
[xii]
PREFACE
occur among the Saramacca people. Nothing has been
included either in descriptive detail, in the spoken or
unspoken thoughts attributed to a Bush Negro, or in
characterization, which has not been given us by our Bush
Negro informants or has not been witnessed by ourselves.
If the thoughts of Moana Yankuso or of any of the elders
who figure in the book seem sophisticated when contrasted
with the simplicity of the material life of the Bush Negroes,
then it is because the stereotype of the childlike, carefree
Negro has been so widely accepted. The subtlety and
astuteness of a man like Moana Yankuso, or of Sedefo,
our chief paddler and the right-hand man of Yankuso's
strongest rival, or of Apanto, the sorcerer, cannot be too
emphatically stated.
In view of the political factions on the river, and our
concern lest these make capital of the fact that a village
had been generous in the confidences given the whites,
several villages do not appear under their own names. For
Headman Moana Yankuso was an old man when we visited
him, and alliances for the succession to his high office were
at that time already being formed, alliances which, since
his death some three years ago, have undoubtedly been
consolidated and made effective for the time when his
successor is to be named. Villages, therefore, are in some
instances given the names of rapids in the river, and not
necessarily the names of the rapids found nearest to the
villages of which we are writing. In this manner we have
sought to preserve the anonymity of the villages without
violating the authenticity of place names. Men and women,
as well, with the exception of the priestess Amasina, Moana
Yankuso, his daughter Wilhelmina, the bassia of his village,
Bibifo, and the Captains of Baikutu, S'ei, and Dahomey do
not appear under their own names, but under other typical
Saramacca Negro names.
Work of the type we have attempted cannot be accom-
plished without the cooperation of many persons, and we
are privileged to acknowledge here our gratitude to those
[ xiii ]
PREFACE
who have helped us. To Professor Franz Boas and Dr.
Elsie Clews Parsons, whose interest and scholarly advice
have stimulated work on this problem; to Dr. Parsons,
the Columbia University Council for Research in the Social
Sciences, and Northwestern University, for the financial
support that allowed us to make the field trips on the results
of which we base this book; to His Excellency, Dr. H. H.
Rutgers, Governor of Suriname and the Honorable F. J. L.
Van Haaren, Attorney-General of the colony, and their
staffs of officials, for their generous cooperation; to Dr.
Morton C. Kahn, to whom we owe our initiation into life
in the tropics and many memories of congenial travel
together; to Mr. A. C. van Lier, Mr. R. M. Schmidt, Mme.
Gay Schneiders-Howard, and above all, Mr. Alexander
Woolf, at whose balata station we made our base camp,
for their great help in making contacts for us with the
natives with whom we worked; to Mr. Irving Breger, who
in making the illuminated map has so ably met the chal-
lenge of the Bush Negro artists; to the international body
of scholars, especially Jhr. L. C. van Panhuys, Dr. Gerhard
Lindblom, and the late Dr. H. D. Benjamins, whose writ-
ings afforded us a background and a starting point for our
own studies; to all of these we wish to express our deepest
appreciation. The first thanks of any ethnologist, however,
must be to the native informants and friends who have
given him his material, and it is with regret that, except
in the case of that remarkable personality, the late Head-
man Moana Yankuso, we must acknowledge our indebted-
ness to these Saramacca friends without naming them.
We do so out of the regard we have for them, and in recogni-
tion of the manner in which life is lived in the bush. Our
gratitude to them is not the less lively because we do not
name them individually.
Melville J. Herskovits.
Frances S. Herskovits.
EvANSTON, Illinois,
March, 1934.
[xiv]
(Contents
Preface, vii
List of Illustrations, xvii
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XIII.
Chapter XIV.
Chapter XV.
Death at Gankwe, 3
While the River Was High, 22
On the Saramacca River, 41
KuNu, 62
The Shrine to the River Gods, 80
The Provision Ground, 89
Ba Anansi, 102
Parents, Children, and Grandchildren,
124
A Night at S'ei, 146
At the Court of the Granman, 168
The Council of the Elders, 185
Women at Work, 207
The Gods Speak, 228
Granman Moana Yankuso, 248
The Artist of Ma'lobbi, 268
[xv]
CONTENTS
Chapter XVI. Bayo, the Playboy, 287
Chapter XVII. Saramacca Obia, 307
Chapter XVIII. "Obia Comes!", 322
Glossary and Linguistic Notes, 347
Index, 359
[xvi]
Illustrations
The Saramacca River below the Mamadam falls. . Frontispiece
Pacini P'if
A Gankwe dancer 8
Village elders on a ceremonial visit 24
In the rapids 58
Just above the Mamadam. Detail of boat —
feline head on crosspiece 84
Baikutu, Chief Fandya's village 90
Dwelling houses. Carved door of a man's house.
A gudu wosu — man's personal house 130
Shrine of the Apuku gods. Kromanti Mama.
Village guardians 158
"In the true, true Saramacca ..." House of one recently
dead. The approach to the Tapa Wata falls 170
Combs, the gifts of men to women. A tray for
winnowing rice. (Symbolism on pages 282-283) • • • • 214
Carvings the women were eager to have admired:
comb, clothes beater, tray 240
Ceremonial benches incised with symbols of
fertility and magic 272
Houses and house posts in Ma'lobbi 284
Bayo and Tross. Bow and arrow used
for shooting large fish 302
A Saramacca elder, who has Tiger spirit.
Bayo inspects an obia leaf 332
[ xvii ]
REBEL DESTINY
Among the Bush Negroes oj
Dutch Guiana
Qhapter I
DEATH AT GANKWE
WE HAD not thought to come upon death on our
first night in the Suriname bush. What had killed
Sedefo's brother no one could as yet say, for the time
had not come to call upon the spirit of the dead man to
speak. Death, said the Bush Negroes, was ravaging the
family. Kunu, the law of retribution, the tool of ancestors
and gods, had found this latest victim an easy prey to the
black magic which had been invoked against him. In
whispers they talked about a quarrel at work with a mar^
who had a powerful snake god.
"The man's family kunu and the enemy's Aboma god,"
we heard as a refrain to the low muttering.
There would be dancing all that night for the spirit of
the dead, the natives told us, and they asked if we did not
wish to come and honor the dead. But an old man objected.
"Let them wait until tomorrow," he said, "let them wait
until they are rested. To face the spirit of the dead their i^
own spirits must be strong."
That night whenever we stirred in our sleep we strained
for the sound of the drums, but the wind blew from the
east, and though Gankwe, where the dead man lay in
state, was but a ten-minute run down the rapids, we could
hear nothing. In the morning, however, we heard them
plainly, heard the invocations drummed by the grave
diggers on their way to the burial ground deep in the bush
on the opposite bank.
Osio tintin
Osio be^e dyo.
l3l
REBEL DESTINY
"On the sacred apinti drum we speak to the spirit; we tell \y
it we go to dig the grave." So the drum spoke. From the
shore we could see five figures in the small corial, and, as
they came closer, we saw also the drum, the food the men
carried, and the muddy hoe. They would do this the next
day and the next, for to dig a grave takes a long time.
Although separated by many generations from their
African places of origin, the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana
have held to the traditions and beliefs, of their aboriginal
home. In the Suriname bush, as in Africa, the responsibility
which an individual bears toward his social group does not
end with death. His clan, his village, and his family look
to him, when he has joined the spirits of his ancestors, to
protect them against the magic of their enemies, to help
them in time of drought or pestilence, and at all times to
intercede for them with the gods.
As in Africa, the spirit of the dead is powerful for good
or evil, and the rites of death must be carried out as tradi-
tion demands, so that the dead man may feel he has
received honor among the living and proper introduction
to the world of the dead. As in Africa, we found that the
first care for the dead is to place the body on the central
portion of a broken canoe; that rum and tobacco are in-
cluded in the water with which the body is washed; that
in washing the dead, the back must not be touched;
that the number of those who wash the body must not be
an even one — five is the number preferred, though three
persons are used, and seven; that those chosen must not
be young, for It takes age and the knowledge of controlling
the spirits which age brings to approach the dead without
suffering harm.
While the body lies in the open house of the dead,
relatives and the village elders are in attendance on the
spirit night and day. It is they who all night tell stories
about the trickster, spider Anansi, to amuse the spirit, and
they who play traditional games. The dances begin when
U]
DEATH AT GANKWE
the body has been put into the hexagonal cedar box which
is ornamented with the cross-like design called by the
natives kese-oyo^ the eye of the coffin.
"How many days to make the coffin?" we asked our
informant.
"One day only, but they do not start the first day. They
must go into the bush and hunt out a cedar tree and cut it
down, and then there must be prayers."
It became clear as we talked with this man, who so
reluctantly spoke of these rites, that death cannot be
hurried.
"It takes time," he said, "hammocks and cloths must be
gathered, and other articles to put into the coffin. It takes
time."
Before the body is put into the coffin, the ears and nos-
trils are packed with tobacco and cotton, and the head and
face are swathed in white so that the dead man may be
recognized when he walks abroad.
As we sat and talked of death, we heard the discharge
of guns and were told that the coffin was being closed and
that these shots were to honor the spirit. "They dance well
at Gankwe," said our friend, casting an eye in the direction
of the village and showing very plainly his eagerness to be
off. But we detained him and brought the conversation
back to the digging of the grave.
To dig a grave takes a long time, we heard again. The
digging party first goes out to select a fitting place in the
"big bush" where the dead lie. Though it is not considered
imperative — some villages do not follow the practice at
all — it is considered good form to consult the spirit of the
dead man whether or not he approves of the spot
chosen. Then all has to be done softly — safri — without
haste. The men who go to dig the grave must be in the
prime of life, for they must not tire easily, and even these
strong young men must work slowly, that no drop of
perspiration fall into the upturned earth. If one drop of
perspiration were to fall into the grave, then the dead man
would in time claim the companionship of the living spirit
[5]
REBEL DESTINY
of him from whom it had dropped. The same belief in the
identification of the essence of one's being with any part of
one's body which actuates so many primitive peoples, and
is so characteristic of West Africa, exists among the Bush
Negroes. It is for this reason that when an African or
a Bush Negro dies away from home some of his hair and
nail parings are sent to his native village for ceremonial
burial. And it is for this reason, too, that for three mornings
we saw the party of five young men go out from Gankwe
to dig the grave of Sedefo's brother and heard the drum's
invocation,
Osio tintin
Osio be^e dyo.
The night was still and dark. The natives said the moon
was dead and this was the time for the dances to the river
gods, but since there was a death in Gankwe all the gods
might be danced to, for in times of important rituals, like
death or the breaking of mourning or harvest festivals, it
was not necessary to wait for the day sacred to each god
to dance.
"They dance well at Gankwe," said our informant, as he
sat by, and then after listening for a few moments he added,
"They're dancing already."
We, too, walked out on the path to listen, and gradually
we separated the sound of the falls above our camp from
what seemed like the pulse of the night Itself.
"It doesn't boom, does it.^" we asked each other, remem-
bering the accounts of impressionable travelers.
Soon Sedefo himself appeared and another, and we
started for Gankwe.
^^ Waka koni, Sedefo," called our host at camp as we put
off. He was evidently uneasy about us and asked the
paddlers to be careful, for it is not safe on the river at night
with the rapids below and the spirits that hover about.
The paddles cut the water so soundlessly that it did
seem as if the spirits were carrying the boat downstream.
[6]
DEATH AT GANKWE
Ahead of us and all about were the various shades of
darkness which go to make the jungle darkness on a
moonless night — the dark water, the dark branch of a liana
which our paddlers skirted as if by magic, the dark wall of
forest, and the dark horizon. But soon there was foam on
the water, and then all the darkness seemed to break and
come to life. We heard the drums plainly, and the rattles,
the singing voices, and the chorus of approbation from the
young onlookers, breaking into the song. We were nearing
the rapids and Gankwe.
Up the bank, through the spiritual guard of palm fronds
which stretched across the path, and up the path we went
to the great village clearing, where the principal houses
are grouped and where stands the house for the dead.
In this open palm-thatched house the cofhn, covered
over with a white striped cloth, rested on a rough bier.
Underneath the head of the cofhn a calabash dish stood to
receive the fluid of the putrifying body, while in front of the
coffin a fire smoldered and to one side a hammock was slung
where Sedefo, or in his absence an elder of the village, lay
to guard the dead. The drummers and some elders sat in
front of the house facing the phalanx of singers seated on
their low stools some ten feet away from them. There were
perhaps fifty women singing, and as many standing about
to the left ready to begin dancing again, or just standing
by to mark the rhythm with hand clapping and a slight
swaying in place. Here and there, hung upon forked sticks
which had been planted in the ground or placed on the
ground beside a stool, were a few lanterns. They cast a pale
shadowy light and brought into relief the ceremonially oil-
anointed shoulder of one, the shining anklets of another, a
brilliant red strip of cloth, the intricate pattern of another's
hairdress.
With our coming the singing and dancing had stopped.
The children grouped together moved toward us in a body,
and then took to their heels, repeating this again and again,
until the two or three we had already talked with at our
camp took courage and squatted down at our feet. The older
[7l
REBEL DESTINY
people kept their distance, and among them some pithy
proverbs were spoken to bear upon the shortcomings of the
white man. One or two of them turned to repeat to the dead
what had been said, and there was great laughter. Sedefo
came to assure us that the dead man liked it very much. For
the dead, it appeared, were especially susceptible to humor
and to exceptional occasions.
About us, or edging their way toward us, were the
younger men in their ceremonial dress, the toga-like cloth
covering their bodies, but leaving one shoulder bared for
respect, and the women in their knee-length pangi, or
cloths, hanging from the waist, and their shining brass
rings reaching from wrist to elbow and from ankle halfway
up to the knee. Among the dancers, but standing somewhat
aloof, could be seen a man or woman with seed rattles about
the ankles. These were the fine dancers. Of them our
informant had spoken when he said, "They dance well at
Gankwe."
Carved stools were placed for us facing the coffin a little
to the left of the singers, where we could best see the danc-
ing. One or two lanterns were moved to give us better light.
The drummers, who had not left their places, took up the
rhythm again — one of the women had us know that the
spirit of the dead man had communicated to the spirits
of the drummers that he wanted to see the dancing re-
sumed. The singing began — a woman's falsetto voice and a
chorus; the hand clapping of the singers and bystanders
emphasized the basic rhythm. It was slow at first, then
quickened, and the dancing became more animated.
"They dance seketi," whispered our friends. "Later
they will dance awasa."
The dancing was confined to a comparatively small space.
It began with a barely perceptible motion of the feet of the
dancers to the rhythm of the drums and the hand clapping.
Then the feet began to execute figures in place, without
leaving the ground, the arms hanging loosely at the side.
This was continued for some time, until, arms flexed and
held rigid at the elbow, and knees bent but rigid, too, the
[81
A Gankwe dancer.
DEATH AT GANKWE
intricate steps began. The movement of the feet, angular
and precise, was reiterated by the outstretched palms,
while all the muscles of the hips took up the rhythm. Now
one of the men with the seed rattles at his feet danced facing
a woman who also had these rattles, and the dance became
theirs with a chorus of dancers moving more and more to
the side, keeping the rhythm with the feet. The drums beat
faster, the hand clapping became louder. Those two
balanced their bodies as they bent their knees lower and
lower, all the while executing the figures with feet, arms,
and hips, and how unaware they seemed of the audience!
And even of each other, for what awareness there was to
quicken the pulse of the dancing was more than one man's
awareness of one woman. It might have been a dance to
Asaase — the great Earth Mother — but it was, in fact,
dancing for the dead, for the two would turn again and
again to face the coffin, as the others had done, except
during the intervals when they recalled the white man and
woman in back, and turned to dance to us and our
flashlights.
Seketi, awasa. . . . The dances changed, and the songs,
and the drum rhythms changed, too. The children at our
feet had fallen asleep and lay doubled over, their heads
resting upon their toes. More men joined the dancers. It
was long past midnight. The women who had infants on
their backs moved away silently in the direction of their
huts, but when an elderly woman tried to go, too, she was
reprimanded and sat down again.
There was another leader for the singing, and another.
A man's falsetto was heard in a long recitative that preceded
the dancing to the massed voices of the chorus. He faced
now the dead, now us, as he improvised. Once more it was
gay.
The dancing became more and more spirited, but when a
dancer had continued in the circle for some time, an older
woman coming forward from among the bystanders would
put her arm about her and exclaim the singsong, ^'' Adoo!
. . . Adoo! . . . AdooP'' Others came forward to con-
[9l
REBEL DESTINY
gratulate the dancer, while another had taken her place
in the dance, only to be brought to herself again when her
dancing had become so abandoned that there was danger of
falling or tripping. For it is always a bad thing for one's
akra — soul — to fall from exhaustion or even to trip while
dancing, and it would have been especially dangerous to
have fallen with the spirit of the dead so close.
As time passed, figures were seen edging away into the
darkness. The knot of dancers thinned. Now there were
but two young women dancing. They wore identical cloths
of a new material, a pattern resembling the cloth over the
cofhn. They were related to the dead man. When all were
wearied, they had to go on dancing. . . . Dawn would
not be long in coming.
3
We knew that it would not be long before the spirit of the
dead would be called upon to tell his family, fellow villagers,
and clansmen how death had come upon him. For, in the
Guiana bush, except for the very old, there is little natural
dying. The deceased has been killed either by the gods
whom he has offended or by the black magic of a powerful
enemy, and it is of this which he must tell before his
burial. When Sedefo came to our camp the next afternoon,
we asked him about the "carrying of the corpse," as the
ceremony is called. We told him that his people in Africa —
for the Bush Negroes know that their origins are African —
also asked the spirit of the dead why death had come upon
him, and we plied him with questions. What would they
do to be sure the answer was right .^ Who would ask the
questions 1 When would they establish the facts of the
killing .'* And might we come and see }
There would be no trouble, he told us amiably enough.
The spirits of the dead liked attention, and for the Bakra —
the white man — to come so often to his brother's bier was
a compliment. We could return with him, but we must
make haste — and it was evident that important ceremonies
were about to take place.
[10]
DEATH AT GANKWE
And so once more we were In Sedefo's canoe running the
rapids, and once more we pulled up at the landing place.
It was quiet enough there, and no one passing would have
noticed anything out of the ordinary in the behavior of the
one or two women washing clothes at the riverside, or of
the children playing about in the water. Again we climbed
the path to the village, this time to the delighted shrieks
of the children, whose cries brought others, until we were
surrounded by a fearless, clamoring group, shouting, calling
after us, "Bak'a, Ame'ica' Bak'a!" Sedefo took us to his
house, where we met the senior of his two wives, and turned
us over to a young man, who had played one of the drums
in the ceremony of the evening before, to show us the
village. This was the routine of courtesy due any visitor.
Nothing more tangible than a slight reserve marked the
tension which made this village different from what it
would have been on any midafternoon.
In front of the house of mourning all was quiet. Three
elderly men sat on their low stools, talking in low tones.
They greeted us as we passed but neither engaged us in
conversation nor offered us a seat. Inside the house the
small fire still smoldered, and, where the hammock had
been, now crouched, soundlessly, an old woman who, we
later learned, was the dead man's maternal aunt. We were
struck with the number of houses that had symbols of
spiritual protection over their doors — obias, they are
called — magically treated to keep the spirits of death from
harming the occupants. As we passed one doorway, a
woman holding a baby hastily threw a covering over its
head, but not before we saw that it had special markings of
sacred white clay on its face. The child was under treat-
ment for some illness, and the mother, in these days when
spiritual danger stalked about, could take no chances of the
Bakra's magic obstructing the cure.
On the other side of the village, farthest away from the
house of death, life flowed on yet more evenly. But as we
looked about, our guide stiffened, and soon we too caught
the sound of the drums which rapidly became louder. He
[III
REBEL DESTINY
hurried us toward the river and had quite got away from us
as we came to the principal shrine of the village at the head
of the path. As we started down the hill to the river an
elder of Gankwe stopped us with an imperative, "You
must not go."
Very loud and very fast the drums now sounded — it was
the rhythm to Kediampo, the Sky God — and a moment
later the grave diggers appeared. They came not by the
usual way and not under the spiritual guard, but along an
overgrown side path. There were ten or twelve men, five of
them muddied from their labors, carrying drums and
cutlasses, the others, villagers who had awaited them. The
men who had been digging wore green parrot's feathers in
their hair, and they walked briskly and silently in single
file to the house of mourning. There was a great stillness
along the path of the diggers. The children had disappeared
and the women sought shelter in their own doorways.
Stools were not offered us — there was serious business at
hand.
All the men in the village had gathered here; they stood
in a semicircle about the front of the open shelter. The
old woman slowly arose and, taking a small strip of white
cloth, passed it once along each side of the cofhn and once
over the back as though she were ceremonially cleansing
it. Four of the earth-stained young men now took up the
coffin, lifting it from the bier and placing it on the ground
in front of the house, raising and lowering it three times
before it was finally set down. A fifth brought out two pads
of green leaves, and two of the bearers put these on their
heads. The questioning was about to begin.
As they raised the coffin with the putrifying body within
it on their heads, their muscles stiffened. With eyes half
glazed, and expressionless faces, they seemed there but to
do the bidding of the spirit of the dead man whose body
they supported. They swayed forward and back, from
side to side, without moving their feet, and the coffin
swayed with their swaying. And then they began to
advance, slowly at first, but after a few steps briskly, to a
[12]
DEATH AT GANKWE
group of three elders who stood to the left of the death
house. Three times they advanced, and three times re-
treated, and each time as they reached the three men, one
of the elders would put up his hand, touch the end of the
wooden box, and the bearers would retreat.
Sedefo took his place with the three and asked a question.
The coffin advanced, retreated. Sedefo spoke again; what
he said we could not hear, for his voice was so low that it
reached, us as a murmur. The response to the second ques-
tion was disquieting; the men retreated without moving
toward the questioner, step by step they moved slowly
backward in a circle before us, and then, without any
hesitation, they started on a run into the village along the
path to our left. Two of the grave diggers followed them,
for when the dead speaks, his replies to the questions asked
him must be interpreted and attested.
Serious consequences may follow the expression of fact
exposed by the dead. Repeated visits to a given house will
point the finger of suspicion to the one who lives there, and
a heavy fine at best, or expulsion from the village to certain
death in the unprotecting bush at the worst, may be his
fate. Supernatural forces are beyond control; here some
man's destiny was being sealed by the automatic move-
ments of two others under the hypnotizing influence of the
spirit of the dead. Back came the coffin and the questioning
was resumed. This time the man who took up the inquiry
stood upwind, and we could hear his low voice.
"Did a white man slay you .^" he asked. We watched
anxiously. What if the answer should be that our coming
to the bush had brought death in its train ^ But the bearers
retreated when they came where the questioner was standing.
"Did someone at Gansee slay you.'"' Again the advance,
and the backward steps to the mourning place.
"Did someone at Gandya village slay you .f"' The answer
was "No."
"Did someone at Gankwe slay you.'*" And with the
question, the corpse and its bearers once more disappeared
from sight into the village, the women fleeing before it and
[I3l
REBEL DESTINY
herding the children before them so that they would be
upwind from the coffin and the stench of decaying flesh.
As they returned the rear bearer was relieved; the tension
eased for a moment, but there was one man who did not
smile. And it was whispered that he lived in the part of the
village where the corpse invariably went. The scene
changed slightly; Sedefo, who had stopped questioning,
resumed his efforts, and five, ten, fifteen times the bearers
advanced toward him and retreated from where he stood.
Sometimes we caught our breath; the corpse was coming
toward us; but always the bearers swerved before they
reached us, going no farther than the grove of thorn palms
that grew near the house of death. Then once more they
broke through the ranks of questioners and, followed by the
watchers, were off in the direction of the village council
house and the dwelling of the chief.
The bearer who had been relieved came forward; the
corpse, he said, wanted to speak; he must be allowed to
carry the body again. This time there was little relief while
the change was being made, for the man was possessed, and
the air vibrated with the intensity of the spirit which
animated him. But apparently there were still difficulties.
Again and again the questions were asked, again and again
the bearers advanced, retreated. Sedefo kept insisting
u mu taki. You must speak!" and again the coffin
advanced, retreated, and then once more went to our left
into the village.
Clouds were rising to windward; the sun was low on the
horizon. The bearers returned, advanced to the village head
once, twice, again, and again, and then the coffin was
placed on the ground, raised three times, and left there for
a moment before others took it Into the house and replaced
It where It had been when we first saw it. The ceremony
was over; the elders of the village went to hold council and
to interpret what the dead man had said.
In the swift tropical dusk, Sedefo and his son came to
take us back to our camp. The drummers were adjusting
the drums for the night's dancing. "He spoke, ai," he told
[14]
DEATH AT GANKWE
US when we asked him. But what the pronouncement had
been we were not to learn.
"It takes a strong spirit to stand before the spirit of the
dead," said our host when we returned to camp. "I don't
wonder that you are tired."
4
The burial took place on the seventh day of death,
our sixth in the Suriname bush. Sedefo, who had promised
to come for us so that we could see the ceremonies, had not
appeared for two days, and we were certain that he would
fail us. But on that day he appeared, just as we had eaten
our noon meal. *'\Ve do not hurry the spirit," he explained,
"but the burial must be over before the sun has gone. Make
haste!" And again we went to Gankwe.
The dancing we had seen on the night of our first visit
had been spirited, even gay. The carrying of the corpse
had been terrifying in the spell of magic it had cast and in
its grim potentialities. Today what we saw was sadden-
ing. For today the dead man was to say goodbye to his
friends, his family, and his village.
All the preparations had been made, and as we came in
sight of the house of mourning the ceremonies were begin-
ning. The men were about as before, but there were women,
too, and even a few of the older boys. Stools were offered
us, and as we sat down the coffin was brought out of the
hut into the open space in front of it. Once more four of the
young men who had dug the grave took it off its bier;
they raised and lowered it three times before it was
finally set down upon the earth. And the same two bearers
who had carried the coffin on their heads when the spirit
of the dead had spoken were now to carry it once more.
This time, however, the forward bearer placed a broad bit
of palm leaf on his head before he took up the coffin. For
after seven days in the tropical heat, protection against
the drippings of the corpse could not be dispensed with.
Everything that had been used in the ritual of death
was to be taken away with the body. The calabash con-
[>5l
REBEL DESTINY
talning the drippings was taken away by two young men to
be emptied, a third going ahead to warn of what was coming.
The floor of the mourning house was swept by two others,
and the sweepings carefully collected and placed, with the
calabash, in the bungolo, the broken boat on which the
corpse had lain until the cofhn was made. The fire was
extinguished; the open hut was to be left as it had been
before death had come.
This time the corpse was carried to allow the spirit to say
goodbye. Out and back, out and back it went. First to the
village krutu wosu — the council house — where the dead
man in life as a boy had sat and listened to his elders debate
the affairs of the village, and where he as a full-fledged
member of the community had "gone aside" with a group
of his fellows to talk over more privately some proposal
placed before the men by the council of old men and the
village head. Then his body was carried to the portion
of Gankwe nearest the river and back, and finally to the
house where lived the mother of his dead wife, and where
his little boy had been living since his mother's death. And
now, for the first time, we heard wailing. "He is going from
me. My children are gone," was the lamentation, as the
coffin stopped, backed away, returned once more and yet
once again to say a final farewell.
The eyes of many of the people who were standing about
so quietly were moist. Another member of the village had
gone, and kunu had again taken its toll.
Now the body rested upon the ground before the mourning
house. To the rear of the coffin were the three drums and
the drummers, ready to play. The rhythms began fast and
loud, with the big agida drum carrying the basic beat
and the apinti talking to the spirit of the dead. More people
gathered; women ventured near in greater numbers, and
Sedefo appeared with his shotgun to render the final
salutes to the spirit. As the reverberations ended, Sedefo
took up a bowl of powdered sacred white clay, and walking
with measured step in time to the drums, sprinkled the
ground so that a circle of white now enclosed the space
about the coffin. A girl began to dance Vodu — she was
li6]
DEATH AT GANKWE
dancing to the snake god by whom she was possessed.
More people came, and these brought gifts of peanuts,
cassava, sugar cane, rice. The food was thrown over the
coffin and within the white circular path, on which a man
was now dancing round and round in time to the drums.
Faster and faster he twirled his way about the coffin, and
now another joined him while a third walked slowly about
the wooden box, a bunch of plantains in his hand, which he
slashed from the stem with his machete so that they, too,
fell over the coffin.
The men were dancing to the great Kromanti spirits; the
tiger — jaguar — and the buzzard, two of the three forms
which the dreaded Kromanti obia can take. "Obia! Huh!
Huh!" one ejaculated, imitating the tiger, as his dancing
became wilder and wilder. As he ran about the village
he wrested a branch from a tree and blindly slashed about
him with it. He ran through the clump of thorn palms to
our left and emerged with another branch, and now those
about were on their guard, for to be struck with those thorns
would cause serious lacerations. But the dancer's spirit, his
Kromanti obia protected him against such consequences, for
are not the Kromanti men immune to anything that wounds;
are they not secure from danger of the iron bullets of a
gun or the thrust of a machete.^ The girl with Vodu ran
away as he came near her.
Soon, however, the drums were silent, and another shot
was fired — the second salute to the dead. One of the elders
of the village, bearing a bundle of several long green
branches, took his place on one side of the coffin, a younger
man on the other. We could not hear what he said, but as
he finished speaking he struck the other three times over
the bare back; the first two strokes lightly, but at the third
he slashed as hard as he was able. It introduced the one
note of merriment that afternoon. The people standing
about laughed aloud as the ceremony was repeated. A
woman, and then another man, were switched.
As this ended, Sedefo took the place of the elder, and in
his hand was another kind of branch. This, too, was long,
but except for a tuft at its very end it had been stripped of
[17]
REBEL DESTINY
all its leaves, while the butt of the stick was whitened with
sacred clay.
Now the ceremony was drawing to a close, and the leave
takings were to be said. Sedefo thrust the branch over the
coffin, where it was grasped at its whitened end by the
dancer who a few moments ago had been so frenzied.
The laughter of an instant before was stilled; there was no
wailing. Distinctly the low voice of Sedefo came to us as he
addressed the corpse:
" The hour has come when we must -part from you.
What the Earth has decreed we cannot help. We have done
for you what we could. We have given you a funeral worthy
of you. You must care for us, and you must deliver us
from all evil that may come upon us.''^
As he finished, he slashed the branch in two with one
quick stroke of his machete, so that the dancer held in his
hand only the short whitened stump of what had been the
long stem. The dancer then turned and walked sadly toward
the river path still holding it in his outstretched hand, nor
did he return to the village and the coffin.
Now the place that had been occupied by Sedefo was
taken by an elder who held the second of the three sticks
with their whitened ends. When Sedefo reappeared, he
carried on one arm a little boy, the child of the deceased,
and taking the dancer's place across the coffin he grasped
the whitened end as the other had done. The separation
from the group of men who had Kromanti spirits had taken
place; the dead man was next to be separated from his
family.
'' You see, we bring your child. Now he is alone. Try to
protect him, that he may live in health and prosperity,
that he may not fall into the water, that fire may not burn
him. Protect him in the bush, that he may not be harmed.
Now we must separate you from him. What we must do
we cannot help, for it is willed by the law of the Earth.'^
With this, the second branch was slashed, and still
holding the child Sedefo followed the Kromanti brother
[18]
DEATH AT GANKWE
of the deceased with the same slow sad pace as he took the
little boy and the whitened stump to the riverside to await
the embarkation of the burial party.
What happened to the third branch we did not see. As
the elder's voice faded away, the two bearers helped by
their fellows once more took up the coffin and amid the
renewed wailing of the women started toward the river.
The villagers followed, and we too took the path to the
waterside. But after a few steps we were halted by the
people ahead of us; some rite was being performed. When
we were finally able to proceed, the coffin was being placed
in the boat that was to take it across the river to the_ burial
ground. But just outside the spiritual guard, where it had
been thrown to the side of the path, we noticed the long
green portion of the branch with its freshly cut whitened
end. It was here that the dead man had been separated
from his village.
No women went to bury the dead. Three canoes, each
with its complement of men, started off across the river.
In the first boat, resting on the gunwales, the coffin had
been placed, and in front and behind it were the bearers to
steady it. Underneath was the broken boat with the sweep-
ings of the house of death, the calabash in which the
drippings had been, and the short whitened ends of the
sangrafu branches by means of which the spirit had been
parted from the living. As the canoe moved off with its load
of coffin and paddlers, drums and drummers, two more
shots were fired as the final salutes of the village. The third
canoe came back twice; once for two broken pieces of iron
which had been forgotten, once for the gun. But the canoe
was not turned about; the boat was paddled backwards
toward the landing place, and someone waded out to hand
the desired object to the men In the boat. To turn around
would be hazardous; death Is dangerous, and they could
not tempt danger by giving the spirit hovering about a clue
where to return. We stood and watched the little flotilla
disappear about the bend, and with us stood the heavy-
eyed men and women. Then, when we had all washed away
[•9]
REBEL DESTINY
the taint of death in the flowing river, we turned and once
more climbed the path to the village.
5
The muffled sound of a gunshot came to us as we sat in
the hut of the headman, speaking of the funeral. "Another
child gone," he said, "Soon he will be safe in the earth."
We had not been permitted to go across the river to
witness the burial. "It is a dangerous place for those who
do not know it," the headman said. "Ogz — evil things — are
there, bad spirits who harm those who are not prepared, and
we do not want evil to come to you. Several years ago there
was a Bakra here when we buried another Gankwe man.
He asked to go, and we granted him his wish. But the spirits
of the bad bush across the river harmed him and he died,
and now his ghost plagues us."
A second shot told us that the bearers had reached the
grave after their march through the deep bush where living
man seldom came. They had sung the pq^asingi — the
dirges — which are intoned as the dead is borne to the grave.
Once arrived there and the invocations pronounced, the
salute fired, and the gods propitiated, two men would
descend into the deep hole there to lift down the coffin
and place it in the tunnel-like excavation dug under the
undisturbed earth to the side of the large opening; would
place it so that the falling earth might not disturb the spirit
of the dead.
A third shot.
The body was in the grave. The heaping of earth, with
the burial hoe, with feet, and with fingers, back into the hole
that had been so laboriously dug had commenced. The sun
was getting low and darkness comes early in the big bush.
Now the last shot told us of the final ceremony. The food
that had been brought for the last offering was being placed
on the mound of heaped-up earth. The strip of white cloth
to the spirit was being pushed into the ground on its stick.
The burial party was backing away from the grave, slowly,
slowly, so that the spirit would not be alarmed, so that it
[20]
DEATH AT GANKWE
would not guess that the living were eager to desert him.
And then all would turn and run as fast as they could to
the river's edge, where the unwashed dirt that had accumu-
lated during the digging of the grave, and the more serious
spiritual contamination to which they had been exposed in
handling the body, would be washed away in the safety
of the flowing water.
We strained to see the returning party as our canoe was
being paddled and poled upstream through the rapids to our
camp. But it was too dark, and we heard nothing but the
sound of water over rocks.
[21]
Chapter II
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
NOW this was a busy time of the year, and the river
so full of canoes that a man floating down a lumber
raft to the railhead might expect to meet ten
or twelve dugouts in a day.
Men in laden corials were returning from the French side
for the harvest festivals. They had been away eighteen
months or longer, and now they were coming back to burn
new rice and cassava fields for their women, and to beget
new children. When the harvesting was done was a fine
time for love, and a woman with a child in her womb was
the very luckiest for planting a field. These returning men,
in the prime of life, with powerful bodies and muscles that
were as so many great snakes coiling and uncoiling under-
neath the gleaming moist skins were deferential toward
strangers. For it would have been unseemly to thrust
at the first comer their adventures on the Marowyne River,
and a man who was returning with many possessions had
to exercise particular care that he angered neither men nor
gods. Yet among themselves they could not keep from a
certain amount of swagger.
"Ai ba! Ai mati!" they exclaimed to each other in reply
to the most casual comment. "Indeed, brother! Yes,
friend!" This was no more thap the mode of address of the
Awka people who live along the Marowyne, but "Ai ba!
Ai mati!" stood for the password of the larger outside
[22]
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
world, and they flung it at each other proudly, for It stood
for the experience of making their way among strangers and
earning sums with which to fill a large corial, and much
else.
The men who had remained on the river found special
pleasure in imparting to these returning ones some weighty
gossip.
"At Gankwe they are burying Sedefo's younger brother,"
they said as the boats passed each other, and they went Into
the details of Zimbl's death and the kunu which was
decimating the family.
"Aslkanu has been charged with adultery by Matafo.
Asikanu's family Is offering a great fine, but it is far from
settled yet."
All this was by way of preface. To come to the real news
without casual preliminaries would have been the way of a
child, but a Man Nengere, a full-grown Negro, knew better.
"Last year a white man came here with another one —
a doctor. He said he would come back with his wife. He has
brought his wife. He says they are going up the river. He
says they are going to the Granman's country."
Up and down the great stretches of water as the boats
passed each other, the news was given. Word and conjecture
floated down river and into the creeks, reaching even the
lower river Awka villages.
"The Bakra told me Awka is an African word. There Is a
place In Africa called Awka, and a people In Africa called
Awka people. He knows Africa!"
"Kye, ba! Kye, mati!"
Word and conjecture were carried up river in the boats
which were being poled upstream against the rapids. It
would be some time yet before there would be legends, and
songs about the American whites who had made their way
into this bush. Now there could only be talk. The Bakra
had a machine which talked back to you, if you talked into
its horn, and when it talked back, it said the same thing
you did, sang back the same song, and If you laughed, it
laughed, too.
[23I
REBEL DESTINY
And did men speak Into the horn, and sing? Would there
be no harm to the ak''a — the soul ?
Their own trickster, Anansi, the spider, working with his
fabulous cunning, could not have spun the stories about the
whites faster than had the passing boats. From boat to
boat, from boat to shore, from shore to village the news
went. Had the white man come with guns, or had he come
accompanied by many others, then, to be sure, it would
have been a matter for the drums. But the vagaries of a
white man coming with his wife are of no ritual concern. The
drums would only sound on occasions of moment; to sum-
mon the men for a council of the clan or to ask, ritually, for
the health of a chief; to tell of death; or to speak to the gods
themselves. But for a white man with his woman, gossip
was good enough to carry the news.
Up and down the river, in the villages where they had
visited the year before, many a woman to whom the Bakra
had given a string of yellow beads, or a large glittering
safety pin to put in her hair as an ornament, or, better
still, a large tin can out of which her husband had fash-
ioned a broad band to be worn on her arm, one which
glistened as it reflected the pale light of the moon during a
dance — such a woman heard of the coming of the Bakra
with pleasure. She had them all, these gifts, safe in the
carved calabash on which she had incised the sinuous lines
of the snake spirit that gave her fertility, and now that the
gourds were ripening once again, she would carve another
to hold the new things that the whites would bring her.
The young men, too, heard of their coming with pleas-
ure. For would not the strange ways of the Bakra and his
woman give them many witty new things to put into
words and sing to the traditional seketi tunes, the secular
songs that they would later sing in the intervals of the
religious dances t It was good to make up new words, which
made a man the center of the dance. Ambe! But the women
loved the man who could put clever new words to their
dance songs!
The children heard the news with fear, for at four, at
five, they were not too young to have learned of the enormi-
[24]
\ illagc clJcrs on a ceremonial visit.
iFacing pat
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
ties of the white men of long ago and the deeds of their
slave ancestors, who had won for them freedom in this bush.
But what of the old men ? What of them who govern and
know proverb and parable to fit all ceremonial occasions,
whose word is final in clan councils ? What of those who
call the gods and speak to the ancestors and who, surpassing
all else in wisdom, know how to control obia, the great
healing spirit which Nyankompon, the Sky God, created
after he had brought earth and water into being, so that
man might live? At the landing place of the balata camp, a
group of such men were gathered and stood about talking.
A Loango elder who was on his way to visit his relatives at
Kadyu, his lower river clan village, had espied a clansman
on the shore and had come up in his boat.
"A man and a woman came. And they are going up the
river until . . . until beyond the Mamadam and Baikutu,
until . . . past the Felulasi Falls, until . . . they come
to the Tapa Water and into the Pekien Rio, and until . . .
they arrive at the Granman's village."
The speaker, a younger man who had come from up river
to the death ceremonies at Gankwe spoke with a certain
eagerness, and made of the telling a long recital, drawing
out the singsong word ^Ue" — until — more and more with
each repetition, and in this way intensifying both the
distance and the hardships in these vast and vaster stretches.
"Ayo! A long way. Will the Ga'ma' let them come?"
" Ya-hai, tio! You must ask, will the gods let them come!"
*'Kere, kere! You must ask if the ancestors will let them
come!"
"They carry no guns."
"Then they bring us their gods."
" Kweti-kweti ! And that's what I don't understand. They
say they come to learn."
"By Ando! But what does that mean?"
"Well, they speak the proverb down below, they say:
'It isn't for nothing that the worm crawls from side to
side.'"
"Massa Neng'e, but it's true, true."
"The white man wants to get the black man's obia."
(25l
REBEL DESTINY
"The whites have wars against each other. ..."
"Our ancestors. . . "
Before the last speaker could finish, a man broke in with
a prayer. His voice was conversational and sounded as
though he were addressing someone present.
'^Great Sky Gody
Kediamo, Kediampon,
Mother of the River,
Sacred ancestors,
Grant that if the white man comes for evil
His race end.
Grant that if the white woman comes for evil
Her womb wither, her line perish.'^
But the Loango headman shook his head and said, "The
gods will deal with them, have no fear. Do you remember
the man who was drowned at the Mamadam, and the one
who died way beyond the Granman's country, and that
other one, the soldier.^ They came with evil in their hearts.
The gods killed them. The gods will deal with these, too."
And another said: "Let them go up the river. The gods
know all. The ancestors know all. This is our land, and our
earth spirits will protect us, and they will kill our enemies.
This is our river. Our river gods will protect us, and kill our
enemies. This is our bush. The gods of the bush are strong.
The gods of the bush know their bush children. They know
their children's enemies."
Then the Loango elder spoke again: "We have the gods
from Africa. They are more than all gods. The African
gods know all. They will watch over us. We have the obia
spirits, the African obia spirits. Mati, friends, let them go
up the river. Have no fear. Our gods are with us."
The men's soft, sober voices spoke the words without
emotion. Theirs were the voices of destiny. Well might the
answering chorus intone the affirmations, while the colloquy
went on of leader and chorus, leader and chorus, now one
taking up the main theme, now another. To us the cadenced
speech came floating softly on the still air.
[26]
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
The sun stood over the sacred silk-cotton tree toward the
Gankwe side of the land. Across the path leading from
somewhere in the back of our shelter the parasol ants, each
with its strip of green many times its size, made their way
toward an unknown spot where no shelter stood, and no
one trod. Like a wave the wide ribbon of green rose and
fell as it crossed the ridges of the pathway. In unending
numbers they came, and the lizards darting in and out of
the brush swerved in the direction of the shelter to avoid
the marching line, so that at our feet things moved now
up, now back again.
While the men were at the landing place, one of the
women who was drying rice on the high flat rocks opposite
our shelter paddled over in her boat, and, passing the men
with a formal greeting, walked on and stopped to talk with
us. She was not a young woman. Her time for childbearing
was long over, her wrinkled breasts sagged almost to her
waist. The cicatrized designs which once had stood out so
clearly, and in her youth had been so valued, were but
faintly penciled on her face and about her breasts. Had
she cared, she might have reopened the cuts, might have
had ashes rubbed into them to make the keloids stand out
black and alive against the dark brown of her skin. But
what need had a woman her age to care.'' What need to
urge life into symbols of fertility on face and between
breasts and about her navel, when her time for fruitfulness
was over.^ Of what use to reanimate the incised scrolls
between her thighs, when the legend they told in terms of
reproduction was for her a dead legend ^
She came toward us slowly, balancing a bottle on her
head. A faded cloth covered her from waist to knee, and at
her waist a bit of the kerchief necessary to the attire of the
married woman, even at work, could be seen. She wore a
few beads on a cord about her neck, but she had no other
ornaments, for ornaments were for festive occasions, and
the cloth tied about the neck and worn cape fashion was for
women who had children to carry straddling their backs,
and woven garters below the knee were conceits of the
[27l
REBEL DESTINY
young. Once she, too, had liked to have her calf look round
and full.
"Will you exchange this bottle of palm oil for tobacco?"
she asked, showing her empty clay pipe.
She came in, saying she would like to rest, and began
unfastening her top tunic so that she might make a pad of
it on which to sit down on the ground, for the earth spirits
forbid women who had reached puberty to sit upon the
bare earth. In her second tunic, somewhat fresher than the
top one, she stood hesitating, looking about her for a place
to sit down, until we brought her a carved stool we had
bought the day before. Instead of putting on the top pangi
again, she used it to cover her knees.
^^Bak^a muyey^ she said, "white woman, you ought to
cover your knees, too, when you sit."
And sitting there, examining us and our belongings, she
muttered her comments about our appearance and dress
as she smoked, and muttering she swayed slightly, until
the swaying rhythm seemed to bring a melody into her
head, and she began to sing.
" The American Bak'a
Have come from far^
American koni
Has brought them
To the Saramacca River,
To the Saramacca people;
They must not sicken
They must not die.^'
While the men on the shore talked and called upon their
gods to keep them free, the woman rocked and sang this
invocation for our safety, forgetting for the moment that
we were whites, whom the ancestors hated.
"You have so much wealth," she said to the white man,
looking about her at our provision boxes, "you must have
many wives."
And back again she went to her song, repeating the words
over and over, until seeing people approach she rose slowly
and went back to the river where her rice was drying.
[28]
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
Toward us came Tenye, a young friend of last year, and
two small boys. She had seemed but a child the year before
when she had danced bandamba with the other little girls
while the men were getting ready for the Kromanti dance.
But now she looked quite grown, and instead of the small
apron she had worn, was wearing a cloth of a woman.
"You've grown, Tenye."
"y^y, a kisi bobbi kaba,^' one of the youngsters said. "She
has her breasts already," and he went on to say that soon
she would marry. "Two moons more," he said, showing two
fingers.
"You will soon have many bracelets, Tenye, and when
you dance you will be splendid."
"Ai," the boy went on speaking eagerly, "Abane will
teach us how to dance when he comes back. He went to the
French shore. Abane made Tenye, and he made me, too.
I am Yamati, and he made Sabape, here." But they had
not the same mother, nor did they live in the same village.
"When I grow up," the child went on, "I will dance with
seed rattles at my ankles. I will dance like Abane." The
rattles his uncles would have to buy for him, or when
grown he might buy them for himself, but his father would
give him his gods when he was of age, and good dancing,
too, was a thing of the gods.
"Who will get Abane's seed rattles, Tenye .^ Will you get
them because you are the oldest child of the first wife.^"
"Ah, no!" both she and the indomitable Yamati ex-
claimed at the same moment, and then both lowered their
heads and would say no more, while the small Sabape
looked away.
Now we had the year before discovered why we were so
often met by young and old with the phrases, "I do not
know," or better still, '^ Massa Gadu sabi — God alone
knows," when it was evident that the speakers knew the
answer very well indeed. The reason lay with the will of the
Can Yorka, or the Can Zombi, or the Nana, as the ances-
tors are variously called. The ancestors it seemed had long
[29I
REBEL DESTINY
ago, SO long that nooneknewjust when it happened, instruct-
ed that no one might impart to another, a stranger, more
than half of what he knew. Moreover, no young person dared
to speak at all of the supernatural, and such matters as
inheritance were regulated by the laws of the gods and
ancestors, who punished infractions with the scourge of
kunu — a term we were to hear so much in this Suriname
bush.
Tenye's head as we looked down upon it was a mound of
wool, with little braids, each no more than an inch or an
inch and a half long, fastened by a bit of black thread, each
braid pointing upwards. This was called "tatafi," we knew,
and to change the subject we talked about the styles of
hairdressing. A child's hair usually was closely cropped,
and the heads of both Yamati and Sabape looked as smooth
as blackened gourds. Tenye's hair had been cut but a little
while ago, a moon perhaps, when the braids had grown so
long that it had been too much bother even to make the
hair look well in the fashion of what was called the coiled
head, or the earth furrow style. Both of these types of hair-
dressing consisted of braids which diverged from the center
in many rows, appearing at the outer edge at intervals of
one inch, or slightly more. These ends were caught up and
rebraided around the head, to form either the one coil of
"lollo 'ede," or the several coils of "gon wi." There were
also the single long braids — the "pitto" — and the "pina
bonsu" way of hair combing, where the head when properly
dressed makes a design of narrow strips of scalp showing
between flat ribbons of braids, which look like so many
snake vertebrae, radiating from the middle of the head
outwards.
"When you come back from up river, I will dress your
hair," said Tenye to both of us. "You," she said, pointing,
"will become an obia man in your white country, and you
will look so well that your husband won't ever remember to
go to his other wives."
But now Tenye's maternal aunt who had approached
unobserved came to call the children away. She was not in
[301
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
good humor, and looked with disfavor on the friendly
conversation between us. Her bad temper, we learned
later, had earned for her the name of Mother Snake, given
her by a witty town servant of a lumber factor. The idea
of dressing our hair apparently appealed to the woman,
however, for it would certainly only be a reckless white
who would offer his hair for combing to a stranger, since
with hair any number of supernatural things might be done.
With the proper formula, a few hairs, and the required
ingredients she might fashion an opo, let us say. Now an
opo serves many purposes, but its essential quality is
that it gives its owner power over the one whose essence is
captured in the form of hair, or a scrap of garment, or
finger nails, or whatever else had touched the person against
whom one has designs. The power of the possessor of the
opo is to dominate the will of the other, and its particular
attribute might be to function in love, or in a court of
justice, or in matters of getting employment, or of receiving
gifts. But an opo would be the least dangerous consequence,
for an opo is not to be conceived of as being in the category
of bad magic. There is the danger of wist — a word which
has the double meaning of poison and black magic — and
hair, or finger nails, or the menstrual cloth of a woman, or
perspiration are the very best materials for working
wisi.
And so the good woman, known when she was among us
as Tita, and as Mother Snake otherwise, saw that we
offered no cause for alarm and added her advice to Tenye's
in pointing out powers which we might acquire and use to
spectacular advantage in our white country.
"Yes, you must make pina bonsu," she said, adding her
approval, "and then your husband will prefer you to his
other wives. But if you want to keep him all to yourself,
you must let us cut kamemba — cicatrized designs — on you.
An ingi kodjo here on each cheek to begin with," turning
to Tenye and smiling.
And so it was all planned. The Indian cudgel, a euphem-
ism for the buttocks, and procreative symbols were to be
[31I
REBEL DESTINY
given to the white woman when she returned from up river,
yet with it all the thighs would still need to be cicatrized.
"Then," she said, speaking of the cicatrized thighs,
**then he simply won't think of any one else, because among
you, you will be the only one. We who all have the ka-
memba must see that it looks well, but you will be the
only one."
3
The boys remained with us, amusing themselves by
giving us their words for the various objects about us.
The strings about their waists, which formed their only
clothing, the fiber cord with the bell about Sabape's neck,
the word for garter, and machete, and shoes, boxes, and
water jar, and all else they could see were named. A
flashlight was a diamond fire, and a collapsible chair a
hammock chair, and if we showed them something they
had never seen it was a Bakra sani — a white man's thing.
Sabape spoke little, for he was a timid child and
looked sluggish. He had but few cuts on his body, while
Yamati, who was about the same age, had already several
fully outlined designs.
"Why have you nothing about your neck, Yamati.^"
"Oh, but I have. I have cuts. You can either have an
obia cut, or an obia tetai — a string. It is to make us live.
All children have it."
"And when do they start making kamemba .f*"
"A long time ago they start. If it doesn't hurt too much,
they cut one more, and soon one more. But If it hurts too
much, they wait until . . . ," he said, finishing on the
word te . . . \n the characteristic way of the grown
narrator who uses the monosyllable to intensify space and
time and danger and bounty.
Yamati found so much delight in his role as teacher that
he became stern with us and had us say the words over
again and again. There was the word for firefly which
pleased him not at all. "Aft taki, mi taki-e, azoka-nyenye —
Isay, I am saying . . . " ("if you would but listen," his voice
[^2\
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
implied), and he repeated the word over and over, until this
led us to talk about singing, and at last we had them
consent to dance susa for us. It had to be done very quietly,
in the slight clearing in back of the shelter. Susa is an
African dance. It is danced by men only, in pairs, and is
something of a game. The one who wins " kills " his opponent.
The earth spirits are said especially to like it, and It is
danced in the fields or in the villages for them.
There they stood, Yamati and Sabape, facing each other,
their enlarged navels almost touching. One agreed to be
"in," and one "out," and as they began, their jaws came
forward In a patterned, pugnacious way, and their arms
moved to reproduce In pantomime shield and spear, while
the feet crossed and recrossed.
Kesi-kesi g'a S^sa
Zond'o linga
Linga-li
The monkeys
Go to dance susa
Without rings.
Huh, huh, huh!
They sang the song over and over again, panting at the
end of each verse to dramatize combat.
"I killed him," said Yamati. He had won, and they
began again. If the one who had agreed to be "In" had his
foot on the outside as they clashed, then he lost — he was
killed.
4
As they were dancing, we noticed a young man we had
never seen before. He was standing watching the youngsters
at their play, smiling as though he enjoyed their contest.
He was very dark, even for a Bush Negro, short and stocky,
with unusual muscular development of arm and chest and
thigh. His age, one would judge, was nineteen or twenty.
He turned his smile on us when he realized we were noticing
him.
(33)
REBEL DESTINY
"I heard that you are buying things we make, as you
did last year in my village. I have come with balata from
my uncle, and I brought a stool to sell. Would you like to
see it.!"'
And so Bayo brought us his stool. It was not well carved.
Indeed, compared with even the least skilled carvings on
benches and combs and trays and food-stirring paddles,
the workmanship was crude. But one does not refuse a
proffered article bruskly, and we sat down to talk with
him about it.
It was Bayo who gave us our first insight into the mean-
ing of Bush Negro designs, gave us our first information
about this, as about so many other customs and practices.
What is carved on the wood which the men work with such
care has significance, and carries meaningful symbols
which the Bush Negro is unwilling to reveal. That there
might be symbolism in the art we had before suspected, but
usually, when we asked, we heard the skillful evasions of
which the Bush Negro is master. He did not know. Only the
carver himself could say, but the carver was away or long
dead. Or we would hear that it was carving, that it was
carved to beautify it, that it was of an in-and-out design.
Or, with carefully pointing finger that indicated the
ornamentation, the Bush Negro would say, "This is wood."
So we talked to Bayo about his stool, expecting to hear
one of the usual replies. But this time and without any
urging we heard what we had so long wondered about.
"Look," he said, tracing out the lines of the interwoven
pattern, "this is a man, this a woman. This is her head,
those her breasts, this her womb. Here are his head, his
arms, his legs. We call this womi-ko-muye — man-and-
woman. Here are the children which they will make," and
his hands traced another series of designs on the top of the
stool.
We bought his stool, and he stayed and talked of many
things. Did we want to buy an obia — a charm .'' One day he
would like to become an obia man. Already he could make
obias which protect the wearer when he walks on the water.
[34]
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
Had we provided ourselves with the necessary obias with
which to travel to the country of the Granman ? He had
never been so far up the river. He would like to go there.
Ai-yo! He would like to go and see Dahomey, the sacred
city, and look at the Tapa Wata falls, and visit the Gran-
man's village. Did we have all our paddlers .'' He was
strong, and he liked to make a boat walk up the rapids.
He could get his father to come with him as steersman.
His father had strong obias and knew the river. We could
not go until the river went down, but he would stay with
us here and wait, and if we wished it he would go back
upstream to his village and get his father and food, and be
ready for us in time. He needed the money the Bakra would
pay, too, for he wanted to be married soon, and he would
have to buy many things for his woman and her mother.
When he left us, he went to one of the little enclosed
houses that were there for travelers, choosing the one
closest to us, and built a small fire. His younger brother
and the white dog that came in his boat sat with him. The
dog wore a cord about his neck, covered with red ochre,
to keep him safe in the bush. That night as we ate we could
see Bayo, his brother, and the dog squatting close to the
fire and eating, too. And all the next day, and for several
days to come, as we waited, Bayo was with us, talking,
laughing, explaining, and making and buying obias for us
to carry us safely on our journey to the Granman.
5
In the afternoon one of the political chiefs of the neigh-
boring Christian village came to hear our phonograph.
But when we asked him to sing into it, he said, "Ask me
later. Now I am alone. We Saramacca people never do
anything when we are alone." We had the year before
acquired a powerful obia against slander and bearing false
witness against us, and found the occasion useful for
corroborating the invocation we had been given. The man,
however, spoke with the greatest reluctance and looked
[35]
REBEL DESTINY
vastly relieved when he saw several boats pull up at the
shore.
It appeared that these newcomers were also interested
in our phonograph, but that no one would consent to be
the first to sing, until at last a young boy came up.
"I'll sing for you," he said, and it was at once whispered
that the boy came from a family of powerful obia men, that
he was sure of his spirit. "I'll sing, yes, but you must let
me tell the machine something first."
What he said was an invocation to his soul and his
personal gods, and he spoke it by putting his face into the
horn of the phonograph and talking in a rapid whisper,
making audible the one phrase: "Bakra obia isn't my
obia." Subsequently when we discussed this occurrence
with older men, they made the matter clear to us. He had
assured his spirits that he was not conceding anything to
our magic, and that they were neither to feel slighted nor to
relax their vigilance. The gods favored the strong and the
proven, and a young man had to be careful, for the gods
were not conceived as especially logical or rational or
inexorably just, so that one had to guard against becoming
the victim of their caprice.
Boat after boat pulled up at the shore, and up the road
came a long line of callers. Women with infants straddling
their backs, a breast drawn to the side so that the child
might feed as it rested there; children with cords about
their waists; young girls and boys, each with a square of
apron across the front, or a loin cloth; and the men with
togas and paddles, dignified and solemn, drawing nearer
silently.
On our provision boxes sat those who had come early,
particularly women nursing children, or old women who
looked on with tired wonder. On the floor everywhere about
our feet and against the posts sat the children we knew,
while those who had come for the first time and were still
fearful kept their distance, hiding behind some relative.
It was a great occasion, a spectacle of white man's magic,
and they were there to verify it for themselves. Now there
[36]
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
was much of white man's magic that was not astonishing.
Old men and young men had heard of machines with people
on them that flew like birds, but had they not their own
stories about the sacred vulture, the opetCy that carried
one of their warrior ancestors away from slavery across
the river and into this bush ? He had simply mounted
the bird and said to it, "On your back is my home. You
can fly over land, and you can fly over water. I have no
boat. You must carry me." And the opete took him. Then
there are beings with wings that range the sky, and some of
them are birds, and some of them are spirits. No, a machine
that flew like a bird was not astonishing magic. Then there
was the kino — shadows appearing and moving about like
the living — that you could see in the cities. Men on the
French shore, too, had seen the kino, but it was a gift any
man might have to see things. But here was something
which talked back at you. . . .
"Ke . . . !"
"Massa Nen'ge! — Master Nigger!"
"MaNen'ge ... 1"
And even our town servant exclaimed, "Aft Gado — My
God!"
Now all this was very well, except that the Bakra, not
satisfied with the ordinary seketi dance tunes, kept asking
for Kromanti songs — the warrior-spirit songs — and the
bush-god songs, and river-god songs. From one man and
from another came the expected, "I do not know such
songs." The women did not even dare approach the machine.
At last Apanto came. His hair was braided and he wore a
jaguar tooth on a cord about his neck. He was not so
muscular as other men of his age, and when he went about
there was a softness in his movements that was unaccount-
ably disquieting. His hands were not the hands of a worker
of lumber, nor of a boatman who was accustomed to pole
heavily loaded boats. They were smaller, and his fingers
were narrow at the ends. Apanto, we discovered later, was
what the Bush Negroes called a "tiger fighter." In a
quarrel, he did not cuflF and strike out with his fists, but
[37]
REBEL DESTINY
scratched like a ^UigrV^ — a tiger, for this is how the Bush
Negroes name the jaguar. Later, when we saw him dance
the Tigri Kromanti dance, we witnessed one of the most
realistic feline interpretations imaginable. But that is
another matter.
Now Apanto was an obia man to be reckoned with, and
his fellow villagers and the villagers of neighboring settle-
ments treated him with a deference that his age alone
could never have commanded. And it was this Apanto who
now came up and said that he would sing the sacred
Kromanti songs for our phonograph.
"You will not understand the songs. They will be in the
Kromanti language," he warned us. "They are strong, and
the machine must be strong to carry them."
It happens that a field phonograph is anything but strong.
The mechanism is simple, since the instrument must be
light enough to be carried about, and yet it often is sub-
jected to all manner of hard usage. To this is added the
hazard of the climate. The turntable is actuated by a belt
running from the mechanism inside the case, and the ends
of this belt are glued together. This, to be sure, we dis-
covered later. At the moment, we met Apanto's challenge
with assurance. We did not doubt that the machine was
spiritually strong.
What he said about the Kromanti language was true.
The Kromanti tongo, of which we had been told during our
first visit here, we were finding to be an actuality, and
although we took down the words as he sang them, aided
in hearing them by the repetitions, their meaning was
unknown to us. Some of them we learned later. Some of
them we knew. "Obia" we knew concerned the spirit,
the vague force known by that name, while "Amba" was
a deity sacred to Saturday, and was given as a "day name"
to women born on that day of the week. This, then, is what
he sang:
" Ma djeni y^-y^
Obia kule ma djeni no-ho
Obia mo-ye
[38]
WHILE THE RIVER WAS HIGH
Amha djeniyi, ohia-mi yi-yi
Mo djeni-o
Mo djeni-e-ye
Obia mi-i
Man djeni no-ho
Obia mo-i
Amba djeni-e-i, obia-i-i
Man djeni no-ho, obia-i.^^
The music was slow and soft, and In Apanto's appealing
voice the song took on a strangely moving quality. But
as he sang, a stir went through the people who were
listening.
"He calls his obia, ai."
"His obia will fight the spirit of the machine."
"The Bakra is cunning, but obia is strong. We shall see."
The song came to an end, the recorder was lifted. We
looked at Apanto. "Will you sing another.^ See, the thing
is not finished. There is room for more."
He looked. Yes, one could see there was room for more.
Yes, he would sing more. This time the song was livelier,
louder. As Apanto sang, he seemed to force the song into
the horn, and this time there were no murmurs from those
watching.
" Yen-bo, yenbo,
A yen-bo-bo no
Yen-bo, yenbo,
A yen-bo. ..."
And with this the machine began to give way. There
was a rattling sound, a scratching. The machine went more
slowly, then stopped. About us the murmurs became
excited. Hastily we fitted a new cylinder, hastily we tested
it. It was no use. We soon found the cause. The glue had
softened in the tropical dampness, and the ends had pulled
loose. It was almost dark, and there was no sun to dry a
newly applied coat of glue.
[39I
REBEL DESTINY
Apanto looked at us. "The Bakra is cunning," he
repeated. "But obia is stronger. In the bush obia rules.
Kromanti is too strong for the spirit of the machine."
Swiftly the dark of the bush came down. The people who
had been watching, listening to what had passed, were
leaving to go to their villages and to spread the news of
the power of obia, and how Apanto had defeated the spirit
of the machine that talks back what has been said to it.
And with the gathering dark, we could sense the pulse of the
drums and hear a faint echo of the shrill cry of the women
dancing at Gankwe for the spirit of the dead man who lay
there in the house of mourning.
[40
Chapter III
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
ON THIS, the second morning after the burial of
Sedefo's brother, Bayo started downstream from
the village of Djamungo before daybreak. With all
the vigor of his youth and the freshness of the morning, he
pushed off from shore, and with sharp, short strokes ran
his canoe into midstream and through the foaming rapids
below the village. In and out, and in, went the paddle, until
he was past the rough water which made a tumbling fortifi-
cation for his village. His eyes wandered back for an instant
as he sat there, taking in at a glance the dark outlines of the
two silk-cotton trees which reared themselves above the
line of matted jungle, and the gleam of natural clearing on
the opposite, uninhabited bank, where trees stood singly
here and there above the low underbrush. "Ai-yo!" he
exclaimed half aloud, thinking how well it was with his
village. It was good to have been born where twin silk-
cotton trees stood and across the river from where the
Apuku — the little people of the bush — held council at
night. It was the Apuku, to be sure, who had seen to this
pleasant open place, and no man, whatever his need, would
put to use this land which the gods had accommodated to
their own purposes.
Those rapids, too, were higher than any on the lower
river, he thought, as he paddled vigorously in the still
water. To have thought of the rapids at all, while going
[41]
REBEL DESTINY
through them, would have meant courting the displeasure
of the spirit which animated the troubled stretch, and
would have been dangerous. He was a Man Nengere and
knew all this well, for was he not ready to marry Dida any
time now? He would have to wait as yet, but perhaps
during the next planting her breasts would come, and
then in a month, two, three, she would be ready to marry.
He was, in fact, in the mood even to cast about for a second
wife, though his marrying her would have to wait many
years. All that would come, for what with the money he
already had earned, and the sums he would get for the
wood he might bring down the river later, and this money
the Bakra would give him, he would have enough to pay
for the hammock, the cloth pangi, the handkerchiefs, the
bracelets and beads, and whatever else a man needed to
give to his woman and her mother for a fine marriage.
Going through this stretch of still water, which Bayo
always found dull, he thought of this and that, for there
was no work for his muscles but the monotony of the dip
and stroke of the paddle. Going upstream it was different.
There the challenge of the slipping pole-stick against
submerged slime-covered rocks made a man prove himself.
It spoke to the warrior blood in him, which found no outlet
in these quiet times. But this was only idling, and his mind
found pleasure in wandering, especially if it happened, as
now, to be dark enough to make it worthless for him to
look about for the things that grew and stirred in the
bush.
Yes, it would be almost three hours before the sun was
high, and when it stood there — he indicated the place
in the heavens to himself with his eye — he might be
loading the Bakra's boats to go up river, for word had
come from top-side that the Mamadam would be safe in a
few days, and now if the Granman meant for the Bakra to
get to the upper river, he would be sending word down
almost any time. And he, Bayo, was ready for the journey.
Here in the blue canister, which he had bought in the city
on the Queen's last birthday with part of the money he had
[ 42 ]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
got for the timber he and his great-grandfather had
floated down the river, he had two fine cloths. One was
older and was intended for visiting the villages on the way,
and the new one was for the Granman's village. For this
occasion, too, he was saving a pair of newly woven garters,
though he would wear the two strands of small coral and
yellow beads in some of the villages on the way. At Lame,
for instance.
Ai-yo! He would see to It that he looked well at Lame,
for Lame had handsome women, and at Lame the women
knew how to love. His own powerful love obia had come
from Lame, and there it was in his canister and there
beside it was a potent fighting obia which his uncle, who
was surpassed by few on the river in the strength of his
obia spirits, had made for him. Some day, when Bayo
was older, he, too, would know all these secrets, for his
uncle had given him some of his gods, and at dances he
already showed that he had a strong spirit. Until that time
came, he had the obia from Lame to win for him the love
of his fellow men, and should it not avail against the magic
of some surly fellow who wished him III, then he had the
other which would serve him in trouble. And on his upper
arm was his Kromanti obia — the magically potent iron
band — which, by tightening, would warn him when
trouble was impending. That was the way to go through
life — a man asked the gods to help him meet whatever
might come, the good spirits with good, and the bad with
yet greater evil.
Up above, whirling past him in the pale dawn, the
parrots flew, making a screeching chorus in the stillness,
and rousing him to the murmur of the next rapids which he
was approaching.
What was that ? A boat. Going downstream, he was soon
alongside it.
*' 7x0, greetings," he called to the man, speaking in the
subdued ceremonial voice.
"Thank you, tio," answered the older man, for he
addressed a stranger.
[43]
REBEL DESTINY
And after they had inquired of each other's health, they
were well past each other, making in opposite directions,
but continuing their colloquy.
Bayo said, "I am on my way to the Bakra's camp. I am
to be one of his paddlers. Today we start up the river. He is
going to the Granman's country."
"I am going to Tunkahai. My sister's son died on the
Marowyne. His wife is to come out of mourning. We shall
have good dancing tonight."
Bayo's boat was disappearing in the bend of the river.
"Adiosi, adiosi-o. Adiosi, adiosi-o!" he sang out his
goodbye, pitching his voice so low and so well that it
seemed to penetrate not only the entire river, but the very
thickness of the forest which hemmed it in. The response
came back to him as a faint, cadenced song.
"Ooo oo oo . . . oo!" he sang out, placing his hand
against his mouth to make the sound carry. And the
answering call came back true as a bird's call.
Now he was in the rapids again, and stood at the stern
with dilated nostrils and head thrown forward. When he
was through the whirling eddies and in quieter water once
more, he adjusted his loin cloth carefully and sat down and
began paddling. The green-heart trees were beginning
to bloom. Fine trees. They belonged to another clan. He
and his great-grandfather went for their timber below.
There was plenty of timber in this bush of theirs. The gods
of the bush were strong, and the ancestors had done well
for the country. In a week these channels would be gone.
Right about him everywhere jagged rocks would show. In a
week, or before then, they would play the drums for the
gods of the river, sounding their call to the sun to come and
dry and warm them, and the sun, hearing the call, would
send his fire to the river banks, and the rains would end.
Was that a boat overtaking him .'' The cool of the morning
was a time to be about. Who was that.''
"Tio, greetings," he said to the man, who seemed in a
great hurry.
"Thank you, tio. ..."
[44]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
Ah, but they knew each other.
Bayo began paddling faster to keep up with him.
*'There is to be a council meeting at Gankwe. I had to
hurry away last night, and I must get back there in time.
We must have permission from the spirit of the dead man to
go back to work, and Sedefo has to find out if he can start
up the river, and if he does go, we must all pray to the
ancestors because four men will be going from Gankwe, and
the Gran Sembe — the village elders — have things to de-
cide ..."
Now, fearing that he might have said too much, he
doubled his speed, and Bayo understood that the other
preferred to be alone. They belonged to different clans,
Bayo to the same as the headman of the tribe, and the
Gankwe people to another. Gankwe was sending important
men to take the Bakra up the river. The chief's own
brother, Asikanu, was to go, although it was said he was
being sent out of the way while his adultery case was being
settled. There had been talk about this case up and down
the river. The Gankwe clan head had given a chief's
sanctuary to the offender because he was his own brother,
people said. Well, if the injured husband committed suicide
as he threatened, and sent a kunu to the family of the
brother, and even the village and clan, it would be an ugly
thing. But so it was with trouble about women. It was as
they said,
" Sleep is death
Woman kills man^
He half chanted the proverb and smiled, for he looked
forward to his trip up the river with an eye to a visit in
Lame, where the women knew how to love. And he began
singing the seketi song which he liked so well. Both the
melody and the words were old, but he sang the refrain as
if it were quite his own — whatever hardships there were on
the river, at Lame one slept with the women!
At the village of Akunkun an old man and a boy of
about nine were at the landing place ready to start. Bayo
[45]
REBEL DESTINY
recognized the coat of a village chief, and by the size of the
boat he knew that it belonged to the upper river, far, far
beyond the stretches he had yet penetrated.
He spoke the greeting in the faintest of whispers, out of
deference to a man of age and rank, and stopped his boat,
for this village belonged to his own clan, and it was here
that he would get from his mother's sister the cassava
bread which she had got ready for his journey up river.
He got out of his boat gently; decorum demanded that he
subdue his energy before the man of position. His palms
rested on his knees for an instant, as he stood slightly
inclined before the older man, and what questions he
answered, he did in speech which was punctuated with the
ceremonial stammering demanded by the occasion. He had
put his toga-like cloth over him and stood hesitating
whether or not to take his paddle to the village with him,
for he was so well known here that this settlement was
almost as familiar to him as his own. But at last he leaned
down and took up his paddle. This mature formality, in a
village where he was still often looked upon as a boy, was
prompted perhaps by this meeting with the chief, or by
the new feeling of confidence he had, since he was taking the
Bakra's boat up the river. But here he was, going up the
embankment with the firm, slow step of the stranger.
The old chief had already started, having first made his
sacrifice of rum to the spirit of his boat by squirting it over
the finely carved head which appeared in relief on the
prow. And now, as he guided his canoe with the sure strokes
of his large steering paddle, he sang his prayer.
^^ Kediamo, Kediampon,
Mother of the Rivera
Sacred ancestors^ and my a^ka,
I am taking this journey down the river,
I am going to the city,
Grant that I travel in safety ,
Grant that the trip be joyous,
Grant that I meet with friends,
[46I
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
Grant that I walk with strangers in friendships
Grant that the white man deal fairly with me.
Great Sky God,
Mother of the River,
Sacred ancestors,
I thank you^
Before the sound of the old chief's voice had died away,
Bayo was on the bank again with the great disks of cassava
bread in his arms. He covered them carefully and was on his
way. His aunt had provided nicely for him. She had given
him a large bottle of palm oil as well, and now, if he could
but shoot a monkey or a macaw while going up the river, he
would have excellent food. The Bakra would be certain to
have a drink or two for his paddlers, and some leaf tobacco;
and, though he himself was not old enough to snufF tobacco,
he would save it for a gift to the father of his betrothed.
He went back to his seketi.
"7l/<2, a Lame
A siV ko' de muyeT
On the bank of the next village several women were at
work washing clothes. Were they young? Ah, but he must
hurry. Twice he had been overtaken.
"Tia, odi! tia, odi! tia, odi!" He spoke to each of the
three women separately and finished his "Adiosi" with an
extra flourish, for he knew as he paddled away that the
circle of cicatrized kamemba and the snake incised in the
small of his back below it would gleam in the sun and look
alive to the women who watched him make off.
That Lame obia was a powerful thing!
At Gankwe they had been up all night, for yesterday was
the eighth day after death, and that night the ceremony of
B'oko Dei had to be cared for — until night met day, the
villagers said, there would be Anansi stories, and then,
after the dawn, the elders would hold council, for one's
(471
REBEL DESTINY
head was clearest in the quiet of the early morning. A
stillness so pronounced that we could feel it surrounded us
at the base camp, for at Gankwe the drums had been
replaced in the shrines of the gods for whom they speak,
and no more guns saluted the spirit of Zimbi, or warned
away the evil dead with the powder which was distasteful
to ghosts. Zimbi was buried, the grave diggers had bathed
and put on fresh loin cloths, the village had been purified,
and all was still.
From our shelter, watching the haze lift, we could see
that the river had fallen; the tangled grasses at the
bank showed fully a hand's breadth of fresh brown that
had the day before been under water. With the coming of
the sun things began to stir. The lizards appeared, the
chickens came to peck at our shoes, looking for crumbs, and
boats began to make shadows across the opposite bank, as
the Gankwe women in their small corials went to their
fields. At the bow would be a little girl, or a yet smaller
boy — as young as four perhaps, for the older ones went
with the men to learn a man's work — helping to take the
boat up the fast water. All this went on quietly, until we
espied three boats running down the rapids and pivoting
about in the still water toward our landing place. As they
came nearer, we could see that the boats carried no load,
and our host, the director of the balata-collecting station,
explained that these boats were new and were being taken
down river for sale.
"All the large boats come from top-side," he said.
"The men take them clear around to the Marowyne River
by way of the canals and there carry loads in them to the
stations in the interior. The Saramacca men are fine canoe-
men. They like them on the Marowyne. . . . You could
use a large boat for your trip up river. Maybe the man will
sell one."
The man in charge of the little flotilla stood more than
six feet tall. His face was intricately cicatrized, and he
carried himself with a dignity and reserve that surpassed
even the way of the village chiefs.
[48]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
Seeing him, our host gave an exclamation of pleasure.
"But this is Ajako, the husband of Granman Yankuso's
daughter!"
*^ Kuma, Bakra. Kuma, Bakra muye — Good morning,
white man, good morning, white woman," he said, and
our answer was, ^^ Ajako ^ kuma — Ajako, good morning."
Had we awakened, no.^ This, in the Saramacca idiom,
was how one asked if we were well, if we were alive, since
the euphemism for death is sleep. We answered him in their
patterned phrase.
^^ Hafu JO," we said, using their equivalent for fairly
well, only half so.
Ajako laughed. The white man had learned. "Are you
no better.^ I hear the gods like you well," he replied.
And so the conversation went on, each giving account of
himself.
Finally Ajako said, "Granman Yankuso waits for you,
Bakra. He sends you his greetings, and says he will welcome
you in Asindopo Lantiwe, his village. You have the freedom
of the river. The village chiefs know of your coming. They
will receive you. The river is not too high now, for top-side
the rains are at an end. Here on the lower river, too, rocks
that today are under water will appear tomorrow or the
next day. The water is not too high now. The Granman
sends word to you that you can start."
But what of him.'' Would he not come with us as our
chief paddler, to show us the way through the many
channels.'' But he smiled and said he was going to the
Marowyne. He could not turn back, he told us, for he had
the boats to sell, and money to earn there, while his wife
was nursing her infant. When the child was seventeen,
eighteen months old, then he would be back with his wife
again, cutting new fields for her, and making children.
While the infant was at the breast, he would be away
working.
There was more talk, leading gently — safri, softly, as the
Bush Negro himself says — to the subject of certain un-
friendly villages. There were two of them up the river that
[49I
REBEL DESTINY
had not acted well toward the Granman. It would be best
if we did not stop there. At the others the Granman could
assure us hospitality. Then there was talk of hauling wood
and making rafts, for our host, who knew these people well,
moved safri, too, until he at last felt the moment had come
to talk about buying a boat from Ajako.
When the arrangements of the sale were concluded,
Ajako came back to talk with us. He had heard that we had
a machine which the Kromanti spirit had broken, was it
true ^ Did it really go again ^ They said the Bakra had
much cunning. They said the Bakra knew African magic.
The Bakra said he knew something about Africa. The
Ashanti people, for instance, were a fine people.
''^ Mana Asante,na Sa'macca sem- . . . — But the Ashanti
are Saramacca. ..." But he would go no further, having
spoken only one syllable of the word for people. He became
guarded. Yes, there were some Anago people from Africa
on this Saramacca River, and Dahomey, and Loango, and
Fanti; the Ibo peoples were not on this river. . . . And
again he would say no more. Later, when we had changed
the subject, he said as if in both gratitude and explanation,
^^Na sa-i-akisi, a tranga poi — You ask about strong
things."
But he would sing into our machine, if we liked. He
would sing Kromanti, if we wanted him to do so. "I won't
fight your machine," he said, smiling.
^^Anabobi, Anabobi,
Anabobi, Anabobyo,
Tata Ando.
Anabobi, Ando,
Anabobi,
Tata Adjaini,
Anabobyo
Tata Fa^akuP
"They will understand this in Africa," he said, gravely,
and then he moved toward the doorway and stood there
[50]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
looking out on the river. Whether it was a gesture that he
would sing no more, or not, we could not say, but when he
turned again to us he looked thoughtful. "White man, how
far away is Africa .'* Would they kill me if I went there .'*
Could I get a woman, if I went there.?"
We sent him some food to his boat as an expression of
hospitality, and word came back that when we had done
eating, he would himself come and thank us. When he did
come, it was to speak his thanks and to say goodbye, and
he did not come alone. With him was the young man who
was his traveling companion, and this young man carried
gifts to us. Bayo, who had arrived a short time before,
received the gifts of fig bananas and rice for us, as was the
custom of these people, for to have given or received a gift
in person would have been the way of a boor, just as it
would have been bad form to stand about and watch us eat.
The leave-taking ritual, as that of greeting, is as formal-
ized as a litany and almost as solemn.
^^Adiosi, adiosio — zvaka bon, yere. Tan bon — Goodbye,
travel well, hear.'' Keep well." Ajako carefully laid away
his top cloth in his woven closed basket, straightened his
loin cloth, and paddled away briskly from the landing.
Later, boats pulled up bringing the Gankwe men.
"Sedefo, we have a fine boat for you. It's large, and it
will take a great deal of load. It's a new boat, just come
down from top-side."
The men busied themselves with bringing our provisions
from the shelter to the landing place so that the loading
might begin. A tent had been made of palm leaves for the
boat in which we ourselves were traveling, so that we might
be shielded from the glare of the open river, from sunstroke
and the sudden tropical downpours, and the men decided to
load this boat first.
Now there was a murmur among the Gankwe men.
Sedefo was passing his hands over the new boat, as though
it were a human form, touching its "head," running his hands
over the "ribs," the "belly." Then he balanced himself in
it, and shook his head.
[51I
REBEL DESTINY
"It is not good," he said aloud to us. "Its balance is not
right. Look, it rolls . . . and besides, I have a kunu. I will
go up in my own boat."
And so it was. Sedefo took his own boat up river, and
another Gankwe boat was obtained, and there were four
boats instead of three, and eight paddlers instead of six.
"Ya-hai! Kunu is costly for the white man as well as the
black," Bayo said to Bibifo, his great-grandfather, for it
was not his father, nor his grandfather, as he had later
promised, who appeared to steer the boat in which Bayo
was taking the Bakra and his woman up the river.
3
Bayo was at his best on the river. He loved it, and it
treated him well. In the prow of the boat, swinging his
pole-stick hand over hand, he steadily urged the boat
upstream against the current, and sang as he poled.
^^ A-yai-yo,
A-yai-yea,
Money is finished in Suriname
Lower Cayenna took it!
A-yai-yo,
A-yai-yea."
Over and over he repeated the seketi, with tantalizing
variations in rhythm and melody on the traditional air, to
which he knew so many sets of words. In and out went the
pole-stick. In, until it struck the sand with a soft caressing
glide, then a hard push, and three short steps back along
the boat until Bayo's hand reached the upper end of the
wood, and a final thrust, then pull, and over, and in, and
once again the three short steps.
The other boats had got ahead. In the distance close to
the bank they followed one another.
^' Mbzvogu, mbzvogu — Hurry!" said old Bibifo in back.
Bayo turned and grinned, "^t, mbtvogu, mati, mbzvogu —
Yes, hurry, friend, hurry," he twitted his great-grandfather,
[52]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
but he did face about, and forgetting his seketi began
to pole in earnest.
In a few moments his body glistened with the exertion,
and over the circle and snake of kamemba in the small of
his back the perspiration ran down in a trickle. When he
had almost caught up he slackened his speed, and he and
Bibifo talked about the river. Old Bibifo knew the river
well. He was born beyond the Granman's country. A
snake swam across the path of the boat, Bayo said.
It was good luck. "See, look," he called. His eyes were
sharp. The old man saw it, too, and then he called to us.
There, close to the shore, a little ahead of us, a constrictor
twined its tail about a liana, hanging head down, with a
salamander slowly disappearing into its mouth. There was
a slight jerk, the liana shook, the snake swallowed, and
another bit of the salamander was out of sight.
Farther ahead we heard the report of a gun, and the
crying of the mate of the wounded bird followed us for a
long while. Bayo and Bibifo identified each cry, called by
name the things that grew, planned about their timber
rafts when they got back, until the next rapids were
reached and passed and the conversation could be resumed,
and then they talked about things which they did not care
to have the Bakra know, and though they spoke none of
the words of their ritual language, we could not understand
anything they said. It was not until later that we learned to
work out some of the elisions in their speech.
A strip of sandy beach showed where a village stood, and
as we passed it, we could see the azang, the spiritual guard
of palm fronds, preventing evil 'spirits from entering the
village. We saw also a strip of white hanging from the end
of a stick which had been put up for the ancestors, and
beyond, the low shelter for the roughly carved and weath-
ered image holding an obia pot on its head. Under the
azang the path stretched like a narrow ribbon which was
soon lost as the walls of green converged.
"Is that another village.'"' we said, pointing at a pale
stretch across the river.
[53 1
REBEL DESTINY
"This is the entrance to the farm of a Gankwe family.
And there, can you see? That's a broken village. Many
people died there. The others left it. This happened when
Bayo was small."
4
"How many hours, Bakra .^" Bayo asked. He could tell
time by the sun and guessed almost exactly. "They are
stopping on the rocks there. It's time to eat."
The Bush Negro usually has two meals a day, one in the
early forenoon and another at night after dark when work
is over. He eats little. These men were on the river with us
ten or eleven hours a day, poling upstream, loading and
unloading the boats where the rapids were so high that it
was impossible to take the heavily loaded boats across
them, and what we saw them eat was some cassava bread
dipped in river water to soften it, and some cold rice with
a little palm oil in it. They had no time to fish, and it
was a bad year for fishing, too. Of game there was little.
A few toucans and a monkey were all they could get along
the shore — game was scarce even in the deep bush. For
more than a score of decades their ancestors had been
shooting game along the river, and now the animals kept
away.
In the other boats Asikanu was the first served.
"Look, here is your food."
The front paddler put a calabash filled with rice and
some cassava bread on the water, and the stream carried it
to Asikanu.
"Did you catch it.?"
"Ai."
In Sedefo's boat the cassava cakes were green with mold.
One by one these disks of a finger's breadth in thickness and
perhaps thirty inches in diameter were laid on the hot
rocks to dry. On a trip such as this, enough must be taken
to feed a man during his entire absence from home. Well
in advance a man's wife, or his mother or sister, or a
maternal aunt will be told of such a trip so that she may
[54]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
have the necessary time to prepare the cassava. A man
cannot count on finding food to buy. Food is often scarce
and, especially when crops have not been good — a state of
aiTairs these Bush Negroes know only too well — each house-
hold has need of all the food it has grown.
Asikanu, whose cassava bread was fresh, bathed in the
river and changed his dripping loin cloth, spreading out
the one he had removed so that it might dry. Bayo washed
his second best cloth, for the sun was strong, and it was
well to get it fresh and uncreased. So the men busied them-
selves getting their supplies in order for the journey which
was not yet taxing, but would grow more difficult during
the next few days, with heavy rapids, great distances
between villages, and more exertion needed to strike a
village before dark overtook them.
Even so it was time to be off, Sedefo decided, replacing
the cassava cakes — which in a few moments had lost their
mold — for the next rapids were something to be reckoned
with. Again the four dugouts were on their way, and it was
a brave sight to see the four pole-men swinging their long
sticks with measured regularity, and the upward leaping
three steps, and the down-running steps, and the seated
paddlers dipping their carved blades into the water with a
slight twist at the end of each stroke to counteract the
effect of the push of the man at the bow, to keep the canoe
headed straight into the current.
Ahead, in the leading canoe, the man at the bow waved
his hand to us, indicating directions to our men. We could
see him put the whole length of his pole in the water three
times, then lay it along the gunwale of his dugout and,
taking up his paddle, begin to stroke in time with the man
at the stern of his boat.
''Mfundu;' said Bayo to Bibifo. "Deep."
As we approached the deep water, Bayo with a fillip of
his paddle sent our dugout heading into the stream, to be
caught up by the current at the center and taken down and
across by the impact of the water against the boat. The
boats in front had done the same, had cut across to the
[55 1
REBEL DESTINY
Other bank, and now as we reached the opposite shore, we
saw the small opening of a minor channel which we were to
take. With astonishing nicety the tip of the juncture of the
main stream and this smaller channel was reached at the
same instant. Loin cloths were adjusted, and once more
the pole-men took up their pole-sticks and continued the
slow passage against the current.
The boats were now again traveling close to the bank,
so that the details of the forest which fringed the river
could be clearly seen. Straight from the water rose the
wall of sheer green, all of a dark, almost dull purplish
color — a wall of fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty feet
and more, as the lianas dropped down from the upper
branches of the great trees which gave these parasitic
growths their support. Here and there we saw a brilliant
wing of a bird, and a Bush Negro, ever ready to augment
his meager food supply, would unlimber an ancient shotgun,
steady himself, and shoot. In Sedefo's canoe, Angita, his
pole-man, saw a blue and golden macaw silhouetted as it
sat on a slender branch. Out came the shotgun. The macaw,
startled but unhit, flew to another branch farther upstream.
We crept slowly, noiselessly ahead, and when we were close
by Angita shot again, and missed again. The macaw now did
not trouble to fly away, and when Angita made aim once
more, Sedefo stopped him.
"No, mati — Let him be, friend. The gods are protecting
him. Put away your gun."
Again we cut across, as we regained the wide channel,
this time so that the men might speak their errand to the
spirit of their great ancestor, the god of the large creek.
We did not go too close, however, and all we could see was
an azang again, the spiritual guard of palm fronds, and
beyond the whitened trunk of a tree and a slender stick with
a bit of white cotton attached to its end.
Sedefo spoke conversationally. ^^ Avo — ancestor — we are
going up the river. We are working for the American
Bak'a. We are on our way to the G'ama's country. Grant
[S6]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
that we walk the Bak'a with pleasure, that he treat us
well, that we walk in safety. Thank you."
The men in the other canoes, who had gathered about
Sedefo's boat, clapped their hands, as Sedefo had done, and
said "Thank you," then took up their paddles.
We had noticed that when Sedefo spoke, Bibifo's lips
had moved, as though he were either repeating the prayer,
or speaking his own, but when the others joined in the
voiced "Gran' tangi!" he was silent.
"Did you pray, Bayo.''" we asked. Yes, he had. He had
prayed for us, too. Did Bibifo also pray for the white man."*
But before Bibifo could answer, Bayo laughed aloud.
"Bibifo is kerki suma — a church man. Call him Adrian,
it will please him. I call him Bibifo, nothing else."
"And you, Bayo.?"
" I — you will take me with you to Africa. I want to learn
African obia, and come back to the Saramacca, and be a
big obia man here on the river."
5
Old Bibifo accepted his great-grandson's jibes with good
humor. We were sorry for the old fellow who was so little at
ease with the other men, and was so mercilessly twitted by
the youngster in the bow.
If the old man were to make a suggestion to him about a
channel which Bayo had decided against, then he would
turn brazenly, and exclaim, "Massa cow!" This is part
of the proverb which says that a man who owns the cow
has the best right to say where it shall graze. If Bibifo
objected when Bayo attempted to do something that
seemed impossible, he would face about smilingly and say,
"The power which has raised the monkey from the ground
and taught it to live safely in the trees is not dead yet."
" Bibifo," we said, making conversation with the old man,
"Why do we go close to the shore V
"In the center the current is swift and the river deep.
When we go in the center, then we use only paddles. It is
[57]
REBEL DESTINY
too deep for the pole-stick. When we go in the center, it is
slow. . . . Koti go! — ^Cut across!" he shouted in his shrill
voice, as our boat and the others after us veered over to
the other side of the stream where the current was less
strong.
"How do you know just where these places are.^" we
asked. "There are so many channels, so many islands.
How can you tell V
"Afa, kye! What would you .f* I belong to this bush.
An old man knows his river."
Steadily the boats went ahead in this long, quiet stretch.
For fully half an hour the men worked in silence, doggedly
going upstream close to the bank, until under the shade of
a tree they saw a boat resting.
"Tio, odi! Tio, odi!" Each of our men addressed the two
in the boat.
"Tangi, tio! Tio, odi," they answered each one, until
finally they said, "Odi, Bak'a," greeting the stranger last,
as was the custom.
Our men explained, "We are going to the Saramacca
country, up the river to the Granman. We are carrying the
Bakra to the Granman. They belong to America country.
They traveled in a fire ship for twenty-one nights and days
to come to the Saramacca. Twenty-one nights and days,
mati, without resting. G^an sundyi — A great state of aff"airs."
The man said, "We come from the Marowyne. The river
is high. The next rapids are difficult. Let us travel together."
And so we were five canoes. Ahead, we could already hear
the dull murmur which would soon crescendo to the final
roar. This was the water pouring over the first rocks in the
distance.
"What rapids are these .^"
"We must not talk about this here. Wait until we pass
them. If we speak the name, the spirit will come, and
he will be angry. The boat might go over. We might lose
part of our load."
Now we came closer to the line of white, which rose
higher and higher. Except for the bits of white foam like
[S8]
(Facing pagt
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
saliva coming downstream, the water below the rapids gave
in its calmness little hint of the turbulence beyond. The
boats gathered for a discussion.
"This is the best place."
"No, here."
"There, to the side."
The bow men had jumped out and were reconnoitering,
shouting at each other from their respective rocks. At last
the strangers' ideas prevailed. At the side was best, there,
close to the shore, but an overhanging branch or two would
have to be struck off. Bayo swam back to our boat to get
his machete and, wading up the stream along the bank,
slashed at the obstruction. He struck again, and the limb
bent, struck once more, and down it fell, coming toward us
with lightning rapidity as it was caught by the full force
of the current.
"Look out, look out!" Sedefo shouted, as the jagged
point made for the boat of the strangers. But the men had
already perceived the danger to their canoe, and one of
them had jumped into the water and caught at some twigs,
diverting the main branch so that it only grazed the side.
Now all was clear, and they were ready to start. The
heaviest boat, that of the strangers, would be the first to
go. Both the men in it took up poles and, with a firm shove,
their boat was in the thick of it.
"Ha'i! ha'i!" they cried, and first the prow man would
force the boat slowly forward, and then would hold the
advantage he had gained while the pole-man in the stern
caught his stick in the rocky bottom and pushed with a
force that bent the strong wood.
Our men stood by, ready to help.
"The boat is slipping!" Sedefo cried.
And it was true. Into the roaring water jumped Bayo
and Angita, and swam out to reach the boat which was
losing more and more ground and might at any instant
crash downwards. Balancing themselves on the slippery
rocks, half wading, half swimming, they grasped its sides
and pulled in unison with the pole-man's urging '^ Hali!
[59]
REBEL DESTINY
hali, ha! — Haul! haul, brother!" Now they had stopped its
backward motion. "Hali!" Now the boat gained headway.
"Hali!" And this time the prow tilted clear over the top
of the rapids and, with another push and another, it was
in the still water above.
Three men and not two returned to take our boat, for
we were next, being next heaviest, and only one man was
needed to keep the boat that had been through the danger-
ous stretch in its place in the quiet water. In climbed Bayo,
and Sedefo took the old man's position. Into the water
jumped the other two, this time swimming through the
fast water farther away from shore to where some rocks
projected from the white foam. For Sedefo had different
ideas about the best passage. We were, in fact, to try to
make it where the force of the water was greatest, near the
center of the stream.
^^ Koti go! Okai no mo, okai no mo! — Cut across! Cut
over more, more!" shouted Sedefo as we headed across and
down the river toward a partly submerged rock.
"Massa Nengere, 'kai no mo!"
"Kai, kai, mati!"
With a grunt, he pushed in his pole-stick just as we
reached it, holding fast as the boat swung about, and Bayo
once more dug among the rocks on the bottom to obtain a
fresh grip.
"Okai, okai! — Turn, turn!" he shouted above the noise of
the water. The cries were frantic, but Sedefo knew the
river too well for it to trick him, and as the head of the
boat was about to be caught and swirled broadside against
another rock, the first of the men from the other boats
caught it and righted it about. It was as he had planned.
"Hali!" and, with four pairs of strong arms tugging, we
could feel the pull as the boat went forward amid the white-
capped water. "Hali!" and the quiet of the river above the
falls could be seen just beyond the prow. "Hali!" and we,
too, were in still water.
The old man again took his place in our boat, and Sedefo
went back to bring his own dugout through. The three
[60]
ON THE SARAMACCA RIVER
smaller boats were to be brought up each by its own men.
Each selected a place, and the shrill shouted directions
could be heard above the falling water. Up, up, they came,
the man at the stern holding with his stick, the man at the
head up to his shoulders in water, tugging, pulling, hauling
the boat over. Once Asikanu's pole slipped, and his boat
swung toward a rock, but it caught again and he held it with
the fierceness of a man defending himself against an
enemy, and then he, too, cut across and found the firmness
of the friendly sandy bottom.
But when the five boats were at last together above the
falls, out came machetes to sharpen the ends of the pole-
sticks, for an encounter such as they had had the moment
before shredded the hard wood into fiber.
Ahead the water was still. The hard work of this day was
over. The men straightened their loin cloths and again
began to make their way along the banks of the river. The
village where we would camp that night was somewhere
before us. The sun was nearing the treetops, and the
shrieking pairs of parrots were flying over us to the west,
seeking their roosting places.
The short dusk was upon us.
"It is not far," said Bayo, speaking of the village ahead.
"Will we get there before dark.^"
^^ Massa Gadu sabi — God alone knows."
'' No fe\ Bak'a — Don't be afraid. We know the river."
The Bush Negro and his river! Seeing the prodigious
strength of the men, their great knowledge of current and
rocks and channels, one was not afraid. Softly the pole-
sticks slid into the sand banks, softly the paddles dipped,
and Bayo sang his seketi.
" N^an g^zva a Lame
A s^iV kd' de muyeT
[6i]
Chapter IV
KUNU
EVENTS on the river, as It turned out, showed Sedefo's
fears of the large boat that rolled, and of his kunu,
only too well grounded. It was to him that there
occurred the only mishaps of the entire up-river journey.
That what happened proved to be no more serious was,
according to the general understanding of our men, to be
credited to that personal boat of Sedefo's, whose spirit he
had tried on many journeys, and had propitiated with
offerings of sacred rum and prayer.
It was also whispered among our men that the Bakra's
magic from Africa — a wholly imaginary thing, but which
explained to the Bush Negroes our ability to do or with-
stand things that were not expected of us — had something
to do with it, too. For kunu was kunu, and the one in
Sedefo's family had shown Its hand but too many times of
late. Had not the family lost another man only a few months
earlier.'' Had not ZImbi just been burled t And Zimbi's wife,
dead less than a year before.
Thanks, then, to his boat, Sedefo's life had been
spared. It was not for nothing that he had taken every
care when making this boat, that before he had felled the
log out of which he had made It, he had addressed himself
to the spirit of the tree, explaining that he had need
of its wood for a boat, that he would therefore cut it down.
He had rendered his thanks for the spirit's permission, as
[62]
KUNU
was needful, and since then he had often made prayer to his
boat, and the boat had carried him safely.
But this is what happened.
On our fourth day up the river we were on our way early,
because the men said the falls ahead were difficult, and
they wanted to be through them before they stopped to
eat. It took us more than an hour to pass the rapids, for the
land rose higher and higher, and the water cascaded from
one ledge to the next, often in curving channels of swift
water that were too deep to allow the use of pole-sticks, and
too swift for the paddles to cope with.
There were also those stretches which were without the
piled rocks to give the men a footing for pulling the boats
over, so that a rope had to be used, and the going was slow
and treacherous. Each of the dugouts had this long rope
fastened to its prow, and ahead, on the first ledge, were two
or more of the men, the other end of the rope In hand, wait-
ing for the signal to start hauling, while holding on to the
sides of the boat as they swam were as many men as could
be spared, so that if the rope broke, the boat would not
be swept downstream, to go crashing against the rocks.
These men who faced the fast water of their river, worked
as though at the sight of it their Kromanti fighting spirit
had entered their bodies, as if not men were there, but an
impersonal force pitting itself against the force of the river.
Even where the water was not too deep, and they could
haul the boat, care could not be slackened for an instant —
a wrong turn, and the boat would be capsized, or, what
would be as serious, the impact of a rock might cut a gash
in its side or bottom, filling it with water faster than they
could manage to bring it to a bank. But at last the sound
of the falling water was behind us, and the men, once
they were in the still water again, went on with the casual-
ness that they fell into with their river when the danger was
over, and cast about for a pleasant place to stop and
eat.
All at once there was a shout from behind us. Each boat
echoed it shrilly. What's that.^* Whose boat.**
[63]
REBEL DESTINY
It was Sedefo's boat, there in the distance, tilted to one
side in what looked to us like still water. The other canoes
turned and paddled furiously to reach him, but he had
righted his boat before they could come alongside him,
and was off down the river to recover what he had lost.
The water had claimed the basket back of the tarpaulin-
covered load, and a carved paddle which had slipped off
when the canoe tilted. The basket belonged to Sedefo. It
held his food for the journey up river and the downgoing.
The paddle was also his — the finest he had — and had been
intended for ceremonial usage when he called as spokesman
for us on village heads asking for a night's hospitality, and
particularly at the Granman's village, and still later on the
way home, when he brought political messages in behalf
of his clan to friendly clans along the way he passed. He
also lost his best cloth; it was not just a piece of striped
cotton a man bought in the white man's store; it had been
patiently and dexterously pieced together from many pieces
of cloth, plain and striped, in a pattern which was known
to the ancestors. His young second wife had made it for
him. Her first child was an infant at her breast. When she
heard about this, she would think of Sedefo's kunu, and be
afraid. Was it so big a kunu that it would punish a child
of his wife's family, too f
This is what the men said while the boats waited for
Sedefo to return from his vain search down the rapids. The
men had not expected him to recover the things lost. When
kunu took, there was nothing that could be done. And it
was kunu. The Bakra-sani — the white man's things — had
remained in the boat unharmed! We looked at the few
rocks against which the boat had crashed. They showed
plainly above the water, and the current about them made
so small a break in the still water that the spirit of this
ruffled piece had never disclosed its name, had never before
received notice. The three other canoes had gone through
without even the grunts from the paddlers which came when
the going was hard, for all that was necessary was to go
straight for the rocks, let the current swing the boat
[64]
KUNU
around, give a strong thrust with the pole-stick, and the
canoe was through — a bit of child's play.
We were soon again to see Sedefo's kunu strike. This
time it was almost at dusk. The men, it appeared, would
not be able to make the village we had planned on for the
night. In half an hour it would be dark, and here we were
fully two hours' fast traveling from our intended destina-
tion. Overhead clouds were coming up from the east. The
sky was rapidly becoming overcast. Rain — and everywhere
the impenetrable wall of green, rising dark and forbidding.
To make camp where we were would have taken at least
two hours, and it was growing darker and darker. The
men refused to clear the underbrush in the dark.
It seemed, however, that five minutes upstream on the
opposite bank and only a little to the south of where we
had stopped to talk things over was a village, the name of
which when we heard it we recognized as one of the two
we had been asked not to visit. There was nothing to do but
to brave the displeasure of the Granman and stop there;
so turning we headed our boats toward the opposite shore.
In midstream a great wind came up, a wind that in
suddenness and force is only met in the tropics. The men
shrieked and shouted and struggled until our boats reached
shore. But Sedefo's boat, which was the second, seemed
to be lifted bodily out of the water. We could see a black
mass being heaved up . . . the black tarpaulin was over-
board going downstream, and Sedefo after it.
The wind subsided as quickly as it had sprung up, and
when Sedefo came back sometime later, he carried the
dripping tarpaulin on his head. He did not drink the rum
we gave to warm him, but poured it over his hands and
his boat as an offering.
The next day we talked with Bayo about kunu.
"Why is it, Bayo, that Sedefo lost his food in the still
water.'' Was it because he felt safe and didn't take care in
such small rapids .'"'
"No," he said promptly, "that's how kunu works. A
man travels on the river all his life. He goes over small
[65]
REBEL DESTINY
rapids and large rapids. He carries loads and returns to
his own village. But then something happens. His boat Is
good. He walks koni — carefully — but he loses his food, or
his entire load, or his boat, or even his life. Something is
working against him. It might be wisi — bad magic; it
might be kunu. If you have kunu, then your enemies can
make their bad magic work against you. So it is."
"But what is kunu, Bayo.'"'
He hesitated.
We assured him that there was no harm In our asking.
We had been hearing so much about It, first about
ZImbI, and how he had died from a cut with his machete.
Now this machete had worked for him since he was a
boy, and then he cut himself, and then, having cut himself,
he became sick and died. People said down below this was
kunu. What did it mean.?
But he still hesitated and looked about him until at
last when he spoke, he gave the answer we were coming
to know so well — ^^ Massa Gadu sahi — God knows" — that
answer that was the signal that not alone Massa Gadu, but
the one who Invoked his name in protection against
Bakra questions, knew the answer quite well but meant
to keep his own counsel. For to talk of these matters Is not
good, we had been told before by Sedefo.
It was Bibifo who brought up kunu again when Bayo
stepped out of the boat for an Instant.
"Better not talk to Bayo about kunu, Bakra. There is a
very big kunu in Bayo's family. He does not mean to lie
to the Bakra when he doesn't talk, but It is better for him
not to tell you about it. We Saramacca people say: 'A snake
bit me. I see a worm, I am afraid.' Do not ask him more."
2
But the Bush Negro has many sayings, and it was a
different proverb from that which BIblfo had quoted to us
that guided us in our tortuous course in search of an
understanding of kunu.
[66]
KUNU
^^ Na WOL taki: Efi gbuli zvolo, i sa si san de na ini. — It is
said: If a person stirs up a hole, he will find what is in it."
And so it was that very night, when we were camped
on an island near the great falls, with the roar of the water
sounding in our ears like the very signal drums we were
told the river gods wanted sounded that the sun might
come and warm and dry them after the long rains, that
we learned more, Kasanya, the captain of the fourth boat,
had conducted himself so unobtrusively that we barely
knew he was there. He was almost as old as Bibifo, but
strangely silent. He was tall and spare, with graying hair,
and eyes that were rimmed with red. We had not sought
him out particularly to make conversation with him
because he had ugly, open sores on his body, the result of a
virulent case of bush yaws, which showed when he sat
paddling in his loin cloth. We had known him during our
first year when he had been more willing to be friendly,
more ready to talk. From him, in fact, we had learned
to play one of the Bush Negro games that the ancestors
had brought from Africa.
Kasanya came over to ask us whether we had medicine
for him. His head ached so until ... he could barely see.
There is that about white man's medicine in the bush, it is
to be had free, and there is no harm in trying it.
"Will you make us a game board like the one we bought
from your village last year, Kasanya.'"' we asked him.
"Yes, but you must have two of them, one flat and one
curved like a boat. It is not good to have only one. When a
man is alive he plays the game. When he dies and comes
back to visit the living, he wants to play, too. Now if there
is a board for him, he will play on that. But if there is but
the one, he will play with the living and that is not good."
"You know a great deal, Kasanya."
"Awa, yes, but I'm an old man already. I've had much
trouble. Last year after you left the third son I made died.
Now I have no one. Kunu has taken the three of them, and
my wife is asleep, too."
[67]
REBEL DESTINY
The man looked so moved by what he told us that we had
qualms about continuing the conversation with him about
his dead family, and so we asked him about the game
board. "Why is it, Kasanya, that young Amnika of your
village said he could not make us a game board, fine carver
that he is ? You yourself know that the board is just a piece
of wood with holes in it for the seeds. It is not beautiful;
there are no decorations on it."
"It is because he is young. His hair isn't white like mine.
Making an adji board is a big thing. It's not a little thing.
It is on this we play when the body of the dead lies in the
house of mourning to entertain his spirit, his yorka. Only
an old man who has lost his wife may make a board for this
game which is played for the dead."
"But suppose he did make it.^"'
"Then he would get a kunu, Bakra," he said with an
impatient cluck which was intended to deplore the white
man's inability to understand simple things.
And so again we came to kunu, and since he himself had
brought it up, we decided to stir the hole once more to see
what was in it. Kasanya talked with less hesitation than
we had come to expect. It is easier for an older man who has
had experience with the spirits and knows their ways to
talk about the supernatural. He understands what he may
and may not do, and then, too, with his greater knowledge
he can tell more without offending the spirits who
disapprove of a man's telling too great a part of his store.
"Yes, Bakra, kunu is a difficult thing for you, a white
man, to understand. But we black people know what brings
kunu. Many things bring kunu. Look, I made three children.
Fine men all three. One died, the second died, the third
died. ..."
This was his story. His wife's mother's brother brought
the curse on his family. He had cut a new field, and the
trees he had felled and the brush he had cut had been lying
for some time, as was proper, that the dead wood might
be burned off to clear the ground so that the ash might
[68 1
KUNU
enrich the soil. Now before a field is chosen for cutting, it
must be surveyed carefully to see that there are no snakes
to be injured; that no trees which have strong spirits like
the silk-cotton tree, or the parasitic akatasi, will be
destroyed; that no ant hill whether on the ground or
on a tree be disturbed. But Kasanya's wife's mother's
brother was careless, or unlucky. A small ant hill had
escaped his notice.
"The Akantamasu god is powerful. It is a bad god,"
Kasanya said over and over, making of it a refrain to his
story.
When the ant hill was destroyed, its spirit fixed itself
upon the family. Kasanya's wife's mother became ill, and
although the contents of one obia pot after another were
used up in bathing her with sangrafu and the serabaki and
chembe leaves, she did not get better. Her husband, an
able obia man, made special charms for her to wear about
her neck, and sprinkled her with medicine with the feather
of the sacred opete, the vulture, but still her illness kept on.
At last they went to a diviner. To the village of Dahomey
they went, the village where the most powerful obia was
lodged, and there she learned that the Akantamasu god
had come to the family. The diviner told her how to serve
the god so that she might have respite — the days that were
sacred to him, the dances she must dance on these days, the
sacrifices to make. They knew that it would never be a
friendly god to them, for it had come as a kunu. There was
more trouble and more. The family gave many offerings,
and the possessed woman danced whenever the spirit seized
her, but soon she died, and the others have been dying
since.
"What happened to the man who destroyed the ant hill .''
Did he get the Akantamasu gadu?"
"No, not he himself. His mother, and his sister, and his
sister's children."
"But why.?"
The answer was that kunu worked that way, and he went
on to tell us about his sons. The first son had gone to the
[69]
REBEL DESTINY
Marowyne to earn money that he needed for marrying.
He was in good health, and he learned about the river
"jo te — until ..." he knew how to travel on the river
safely. But after he had been away only a short time,
word came to Kasanya's village that he was ill, and before
he could be brought home, he died. They brought back his
hair and nail clippings so that his spirit might rest among
his own people. They held a big dede wosu — wake — for
him for six days in the village, with the little coffin and the
offerings which were to accompany the spirit, and dancing
and Anansi stories and the adji game, just as though he had
died at home. There were many guns, too. Everything was
done, and the spirit of the dead son was asked to help the
family against the kunu which was brought to them by the
deed of his mother's mother's brother.
The second son died in the bush.\His own gun went off
accidentally as he tripped on a hidden liana and killed him,
though Kasanya had provided him with all the hunting
obias a man would want, and he himself had a strong
Kromanti spirit, so that no gun was supposed to have power
to hurt him. The third was married when he died. His boat
went over in the rapids. His body was never recovered.
"Tomorrow we shall all go and pray to the Mother of
the River that she carry us well, that our journey be
pleasant, that we reach the Granman's village safely. . . .
There across the river is her shrine."
3
It soon became clear that two things dominate the fore-
ground of the spiritual life of the bush — death and kunu. In
the last analysis, however, the two are perhaps but one
force, for kunu slowly, inexorably, brings death to one
member after another of the offender's kin, and it is largely
the dead ancestors and the gods who are responsible for the
meting out of kunu, in order that the ancient traditions
and beliefs may go on. And so it was that daily, and many
times daily, incidents not of our special seeking arose to
document our knowledge of kunu.
l7o]
KUNU
We sat one night talking about the neku vine, which is
used to poison the streams for fishing, and the ceremonies
attending the discovery of a new one, how the ownership
of it is passed on in the female line, and about the songs
which are sung to celebrate the finding, and the feast which
is given at this time.
"Do you use this poison only to catch fish, or does it
have other uses ?" we asked guardedly.
"Well, sometimes people use it to commit suicide," one
man said. "That is bad. Sometimes a man or a woman will
do it to put a kunu on another's family." He went on to tell
of a man who lately did this. He had been promised the
daughter of a family in this very village when the girl was
a small, small child. It happened that the girl's uncles
found gold in one of the streams, for which the white man
gave them much goods, and now they were big men. Since
the girl's children would inherit much wealth, they wanted
her to be the principal wife of a man of rank. There were
messages back and forth, and council meetings, but the
uncles insisted that the girl return the gifts she had received
— insisted against the advice of many people. So this kio,
this young lad, could get his revenge in no other way than
by taking his own life, and sending a kunu to the family.
"The next time you come you will probably see the kunu
at work. It is always so. Of what use is wealth when the
children begin to die.'' One year the crops are bad, and you
have to buy food. One year you go from one obia man to the
next to find out why your sister cannot make children. Your
money goes. Kunu is a bad thing."
Another day a woman came to us with a comb to sell.
She had heard that we were gathering pieces to put into a
large house where carvings from Africa were being shown,
and she wanted us to have this comb of hers which was
made as a betrothal gift by her husband who was now many
years dead. It was an old comb with several broken tines
and holes bored into it by insects, but the decorated end was
still very beautiful, and we were eager to buy it. When we
asked her to explain to us the meaning of the design, she
[71)
REBEL DESTINY
said, "It Is not a woman and a snake, as you might imagine
from this," and she indicated one or two lines of the design.
"We do not carve the snake in my family. We have a
tchina — a taboo — against carving snakes, for snakes are
our kunu. . . . Years ago my brother went to the French
shore and worked for a white man. The white man asked
him to kill a snake, and he was afraid, but the white man
laughed at him, and because he had a weak ak'a, because
his soul was not strong, he killed the snake. If he had told
us about it and had sent a piece of the snake, we would have
held a burial, as would have been right. But he did not do
as he should have done, and so now the snake is not a good
spirit for us. We must give it offerings, and dance kunu. It
is bad to have a weak soul. My brother did a bad thing, and
now I and all my children, and my daughters' children, and
their daughters' children on and on will have this kunu."
Farther up the river, in the deep interior, we stopped
at the village of Opoku. As we walked to the house of the
village head to give him our greetings, we noticed an
unusually large house. It was a liba-zvosu, a house with an
upper story, more substantially built than any we passed,
and ornamented with elaborate carvings, as were all per-
sonal houses of the men. The owner of it, we heard, had
been dead eight months. Four more would need to go by
before it could be entered. It had been owned by a powerful
man, and his belongings were many. We could see some of
them through the openings between the slats which formed
its walls — an apinti drum, magnificently carved, tall
earthen demijohns of rum, boxes, the edge of a metal
canister and a lamp. Inside there were guns, and machetes,
and native carved paddles, and implements.
Our men joked about the contents of the demijohns as
they passed, speculating on the strength of the rum when
the containers were opened, and when we asked about the
house later — whether, for instance, we could not buy the
drum, we were told that the twelve-month interval between
a man's dying and the dividing of his property was not
yet passed. When the time came, his brothers and sisters
[72]
KUNU
and sisters' children would gather to divide what wealth
there was. The greatest share would, of course, go to the
brother who would marry the widow, but all the others
would get something.
"And his children, the children he made, would they get
anything.'"'
"Why no, the children he made are his wife's children.
They belong to the family of his wife!"
"But suppose he cared for them very much. ..."
"Then he might have made them some presents now and
then when he was alive, but even then some people say it
is better not to give them too much. When a man dies his
possessions go to his family. If this man's children, who
really belong to his wife, were to take things now, they
would get a kunu for it, and they might get another kunu
which the father had, for if they got his possessions, his
kunu would go to them, too, and there would perhaps be
one in their own family that had come to them through their
mother. No man or woman wants this."
It is kunu, then, which sees to it that the tribal law of
succession and inheritance through the female line is not
violated.
Q
4
There was the case of Asikanu, our paddler, who was the
brother of the head of an important clan, which gave us
still another instance of the workings of kunu. Asikanu
was, in his own right, not a negligible figure. When his
brother died, it might be he who would succeed to the
headship of the clan. When the other paddlers wanted
things of us, they would come to ask in his name. "It is
not a small thing when Asikanu asks," they would say.
"He is a big man; he is the brother of our chief. You must
not refuse him."
Asikanu had a way with the women, although it would
have been best if at least one of them had resisted him.
She was married, and, when her husband discovered her
infidelity, she went to Asikanu. Now this was as it should
[73l
REBEL DESTINY
be. The Earth Mother, who Is the giver of fertility, takes the
adulterous woman who is with child under her protection,
and no one may harm her. But the guilty man must make
redress to the betrayed husband. Fines must be paid by the
adulterer, and there is the beating which the husband
administers. This beating has its ritual. The culprit, at the
time that Is set, comes out to the place where the injured
husband and his family wait. They attack him with bare
fists, although the Kromanti arm obias are sometimes
slipped down on clenched hands, and with these serious
wounds can be Inflicted. With or without the iron arm
bands, the beating Is a serious matter, and the man who has
committed the trespass is severely mishandled, unless he
can get away from his assailants and run into the bush.
In the bush he has sanctuary, and at the end of some time
may come back to his village. The gods will not give a
weakling husband, or one who is not clever enough to take
his revenge when it is offered, a second chance.
At times this beating is a merry affair. This happens when
the adulterer's family tries to protect him, and then the
matter becomes a two-family brawl, or. If the village is a
large one with more than one clan substantially represented
in It, it may become a fight between two clans. Once, In a
village near the railhead, a man was killed in such a fight,
and then white police stepped in, and the murderer went
to prison.
A chief, however, can give the culprit sanctuary, and
Aslkanu, being a chief's brother, was protected by the
chief while negotiations were being carried on in his behalf.
Now he was sent away from home to be one of our paddlers
so that the enraged husband might be dealt with — time
helps to cool anger. This was important In Asikanu's case,
since the husband of the woman who had gone to Aslkanu
would consent to no fine, however large, and seemed,
furthermore, to have misgivings about the manner in
which the ritual beating would be conducted. *'I will kill
myself," he had been heard to declare. "I will kill myself,
and give them all kunu. My yorka — ghost — will come to
[74I
KUNU
trouble them, and I will give the family a kunu, and the
clan, too, because the chief has shielded him. I am power-
less against the chief. I will kill myself."
A clan kunu is a thing to dread. It must be averted,
whatever the hazards. And so, while they held council
at Gankwe with the husband and his family, Asikanu was
away with the Bakra. . . .
At Apresina an old woman sent word that she wished to
see us. She was so old and so ill that we had to cross half
the length of the village to come to her, so that she might
see what a white man and a white woman were like.
"Well, how is it in the city,"*" she asked. "How is it
among you whites.^"
She had heard, she told us, that everything was quiet in
the city, that it was as if people slept night and day. Crops
did not grow as they should. People were sick. Was it so.''
And without waiting for us to answer, she spoke again.
"But it must be so. So many, many black people took
their own lives, before the time of running away. There
must be kunu there." She assured us that it had to be so.
How else but that the children of those whites should pay
for the old abuses ^ . . .
And in the Granman's village we heard of kunu again.
"Do you know what they say in the city.^*" Granman
Yankuso said one late afternoon, addressing several of his
favorite village chiefs. "They say we are good men here in
the bush, because we believe in kunu. In the city, where
they do not believe in kunu any more, they are not afraid
to use magic to enrich themselves, or hurt their neighbors.
In the city they say that, friends."
There were the usual responses from the chiefs.
"So it is."
"True, true."
"Yes, master of the realm."
We looked out at the shadows across the carved door of
the council house, that superb rendering of the Earth
Mother and her attendant symbols of procreation and
abundance, beyond into the great clearing where we could
[75]
REBEL DESTINY
see the shrines to the ancestors and gods. All about were the
many houses of the Granman with the elaborately carved
posts figuring his emblem. Under the shade trees the widow
was pounding rice. She wore old clothes, and, since she
would soon be out of mourning, they were almost in rags.
The mourning band about her hair was also old.
The Granman's eyes must have followed ours, must have
seen us study the outlines of the carving, and must have
followed us to the shrines and the woman, for his voice
changed, and now he repeated in a ruminating voice, "Yes,
here we believe in kunu."
" Ya-hai!" was the noncommittal reply from his listeners.
The Granman looked now into the faces of his trusted
chiefs. He looked steadily and long, searching in the
semidarkness of the house for a betraying expression, as the
chiefs sat on the low stools against the farther wall, their
faces averted, as was seemly.
"Well, friends, kunu has made an end of my family.
Is it not so } But the clan will go on. The clan's rule is not
ended. Up and down the river tell them that, friends. Kunu
has brought my family to an end. With me our family rule
is finished. That is right. But the clan will go on."
The customary interpolations followed each phrase.
Then singly the chiefs took their leave. Rising slowly, after
they had received permission to depart, and with body bent,
their hands touching their knees, each spoke his farewell.
In the light their ceremonially anointed bodies glistened
like polished ebony. Swift and straight each made his way
down the clearing and into a side path which led to the
river, where the boats were fastened.
"Fine men, these," said the Granman to us after a
silence. "And you, have you kunu in your country .'' ..."
5
But even after these and many more instances of kunu
had come to us, and even though we had snatched a few
sentences of explanation from one man and from another,
the essential nature of kunu still eluded us. Was kunu, then,
[76]
KUNU
the vengeance of the gods ? Was It conscience ? Was it
morality? Was it destiny? Was it all of these, tradltion-
alized into one abstract philosophical concept which, for
the average Bush Negro, was no more formulated than are
the underlying sanctions of any civilization to the vast
majority of people who live in it? We sought out Bayo
again, Bayo, who had the great kunu, to see what light his
own experience would shed.
"Almost everyone has some kind of kunu, Bayo," we
said. "Now why is it that Sedefo, who has a kunu, is so
careful, while you who, let us say, also have a kunu, seem
not to take any notice?"
We had, as a matter of fact, often wondered about this.
Why was Bayo so sure on the river? Why did he carry
himself like a man so much older than he really was ? What
was behind his great self-confidence? Was it luck? Was it a
temperamental carelessness ? We had watched his amazing
strength in taking up our boat almost singly through the
rapids, for BIblfo was so old that when he tried to hold the
boat in the current, his arm could give no steadying power
to the paddle, and the pole-stick he was too old to use at all.
Was it all his luck? Our luck?
He answered circumspectly. Let us suppose, he explained,
that in making him his father and mother had incurred the
greatest kunu of all — the kunu that comes from incest.
Now, in that case, he, as a child of such a relationship would
be a gomi, a "child of the earth," for he would belong
twofold to the land which was In the possession of his clan,
and thus would be doubly a clan member. He would,
therefore, be protected by the spirits. For the gods, it
appeared, declared a truce with the child of such a union
and gave him a pass of free conduct among the world of
spirits. But the children of a man such as this . . . but
here he stopped.
"You know," he said, with his delightful smile, "A man
who has a kunu like that doesn't talk about it. Kunu
aren't talked about. He might not get a wife. . . ."
[77]
REBEL DESTINY
Fa'aku was chief of his clan. He was a handsome man,
with a quick, clever eye, and a reputation for great honesty
everywhere on the river. To him we appealed for more light
on kunu. We had met him in his village on our way up-
stream and we had seen him in the tribal council house
when we had sat at the great krutu held there by Granman
Yankuso. When we stopped again at Fa'aku's village on our
way down the river — this village that was so close to
Dahomey, the seat of magic — it was evident that the gods
favored us. We had come safely through the great rapids.
We had stayed at Asindopo Lantiwe in good health, and
the spirits had even spoken for us through some of the
women whom they had possessed. Fa'aku spoke with
greater freedom than we had yet met with.
"There are different kinds of kunu, and some are big and
are very bad; but some are small and do not make much
trouble," he began.
V* The greatest kunu came from making a child with a
'' member of one's own family, with one's true, true sister or,
what would be almost as bad, with a child of one's mother's
sister. Murder was a great kunu, too, and perhaps next to
that was the kunu that came to the Bush Negro if he
informed to the white man against one of his own kind.
Then there were the kunu that one got for false accusa-
tion, and for repeated stealing, and even for lying, if
it were done too much. For lying is not good, lying makes
too much trouble among people. And there were many
more kinds of kunu, some of which he mentioned. Killing
a snake or a tiger and not burying it with honor brought on
a kunu, and cutting down a silk-cotton tree was kunu.
When a big kunu came into a family, it wiped it out.
One by one the members of the family died. Men died,
women died, and children were never born, or they died
when they were small. "This goes on until the family is
finished," Fa'aku said. A lesser kunu could kill as well, but
its vengeance would be directed only against the women who
carried on the line of succession to ofhce and property, or
[78I
KUNU
if it was smaller still it would plague the members of the
family with sickness, or bad luck, or it might make them
poor and send all kinds of trouble to them.
" Kunu," he went on, " attacks the family of the offender,
but almost never the person who has done the evil thing
himself. That would be too easy. If I wanted very much to
do something I should not do, then I might be willing to
take death in the end. But to punish my whole family until
it is ended — that is too much."
"But what is kunu.'"' we asked.
" Kijnu is a s_pirit. We dance to it and serve it with offer-
ings. It is not the same in every village, but in our village
we dance kunu in this way. If we dance it during the next
moon, then we dance one day only, and two months later
we dance kunu again. Then we wait eleven months and
dance again. We do this every year in the same way."
"Is this enough to keep kunu away .f* Would it not be
better to dance more often .^"
"It would do no good at all to dance kunu more often.
The spirits would only be angry if they were disturbed all
the time. If you have kunu, you have it," we heard again.
But why, we asked, were not people careful.^ Why, if
they knew that kunu was hard, did they not walk more
softly still, so that they might avoid this trouble.''
"Ma, kye! There are always things happening, people
always do things they shouldn't."
"Then life is hard for you Saramacca people," we said,
"You must always think of kunu."
Our seriousness amused him. It was, after all, this way
with kunu. When you had it, you did what you could. If a
wrong was done, then it had to be paid for. But the Bakra
should not think that the Saramacca people weren't happy.
There were good spirits, too. While some spirits punish,
others protect.
"Have you seen our women dance, Bakra ? A Saramacca
woman's foot can do things, mati. Have you seen them
dance bandamba .f* Have you seen them chaka— -shake ?^^
he said, laughing, and turning to the men about him, he
added, "We will show them how our women dance — and
our men!"
[79)
Chapter V
THE SHRINE TO THE RIVER GODS
ON THE narrow strip of land below the Mamadam, our
hammocks were slung between trees whose trunks
leaned well over the water, so that once we stretched
out on the canvas, it was like swinging over an abyss to the
rhythm of water wearing down rock.
At one time the shrine to the gods had stood on this
clearing, but boats had gone aground in the falls, and rafts
which needed but little urging when the spirits were friendly
were swung about in the current and lost to their kingdom
at the river bottom. Even now a great log lay wedged in
between rocks in the middle of the stream. The water had
worn grooves into its hard surface, yet there it was, held
fast against the timeless flaying of the falls.
Nor was that all. One year when the time for the new
rains came, the rain did not fall. In the villages the priests
climbed the ladders within the sacred enclosures and
from on high poured out libations to the ancestors, beseech-
ing them to intercede in behalf of the living. Those who
had river spirits went to the waterside when the moon was
dead to dance to the gods. But the drums gave back a dull
sound, and the dancing was listless. Those who plunged into
the river to swim against the rapids while the drums intoned
the exhortations did not remain under water long, and
when they came up they uttered no oracles. Many who
were known to be possessed by powerful spirits paced back
[80]
THE SHRINE TO THE RIVER GODS
and forth on the sandy bank to the rhythm of the voicees In
the drums, but their gods would not come. They could not
dance, they could not find peace while the drums spoke, and
so this disconsolate pacing went on week after week, on
those days when the river gods might be danced to. Some-
times the pulse of the drumming, quickening for an Interval,
stirred the dancers. A shudder would go through the body
of one or another and the dry throats would fall to uttering
the sacred cries, but almost the next instant the hand of the
drummer would go limp, and once more the listless,
agonized pacing would continue. The gods were angered.
When the drums called them from the river bottom, they
came grudgingly and remained sullen, refusing to make
their wishes known, and no gods or ancestors came to
counsel the wise men in their sleep how to bend the will
of the spirits of the river.
In the fields the parched earth baked in the merciless
heat until It was like whitened bone. The few plants that
had pushed their way up through the sandy soil were now
brown dust which any wind might scatter. But there was
no wind. No rain, no wind, for in the river the god of the
wind dwells, and in the sky the rain god, and these gods
are twins, and twins have but one soul, since it is with the
gods as it Is with humans.
No rain, no wind. Famine was upon the land.
At last, at the village of Opoku a woman had a dream.
She was a pure albino, one of the type who, together with
those who show by the slight turn of red in their wooly
hair a strain of albinism, are called Tone people, and are
identified with the river gods. To this Tone woman the
gods came in sleep, and spoke their will.
"And what was it you gave to the gods.'"' we asked
Sedefo, who had fallen silent at this point In his story.
"MatI," he said, after a pause, "I am not an important
man. You ask what I may not tell. My mouth cannot
take upon itself to speak what concerns our big men."
This much he would say. A boat filled with things had
been sent down the river. Men standing at the river bank
[8i]
REBEL DESTINY
had seen a hand reach out for the boat, had seen it vanish
out of sight. The gods had accepted the offerings. That year
the Granman from the city, the white Granman, had to
send rice from a far country to feed them, but the next
year the crops were good, and all had been well since that
time.
"And was that when this shrine was removed to the
other island .?"
" Af' an sabi. A kan de — I do not know. It is possible."
"When you get to the Mamadam," we had been told by
a priestess in the city, "wash your face in the running
water, and call on the Mother of the River three times."
Another had said, "If your foot should trip anywhere, be
sure to call on your ancestors, but if you should happen to
slip at the Mamadam, you must go at once to the river,
strike the water three times, and ask the Mother of the
River to release your soul. It is a bad thing to lose your
soul there."
And our principal story-teller in the city, who was some-
thing of a wit, had said: "You both have light eyes. Your
hair is not dark. You are not unlike the Bonkoru people
who are light, and who, up the river, you will hear called
the Tone folk." He was speaking of albinos. "It may be
that you have a river god without knowing it. When you
come to the Mamadam the spirit may come to you. You
may find yourself speaking the tongue that only the Tone
people know, and dancing the dances to the river gods, and
swimming up the rapids. It will be a fine sight to see you
dance to the drums. There was once such a woman. A
woman white as you are, you hear.^ I myself saw her dance.
When she danced, she wore red, and put a plug through her
lip, and as she danced her color changed. She became black.
When the spirit was satisfied, it let her go, and she paled
and was a white woman again. I myself saw that woman
dance. I saw her grow black while she danced, and saw
[82]
THE SHRINE TO THE RIVER GODS
her become pale again. This may happen to you when you
get to the Mamadam."
As he spoke, he began to beat on the table the drum
rhythm which calls the river god, and he sang,
" Today ^ today, 0 Spirit,
Hard times are upon us
Ingi-o.
Hard times are upon us.
Today, today, Boyo,
Hard times are upon us
Ingi-eT
And then he sang another song, which he said had been
sung at the time when black people were running away from
slavery, and is still heard at dances to the spirits of the
river, the watra ingi, as the river gods are called in the city.
In it, he called on the agida, the great drum upon which, in
town as in the bush, the Negroes call the river gods, and
on Kopsi, the name of one of the spirits of the water. This
time he sang,
"/ will play the agida today,
I will knock the agida today-o
Kopsi will foil the magic
Of the crowing cock.
0, I will play the agida today,
I will knock the agida, today-o,
Kopsi will foil the magic.
Of the crowing cock.
I will play the agida today.''''
3
As we gained the island where the shrine itself stood and
looked about us from the high rocks of the sacred spot,
there lay before us in the early morning light a scene of
inexpressible beauty. At dusk the narrow strips of land
which forced the river into three channels had been like
dark machetes plunged into the body of the great stream.
[83]
REBEL DESTINY
But now a soft haze floated over stream and bush. To the
right was the IngI Sopi channel, dropping so sheer that
not even an unloaded dugout could make its way up the
rapids, not a single log of wood could be floated down. To
the left was the Mamadam, a smoother, more rounded
slope. It was up these falls that our boats would later be
hauled.
Below us on the rocks our men were unloading the
corials and carrying the provisions along the narrow
trodden path to the topmost ledge of the falls, where the
empty dugouts would be reloaded after they had been
taken up through the streaming water.
Beyond lay the full stretch of the river. As far as the
eye could see, there were none of the channels, none of the
many islands which are met with everywhere on this river
from its very headwaters to the reaches of the tidal belt
near the coast. About us was a stillness which the very roar
of the water heightened. The parrots had long ago passed
on in pairs. The butterflies would wait for the sun before
they went winging from the east bank to the west. This
was a moment of pure interlude. No sun, no breeze, no
sound, no glow. This was the moment before the fragmen-
tary dawn would end, before the haze would lift, this the
moment when night, having met day, as the Bush Negroes
said, was disappearing from sight.
"It is fine here, ai!" Bayo called to us, as he walked on
with a large canister balanced on his head, making his way
up the rocks with the sureness and ease of one who is
strolling down a lane with the consciousness of a pleasant
encounter at the next turning.
As soon as the mist had lifted, we walked up the rocks
to the shrine. Facing us and the lower river, a tall, slender
pole, weathered to a pale silver, stood higher than the
roof of the shrine in front of which it was planted. At its
top were the crude outlines of a head and, some three feet
from its base, two side pieces were nailed to it and grounded
at an angle to steady the image against the onrush of a
sudden wind. A short distance from the pole was the shrine
[84]
Just above the
Vlamadam.
Detail of boat
head on crosspiece
{Facing pat
THE SHRINE TO THE RIVER GODS
itself, an open shelter under a thatched roof resting on four
posts. Inside it, upon the ground, lay a flat stone whitened
with sacred clay, and on this a bottle stood. Directly behind
the stone was the altar, a low table on which lay several
egg-shaped pieces of the sacred pemba — the white clay —
and some egg-shaped stones which had come from the bed
of the river. A circle of iron, perhaps two fingers' breadth
in thickness and having a diameter of ten or twelve inches,
rested on the ground under the altar. A stick had been
planted to face the thicket of wild pineapple that made a
wall at the back, and from it hung a strip of white cotton
for the ancestors. To the left of this was a simply carved
stool, the tracery of its design become all but indistinguish-
able under the coat of white clay which covered it. Several
bottles lay at the foot of this stool.
"Ya-hai, mati, you are praying to the Mother of the
River. It is well," said Kasanya, as he came up to us with
his pole-man and the men from Gankwe and interrupted
our scrutiny of the shrine.
Followed by Sedefo and Asikanu, he entered the shrine,
while the others stood with us outside the railing which
connected at sides and back the posts upon which the roof
rested. Kasanya called on the Sky God first. ^^G^an gadu,^^
he began, "Mother of the River, Ancestors, grant that we
travel safely. Grant that we bring the white man safely to
the country of the Granman. Grant that the white man
pay us well. I thank you."
As he finished, the listening men clapped their hands in
unison, and spoke in chorus, "Great thanks!" Some dis-
t ' ice away, down the slope which dropped to the river,
was Bibifo, who wanted to be called Adrian. He did not
come too near the shrine, but there he was, halfway up,
with head bent, his lips moving as he muttered a prayer of
his own.
Now Sedefo came forward, and Kasanya left the shrine
and disappeared behind the pineapple bushes. When he
came back he held leaves in his hand, which he said were
sacred. He would crush them and put them in water dipped
(8s]
REBEL DESTINY
here at the Mamadam, and later he would bathe with this
that he might be purified. Meanwhile Sedefo and Asikanu,
each in his turn, addressed the Mother of the River, each
speaking his errand and asking that his journey be
prospered.
Bayo came up alone when the loading was quite finished.
He sat down on a crosspiece of the shrine to one side of the
flat rock, poured some of the contents of the bottle on the
stone, and, taking up one of the egg-shaped pieces of
pemba, he rubbed it between his fingers and touched the
moist stone with his whitened hands. Now with his fingers
he streaked his upper arm, just below the shoulders and
over the muscles which played to the swinging of the pole-
stick, and then his chest and knees.
"Mother of the River, give us a safe journey. Carry the
white man and his woman without sickness. I thank you."
Later, when we were about to make off, he turned to us
with his ready laugh. "You will walk well, Ba'ka. I have a
strong spirit. I said things to the Mother of the River under
my breath which you did not hear. The Mother of the
River will look after you."
"What is this log, Bayo, right here on top of the falls.''
Why has no one claimed it.^" we asked, pointing to the
log of purple-heart close by, which we had noticed lying
across the Mamadam.
"When it was sent down, something happened to turn it
sidewise, and it was caught so. No one will touch it. It
must be that the gods wanted it for themselves."
4
There are many shrines on the river. At the Can Creek a
man would speak his prayer from a distance, call the creek
"ancestor," state his errand, and continue his journey.
Far up the stream, where the juncture of the Pikien Rio
and the Grand Rio forms the river which the Bush Negroes
call the Saramacca, is the Tapa Wata shrine. There, our
men said, we would do well to avoid looking, though our
boat rested across the river more than a quarter of a mile
[86]
THE SHRINE TO THE RIVER GODS
away. It seemed dangerous even to notice the strip of white
cotton which showed high above the falls, though the stick
from which it hung we could not see.
"Human beings do not go there," Bayo had said warn-
ingly. "Human eyes must also not go there."
But the shrine at the Mamadam is a friendly place. There
a man finds a moment's ease. For a brief interval, at least,
the voyager upstream or down rests there to get his breath,
as he makes ready for a new start. Directly below the falls
is a stretch of still water, which follows upon the wearisome
portage at the Musumba Prati and the struggle with the
rapids just above it, while, when continuing up river, the
boatmen face a succession of rapids before another stretch
of quiet water is reached. It is not strange, therefore, that
no man, whatever his need to make time, will fail to stop
at the Mamadam long enough to make known to the
Mother of the River his errand and to ask for the continu-
ance of her protection.
This shrine is the home of the Great Mother of the
inland waters, she who, above all else, had secured to the
ancestors of these Bush Negroes their freedom from slavery.
In the city and on the plantations of the coastal region the
Negroes, under states of possession by the water gods,
sing of their longing to join those at the Mamadam.
Let me die on the river ^ 01
Let me die on the zvater^ 01
All the Ingi spirits
Are at the Mamadam^
Let me die on the river ^ 01
Deep in the interior, if one of the elders, let us say a man
of the Dahomey clan, is alarmed at the prospect of the
white man penetrating their bush, some man can be
looked to, then, to say reassuringly, "Have no fear. They
will not come beyond the Mamadam I"
For this river is their own. "Once, long, long ago," the
legend was told us, "this river was but a creek. There were
no great trees here, no rocks. There were no boats, no
[87]
REBEL DESTINY
clearings, no villages. Our ancestors came and made of this
creek a great river. They cleared the forest and built
villages. They brought their gods from Africa with them,
and the gods made the trees grow, and the gods made the
clayey banks so that our old women might make the black
obia pots. Once, long, long ago, two boats came up, each
carrying six men. These were our ancestors. It is they who
made this bush. It is they who made the river from a small
creek."
Here the legend ended. The glow in the speaker's eyes
was gone, and the intent expression of the dark face. When
we questioned further, it was as though we spoke to a
wooden mask, brown, passive.
"And women .^" we asked at last, hoping that the spirits
might permit the speaker to tell us half of what he knew
of his female ancestors. "Did no women come.^ How did
your ancestors get women to bear for them sons and
daughters to people the bush?"
"The women, Bak'a, God gave them!"
[88]
Chapter VI
THE PROVISION GROUND
THE chameleon says: "Haste Is all right, but caution
is also a good thing,"
BIblfo spoke this proverb when we "went aside"
with our men to see whether we would accept Chief Fan-
dya's hospitality for that night and the next, that we might
see a dance in his village. The rapids above the Mamadam
had been difficult, and beyond Baikutu were more rapids.
A rest was welcome to Biblfo, and especially a rest at the
village of Fandya, where the Granman himself stopped
when on his way down the river.
"A man Is well here with Fandya," Kasanya said.
Though he was not of the same clan as the chief of Baikutu,
Fandya's clan was an ally of the Granman, and Fandya
himself a man of consequence on the river, not alone in its
political life, but, what was more to Kasanya's taste, in
matters relating to magic. "For the sake of good broth,
you eat the sour dumplings," he said to us, Indicating his
acquiescence, yet hinting that the men would look for pay
for the time they would be forced to remain Idle In the
village, if we stayed.
But the Gankwe men were for going on. Farther up the
river were friendly villages from which several of them had
drawn their wives, and farther still their own clan village.
Asikanu, speaking for them, said, "Waiting for tomorrow is
what caused the toad to remain without a tail. It Is still
early. The next village Is not too far away."
[89I
REBEL DESTINY
In his own house, Fandya continued to urge our staying.
"Ame'ika Fandya," he said — the year before he had given
his own name to the white man — "remain with us tonight
and tomorrow. I am an old man. I would like to know that
you saw a dance in my village. When you go to the Neng'e
country, I would like you to say that Captain Fandya knew
how to treat a stranger who came as a friend. Last year
when you were here you said you would come with your wife.
You have come. Your wife has come. Last year you came,
and since then all has gone well in our village. Today
there are not many people about. The women are
away in the fields harvesting the rice; the men are in the
bush hauling lumber. But tomorrow night the women will
come in from the planting grounds, because the day after
they may not work in the fields, and tomorrow, too, the
men will come. Stay and see our dances."
And the bassia, the man second in command, said,
"Mati, last year I took an obia against the evil eye from my
own door and gave it to you to hang over yours, that
enemies entering your house might not bring in with them
bad magic. All has gone well with you. Stay. The gods have
shown they favor our friendship."
The will of the Gankwe men had, however, prevailed,
and we reached the village of Pa'aba that day in good time.
It was one of the largest on the river. In front of the azang
which guarded the road new boats lay on their sides, and
farther up the path were others in the making, some black
inside with charring, others huge hollowed-out logs, like
gigantic drums, waiting for the hand that would set their
pulses beating. These boats were as large as any we had
seen on the river, as large as the boat Sedefo had rejected
because it rolled and he had to think of his kunu.
Kasanya said, "This is a prosperous village. They make
the best boats on the river here."
And Bayo said, "Ai, this village has strong men."
[90]
(Facitii pi
THE PROVISION GROUND
We watched Sedefo and his pole-man adjust their
ceremonial top cloths, and, paddles in hand, start up the
path, as we joined Kasanya and the other men who were
examining the boats. Kasanya, an excellent woodworker
himself, ran his hands over the sides of the dugouts much
as though he were touching things which held life inside
them.
"There is much work making a boat. One the size of this
needs cunning. It isn't anybody can do It. First the bark is
cut away. Then you outline a space here on top, and with
your machete you cut away inside. When you have done
this. It is only the beginning."
He led us to just such a log, and then to another on which
burning had been done. "You can only burn very little
at a time, and you must fire carefully, carefully. You make
a small fire and char the wood — you make a fire, and quench
it, make a fire and quench it. So it Is done. Then you take
wet leaves and put them into the boat, and on the leaves
you place live coals so that the steam can soften the grain
of the wood. When the wood Is softened, it can be forced
into shape. Sticks are wedged in to make the opening hold.
Slowly the log begins to have the lines of a boat."
But all this we were made to see called for the most
exacting patience as well as skill, for any misjudged pressure
might split the wood.
"Many moons come up and die before a log is fashioned
into a boat, and even then, there is still the carving to be
done on stern and prow; the crosspleces to be put in, the
sides built up. It Is not a thing a child undertakes, Bak'a."
Now Bayo, who had listened attentively to Kasanya's
explanation of how boats were made, found a pretext to
bring us back to the water, and soon he took up the talk of
boats.
"Boats are like people. See, this we call a head. At the
other end are the buttocks. Here are the ribs, here inside
the belly. The crosspleces are the knees. Feet.'' Ma' Neng'e!
What would a boat want with feet.^"
[91I
REBEL DESTINY
But Bayo's pleasant story came to an abrupt end. Down
toward the bank came Sedefo and his companion, motioning
the men to join him. They all gathered in front of the guard
of palm fronds, and began to discuss something in low
voices, while from the village came the staccato rhythms
to the Sky God and to the Kromanti spirits in tones at first
soft, but swelling and quickening as they continued.
Sedefo came up to us at last and said, "I will tell you
something, but you must not think the people of Pa'aba are
unfriendly. I will tell you this. Let us go on and make camp
farther up the river. There is a provision ground not too
far away. We will make it in time."
In the boat Bayo told us that many were possessed in
the village, and since here at Pa'aba they danced Kromanti
strong, the men did not think it safe to bring us to the
village. The year before Kasanya had spent a trying night
here. Two or three of the men had found guns and had gone
tearing about the village, so that not alone had the women
shut themselves up in their huts, as they often did at
Kromanti dances, but the men, too, had had to go in hiding.
"That is why we are going on. But I have a strong
Kromanti spirit myself. I will go back to Pa'aba tonight
and watch the men dance," he said with a laugh.
3
It was already quite dark when we made the planting
ground. Up a narrow footpath we followed Kasanya.
'^ Konij koni — ^Take care, don't trip at night," he kept
calling to us. ^^ Mbwogu — Hurry," he urged, though we
needed no urging to keep close behind him in this narrow
dark shaft which cut the greater darkness of the bush in
two.
Bibifo would sleep in our boat to watch the provisions,
Kasanya explained as he led the way, for the clearing was
so far from shore that it was not wise to leave the boats
unwatched.
"It is far," he said. "Grounds are cleared that way — not
too near a village, not too near the shore."
[92 1
THE PROVISION GROUND
It Is told that this practice of isolating the provision
ground was a heritage of the days when the ancestors were
escaping from slavery, for then the whites were at war
with them, and villages had often to be deserted. But to
desert a village was one thing. What local spirits were there
could be urged by the proper magical invocations to follow
to another site. Men did not, after all, derive their food
supply from a village. It was the provision ground upon
which life depended. The provision ground had at all costs
to be saved. Access to it was, therefore, made difficult.
Trails were never clearly marked, and were often marked
to mislead the invading enemy. The river bank was allowed
to give no hint of shielding, behind the thicket, a clearing
where crops grew to feed the warriors and their families.
When a village was destroyed by the enemy, the Bush
Negroes fell back on their fields and maintained life. To
this day, it is said, this practice holds, for though hostilities
ended more than a hundred years ago, the planting grounds
are rarely found close to a village.
Walking behind Kasanya in the darkness which gave to
each down-hanging vine the outlines of the great aboma
snake, held sacred In this bush, we fell to wondering whether
In this, as In so many Instances, the accounting for current
beliefs, in terms of the experience of slavery alone, would
prove inadequate.
"We have arrived, Bak'a," said Kasanya, Interrupting
our speculations. His eyes were sharper than ours, for not
even when he spoke did we see the widening of the path
and the clearing beyond. Yet fewer than a hundred addi-
tional paces found us facing four small huts scattered about
a sandy open place, and a woman who was on her way from
one house to another turned toward us. She listened to
what Kasanya said, with her head slightly averted, pulling
at her pipe all the while.
"AI, they can stay," she said, pointing to the largest of
the four houses. *'As many of you as can, sleep there. The
house next to It Is for provisions. We have not much to
offer here."
[93 1
REBEL DESTINY
In the doorway of one of the huts, a woman squatted
over a fire, and at her feet a child sat busying itself with
pushing the firewood toward the center. Our cook had
planted two forked sticks in the ground, and on them had
hung our lanterns, so that we could see the woman silhou-
etted against the fire and the naked child on the ground
singing the seketi which Bayo had sung for us so many
times on the river. Over and over the child tried the air, her
mother humming it for her softly, while from the doorway of
another house a man sat watching them. We had not
noticed him until the lanterns had come. The planting
ground at harvest time is not a place a man frequents. He
was a strange figure there on his low stool, as he sat wrapped
to his neck in a large striped cloth. He made not the slightest
move, uttered not a single word. But for his cough, he
might have been a corpse propped up in the doorway. We
stood hesitating whether to cross the short distance between
us and the fire to greet the woman and the man, but before
we could come close enough to them to speak, we heard
Bayo calling us in a voice we had never heard him use in a
strange village.
"Bak'a, Bak'a. Come. They want you inside." When we
were out of earshot of the woman at the fire, he said in a
whisper, "Do not go over to those houses. Tomorrow when
we are away from here, I will tell you why. It is for that I
called you."
We had no need, however, to puzzle over Bayo's warning.
Our cook, who had heard the conversation of the men, told
us that the man in the doorway was a leper,
"You know how it happens, Massa .^ Among us towns-
people it is this way. A child inherits a trefu from his father.
It is one thing, or many things, he must not eat. If he eats
what he should not, then he sickens. We know a person
who has eaten his trefu by the spots that come out on his
skin. If a man goes on eating the things which are his trefu,
then the spots become worse and worse. He becomes a leper.
So that's how it Is."
He did not at once answer the questions we put to him.
[94I
THE PROVISION GROUND
"I'll tell you how it Is mostly," he went on, after a
silence. ''Sometimes a woman will lie about the father of
her child. The child will grow up keeping the trefu of a
strange man. But it won't be his real trefu. His mother,
you see, lied about his father. In the end, if nothing is done,
this child will be sick, and later he will become a leper.
Only a bad woman will lie about her child's father, because
only a bad woman will want to hurt her own child. It
doesn't happen among the girls who wear kerchiefs and
live the way the old people live. These girls dance to the
spirits. They are afraid of the ancestors. They are afraid
of their akra — their soul — and the Earth Mother. But those
girls who wear hats — ai, Massa, those girls do anything!"
But here in the bush, it seemed, they had other beliefs
about leprosy, he went on. Here they believed it was a kind
of a spirit, too. When a leper died he was not given a good
burial. No wakes were held for him. He was given no coffin.
He was buried in the Bad Bush, where the sorcerers were
thrown.
"When a leper dies, they don't want him to come back
again. They don't treat his spirit well. They do the same
with him as with a madman. They bury him with no more
ceremony than a child, who came on earth, and would not
stay. They say it's all because of a bad spirit, and they
don't want bad spirits on earth."
4
"Why do we plant away from the village.'"'
It was the old woman talking, as we sat and smoked with
her. The moon had come up above the maripa palm trees
behind the house where the leper had been helped into
his hammock, and it was pleasant out-of-doors.
"Why, you ask.f* Well, sometimes when the bush is
burned, a wind comes up suddenly, and sends the flames,
down, down, beyond the cleared ground. How would it be
with a village, if we cleared our grounds too close to it,
and this happened t No, Bak'a, we people of the bush know
better. . . . What do you say .f' Why do we do our clearing
[95]
REBEL DESTINY
away from the river? When the big rains come, the river
goes up more and more. If our crops were too close to the
water, then in the big rains the land would be flooded,
and the crops long under water. . . . Yes, and we have to
think of the ants, too. Ants, once they find their way into a
field, will destroy everything. They like especially the
green leaves of the young cassava plants. When the young
leaves go, there is no cassava. So we move farther and
farther away for our fields. Two, three years, and new fields
must be cut, so that the yield might feed us all."
Once a field had been deserted, say, for five years, why
did they not reclaim it later."* we enquired, for by that time
the big bush would have made fertile again the soil that
had been exhausted.
"In this bush we do it like that. Why, I don't know. Our
ancestors found much land for us. When we want new
fields, we cut farther and farther into the bush."
5
As Bayo and Angita set off for the dance at Pa'aba,
Kasanya and Sedefo joined us, and we talked of crops and
planting, of woman's work and man's, of good harvests
and bad, and this is what was told us.
Finding a new field and clearing it is a man's task. If a
man is about to be married, or if the field a man's wife works
has become exhausted, then he goes into the forest, near
to the planting ground of his mother and to the fields of
his family, and casts about for a place to clear. A field
must not be in a hollow, or the crops will not grow, and
rice needs the sun of a hill slope to thrive. Once having
found a spot where the drainage is good, he looks about to
see if the spirits will allow its use. Patiently, painstakingly,
he goes from one clump of matted vines to the next, machete
in hand, searching for signs of an ant hill, or an Akatasi
tree that is sacred to the gods of the ant hill, or for snakes,
or a natural clearing belonging to the Apuku gods of the
bush. No silk-cotton tree must be there, no loko tree
wherein dwells the god of the same name so near that it
[96]
THE PROVISION GROUND
might catch fire were a wind to come up when the under-
brush is burned. If he spies a slender bent liana from which
the Kromanti "Congo-bush" sticks are made, then he has
to be sure to cut it down with the proper invocation, so
that the spirit inside the liana will not bend him to its
own shape.
Kasanya continued his explanation. "When a field is
found, it is the man who clears it." A man calls on his
relatives or friends to help him. The men come with their
machetes, and they cut away at bushes and shrubs, they
cut away the lianas which are twined about the trees, and
then the trees themselves. Then they go away, leaving
what they have cut to dry. "To take all this away would
be too hard, and, besides, fire does the work better, and
fertilizes the ground as well."
So, when the wood is dry, they come with fire, and let
the fire finish the work. Then the ashes are allowed to lie
for a time, for, though this clearing is done during the dry
season, occasional showers can be relied upon to work the
ash into the ground. Then, too, the time for planting is
not yet.
"Many things we plant a little before the old year meets
the new," the old woman said.
"When it is time to break the ground," Kasanya went
on, "the man and the woman work together. It is then that
the woman begins her work in this field. What was done
before had to do with cutting timber, and our proverb
says: Woodworking is not a woman's aff"air."
The man alone clears the ground, but the woman helps
him break the earth.
"Breaking the ground is not easy," the old woman again
interrupted. The matted roots have to be dug up with an
iron hoe, for the Bush Negro works as his ancestors did
hundreds of years ago in Africa. He has no plough, no beast
of burden to help him in the fields.
When all this is done, then it is time to see to the conse-
cration of the earth to its fertile uses. Rituals vary with each
clan, and often from village to village of the same clan.
[97]
REBEL DESTINY
Among the people of one group, the principal ceremony
may be held in the clearing itself. The drums are brought,
and men and women and children pray for fertility. The
beautifully carved apinti drum sounds the invocation to the
Great God and to the ancestors, while the tall agida drums
are brought to call the earth spirits. Two by two the men
dance susa, the dance which in pantomime reproduces an
ancient warrior's combat with spear and shield, the winner
taking on a new combatant, until the final winner is given
a wand as a reward, and gains for himself the title of
"G'aman of Susa" until the next dance is held. Other
dances follow. Perhaps the women now line up in two long
rows facing each other, and dance bandamba, the dance
which celebrates marriage and the birth of twins, and the
birth of a child who is born feet foremost. The motions are
the slow rhythmic manipulations of the muscles of hips and
abdomen. It is a dance of fertility, danced by the very
young girls as well as by those who have borne children.
But the women who are past the age for dancing sit with
their men, arms interlaced, swaying to the rhythms of the
songs they sing. . . . There are offerings to the earth
spirits, poured upon the earth out of black obia pots and
calabashes, while other offerings are set upon the ground for
the ancestors.
In another settlement, the ritual would be chiefly carried
on in the village itself, and there might be a local dance of
fertility, danced nowhere else on the river. "An old, old
ancestress taught it to us," the villagers would say.
When it is time to plant, the woman plants with the
man's help.
"When I plant a new field," said the younger woman, "I
pray as I work."
And this is her prayer:
0 Sky God, Mother of the Earth, Ancestors,
1 am planting a field.
Make it bear;
People who come to me must eat,
[98 1
THE PROVISION GROUND
0 spirits^ you must help me.
Help me find food^
That I may give to those who come;
Help me find food,
That all those who come to me may eat.
1 am planting pinda^
Make it come;
I am planting yams,
My yams must grow;
I am planting cassava,
Make my cassava yield;
I am planting rice,
Make it come;
Let the earth copulate well.
Let me, too, he fruitful;
Let me live by my work;
My children have gone down the river,
They have gone to the white man^s country.
Let them live and be fruitful;
When they return to me.
Let them bring hack possessions;
0 spirits, I myself must live,
1 have belongings.
Let my belongings live;
Mother of the Earth,
This new field which was found
Make it yield food for me.
Make it yield for those who come;
I have planted seed.
The seed must bear.
0 Great God, Earth spirits. Ancestors,
1 thank you.
After the planting, the life of the women is spent at the
provision grounds for the greater portion of the year, for
the crops must be carefully tended. The jungle is not
hospitable to those who invade it, and it is only at the
[99]
REBEL DESTINY
price of grueling effort that a living can be wrested from its
jealous grasp. The women in their fields care for the growing
crops, hoeing the ground so that moisture and sun reach
the young plants, seeing that the lianas which throw their
creepers over the cleared spaces to throttle the tender shoots
do not get headway, and, as each crop ripens, attending to
its harvesting.
Yams, cassava, and nappi are roots. For their planting
some of the crop of the year before is preserved and cut up.
But rice and peanuts, or pinda, as these are called here in
the bush, and maize, of which the Bush Negroes learned
from the Indians, and okra grow from seeds. The rice is
planted on a hillside, for the Bush Negro does not grow
irrigated rice, but the dry African variety that thrives on
the slopes. Cassava, okra, peppers, plantains, peanuts,
beans, sugar cane — each crop is allotted its own space,
until the newly cleared ground is filled. A woman usually
has two fields cut for her; one is called a rice field and one a
cassava field. In each, the crops which yield several harvests
a year are rotated. The cassava roots take nine months at
least to ripen, but it is better to leave them in the ground
ten or eleven months.
"It is the time of the great harvest now," the old woman
said.
These were busy days for the women. With their short-
handled knives, they cut the rice stalk by stalk and made
small sheaves of the golden grain, raked over the dirt so
that the peanuts might be found and gathered, chopped
the ripe sugar cane with the machetes which they handled
with the same sureness as did their men, and dug out the
cassava roots so that they might be carried to the village
and made into flour for the cassava bread which was the
staple of their diet.
"The corn," she said, "is not harvested now. We cut it
at a different time; and the melons ripen later, too." At
other times of the year there were other harvests, but this
one, of the months of July and August, was the principal
one.
[lOO]
THE PROVISION GROUND
It is the woman's task, then, to see to the food which the
Earth Mother yields, while the men are busy hauling lumber
and making boats, hunting and fishing, and carrying the
white man's loads to the city. In the leisure of the rainy
season, while the women cut up the trade cotton cloth
into long, narrow strips and sew them into cloths of
traditional design, the men are at work carving fine things
out of wood.
When the big rains come a man might busy himself carv-
ing doorposts for his new house, or he might make a paddle
to put away in his personal treasure house, so that, when
he is ready to take a second wife, he might have the proper
gifts to make her. Another might be making a small canoe
paddle for his first daughter. She is four, perhaps, and
already is of help to her mother in the field, carrying water
from the river in a small Indian jar. Soon she will be strong
enough to have the cutting of the kamemba begin — a few
slashes about the navel at first . . . He will cover the sur-
face of the paddle with beautiful traceries, each design a
meaningful symbol, and to add to its beauty he will darken
it with a mixture of oil and charred rice hulls. When it is
finished it will be of a reddish-brown color, slender, and
smooth to the touch of his fingers as the skin of his woman-
child. Combs, food stirrers, trays, stools, peanut pounding
boards, and, if a man likes, mortar and pestle — all these are
carved when the rains are heavy and there is no work to
be done on the river or in the bush.
So the work is divided. A man does a man's work — wood,
iron, hunting the game animals of the bush, and catching
fish in traps, making baskets of wood fiber — all that is a
man's affair he does. And the woman, tending the fields
and cooking for her family, pounding palm nuts in her
mortar to make palm oil, grating the bitter cassava to make
flour free from the poison that is in the roots, caring for
her house and carving calabash dishes with the symbols
of men and women and fertility — woman does what it is
woman's lot to do.
[lOl]
Chapter VII
BA ANANSI
WHETHER it was that our men were thinking of the
Kromanti dance at Pa'aba, or whether something
in the night itself stirred them, no one thought of
going to his hammock. We sat silent for a long time, until
our cook suddenly exclaimed, "You know what, Massa,
this is a night for stories. Let me make something to drink,
and it will be like a wake. We will have a good time."
But Sedefo, who sat nearest to us, was unresponsive.
With Bayo and Angita off to the village where obia ruled
the dancing, and Bibifo asleep in our boat, there were not
enough people about for the proper telling of stories. He
was fastidious about such matters, for he was a story-teller
of no small reputation on the river.
Yet it was, without doubt, a night for stories, and our
town man joined our cook and ourselves in persuading
Sedefo to tell the tales which in town and bush recount
the exploits of Anansi, the spider. This trickster Anansi
in some African mythologies is the creator of the world and,
here in Suriname, gives his name to all tales. We were, our
boys informed Sedefo, something of story-tellers ourselves,
and we had, moreover, learned how to introduce the inter-
ludes of song which break up the telling of a tale, and many
of the songs as well.
"They know Anansi stories, Sedefo. . . . They can tell
many of those we tell in town, and they know those they
tell in the Negro country."
[ I02]
BA ANANSI
But Sedefo was still not impressed.
"We bush people have our own ways. How will it be with
a long story, if the proper songs are not sung.'"'
So the discussion went on between Sedefo and the town
boys, until among them they had gone over all the many
details of how stories must be told. There was the inter-
change between the teller and his audience at the very
beginning. Openings might differ. Here in the bush, one
way was for the teller to cry "Mato!" and someone in his
audience to call back "Tongoni!" What did this mean.'*
It was a way to begin. That is how it was done long ago in
the land of the Negroes. Did we not know that? Or the
teller might begin with "Hireti!" and then the answer would
be "Daieti!" But often, as well, the opening might be
"Kri! Kra!" Sometimes, though now it was most often a
way of beginning stories for children, the tale would be
started with "Er tin tin," and the answer to this "Tin
tin tin," in the manner of "Once upon a time."
What really mattered, however, was the way in which the
intervals in the story-telling were dramatized. After the
speaker had started his tale and had carried it to some
incident where he paused for a moment, he would be
interrupted by a call from someone in his audience,
"Kri, kra!" His answer would come promptly, "What
have you to say?"
"I myself was there," would be the response, and this
would draw its question.
"What did you see.?"
At this point, the person who had interrupted would
begin a song, and its chorus would be taken up by all who
were listening. And when it was ended, the leader of the
song would shout, "Go on with your story, my man!"
Now the telling would be resumed, but only for two or
three minutes, when again a voice would call out, "Bato!
I was there, too!" And without further colloquy another
song would begin. This was the way stories should be told,
and when people knew what they were about, then they
might change the words of old songs and make up new ones
[103]
REBEL DESTINY
to fit the story that was being recited, or they knew the
songs that, as long as anyone could remember, had been
sung at given intervals in a particular tale, and which
themselves carried the action forward.
But Sedefo and our boys spoke not only of how a tale is
opened and carried forward, but of the many ways of
bringing a story to a close. A song might furnish a proper
ending, or a proverb. "The reward for goodness is the
cudgel," they agreed, might well end some of the stories
about Anansi's exploits, or, "When you wish to eat with
the devil, you must have a long fork." Or, "He who doesn't
believe a lie, won't believe the truth," would sometimes be
fitting, and "All showing of teeth isn't a grin." There was
also the ending in which the teller vouched for his partici-
pation in the concluding events of his tale, as when he
would say, "Bato! I myself sat with the King at his feast!"
But now our cook, whose patience was tried by this
discussion, began to riddle.
"Matol"
"Tongoni!"
"You have three things in your house," he started, look-
ing about him at Sedefo and us, and at Kasanya, who had
fallen asleep, and Asikanu, who sat in the doorway watch-
ing the younger woman. "One of them longs for daybreak.
One of them longs for night. One of them longs for the world
to come to an end. Suma sa puru? — Who will pull the
riddle?"
Asikanu finally broke the silence.
"The first is a bed. It longs for daylight. The second is a
stool. It is tired. It longs for night to come that it may rest.
The third is a clock. It is weary of life. It wishes the world
would come to an end."
And so a beginning was made. Sedefo turned to the cook.
"Friend," he said, "You tell a story. And then I will
tell one for the Bak'a."
Our cook began: "Kri! Kra! All men in their places!"
Back came the answer, "Will it go?"
[ 104 ]
BA ANANSI
"It will go! . . . Anansi and Dew were great friends.
The two worked together, each helping the other. So they
lived.
"Well, now, they each planted a field of corn. But the
corn belonging to Dew was finer than Anansi's, and Anansi
was envious. He wished that he had the field which belonged
to Dew. So he said to Dew, he said: 'Your corn is fine, but
mine is finer. If mine were like yours, I should cut it, so
that it might come up better.'
"But Anansi was lying. When you cut corn, it will not
grow again. He was deceiving Dew."
Now came the voice of our town man, as he offered the
first "cut" to the story: "Bato! I was there!"
"What have you to say.^*"
With this came the song. The one that he chose was in
the Kromanti language, and later he told us it was a komfo
song, one which taking its name from the African Ashanti
word for priest, calls on the Ashanti earth spirits to bring
the singer a magic wand which, when touching his head,
will make him possessed by the earth gods. And as leader,
he began:
Asanti hoyo
Da mi widya
Akolo!
The others responded in chorus
Akolo, Akolo, Ahanu ba.
Singer and chorus repeated verse and refrain, until our
boy shouted, "Go on with your story, man!"
"And so, my friends. Dew cut his corn.
"But in the afternoon, when people passed, they saw
that the corn had been cut. And they asked one another:
'What made Dew cut his corn.'' It was such fine corn.' Dew
said it was Anansi who had made him do it. Then the
people told him it would not grow again.
[losl
REBEL DESTINY
"And Dew said to them, he said, 'Well, all right. He
tricked me with corn, but I am going to trick him with his
mother.'"
Now came another interruption: "Bato! I was there!"
and this time the song that cut the story was one of the
spirit Sofia Bada. He is strong, and to dance for him is
"heavy," a priestess of the city had told us. The words that
were sung were a challenge sung by this warrior spirit of
Allada, one of the ancient West African kingdoms.
Come try me
I am the man.
Come feel me,
I am the man
I am Sofia Bada
The strong man in Allada
Come try me,
I am a man.
"Let the story go on," said the singer.
"The story will go on. ... So Dew worked hard until
he had enough to buy himself a scythe, a hoe, an axe, and
all manner of implements and clothes. And then he worked
some more until he had put by some money.
"Then he went to his mother, and he said, 'Well, mother,
I am going to do this. I am going to say that you are dead.
You must hide upstairs, and I will set to work to make a
coffin and to arrange for the burial.'
"And he did that. He sent word to all the animals that
his mother died. And all the animals came together for the
burial, and with them came Anansi.
"Now, Dew had it all arranged. He hid his mother
underneath the plank on which the coffin rested, and
placed beside her all the things that he had bought. He
knew how greedy Anansi was.
"And so, before they were ready to take up the coffin,
he began to wail, 'Ai, mother, see how you leave me. Not
even an axe have you left for your son. Your son has not a
single tool.'
[io6]
BA ANANSI
"As he said this, all the things began to come out from
under the plank. Anansi picked them up, and wished his
own mother would die at once so that he might have these,
too. Dew went on crying. He now begged his mother for
some money. His mother flung the money at him. And so
the burial went off" well, and the mourners went their way.
"But now, day after day, Anansi and his mother
quarreled. Anansi said, 'Why cannot death come to you
as it did to Dew's mother.'*' Then one day he and his mother
quarreled again, and in his anger he took up a stick and
struck her, killing her."
Again there was the voice: "Bato! I myself was there!"
And the song was taken up:
A fine man is Amusi
A fine man.
If you believe in God
You must believe in Amusi.
"Anansi now did just as Dew had done. He fixed the
plank properly, and began to weep just as Dew had wept,
but nothing at all came of it. So they buried his mother,
"A week later. Dew had his mother come to the field,
and when Anansi saw Dew's mother, he said: 'Friend Dew,
isn't that your mother I see there .^'
"He said, 'Yes, it is my mother. You deceived me about
my corn. Now I have tricked you with your mother.'
"And so Dew's mother was alive, but Anansi's mother
was dead. It is ended."
Now Asikanu spoke. "Mato!"
"Tongoni!"
"I go into the bush to hunt. I greet the living, but they
do not answer me. I greet the dead, and they speak."
This time Kasanya, who had sat dozing on his stool,
heard and knew the answer.
[107]
REBEL DESTINY
"I go into the bush to hunt. I step on the green leaves,
and there is silence. I step on the dry leaves, and there is a
crackling sound. ... I have pulled the riddle."
We turned to Sedefo, as Kasanya finished speaking.
"Now, Bak'a, I will tell you a story," he said. "It is
about a man, a hunter, who saved three beings, a human, a
snake, and a rat. Who would you say showed his gratitude
in the end ? The human being .? Well, you will hear. It is
late, and Kasanya is almost asleep. I will tell it to you
without cutting. Listen to the story. You will like it."
And this was the story:
Hiretif
Daieti!
Listen well!
There was a man who went to the bush to hunt. He
walked and walked, and walked so far until ... he heard
someone calling for help from inside a great pit. So he looked
in the pit, and saw Human Being, Snake, and Rat.
Now, he said to himself, he said, "Snake is a bad animal.
Rat is bad, too. I will help Human Being."
But after a while, as he thought it over, he said, "I will
help all three. Snake, Rat, and Human Being who is like
myself."
So Snake took his path, and Rat went on his way, and
the Hunter took Human Being to his own house. But no
thanks did he get from these three, whom he had saved
from death itself.
Now Rat began to study what to do to help the man who
had done him so great a favor. So he went to the King's
treasure house and gnawed through a plank, and he stole
much money. He brought it to Hunter as payment for hav-
ing saved him from death.
So Hunter became a rich man. He bought new boats, and
new axes. He bought beads and bracelets for his women,
and cloths for himself. He built himself a new house and
he found for himself another wife. He bought so many new
things. . . .
[io8]
BA ANANSI
But now, the Human Being he had saved was still living
with him, and he saw what was happening. So he went to
the Granman, and he told on Hunter. The Granman sent
word to all the elders of the kingdom to come together for a
lanti krutu — a court assemblage; a man was to be judged.
And Hunter was thrown into prison.
As the news spread from village to village. Snake came
to hear of it. He studied what to do to help Hunter who had
saved him from death. Now, the King of that country had
a beautiful daughter. Snake said to himself, he said, "If I
bite the King's daughter, and then show Hunter a medicine
to save the Princess from death, they will free him."
So Snake went to the house of the King, and bit the
King's daughter. Then he hurried back to the bush, and
broke off some leaves. The leaves were medicine for saving
the Princess from the hands of Death. So he carried them
to the Hunter in prison, and showed him how to make the
medicine for curing the Princess.
Meanwhile, the King called on all the doctors in the vil-
lage to come to his house and cure his daughter, the Princess.
But not one of them could produce a medicine to help her.
So the King sent messengers to every part of his kingdom
to say that whoever knew of a medicine to cure his daughter
would get half of his kingdom, and would marry the
Princess.
Now the Hunter sent a message to the King that if he
could leave the prison, and go to the King's house, he would
cure the Princess. The King said to the messenger, he said,
"All right. Bring him here." When Hunter came, the King
said to him, he said, "All these clever doctors tried and
tried and could do nothing, and you think you can cure my
daughter!"
The Hunter said to the King, he said, " Ya-hai, my King.
I am the very man who can cure her."
All the people of the village came to the King's house to
see the man who said he could cure the King's daughter.
So Hunter took the weeds he had been given by Snake,
and crushed them well, and made his medicine. And this
[109]
REBEL DESTINY
medicine he rubbed into the wound which Snake had made
when he bit the Princess. In an hour the Princess was
better, and soon she was welL
The King was very happy. He caught Human Being who
had betrayed Hunter, and put him into the same prison
where Hunter had been. But Hunter, who made the medi-
cine, married the King's daughter, and became King of the
land.
"It is ended," concluded Sedefo, "and I myself was
there, and my daughter danced bandamba at the wedding!"
3
When Sedefo finished, it was almost midnight. Kasanya
and Asikanu had sometime before gone to their hammocks.
And now Sedefo, too, rose to go.
"Z)'tt mundu,^^ he said, as he went out. "Sleep well, all."
'^Ai-yo, so s^yepi-o! — Yes, and do you sleep well, too!"
Our boys sang back their response.
Since both they and we were still wide awake, they each
offered to tell a short tale. But they told many stories, for
there was a quality in the deep bush that night that allowed
neither them nor us, unaccustomed to the jungle as we all
were, to rest.
We no longer recall the exact tales they told. But later
we had opportunities to record many more than just the
ones they told there in the provision ground. Many were
long, longer than we can give here. Many were the same as
those we heard told by the Bush Negroes but which, told
at night at festivals for the dead, with all the element of
dramatization that went with the telling, we could not
record in our notebooks. We group some of those which, for
us, hold something of the quintessence of the mind of the
Suriname Negroes.
Anansi Becomes a Preacher
Anansi asked the King to permit him to become a
preacher. The King said, let him go to church one Sunday
[no]
BA ANANSI
and preach a sermon. The first Sunday Anansi preached,
the King could not come to hear him. But the King gave
him a black suit, and said he was to wear it the following
week when he preached.
Now Anansi and Cockroach lived side by side. Beside
the fence separating Anansi's yard from that of Cockroach
stood a coconut tree. The tree grew in Cockroach's
yard. It was not a large tree, but it did have a bunch of
nice coconuts on it. The coconuts hung right above the fence
of which one side belonged to Anansi, and the other side to
Cockroach.
One day Anansi took his machete and cut the bunch of
coconuts exactly in two. When Cockroach saw this, he
said to Anansi, he said, "Why did you cut down the
coconuts .'' The tree is in my yard. You had no right to cut
them." Anansi said, "Yes, but didn't you see how they were
hanging.'' how one-half hung on your side, and one-half on
mine .^" Cockroach said, "All right. I'll get even."
On the Saturday before Anansi was to preach his sermon
in church before the King, he told his wife to air his black
suit. His wife took the suit and hung it over the fence. So
now Cockroach took his machete and cut off that part of
the suit which was on his side.
In the morning the King went to church to hear Anansi
preach. But Anansi could not come, because he had no suit
to wear. The King was angry. He had Anansi put in jail.
Anansi said to Cockroach, he said, "You there, as long as I
live I will never forget this. As long as I live I will remember
what you have done. You made me lose my job."
How Death Came to the City
Death had not yet come to the cities. He lived in the
deep bush. But one day Anansi had no food. It was a time
of famine. He took his hunting bag and his gun and went
to hunt. He worked his way deep into the bush, and then
walked all through it, but not one animal did he meet. So
he walked on and on, until one day he came to Death's
village. Death was sitting in his doorway.
[ml
REBEL DESTINY
AnansI was respectful. He said, "Howdo, Father Death."
And he said, "Hunger is killing me. I have combed the
entire bush for an animal, but not one did I find to kill."
Death said, "Come inside. I will give you some food."
Death took him into the cook-house where much meat
was being barbecued. When Anansi saw all this meat, his
mouth_^began to water. Death gave him a fine portion of
meat, and he ate until he had had enough.
Anansi said, "Many thanks." And he said, "But who
are you who have so much meat to barbecue .''"
Death said to him, " Do you not know that I am Death ?"
Anansi said, "I see, Father Death, and that is why you
have so much meat, and I walked through the entire bush
and could find nothing," Then he said, "I am going to ask
you a favor. I myself have eaten, but my wife and children
have had nothing to eat. Give me some of this meat that I
may bring them food."
Death said, "All right. Take that piece over there."
When Anansi came home, he said, "Sa Akuba, I found a
place to get food. I do not have to bother looking around for
something to eat, because when we have no food, I can go
there and take it. Or better still, I can go and steal."
So whenever Anansi had no food, he went to the man
Death's village, and stole Death's meat.
Death came home one day and noticed that some of his
meat was missing, but he did not know who was at fault,
until finally he lay in wait for the thief. Just as he hid in a
corner, Anansi came. Anansi filled a basket with meat.
Death said, "Heh! So it is you who are the thief! Why did
you do this ?" But Anansi had no time to answer properly,
for he set out on a run. Death ran after him. Death ran, and
Anansi himself ran, too.
But when they came to the city, Anansi turned and
saw Death at his heels. Anansi began to call in a loud
voice, "Living-people all, shut your houses! Death is
come
So, you see. Death came to the city, and many people
have died because of the thief Anansi. If Anansi had not
[112]
BA ANANSI
Stolen Death's meat, Death would have remained quietly
in the deep bush.
The Devil Has a Bad Name
Now the Devil said to a man one day, "No matter what
good I do, I get a bad name for it." The man would not
believe him. The Devil said, "Very well, I will show you."
So the Devil went to God, and he said to God, he said,
"You put a stone on the path along which men travel, and
I will put a bag of money there. Then we will see what
happens."
Well, they did this. God put down the stone, and the
Devil the bag of money. One day a man came down the
path and stubbed his foot against the stone. Instantly he
cried, "Ah, the Devil put the stone there that I might
hurt my foot!" Later another man came along and saw
the money. He took up the bag and called out, "God be
praised! I thank you, Master, for letting me find this
money!"
The Devil said, "You see how it is .? I put the gold there,
but it is God who receives thanks, while I am cursed for the
stone God put on the road. It is as I said. The Devil cannot
look for fairness in this world."
The Tar Baby
The King had a plantation where there were many fruits,
and plantains, and other kinds of food. But someone was
stealing the fruit and the crops. So the King had them put
a large tar-baby in the field.
Now the thief used to come at night, and this thief was
Ba Anansi. When he saw the image he became alarmed, and
approached it with flattering words. Timidly he said
to it, he said, "Father, how are you.?" But he did not get
an answer.
So he said, "If you do not speak to me, I will slap you!"
The image did not speak. Anansi struck him a blow, but
his hand stuck. He said, "If you do not let me go, I will
[113]
REBEL DESTINY
give you one with my other hand," and Anansi struck
again. That hand stuck, too.
He said, "If you do not let me go, I will butt you."
But when he butted him, his head stuck. So he said, "If
you do not let me go, I will kick you." And then he kicked
him.
But Anansi could do nothing more, for his head, his
hands, and his feet were fast. So he had to remain there
until they came and found him. And when they let it be
known that Anansi was the thief, the King said that
Anansi was to be killed.
The day Anansi was to die, he sent for his children and
said to them, he said, "Children, you see I am about to die.
What can you do to save me .^"
Now each one of his children proposed some foolish
thing, until the youngest one spoke. He said, "Father, you
know what I am going to do ^ I am going to climb a tall tree
and hide there. Then, when they come to put you to death,
I will sing,
" They kill Anansi till . . .
They kill the Spider till . . .
The whole country will he flooded^
All the people will die,
The King's wife will die,
The King's daughter will die,
The King himself will perish,
Anansi alone will remain."
Now, when the King heard the voice singing, he asked,
"What is that.?"
Anansi answered, "Tye! Hearken, my King. God himself
pleads for me!"
The King said, " It is not true. A thief must be punished."
But Anansi replied, "Tye! You will hear, my King, that
it is the truth, because God will again speak for me." And
soon the voice was again heard singing,
" They kill Anansi till . . .
They kill the Spider till . . .
[114I
BA ANANSI
The whole country will be flooded,
All the people will die,
The King himself will perish,
Anansi alone will remain^
Then the King became disturbed. He was afraid. . . .
And so he came to free Anansi.
Why Chicken and Butter Are Always Found Together
Chicken and Butter were great friends. They lived to-
gether. Every morning early they went for a walk. Now,
Chicken was always the last to return, and every morning
Butter was home early. Chicken did not know that if
Butter walked in the sun he would melt, and that was why
he was always home first.
One morning, when they left the house, Chicken took the
key and carried it away with her. When Butter came back,
he could not get in. So he stood in the doorway and waited.
When the sun came up Butter melted.
Now Chicken returned, and she saw what had happened
to Butter. She ran and called her neighbor to come. When
the neighbor came. Chicken said to him, she said, "What
shall we do with Butter?"
The neighbor said, "Bring a knife and I will show you."
But Chicken had no sooner brought the knife than her
neighbor took it, and cut Chicken's neck. Then he put her
in the pot with Butter, and cooked the two.
And that is why to this day we cook Chicken with Butter.
Now the neighbor was Cockroach, and the proverb says:
"You are Cockroach; you will never get justice from
Chicken."
Anansi Gives a Feast on the Mountain Top — Turtle Gives
His in the Water
Anansi decided to give a feast. Now he did not want
Turtle to come, but since he was inviting all the animals,
he had to ask Turtle, too. He said, "I will see to it that the
boy Turtle does not eat a morsel of my food." So Anansi
sent word to all the animals that on a certain day he would
[iiSl
REBEL DESTINY
give a great feast, but that it would be held on top of a
mountain. On the day of the feast all the animals came
together to eat with Anansi.
Now, when they were all gathered, and the preparations
were done, Anansi said, "We are ready to eat, but before
we can begin, all must have clean hands." And Anansi
said to Rabbit, he said, "Ba Kon'koni, you are a clever
fellow. Look around for me, and see if there is anyone whose
hands have sand on them."
Rabbit went from one animal at the other, examining
their hands. Then he came to Turtle. He said, "Friend
Turtle, you must go wash your hands. See, there is sand on
them." So Turtle went back down the hill to wash his hands.
Now when Turtle walks, crawling he crawls from one place
to another. He does not go fast. So the whole time he was
away the animals had been eating. When he returned to
the table, half the food was gone.
Now just as he sat down at the table, Anansi said,
"Friend Turtle, let me see if your hands are clean now."
Turtle showed his hands. Again they were full of sand.
Anansi said, "Ba Turtle, the rules are that everybody
must have clean hands, so you must go wash your hands
once more. You cannot eat otherwise." So again Turtle
washed his hands. He washed them so many times, but,
since he could not walk any other way, his hands were
always dirty when he came to the table. So Turtle did not
eat at Anansi's feast.
Turtle went away, and he said, "Anansi caught me this
time, but I am going to get even with him."
So now Turtle gave a birthday party. He sent for all the
animals to come to his party to eat with him. He knew
that Anansi would come, too. So he said that his party
would be held under water. He knew that Anansi was light
and would not be able to stay under water. He did this so
he could catch Anansi.
When all the animals were getting ready to go to Turtle's,
Anansi studied what to do. He knew that he could not stay
down under water. So he borrowed a coat and a pair of
[ii6]
BA ANANSI
trousers, and put them on. Then he gathered many stones,
and put them in the pockets. When he was heavy enough,
he went down under the water.
Now the time came for them to come and eat. Turtle
looked about and saw Anansi under water. He saw how
Anansi had put stones in his pockets. At once Turtle said
to them all, he said, before they sit down at the table they
must take off their coats. Anansi was troubled when he
heard Turtle say this. He thought, "If I take off my coat,
I will at once float to the surface. The stones in my pockets
keep me down." So Anansi could not take off his coat.
But when Anansi came to the table, Turtle said to him,
he said, "Didn't I say everybody was to take off his coat.**
You must take oif" yours. When you gave your feast you
did as you liked. When I give mine, I do as I like, too."
So Anansi took off his coat.
But no sooner did Ba Anansi take it off, than he rose to
the top of the water. He got no food to eat. His greed had
caused this to happen to him.
Anansi Rides Tiger
One day Ba Anansi went to the house of the King and
said to the King, he said, he rode Tiger.
The King said, "A little spider like you! It is another of
your lies. I don't believe you. I will ask Tiger." But Anansi
said, "King, you can believe me. You will see that it is
true."
The King, however, sent a messenger to Tiger, asking
him to come to him. Tiger was delighted that he was asked
to go to the King's house. He wondered, "Now what kind
of a message does the King have for me .^"
But as he arrived at the King's house with such pleasant
feelings, the King said to him, he said, "Tiger, does a
strong animal like you allow little Anansi to ride him.^"
Tiger was angry. He said, "King, I will go at once
and make Anansi come to you to tell you that he lied."
One of Anansi's children was playing in the village. He
met Tiger on the road. Tiger said to him, he said, "You
["7l
REBEL DESTINY
boy! Where is your father? I will show him if he can lie
about mel"
Now Anansi had already told the boy what he had done.
Anansi said to him, he said, "If you see Tata Tiger, then,
when he asks for me, you must tell him I am sick. Tell him
I have fever." So the boy said to Tiger, "Tata Tiger, my
father is sick. He lies at home, shaking with fever."
But Tiger said, "That's no affair of mine. He must come
to the King's house with me, even if I have to carry himl"
So he went to Anansi's house, and said to his wife, "Sa
Akuba, where is that boy Anansi.^"
Sa Akuba answered, "Tata, he is sick. He has a bad
fever."
But Tiger said, "Where is he ^ Let me see him." When Sa
Akuba brought Tiger to Anansi's bed. Tiger said, "You
boy Anansi! What was this you said at the King's house .^"
Anansi said to him, he said, "Tata Tiger, I am sick. The
King lied to you. I did not say anything."
"That makes no difference. You must come with me to
the King's house."
"Tye, Tata Tiger! See how I am trembling! You can see
that I cannot travel. Please wait until I am better!"
"No, no. I can't wait. You must come right now, this
very day."
"All right, Tata. But I cannot walk. How am I going to
get to the King's house .^"
"Come sit on my back. I will carry you there."
Anansi waited for a moment. Then he said, "Tata, I
have a small bag here and a blanket. May I take them with
me to use when I get cold .?"
"All right. Take them. But you must come right away."
So Anansi climbed up on Tiger's back, and Tiger went on
his way toward the King's house. Anansi sat shivering
there, and he shook so that Tiger called to him, "You boy,
why do you do this.? Sit still!"
"But Tata," said Anansi, "it is the fever. I have some-
thing here. Won't you let me put it in your mouth so that
I can use it to hold on to.?"
[Ii8]
BA ANANSI
Tiger said, "All right," and hurried on. But Anansi shook
again, and Tiger said once more, "You boy Anansi 1 Why
do you do this? Do you think that if you carry on this
way I won't take you to the King's house to show him how
you lied ?"
But Anansi said, "Tye, Tata, it is the fever. Look, I have
something here that is like a saddle. Won't you wait until
I can put my feet inside it so I can sit a little better.'"'
"That doesn't concern me, so long as we get on. Do what
you like, so long as you go with me to the house of the
King."
So Anansi put the saddle on Tiger, and they went on.
When they had gone farther, Anansi saw the King's house
facing them in the distance. He began to shake again. He
shivered and shivered, and Tiger said, "You boy! Why are
you carrying on so.'' When you see the King's house you
begin to tremble, is that it.'' I will teach you to liel"
Anansi only said, "Tata, it is the fever. I am shivering.
It is the fever, and, besides, a mosquito just bit me."
"Didn't I tell you that was no affair of mine.'' Whether
you shiver or whether you don't shiver, go you must. Don't
you see the King's house, there ahead .f"'
"But Tata, I have one last favor to ask of you. I have a
small whip here. Won't you let me strike at the mosquitoes
with it.'' Then maybe I won't shiver so much."
"All right, I don't care. I only want to bring you to the
King's house to show how you lied about an important
man like me."
So Anansi had the bit and the saddle on Tiger, and his
whip was in his hand. And when he saw all the people in
front of the King's house, he gave Tiger three lashes with
the whip. As Tiger jumped in the air, Anansi cried "Konl
Kon!" as though he were driving a horse, and Tiger
became so angry that he started to run faster.
But Anansi pulled at the bit and called, "King! King!
Come look at Anansi riding Tiger!"
And so the King said to Anansi, "Well, since you have
brought me this horse, you can stay inside my house as long
[119I
REBEL DESTINY
as you live." This is the reason why to this very day,
Anansi lives inside the King's house.
The King's Beard
It is said, "There is nothing in darkness that will not
come to light. ..."
There was a King who had a very long beard. But he did
not want anyone to know that he had a beard. But someone
saw him when he did not think anyone was there. This was
Ba Anansi. He became angry and called people to kill that
person. For he did not wish anyone to know that he had a
beard.
So they dug a great hole for Anansi. When they brought
Anansi to the hole, he put his mouth to it and whispered,
"The King has a beard-o. ..." But no one heard him.
Three years later a tree sprang up, right where there was
the hole to which Anansi had put his mouth. And marked
across the bark of the tree was:
"The King has a beard-ol"
Tiger Entertains the Monkeys
It was a time of famine. Tiger had nothing to eat. He
studied what to do. He went and made a large kettle, and
he made a lid for the kettle. Then he called all the baboons
together and said he was going to give a cinema play. They
must come and see. When the baboons came, he went inside
the kettle. He pretended that he was putting in the film,
and he said when he called out "Warm!" they must take
him out. Now he had put fire under the kettle, and when
he called out "Warm!" the baboons raised the lid, and let
him out.
He said, let all the baboons go inside th€ kettle now to see
the cinema. But one young baboon did not go inside. He
hid in a tree top, and from there he watched what was
happening. Now, once the baboons were inside the kettle,
the Tiger stirred the fire underneath it. So the baboons
were cooked, and all were killed. And so Tiger came by his
food.
[I20]
BA ANANSI
Now, another time there was again famine. Tiger called
together all the monkeys, and said let them come and see
the cinema play. But this time when the monkeys came,
the young baboon who hid in the tree top the last time,
said to the monkeys, he said, "When Tiger goes inside the
kettle, you must not lift the lid when he cries out, 'Warm!'
You must say, 'When a thing is warm, then a man's teeth
must show.' " And so, when the Tiger went into the kettle,
and called out, the monkeys did not raise the lid. And so
Tiger died.
Gun Is Dead
Anansi borrowed a gun from Hunter, and sent word to
all the animals that they must come to bury Gun. Gun, he
said, was dead. All the animals rejoiced to hear that Gun
had died, for Gun was an evil thing. It was he who had been
killing off all the animals in the bush. So they were happy
to hear that their enemy. Gun, was dead, and they came
to the funeral.
Now Anansi made a trap, and he put Gun inside it, and
said they would go and bury him. But Anansi made every-
one pass in front of the coffin, and the Gun was pointed
right at them. His own children carried the trap, and
Anansi himself sat on top of Gun.
When Anansi saw all the animals lined up in single
file facing Gun, he began to shoot. All the animals died.
And so Anansi got food. Ba Anansi Is very cunning.
How Goat Came to Live at Home
Goat went to make a shelter. He cut one post and put it
down, and went for another. But now when he brought the
second, he found many posts alongside of the one he him-
self had put there. Back into the bush he went now for
palm leaves, but when he returned, there was the shelter
all made. Tiger had made It. And so Goat and Tiger met,
and they talked it over, and they decided they would live
together.
[121]
REBEL DESTINY
Now they made one condition. Goat was to go in search
of food one day, and Tiger the next day. The first day
Tiger went. He made a kill, and brought it home, and they
ate. When Goat went, he killed nothing. The following day
Tiger went. He made a kill, and brought it home. The day
after Goat went and killed nothing.
Now, one day. Tiger went and killed a deer, and brought
him home. But Goat would not eat, because Deer is Goat's
uncle, and if he had eaten the meat, then he would have
been eating his own uncle. But Tiger was angry. He said,
"Day after day you ate what I killed, but today you refuse
to eat. Yet when you yourself go, you kill nothing, and
bring nothing home."
And now when the little Tigers played with the little
Goats, the little Tigers said, "My father will show you-all!"
Mother Goat said, "As Father Tiger talks, so the children
of Father Tiger talk." And she told the little Goats to
watch out for Tiger, because already Tiger had killed their
uncle. But Father Goat said all little Negro children must
play together.
Now Goat went to hunt, and he met Man. He said to
Man, "Day after day I go hunting, but I never kill." Then
Man gave him something, and he said to Goat, "When you
see an animal coming toward you, point at it, and call out
'Take care!' and that instant the animal will fall down
dead."
Just as Goat took the thing Man gave him, he saw
Tiger's grandfather approaching. He pointed his finger, and
called out, "Take care!" That moment grandfather Tiger
was dead. Goat brought him home. But now, when he
came, Tiger would not eat, because the dead animal was
his grandfather.
The following day, Goat went again. This time he killed
Tiger's brother, and brought him home. Tiger would not eat.
But now the little Goats said to the little Tigers, "Father
will show you-all!"
And Mother Tiger said to Father Tiger he had better
look out for Goat. Twice he had gone to the bush to hunt,
[122]
BA ANANSI
and twice Goat had brought back with him members of
their family. And so when Goat again went hunting, Tiger
followed him softly, and as he spied on Goat, he saw his
uncle Tiger coming. And he saw how Goat pointed at him
and called out, "Take care!" and how that very instant his
uncle Tiger fell down dead.
Father Tiger hurried home, and said to Mother Tiger
and the little Tigers, "Let us escape at once. Goat has
something which he points at whomever he meets. When he
does it and calls out 'Take care!' they all die."
And Tiger and his whole family made off into the bush as
fast as they could go. They left the house to Goat.
So it is ended. And so it is that when someone boasts of
the strength of his clan, or his family, or his clan's magic, or
his own spirits, then we say to him:
" There are men on the upper river ^
There are men on the lower river ^ tooP^
[ 123
Chapter VIII
PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
WE WERE aroused early after our night of stories.
The women were moving about, getting their
morning meal before daybreak came to give them
light for their harvesting. There was much they had to do.
Late that afternoon they would be returning to their
villages, for the next day was sacred to the Earth Mother,
and no work could be done in the fields. Today, added to the
round of harvesting were the preparations for the return
to their village. The rice that had been cut during the
week would have to be carried there for drying and winnow-
ing, and yams and peanuts and beans were to be brought in.
Not far off, in the bush, the "baboons" were crying. We
had been told how these howling monkeys lived in bands,
and how they had an "old man" for leader. Their strange
cries, ringing through the forest, sounded like despair made
articulate. A terribly moving reiteration of four or five
wailing notes went on and on, rising slowly in volume, until
their cries blotted out all other sounds, and then, like a wave
receding, diminishing until quiet reigned again. But when
we had given up listening for its distant echo, there it was
again, filling the darkness of the clearing with despair,
until, at its very height, we heard the low, penetrating
grunts of their ^^Caman — Chief" and instantly all was
still. They were done for the night. With daylight, they
would go deeper into the bush.
[124]
PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
Soon our men, too, began to stir, and, as we came out of
our hammocks, Bayo and Angita entered the clearing. They
were just now returning from the dance at Pa'aba.
"^-yo, a hay a hebi! — Yes, they danced hard," Bayo told
us. "Obia came strong."
With Angita was a man we had not seen before, holding
a small child by the hand.
"This is Awingu, my brother-in-law," said Angita in
explanation. "His eyes trouble him. I brought him to you
for medicine."
After the exchange of courtesies demanded by the visit,
we turned to the child.
"Is this your child, Awingu.?" we asked.
His answer came promptly. "No, he is not my child. He
is my wife's child. I made him."
Here was a fine distinction. He made him, but the child
was not his.
Just then our cook came up with a small present for the
child, but, since he would not take it from his hands or ours,
Angita gave it to him.
"Thank you, father," he said to Angita.
Angita looked down affectionately at the youngster.
"Two, three years more, Awingu, and he will be ready to
go and live with his father at Gankwe. Do you remember
your father at Gankwe.'' It was he who showed you how to
make a gun from a reed. And you made it well. ..."
There appeared, then, to be yet another father, for it was
clear that Angita was not speaking of himself when he
referred to the Gankwe father who had showed the child
how to make a play gun.
All this, in itself, however confusing to a visitor,
is by no means an unusual phenomenon. Different peoples
have their own sanctions for establishing kinship and their
own designations for relationships. In the city we had been
told many tales of the manner of life of these Negroes of
the bush. And the "matriarchate," as the custom of
counting descent through the mother was termed, had often
come up when these people were being discussed.
[125I
REBEL DESTINY
"Among them only the mothers count, because among
savages, who can tell who the real father is? That is why a
child calls many men 'father,' " we had heard variously
explained and elaborated.
Yet here was a man who said without hesitation, "No,
he is not my child. He is my wife's child. I made him."
And the very next instant the child called Angita father,
and Angita referred to still another man as the father who
would in a few years take the child with him to live and
train him for manhood.
Any number of questions came to our minds, but at
daybreak a stranger coming to the planting ground of a
village not his own is the least willing of talkers.
"This is not your child, Awingu," we took the occasion
to remark when we were saying goodbye, "yet he seems to
like you very much."
"Ma, tye! Ma Neng'e! — Mother of all Negroes! What
would you have.'' I am his father!"
The man showed by his amused expression that this was
a story to carry back to his village. Only the politeness due
a stranger kept Awingu and Angita from laughing aloud
at this strange question. But Awingu was a thoughtful
fellow. "Tell me," he said, after a while, "in your white
man's country, don't children care for their fathers ?"
But there were not only multiple fathers, as the story
told in the city ran. The matter was not disposed of so
simply as that. In point of fact, each person seemed to
have several mothers as well. Take the case of Angita
himself, whose brother-in-law we met at dawn in the ^
provision ground. Angita was first pointed out to us by
Tita, who, behind her back, was called Mother Snake.
It was at Gankwe when we came to see the dancing for the
dead Zimbl.
"Look," she had said, as she indicated one of the prin-
cipal dancers who wore seed rattles at his ankles. "This is
[126]
PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
Angita. He dances well. He Is my son." And she had showed
her pleasure at our appreciation of his excellent dancing.
The following day Angita came to our camp, bringing
with him Kutai, a woman of about Tita's age. He left to
go farther upstream for a time, but she remained with us
and sat and talked with the others who were standing
about, as they discussed the wood carvings we were in the
act of buying.
"Have you seen Angita's carvings?" she asked us.
"He is one of the best young carvers at Gankwe. When he
is older, he will be one of the best on the Saramacca."
An old man standing by said drily, "Chicken says, 'You
can lie about an egg, but you can't lie about a chicken.'"
"That's right," commented another. "We know Angita's
carving. It is good, but. ..."
But Kutai would not be contradicted. She interrupted
the speaker with a gesture. "I am his mother, and a mother
knows her son. You can say what you like."
About the fifth day after we had started up the river
for the country of the Granman, we came to a village where
Angita stopped to supplement his food for the journey.
When he returned, his arms were filled with the large
cassava cakes. Behind him came a young girl with a
bottle of palm oil, and some rice in an open calabash, and
she was followed by the people of the village who came to
see the Bakra. A woman of middle age, whom both the
young girl and Angita resembled, took the rice from the
girl and, wading into the shallow water, came up to our
boat and gave it to us. "This is rice for you. I am
Angita's mother. Angita is strong. You will walk well with
him." -^"^
Later that day, when our boat found itself abreast of the
dugout which Angita was poling, we lost no time in ques-
tioning him.
"Angita," we called, "is the woman who gave us the
rice your mother.^"
He nodded.
"But what of Tita, who said she was your mother, too.''"
[ 127]
REBEL DESTINY
He was a quick-witted lad, and he saw at once what we
had in mind. He said with a laugh, "You are asking about
my true, true mother, the one who made me ? It is not this
one, and it is not Tita, who made me. It is Kutai."
"But who are the other two.^"
"They are her sisters."
3
Yet the family life of the Bush Negro does not differ in
any essential respect from that of any other group of
individuals, who, related by close ties of blood, live their
lives together. Men and women marry and beget children,
and their children in turn marry and beget others. In
reality, but for the fact that a man or a woman claimed
more than one father and mother, and a great number of
brothers and sisters, of uncles and aunts, there was little
to indicate the existence of conventions of family life which
differed radically from those we ourselves know.
None the less, there were differences, and, once we were
permitted to see beneath the surface, a slight incident here,
another hint there, threw into relief the life of these people,
and their own attitudes toward their actual and spiritual
relationships.
Let us take the instance of Misomba and his son. Mi-
somba was a man of middle age, and the incident we tell
occurred as we were sitting in his house in a village above
the Mamadam. He was speaking of the wood he had cut
and of his plans to take it to the city to sell. With him in
the house were his wife and a young lad, perhaps fifteen
or sixteen years old, and, besides ourselves, our paddler
Kasanya, who was MIsomba's wife's elder brother.
"I need someone to take the rafts down the river. There
are none in my family who are free, and I need help. But
Adyabu here," he said, indicating his son, "knows about
taking down rafts, and it will be good for him to learn more
of the river leading to the white man's city. I am glad you
came, brother-in-law. Now I can ask you if he may go with
me. Is it your wish that he go .'"'
[128]
PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
Kasanya glanced at the boy, who showed by his manner
his eagerness to accompany his father, and then at his
sister. "How will it be with you, sister, if Adyabu goes?
Do you want him to go with Misomba ?"
"Yes," she replied. "Misomba will care for him. Let him
go-
The three older people talked over the details of the trip
down the river, until it was made clear to all that Adyabu
would share whatever money his father might receive for the
lumber.
"You will treat him well, brother-in-law," said Kasanya,
with a smile, "for in a few years his girl will be ripe for
marrying, and he will need money for a fine wedding."
That night we talked this over with Kasanya.
"Why must a man ask another if he may take his own
son with him on a journey.'' Is a man not to be trusted to
take care of a boy he himself has made .^"
"You do not understand, Bak'a. It is not that we don't
trust Misomba," he replied. "He has lived with my sister
for many years. She is his first wife, and my family have
always liked him. When my sister's eldest daughter was
asked in marriage by a man of this village, and our great
family came together here to consider whether we should
promise her to him or not, we asked Misomba to give us his
advice. Misomba does not have a bold face. He did not
speak until after much urging. To ask a man's advice about
what does not concern his own family is a great honor.
But we did this, and when he spoke, we found that what he
said was good. So, you see, it is not that we do not trust
Misomba."
We encouraged him to explain further.
"Adyabu is not his heir. He is the child of my sister
and belongs to my family. I am the one to say what he is to
do and what he is not to do, because I am the oldest living
brother. Adyabu does not belong to MIsomba's family. He
is of my blood. When I die, he will inherit my possessions.
When Misomba dies, his possessions will go to his own
[129]
REBEL DESTINY
brothers and to his sisters' children. That is how we live
here in the bush. That is how we do."
4
When a man marries, he either arranges to take his wife
to live in his own village — his mother's village — or to stay
in that of his wife. Whether he chooses the one village or
the other, he has to build a house there for her, and this
becomes her wosu, her household. If he wishes, he may
build two houses, one in his own village, and one in the
village of his wife. Kasanya's younger brother built two
houses for his first wife. One was on the lower river, next to
Kasanya's own house, and the other we would reach after
two days' further travel up the river.
Yet the man, explained Kasanya, if the couple were
living in the village of the wife, or the woman, if their
house was in his village, was not entirely at home. In one's
own village a person was a gomi, a child of the "ground."
He belonged there. But when living in another's village,
even though it was that of a husband or wife, one was a
wakama\ a stranger, and if a man of the village but uttered
this word "wakama"' to such an individual, the outsider
had to take up his belongings and leave at once. Were the
stranger, in turn, to speak aloud the word "gomi,"
disaster would follow, for the earth spirits, having been
disturbed, would be sure to take their toll.
The wosu — the household — Is the unit of family life,
whether, in its physical location, it Is in one village or two
villages. In it a woman lives with her husband, and here the
children are reared. After the wosu comes the larger family
unit, the mbe, composed of those who have come from the
common womb of a more remote ancestress, while several of
these larger or extended families form a clan.
"If a man has more than one wife," said Kasanya, "then
he makes more than one house. A man never puts two
wives in the same house. It would not be good. Each
woman has her own house, where she lives with her children.
It must be so. The children of the first wife belong to her
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A gtidii zvosu — man's personal house.
PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
family. The children of the second wife belong to the
family of the second wife. A woman calls her husband's
other wife by the name of kambosa. Do you know what
kambosa means.'*" he asked, laughing. ''''Kambosa — the
woman who makes trouble for me. So, you see, we people
of the bush learned from our ancestors to give each
wife her own house, where she might live with her own
children."
But not alone the woman needed to have a house of her
own. The man, too, built a house for himself. In it he stored
his possessions. It was his sanctuary. No woman might
enter it. On the carving of its door, a man lavished all his
love of ornamentation, all his artistry.
"A man likes to have-his own house for his possessions,"
explained Kasanya. " If he is a rich man, it is better that his
wives do not know how much he has. You know what
women are. They always ask for presents. But if a
man is not rich, then it is better still that his wives do not
know it. If they know, they will make life hard for him with
nagging. They will talk of leaving him. And all the village
will know, too."
In this house, then, which a man built for his wife, the
children were reared. Sometimes, it is true, if the harvests
were poor or the father had met with ill luck, the mother's
brothers would come for the children, for children are the
ones to carry on the line. It is through them that clan rank
and material goods are inherited.
But if all went well with the father, then the attachments
of the household were the closest, and they continued even
after death. For the household was not entirely disrupted
after the death of a parent. Unless the one who died had
been a sorcerer, a leper, or a madman, the house where he
lived was not torn down.
"When a man dies," Kasanya said, "the wife goes on
living in the house, once it has been purified. If a woman
dies, then the man keeps on living there."
"What of the children?" we asked. "What becomes of
them?"
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REBEL DESTINY
"If It Is the man who Is dead, then the woman takes her
girl children to live with her, but her sons she sends away to
live elsewhere. A man's spirit will not harm his daughters.
He loves them. But his sons, he will kill. . . . When a
woman dies, then It Is the sons that the man will keep with
him In the house, and the daughters must go away. The
yorka of a woman will protect her sons, but she will destroy
the daughters when she visits the place where she once
lived."
5
To her child the Bush Negro mother gives at birth
membership In all her own blood groups. The child is of her
zuosu, or household. He belongs to her mbe, or great family,
which Is an aggregate of many households. He Is a member
of her /o, or clan, which is composed of a number of great
families, and which holds political sway over a given
portion of the land. The tie of all these groupings Is a blood
tie, a common female ancestress who lived long ago, or
several women, daughters of the same mother, who had
been the first to live with the runaway ancestors here in the
bush, or several women who came from one people In
Africa, and were the first to bear children to the rebels in the
jungle. Every legal, every economic Implication which this
tradition of descent and Inheritance through the female line
might hold. Is faithfully adhered to.
The mother does indeed count, as the tales told us In the
city Insisted. But what of the father.^
That the Bush Negro understands fully the role that
both father and mother play in the procreation of the
young was everywhere apparent. The wood carving which
a father made for his young daughter had designs on it of
the kind which bore the general designation '^ivomi ko*
muye — man and woman." Whatever the traceries on the
carvings given by a man to his woman during courtship,
or after marriage, whatever animals might be represented,
the essential symbolism was that of fertility, and the
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PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
figures of a male and a female in congress were often intro-
duced into the design.
The ignorance of the physical role of the male parent,
said to exist among other primitive peoples with a similar
linkage of relatives on the mother's side, is not found among
the Suriname Negroes. At a religious ceremony in which
townspeople alone were dancing, a woman turned to us,
and said, "Now they are dancing Afrekete. When Ma
Aisa — an Earth goddess — and Pa Lehba — he who guards
the crossroads — make a child, it is called Afrekete."
Similar genealogies of spirits were vouchsafed us by Bush
Negroes as well, and always, there was the male god as well
as the female, and always the recognition that both made
the spirit which was their offspring.
These are examples derived from the art of the people,
from their ritual, and from the concepts they have of the
forces that actuate the universe. There also were many
incidents to show the attitude of fathers and children
toward each other in the everyday run of life.
Awingu did not hesitate when he answered that the
child who was with him belonged to his wife. But he added
that it was he who made him, and his affection for the little
boy, and the child's fondness for him was apparent even
to the casual onlooker. Kasanya, in talking to us about the
kunu of his wife's family which had destroyed his sons,
mourned them as a father. He had made them, and he had
taught them to run the rapids, and to carve. He had given
them his own gods to protect them, he told us when
recounting the tragedy of the kunu which killed them.
Misomba, the brother-in-law of Kasanya, had made
Adyabu. There was no ambiguity about who the boy's
father was. The boy was Kasanya's heir, but he was
Misomba's son. Sedefo had brought the child to his brother
Zimbi's coffin, saying, "I bring you your child. Try to
protect him. ..."
There was the matter of slipping. It is dangerous to
slip. Losing one's step may bring the soul to the ground
in an unguarded moment, where the earth spirits, or what
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REBEL DESTINY
would be more serious yet, an evil spirit who would be
lying in wait for a soul to use as emissary in his affairs of
black magic, would snatch at the soul and take it away. If
this happened, a person would sicken, languish, and die.
Sometimes when a man tripped on the clayey bank, we
heard him exclaim, ^^ Ago! — Ancestors!" calling on these to
protect him until he recovered his balance. But often we
heard different cries. "Mi, Awana!" one man had called.
"Mi, Nyamfail" or, "Mi, Matchau!" or "Mi, Popoto!"
These are all clan names, and for a time we assumed that
instead of appealing to their ancestors, they called on the
entire clan to come to their aid. But one day Sedefo lost his
footing, and we heard him exclaim, "Mi, Fandaki!" Now
we knew that Sedefo belonged to the clan of the Gankwe
people, and we knew, further, that he was most emphati-
cally not of the Fandaki clan.
"Sedefo, you are not a Fandaki. Why did you call on
them.?"
"My father belongs to the Fandaki. When we slip we
call on our father's lo."
"Why, Sedefo.?"
"I do not know. ..."
Another day we were sitting and talking to a young man
in an upper river village. A girl came and sat with us.
"This is my sister," the man said. It was at a time when
we were looking into these matters, and we asked, "Did
the same mother make you both .?"
"No," he answered, "she is here only on a visit. She
lives across the river. Her father is my mother's brother."
"But she is not your sister, then," we said. "She does
not even belong to your clan."
"Massa Neng'e! But she is my sister!" the man pro-
tested. "She is neither of my family, nor of my clan. But
did not my mother's brother make her.?"
"Could you marry her.?"
He considered for a moment. "It would be possible. But
it would not be good. . . . And the old women in the
village would talk too much."
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PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
This was not the only instance of our meeting an indi-
vidual who liked to stay in her father's village. There was
the girl Takuda. Her mother was of the Kasito clan, and
her house was in Dahomey, its principal settlement. She
was not happy among her mother's people, and when we
met her, she was living with her father's family.
"Does her mother's family not want her with them?"
we asked a friend with whom we were discussing her.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Should not a child live in
her father's home if she wants to.^"' he answered simply.
"A father likes his children, and they like him, too."
Nor was it strange. To the child, the father was a man of
the older generation to whom he could come for sympathy.
He rarely corrected, for this was the task of the mother and
her family. Often it was he who interceded with the older
people in behalf of a son who wished to do something which
his maternal family opposed. If a father gave small gifts to
his children, they were looked upon truly as gifts. The ritual
obligations of gift-giving chiefly lay with the mother's side.
But there was more than just the affection for a boon
companion which children felt for their fathers. There was
pride in the father, pride in his achievements, and identifi-
cation with his village.
When the Granman told us he was arranging for us to
visit the village across the river from his own, he said,
"Today you will see my father's house. Let them shoot
guns so that I may know when you arrive in my father's
village. They will show you everything. It is a fine village,"
he ended, with pride. "It is my father's country."
The last phrase was a refrain which ran through our
entire visit there.
"This is the village of the Granman's father," we heard,
again and again. "This is the house of the father of the
Granman," one said, and another, "This is where the
father of the Granman would sit in krutu." This person
and that were introduced as belonging to the family of the
father of the Granman. The climax came when we were
shown the shrine to the ancestors. An especially elaborate
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REBEL DESTINY
place was pointed out to us. The carved representation of
the human face of the image was worked more carefully
than is ordinarily done. Here the white clay was applied
more thickly. The white cloth hanging from its stick was
larger than we had ever seen before, the offerings of food
and bottles and calabashes more numerous than at other
ancestral shrines.
"This is where the yorka of the father of the Granman
comes," we were told.
But why the father.'' What of the mother, the parent to
whom the Granman was related? This village did not even
belong to the Matchau clan to which he himself belonged.
Yet with the pride that this was the shrine to the spirit of
the Granman's father went a realization of its importance.
Here was something outside the legal order, something
which transcended the facts of descent and the theory of
relationship. It was becoming ever more evident that in
this "matriarchate" the father did count.
The inheritance of the father's kunu was one instance
where the father needed to be taken very much into ac-
count. "If this man's children should take some of his
goods," they had said, pointing at things we could see
through the slats of the dead man's treasure house in the
village of Opoku, "they will get his kunu, too. No man
wants that."
Then there was the trefu, or tchina — taboo — as it was
called in the bush, of which our cook had told us. Every
individual in the bush had his tchina. Everyone knew the
things he must not eat, or must not do. One man had to
abstain from eating anumara, the great fish of the river.
Another might never sleep in the open without a roof over
his head. Should he find himself out in the bush with night
coming, he must stop early enough to erect a small shelter
and thatch it that his head might be covered when he slept.
Bayo, we soon learned, might not eat food out of the
cooking pot, and Sedefo could not bathe in a creek. Kasanya
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PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
did not eat deer's meat, or his brother-in-law the meat
of the bush-hog.
There are many kinds of tchina. There are the obia
tchina. A man wearing or carrying with him a charm — an
obia — will have several prohibitions imposed on him. If
these are observed, the potency of the magic in the object
given him will remain, but if they are violated, it will
become a worthless ornament. When an obia is bought, its
maker will take the hands of the man for whom he has
made it in his, and pass his own lightly over them, blowing
softly, so that the power of the spirit he had called upon
when making it may enter into the man for whom the
obia was made. Then the obia man will lean over and
whisper, that no one might overhear, "When you wear
this, do not get into a boat backwards," or, perhaps, " Never
eat crab meat while you have this about your neck," or
"Do not eat cassava and rice out of the same calabash."
But with the personal tchina it is otherwise. At birth
each individual falls heir to a number of taboos. They come
to him from his father. When a woman is with child she
observes her husband's taboos as well as her own, for the
child might otherwise be harmed in the womb by being
nurtured on what is hateful to his father, and therefore to
himself, since his father's taboos are his own. Male and
female children take these tchina from the father. Their
mother's tchina are no concern of theirs. Those which she
observes had come to her from her own father. What makes
the father ill will make the children ill, too. This holds for
their entire lives, and the male children transmit their
tchina from generation to generation.
A simple instance of this is the one which happened at our
base camp when Bayo, who we knew could not eat out of a
cooking pot, came one day to ask us for a dish. "My father
forgot his eating dish. Will you let him use one of yours.'*
He cannot eat out of a cooking pot."
When one man says of another, therefore, "He has the
same tchina I have," he is saying that the two of them are
related in the father's line.
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REBEL DESTINY
But when one man shares a tchlna with another it does
not mean that they only share prohibitions. There are
privileges as well. There is the right to lift a kandu, for
example.
The outsider among the Bush Negro people cannot go
long without learning of kandu. Many times we had noticed
a small bundle of twigs hanging from a nail over a doorway of
an uninhabited hut, or had remarked a small strip of colored
cloth and a feather or two knotted together and swinging
from an orange tree, or a calabash filled with hardened
sacred clay, suspended from a limb where a creek entered
the river. When we asked about them, we learned that each
was a kandu, a spiritual lock, which by the potency of the
magic put into it by the maker protected the house, or the
tree, or the fishing creek — whatever we happened to be
discussing at the moment — from thieves. It was a guard
which no man dared violate.
Bayo had made one for us early in our visit to the Suri-
name bush.
"I will make you something to keep away thieves. I will
make you a kandu."
He had asked us for a needle, and from wood of a special
kind which is used only in kandu he fashioned the repre-
sentation of a human head. Some native fiber and two kinds
of sacred grass held the needle and the carved image
together. This he covered with white clay, the sacred
pemba, and the red coloring of the kuswe plant, which is
also sacred. When he had spoken his invocations, and
dipped the kandu in the river to purify it, he brought it
to us.
"Put it where you keep your money. I have put strong
magic into it. Your possessions will be safe. Anyone who
opens the chest and sees this, will not touch what is in-
side. . . . But do not eat out of a cooking pot. It will lose
its power. I have given it my own tchina."
But it seemed that a kandu did not always remain
inviolate.
"It would not be good," Bayo explained, "if a man went
away and left a kandu over the house, and no one but he
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PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
could enter it until he took the kandu away. Suppose a
man went to hunt, and a friend came back to the village
with a message from the hunter to get something inside the
house. If no one at all could get it, it would not be good."
"What happens then.?"
"The friend would seek out the man's own child — a
child the man himself had made — and ask him to lift the
kandu."
"Suppose his wife lifted h? Or his sister's child.?"
"They wouldn't. The spirit in the kandu would punish
them. His true, true child could touch the kandu, and his
brother, or his sister, or his brother's children," said Bayo.
"The sisters' children.?" we asked again.
"No, no! They would lift their own father's kandu."
Was there anyone else, we inquired, who could remove
the kandu from a man's house.?
Bayo considered. "Anyone who is born with the same
tchina can lift it," he said, finally. "Those with the same
tchina have the same fathers. Those whose fathers are the
same, a kandu cannot harm."
7
We were talking one night with some men of the Anago
clan.
"Is it true," asked one, "that in the Negro country there
are great warriors, and many wars .?"
In olden times, we said, it was true, but today the African
peoples were at peace.
"So it is now on the Saramacca River," he replied, but
with a laugh he added, "Sometimes there are quarrels."
For instance, there had been a quarrel on the river not
very long ago over lumber which had been cut by members
of one clan on land belonging to another. The men knew
they had no right to the timber, but they cut it down.
The first time they were warned, and fines were demanded.
The second time it happened, however, the men of the clan
who owned the bush where these trees stood surprised the
trespassers, and beat them.
[139]
REBEL DESTINY
"Yes," the man went on, "and there was much trouble."
The men who had been punished incited their entire clan
to come to their aid in an attack on the clan villages of
those who had chastized them. "But now they are at
peace." Those who were beaten were of his own clan, he
said.
"And did you win your fight .-^ What happened after
that.?"
"I did not go with the men. The land where the trees
stood belonged to my father's clan, and my father's people
I would not fight."
"What did you do?"
"I tried to make peace between them. That is what a
man does when his father's clan and his mother's clan have
trouble. But I was too young to speak in the big krutu — the
assembly of the chiefs — so it was the elders of the Nyamfai
people who brought them together, and settled the matter."
There was a point which we wanted cleared up. What
was the attitude of the group toward a man who did not
enter into a fight which concerned his own clan .?
"Did no one say you ought to fight, too.?" we asked,
explaining our question to the man several times.
"No, why should they.? A man can't fight against his
father's people. Everybody knows that."
"But what if you did.?"
"The gods would turn against my side."
After our return down river, when we again sat in the
hut of the headman of the Gankwe clan, we turned to him
with some questions about the family, and he gave us the
following summary.
"From our mother we get our /o, our clan, and our mbe,
our great family. Our mother's brothers are those we must
obey. They correct us when we do wrong. They tell us what
is good. In our mother's village is our true home, and from
there we are buried when we die. But our father is our
friend. He gives us his advice. From him we get many of
the gods we dance to when we are men, and from him we
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PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
get the tchina which, if we do not break them, will let us stay-
healthy. Both our parents care for us."
He thought for a moment, and then, with a laugh, he
wondered as Awingu had wondered that early morning
at the planting ground.
"Is it not so in your country, Bak'a," he said, "that
you ask me so often about these things .^"
"Massa cow," we heard Bayo call out again and again
to his great-grandfather Bibifo, when he wanted to indicate
to the old man that he knew what he was about. Bibifo
accepted the reproof with unvarying meekness and good
humor.
This relationship between them puzzled us. Yet the other
men, overhearing Bayo's brusque words to Bibifo, made
nothing of it. Before strangers, Bayo was subdued, shy.
He stuttered ceremonially when he addressed a man of
rank. He pitched his voice only a little above a whisper
when he was in a strange village. Toward Kasanya and
Sedefo and Asikanu he was respectful, and showed reserve.
When he wanted his hair trimmed he came to Angita for
help, or, better still, to the young man at the prow of
Kasanya's boat who, like Kasanya, was of his own clan.
The old man was not a forceful fellow. That was, perhaps,
the reason, we thought at first. Then we wondered if it
was not because Bibifo had become Adrian, and no longer
wore obias to carry him well on the water — because he
had forsaken the old gods. But the other men treated
Bibifo with the respect due an old man. When Kasanya
killed a monkey, and his own pole-man could not share it
with him because he was a twin and twins did not eat
monkey, he turned to Bibifo with the pole-man's portion,
and not to Sedefo, or to Asikanu, who was the brother of
a clan head, and himself a possible successor to his brother's
chieftainship.
[141]
REBEL DESTINY
We had had occasion to observe a not dissimilar manner
of interchange between a young girl and an elderly woman
in one village after another.
In one such village, a girl, who did not yet have her
breasts, answered an old woman's reprimand with, "No,
kambo, I will go down to the river later."
Kambo! She who makes trouble for me. . . .
The old woman said nothing.
The most striking instance, however, occurred in the
village of the Granman. Moana Yankuso was held in no
little fear everywhere on the river. It was not his rank
alone as headman of all the clans, however, that had won
him the reputation of a man to be obeyed. He was a power-
ful man, a great politician, and in every sense a personality,
a man who knew how to dominate men and situations. One
day in his council house, while he was surrounded by his
chiefs, who sat on the low stools, their heads averted from
him as is the way when men are in the presence of the great,
the plaid strip of cloth which covered the door was brushed
aside, and a young man entered. He took up a stool, brought
it close to the Granman, and sat down. But he did not avert
his face nor did he wait to be addressed.
"Howdo, mati," said he to the Granman, "I hear you
want to see me."
We waited for the swift and terrible rebuke which the
chief could give. None came.
"I sent for you," began the Granman, "because the
Bak'a is leaving us. I am sending the captain of the village
to take charge of the boat the white man and his woman
will travel in. You will take the front paddle of the boat.
You will see to it that his journey is pleasant. You must
take care in going through the rapids. ..."
"Mati," interrupted the young man, and his manner
did not disguise his impatience with the injunctions of the
Granman. "Mati, I am a man. I know how to run a boat.
Why do you tell me all this .^"
Instead of finding fault with the forward youth, the
Granman turned to us and said, "You will be safe with
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PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
him. He has taken boats up and down the Marowyne. He
is my grandson. If I had one of my own blood, I would have
had him accompany you. . . . But my sisters' children
sleep," he ended, using the euphemism for death.
When we came to know the young man, we asked him
about this incident with the Granman. Was he not afraid to
interrupt him ?
"Ma kye! But he is my grandfather! With my grand-
father I make sport."
Again we went to the old men and sought in village after
village for their own explanation of this behavior toward
grandparents.
There were, we learned, age distinctions that were
deeply felt. A man was on easy terms with those of his
own generation. Between parents and children, and those
of the generation of their parents, however, there was a
definite code of behavior. For example, no young man or
woman might talk of sexual matters with either parent, and
this lack of sanction for frankness in sexual discussions with
parents became an actual taboo with parents-in-law.
Encounters with the "pai" and "mai," as they were known,
were hemmed in by countless prohibitions. A man might
not sleep in the same house with either of them, nor might
he eat with them out of the same dish. If he met either
of his parents-in-law as he went along the path, he had to
turn aside, make way for them, and cover his face. He might
not pronounce their names, nor might they speak his.
These observances held for women, too, and the ones we
mention were by no means all.
With grandparents, however, a vastly different situation
obtained.
"He is my grandson. I call him mati — friend. I make
sport with him!"
"She is my granddaughter. She calls me husband. She
makes free with me!"
"She is my granddaughter, we talk about everything.
She calls me kambo, and I call her kambo." Again, we
[143]
REBEL DESTINY
were told that kambo was an abbreviated form of kam-
bosa, and meant the woman who makes trouble.
"He is my grandson, he calls me wife, and I call him
husband. We joke together about everything."
Up and down the river we heard these expressions from
the old men and women with whom we talked, and to them
these were all-sufficient explanations of the relationship of
grandparent and grandchild. This making free was a verbal
give-and-take that did not stop at brusqueness or teasing.
Indeed, those who indulged in this freedom might discuss
with each other any phase of the sexual life. Nor did they
need to resort to any evasion or circumlocution. There
seemed, moreover, to be a sanction for emphasis on the
obscene and the lascivious in these conversations — obscene
and lascivious, that is, from the point of view of those who
were themselves speaking!
The effect of the custom is interesting. It acts as a form
of release for the young, who are held down under the strain
of paying respect to those who are older and of greater
experience. It is a way of escape from the discipline imposed
by the parents and those of their generation.
What did the Bush Negro make of it.^"
We talked about it with men and women of many
villages, and invariably the answer was the same.
"So we live in the bush, white man, and so we do. Our
ancestors did this before us. Long ago our great ancestors
brought all this knowledge with them from Neng^e Kond'e
— from the land of the Negroes."
Yet in the beliefs of these people, and in their life as they
live it, there are to be found a few suggestive hints which
seem to have some bearing on this custom of verbal license
between grandparents and grandchildren.
The Bush Negro child is given many names at birth,
and one name is usually that of a departed ancestor, a
deceased grandparent. It may be, then, that this puts the
child on a plane of spiritual equality with his grandparents
and with those of their generation who are related to him.
There is, also, the feeling about the propriety of the mar-
[144]
PARENTS, CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN
riage of persons whose ages differ greatly. It may be that
the grandparental generation is considered safe against
infractions of this element in the code of proper behavior,
and that the reticence about matters of sex, which is
insisted upon between a child and those of the generation
of his parents, has been proved to be unnecessary in the
case of those so much older than the young person. Yet
these, in the very nature of the case, are speculations.
Whatever the reasons may be, the Bush Negro does not
trouble himself about them.
"But my grandfather is my mati! With him I make
sport!"
[i4Sl
Chapter IX
A NIGHT AT S'EI
FROM day to day the mood of the river changed, and
the mood of the bush changed with it. The dankness of
the river bank gave way to the smell of red, sun-
scorched earth. No longer was the farther shore the forbid-
ding wall of a great canyon. The flowering lianas, as they
climbed a hundred feet and more from the roots of the
trees they had enveloped, were making of it a tapestry.
The blooms which showed against the masses of green
seemed at first of the palest yellow with threads of white,
or yellow with glints of gold in them, or the faintest of
orange and violet. Later when the flaming gold, the scar-
let and purple clusters appeared, they still did not mar
the somber weave of the timeless pattern, for the deep
note of this bush in any season is green, and no pushing, gar-
ish colors, no conceits of turning leaves or fragrant flowers
can sound an echo here. As well expect the brilliantly tint-
ed butterflies cruising from one bank to the other to make a
whir in their passage, as to look for it to be otherwise.
The air, however, became steadily drier, the green more
varied and pleasing, and the land rising and sloping gave an
occasional glimpse of a horizon. If something in the shade
of the river banks still spoke of the way of the constrictor,
the sudden lashing out of the tail, there was now also the
pleasant consciousness of its long lethargy. The swish of
wings overhead, when we walked for short intervals through
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A NIGHT AT S'EI
the uncleared bush, or the sight of a snake twined about a
liana, no longer struck terror, and the flaying rains which
came down so suddenly, and as suddenly were over, no
longer even aroused uneasiness.
At the prow of our boat Bayo poled vigorously and
continued his countless variants of the seketi song we had
been hearing everywhere on the river, while. Bibifo had
made a refrain of our question, "How do you say this in
your Saramacca language?" He would paddle in silence for
a long time, only to begin muttering at the most unexpected
moments, " Sa'macca tongo ! " in the way of an old man who
talks to himself. He would then repeat it over and over in
ridicule of us, and sometimes in a singsong voice he would
improvise lines about the white man who wanted to know
how everything was called in the true, true Saramacca
language, and how all that was told him he wrote down in
a book.
"Great-grandfather," we would say to him, "why do
you say this ? Isn't it all right for us to want to learn how to
talk to the G'aman.^"
" Kere-kere — It's all right."
But having said this, he would engage Bayo in conversa-
tion, clipping his words, and using so much idiom and
parable as utterly to confound us.
"Your language is difficult, great-grandfather."
"Ya-hai, it is meant for the people of the bush, white
man," he would say with a pride we had not looked for
from the mild Bibifo, who was now called Adrian. There
was, it appeared, potency in the "word," and magic. The
names for things, and the things themselves were one.
The knowledge of Saramacca names belonged to the
Saramacca people, and whether as Bibifo or Adrian, he
was above all a Saramacca Negro, and a member of an
important clan.
2
When we had been seven days on the river, our cook
came to us and said he wanted to talk about something we
had best know.
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REBEL DESTINY
"The gods are friendly to you, Massa. The men have all
noticed it. You look upon trees and falls with pleasure.
When you see them, it is as if you met with a friend. That
is good. But the gods have their powers, and men have
theirs. The Rabbit says, 'Evil is everywhere.' Last night,
you remember, there was a man who did not look up when
you passed his house, and when you spoke 'Howdo' to him,
he would not answer. He was an obia man. He would not
take the hand of a white man, I have heard the men
say there are others who are not glad that the white man
has come so far, and that the gods have allowed it. . . . "
Abruptly he stopped. He had said more than he intended.
"I came to tell you about another thing," he continued
after a moment of embarrassment. "You should know about
iio-fio."
Fio-fio was a small brown bug, and it was also a spirit.
The spirit fio-fio brought sickness and death to human
beings. For people like ourselves, untutored in the ways of
the spirits, and the things which allowed them to gain
sway over an individual, only a diviner could seek out the
incident which had caused fio-fio to come.
That was why it was necessary to bathe in a protecting
fluid, to "wash fio-fio," even though we had not yet been
stricken.
"Let me tell you how to wash fio-fio," he went on. "You
must bathe when nobody sees you, and this is what you
must have: the skin of a plantain we call the mother
plantain that has been dried in smoke, and weeds which I
will give you, and Negro-country pepper which I have
with me, and seven pieces of chalk, and some eggshells.
Some people put washing-blue in the water, too, but that
you don't need. You can bathe in it early in the morning,
or at noon, or right after sundown, but no one must see
you."
He paused for a moment.
"Do you not have fio-fio in your country.^ Look, this is
how it is. You quarrel with a man who works for you, and
he comes back and says he is sorry, and you say you are
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A NIGHT AT S'EI
sorry, too. He does that because he is afraid of fio-fio. If a
man quarrels with you, and he keeps his anger in him, and
you keep yours, and later he takes work from you, then
either he, or you, or both of you will get sick. If the anger
was great, then you or he or both of you will become very
sick. If you catch it soon, then you get together, and, as we
say, *Pw' wo/o' — take back what you had said. Then you
get better."
Fio-fio had nothing to do with enmity. Honest enmity
was not harmful. Enmity masked, however, or bitterness,
or a grudge which a man harbored while he continued a
relationship of friendship, sickened a man, and It sickened
the man against whom the grudge was held, as well. That
was fio-fio. Only those who had relationships of intimacy
were subject to it — people who were united by blood ties,
or ties of friendship, or servants who formed part of the
household.
The remedy was ceremonially to retract and ask for
pardon. It had to be done before people, with the proper
ritual and bathing.
"If this Isn't done, then a person gets worse and worse,
and dies. I myself saw the fio-fio bug fly out of the nose of a
dying woman."
This woman had sickened because she had quarreled with
her sister over a man. In the end they had both lost him.
As time went on, they began to talk again and later lived
together in their mother's house. But they had never
forgiven each other. One day one of them borrowed a ker-
chief from the other to wear at a dance. The next day she
was ill. From then on she got worse and worse.
"The quarrel between the sisters had happened so long
ago that they never thought of it. So they did nothing.
In a month she died, and I myself saw the fio-fio bug fly
out of her nose."
He knew another story about fio-fio.
"This happened to a man I know. His child died less
than a month ago. He was living with a woman, and the
woman became big with child. He had been away in the
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REBEL DESTINY
bush for some months, and when he came back he did not
feel well, and they quarreled often. When they quarreled she
refused to cook for him, and so he said bad things to her.
He began to say the child was not his. Now when a father
takes away his 'kra, his soul, from the child while it is in
the mother's womb, it is not good. When the child was
born, it was a very small child. Afterwards the man left
the woman. He still said the child was not his, but he used
to bring money to the woman sometimes to buy things for
the child. The neighbors said she must not take the money.
If she took it, they said, the child would die of fio-fio. But
the woman took the money. Nowadays many of them don't
believe in the old things, until they find out. When the
child was four months old it died. Everybody knew it was
fio-fio."
He told other incidents of what happened to people who
had fio-fio.
"I tell you all this because sometimes the men in the
boats talk about the whites, and they think you don't
understand. But you know what they say, and you are
angry. If you give them a present of leaf tobacco later, or
rum, then they or you may become sick. . . . The men in
the bush know what to do about fio-fio, Massa, and you
must learn, too. The proverb says: 'How is a boat to go,
if it has no paddles.^'"
3
At the entrance to the village of S'ei a gigantic silk-
cotton tree stood. Its trunk was massive, and the roots
which projected outwards like so many buttresses made
of it a great somber cathedral. The curiously twisted
grooves which these buttresses made were said to house
many spirits, and particularly the three who lived in the
kankan tree, as the natives called it. Gedeonsu, the male
god, and Tinne, his wife, lived there with their child
Dyombie, the most dreaded of them all. The kankan tree
gods were thought of as women's gods, though a few men
might be found, here and there, who would, on occasion,
[ISO]
A NIGHT AT S'EI
be possessed by them. Between the roots of the tree oflfer-
ings were placed — two or three bottles on their sides, or a
calabash filled with sacred clay.
When the time came to dance to the gods of the
kankan tree, a tunic of cotton was placed about its trunk.
While the drums spoke to the gods, white clay was spread
over the bark, a chicken was killed, and its blood allowed
to spray the tree and drip into a calabash placed on the
ground to receive it. Eggs inside obia pots were put beside
the tree, and bottles filled with sweet liquor and the juice
of sugar cane. All about its wide trunk the dancers swayed
and leaped, each dancing to her own spirit until, at the
height of their ecstasy, there were a few among them who
would climb the great tree itself, and dance on its branches.
The drums continued until the frenzy ebbed. Had they
stopped sooner, those in the tree could not have remained
there safely or in safety have descended to the ground.
At other times, women came to Gedeonsu to ask him for
children, and those who were troubled by his spirit brought
oflFerings, though the great dances were held when the
old year came to an end, and the big offerings were then
made.
"If a man were to cut down a kankan tree, Gedeonsu
would cut off his foot. I myself saw it happen," said a man
to us at S'ei. "And his sister got the god."
The kankan tree gods could be bought, too. A woman who
wanted fertility would seek to buy Gedeonsu. Others might
wish to have Tinne. Only an individual who had a spirit
which gave him the right to make obias and call the gods
could get the spirit for one who wished to buy it. Such a
man would take an obia pot, fill it with water and place
inside it cowrie shells which had not been cleansed. After
speaking his invocation, he would add a sacred white stone,
called an obia stone, and with a calabash in one hand and a
bell in the other, he would go to the tree and address the
spirits as he rang the bell. When the water became ruffled,
it was a sign that the god had entered it. Quickly he would
cover the calabash with a cloth and take it away with him.
[iSi]
REBEL DESTINY
This ritual might have brought Gedeonsu, or Tinne —
whoever was called. The two could not, however, be taken
at the same time, for one of them had to be left to care for
the child Dyombie. If two of the kankan tree gods were
wanted, then mother and child, or father and child, would
be sought.
"The kankan tree spirits are not bad, but people fear
them. They are not as bad as the Akatasi gods."
The Akatasi gods were those which animated the kato
liana, and were related to the gods of the ant hill. This
kato bush was a terrible parasite which, getting its strangle
hold on a tree, would rise higher than the tree itself and at
last kill it.
The silk-cotton, however, was a friendly tree and cruel
only when its spirits were tampered with by those who
did not know how to control the gods. When the ancestors
came into this river, which "in early days was only a creek,"
it was they who had sought out these trees, and had made
their villages where they stood. Now the trees had become
great, and the villages were great.
Here was the silk-cotton tree at S'ei, one of the greatest
of all. Its roots made ridges in the path to the village.
Under the spiritual guard they spread, and to the large
oval of wood fixed on a wooden base which stood a short
distance from it, and to the low shelter where, on the head
of a crudely carved image, rested a whitened covered pot,
and farther to the mound of earth on which stood offerings.
Farther still the roots followed the path, and into the
village itself, until, perhaps half a mile from the tree, they
reached the Kromanti house and the village council house
and the home of the chief. It was as though these roots
were the arteries which fed strength to the Kromanti spirits
dwelling there, and as if they brought the wisdom of the
ancestors to the shelter where the men of the village
gathered to hear and try cases, to discuss the will of men
and gods as they touched upon the well-being of the people.
Upon our arrival we were bidden to the council house,
where men and women were waiting about. This was an
A NIGHT AT S'EI
open shelter, covered by a gabled thatch. At both sides the
eaves extended several feet from the posts which supported
the roof, and almost touched the ground. The floor was of
red clay, hardened and smooth. There were no stools about,
and no other decorations. Men summoned to a council
came with their own council benches. About two of the
slender posts which faced the path were obias made of
twined native sisal, of narrow strips of blue and red cotton,
and cowrie shells. Each differed a little from the other, and
each had its own potency, but what this was, none would
say. On one of the crosspieces below the eaves were large
balls of hardened red clay. They had been put there by the
old women to await the time for molding the clay into the
obia pots, which, after they had been fired, would be
blackened with the soot of rice hulls and oil and refired.
Against the crossbeams in one corner of the council house
the women had gathered, and at the other end the men were
seated on their stools, with Captain And'u and the bassia,
the man second in command, among them. While the men
were discussing the Neng'e Nana, their Negro grandfathers
from Africa, the women were addressing some direct
questions to the white woman.
Why was she not smoking a pipe, as fitted the position
of a woman of rank who was on her way to visit the Gran-
man ? What had she done with her children when she went
on this long journey which took twenty-one nights and days
to reach the Suriname white man's city.'' Did she like her
husband's other wife ^ Had she more children than the other
wife.'' What rank would her sons inherit from their uncles.''
"How many gods have you .^" one of the younger women
asked.
"I have four — three Vodu, and one Apuku," another
said, as though the question had been put to her, and she
could say with pride that she had three snake gods, and one
bush god.
The bassia's handsome wife, who had overheard the men
speak of the white man's book which showed pictures of
their ancestors, said, "The whites read out of books. The
[iS3l
'REBEL DESTINY
gods do not come to them." There was in her voice con-
tempt for women who had no gods. She was of a reddish-
brown color, taller and more slender than most, and the
great coils of brass about her arms and ankles told that her
beauty had had full recognition. These had come to her at
marriage, as had the small earrings of gold which the bassia
had brought to her from French Guiana. With these, too,
had come cloths and handkerchiefs, beads and carvings.
If white women had no gods, did they know any of the
other things which women must know.^* Did the white
woman wear an apron underneath all her cloths, as women
should .? Were her thighs cicatrized .? Did she cook for her
husband, or other men, when she should be isolated in
the special house provided for women's monthly visits ^
Did she purify herself with sacred clay when she emerged
from isolation in order not to spoil her husband's obias, for
which contact with a woman who has her menses is the
deadliest taboo .^ Why, having borne children, did her
figure not show it ."^
"Have you drums?" the bassia's wife asked. "Without
drums, how do you pray? How do you dance?"
Dancing without drums availed nothing.
"White women have no gods. The gods do not come to
them. They are not troubled by the need to dance. White
women do not pray," she concluded, seeing that what
dancing the white woman did could only be a feeble affair.
"I will send my son to your country. The men who go
to the French shore say it is good to know how to count the
white man's way. My woman-child I will never send,"
she finished with finality.
Now it was the white woman's turn to ask a few ques-
tions, having done explaining how her boots laced, and why
it was that she was dressed very much as her husband was
dressed.
The white clay in the hair and on the face of a small
child was medicine. The child's mother had washed for her
god that morning. He was a god whose day for dancing was
Wednesday, and now, feeling the god stir in her, she would
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A NIGHT AT S'EI
wash every day until Wednesday came to permit her to
dance. When she washed with the sacred moistened clay,
she rubbed the white on her children.
"Will all the women dance on Wednesday who have the
same god as you .^"
The child's mother shook her head. "If the god comes to
them, yes. If he doesn't come, they can't dance."
And the bassia's wife said, "The women who are in the
menstrual house can't dance. When they hear the drums,
they are troubled, but they must remain quiet."
The woman had spoken too eagerly and too loudly,
for her husband, overhearing her, said something in a
low rapid voice, and at once the women fell silent and
several of them remembered errands they had to see to.
"When men are In the council house, you mustn't
interrupt," said the bassia's wife to the white woman.
"If we did what you did just now, our husbands would
scold us when they got home, and if we did it again, they
would beat us."
She had taken upon herself all the prerogatives of
friendship, and continually criticized the manners of her
visitor.
The old were to be greeted last. A gift was to be received
by another. When returning a piece of carving to another's
hand, the carving should rest on the outstretched palm,
while the elbow of that arm lay on the palm of the other
hand. In the presence of men, a woman who took a stool
should turn It about and sit on its narrower side.
"Never sit on the bare earth. The spirits don't like it,"
she said one instant, and the next, "Don't play with your
fingers on top of your sun helmet. Your breasts will get
long. Drumming Is not a thing for women."
There had been other warnings during earlier visits to
Bush Negro villages, but none had borne down so heavily
upon the shortcomings of the stranger.
[iSS]
REBEL DESTINY
"Don't go oflF into the bush with a man. A child born to
you will have a bad bush god, if you do," she added as an
afterthought.
In the other corner, Chief And'u, the bassia, and about
half a dozen men were talking of the great book about their
ancestors which the white man had.
"It is large so," said the chief to one of the older men,
indicating an imaginary size which multiplied the size
of the actual volume at least tenfold. "And people say
it has in it pictures of the Apuku gods, small as we ourselves
know them, and a picture of the evil Apuku who appear
as fire in the distance. . . . Mati, white men have gone
into the Kromanti houses in the country of our ancestors
and have made pictures!"
"It is impossible!"
"I want to see!"
The old man said, "I will not look. Books are not for us,
mati."
"But mati, the G'aman has heard, and he wants to see."
The old man shook his head. He would have nothing of
pictures that figured what should never have been allowed
to be photographed.
It seemed prudent to give the conversation a new turn.
Down river, the men had said that a man of this village
had lately found a new neku liana. Was it so.^
"The man who found it was my son," said the old man,
"you should have come for the dance. You would have seen
how we do things here in the bush. But pictures you could
not take. No, mati, if you photograph, you take the soul."
The festivities for the find had been especially joyful, he
explained, for the boy had only recently come by his gods,
and this had been yet another proof that he would serve
his family capably. For though the find was his own, all
his relatives in the mother's line would enjoy its use. Here-
after, when the poison of its leaves and its slender branches
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A NIGHT AT S'EI
was wanted for killing fish in a creek, they would have
their own neku.
When a man found a neku vine, he first had to cut some
of it, and bring it home with him. Then he sent word to all
the men of his village to come and carry the branches of the
neku to the place of ceremony. He named the place and
day for the pounding of the neku. The invitation was given
in the name of the old men of the village, and the headman
sent his bassias, those men who assist him in village
affairs, with messages to neighboring settlements. When
this had been done, the finder of the vine appointed five
or six men of his own choice, and these were called " Bassias
of Neku." It was they who had charge of the ceremonies.
The night preceding the dance these men went about cry-
ing, "Tomorrow we will have neku. All must come." Again
the men went to the bush where the neku vine had been
found, and brought to the village some more of the vine
for pounding.
Early the following morning a horn was sounded, and
the men from the neighboring villages who had come for
the festivities also went and cut some of the neku, and
brought it to the pounding place. When the men were
gathered, each took up a stick and pounded the neku.
And what they crushed they put into corials filled with
water. These corials were then sunk in the stream. In a
short time the poisoned fish floated to the surface of the
water, and all the men took up their long-handled scoops
and began to fish. The bassias of neku, whom the finder
of the plant had appointed for the ceremony, directed the
fishing. When a quantity of fish had been caught, those who
were not of the village where the owner of the vine lived
gave of their catch to the finder of the neku plant, and
some went to the chief of the village, and the elders, too,
had a share of what the outsiders had caught, though in
some villages only the owner of the vine profited by the
gifts of the others. Then the men joined the women, who
were dressed in their finest cloths, and the dancing
began.
[IS7]
REBEL DESTINY
Later, through the gathering darkness, the people of the
neighboring villages went home, paddling their boats which
were loaded down with the fish that had been netted. And
from this time on, everyone knew that this neku vine was
the property of him who had found it, and of his family,
down through his mother's line, forever.
"Ai, mati, you would have seen something, if you had
got here for the neku dance!"
Like any other Bush Negro village, S'ei was a series of
sandy clearings about which were grouped huts of woven
palm fronds and palm thatch. All about was the big bush.
The trails which led from the village were each guarded
by a magically treated palm azang, and shrines to the
ancestral spirits who saw to it that evil was kept away.
Where the several paths led, a stranger was not encouraged
to discover. Down one, women were to be seen disappearing
in the morning with trays on their heads, their infants
astride their backs, held inside the folds of a cloth which
was fastened high above their breasts, and caught up again
below them. In many upper river villages, this path led
to the fields, some distance away. Others were the way to
shrines, erected to those spirits which must be worshiped
outside the village. Another path might lead to a brook,
which the villagers held sacred. There were trails, too,
which connected neighboring villages, and led perhaps
farther yet, but for the stranger, the highway was the river,
and no matter how short the distance between one settle-
ment and another, he was not invited to make his way
through the bush.
"You do not want to go through the bush, white man.
In the bush are evil spirits," we heard many times.
A village clearing was divided into quarters. Each quarter
was inhabited by one of the mbe, or extended families, and
the quarter bore its name. It was composed of several house-
holds— five or six or more, depending upon the size of the
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V illage guardians.
{/■'aciiK pat
A NIGHT AT S'EI
village. A household was not confined to one building
only, but few who were not men of rank and means had
more than three. One was for the woman and her children,
another for storing the crops, and the third was the man's
treasure house, where women might not come. It was like
the matter of wives. Only men of position could afford
more than one. But if a man had two wives and both
lived in his village, then perhaps five huts would bear a
design identified with him on the carved side posts which
outlined the low doorway. This design would recur in the
various carvings he had made for his women — it was his
crest. And though a man from another village, who was
not related to him, might like it, and liking it copy it, this
practice would be socially frowned upon.
A village quarter, however, did not contain only dwelling
places, and storehouses, and men's treasure houses. Certain
families also had in their part of the village an enclosed
shrine for the family gods. If in a given family a powerful
Vodu, or snake god, had come to an ancestress and had in a
dream, or in a seizure, or through a revelation made to an
obia man, chosen her as his ^asi — his priestess or medium —
then with this disclosure came the instructions for the place
of locating a house of worship to that Vodu, and the type
of house it was to be. Such a shrine, once erected, would
be kept in the quarter, and worshiped by the members of
that family. Sometimes in front of a dwelling hut, a low
enclosure, the size of a small kennel, would stand a little
to the side of the door. This was a house to Tone, the river
spirit. In one such house lived a woman who had a great
Tone god. She had the gift of prophecy. When the men
gathered for a council meeting in the village of the Gran-
man, then she, too, would sometimes be bidden to come
and sit with the men, though, being a woman, she could
never speak at council meetings.
*'Touch her skin," the other women said, pointing out this
albino woman, "and you will have your desires fulfilled,"
In each quarter, too, there was an open house where the
women did their cooking, and perhaps a platform or two,
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REBEL DESTINY
where, in the proper season, maripa nuts and rice were
dried.
One quarter differed very little from another, except
that in one there might grow the plant which yielded the
red and black beans used for the sacred rattles, and for
playing the game of adji, which entertained the spirit of
the dead while the body lay in state. Instead of a house to
the family gods, there might be found a mound of earth
in front of one doorway, with an axe-head lying upon it as a
shrine for a man's spirit, or a low forked stick sunk into the
ground, holding a pot with water and weeds in it for the
curing powers of its obia.
A village of any size had also a quarter in which stood the
communal buildings. The council house which might also
serve on occasion as the house for the dead was there. The
menstrual house for the women, a small building which was
recognized by a broken calabash, or a porcelain pot brought
from the white man's city, lying outside the entrance, stood
a little to the side. The Kromanti house, and perhaps an
enclosed shelter for the bush gods who shared the shrine
with the snake deities, was also located somewhere near
the open communal shrine. A village wherein lived the clan
head contained in addition a house for the ancestral spirits
of the clan. This was called a Fa'aka-pau zvosu, literally a
flagpole house, a euphemism for the shrine to the ancestors
for whom white cotton was put up on sticks. In this Fa'aka-
pau wosu prayers were offered up for all the important
ventures of the clan, and in time of stress a priest would
come there with sacrifices, to bid one of the ancestors to
enter his body and give him sight. When seizure came on,
such a priest prophesied. Sometimes the ancestors were
consulted in the same manner as that in which the will
of the dead was ascertained. Men would take up a sacred
plank and carry it in a state of possession; the elders would
put questions to the ancestor who had been called. The
answers were construed as favorable or unfavorable
according to the way the plank tipped.
[i6o]
A NIGHT AT S'EI
As we made a tour of the village, we discussed all this
with the chief and his bassia, and with the other men who
accompanied us. When we reached the open place sacred
to the great gods, we stopped. The shrine was a fenced-in
space, perhaps eight or nine feet long and almost as wide.
Inside was a slender pole, with a head carved on its top, and
a cotton tunic about its middle, and this was the wife of
the Great God, the chief said. The ladder with the platform
on it, on which stood a bottle, was the shrine of the great
Sky God. At the base of the image with the tunic were several
bottles, some white clay, and a few empty glasses, and
everywhere were sticks with cloth on them, many with the
cloth in tatters. Where the cotton had altogether rotted
away, the stick alone remained.
"Let us go in," said the chief to the men.
With the chief came a young man whose hair was braided,
and who wore several obias on neck and arms. He was
training to become an obia man. The bassia signaled us to
follow, but the others remained outside.
The young man took up a bottle and poured some of its
contents into an earthen jar, and from the jar he poured
out a libation to the Earth Mother. The captain prayed,
explaining that we were white people on our way to the
Granman, that he was leaving in the morning to notify
the Granman of our approach. Would the gods take him
and us in safety, and would they see to it that all we saw
should be seen with the eyes of friendship .? Tnen he prayed
for a child in the village who was ill, and for his people, and
for the clan of the Granman, the Matchau lo, and for his
own family. After each prayer he paused, and those outside
the paling clapped their hands and sang out, "Great
thanks."
Before the chief's prayer was finished, an old man came
by with a bush knife in his belt, and his gun. He was just
then returning from the hunt, and he stopped to thank the
great gods for the kill he had made. He spoke in a whisper,
but his intonation was as conversational as the chief's had
been.
[1611
REBEL DESTINY
"Tonight there will be dancing for you," And'u said,
when we left the shrine. "I will go and pray again before
the dance, and then I will go to my hammock early, for I
leave at sunrise. We will meet again at the G'aman's."
The bassia's wife followed us to our house.
"You are a woman, yet you went inside the shrine. May-
be you do have gods, white woman. When you go in again
will you pray to the Earth Mother for the woman Kupa,
who is my sister.'' Twice she bore girl children, and both
sleep. Now she is with child again. She wears many oblas
about her neck, and daily she washes with white clay.
She is the woman with the wooden obia doll hanging
between her breasts. No, not the one who has the small
black sack about her neck. Any woman who Is with child
wears that. You will know her when you see her. She is
beautiful."
7
The dance was held In the bassia's quarter, in front of one
of his houses. The bassia was a man of wealth. He had three
wives, while the chief had but two. Whether one of the
three was only nominally his wife and had come to him at
the death of a brother, we were unable to learn, but that
his means were large was apparent. The house where his
personal possessions were stored was built high on posts.
A house so raised stood out from those about It and bore
the same name as the moon. Underneath It, in the shelter
made by the posts, lay a partly made drum, some carved
wooden implements, and carpenter's tools. There was also
a forked stick In the ground upon which rested a black
obia pot with water and weeds in it.
The children began the dancing.
Ayo^ ayo
Ayo, ayei,
Agida comes,
Ayo, ayo,
Earth spirits come,
Ayo, ayei.
[162]
A NIGHT AT S'EI
A girl of ten or eleven led the chorus. She had a string
about her waist, and the strip of cloth that was tied about
her neck as a ceremonial garment hung down cape fashion.
About her navel and on her face the cicatrized patterns
had been completed. Her voice was the shrill voice of a
child, and the answering chorus was as shrill.
"Chaka, chaka!" called the bassia who was directing
the dance. He was demanding those movements which
bring into play the muscles of the hips.
The women waited. They had come in all their finery,
their tunics of the newest cloth, their coils of brass brace-
lets and anklets made to gleam by rubbing with sand, their
skins dark and glistening with the oil rubbed into them for
the ceremonial occasion. Those whose hair was worn in
braids had redressed it that day. About their necks were
beads. Their cloths were fastened tightly about them, so
that their figures showed plainly.
The men, also in their best, waited with them. The iron
Kromanti obias on their upper arms fitted tightly, and
showed the great muscles above and below them. Those
who wore beads had two or three strands of yellow and
red intertwined, the small beads worn by men, small almost
as okra seeds. One or two wore love obias — cowrie shells
sewed on a band of white cotton, and then dipped into
water which was thickened with white clay. One or two
wore a small black bell-shaped obia — half the size of their
thumbs — on a black string, and with swagger had swung it
about so that it hung at the back. There were obias below
the knee, and obias which were great brass rings for the
big toe of the right foot. But one or two of the old men,
and the young man who was in training for an obia man,
wore a jaguar tooth on a string of native twining.
Drums . . . drums. Would there be drums.''
The word was whispered from one to the other, and
passed like a wave over the waiting figures.
But there would be no drums. This was the day when
two gods might come. The god of the ant hill, for which
men and women might dance, and the buzzard god of the
[163]
REBEL DESTINY
men's Kromanti society. The elders had decided these
dances were too violent to show to the white man who was
with them for the night. Whatever of the esoteric the
white man was to see was for the Granman himself to
decide. To introduce the drums for the secular dances, and
the half-sacred awasa, would be dangerous, for once the
drums were there, and the spirit seized one of the players,
he would begin to call the gods. When the gods came the
dancing would take place until the spirits were satisfied.
"There will be no drums," said the bassia aloud. "There
is no one to play them."
No drums!
Again the whispering began. The eagerness, the energy
which had seemed to float in the darkness from one to
another of the waiting figures began to be dissipated. The
men and women still waited, but they were listless.
The little girl sang,
" The kogbwa drum
Sounds Tone.^^
And the chorus sang,
"Give us Tonky
The bassia who was master of ceremonies noticed the
loss of interest with displeasure. It had not been the inten-
tion of the elders, when they had made this decision, to
have it interfere with the reception of the strangers. He had
counted on having spirited secular dancing.
"Friend," he said to the young obia man, "get the danc-
ing started."
He turned again and again to the young man who was
being disciplined In the way of the gods, exhorting him to
beat time faster, to sing louder. And to the women he
shouted, "Shake, women, shake — chaka!^*
The dancing grew lively.
The white man had learned the words of the refrain, and
was singing with them. Master Nigger! here was a white
man who could sing their songs. The white woman had
[164]
A NIGHT AT S'EI
been shown by the bassia's wife how to clap her hands to
the rhythm of the song, and now she could not stop for an
instant, though her hands ached.
^' Batu mau — Clap your hands!" the bassia's wife called
to her, the instant her visitor's zeal slackened. She herself
was dancing in place, her infant on her back, sound asleep.
''' Chaka — Shake!" she too began to shout, and once
she was so carried away by her hand clapping that she
joined the dancers, and danced facing the obia man.
Tall and slender as she was, she crouched opposite the
man, her child on her back, and executed the most amazing
steps. It was as though every muscle in her body had been
set in motion by some invisible dynamo.
An old woman interrupted them. She stepped into the
circle, and put her arm about the bassia's wife. "Adoo!"
she crooned, and brought her to her feet. Another woman
had done the same for the obia man.
Now one of the men who wore both a love obia and a
brass ring on his great toe began a song. The melody was
only a variant of the one Bayo had sung and the seketi
songs we had heard at Gankwe and elsewhere. But here
the recitative of the leader was longer. What he sang was
not unlike one of our own ballads. He recounted the experi-
ences of a young Saramacca man on the Marowyne River.
He had met a Djuka woman, who had taken up with him
for his money, and in the end she had exposed him to her
people.
Another man sang of a war that white men had with
each other. Hard times came to the Saramacca people.
There was no work. Then their Granman sent a message
to the white elders. The Granman told them people should
live in peace together.
The bassia had no need now to spur on the dancers. The
small open space was a heaving mass. Nothing seemed
immobile. The stars darted, the lights of the small oil
lamps held by the bystanders flickered, the very posts which
held the thatch of the houses in place and ended some feet
[i6s]
REBEL DESTINY
above the roof, like great horns, appeared to sway now to
one side, now to the other.
The hand clapping grew louder and faster, and faster still.
The rhythm changed. Now the dancers were in pairs, feet
interlocking and raised from the ground, while they danced
each on one foot. It was one form of the hanya dance.
This was what was danced to the ancestors before the
opening of sacred dances.
The bassia stirred uneasily and soon sought out the
young obia man who was standing by. They whispered
together for a few moments, and then the bassia spoke
aloud.
"It is late, friends. Day will soon be coming. Let us end
the dancing. Let us go to our houses."
He turned and whispered to his wife, who came forward
with a smoking oil lamp in her hand. Like a knife she thrust
herself straight between the pairs of interlocked figures,
and began singing a slow moving song.
It is late,
Soon night will meet day.
Let us go to our hammocks,
Let us go to our homes,
Let the gods go to their homes.
In and out she went, separating the rows of figures, and
her beautiful voice cast a spell over the dancers. With feet
flexed, they stood poised to go on with their dance, yet
did not move. The hand clapping stopped, and the singing.
There was but the voice of the bassia's wife, who cut her
way through the massed body of dancers, her sleeping child
on her back, her oil lamp held before her, as she walked,
arm outstretched. The dancers gave way before the flame
in the small lamp, but still they stood there, their faces
disturbed. It was as though food had been brought to whet
their appetites and was as quickly snatched away.
At last a dancer reached for a lamp which was held by
an old woman, and then another woman reached for hers.
[i66]
A NIGHT AT S'EI
" . . . It is late,
Soon night will meet day ..."
they chanted, as others joined them. Dancing to the slow
rhythm of the singers, lamps in hand, all took up the song,
until the bassia's wife led the way down the path. In a few
moments the flicker of the oil lamps radiated in many
directions, and the quieted dancers followed by their families
went home singing.
[167]
Chapter X
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
tt AT BREAK of day I start for the country of the
A% Granman. I will see you there tomorrow, about
the time day meets night," And'u, chief of S'ei, had
said as he left the shrine to the Great Gods. Yet it was a
full day later that we next saw And'u, for the speed at
which two men could send a small corial upstream was not
that at which our heavily loaded boats traveled. As the
first day wore on and the succeeding one brought us closer
and closer to our destination, it was evident that the news
of the approach of the strangers had spread.
Report said that the white man had not come to bring
his gods to them. He was not buying timber, he sought for
no rubber trees, he was not here to tell them to grow new
crops or to work gold. There were, in the white man's
country, people who wanted to learn how other people
lived. In the white man's country there were people who
believed that men brought from the country of the great
Negro ancestors had become Indians, or whites.
Master Nigger! They, the Saramacca people, become
Ingi or Bak'a!
But why did people go about learning how others lived —
Indians, and coolies who were brought to work the white
man's plantations when their ancestors had won their
freedom, and Negroes .'' Did white men grow rich doing
this ? Would this white man put their carvings in the big
[i68]
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
house he told of, beside carvings of their Negro ancestors,
and then ask money from people who came to see?
Ambe! Was that what white people did to come into
money ?
From the provision grounds canoes filled with women
would dart toward us, and Bayo would call to us, as the
women cried their greetings, "Stand up, both of you.
The women want to look at you."
The women's requests were, apparently, not to be ig-
nored. Hurriedly we would climb out from inside the tent
and balance ourselves on our knees over the tarpaulin-
covered load in front of the boat.
"Look! Look! .... There are two men! It is not
true that the white man brought his woman!"
Like a master showman, Bayo would stand there in the
bow, his pole-stick poised for the next stroke, all his teeth
showing.
"Take off your sun helmet, white woman," he would
then say.
"Mother of all Negroes!"
"By Ando!"
"Her hair is yellow! She belongs to the river gods!"
"Is it that way they live in the white man's country .f*
Do they not know the difference between men and women,
that they both dress alike .^"
Again Bayo had a ready answer.
"A white woman who travels in the bush dresses like a
man. So they do in the white man's land."
"Master Nigger! Men and women wearing the same
clothes!"
When Bayo decided that the women's curiosity had been
satisfied, he would say his goodbyes to them with a flourish
and, bearing down on the top of his pole-stick, would
push away.
Soon we would hear Bayo's summons again.
"Come out. People want to see you."
This time there would be both men and women in the
boats which had come circling about us, and the questions,
exclamations, and Bayo's replies were heard afresh.
[1691
REBEL DESTINY
Now we were in the true, true Saramacca country, the
land which the Bush Negro feels to be entirely his own.
White men, it is true, had been here before, but only a
handful, and the gods of the river, who were powerful,
saw to it that of these not many got back to the white man's
land. True, true Saramacca country! Every Bush Negro we
met on the lower river spoke of it with the deepest feeling.
"It is all right here," one man after another had said,
"but wait until you see the upper river, the true-true
Saramacca!"
It was here that the first Bush Negro villages had been
built, though this seemed fabulous to the strangers who, in
strong boats, guided by men who were wise in the moods and
courses of the river, had had nine days of hard travel on the
way. The lower-river villages began to appear only after
peace had been declared and had proved lasting. Eighty-six
years ago men from the upper river who lived beyond the
Granman's own village, in the Grand Rio, had come down
and built the village of Gansee, which was some four hours'
paddling upstream from the railhead.
We spoke of this to Bibifo, who himself was born in this
country.
"You may well wonder, white man."
Here was no danger of having to wrest a camp from the
bush at night, when the short tropical dusk came to over-
take the traveler. Villages followed close, one upon the
other. Here was Ma'lobbi, where the beauty of the wood
carver's art had made us linger beyond the time allotted
to us for making the journey from S'ei to Asindopo Lantiwe.
Here was Hei Kununu — High Mountain — which rose on a
steep slope above the river, and was pleasant to see after the
long stretches of flat plain that lay below. Semoisi, noted
for its riches, was there, and Pempeh, bearing a name well
known in the Ashanti country in Africa. Here villages
were so close to each other that they could announce our
approach on the talking drums.
"What is it we hear, Bayo.?" we would ask.
"They are cutting down trees, Bak'a."
[170]
In the true, true^Saramacca . . . "
louse (it uiic rcccnlU' deaJ.
l"he approach li !!:c 1 apa \\ ata falls.
(Facing pagt
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
We would proceed a short distance, and we would ask
again, "Aren't those drums speaking?"
"Women are pounding rice."
But when we had asked the third time, he remained
silent for a while, straining for the sound as though he
could barely distinguish it. "Ya-hai, it's the apinti
talking."
Some distance from Godo, which is situated just below
the Tapa Wata falls, a small boat came up to us, paddled
by one man. Bibifo whispered to us that this was Sungi,
the head of the Kasito clan, and we knew that we were
somewhere in the vicinity of the sacred village of Dahomey.
He had come to pilot our boats into the Pikien Rio, he
explained, after the greetings were over.
"Farther ahead others will come to help your boats
up the rapids. I am here to show you the best course
through this rough water. The G'aman has sent me to you.
He awaits you."
"Bayo," we said, when Chief Sungi had left us to head
up our little flotilla, "show us the landing place of Da-
homey when we pass it."
We knew that we could not set foot in Dahomey, for it
is the seat of the Bush Negro's most potent magic.
Whether there is that in the village which the white man
may not see, or whether, as we had been told, the natives
do not wish to tempt the fates by bringing there those who
would be doomed by the magic which kills the white man
if he but treads on its earth, no one could say. But we had
been warned that it would be of no avail to ask to be taken
to Dahomey.
"Did you hear us, Bayo .^"
"Ai!"
When we spoke to him again about the Dahomey land-
ing place, however, he showed great astonishment. He
had pointed it out to us, he said. How was it that we now
asked about it again .'*
"It must be that it was with you like it was with the
other white man who wanted to see Dahomey," he said.
[■7>1
REBEL DESTINY
The Other white man was the Catholic missionary who
for years had been living in the Gran Rio. He was a friend
of the Saramacca people, and they liked him. Now this
white man wanted to see Dahomey. He said that he, too,
had a strong God who protected him. He asked so many
times that they at last promised to take him there. But
when he got to Pempeh he fell asleep, and he slept till . . .
till they reached the Granman's country. So his life was
saved. The gods, knowing that he was a friend of the
Saramacca people, did not want to kill him. They put him
to sleep until Dahomey was well out of reach.
"And this is what happened to you, Bak'a. The gods
did not want to hurt you, so you did not see."
Past these rapids and another stretch of rough water, and
then before us lay the highest falls of the Saramacca. To
the right, over a ledge of rock spreading in an unbroken
sweep across its entire width poured the Gran Rio, the
river up which lay the villages of the Loango clan, and
beyond, the untrodden jungle which barricaded the way
to the country of the Indians, and the basin of the Amazon.
To the left was the final bit of fast water that remained
between us and the village where the Granman awaited
us. We were at last in the Pikien Rio.
Here the stream narrowed, and we could see on both
banks the people who were waiting to see us pass. The
gay colors of the women's cloths were brilliant against the
background of green, and their hallooing reached our ears
above the rush of the water. A canoe with several young
men came alongside.
"We are here to help you with your boats. We have been
sent by the Granman. Fire three shots to let him know
you are in the Pikien Rio."
We fired, and instantly there was an answering salute of
three guns. With the reinforcement of paddlers, it did not
take long to reach the island which separated us from the
landing place of Asindopo Lantiwe. Here all strangers
[ 172]
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
Stopped to change their clothes, and make themselves fit
for the reception by the Granman.
We had been warned that these preparations were not to
be slighted. Those who had been to the village of the Gran-
man told many stories of the impressiveness of the cere-
monial life, and the dignity of those who were there. It
was the seat of government, the home of a potentate.
A visitor, whether a village chief or a man from the city,
had to keep in mind that he was to appear at court. Eti-
quette demanded that the traveler, once arrived at the
island which now hid us from the Granman and his
assembled villagers, debark, remove the stains of hard
traveling, and dress in a manner befitting the reception
which awaited him.
But the gods had planned otherwise.
At this time of the year, though the heavy rains were
over and the showers were becoming less and less frequent,
it did sometimes happen that the clouds gathered at
midafternoon and rain fell. To the northeast, behind us,
we had seen the clouds massing, and now they hung low
and glowering.
"It will rain," Sedefo called to us, just as we were making
ready to see to a change of clothes, and an instant later the
storm broke. With a kind of hurricane force which sent the
branches toward the earth, and flares of lightning and
crashes of thunder, the deluge was upon us. Not since our
first days in the bush had we coped with a rain like this.
The water poured down as though some giant hands were
turning over endless vessels. Our tent seemed to have been
taken as unaware as we were, for having sheltered us in
many hard storms, it was now inadequate to keep out
the downpour. We drew our raincoats tighter about us to
keep off the water which came through the thatch.
Under the trees of the island the Bush Negroes were
huddled. Their favorite top cloths were still in their
baskets, safe out of the wet under the white man's tar-
paulins. No chance now to put them on, or to use the oil
which they had jealously saved for making their faces and
[173]
REBEL DESTINY
shoulders and arms glisten, or otherwise to make themselves
presentable for the reception. There was nothing to do but
to keep close to a tree-trunk, water dripping from naked
body and the strip of twisted loin cloth, teeth chattering
in the sudden chill brought on by the storm.
The head of Sungi was suddenly thrust inside our
boat-tent.
"I saw the Granman. He says the storm is passing. You
are to come to him as you are. It is best so. Waiting here is
cold."
Turning, he ordered the paddlers to their places, and
almost before the paddles were in motion, the guns began
to fire.
"The Granman knows the time it takes to give a message.
The Granman knows everything," said Bayo in great
admiration, as the guns saluted.
Three shots, and three more. Two shots, an interval, and
another coming faintly. Then a short silence, and once
more the guns, in clusters of three, but now sounding from
several directions.
As we rounded the bend of the island the farther bank
was alive with people. The rain had subsided to a drizzle.
Across the strip of water which separated us from the shore
we could see men and women and children standing about,
the women with large food trays inverted over their heads
to protect their finery. But the men, disdaining such aids,
stood In the rain and looked on with undisguised curiosity.
Boats joined ours from up and down the river. With the
sound of the guns came hallooing, shrill cries which were
the women's expression of enthusiasm, actual or ceremonial.
As we watched, several figures appeared on the high bank,
the others making way for them. Two of the men were not
dressed in the colored toga-like cloths that were worn by
the others, but In coats of rich material which reached to
their knees. They wore black top-hats with cockades at
the side. One of these, we recognized as Chief And'u of
S'ei. His coat was of deep crimson, bordered in blue, and
his companion's a vivid yellow. Both of these men carried
[174I
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
long wands of office, of black wood topped with silver
knobs. About their necks were heavy silver chains, and
from each chain was suspended a large silver crescent.
Another man stood near them to one side. He wore a
long coat of white edged with scarlet and blue. He carried
no stick, and wore no insignia. On his head, over a white
kerchief wound tightly about the head and caught up in the
back, was a white sun helmet. Above his head, held by one
of the younger men who accompanied him, was an umbrella,
the highest emblem of rank. It betokened that this man was
Moana Yankuso, Granman of the Saramacca people.
3
Kasanya was first out of the boat when the dugouts
were brought to shore, and after him came Bibifo. Sedefo
and Asikanu remained with the younger men, waiting for
the Granman to indicate that he wished to receive them.
Only men of rank and elderly members of his own clan
would go at this time to speak to the headman, who stood
there watching the boats.
"We came, G'aman," we heard Kasanya say, "and we
brought the Bak'a." Two or three low-voiced sentences
followed, and then the conversation was terminated by the
elderly functionary in the yellow coat, who came down to
our boat.
"I greet you in the name of the G'aman, Bak'a," he
announced. "The G'aman himself awaits you. Come with
me.
As we stepped out of the boat, the hallooing of the women
and the shouts of the children, which had stopped when the
paddlers addressed the Granman, began once again, and,
as an underlying voice, the salutes from the shotgun were
to be heard. The old man, shifting his wand of office to his
left hand, now carefully helped first the one, then the other
out of the boat and, offering his arm to each in turn, led
us to the top of the steep rise, until we were face to face
with the Granman. It would have been unlucky had we lost
our footing at this moment of welcome. This chieftain was
[175]
REBEL DESTINY
there not only to tender the courtesy due the guests of the
tribal head, but to see that no such mishap occurred to
them.
When we had both gained the ascent, he turned to the
Granman.
"Headman Yankuso, the Bak'a is before you."
As though just become aware of us, Yankuso fixed us
with his eyes, fastening his glance on each in turn.
"Odi, white man. White woman, odi!"
A great figure of a man he was, as he stood there. Tall and
massive of build, he towered over those who surrounded
him. Barefooted like the rest, there was that in his bearing
which was the way of a man who was accustomed to
obedience, whose word was final. He was pure Negro. His
skin was dark. In his features there was no hint that the
lineage of this ruler held any of the blood of the white
masters, nor that his ancestors numbered among them
Indians who had given way before his invading forbears.
His face was impassive, yet underneath the outward
immobility was an alertness which the glistening, oil-
anointed skin made the more alive. His speech was
measured, his words articulated with studied emphasis,
which gave to each of them the value of a completed image.
" Bari — Cry out!" he called to the women in his vibrant
voice. "Halloo, give the welcome of the bush to the people
who came."
Amid the renewed cries which his command brought, we
turned from the river bank and walked slowly up the path
toward the village, past the silk-cotton tree, past the shrine
to the ancestors, until we reached an open place on which
fronted half a dozen thatched buildings.
"This is my house, white man," he said, pointing to it.
"I will put you near me. I will put you in the council
house."
4
The council house at Asindopo Lantiwe — the village of
Asin, the seat of government — was unlike any we had seen.
[176]
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
Two of its walls were of the plaited palm fronds which were
entwined into so pleasant a pattern on the houses of the
Bush Negroes. The side walls, however, were carpentered
of slats which formed a paling, and over this the slanting
roof hung. Through the spaces between the slats we could
see the brown feet of the passing villagers, an occasional
flare of a gay tunic, or a corner of a man's cloth. Occasion-
ally the big eyes of a child who had wandered over to the
paling peered through, to see what was happening inside.
Through the slats of the wall nearest to the Granman's
house we saw tall earthen jars resting on a plank. There
were perhaps four of them, all of varying sizes, and these
held creek and river water to which the magic properties
of weeds and incantations had been added.
The purposes of these slats were manifold. Not everyone
could sit within the council house when the tribal chiefs
gathered. Only those whose rank qualified them appeared
inside when court was held. But to those sitting quietly
outside those palings which formed the side walls of the
house, what was spoken inside was clearly audible, and it
was thus that many listened for the decisions which they
awaited. Then, too, since this was an enclosed council
house and when the door was open a plaid cloth hung
over the doorway to insure privacy, the only light which
penetrated came through these openings in the side walls.
The eaves hung low, barring much of the light that might
have come through the palings, and this allowed but the
grayest flicker even at midday and brought into the council
house the atmosphere which symbolized to them the cool
of morning. The word "cool" was their image for peace, and
health, and fairness, and deliberation, and justice. Inside
the council house, then, was a light which "cooled the
heart," for heart and head are synonymous to the Bush
Negro when he speaks of emotional states. T' /-\)
It was not a large house, and it appeared smaller because
of the many furnishings that were in it. Against the wall
facing the door a number of magnificently carved benches
lay on their sides, one on top of the other, there obviously
[ 177]
REBEL DESTINY
to be admired for their artistry, but there also for ceremo-
nial purposes which were never divulged. When one of
these benches was later taken down to show the magic of
paper which, placed on the top of a carving and rubbed with
black crayon, reproduced the design beneath, the Granman
looked startled, and then ordered that it be replaced.
Nor were other rubbings allowed.
On both sides of these massed benches were many objects
which could barely be distinguished in the half dark-
ness of the house. There were guns and canisters, there
were a few native brooms, and several wrapped parcels.
There was also an apinti drum on which the gods were
addressed. Not even at Ma'lobbi, where the chief, a famous
carver, showed us many remarkable products of his art,
did we see designs worked with the fine, sure lines or the
beauty of individual motifs such as were traced on this
apinti. The carving was in relief and covered the entire
surface of the drum, which stood about three feet high,
curving outwards from the top, and resting on a narrow
circular base which raised its body about six inches from the
ground. It was covered with a deerskin that use and
exposure to the atmosphere had stained unevenly to shades
of amber.
Facing these carvings was the door which, itself of
wood, swung on wooden hinges of native fashioning. In
relief appeared the Earth Mother, and surrounding her
were the symbols of fertility. No man, not even the Granman
himself, dared speak her name in this council house. At
trials, when oaths were taken, she might be appealed to,
but to call her idly would bring down her wrath on the
Granman's clan, and, perhaps not stopping there, since
the council house was of all the clans, she would revenge
herself upon all the people of the Saramacca River. The
carving was more beautiful than on the apinti which stood
against the opposite wall. The greatest artist on the river
had made it.
"That man had the gods, ya-hai," the men said, when we
talked of the Granman's carvings.
[178]
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
Above the door was a shelf which did not quite reach
the entire width of the wall, and on this shelf were the
council benches, which the Granman supplied to the visit-
ing chiefs. These benches were small, low, and as little
ornamented with carvings as the work stools used by the
women. But on the sides symbols were incised, and at
least two of them we were able to identify as clan emblems.
One of these had the conventionalized patterning of the
hatchet, the emblem of the Granman's clan, and another a
flower which is associated with the people from whose
group come the principal diviners. The tops of these simple
stools sometimes had inlays of dark wood, but whether their
outlines were of ritualistic importance or not, no one
would say.
From the beams hung several umbrellas, still inside the
wrappings in which they had come from the white man's
city, and a wickless metal lamp, into whose chains enve-
lopes were inserted. These envelopes contained letters
received by the Granman which awaited the coming of the
missionary to be read, or letters which had already been
read, and were there to add color to the official scene.
There were also other Bakra sani — white man's things —
in the house. A canvas folding chair which filled almost an
entire wall stood against the slats beside which, on the
outside, were the earthen jars. This was for the Granman.
He sat in it with the majesty of an emperor. No one ever
approached it too closely, and we were never invited to
take our ease in it when the Granman was in his own house.
In addition, there was a table in the center of the room,
covered with a red and black plaid cloth from the city, and
two straight-back chairs. On the table stood an alarm clock
which was set for the noncommittal hour of twelve and a
glass decanter filled with rum.
Chief And'u was the first to join us inside.
"It is fine here at the G'aman's."
"Yes, it is a fine house. And you, And'u, you look well in
your coat. Is it when you are with the Granman that you
dress so.'*"
[179]
REBEL DESTINY
"It is the coat of a chief. All chiefs wear these coats
At the G'aman's we wear the best we have."
We looked at his silver-topped wand of office. "Do all
chiefs carry these.'"' we asked.
"Not every chief has a stick like mine. And all chiefs
do not have one of these." He pointed to the crescent of
silver which hung from a chain about his neck.
"It is beautiful."
"Ya-hai. And it's old."
Embossed on the silver plaque were the arms of Holland,
richly worked.
"After the time of running away, when the fighting was
over between our ancestors and the whites, these were given
to us, and the wands of office. But not all chiefs have their
wands from the white man. Some have the ones we call
'free sticks.' A man who has a 'free stick' is not a chief for
the white man, but we know that he is a chief."
He added that the whites had made an agreement with
the escaped Negroes that if they would no longer raid the
plantations and carry away slaves with them they would
be considered free men in their bush, under the white man's
government. Since that time the Bush Negro Granman and
certain of the village chiefs had had official recognition, and
as a token of this each of them had been given a uniform, a
high hat, a crescent with the arms of Holland worked on
it, a silver-headed staff, and an annual stipend.
"The chiefs who have 'free sticks,' the white man does
not pay."
As we spoke of these things, we were interrupted from
time to time by the noiseless brushing aside of the cloth
which hung above the door, and the entrance of one of
our men, or a man of the Granman's village, who brought
in our canisters and hammocks. With not even a glance in
our direction, they would leave as noiselessly and return
to the river. Through the slatted side walls we could hear
the sounds of such activity as we had not thought possible
in the tropics.
[i8o]
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
5
Outside the doorway we heard a decisive clearing of the
throat, louder than the coughs we had already learned to
associate with the approach of a visitor. After a short
pause, the Granman's bulk filled the low entrance, and with
him came the elder in the yellow coat, followed by Sungi
of Dahomey, the chief who had come to pilot us to the vil-
lage of the Granman, and the bassia from S'ei.
The men stood with ceremonially inclined bodies until the
Granman was settled in his chair, then each in turn took a
bench from the shelf above the door, and still with body
bent found a place for it against the wall facing the
Granman.
After a silence, the Granman spoke.
"The unloading is done. I have set aside five houses for
the Bak'a. Mati — friends — the white G'aman told me
about this visit when I was in the white man's city. Others
have told me. People who come to me must be cared for.
The white people are come. They sit among you. The Bak'a
and his woman will put up their hammocks here. Here they
will stay. The white man's goods are stored in the house in
back of mine. The white man has much goods. There is a
man from the city who helps them. He will sleep where
these goods are stored. So I speak. That is my wish."
"Ya-hai, G'aman," came the assent from And'u.
"Kelele," said the chief in the yellow coat.
"The house in back of this I have had the women get
ready also for the white man and his woman. When the
chiefs gather for councils, and they want to be alone, the
whites must have a place to go aside. I have given a house
for the cook, and an open house for the cooking. So it is.
People who come to me must be cared for."
"True, true!"
"So it is."
"Kodo!"
"White man," said the Granman, for the first time turn-
ing to us, "you have heard?"
Ii8i]
REBEL DESTINY
For a few moments there was a rapid interchange between
him and the old man in the yellow coat.
"The down-river men who have brought the white man,"
the Granman continued his cadenced speech, "will be
housed in the village. The four Gankwe men will put up
their hammocks in one house. The other four will be put
up in my quarter. So it is. So I care. ..."
"Yes, wise man."
"Gbolo!"
The ceremonial introductions followed, and each chief
was praised for his special services to the Granman. The
man in the yellow coat was of the Oyo people, a son of a
great line, held high in the esteem of men and gods. Sungi
was a man who knew much of the white man's wisdom. He
had been to the French shore, and knew the French tongue,
he knew about white man's medicine, but, friends, he was a
child of the bush! And'u was a beloved chief, an honest
man, a man to send on missions of trust. The bassia was a
clever man, one of the men of And'u's village. The gods
loved him, for what his hands touched turned to wealth.
He was a good man. He was a friend.
A low cough was heard outside. Slowly the cloth was
raised, and crouching into the hut came Kasanya and
Bibifo. They were carefully dressed, and each wore a ker-
chief drawn tightly about his head. These they wore by
right of age.
The bassia, lowest in rank, was greeted first, and then
each chief in his turn, until the Granman was reached.
"Greetings, G'aman."
"Thank you, friends," came the vibrant answer.
This began the colloquy of inquiry about each other's
well-being, which here at court had a longer ritual than
anywhere on the river. It was a prelude of measured song
which introduced all speech between strangers. Bibifo
began timidly and did not show himself equal to the many
variations which Kasanya had introduced with ease.
"Friends, I am glad you came. You must tell me what is
happening in your villages."
[ 1 82-]
AT THE COURT OF THE GRANMAN
Now it was the Granman's turn to supply the interpola-
tions, while Kasanya and Bibifo reported.
"Yes, so it is. So I know it to be myself. So I have heard,"
he spoke when they paused.
But when the ceremonial greetings were over, and the
conversation turned to down-river affairs, the Granman
leaned forward in his chair and talked with the men in-
formally. They were all clan members, or men belonging
to clans whose allegiance to the Granman's rule was
undoubted, and they talked over many things in the way
men do when they meet with their own kind.
The room was growing darker. Yankuso called through
the slatted wall against which he was leaning, and the
young man who had fired the guns entered.
"Bassia, it is getting late. We must leave this house to
the white man. These men with me are my friends. They
must drink before they leave."
The bassia took the decanter from the table, and from
the shelf underneath it, where we could dimly see shells
and containers of shot, he took several small glasses. Before
taking the glass to his lips, each man poured some of the
liquor on the ground as a libation to the Earth Mother,
and, as each drank, he turned to Yankuso and asked if he
might leave.
*' Mi da permissi — I grant you permission," he said to
each.
When we had finished our meal, it was already dark.
At the door of his own house, Granman Yankuso was
sitting on a low stool.
"I have something for you," he said, disappearing inside
his house. When he came out, he held in his hand some black
object, which we were unable to identify. "You have fire.?"
he asked, as he suspended this object from a tree which
grew between his house and the one in which we were
staying.
"There was a white Hollander here who brought this to
me. He went from here farther into the bush. He never
came out. Light is a good thing at night. When visitors
[183]
REBEL DESTINY
come, I bring the lamp out. This is a big fire. In the village
of my father, across the river, they can see it."
The blazing light made the night seem darker.
"Bak'a," the Granman went on. "For many days you
and your woman have been on the river. You are tired.
Tomorrow, when you have slept, you will be refreshed.
Tomorrow my chiefs will be here. You will tell us why you
have come, what you want to do."
He turned toward his house.
"Du mundu, Bak'a," he said. "Let all sleep well."
[184]
Chapter XI
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
GRANMAN Yankuso's day began before the break
of dawn. When the day was at its coolest men's
hearts were cool, people said here on the river, and
when hearts were cool they could be trusted with weighty
matters. But long before men came to stand outside the
Granman's house advising with him as he lay in his ham-
mock, the women arrived to report in low monotones the
happenings of the previous day, and to take orders for the
one to follow.
Lying in our hammocks in the council house, separated
from the speakers by the wall of palings and perhaps five
feet of clearing, we could hear voices outside from a little
after three in the morning, until with the coming day the
soft footfalls died down and gave way to the sound of
stamping mortars and the cries of children recalling their
mothers from early tasks.
What was being said outside we could not hear, but as
the days wore on we learned to recognize the voices of the
speakers. We learned to know from the rapid, contradicting
flow of words which followed upon one of the Granman's
orders, that it was his principal wife who spoke, or from
the halting, crooning phrases, the voice of his eldest daugh-
ter, who had mastered her father's gentlest intonations
and now of a morning brought them forth as though she
were speaking her lesson. We learned to know as well
the range and intensity of the subdued grunts with which
[i8s]
REBEL DESTINY
the Granman punctuated the pauses of the men, though
not often their meaning.
But whatever the reports of the women, and the com-
mands given by the Granman, the word for white man
interspersed all of the morning's recitals, and the questions
of the Granman and the answers often came fast.
Of the men, the Granman asked little. They came up in
pairs usually, and now one, now the other took up the
report. Clan names were spoken, and occasionally a village
name was mentioned, but on the morning preceding the
council of the chiefs, only one village was discussed, and
one clan. The name of the village was the forbidden one
where we had stopped for the night against the Granman's
orders, and the clan was that of one group of our paddlers.
Early on the morning after our arrival at Asindopo
Lantiwe, our paddlers came to see us in the council house.
The Granman was busy outside his own house with the
chiefs who had gathered for the council meeting, and these
men who, like ourselves, were strangers here, came as
comrades of an adventurous journey to visit with us and
talk over the impressiveness of our reception and the allure
of the women of the Granman's village, who were famous
everywhere on the river. It was a village where chastity
among the girls was closely watched, and where its women
were given in marriage to the most influential men on the
river.
The men were gotten up splendidly. Their bodies glis-
tened with oil, their cloths were made of the long strips,
pieced together by their women, and of patterns which the
sun's rays had had no chance to pale. Sedefo's was particu-
larly fine, we thought, but he assured us that it did not
compare with the one the river had claimed. His cloth was
also made of strips, but the stitching which connected them
was a lacy weave, worked in triangles, and made to resemble
the vertebrae of a snake. The border was of triangular
[i86]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
pieces of red and blue cloth worked with this thread, so that
again the white vertebrae showed. Bayo and Angita wore
their beads, and each had a garter below the knee of the
right leg. Their garters were white in color, but of a white-
ness which only new, unwashed cotton has. They were
about an inch and a half wide and were so tight that the
muscle of the calf bulged prominently. On their upper arms
were Kromanti rings of iron which, by contracting, warned
the men of impending danger. In addition, Sedefo and
Angita wore the bell obia of the Gankwe people, and Bayo
his love obia which had come from Lame.
"When do you go, Sedefo.'"'
"When the G'aman speaks. When we finish a piece of
work, then we do not want to be paid at once. We do not
leave at once. It would be as if we had not gone together in
pleasure and wanted to be away as soon as possible. With
the white man it is one thing. In the bush we do not do it so.
Here in the G'aman's village, we do as we do with our own
people in the bush," he paused for an instant, and looked
about toward the clearing outside the palings. "There is
another thing. In the G'aman's village, men cannot leave
until the G'aman gives permission. When the G'aman is
ready, he will call us. We will speak together. Then we will
speak with him again. Then we will ask to go."
Bayo had been looking about the council house with an
interest which was not unmixed with awe at the Granman's
possessions, and he spoke in whispers.
"Ai, when the G'aman gives permission, then we go."
As he spoke, the cloth over the doorway was gently thrust
aside. Bassia Anaisi of the Granman's village entered.
He was the man who had fired the saluting gun the day of
our arrival and who had at the Granman's call come to
serve the visiting chiefs with rum. He now greeted each in
turn but did not take down a bench. For a moment he
stood there, head lowered out of deference to the character
of the place where he was, then he coughed slightly and,
turning to us, said, "The G'aman is ready for you. The
chiefs are here."
[187]
REBEL DESTINY
Our paddlers rose at once and left the council house. A
moment later And'u entered, followed by a group of elders
with closely drawn kerchiefs covering their heads. Among
these only Kasanya and Bibifo were known to us. Kasanya
brought his bench close to ours and moved it yet closer,
with a gesture of the head that he wanted to continue the
intimacy of our ten days' journey together.
"White man," he said, leaning over and whispering,
"call your man from the city. At a krutu a man has someone
to speak for him. So we do here."
And so, we soon saw, it was. Address in the council of the
Saramacca people was always by indirection. If the Gran-
man wished to speak to one of his chiefs, then he gave his
message through another chief, though the man for whom
the words were intended might be closer to him or more
clearly in view.
Others came in, until the room was half filled when the
Granman entered. Today he wore a printed red and black
loose coat of knee length, and over it the ceremonial cloth
worn by men here in the bush, so that where other men's
bare shoulders showed was the sleeve of his coat. On his
head were both kerchief and sun helmet. The men were
anointed with oil, and many of them wore the jaguar's
tooth obia. The last to enter was a man who was well past
middle age, and he was followed by the young ohiaman
from S'ei. Both of these men wore the cloths required of
men when not at work, but they were not so uncreased,
or so new. Nor were their bodies bright with oil. The older
man had several broad stripes of white clay from wrist to
shoulder of his right arm, and from knee to pelvis on the
inner left thigh. Slung from one shoulder and reaching
across to the opposite thigh was a white obia made of
native fiber, and on his neck were several others. To these
obias were added iron bands on his arms, while below his
right knee and at the ankle of his right foot were other
obias made of fiber and twisted black thread.
The men we knew greeted us as they took down their
benches and found places against the wall farthest from the
[i88]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
Granman's chair, and the Granman sent the dark flame of
his eyes into all the corners of the house to verify the
bassia's statement that all were there. The krutu was about
to begin.
3
Discussion among the Bush Negroes is the close com-
panion of authority, and both are symbolized in the word
krutu. Krutu is at once court and parliament, and whether
it was that two Bush Negroes wished to discuss the prof-
fered price for a carved paddle, or whether the Granman
and his elders met to assess a penalty against a recalcitrant
village, the term applied was the same — krutu.
We had had no little experience ourselves with krutu by
the time we reached Asindopo Lantlwe. When our paddlers
came to us again and again to suggest added fees for the
journey upstream, they came to krutu with us. When at
Gankwe it had been decided that Sedefo and his three
companions might go with us, it was a krutu, and at
Pa'aba when the men "went toone side" and decided we were
not to be brought to the village where men whose spirits
were strong danced Kromanti, it was again krutu. There
were, too, the innumerable krutu in the villages on the way
when we asked to buy carvings or obias or fish traps.
Now when the question was being decided formally
whether we would be permitted to stay here on the upper
river, it was again a krutu.
To understand what was implied in the term, how the
Bush Negro himself regarded it, what the etiquette sur-
rounding it was, and how it was integrated into the life
of these people, it was necessary to range far and wide over
this bush civilization. At the core of this word we found two
ideas. One was the necessity of direction. "When the boat
lacks a steersman, it sleeps quietly," these people say of a
village whose chief is dead. Direction, authority was their
legacy from Africa. Their ancestors had known the rule of
dynasties, and the power of men who reigned.
But there was also the idea of the importance of free
discussion, the need to weld authority and the will of those
[189]
REBEL DESTINY
over whom it was exercised. When the ancestors of the
Bush Negroes were brought to New World slavery, what
measure of acquiescence they showed was due to the fact
that slavery was not an unfamiliar tradition to them. They
knew of the war captive, or the man convicted of a serious
crime, who was a slave to one of their own kind. But the
experience of the white man's slavery was a crucible in
which the ownership of man by man, and the unquestioning
obedience which men owed to those of higher rank, were
destroyed, leaving only the ideal of the life of free men.
"Free!" was the way in which one Bush Negro toasted
another, or a white man, when he drank with him. A ^^ Man
Nengere^'' an adult Negro was, above all, a free man, and
it was as a freeman that he was governed, for though
villages had chiefs, and there were bassias who were sub-
ordinate to chiefs, and though above the village chiefs were
clan chiefs, and over them all the Granman, yet the final
word rested with the members of each subsidiary body,
and not with its leader.
Every village had its officials, and its medium for discus-
sions. Every clan had its head, and its old men, who,
sounding out the will of the clan members, consulted with
that head when questions were to be decided. For the
decisions affecting the entire Saramacca River, there were
the Granman and his krutu, before whom questions of
larger policy or disputes between villages were brought.
Perhaps most impressive of all was the measure of auton-
omy which each village had. A village, or certainly a group
of neighboring villages belonging to the same clan, formed
a small kingdom. A Bush Negro of another village who
came to visit, came as any stranger, paddle in hand, his
top cloth covering his loin cloth. When he found himself
in a strange village on a night when a dance was being
given, he did not join the dancers until after much urging
by a native of that village, and then he danced little, and
if he were a particularly fine dancer, he took care not to
flaunt his superior gifts. The exception to this, to be sure,
were the sacred dances, when a stranger, whose god came
[190]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
to him when the drums called that god, could not be held
accountable for what he did while his god had him in his
control.
No stranger, no man who came to live in his wife's village,
even though he had spent a good part of his life there, took
it upon himself to offer advice to his wife's family. Again
and again we would hear from men and women on the
river, "In our village we do it this way," or, "We only
carry the corpse on the head twice. Our spirits don't like
to be troubled more often," or, "Mawu as a name for the
Great God is used in our village, but not everywhere on the
river."
There was the experience with several sacred images of
village gods we had bought from an upper-river village.
Our paddlers refused to carry them for us from the village
to the boats, and it was with marked uneasiness that they
permitted us to put them into the boats.
"We do not know what these gods can do. We do not
know what is hateful to them. They are the gods of another
people. We won't carry them."
But with the gomi — the child of the village of his
mother's family, it was quite otherwise. He was a member
of the village, he had a voice in its governing, he knew its
gods. If he belonged to the family of the chief of the clan, if,
let us say, his older brother were the chief, or if he was one
of several nephews of a chief who had no surviving brothers,
then at the death of the chief there would be a krutu, and
the men of the village would decide which one of the several
men who were eligible for the office was the most capable.
Though rank was hereditary there was always selection
among several heirs, and again the final word rested with
the people of the clan. The offices of lesser chiefs — village
chiefs who were subject to the clan chief, or bassias who
served the chiefs — were passed on in the same manner.
While law making was in the hands of the chiefs, or
captains, and the krutu over which they presided, law
enforcement was the task of the bassias. It was they who
saw to it that the orders of the chiefs were carried out. When
[191]
REBEL DESTINY
some action was decided upon by the krutu, the several
bassias were entrusted with its execution. Most villages
had at least one woman bassia, and she was responsible
to the village head for the behavior of the women. If food
was to be gathered for a festival, If the village was to be
cleaned for a special occasion like a visit to the village of
strangers, it was she who saw that the work was done
properly. If there were disputes between two women. It
was she who carried the news to the village head, and she
who transmitted his censure or decision, if the affair was
not of sufficient gravity to warrant the calling together
of the old men.
"Do the women talk In the big krutu .^" we asked Bassia
Anaisi, of the Granman's village.
"No, not In krutu. But they talk plenty at home."
The bassia, we learned, had other duties. He was not
only the messenger of his chief, he was also his official
spokesman at krutu, and his Intermediary In all matters
of authority. If a council of the village was to be called. It
was he who announced this to the men. When the men had
gathered, it was not the chief who spoke, but the bassia
who propounded the questions at issue. It was for this
reason that Kasanya had leaned over and advised us to
call for our town man.
Krutu, we learned, were of two types. Every village had
its "G'(2 Sembe^^ — Its council of the older men — who acted
as an advisory body to the village captain, and the '^Lanti
Krutu,^^ the meeting of all the men of the village. In this
latter general assembly rested the final decisions.
Any Important Issue involving the village would be
handled in two krutu, the g'a sembe krutu, and the lanti
krutu. In this big lanti krutu where all the man were repre-
sented the bassia would speak the words of the chief and
of the old men, and then the people would "go aside."
This going aside was the concomitant of every consultation,
no matter how informal the group or how unimportant
the question which was being considered.
[ 192]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
" We go asei^'' we would be told when the question arose
how far we would travel on any given day, or when we
urged a reluctant man to sell a ceremonial bench with which
he was loath to part. When the answer came back, it came
as a unanimous decision of those most concerned. The
members of his family had talked over their need for money
and weighed that against his personal love for the object
he had carved, and most often the decision was against
his disposing of it. He cared for it, that meant it pleased
his ak'a, his soul, and of what worth was money when it
was a question of displeasing his soul, which might begin
to trouble him .''
"Bak'a, if we cut off our heads and sell them, then if we
buy hats, where will we put them.^"
So it was in krutu. The lanti, the people, discussed what
the bassia had said, as they went apart in small groups.
From time to time, a bassia would be called to join one
group and then another. What did the chief have in mind
when he said this, or that.'* What did the old men think
the consequence would be of the action under discussion.'*
Was it desirable for the village to take a slight, and do
nothing at this time .'* Was it necessary to arrange a com-
promise, instead of taking the matter into their own hands
and beating the members of the offending clan .'*
After this discussion, each group came back to the
assembly united in its stand. If all the groups were agreed,
the matter was ended, and the wisdom of the chief and
his councilors prevailed. If all disagreed, then it would
have been temerity indeed for a chief to attempt to impose
his will against the massed dissent. But if there was a lack
of agreement, then the long debates would commence.
Man after man would summon all his oratory to the argu-
ment, and for hours the various factions would speak. In
the end, the will of the group would be swayed one way or
the other, and a decision reached.
But this was only the procedure in the lowest assembly —
that of the village. As men grew older and their sons and
[ 193 ]
REBEL DESTINY
their nephews took up the dancing for the gods, their
interests were directed more and more toward the clan
rule.
"I do not dance any more," Sedefo had told us, "My
sons dance Kromanti now. I must do now what is expected
of a man of my years. I must see that our people act wisely
in all things which touch this world, and the world of our
ancestors."
A clan krutu was a self-sufficient unit made up of members
whose maturity fitted them for looking after the worldly
and supernatural welfare of their people, for in the larger
organization of the tribe it was the clans who stood one
with another in perfect equality to complete the whole —
the Saramacca people.
The chieftain of the principal village of the clan was
the clan head. In him was vested the right to speak for the
large grouping, and in the krutu which he conducted the
etiquette approached that of the tribal krutu in its intricacy.
The village where the clan head lived was inhabited pre-
dominantly by his people. In other villages on the river his
people might be one of several clan groups. Several villages
were inhabited by three or even four clan groups, each of
which had its own captain. But such villages were not the
seats of clan heads. Where a clan chief ruled would be not
only the clan krutu house, but the shrines raised to the
important dead of the clan, the clan ancestors whose
spiritual powers to help and advise the living were as great
as the feats they had accomplished when alive. Here, too,
at the village where the clan head lived would be the shrines
to the gods who had the clan under their special protection.
Above all, here under the direction of the chief were not
only those who guided the worldly destinies of the clan,
but those who knew how to control the supernatural forces.
Here were the obias owned by the clan, those spiritual and
unique healing powers whose magic would respond only
to the will of clan members who had undergone the training
which taught them to operate those forces their ancestors
had left for them.
[194]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
"I have my obia from Lame," Bayo had said. "People
like me because of this obia."
When we came to Lame we found that the people who
inhabited it controlled more than the love obia. They
had a powerful fighting obia, too. There was not only
bumba, that gave power in love, but also poitchi, the obia
that helped a man in a fight. But one who wanted to become
a great hunter did not go to Lame. Such a person sought
out an obia man of the Dombi clan, who, working with the
power of mafungi, helped him to see his game in the dark
bush, though the animal was of the color of the bush itself,
and, once having tracked it, helped him make his aim
deadly. A man suffering from a bad gunshot wound would
try to get an obia man from the Loango people to come and
call on the powers of the Loango clan-obia to heal the
dying man. For broken bones there was magic in the sacred
village of Dahomey where centered the Kasito clan, and at
Dahomey was also the best magic on the river for warriors.
^ Bofyuando and sokoma^usu were the two great warrior
obias, and so powerful were they that if one but whispered
their names, without taking the stems of two weeds, putting
one crosswise on top of the other, and over them passing a
coin to recompense for speaking the sacred names, the man
who spoke would die. These obias belonged to the Kasito
people, so strong in magic.
Of these clans there might be twelve or thirteen or four-
teen. Among the Saramacca people, we learned, the clan
partakes of the mysterious, the awesome. Our Bush Negro
friends did not discuss their clans readily, and none of them
would give us a list of their names. A few might be men-
tioned by one man, a few by another.
"To speak of the lo is not a thing for strangers," we were
told. "My clan I can name, and another man can tell you
the name of his clan. My father's clan I can name, too, but
not others."
On one occasion we had made clear to a young man who
had been away for some time in French Guiana, and who
considered himself a man of the world, why we sought the
[i9Sl
REBEL DESTINY
clan names. He went to his mother's brother, and asked
for the origin of his own clan, and the relationship that
existed between the lo to which he belonged and the others.
"It is for the old men to know," his uncle replied. "When
you are old, you will know these things."
"But you must tell me. It is my right," the young man
insisted.
"It will be your right," the older man corrected him.
And there the matter rested. But from one, and from
another, we gathered the clan names. One village belonged
to one clan, its obia was confided to us, and at another
village we learned the name of still another clan. So the list
of names slowly grew — ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
But some clans were paired in a fashion we could not
fathom, and when the clans are grouped so as to express
/the tribe as a whole, the expression that is used is that of
/ "the twelve lo."
The clan we found to be rooted deep in the land. Each
clan had its own territory, and in the region it controlled
only the men of the clan might fish in the creeks or fell the
hardwood trees which the white man in the city bought.
All of the up-river clans had land on the lower river near
the railhead, and an important down-river clan, like that of
the Gankwe people, had land deep in the interior. Whether
fear of invasion, on the one hand, or the need to have their
own strongholds in the event of factional disputes, on the
other, dictated this division of the land, it was, of course,
impossible to determine. Yet it was unquestionably useful
for a clan to have representation up and down the river in
this fashion. Thus a man, as he traveled up or down the
river, would be sure of at least one or two places where he
might count on receiving the welcome due him as one who
is at home among those who have come from the same
"old mother," and where he might feel spiritually safe
among people of his own blood, and among the same gods
as those of his own village.
Village, clan, and above these the tribe. So it was that the
political order of the Bush Negro was integrated. Tribal
[196]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
assemblies such as were reported from the Awka people
on the Marowyne were here not called regularly. There
was no central body here to make decisions. The autonomy
of village and clan seemed almost unquestioned. There were,
to be sure, clan alliances, but these bore more directly on
the factions which had formed to control the choice of the
next headman. At this krutu, therefore, which had just
gathered, there were Captain Sungi, head of the Kasito or
Dahomey clan, and And'u, the able chief of the Dombi
people, and the headman of the Popoto people, and the
headman of the Anago. But Fandya of Baikutu who headed
the Nasi people was not there, nor were the Awana people
represented, nor the Alabaisa, nor Kwama, nor Bi'ito, nor
Fandaki, to cite some examples. Of the missing chiefs,
several of them lived a considerable distance from the seat
of the Granman, and indeed had been to his village but
few times.
"Ai, men must krutu," Kasanya had told us one day
on the river. "If a few men decide, then the others have
anger in their hearts. That is not good. When the lanti
meets, and all men talk, then those who came with anger
cool their hearts. Talk is good."
And another time, Sedefo had found occasion to quote
the proverb, " If you have not settled one thing, you cannot
go on to the second." The best way was to talk things over
until all men saw that what was proposed was good or bad.
4
In the krutu house of Asindopo Lantiwe the Granman
began to speak.
"Mati — friends — the white man has come. He sits there.
With him is his wife. She is there beside him. The man
from the white man's city has come. He is there. He will
speak for the white man. The white man has a cook.
The cook is outside."
"So it is, G'aman," said Captain Sungi.
"Mati, the white man came. All who come to me must
eat. The white man must eat."
"True, true, master of the realm."
[197]
REBEL DESTINY
"Bassia," said the Granman, as he turned to the young
man who had come to announce the krutu to us, "go and
tell the lanti the white man has come. Tell the lanti the
white man must be fed. All who come to this place must eat.
Tell the people they must hunt and fish. Let them bring
their kill to us here. Let them bring the fish they catch in
their traps. Let all know, and may the gods favor their
hunting."
"Ai, clever master," came the response, as the bassia
left to issue the orders of the Granman.
"Bak'a," he said, turning to us, "you come from the
city of the white man. The G'aman of the white man, in
the white man's city, two moons ago, sent a message to us.
It is here." He rose from his chair, and reached for several
envelopes which were inserted in the chains of the hanging
lamp. "What has been written, we cannot read. You know
the writing that white men know. Read what the G'aman
of the white man has said."
We opened the letter, with its great official seal. In it was
a message from the Governor of the Colony, telling Granman
Yankuso of our projected trip to the country of the Sara-
macca people, asking that we be received by him at his
village. All this was read in its translation and transmitted
to the Granman by our town man. As he spoke, it was the
Granman who punctuated his pauses with the ceremonial
afiirmations.
"So it is."
"Sol hear."
"It is as I know."
All listened attentively to the reading of the letter, and
when it was concluded, the Granman turned to the mem-
bers of the krutu.
"Captain Awagi, when I go to the white man's city,
word is sent on ahead so that the people of the city know
when the G'aman of the Saramacca people comes. So it is
in the bush. When a white man comes to the bush, it
is well that from the white man's city they tell me who is
coming."
[198]
\/
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
"Kodo!"
"Another letter has come, Bak'a. Will you read that
one, too ?"
This was a communication written by a lumber factor
down the river. One of the villages, it seemed, was in
dispute with another over timber rights. The case was
laid before the Granman by the factor, who asked that
the controversy be settled promptly, since the dispute was
keeping the men of both villages from cutting the lumber
which had been promised him.
Yankuso now spoke again: "You have heard the mes-
sage, friends. The man who buys timber asks that I settle
this dispute between two of our clans. Their villages are
far from here. The clans of the Saramacca people can
settle their own disputes."
"Gbolo!"
"So I say, friends, I can look at the cows, but from a
distance I cannot tell how many there are. It is not for us
here to decide this."
'' Kweti, kweti! — No, no!"
"It is true, friends, as the Saramacca people say, 'The
G'aman's breasts are for all his children.' But it is not my
children who have come to me. Bak'a," he said, suddenly
turning to us, "later you will write for me to this man who
buys lumber. Tell him that for the sake of sweet soup a
man eats sour dumplings. So I say."
The Granman looked about him. The heat of midday
filled the darkness of the council house, and old Bibifo had
dozed off. The gaze of the chief fixed him.
"Mati!" he said, when Bibifo stirred. "Sleep is death!"
Slowly the Granman's eyes circled the room until they
came to us.
"The Bak'a has come," he repeated, with his slow
intonation, every syllable clearly enunciated. "When the
Bak'a came, the rain fell. From Asindopo Lantiwe we shot
guns of welcome, from Abenda Konde guns were shot.
In the heavens, the gods spoke them welcome. There was
thunder."
[199]
REBEL DESTINY
"True, true, G'aman."
"Captain And'u, the gods sent the rain to cool every-
thing when the Bak'a came. The gods of the river carried
the Bak'a without mishap. We have heard of what the
Bak'a has done. He has been at your country, at S'ei. He
says he comes to learn. He says he does not come to buy
wood or to work gold. What he says is good. Yet a full
creek does not clear the bank of weeds. Tell us what the
Bak'a did in your country. Captain And'u."
"The Bak'a came to S'ei. All that was there he looked
at. He walked about the village. His woman talked to our
women. The Bak'a spoke with our men. He asked about the
obias in the krutu house. His woman asked our women
about their gods. What was the name of the wife of the
Gran Gadu, he wanted to know."
With every sentence, came the affirmation of the chief.
"Sol know."
"So it Is."
"By Andol"
"So I heard."
And'u continued. "The Bak'a knows the land of the
Negroes — a sahi Afrika. With him he has a great book. In
it he has pictures."
"True, true."
"There are pictures of obias."
"Ya-hal!"
"There are pictures of the Kromanti houses."
"So it is!"
"There are pictures of people who have the gods."
" Kweti-kweti — No, no!"
"Yet pictures in S'ei the Bak'a did not make. The Bak'a
said, 'If your ancestors tell you not to talk, do not talk.
But when you talk, do not lie!' That which we did not wish
to be done he would not do, his woman would not do."
"Gbolo!" exclaimed the Granman, "this Is as I have
heard. Now the Bak'a has come up the river. His woman
has light hair, she is as our Tone people. The river has
treated the Bak'a well. The gods of the river have let the
[ 200 ]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
Bak'a pass. Friends, the river is more than I am. . . . Let
us hear what the Bak'a has done on the river. Friend Kas-
anya, you have traveled with the Bak'a. Speak of what he
has done."
"It is as Captain And'u has said," Kasanya began, "what
was forbidden, the Bak'a did not do."
The Granman interposed an objection.
"I sent a message to the Bak'a by the husband of my
daughter. To him I said, speak to the Bak'a, say that at all
villages on the Saramacca you will be received. But two
villages have not walked well with the G'aman. At those
you will not stop. Yet at one of them the Bak'a stopped."
"So it is, cunning master. This was how it happened.
Darkness was falling. Everywhere was the big bush. A
storm was on its way."
"So I know."
"There were no other villages near. The next one could
only be reached after dark. There were bad rapids ahead."
"So I understand."
"The Bak'a woman was in the boat. To make camp
before the storm came was not possible. We had a krutu.
We spoke with the Bak'a. The Bak'a said we must go where
we could find a roof."
The Granman grunted, was silent for a moment, then
took up the story.
"Friends, night overtook the white man in the bush.
He had a woman with him. The men said they could not
make camp at night. The white man took his woman to
where there was shelter. Into the village he did not go.
At the first house he slept. Early in the morning he left. He
does not know the river. The men brought him at dark to
the forbidden village. The gods sent a great wind when the
Bak'a crossed the river to show their displeasure, but the
Bak'a and his woman they did not harm. The gods took it
into their hands. The gods are more than I am."
"So it is, G'aman."
"Friends, the children of the bush know what is done
in the bush. Yet a man's lips must speak for himself. Let
[201 ]
REBEL DESTINY
the Bak'a himself tell why he has come the long way to the
Saramacca river and what it is he seeks."
There was a general chorus of agreement, and silence
awaited our accounting.
As the town man began to repeat our words to the
Granman, the quiet of the house was heightened by an
occasional stirring outside the paling. From where we sat,
we could see brown motionless feet, which told us that there
were many more than those inside, who were listening to
the white man's reason for being in the bush.
Again the Granman made the traditional responses.
"So it is, white man."
"True, what you have said, bassia."
Finally our telling was at an end. Again there was a si-
lence as we sat, tensely waiting.
The Granman again broke the silence.
"Friends, chiefs, you have heard. The white man is here.
He comes to learn of our life. The gods of the river have
brought him and his woman safely. The Great God sent the
rain to cool the air when he reached Asindopo Lantiwe.
The gods are more than I am. The river is more than I am.
But the Saramacca people are also more than I am. It is
you, headmen of the Saramacca people, who must speak."
"Ai, G'aman," said the man who had the stripes of white
on him and who wore the many obias. "But have the
ancestors spoken .''"
"Truly you ask, friend," was the response. "It is well
that you think of these things. In the bush, we think before
we speak. Do you go aside and consider well."
Slowly the members of the krutu arose from their
benches. Softly, with bent form, each passed out of the
doorway. We were alone with the Granman, who waited
with us for the reply of the chiefs.
5
; As the elders slowly filed out of the council house, it was
V^/ as though a jury were leaving the courtroom to decide a
case which had been laid before it. And as we learned more,
[ 202 ]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
we found that for the krutu to act as a jury was an im-
portant part of its work. The krutu not only saw to the
making of law, but it was also the medium for levying
penalties upon those who transgressed law. The same krutu
that legislated could judge infractions of its legislation.
In its hands was the power to enforce the decisions it had
made against the offender.
We had wondered whether, in this Suriname bush, the
African court which so characterized the civilization of
the ancestors of these people had survived. When we heard
of the supernatural vengeance which followed upon in-
fractions of custom, we sought to find out if people took
the matter of punishment into their own hands, if kunu
was reinforced by human assistance.
"Ai, mati," a chief once said to us, "kunu is strong, but
the krutu is strong, too."
If a man had sworn an oath against another, had called
down upon another a curse of some evil spirit, or asked
that the gods make a man impotent, or that they stop the
womb of his wife from conceiving, or if a man murdered by
means other than witchcraft, then he was judged by a
krutu. A man who had destroyed a canoe belonging to
another — a serious offense, for, as the Bush Negro says,
"Had our forefathers not had the wisdom to build canoes,
we would still be slaves to the Bak'a" — he, too, would
come before this court. The adulterer would be brought
here for the assessment of his fine.
When the krutu sat as a court, the accused was not with-
out the right of defense. If it were thieving, or adultery,
or the telling of falsehoods, or trespass, or the destruction
of the property of another, where the kunu involved was
not of the greatest, then the case was judged on the basis
of the evidence. In the court, the interests of the one who
was accused were cared for by one of the elders of his mbe,
his relative and a fellow member of his own great family.
But when the crime was one of the greater ones, then
methods other than the sole use of testimony were em-
ployed. Evidence was necessary, but evidence was not
[203]
REBEL DESTINY
enough if the accused persisted in denying such crimes.
In that case he called upon the gods to witness that the
sin of which he was accused had not been committed by
him, and this called for trial by ordeal.
The ordeal as a judicial measure was not unknown to
our own civilization. In Africa it flourished in the native
courts before the coming of the white man, and, it is whis-
pered, still persists in the Suriname bush. The facts as
we tell them, we cannot vouch for from our own experience.
They were given us independently by two men who have
spent many years among the Saramacca people, men who
speak the language fluently and who for long periods have
lived in this big bush of the Saramacca tribe. Other facts
which they told us we had been able to corroborate. These
whispers, however, we could not check, for few Bush
Negroes would admit that they knew anything of the
ordeal.
One way of trial by ordeal was to ''^behe so^i,^^ to drink
the oath. It was utilized in accusations of witchcraft and
sorcery. The priests and the elders prepared a drink of
deadly poison. Over it magic incantations were pronounced
by the obia men. The oath of innocence was taken, and the
accused drank. If the potion was retained and the man
died, his guilt had been proved, but if the drink was
vomited, he was innocent. What his redress was if he were
proved not guilty, we were not able to discover.
"If a man is guilty of zvisi — of evil magic," our friend
said, when he told us the story, "he would be afraid of the
oath. When it came time to drink, no matter how brave
he was, he would confess."
Then there was the proof offered in adultery cases,
described to us by the other man who knew the ways of the
Saramacca folk. When both man and woman who had been
accused of misconduct denied their guilt, the procedure
this man had witnessed was this. The woman was made
to kneel before the assembled krutu of the village. While
she knelt there, a buzzard's feather was put into water, in a
calabash of the kind they call gubi, and the water was
[204]
THE COUNCIL OF THE ELDERS
treated with obia. An obia man now addressed the woman
who denied the charge that had been lodged against her,
restating the accusation and her denial. Then he asked her
once more if she were guilty, and when the answer was still
"No," the test was applied.
Through the woman's tongue the quill of the feather,
which had been treated with magic, was thrust. When
the entire length of the feather had passed through the
tongue, then it was that the proof was had. If the woman's
tongue neither swelled nor showed blood, she was innocent.
But whether it be trial by ordeal or through the taking
of testimony, punishment by the krutu went along with
punishment by the spirits. Only incest, we learned, was
not punishable by the court. That was for kunu alone to
avenge.
Once more the krutu was in session. Where the men had
"gone aside," we did not know, but while we sat in the
krutu house, alone with Moana Yankuso, we heard nothing.
The Granman had spoken little. Were our hammocks
tied well the night before .'' Were we satisfied with the
arrangements he had made for the storing of our supplies.^
What were the elders deciding.^ We could not but wonder
with anxiety. Would this krutu, after the fashion of the
bush, where time meant so little, come to no decision ? Was
the answer to be one that had been previously arranged.'*
Chief Sungi was the first to speak.
"G'aman, we have gone aside. Your captains and bassias
have spoken together. We say, the white man has come.
The white man must eat. Let all be told to bring gifts, that
you may feed those who have come to you."
"So it is," was the Granman's response. "Friends, great
thanks to you. What you have said is good. Let all return
to their villages. Let all tell their people that the white
man has come. Let all come with gifts, that we may eat."
There was a chorus of affirmations. The Granman arose.
[205]
REBEL DESTINY
"White man," he said, "I have told the young men to
hunt, I have told them to fish. My captains, who are here,
are going to their villages. You have heard. Their women
will come with rice. The young men will bring their kill.
So it is in the bush. So G'aman Yankuso holds those who
come to him."
As the elders, each with his word of leave taking, left
the house to us, we thought of the Granman's last words
and of the verdict of the krutu. We had sat long enough
in this assembly to realize the circumlocution which went
with all statement, and we tried to decipher the cryptic
words of the chiefs. Was it a verdict at all ^ Or was it merely
a way of refusing to come to any decision when the white
man sat in the krutu which was deciding the fate of his
visit .^ That the decision would be reflected in the attitude
of the people of the village seemed reasonable to suppose.
And so, drawing aside the curtain which hung over the door,
we went out into the open square before our house to see
what the krutu had decided.
[206]
Chapter XII
WOMEN AT WORK
A WOMAN stood in the council house, dipping her hand
into a calabash and spraying the ground and walls.
East and west, north and south she turned, with
her fingers pointed downward toward the hard clay floor,
then with palm upturned sending the water toward the
thatch.
Evil spirits,
You must not come here.
You must dwell in the bush,
The bush is big.
0 spirits,
Do not come here,
Remain in the bush,
The bush is big.
Startled by the white woman, who had taken her un-
awares, she allowed no apology. Her wet hand went quickly
to her lips to show that not a word was to be uttered. In
silence she withdrew, beckoning the white woman to follow
her, and not until they were well away from the house
did she break her silence.
"Come with me. Inside there no one must speak."
Some day, before we left, she might be able to tell what
she had done and what weeds had gone into the water.
[207]
REBEL DESTINY
Now she could but say that the Granman had asked her
to see to this.
"It is good medicine. Do not be afraid," she added,
reassuringly.
She led the way to her quarter, but before we had gone
past the open shrine she stopped, and her eyes narrowed
as she tried to come to a decision. From the quarter we
were approaching came a crooning, moaning sound.
"A god speaks. The Apuku god has come to a woman this
morning. Come. We will go to the G'aman's women,"
she said as she retraced her steps.
On a squared log in back of the enclosed shrine which
adjoined the council house sat the Granman's principal
wife. She was a woman who in her prime must have had
beauty, but, though still erect, she had deep grooves on
her face, and her breasts were the breasts of an old woman.
Her head was closely shorn, as was the way of women whose
children were grown. Like any other woman of the village
she wore only the short cloth and the bit of kerchief which
showed at her waist. Like the others she went to the provi-
sion ground almost daily. She and her younger daughter,
who was named Wilhelmina for the Queen of Holland,
cared for their field together, and now they were working
side by side.
Wilhelmina was more robust than her mother could have
been at her age. She was tall, more her father's daughter.
It was she who served his food and looked after his personal
needs. She was the wife of the man who had brought the
boat which Sedefo had rejected, because he did not trust
its spirit. As she worked, her two children were with her,
the elder a child of three, sitting on the ground at her
feet, and the other on her back, or in her lap nursing while
she did her tasks.
Unlike her older sister, Wilhelmina had little of her
father's astuteness, of his quick eye, or his schooled tongue.
She went about with the slow, sensuous grace of someone
not quite awake, while her older sister busied herself with
making the rounds of the village, observing this and that
[208]
WOMEN AT WORK
which went on, so that she might recount it to her father.
The women of the village walked "softly" with this older
daughter. "Daughter of the G'aman," they called her
when they addressed her, and her mildly spoken, persuasive
suggestions were never ignored.
Wilhelmina, however, busied herself at her work, and if
anything were asked of her, she would look up with an
expression of bewilderment. Differing from other women
of the village, who had come to live there after marriage
and knew the speech of the less aristocratic down-river
settlements, Wilhelmina had never been any distance
from Asindopo Lantiwe, The other women were, therefore,
constantly interpreting the questions which were being
put to her.
She was dark of skin, as dark as her sister, but her face
had a flush of red in it, as though she had brushed it with
the sacred red kuswe. A little above her wrists gleamed wide
bands of tin. These were bracelets her husband had made
for her, and they were much prized. The brass coils which
she once wore had been filed through and removed, for
when the ankles of a woman who bore children swelled,
it became necessary to be rid of these ornaments.
In a small mortar, decorated with carvings, she was
pounding maripa nuts. The ends of the pestle were bordered
with finely cut cross hatchings.
"Ai, we use much palm oil here," she said.
Her mother was paring cassava. At her feet were several
baskets and pieces of bark, shaped like miniature canoes,
into which she threw the peeled cassava. Near these con-
tainers lay a sifter, woven of palm fiber, and a grater,
made of a thin board perhaps sixteen inches long and half
as wide, into which long slender nails had been hammered
and their points filed to a needle-like sharpness. When
the tubers were peeled, Wilhelmina began the grating, first
squatting down, then dropping to her knees, better to work.
The grated cassava was then packed into the matapi, the
cassava press which had before leaned against the house.
This matapi was of a basket-like weave, golden in color
[209]
REBEL DESTINY
and tall as the Granman's wife herself, though In circum-
ference no larger than the post of the house against which
it leaned. The woven strands were caught together In the
loops with which it was finished on top and bottom.
When It had been filled, the matapl was hung from the
stub of a stout limb, and one end of an equally stout stick
was Inserted into the bottom loop, while the other rested
on the ground. Now Wllhelmina and another woman sat
down on this stick, and under the pressure exerted by their
combined weight the matapl slowly contracted. A milky
white fluid containing the poison which made the raw bitter
cassava so deadly filtered through the woven strands,
trickling into the gourd placed to receive It. Steadily the
poisonous fluid was forced out until It was not long before
the gourd was filled, and the cassava pressed dry. When
there was much work to be done, and the white woman
was not about to ask questions, the women would not
waste their time sitting on the stick, but instead would
suspend heavy stones from thongs tied to the bottom loop,
and they were then free to be about their other tasks. Now,
however, it was more amusing to sit and talk.
Whatever the method, when the meal was rid of the
poison, it was worked through the sifter into a closely woven
basket, and in that kneaded and made ready for baking
on the large iron griddles. The use of the bitter cassava
they had learned from the Indians, and the names for the
sifter and the cassava press were to this day Indian, as
were their weave and shape, but the griddles came from
the white man's city.
"We use Indian water jars, too. The red pottery we do
not make. But black obia pots are Negro things. These
our old women mold," said the Granman's wife.
As she spun cotton for the garters she would later make,
the woman they called the Granman's younger wife sat
and talked of working the fields. Her spindle, a small iron
[210]
WOMEN AT WORK
rod set into a base of clay, rotated steadily as she worked.
Her fingers moved fast, for she did not require too fine a
thread. The raw cotton, she said, she got from a wild "cotton
tree." Cotton which was picked in the fields and which
grew from seeds planted in the ground, she did not know
at all. Was there such cotton .''
Working in the fields, she continued, was not too difficult.
It was a woman's work. A woman did not mind it. From
earliest childhood girls followed their mothers about, and
learned how to work the fields.
"What is hard is having to cut my own field. I have no
man to cut it for me. I must cut it myself."
She paused for an instant to right her thread.
"When I plant my field, and pray to the gods to make
the seed grow, then I ask the Earth Mother to help me find
a way to get a man to cut my field for me. 'Earth Mother,'
I say, 'help me find a man to cut my field. I have great
need of a man to burn my ground.' ..."
Seeing two women approach, she said, "Fenekonde here
is like myself, she too needs a man to cut her field."
But this needed explaining. Here were two women who
called the Granman "husband," and who shared the
difficulty of having to clear their own fields.
It was soon made apparent, however, that both of these
women were only nominally wives of the Granman. They
had married into his family. When kunu, however, killed
one successor to his office after the other, these women were
made widows. Like the widow who now worked alone
before her house which fronted the clearing, where stood
the shrine to the great gods and the Granman's principal
houses, they had worn tattered clothes, and a twisted ker-
chief as a band on their heads. For five months this had
lasted, and then a dance was given.
Did the white woman know about the ceremony called
pat Adyo?
The white woman had heard the word Dyo-dyo from
natives of the town many times. Once, indeed, a question
about it put to an old woman, who it later developed was
[211]
REBEL DESTINY
at the time approaching a state of possession, had provoked
great anger.
"If you do not know what the Dyo-dyo is, then you are
not human. Then I won't talk to you. Have you never
walked and felt something in back of you, yet nothing was
there.'' Have you never had a dream.'*"
The Dyo-dyo was one of two souls with which each
individual was born, the old woman had later been per-
suaded to explain, for each man had his akra, his personal
soul, which if he were mindful of it, remained with him,
and allowed no evil to come to him; and each man had his
Dyo-dyo, his wandering soul. At death the soul which had
wandered came back to the body. If it were permitted to
stray once more, this soul, which had been ever restless in
life, would wander about troubling the living.
But now, sitting among the women in back of the Gran-
man's shrine, it seemed again best to admit that she knew
nothing of the adyo ceremony. Fortunately, there was no
outburst of anger this time, for here in the true, true
Saramacca country, it was soon evident that there was a
pride in their magic, and their language, because these were
held to be uniquely their own.
"We give a big play for the breaking of mourning.'' All
the drums were played, and the rattles sounded, and the
kzvakzva — the hard-wood bench played with two sticks —
was beaten.
For this important ceremony, the oldest living brother
of the dead man provided food and rum, and, when the
time came to partake of this food, he and the hei mundu —
the people of rank — sat about the doorway of the widow's
house. She herself stood inside the house, behind the thresh-
old, scattering food for the dead, and pouring rum on the
ground. Rice and peanuts and sugar cane were thrown
away, but not yams or plantains, for those things were
not given in their village to the ancestral spirits. As the
widow "threw away" the food she wept. In the clearing
those who did not eat danced adyo. In a circle, men and
women danced in close file, one behind the other, each
[212]
WOMEN AT WORK
holding a stick the size of a well-grown boy's arm. Round
and round they went, as the widow from her doorway
moaned her lament, and guns sounded in honor of the dead.
The more important the man, the more guns were fired.
Their own men had been the Granman's brothers. There
was shooting till . . . till late afternoon, when they
could not delay the bathing at the river any longer.
Before dark, all had to go to the river to bathe, and the
widow, too, was led there with the others. There she purified
herself, and discarded her mourning clothes, drawing on
new cloths, and making herself fit with ornaments for
the ceremony of rejoicing. This was followed by dancing
which lasted late into the night. All the gods might be
danced to at an adyo ceremony — Adonko; Vodu, the snake;
Opete, the buzzard ;Tigri, the jaguar; and all the gods of the
bush and the ant hill — and, at the beginning, the seketl
social dances and the half-sacred awasa. These dances
were held for the spirits of men and women alike, and it did
not matter whether the dead, or the living members of the
family of the dead, shared these gods with the rest of the
villagers, or not.
"But mourning is not over yet," said Fenekonde.
Seven months more elapsed, she showed on her fingers,
before a woman might cohabit with her brother-in-law.
If there was no brother-in-law to take her, then a woman
had to wait twelve months after the adyo ceremony,
instead of seven.
"If a woman doesn't care for her brother-in-law,"
continued Fenekonde, "or he doesn't care for her, then,
when the seven months have passed, he comes to her
hammock for two nights. Then she can go to another man
at once."
When the husband who had died left no brothers, and
there was no one else in his family to take the widow,
the family of the dead man sought out a husband for her.
"They look and they look, until they are weary," said
the Granman's younger wife, "but a man must be found
before a woman can come out of mourning."
[213]
REBEL DESTINY
And Fenekonde said, "Mourning is hard. The widow
must not go to the river alone to wash. Other women must
take her there. Her husband's spirit might seize her. Her
hair must be cut. If not, he will get her by the hair. Her
clothes must be ugly. She must keep herself unclean, so
that his ghost will not long for her when he sees her."
But mourning was difficult not only for a woman. A
man's mourning period was no less burdensome, they
added. He too wore old clothes. When he went to wash, his
wife's brother took him to the river. If he had another wife,
he did not go into the hammock with her, for the dead
woman would be envious and would kill him.
There were times, however, when women did not go into
mourning for their husbands. If a woman carried a child
in her womb, then she did not put on mourning clothes at
all. She did not weep, she was not allowed to show any
grief. That same night the dead man's oldest living brother
would come with her in the hammock. If there were no
brother, another man would come, for some man had to
come.
"He must come. It cannot be otherwise. She cannot go
to her hammock alone. So it is every night when a woman
carries a child in her womb. A man must be with her, for
the sake of the child."
3
In the clearing the widow stood stamping rice. About
her the rice hulls flew and made a half circle of gold at her
dark feet. Her mortar, which was made of a hollowed-out
log, like a drum, was large and reached almost to her hips.
On the ground was a large tray which she used for winnow-
ing the rice. With slow, regular beats she lifted and dropped
the pestle, and as her body swung with its slow motion the
head of the sleeping child on her back rolled this way and
that.
Her two small boys had gone to live in her mother's
village, but this girl child remained with her. She was born
[214]
Combs, the gifts of men ti
A tray for winnowing rice. (Symbolism on pages 282-283
WOMEN AT WORK
more than a year before her father's death and therefore
had not saved her mother from mourning.
"My sons are big so," she showed, pointing to the
mortar, "and already my brother takes them with him
down the river, and when they are with him he tells them
about the creeks and the trees, and where the villages are
which are friendly to our people. But when they come here ,
to see me, then they play. They have play guns and play '
arrows which they make themselves. Into the uncleared
bush they shoot them until I call them away to eat. Here I
have no man from whom they can learn. Here they only
play."
But boys liked to be with men. When the rains came, her
brother would let them sit by when he carved, and, seeing
him work, they would take up a knife and begin whittling.
That was how boys learned to do men's work.
Women children played with "gossi." She put down her
pestle, and felt about in her cloth where the child slept, and
brought out a gourd, resembling in size a small cucumber.
It had beads on top for eyes and a few deft cuts to indicate
nose and mouth, while above the eyes was crosshatching
for the hair. Until girls were old enough to be of use in the
fields, they sat about in the clearing playing with theseX
dolls.
"When they are four and five, then they like to work."
There was, of course, dancing. All dances were opened
by the children, and at six and seven the girls knew seketi
and awasa, and bandamba, and the boys danced susa.
"Do you dance susa?" we asked the Granman's five-
year-old grandson, who was standing with us beside the
widow.
"Ai," he said, but once our attention was turned to him
he said also, "White man, the children say you carry money
in this." He touched a water canteen which hung from the
stranger's belt. "I know it is water."
He knew also that shaving cream was soap, and not
white people's sacred clay, and now as women came with
bottles for the white man's obia water — a name they gave
[215]
REBEL DESTINY
to all the medicine we had for them — he took it upon him-
self to instruct them to wash the bottles carefully, as he
followed us to the storehouse, and to warn them that what
was given was not to be taken internally.
"^ taki, a taki-e, u' no mu' bebe—He says, he is saying,
you must not drink this," he explained, with something of
his mother's persuasiveness in giving instructions.
His grandmother had said one day half in jest that he
would have a tiger spirit which would need to be reckoned
with when he grew to manhood. He was a straight-limbed,
wiry child, not troubled with the umbilical hernia so often
met with in children here In the bush, or with the dis-
tended "cassava belly."
The coming of the strangers had eclipsed all desire for
familiar diversions here. From early morning the children
of the village stood about watching us, so that the brushing
of teeth and the lacing of boots were carried on under
excited supervision which continued day after day. But to
this small grandson of Yankuso we were visitors in his
quarter, and whether we were alone in the council house
or were in the small house reserved for privacy, he would
find his way there and stand about asking questions.
Sometimes, however, when he found us at work and saw
that we did not wish to be Interrupted, he would lean
against the wall for a long time watching us in silence, until
presently he would come to life, as it were, walk over to the
table, and begin beating the Kromanti rhythm on It.
But he was not the only child who knew the drum
rhythms. In the last village In the PIklen Rio, we met a
two-year-old child who came to us with more than usual
readiness and followed us about, his hand in ours until we
came to his mother's house, where he left us to sit down on a
wooden plank which lay near it. We had been in conversa-
tion with the older people and did not notice his going,
until all at once we heard the slow beating of the rhythm
to the Sky God. It was this child of two, drumming against
the plank on which he sat.
[216]
WOMEN AT WORK
"^ naki apinti, ai! — He Is playing the apinti," his father
said, laughing, and a woman who stood by said that when
he grew up he would have an important god. It would be a
good god, too, and it might be a great Komfo — a priest
reincarnated in him.
Among the little girls who were with us most often, and
now stood by with Yankuso's grandson, were the two
daughters of Dida, the wife of Chief And'u of S'ei, who
went about the Granman's village with white on her face
and body. The little girls were also washed in the white
clay, and there was white in the wool of their hair. They
had the quick, startled movements of their mother, and one
of them in particular was a nervous child, shy and easily
frightened. She never came too close to the strangers, and,
for a time, if they but caught her eye, she would begin to
tremble with fear.
"Your daughters are handsome, Dida."
"Ai, they come from a good line," she said, laughing.
The Granman's younger wife said, "They will have many
gods when they are big. They will have them from their
mother, and theirs will be stronger yet. They are twins."
It was possible, she explained, by looking at a child to
know if it would have the gods of the family. Sometimes
the gods took a dislike to a child and refused to give it of
their wisdom or protection, and sometimes the gods liked
it so well that they gave it many gifts — the gift of a fine
singing voice, the ability to dance better than others, and
the good fortune to be liked.
"Until they are grown, the gods do not trouble them
much," she added, "but we in the bush know a child who
will have important gods, and we know if the gods will be
kindly."
"Do you mean you know because of kunu."*"
"Af^ kye, all gods do not come from kunu."
4
One day when sitting among the women, the talk was of
twins.
[217]
REBEL DESTINY
"The next time you come to the Saramacca country,
you must have twins here," the women said, laughing,
"then you will see what a play we give for them. And for a
child born after twins, and for a child who is born feet
foremost."
The last, however, was not good, and they were really
not in earnest, they explained, in wishing that type of
childbirth upon the stranger.
"Such a child has a bad spirit. The mother almost always
dies when giving birth."
"Is there no obia to save her?"
"The gods can save the mother if they wish. ..."
There were special songs for twins which were sung when
bandamba was danced. Several of the women, and Dida
among them, began to sing them. The songs praised the
generative powers of the man and woman who had "made"
twins. As the women began their songs, they rose from
their work and danced, for just as they could not
remember the words of a song apart from its melody, so
they could not sing the melody without the accompany-
ing dance movements which went with jt. Words and
melody and movements of the body were all part of the
image evoked by the word "bandamba." With arms firmly
planted on their hips, and feet slightly apart for balancing,
the slow rhythmic play of abdomen, hips, and buttocks
went on and on.
But as they sang and danced, the Granman's younger
wife suddenly remembered that their voices must carry to
the council house, and abruptly the women stopped, cover-
ing their faces.
"We're ashamed," Dida explained.
"But the men see you dance bandamba when you give
your plays for twins, and the child after twins, and for
marriages V
"Yes, but then it's singing and dancing at a play."
When an occasion called for these songs and dances, it
was quite another matter, she implied.
"It is not good to do this for sport."
[2l8]
WOMEN AT WORK
5
Tenemi made ready to carve a calabash dish. She sat
down on her work stool, and on the ground beside her she
put down a small knife, a piece of broken glass, and half of
a calabash shell. The Inner pulp had just been removed,
and both the inside and outside of the gourd were of a pale
green color. She had dipped It In water before she brought
it here, and now with the point of her knife she deftly
marked her design. The curves in the center, covering
almost the entire Inner surface, formed the body of a
woman, she said, who was big with child. The geometric
tracings In parallel narrow lines across one portion of the
top was the Aboma snake, euphemistically called the Can
Tetei, the great creeper, or vine. Taking up the piece of
glass, she began to scrape away carefully the soft pulp
inside the outlines of her design.
In the entire village there was no woman who worked
faster at carving calabash dishes than did Tenemi. In less
than half an hour the dish was ready to be placed on the
high platform where the marlpa nuts were drying. With
the sun upon it, the calabash would turn a deep cream color,
but where the knife had borne down. It would show a golden
brown, and where the glass had scraped away the pulp,
the color would be a paler gold, so pale that it would be
almost the cream of the unornamented outer surface.
"The large closed gourds are not done fast. Those are
carved on the outside, and must be worked cleverly. But
this does not take long. I am making this for you. When
it Is finished I will bring it to you. You must give it to your
girl-child when she grows big."
She herself had made four children, but only two of
them were living. The oldest, a daughter, carried a child
in her womb. Tomorrow she would come to the village,
and Tenemi would bring her.
"She was afraid to come. Women who are with child
must be very careful."
[219]
REBEL DESTINY
It appeared that nothing in a woman's life was so dreaded
as childbearing, nothing more coveted than fertility, and no
time so difficult and so anxious as when a woman was
rearing her children.
"The day before a girl marries she prays all day to her
gods," said Dida, who with Fenekonde and several other
women had joined us. "I begged my god Kesekia and gave
him rice and rum. All day they played the agida. I begged
him not to hate my husband. I begged him to give us
children."
When a woman conceived, her husband made her many
obias, and especially a black sack obia with four cowries
sewed on it, to keep her safe on the paths which led from
village to village, and from village to her field. The fear
of the power of bad magic at this time was so great that,
if we but looked at one of the pregnant women, or let our
eyes rest on the several obias she wore, she grew nervous,
covered them with both her hands, and disappeared in
fear that the very power of our glance might weaken the
potency of the charms. She did not believe in the white
man's magic, but she was not in a condition to wish to put
it to a test.
"When her time comes, a woman sees to it that she is in
her own village," said Fenekonde. "It is not good to give
birth in the bush, or on the river."
This had almost happened to Wilhelmina with her last
child. She was on the river alone in a boat. Chief Sungi
of Dahomey met her and called on his gods to delay the
coming of the child until he brought her home. He had
strong obia, and so the misfortune was averted.
When the woman felt the first labor-pains, she prayed to
the gods, and to her personal spirits. On the great Sky God
she called, and the Earth Mother; on her ak'a, her soul;
on the Yorka, the ancestors; and then she prayed to her
personal gods, and particularly to whatever snake gods
she might have, for some of these were known to be jealous
of a coming child. But none of the gods dared be slighted.
[ 220 ]
WOMEN AT WORK
"Before she begs the gods, she is seated on a mat, or on
cloths. Over her head a white cloth is thrown. The woman
who is there to look after the coming of the child takes a
calabash with water. Then she throws the water on the
ground where the woman is seated. She begs the great gods,
and the ancestors, and the woman's soul, and the woman's
gods.
"When the pains come, she ties a cloth about her belly
tight, tight, until it hurts. The woman who helps her gives
her some water if she wants it, and she presses down on the
belly and makes the cloth tighter and tighter, until the child
comes. The cord is cut with a knife."
The knife was the same as the kind they used for cicatri-
zing, and the after-birth was buried behind the house, in a
small hole into which food and a piece of the sacred sangrafu
wood was thrown.
"The child is washed, and then pemha — kaolin — is put
on its forehead, and after that the mother and the child
bathe every day and then wash in pemba. Sometimes a
moon comes and wanes, and another comes, and the mother
still puts the white on herself and on her child."
But if the birth proved to be difficult, then the husband
was told, and he besought his own ancestors and his own
gods to help his woman and child.
"If the child doesn't come, then it's a bad spirit. Then
they call the obia man."
When a woman had difhculty, everybody was troubled
about it. If a woman had been unfaithful to her husband
and had not confessed it, it w^ould be that which would
be killing the child in her womb, and killing her as well.
Sometimes it was zvisi — black magic — and everybody
wondered who had sent it to their village. Sometimes it
was a god who was envious.
"If it is a god, then, when the woman is strong again,
she goes to a more powerful god and buys from him the
next child to come into her womb. The strong god sees to
it that the jealous one finds no way to harm the child."
What happened when a child was born dead .''
[221]
REBEL DESTINY
The women had spoken with greater and greater re-
luctance about troubled births and now moved uneasily.
*'You must not ask this," said Dida, rising. "Never talk
about such things to young women."
Not until later, when Fenekonde and Tenemi were left
alone with the white woman did they talk about birth cus-
toms again.
When a child died at birth, a hole was dug somewhere in
the family quarter, or just outside it, and the child was
buried there. There was no wake, no mourning. All those
who had been living in the house where it died found other
quarters, and for a month the house was washed with
obia water. But if this had occurred before to the same
mother, they would break the house where the child was
born and would cast the pieces into the unhallowed bush.
Some people on the river even broke it down at the first
occurrence. There were never any wakes for very small
children.
"Children die because they are bad spirits come in the
form of a child. When they do not stay, we know it is a bad
spirit. When the house is broken, they do not know their
way to come again."
"What if a woman died .?"
This was whispered so softly that only Fenekonde heard
it, but she did not conceal her distaste for the question.
"When a woman dies she is put in a flat coffin. Some
villages give her no coffin at all. Weeds are put into her eyes.
All the girls in the village wash their eyes with obia weeds
and water. They must never see this again. There is no
wake. There is no dancing. No guns are shot. They break
the house, and throw it after the coffin, as the men carry it
away. She must not come back again."
But the white woman must not imagine that all deliveries
were difficult. Often a woman bore a child, and, when the
after-birth came, she herself rose and bathed and washed in
pemba.
A child was given many names. Even in early childhood
four or five names were not too many. There was the day
[ 222 ]
WOMEN AT WORK
name which was kept secret and never spoken except in
states of possession or when the obia man called on a
person's spirit. For girls, Amba for a Saturday child, Affi
for one born on Friday, Adjuba for Wednesday; and for
the boys some of the names were Kwaku, for Monday, Yao
for Thursday, Kofi for Friday, and Kwasi for Sunday.
Then there was the name which the father gave, and after
that any of the family who cared added a name and made
the child a present.
From the day it was born until it was at least two years
old a child fed at its mother's breast. For twelve moons
and five more of this time the woman could not go to the
hammock with a man. It was then that her husband went
to the distant French shore to work or to the railhead. But
after seventeen months of nursing were past, he came back.
"If a child is made before a woman gets back her men-
strual flow, then it is a god. It is Kesefu. A child born feet
first some call Agosu, and some Asaeng. The child born
after twins we call Dosu, and twins are Hohobi. Now it is
in your book. You will give those names to your children,
and your sister's children. No one will know at all what
names these are. No one will be able to harm them."
In the quarter immediately adjoining that of the Gran-
man there was great activity. Six or seven men and boys
were at work on a new house, for the youngest daughter of
the family was ready for marrying, and now the men were
helping her suitor to build a house for her in her village.
From the same quarter, behind a house which stood in
the shade, came the laughter of young girls. We made our
way past the house and saw four girls ranging in age from
thirteen to sixteen seated on a log. One of these held her
head back, and an older girl was bending over her. They
called to us as we passed.
" We are cutting kamemba. Do you want some cuts, too .'' "
These were not new cuts which were being made, for
with perhaps one exception, the girls were all nubile, and
[223]
REBEL DESTINY
the first cuts had been made on their faces long before they
reached adolescence. When a girl began her monthly visits
to the house which stood alone to one side of the road,
directly opposite the shrine to the great gods, then it was
time for the important cuts on the thighs, and it was the
old women who made the cuts. But the reopening of old
cuts, like the braiding of the hair, was a task the girls
did for each other with enjoyment. It was with no small
pride that they talked of their ornamental cuts.
The older girl held in her hand a razor from the white
man's city. It was not very sharp, and the tropical damp-
ness had spotted it with rust. Beside her was an old calabash
holding charred rice hulls which had the moment before
been rubbed into a powder, and a cloth whose color was
rapidly being lost in the blood which flowed from the
wounds which she cut.
Before proceeding with the cutting, the older girl would
look critically at the girl on whom she was working, narrow-
ing her eyes quite in the manner of an aesthete who was
evaluating each detail. Then, with a firm grip on her razor,
she would take an old scar between two fingers, and cut
into it. Scar after scar she reopened, as the girls talked and
laughed, until when she had made perhaps ten cuts, she
would stop to staunch the blood and to survey her
handiwork.
When the facial cuts were all open, it was time to rub
the powder from the freshly charred rice hulls into the
wounds.
"She will be handsome, ai-yo!" said the girl as she
finished, and she dropped the smaller cloth back into
another calabash which held water. With this moist cloth
dipped into the black powder, she rubbed the black on the
face of the seated girl. Now when the scar healed, each of
the keloids would show black and prominent against the
brown of the skin.
"Mine have been reopened four times," said the girl
whose face had been treated, as she rose to make way for
the next one. "The cuts heal fast."
[224]
WOMEN AT WORK
"It hurts, doesn't It?"
"Ma kye! It is beautiful. The men like it too much,"
said the girls in a chorus, laughing at the suggestion that
the pain of the cuts would deter them from having them
made.
Sometimes, of course, the older girl admitted, the wounds
did become ugly. There was the girl from Godo, whose suitor
had kept bringing her more gifts because she was growing
handsomer and handsomer. She was all but ready for
marrying, when one of her thighs became infected after the
cuts. The wounds were so ugly that she could not even
wear the tunics of the grown girl. The family was sacrificing
to all the spirits of the earth, begging them to heal the
wounds.
7
These days there were many visitors in the Granman's
village. There was the girl the Granman had summoned
to dance for his guests. She had, perhaps, that very summer
got her cloths, and her reputation as the best dancer on the
river had won for her a suitor who gave her many armlets
and anklets. Her voice was fresh and flutelike in quality,
and so fine that when she sang she placed a folded cloth over
her mouth, or danced with her head low. This was the way
of modesty before people, and humility before the gods.
The women said, "Her spirits dance well," when they
watched her.
There was the large girl from a village down river who
came almost daily. She had the body of a woman, yet she
went about unclothed, and sometimes she appeared only
with a string about her waist.
"She is ready for pangi — cloths — ai," the women said,
"but her people do not want to give them to her yet."
They would not explain, however, why the attire of a
grown woman was denied her. We could only conjecture
about it. Perhaps she had no suitor. The man to whom she
had been promised might have died. There might be other
reasons.
[225]
REBEL DESTINY
"Perhaps the women were wrong. She may not be a
woman yet."
'^ Ma kyeV Angita exclaimed. It seemed he knew better.
And there was the woman Amasina. She wore as many
armlets and anklets of brass as the shy dancer, as many as
the wife of the bassia of S'ei, whom the gods had prospered.
Her cloths were of the finest, and in colors which were most
often of yellow and blue stripes, with a thread of black
interwoven, and another of twisted red and white. She was
good-looking, but in her manner there was no smoldering
challenge and no undue reserve. With ease she went from
one group to another, and the women treated her neither
with too much familiarity nor with restraint.
Amasina felt at ease, too, with the white people. In the
bush they had an explanation for this feeling of well-being
with strangers. If a man and a woman were both born on
the same day, they did not get on very well together, for
they were both apt to have the same powers to grasp things
which came within the province of the gods who also had
come into the world on that day. Such a man and woman
would at once perceive each other's mistakes or would be
given to speaking continual warnings to each other. But
there were days which were especially congenial affinities
for marriages, and even friendships. These, we were led to
see, were days which represented a male and female deity
in the Bush Negro pantheon, whose mating had brought
well-being to themselves and the living world.
"You and Amasina like each other, ai," they said in the
village,'^and this friendship had a sequel of importance for us.
One late afternoon we were sitting with the women talk-
ing about the gods. Dida said the white on her body was
for her god Kesekia. Chief And'u had washed her for her
god when he was here in the village, and tomorrow she
would dance. Kesekia, she said, was a Vodu god, who had
come to her from the French shore. When he came to her,
he spoke tongues; he knew French.
"Tomorrow they will play the agida drum, and I will put
a kerchief on my head tied so," she said, showing how she
[226]
WOMEN AT WORK
would fasten it in back, letting the ends hang down, "and
I will tie my breasts with another." She took a proffered
kerchief, folded it into a triangle, and from the back brought
the ends between her breasts and knotted them twice.
Amasina now joined us, and stood by listening.
They danced for Vodu gods on Sunday and Monday, and
for the spirits of the bush on Tuesday and Wednesday. All
the obia dances were held on Friday. All spirits had their
special days, when they were worshiped and when they
manifested themselves.
As we talked, each woman showed on her fingers how
many gods she had. Dida had two other Vodu gods. Three
fingers, two, three, four — hands went up with pride, but what
the names of the gods were, they would not say, for if they
called the gods, they would come. It was well enough for
Dida to talk, for having the god it was not she who was
speaking, but the god himself. Very possibly he was de-
ciding to come to the white woman, for that was what gods
did if they chose. Intermingled with this banter was some
concern for their visitor if the god should decide to come
to her.
Faced with the opportunity of coming by a spirit, the
visitor asked to be made wise in the ways of the gods.
What was the name of the Earth Mother.'' And the Mother
of the River.'' And of that very important snake god called
Papa who came to women only, because only women gave
birth to children .?
Amasina, who had seated herself beside the white woman,
leaned over, and calmly spoke.
"I will tell you. The Earth Mother is Asaase, and Hene
Tonugbwe is the name of the Mother of the River, and
Towenu is the Papa god. Now do not ask more, and never
speak these names to any one, unless you get the god."
[227]
Chapter XIII
THE GODS SPEAK
EARLY the next morning we heard the voice of a drum
coming from some unidentifiable direction, not too
close, not too far away.
"That's the agida drum we hear?" we asked Tenemi
when she came to sweep the council house.
"Ai."
"It sounds far away."
"It's across the river. Dida is dancing. ..."
But here she stopped, remembering, as we did, that she
had agreed to come for us when Dida danced, if the god
made Dida herself forget to fetch us to see her dancing.
"You can't take us to her, Tenemi.^"
"It's across the river, and it's early."
"When did she leave this village.'*"
"Late last night."
As an after thought Tenemi added, "Dida has a house
across the river. She went to her own quarter."
A few minutes later the white woman found herself
walking toward the partially cleared ground outside the
village, past the menstrual house and the open shrine to
the great gods which stood almost directly opposite it.
There were three women in the house, dressed in faded
[228]
THE GODS SPEAK
cloths, their hair disheveled, their faces without the glint
which the oil gave to their dark skins, and their eyes with-
out the touch of dark flame which the gleaming skins
brought out. One of these women stood leaning against a
doorpost trembling. Her hands were clenched, and her
mouth moved without pause, and without sound.
"She hears the aglda .^"
"Ai. She wants to dance, but she can't. Her god is
troubling her."
The white woman must not stop with them longer, and
she must not come closer, the two women who stood beside
their quivering companion called out at once, for the obia
which she wore about her neck would be contaminated
if brought too close to them, and its power to protect the
wearer against danger would leave it at once.
"Do not come too close. Tomorrow I will return to
my house, and after I have bathed and washed in pemba,
I will be clean again, and then I will come to see you,"
the younger of the two women said.
The other said, "When you go there," and she pointed
toward the woman's path, "do not go by the way of the
broken calabashes. That is the unclean way. It is the path
for the women who stay in this house."
Down the clearing the white woman continued until,
when she turned, the open cooking shelter of Bassia Anaisi's
quarter faced her. The floor of the shelter was of red clay,
raised well above the clearing itself. A woman was laying
a fire there, putting down the long sticks one end close to
the other in the center, so that they radiated outwards
in what seemed a perfect circle. Her child, who was fitted
out with obias on neck and wrists and right ankle, sat
near by watching her, and playing with a gourd doll.
The voice of the agida had a moment before died down,
and now a song reached the white woman. It came not from
across the river, but from somewhere directly behind the
houses grouped about the clearing beyond the cooking
shelter. The song was a repetition of several melodic
phrases, sung in varying rhythms, so that it had a disturb-
[229]
REBEL DESTINY
ing quality as It continued slowly and yet more slowly
for a time, then quickened sharply at Irregular intervals.
"Who is singing?"
"The gods," said the woman at the fire, without pausing
to look up as she fanned the small flame with a woven
fiber fan.
"Whose gods?"
"Amasina's, and the god of a woman of the G'aman's
family. She got back from the menstrual house last
night, and this morning when Amasina got her god, she
got one, too."
"May I go and listen to the singing?"
"Yes."
But before the white woman had walked ten paces, she
came face to face with Bassia Anaisl.
"I am going to your quarter, Bassia. The woman at the
fire said I might go and listen to the singing. Is It all right?"
*'Yes, go."
In a few seconds she came to a house before which several
women were gathered. Outside its doorway calabashes stood
in a curving line across the entire stretch of front wall,
some filled with a dark liquid and others with rice, while
directly in front of the door itself a dark uncorked bottle
had been placed.
Down several paths came women, each with a calabash
in her hand, and each as she reached the line of calabashes
placed hers beside the others, and went into the house.
The women entered singly and remained there but an In-
stant, emerging with lines of white over their arms and
bodies. What had taken place in the house while they were
there it was impossible to tell, for the singing had continued
without interruption.
Two voices were heard now. The voice which had carried
across the clearing still Intoned the word "Ondyi," while
the other chanted In a soft and beautiful voice words which
came without pause or harshness, except for a strange
hissing sound which Issued from somewhere inside the
house.
"May I come closer?"
[230]
THE GODS SPEAK
"Yes, move closer."
The white woman now went toward the open door,
and through it saw a little of the inside of the house. Like
all Bush Negro houses, it had no windows of any kind,
and what light there was came from this low open doorway.
Near the door sat the woman who belonged to the family of
the Granman. In her hand she held an egg-shaped piece
of clay which she rubbed between her hands to the rhythm
of her song, and at intervals lifted first one hand, then the
other, rubbing the white clay on her face and arms. The
thin layer of white over the dark of her skin gave to her
appearance in the dark house a strange color. She swayed
on her low bench as she sang, her body curving from her
hips first to one side, then to the other.
"Ondyi, ondyi," she sang over and over, and with the
quickening of voice, she called "bonsu."
This word "Ondyi," the women explained, when they
urged the stranger to greet the god as was fitting, was the
greeting of the deity, the god's way of saying their every-
day word "Odi."
The eyes of the woman at the door were half-closed as
she sang, and she seemed dispirited, though with the quick-
ened swaying she did rouse herself for an instant. She
had no kerchief on her head, and none about her breasts.
"Her god hasn't got her very hard," the women said.
"Go inside, perhaps when you speak with him, he will
begin to stir. They want you to come in."
Into the house the white woman brought her bench, and
sat down close to the possessed woman at the door. When
she became accustomed to the darkness of the house, she
saw a pair of eyes fixed on her from the farthest wall.
The figure against this wall was so much the color of the
house itself that it was not until a few moments had passed
that the crouching form of an old woman was distinguish-
able. The old woman sat motionless, her eyes fastened on
the stranger.
The white woman freed herself from the intent stare
of the old woman against the wall only when a sudden
[231 ]
REBEL DESTINY
hissing sound so startled her that she faced quickly about.
Now two other eyes met hers. They belonged to a figure
on a low bench, seated with its back to the door, facing the
darkness of the unbroken walls, but with head turned to
watch the stranger. The figure was in white — tunic, cloths
about the breasts and on the head, arms, throat, and body,
all were white. But of a greater whiteness yet was the
terrifying, macabre face in which the line of the mouth
alone, and the living black of the eyes, showed. Beside
this white figure stood a streaked glass tumbler, filled with
a whitish liquid. This tumbler had been at the lips of the
white form when the stranger turned to see where
the hissing came from. Now that the glass was replaced, the
whitened hands began kneading a piece of clay and rubbing
face and throat and arms with the hands. While doing this,
the body swayed and the voice chanted.
^'From the river I come^
And I say to you all,
Greetings.
All you Negroes,
Be greeted.
From the river I come,
I say to the white woman.
Greetings.
I say you came as a friend,
I say you came not for evil.
From the river I come,
I say to you all,
Be greeted.^'
Now the first woman moved closer to the stranger and
put her arms about her, streaking her with clay.
^^Ondyi, Ondyi-o!
I am Affi
I am Kantamasi-o!
Ondyi, ondyi,
[232]
THE GODS SPEAK
Woman, I care for you,
I will be your god.^'
There was consternation among the women who stood
outside listening. The Akantamasu god was one of the
strongest on the river. He ranked only slightly under
the great obia spirits, which the Sky God when creating the
world had sent as wisdom for the living to combat the
capricious lesser gods, and humans who were dominated
by evil spirits. Differing from the obia spirits, however, who
befriended the living, and brought healing to them, the
Akantamasu god was an avenger, surpassed alone by the
yorka, the ghosts, who avenged by killing instantly when
they chose, while the Akantamasu god killed more slowly.
But there was concern for the possessed woman, as well.
She had spoken the name Affi, her day name, the name
which summoned her soul. When not in a state of posses-
sion, she would never have spoken it before a stranger,
except in a whisper to an obia man who came to cure her, or
to a diviner to whom she came to ask why her soul was
troubled.
Presently the white figure rose, breaking the tension, and,
chanting, went from the hut into the clearing. Affi and the
white woman followed. In the light of the clearing, a faint
resemblance could be seen in the grace of the body of the
figure in white to the pleasant Amasina. Of the brown of
her skin, only the ankles and feet showed.
Both of the possessed women began pacing back and
forth in the clearing, in time to the rhythm of their songs,
but while Amasina danced with an easy stride, Affi shook
and quivered and moaned.
"When the gods come, we do not speak. We sing. The
speech of the gods is song. So it is," one woman whispered.
Another said, indicating Affi, "Her god troubles her. She
gave you a strong god. Are you afraid .-*"
"When the god comes to you, you will speak tongues.
Now you have two gods. When Kesekia comes to you, you
will sing Kesekia songs, you will dance to him."
[233 ]
REBEL DESTINY
When a male snake god came, then it was easy to know,
the women said. If the possessed one rolled face downward
it was a male god, and he was courting the spirits of the
earth, but if face upward then it was a female snake. "A^a
muye opo-i-mbe gi 'a tapu — The woman opens her womb
for the sky," they said, using the precise image for one who
was being wooed by the spirits who lived above.
3
When the white woman was about to enter the council
house, Granman Yankuso called to her. He was standing
in front of his house, surrounded by women, who were
talking to him in low, excited voices.
'^Bak'a muye — White woman," he said, looking at her
searchingly, and saying nothing. "White woman," he
repeated, after a short silence, "white mother, good morn-
ing. Are you awake ?"
His voice sounded a little troubled, but not unfriendly.
It helped the white woman to regain her self-possession.
"They sing well down below, Granman," she said, and
went into the council house.
4
Whatever Granman Yankuso thought of the white
woman's having witnessed the possession of the women of
his village, he did not refuse permission to her and her
husband to return to the hut.
Amasina and Affi were still in the clearing, dancing to
their own songs. Women came up with their children,
bringing more and more calabashes of rice. Amasina took
up each child in her arms, and caressed it gently, streaking
it with the white clay as she did so, and singing the while,
"/ come from the river.
You shall be cooled,
You shall be well.''
Affi's moaning had become more and more faint, and her
pacing, by this time, was listless. Her god would not take
[234]
THE GODS SPEAK
her into his power strongly enough to give her the release
she craved.
Amasina sang,
"/ come from the river.
I tell all you people.
This man, this woman
Are friends.
They come not for evil.
Go to the G'aman,
Say to him.
These people are friends,
They bring us no evil.^^
Then her god, speaking through her, sang an explanation
to the white people. From the river he came, bringing heal-
ing to all those who were fevered, caring for all those who
were sick. Those who could, came to him, but those who
could not come, he would visit and bring them healing.
Now he must make the round of the village, go to the
houses, and see those who were ill.
Singing, Amasina beckoned us to follow her, and as she
led the way she danced in undulating steps from one end
of the village to another, visiting the sick, singing the cure
her god was bringing them in the words he was speaking
through her.
The white people could stay with her no longer. Word
came that the boat which was to take them across the river
to the village of the Granman's father was ready, and they
must go. The women suggested, however, that if the whites
cared to make a gift to the god who had spoken so well of
them, it would be acceptable, and they hurried to their
stores to get a gift.
As they passed the council house and turned toward the
small hut behind it where their supplies were kept, they
heard a new sound. It was a choking sound, torn from an
unwilling throat. Seated quite alone on a low stool in front
[235]
REBEL DESTINY
of the mortar in which she had been pounding maripa nuts
was the Granman's younger wife. The pestle had fallen
from her shaking fingers. She gave the intruders no atten-
tion, for she, too, was possessed by her god, — by Tone,
god of the river.
^^ Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke! Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-keT^ The syllables
fell from her and, as the white people stood by, her shaking
stopped, the sounds did not go on. Then they began again,
her body racked, her voice choked. The Tone people do not
speak when they are possessed, it is through sounds such as
these that the god of the river makes known his wishes.
Women came running toward us. "Your boat is ready,
Bak'a," they said.
The whites returned with the bracelets to find that the
two women to whom they brought their offerings had come
as far as the Granman's quarter of the village. Affi's greet-
ing of "Ondyi!" had died down to a whisper. Discon-
solately she followed Amasina, who, in the white cloth
which reached almost to her ankles, looked tall and sinuous,
and moved as though there were something in the still air
to send her body curving to one side and to the other.
As the possessed women and those with them entered
the quarter, the elder wife of Yankuso came toward
Amasina with a large calabash of rice.
"All those who have the same god come with gifts.
Amasina has the strongest god of all. It is a white god," a
woman explained.
White was the color for the ancestors, and hers was the
god of a great priestess of the family. It was the god To-
wenu, the great Papa god, the giver of children, the
jealous one, who came to her. If he cared for his priestess too
well, he allowed her no children. The mention of his name
the day before had brought him, and, coming, he vouched
for the friendliness of the strangers.
Amasina put her arms about the older woman as she had
done to the others who came to her. She sang once more
her message:
[236]
THE GODS SPEAK
*' Wife of the G^aman^
I come from the river.
Go to the G^aman
Say to him,
These strangers are friends,
They bring no evilJ^
It was the god speaking, and the Granman's wife re-
ceived with lowered head the words spoken through the
priestess.
"Ai, my master. Ai, Massa Gadu," she said.
5
The Granman's paternal village was directly across the
river from Asindopo Lantiwe. It was called Akisiamau,
literally "Took with an outstretched hand," but whether
there was also some meaning in the phrase not intended
for the uninitiated, we could not learn. In size it was not
much larger than the Granman's village, and again and
again we recognized houses which were his by the crest-like
carvings on the doorposts, that reproduced the design
found not only at the side of the council-house door, but
at the door of all other houses at Asindopo Lantiwe which
were his.
Except for several old people who sat about in the shade
and waited for the strangers to come to them with their
greetings, the entire village followed us as we made our
way down one path and another.
^^Bak'a, AmeHka Bak'a, Ame''ika Fandya! — White man,
American white man, American Fandya!" the children
called after us, as they ran at our heels, touching our
canteens, our sun helmets, and shoes.
The Granman had spoken with especial fondness of his
father's house, and it was there that we asked first to be
taken. It was not occupied, we were told, and none might
enter it. Above the top crossplece white cotton was draped.
Except that its door was closed, it showed no signs of being
[237]
REBEL DESTINY
uninhabited. Its posts and walls and thatch were in
excellent condition, and there was not even the weather-
beaten appearance about it of a house which had been
closed for some time. Nor had it the kandu, the spiritual
lock of unoccupied houses.
To one side of this house was the open shrine to the
great gods, the pole to the Sky God, the smaller one with a
checked tunic across the middle of it for the Earth Mother.
But there was also a figure of wood with a broad white
cloth hung from it like a flag, and this, the villagers said,
was the image of the Granman's father. When the dead
man's spirit came to the village, it was this image he
animated. In times of need and on days fixed by ritual, it
was to this image that prayers and food were brought.
Some distance from this shrine, standing close to the
uncleared bush, was a house that had been deserted. Half
of it the great bush had already reclaimed. The thatch of
the roof and one entire side wall had altogether disappeared,
and in place of these were garlands of leafy vines, so closely
interwoven and so brilliantly green in the sun as to give to
the asymmetrical mass of weathered grayish palm, and the
strangling green, a strange beauty. Not quite two years
ago it had been abandoned, and soon it would be com-
pletely lost to the bush.
But the villagers looked the other way when we photo-
graphed it.
A little to one side of the house with the doorposts which
showed the Granman's crests was a smaller hut, before
whose door stretched a magic azang of palm fronds that
marked it as a shrine.
"This house is for the Apuku gods," said an old woman
who heard our inquiry. "It belongs to me. It was built
when my god told me to make it."
And without hesitation she led the way under the palm
fronds through the opening.
This was the first time we had been permitted to enter a
closed shrine. We had had descriptions of shrines from men
with whom we had talked of the gods. There were some,
[238]
THE GODS SPEAK
they told us, though never willing to name the villages
where they stood, whose walls were most elaborately
ornamented with symbols marked in red and black and
white, the three sacred colors which appeared on the stools
and which the men used for painting their faces and bodies
for the dances. On the upper river we had been told that
these shrines were in the villages below, and on the lower
river it was always intimated that it was up above where
the great shrines stood. We had been told of stools which
were whitened with sacred pemba, and blackened with soot
in the Fd'aka Pau houses — the houses of the ancestral
spirits — and of the covered whitened vessels which were in
the Vodu and Apuku houses, the shrines for the bush and
snake deities, placed there for the spirits when they chose
to animate them.
So we found it in this house dedicated to the spirits of
the bush.
The hut was narrow and long, with walls of woven palm,
and a floor made of hard smooth clay into which bare feet
had nevertheless worn grooves. To one side of the door
stood a drum of the type called tumao — the long drum.
It was cylindrical, and narrowed but slightly toward the
bottom. White clay had once covered it, but now there were
irregular lines of white marking the cracks in the wood.
On the other side of the door, against the same wall, lay
several large balls of clay. These the old woman was keeping
for the obia pots she would make from time to time. Among
the Negroes of the town as well as in the bush, these black
pots, made by women of the bush, were held to have great
magical potency.
"I never make too many pots at once," the old woman
said. "I make them for myself as I need them and for the
young people of the family." A woman who had not passed
her period of childbearing could not make them. *'Obia pots
are things for old, old women. I cannot tell you about
making them."
Leaving these lumps of clay, the woman led us farther
into the enclosure, until we stood in front of a raised altar
[239I
REBEL DESTINY
of earth which filled the rest of the hut. In the left-hand
corner was a covered whitened vessel for the god called
Kentina Dagowe. This Kentina Dagowe was a deity who
was the offspring of the Dagowe snake, and the Apuku god
of the bush whose name was Kentina. In him, as in so many-
other of the spirits, we found exemplified the Bush Negro's I
concept of the world which held that the gods mated as "
did humans, that all which stirred and had life came into
being by such matings.
Other spirits also came to this house, the woman went
on. Mundewaya, another of the bush gods, was worshiped
at the white-covered pot in the opposite corner, while
beside it lay the vessel to which the spirit of a third might
come. This one was the most powerful of all bush gods,
and his name was Danhowao. There were other objects
on the platform. Two stools, daubed with sacred clay, had
their place there, and in the center was an image of wood,
a rounded pot set on a base that tapered from the ground
toward it, and this was to the Nanai, the ancestors.
The old woman said, "For the Apuku gods, we only play
the tumao drum. The Apuku are mostly women's gods, but
some men have them, and the men who have them play
the drums. When the god comes to you, then if you are not
too old you dance. But we old women do not dance. When
the god comes to me, then I begin to shake. I go into this
house on the day we call him, and they play the drum.
Then I talk to the god. If I have something to beg of him
for myself, or for someone else, then I put the pot which
belongs to him on my head, and the drum calls him. When
my body begins to shake, then it is the god. He has come,
and when I speak it is not I but the god speaking."
From the clearing the talk of those who had remained
outside came through the thin woven walls of the shrine.
From one to another we could hear the news spread that
in the village of the Granman across the river the gods had
spoken for the whites.
In the hut, we listened to the old woman inside whose
shrine we stood.
[240]
THE GODS SPEAK
"The openings in tlie wall there," she explained, when
we asked her about the two squares cut into the wall
behind the altar, "are for all things that fly. In this place
they must come and go as they like. Bats come here, and
insects of all kinds, and when they want to go back to the
bush, they must be able to go as they like. That is the wish
of the gods. So they told us long ago."
We were led from house to house. The gods had spoken.
We were friends, and as friends who came not to harm, we
were given the hospitality of friendship. There were other
shrines, but we did not have to ask about them. They were
pointed out to us with the other sights of the village.
The closed low hut near the Apuku shrine we had entered
was to the river god Tone. It was a very small enclosure,
and before it was a plant which covered the low entrance.
It belonged, we were told, to an albino woman who was
possessed by Tone. But she was not in the village now.
Farther down the path was a larger house, another shrine.
This had a piece of iron over the door and, when we asked
about it, the girls who were following us ran, and the men
merely said that it was the place of the Kromanti obia and
passed on.
As we continued on our way, each woman was anxious
not to have us slight the house her man had built her or
fail to admire the carvings that were inserted into the weave
of the palm walls. The huts were swept clean — the clean-
liness of the entire village was even more striking than that
of others we had visited — and but for a few stools, which
were brought out for the strangers while they spoke with
the old people who lived in the quarter, they were entirely
bare. In every house, however, there was sure to be a shelf,
large or small, or several shelves, on which stood prized
food trays with carvings which covered both inner and outer
surfaces. Combs and food stirrers were taken down and
shown us, and the calabash dishes made by the women
[241 ]
REBEL DESTINY
themselves, and the blade-like pieces of gourd which they
used for spoons, and which bore the same symbols as the
dishes.
"Our men make fine things here in the true, true
Saramacca," Dida said when we entered her quarter, and
sat in her house. "Look at the carvings I have."
Her body was still white with pemba. Her manner was
still a little vague.
"Did you dance this morning.?"
"Ai."
"We heard the agida drum play when we were in the
council house of the Granman."
"Ai, Kesekia is a big god. When he comes, his voice is
strong."
But she showed no willingness to talk, and we could tell
by the repeated twitching of her body that she had still
to dance to her god. Leaving her we continued up the path
toward houses we had not yet visited. The white man, with
a man who was guiding him and the bassia from Asindopo
Lantiwe, walked ahead, while the children crowded about
the white woman who was giving them safety pins which
they at once put in their hair.
"There is the Vodu house," said the man who acted as
guide, and he led the way through the low doorway into
the hut.
Inside, though smaller than the shrine to the gods of the
bush, it differed from it but little. It had the same clay
floor, the same raised altar on which stood stools washed
in white clay, and several covered, whitened vessels, an
image, and the round balls of clay.
"May I go closer and look at the image there.?"
"Yes, go."
The stools resembled those in ordinary use, but whatever
design they may have had was obscured by the white clay
which covered them. The vessels were not unlike those in
the other shrine we had visited or those which rested on the
heads of village gods which stood under low, roofed-over
shelters on the main village paths. Turning, the white man
[242]
THE GODS SPEAK
Stepped from the raised platform ready to leave, when he
noticed a drum which stood in a corner near the door of the
hut, and reached almost to the thatch.
We had seen many agida drums during our stay in the
Saramacca country. Some of them had been half as tall
as a man — a round hollowed trunk of a tree, with wooden
pegs in the side on which the drumhead was fastened. The
agida had no elaborate tuning device such as the other
drums carried, and on it was neither the beautiful carving
with which the apinti was decorated, nor the white pemba-
doti of the tumao. The agida was the deep bass voice of
every trio of drums which played for the sacred dances, and
whatever other rhythms were struck on it, its steady note
set the beat about which the more incidental rhythms
played. We had been told what seemed fabulous tales of the
size of some of these agida drums, but not until we saw the
drum which stood in the corner of this shrine to the snake
gods did we realize how large they might be.
The white man glanced about him. The rest of the party
had not yet caught up. In the dimness of the shrine there
were only the three men. He stepped up to the enormous
drum.
"May I tap it?" he asked.
Reaching up, his arm outstretched above his head, he
stood on tip-toe before his fingers found the taut head and
gently drummed a rhythm there.
"It Is large. It must have a deep voice."
"It Is a big drum. Would you like to hear it.'* The man
who plays It is near by."
Now there were four in the hut. The drummer spoke.
"Do you want to hear the drum, white man.f" I will play
it if you are not afraid. But if I play, I will call the god, and
when I call him he will come. Shall I play the drum.?"
The white man asked that the god be called.
The bassia beckoned to the white woman to come, and
signed to the others to remain outside. Framed In the low
doorway, shutting out the glare of the sun-swept clearing,
were the crouching bodies of women and children who
[243]
REBEL DESTINY
peered into the inner darkness, the whites of their eyes
moving with the movements of the strangers.
Gently the drummer laid the great cylinder of wood flat
on the ground, and from the thatch took down a hard-wood
stick, dark and smooth with use. The drum filled more than
half of the wall near which it lay. Stooping, the drummer
began to call the Vodu gods. It was the rhythm we had
heard from across the river early in the morning. The
drumming had sounded low and distant then, but in this
small enclosure the volume of sound was deafening. It
seemed to be pushing against the yielding woven walls,
pushing outwards and up.
The rhythm was disturbingly irregular. There was, in the
sense of the steady rhythms of the dances, no rhythm at all,
and this uncertainty of beat added to the volume of sound
racked the listeners. When we thought we heard a repetition
of an interval, a sudden change in tempo brought us
up with a start. On and on the man struck the drumhead,
sounding the heavy beats with the stick, while with his free
hand he kept up a running fire of obbligato to the message
for the god.
The heads in the doorway began to move nervously this
way and that as the message to the god continued, when
suddenly they disappeared behind someone who was coming
at a run. A moment later Dida was in the hut.
She was again possessed. Her body shook with the inten-
sity with which she experienced her god, and her eyes
glowed with a steady fire. Back and forth she paced, and
when the drum had sounded, she addressed herself to it,
listening for its voice and answering, listening again and
answering in tones which grew more and more harsh.
Then she turned to us, and began to chant
"/ am the god Kesekia
From back of the prison,
From the French shore,
I come.
I am the god Kesekia.^'
[244]
THE GODS SPEAK
Once more she resumed her frenzied pacing, and from
time to time as the drum spoke she whirled about and
replied. Now and again she would repeat the phrases which
the bassia said was the French snake god speaking —
"Ti done!" "Kesifo, kesifo!" "Ti done!"
"Speak to the god," said the bassia. "Speak to him in the
French tongue. He will answer you."
In spite of the bassia's urging, we stood silent, for it was
crowded in the little hut, and Dida's god was not as genial
a one as was Amasina's. Her body shook and quivered, her
pupils were dilated, her voice became harsher as she turned
to us with her hissing cries.
"Ti done!
"Kesifo!
"Ti done!"
For a moment, the god had done speaking on the drum.
Gently the stick tapped against the wood, and the drummer's
left hand was quiet. Then once more the roaring note began,
and as the heads disappeared from the doorway, a second
form shot inside.
A young woman entered. She had no white on her body,
as had Dida, nor was there any kerchief on her head or
about her breasts. When the drum sounded she had been
in her house seeing to her small infant, but hearing the agida
speak the words of the Vodu god, she could not hold back
longer, for her god came into her and sent her to the shrine.
Now there were two who paced inside the enclosure, call-
ing their answers to the drumbeats, until once more the
steady tapping of the stick on the wood took the place of
the strokes on the drumhead, and the second woman sang:
" Maumbe-wa,
Maumbe-o,
Father Manga
Father Maumbe.
God Maumbe-wo
God Malimbe, Dagozve.
Tutu calls, ye-o
[245I
REBEL DESTINY
Tutu calls, ye-o.
God is there in the river alone^
God Tutu calls,
Ye-o, yor
So the young woman sang as she paced, her body twitch-
ing and quivering, while Dida repeated her exclamations.
The man again took up his invocation to the gods, then
resumed the soft tapping against the wood.
He said to us as he tapped, "My own god is Agida
Wenowa. She is a Vodu god, and when I dance I put a
parrot feather in my hair. When I play the agida, then all
Vodu gods come. The agida is the drum for the Vodu gods."
As he spoke to the slow beating, yet two more figures
came crowding in. We had been so intent on the two
possessed women and on what the drummer was telling
that, not until these new arrivals were at our side, did we
notice them. One of them was Affi, the other Amasina.
They were as we had left them, Amasina still in her white
tunic and kerchiefs, her face and upper body yet more
thickly coated with white so that only the eyes were alive,
Affi still a grayish color, still anguished.
"We heard the voice of the god. We came."
But there was no longer room in the small shrine for the
women to dance. The beating of the stick became fainter
and fainter; the drummer no longer touched the skin which
topped the drum. Fainter and fainter still came the beat,
until the young woman who stood there without white on
her body shook herself, as though she were coming awake.
For a moment, all was quiet.
"He is gone."
"The god is gone."
"He has released her."
The drummer put back his stick. Slowly he lifted the
drum; gently he stood the agida upright in its corner.
7
In the Granman's council house, voices of people standing
outside reached us. From one to another the news was told.
[246]
THE GODS SPEAK
The gods of the river had carried the whites in safety up
the rapids, and the gods of the sky had, at the moment of
their landing, brought rain to cool the earth and sent
thunder to speak the greetings from on high. This morning
a great snake deity and the god of the ant hill had declared
that the strangers carried no evil for the people of the
Saramacca. Across the river they had been in the shrines,
and the great agida had spoken. They had not been harmed,
even though strong Vodu gods had come.
Inside the hut, we listened. We did not know the decision
of the Granman's krutu, but the gods had spoken. This day,
in any event, could not be changed.
[247
Chapter XIV
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
WHATEVER the role of the great man In the life of a
people, there are names whose very mention bring
up almost full-bodied an epoch, a great dynamic
sweep of human thought and activity, of achievement, and
sometimes of disaster. Perhaps the great individual does
not exist until the poetic vision of a people gives to the
skeleton of a name the flesh of a godhead. From earliest
times and from people of varying civilizations have come
down tales of these godheads, created, let us say if we like,
out of a psychic need in the life of human beings to exalt
personality in order that, imaginatively at least, the chasm
between desire and insufficiency might be spanned.
In the council house of Granman Yankuso, as we listened
to his stories, these thoughts constantly recurred to us, and
it is not strange, therefore, that now as we try to collect
images and impressions of the man for an objective picture
of him not only as a Bush Negro but as an individual, we
think of him as typifying among the Negroes of the Sara-
macca today such a name and such a personality.
Already Moana Yankuso was something of a myth
among the people of the coastal region and among his
own people.
Men on the coast said, "Granman Yankuso is a silent
man. You will be with him for days, and he will never utter
a word."
[248]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
**Granman Yankuso is the tallest man on the river, and
the darkest," they said. "He speaks little. When he is
angry, his growl strikes terror in all who hear him."
People said, "The Granman is a clever man. You can
tell him about your work in the way you would speak to
your own educated men, and he will understand you."
"They will take away everything you have up there on
the river."
"They will never bring you to the Granman. He will see
to it."
In the villages of the Saramacca country we heard
again and again proverbs he had originated, which were
quoted when men told of this almost mythical personality.
"The Granman says, 'No one must die, but the burial
place cannot lie idle,' " Bayo once quoted him.
"What does it mean, Bayo .^"
"It Is deep, white man. The Granman Is wise."
Kasanya once quoted another of the Granman's prov-
erbs. "If the gods say take one step at a time, do not stand
still, and take two steps the next time in anger."
On this river they told us that Granman Moana Yankuso
knew all that went on. It was a kind of magic he had:
whatever men did anywhere, he knew.
And they said, too, that men were afraid to cross him,
not alone because of his rank, but because his spirits were
strong.
It is difficult to be objective about Moana Yankuso. In
the terms his own people use, the explanation of his
personality would be the explanation given of any other.
"He has strong gods."
If we urged them to explain what were the gods of a man
they were praising, they would describe the Tiger spirit the
man had, and what knowledge of healing and future events
his Opete obia, his buzzard spirit, gave him, and how he had
come by a special obia which had passed down to him from
a famous magician of the earliest times.
[249]
REBEL DESTINY
In our own terms, if we were to picture the Granman as a
splendid savage, cheerful, guileless, childlike, flattered by
our interest, we would be belying his gifts of sophistication,
and he would thank us little for these romantic outlines
which, according to the values of his own civilization, would
be insulting.
The code of life among these people was expressed in the
proverb we had heard often spoken. "There are men on the
upper river, there are men on the lower river, too." For
survival in this bush, a man needed to match his strength
and his wits and his magic, his kindliness and his enmity
against those of any other. And the Bush Negro is a realist,
for, as we had seen, not even the gods could be depended
upon to be consistent — consistently good or consistently
evil. The Bush Negro's gods, like humans, often did things
for unaccountable reasons, because of a momentary whim,
because of a desire to try the untried.
It was good to be guileless, but sometimes a man had to
be a tiger, had to stalk his prey from behind. It was well
enough to be a tiger, but sometimes a man needed the
cunning of the bush hero, spider Anansi, who knew how
to outwit the tiger. It was well enough to be an eagle, and
be free and fly high, but sometimes a man needed the wit
of the little bird konubri, who became king of all birds,
because, when in the kingdom of birds there was a contest
for the throne, it was he who, by perching on the back of
the eagle, flew highest of all.
In the simplest of our own terms, Granman Moana
Yankuso could be said to be a superb politician. In his
villages, marriage alliances were calculated with the nicety
of the best statesmanship. Whatever his own views, he saw
to it that he never defied the arbiters of magic or the
clan of the seat of magic, the Dahomey people. Toward the
women of strange villages who came to see the white man
and his woman, he showed an easy gallantry, which could
not have been but flattering. When addressing the women
who carried children astride their backs, he would speak
gently to them and call them "mother" in greeting, and
[250]
GRANMAN MOANA ^iTANKUSO
for the young girls he had the cavalier address of "wenki,"
possibly the English word wench tinder its seventeenth
century connotation of young womar,.
We had, thanks to the gods, perhaps, never seen him in
the role of tiger, unless his parting krutu with the four
Gankwe men could be said to symbolize its mood, if not its
manner. To suggest that any full-grown Bush Negro — a
man who had Kromanti — would be incapable, when need
arose, of being the tiger, would, of course, be looked upon
as the deepest affront.
But Moana Yankuso was more than an astute politician.
Using our own values again, we admired his vitality, his
dignity, his robust imagination, his wit. Perhaps what
struck us particularly about him, when we came to know
him in situations with his own people, was that here was a
man who in intellect and will towered so much above those
who were about him that he was a lonely figure. His age
had become something of a myth, too. People said he was
seventy, that he was more than that, that he was scarcely
sixty. We had never seen his head without the covering
kerchief, so that it was difficult to form any definite impres-
sion about his years. But in strength he was still a colossus,
though it was not true that he was the tallest or the
strongest or the darkest man on the river. His own son-in-
law, Wilhelmina's husband, was perhaps a head taller
than he, as was the drummer at Akisiamau, who had played
the agida for us. We had seen him, cutlass in hand, clearing
a path for us through the underbrush with amazing rapidity,
as the courteous gesture of a host who wanted to insure our
bathing in privacy. Had the underbrush been of papier-
mache, he could not have swung his strokes more surely or
more tellingly.
Above all else, however, Granman Moana Yankuso was
a magnificent talker, a fine story-teller. What we give of
his conversations, and what incidents we describe, may
suggest something of his personality. His full story will
never be written.
[251I
REBEL DESTINY
"Tell me this," saia Granman Yankuso to us one evening
when we sat alone with him in the council house, "why-
is it that things h?.ve changed so in the city? I am not a
young man. For } ears I came to the city, and when I met
Negro women of the town going to market or coming from
market, they were dressed in full skirts. They looked well.
Now the women dress in straight dresses like men. Straight
up and down and short. They want to look like white
people.
"Years ago when I came to the city, I used to hear
Negroes laugh. It is good to hear laughter. Now they are
trying to be like the whites. They do not laugh. That is not
good. It would be better if white people laughed more, too.
"Why do Negroes want to turn into white people.'*
Look, is my skin like yours .^ Is my daughter's hair like
yours, white woman .'' If you put on a pangi, you will not
look like my daughter. You, white man, are as tall as
Captain And'u. If you put on a cloth over one shoulder,
you will not look like And'u. . . .
"A man came to me in the city and said he wanted to go
to Dahomey. He wore no obias. He was a white man's
Negro. I said he couldn't go to Dahomey. The man said,
'Look, my skin is as black as yours.' 'Ai, but your heart
isn't.'
"You know why I said it.'' There is your kind of magic,
white man, and there is our kind of magic. White man's
magic keeps men in cities, but here in the bush a man needs
black man's magic to keep alive and black man's strength
to go up and down the rivers.
"You white men have books. You read in books, and you
know. I cannot read what men write, yet I can read in my
own way. I meet a man, and I can read him. I look at him,
and I know what he is thinking. Before he begins to talk, I
know what he wants to say. What your ancestors knew
they put down in books, and you read it. What our ancestors
know, they tell us at night, they tell us in the cool of the
[252]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
morning, they tell us when we call on them. That is the
black man's way.
"You white people have money, you have fine houses,
you wear clothes, you can count. They tell me that you
say in your books all people must be friends. But you have
wars. If white people kill white people, then mati — friend —
how will it be with black people living among the whites .^"
Granman Yankuso rose, when he said this, and took
from the chains of the suspended lamp a folded envelope.
He handed it to us, and from it we took out a letter on the
stationery of the League of Nations, signed by its Secretary,
Sir Eric Drummond. As we were reading this, he left the
council house and soon returned with a larger envelope,
which he had kept uncreased, and from it brought out a
photograph of the Council of the League of Nations in
session. They were his proud possessions. While the World
War lasted there was no work for the Bush Negroes on the
river. They could not earn the money they needed to buy
cloths for marrying and powder and rum for ceremonial
usage. The Bush Negroes called it a "great money famine,"
in the way of their Anansi stories which so often began with
"This was a time of great famine." Through a missionary
on the upper river, the Granman learned of the war, and
through him later of the League, which the missionary had
undoubtedly brought up as the white man's defense against
the challenge of the black tribal head, who asked, "How
will it be with black people living among the whites ?"
It was then that the Granman through this same mission-
ary addressed himself to the white rulers far away, telling
of the fear of the blacks, and counseling them the wisdom
of peace!
4
In the council house Granman Moana Yankuso was host
to the Gankwe men. They were there to take their leave of
him before starting down river. Asikanu, the handsome
brother of the Gankwe clan head, who was sent away from
his village while the elders were deciding upon his adultery
[253]
REBEL DESTINY
fine, sat between Sedefo, whose bench was moved forward
a little, and Anglta. The younger men sat with bodies
half-turned toward the wall, out of respect for the Granman,
the older ones, with their faces averted from him.
The Granman was speaking, telling a story.
"Ai, mati ..." he said, in his precise, formal way,
laying stress on each syllable, "in our bush, the gods be
praised, men are men. There was a man near here, who saw
a woman he liked, and he took her. He had a loving eye, he
was young. Ai, mati, what is a beating to a man when he is
young? But the proverb says, 'All that is in the darkness
will come to light.' Dealings with women always come to
light too soon. That man got a beating, mati! He came out
into the clearing, his head held high, like any man whom
young girls follow with their eyes. But waiting for him was
the husband of the woman, and the men of his family,
and. ..."
"Well, so it is, G'ama'," said Sedefo, with the careful
modulation which showed that he, too, was schooled in the
way of the important councils.
"Ya-hai, G'ama'," said Asikanu, more briefly.
Granman Yankuso now went on with his story, bringing
to his recital all the detail of the punishment of the adulterer,
without quickening the telling of his story even when he
spoke the words which described the sound of the blows.
"Yes, master of the realm," said Sedefo, his head still
averted, but leaning his body forward a little as he spoke,
so that he somewhat shielded Asikanu from the direct
gaze of the Granman, yet managing this clever gesture so
that it had the air of rapt interest.
"Kere-kere, G'ama'," Asikanu breathed, almost
inaudibly.
As the Granman recounted his tale, Asikanu's spine
twitched as though every blow mentioned was that in-
stant being leveled at him, as though he himself were
lying head down in the dust of the clearing, while blows
rained down upon him, and the Kromanti iron bands cut
gashes into his proud face and arms and body.
[254]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
But Sedefo, splendid actor that he was, betrayed in no
way that he was aware of his friend's discomfiture, except
that his interpolations became more and more spirited,
balancing in the intensity of his voice the formality of the
Granman's speech.
*'True, true!" he said, with excitement.
"By Ando, G'ama'!"
When the tale was finished, the Granman became rem-
iniscent. In his youth he had been like the rest. What did
it mean to be a man and not to assert one's manhood when
a handsome woman was to be had ? He was on the Marowyne
then. Did they want to beat him .>* He had said, "Very well."
As many as wished could come at him — but one at a time.
As he spoke now, he clenched his fist and struck the table
with it so that the table shook and the guns which lay
underneath it rattled.
He was no longer young, but his answer to people
who threatened would still be the same, he continued.
"Tell them that everywhere on the river, mati," he
finished with a smile, and he cleared his throat as a signal
for the bassia to come and pour out drinks for his visitors,
before they left his village.
And how was their clan head who had been ailing? he
asked, with friendly solicitude.
5
Granman Yankuso was telling about his great ancestors.
He looked particularly well that night. His smock-like
coat was a deep blue, and over it was a print of orange and
black worn toga fashion.
There was Bagida, one of the first to escape to the bush,
and Dosi who made the Kasito clan, and Ajako who was a
Matchau Negro, a man of the Granman's own clan, and it
was he who had fought against the whites and had freed his
people. There were Mother Bedu, and Mother Fakia, and
the great Abini family which bore Alabi, whom the peccary
had helped to freedom, so that Alabi's people, the Awana
Negroes, to this day did not eat pingo.
[255 1
REBEL DESTINY
Alabi, as the Granman called him, was the Araby of
history, the great rebel of whom Stedman, who campaigned
against the Bush Negroes long ago, wrote,
"White man, Alabi did not know how to work gold, or
to earn great wealth, but he had stories in his head." He
had called the first black krutu. And from Alabi had come
Danieh who built Gansee, which was even now one of the
most populous villages on the whole river.
"Long ago in the bush here, we had men, Bak'a!"
There was G'ama' Okosu, a Nomerimi Negro, the leader
of those men who had escaped to the swamps on the coast,
instead of going into the bush, and whom the people were
afraid to touch.
"G'ama' Okosu could change into a kwatta monkey
when he liked. He could cross the river without a boat."
The Dombi Negroes had their man, too. He was Sabaku.
He was leaving his people to run away from slavery. He
was going into the bush. "If we do not meet again in life,
we shall meet in death," he said. He had no boat in which to
cross the river, so he went to Yank'o, the buzzard, and he
asked him to carry him. "I have no home, O Yank'o,"
he said to the buzzard, "but I will get on your back, and
there my home will be. You who fly high, who fly over
water, and over the high bush, carry me to safety."
The Granman himself was part Dombi and part Matchau,
he said.
"That is why we do not shoot a buzzard. If we shoot him
by accident, then we must say 'Many thanks.' "
There was Tata Wadia who opened up this bush, who was
still sung about by the Negroes of the city when they
invoked the Kromanti spirit.
"I have the stick which he used."
"Will you let us see it, Granman.?"
"Gbolo!"
"We will photograph you holding the stick, Granman,
and when we show it in our country we will tell the story."
He nodded. But the photograph was never taken.
[256]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
The next night he told stones again. The talk was of
Africa.
"Our first ancestor was Tata Sakotu. He came from
God." Father Sakotu found himself alone in the bush. Day
after day he wandered, and hunger was killing him. One
day he came to a tree bearing the pongi fruit, but the fruit
hung so high that he could not get it. Father Sakotu cried
out to God, and said, "O God, you gave me life. Give me
food that I may sustain the life you gave me." God came to
him and said, he said, "Sakotu, break off a stick, and with
the stick strike the branches of the tree, and the fruit will
fall down." All that he knew Sakotu learned from God, and
he passed it on to his children.
The Granman's story of wandering alone in the bush
brought another to his mind.
"Did you ever hear about Captain Apatu .''" he asked us.
"He lived not so long ago. He was a man without fear. The
French sent him to Pali (Paris) and wrote down in their
white man's books that he was a great man. I will tell you
his story."
Apatu was a Matchau Negro, a member of the Gran-
man's own clan. He swore friendship with the Aluku
people and went over to the French nationality and later
tried to get the Granman's people to become French. This
was how it came to pass.
"Apatu was a clever man. We say knowledge is not wisi,
to want to know is not sorcery. But sometimes, when a
man knows much, he has enemies, and trouble comes to
him. This happened to Apatu. People on the river said he
was a zvisiman. He said to the people, when they drove
him away and cursed him, he said, 'Give me one fig banana,
and I will go. If I am guilty of witchcraft, let the whites
catch me, and kill me.' He wore one obia on his arm which
Tata Boni gave him. Tata Boni was a great obia man. He
could walk on the water."
[257]
REBEL DESTINY
With this obia, and unafraid, Apatu went. He reached the
French shore, and found work. Years later he was asked
to guide an expedition against the Indians. They came to a
cave. At the other end of it Indians waited with their
poisoned arrows.
The French officer said to him, "Apatu, are you afraid.'*"
"I will go, I am not afraid of death," Apatu said to the
officer.
He led the way through the cave, calling out, "Mafi,
Yanku na'a, hi!"
Three times the Indians tried to shoot him, and each time
they failed.
*'The French officer gave Apatu a gold piece for saving
his life. That was when they sent him to Pali, and it was
written down that he was a great man," ended the Granman.
7
"Do you know what they asked me in the city when I
was there.''" the Granman said one day, when his elders
assembled. " 'Chief Yankuso,' they asked me, 'which is
better, light or darkness r I said to them, I said, 'Darkness
is better. When it is day we work and we struggle. At night
we go into our hammocks with our women, and we find
peace.' "
He turned to us as he told the story.
"Is it not so, white man? You yourself are young."
A few days after the gods had spoken, the Granman asked
us if we would that evening show the pictures of the coun-
try of the Negroes which we had brought. We had shown
him earlier the simple projector, actually a flashlight with a
lens attached, through which a roll of film passed to flash
images, one by one, on a screen. On the film were photo-
graphs of illustrations from books on Africa.
Mechanical objects of all kinds fascinated these men of
the bush, and they would ask again and again to see our
flashlights or the inside of our phonograph. Though un-
[258]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
willing to touch the phonograph, they never tired of hearing
about its mechanism and how it was that a voice was
recorded and instantly reproduced. But the mystery of
the moment was this projector.
We had delayed showing these photographs as long as we
could, for what leads we could get to African survivals, we
sought, for many reasons, to get singly. Not the least of
these reasons was that the Bush Negro, who knew the
method of krutu, did not allow himself to be impulsive
in new situations, especially if they involved strangers. If
something unfamiliar was presented, he wanted time to
think and to krutu about it with others of his kind. Mem-
ories of the early experiences of their people seemed always
to be stirring to make the most genial man, or a very
pleasant old woman, fall silent and resort to the phrase,
"God alone knows." Men, in particular, and often women,
too, seemed to be posing to themselves a mute, anxious
question: Was it well for the white people to know so
much about them? Even when whites came as friends, as
the gods attested, was it well to speak that fraction of their
knowledge which the ancestors permitted ^ For generations
they had lived with the feeling that their deep, deep
Saramacca language was their own, its knowledge the
wisdom of their own people, and here were strangers,
speaking to them in their own tongue more easily as day
followed day. Was it well .'* Men taking a white man's boat
up and down the river could say what they chose, and
the white man who traveled with them did not understand.
What if this were to end .'*
We were constantly made to feel the effect of these doubts
in the minds of the people.
"They say here," said Fenekonde one day, "when you
get back to your white country, you will have much knowl-
edge to profit you. The two of you will be able to talk
Saramacca, and no one at all will know what you say."
Other things were said.
"At the krutu they said, these white people might have
been sent by others, as soldiers with toys."
[259]
-^
REBEL DESTINY
"You must have strong obia from Africa — strong snake
obia — for the gods to have spoken so well of you!"
But when the Granman asked, there was no refusing.
That day word was sent to all in the village that the Bakra
was giving a cinema show in the bush.
Long before dark the entire village had gathered in front
of our doorway. The children had been around since early
afternoon. Against the council-house wall we hung a white
sheet, and some feet away we stood our folding table and on
it the little projector. The show was about to begin.
The Granman who sat a little to one side gave orders to
the latecomers to extinguish the flames of their small oil
lamps and their lanterns, and the large torch which he had
so proudly shown that first night, and which had since
illuminated the clearing nightly, was also extinguished.
The illustrations we had photographed were from volumes
on the people of the West Coast of Africa — ^Ashanti and
the Gold Coast, Dahomey, Nigeria, Benin, the Cameroons,
Loango, and the Congo. Our first year's experiences among
these people had taught us that it would not be well to
show them too many ceremonial pictures. Photographs of
sacrifices of animals other than fowls, we had felt, too,
would not be wise to introduce. Such a picture as that of
the Ashanti Sasabonsum, the "evil Apuku," as the Bush
Negroes whom we had allowed to see the illustration named
it, we had also decided should best be shown to individuals
here and there. For the general showing, we relied upon
pictures of cicatrizations, of hairdressing and teeth filing,
of rafts floating on African lakes, of pottery making and
cloth weaving, of laying fires and the doing of other house-
hold tasks, of carvings, and finally of one or two priests and
priestesses in states of possession.
We waited for a signal from the Granman to begin. About
the dark clearing the huts, with their roof poles meeting on
top like great horns, gave a strange effect to the scene, for
with the moving and shifting of bare feet it seemed as
though everything in that clearing strained to fall in line
[260]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
with the white curtain hanging against the wall of the
council house. To one side was the image of the Sky God,
tall almost as the big bush which stood about the clearing,
and beside it the pole for the Earth Mother. People went
from one side of the improvised screen to the other, with no
mental image to tell them where they should look or what
they might expect to see. Something of fear went with their
expectancy.
The Granman nodded, and the pictures began to appear.
'*Mati, did you see how they lay the fire .'*"
"Mother of all Negroes, what great breasts the women
have!"
"See them getting the cassava ready! Look, they use the
bark for a container!"
"Master Nigger! They know something there in the land
of our ancestors. Men know how to weave cloth!"
"See the braids. They are handsome in our ancestral land.
The head looks like a carved calabash!"
"Massa Nengere! That's the way to take lumber down!
Not one raft at a time, or two, mati. Four at a time. They
are workmen there, I tell you! Our ancestors used to say
there was wealth there!"
We had usually to tell them what the picture showed, for
they had not the habit of looking at these images and
would stand to one side, or bend low and look up at the
screen. But once we named the picture — "This is the head
of a woman," or "This is timber going down to the city,"
or "This is a path through the bush" — then it was they who
beg^n to describe aloud what they saw, exclaiming over the
resemblance to their own paths, or to their own manner of
burning pots, or to their own way of preparing food.
"Mati, friends," said the Granman, "here deep in the
Saramacca bush, all this has come to us. If I were a young
man, I would go and see what goes on in the world. I would
go to Africa. White man, how much gold does a man need to
go to Africa ?" After a short silence, he continued this train
of thought. "What shall be done .'* Shall we go see the world ^
[261]
REBEL DESTINY
Here is our bush. Our gods are here, and our ancestors come
at our call. There is the world — na g'on tapu. There is the
land of our old ancestors."
He stopped and covered his face with his hands, remain-
ing deep in thought. But when he spoke again, his voice was
calm.
"Mati, let us see all that the white man has brought.
Here deep in the bush, all this has come to us that even
children might see. Let us see all."
On the screen appeared a priest. He wore a grass skirt
used in a sacred dance, a skirt like the one we had had made
for us here on the river, and his face was covered, mask-like,
with white clay.
"Ai, mati," exclaimed the Granman, as everyone gasped
at what they saw.
The next picture showed the same priest dancing. Two
men held his arms.
"When Kromanti gets a man in the ancestral country, it
comes so strong that he has to be held in check, friends. So
it is here, too."
So great was the fascination of the Granman and of all
his people with the phonograph that many times we had
occasion to feel if it were not for Apanto's curse, and the
habit of elastic to stretch, and of glue to be affected by
tropical heat, the machine would have overcome for us what
distrust there was of our interest in their beliefs — that it
might even have changed the decision of the ancestors
when they were consulted by priests in Dahomey — a
decision which ruled that the white man and his woman
were not to be given the secrets of their worship.
Whatever the ancestors had told the men who carried on
their heads the sacred plank which was used for consulting
the ancestral will, the attitude of the people showed that
the white man could not be received in the bush without
distrust. The intentions of a white man might be friendly,
[262]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
yet his findings might in time serve the enemy. We were
soldiers bringing toys, as the image of the krutu had
suggested.
Since life in the bush, for strangers like ourselves, was
lived In terms of days, and each day was taken for what It
might bring, we were grateful to those gods who had
spoken for us, and watched the effect of the ancestral edict.
Before dawn of the day which followed the ceremony of
asking the will of the ancestors, men came to counsel with
the Granman, and from then onward many men were
about the village. The young boys found their toy guns
again, and the little girls played on the river bank. The
widow who was so susceptible to evil influences no longer
appeared In the central clearing with her child on her back,
stamping her rice, or drying her peanuts. Her door was
shut. Fenekonde was no longer about, for she had gone
to the menstrual house, and Tenemi who came to sweep
the council house each morning now wore a new obia on a
long, twisted, white cord, hung from shoulder to side. She
was polite, formal, and she worked fast.
Late that afternoon the obia man who had appeared at
the first council meeting with wide stripes of clay came
again, and his wife accompanied him. They were the best
diviners on the river. From the corner of the council house
the large mat which had been standing rolled up was carried
into a closed hut, so that he might sit on it, and perform his
magic to see what the future held for the destiny of the
Saramacca people, and what immediate threat the white
man's coming boded. Before leaving for the hut where the
mat was prepared the man and woman sat with us in the
council house in the company of the Granman. They
apparently needed to know our individual names for their
task. While we sat there, the white woman absently began
to play with the obia about her neck, and this seemed a
signal for the other woman to take hers into her hands and
begin to mutter an invocation, for the stranger's careless
playing appeared to her as the white man's way of casting
a spell.
[263]
REBEL DESTINY
So it went. The Granman was still a considerate host, but
he no longer came to regale us with stories. He was dis-
turbed. Again and again we were assured by indirection
that our own motives were not doubted. But in what seemed
to them our very foolhardiness in coming that distance, and
because we had showed no fear, we had proved that we
were being made use of by those who would later show
enmity toward them.
When men came whose allegiance would go to any man in
power, himself or the next man, the Granman would
exclaim with all his splendid oratory that the black man's
cause never could be that of the white man. To men of
his own village, like the captain who took us down the
river, he gave instructions that our every wish was to be
met.
It was the way of the politician — and it was more than
that. He showed in his manner when he was alone with us
that he was deeply puzzled. As a man who had learned to
trust his judgments of people, his pride would not permit
him to grant that his wits had failed him. Then, too, what
he had heard from us had fired his imagination. That he was
skeptical of the ancestral revelation, we do not believe, but
it was possible that, with the Bush Negro concept of the
world of the dead, he might have felt that the great ancestors
who were consulted remembered their days of slavery, and
would, therefore, never consent to the revealing of secrets
to the white man.
lo
It was our last night in the village of the Granman. In
the council house more than thirty people were crowded,
standing about the table on which we had placed the
phonograph. The Granman sat in his folding chair and
looked on without addressing himself to any one.
He had asked us to let all his people hear the machine.
When we were gone, many people on the river would talk of
it. He wanted all of his village to see how it worked.
[264]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
"You will play everything, white man," he had told us
earlier. He had been especially anxious that we play the
songs we had recorded in Haiti on our way to Suriname.
Often he had spoken of these songs to the chiefs at council
meetings.
** White man, tell these friends the words of those songs
in that foreign tongue."
He had wanted us to speak before these men the words
Legba, a deity to them in the bush as he is in Haiti and in
West Africa today, and Loko, and Aida Wedo, and to
translate the words of the Haitian twin song we had
recorded, and the one to the water god Simbi.
Now he sat in his folding chair and looked on in silence,
his face thoughtful. The songs he heard moved him deeply,
and his expressive face showed it.
When, in the Haitian songs, the women heard the word
"Ago-e" which they recognized, they uttered a shriek. It
was one of their many words for ancestors. They cried out
again when they heard "Aida Wedo" pronounced, and
"Loko." They, too, sang of Aida Wedo, and of Alado, and of
Loko. Dan was one of their words for snake.
The white man asked permission of the Granman later to
record some songs of the people of the village, and promptly
Moana Yankuso addressed a man who stood by. The man
was a good singer, and his seketi improvisations had made
him a figure on the river.
"Sing for the whites, mati. Let them hear in their far
country how our people sing. Let them know that we can
sing, that we sing much."
The singer Mapasi sat down and began to sing. His voice
was of fine quality, and he was as modest in the midst of all
these women with this gift which the gods had given him, as
had been the young dancer whom the Granman had
summoned to dance for us. He sang in a low voice, and
directly into the horn. Accompanying his singing was the
hand clapping of the women, which in the small council
house was deafening. His recitatives were the longest we
had heard on the river, longer by far than those which had
[265]
REBEL DESTINY
surprised us that night at S'ei, and when he paused for a
moment the women took up the chorus. From one song to
another he went, and the hand clapping grew louder, and the
chorus joined in more frequently, often breaking into his reci-
tative, so that there was harmonizing of theme and chorus.
Once or twice the Granman called for a song we had
already recorded, in order to give Mapasi a rest.
"Play us something from the lower river, white man. Let
them hear their own songs, too, sung by others."
When the excitement of hearing the machine reproduce
the song they had just sung had grown less intense, the
singers repeated the song the phonograph was reproducing
for them, for to listen to music without singing was difficult
for them, just as when they sang, they could not but move
their feet, though there was scarcely more than room for
them to stand one close to the other. But a Bush Negro
needs little room for his dancing, so that as the phonograph
played their songs for them, they clapped their hands and
danced in place. For a short interval, at least, the existence
of the whites was forgotten in their pleasure of singing with
the machine.
Until late into the night we played our records for them,
and they sang for us. Whatever the consequences to the
frail records of soft wax, we decided to play as long as they
would listen, because of something in the manner of the
Granman, something of wistfulness, let us say, and some-
thing, perhaps, which went deeper yet, as he sat there — a
black Hamlet following a mute soliloquy while he looked on
with his clever, perplexed eyes.
"Ai, so it is," he said at last, "and now let us go and get
sleep." He rose and the others followed him out of the
council house.
II
Early the next morning, while the tent on our boat was
being finished, the Granman came into the council house
with a calabash and a buzzard's feather in his hand. He
came up to each of us in turn, and struck with the medicine-
dipped feather the tops of our heads, brushed the eyes,
[266]
GRANMAN MOANA YANKUSO
touched the palms of our hands, and struck against the
calves three times.
"This is obia," he said simply, and when he was finished,
he went out.
Our cook knew this obia. It was Opete obia, medicine
bearing the name of the sacred buzzard. It was given us that
we might have a good journey down the river.
"Did you see how he was careful to touch the eyes .^"
our cook pointed out to us. "The Opete gets the eyes when
it comes to a person, just like Kromanti goes into the head,
and Vodu into the belly."
When we went out for a moment, and walked toward our
storeroom, we saw the Granman splash water out of a
calabash onto the floor and front wall of the house which
held our supplies. Was it that our belongings might be
safe on our journey down .? It was no time for questions, and
we asked none.
Women and children again came crowding about the
white woman. Though they had been warned not to talk,
there was still something of the warm feeling of earlier
times which a command did not entirely destroy. Then,
too, the order was that the sendoff was to lack no formality.
As we stood there, a dog came running down the path. He
was on his way to the river. In his mouth was a large ball of
something which had been thoroughly charred. It was an
offering to the river spirits, perhaps. It might have been less
pleasant magic. He had been sent by men who were busy in
the ancestral shrine.
When the white woman called attention to the dog, and
asked what he held, the women recoiled with amazement
that she should have seen the dog at all. Part of the magic
might have been, as it was in some formulas we recorded,
that he was to pass by invisible to the strangers. But this
is conjecture. . . .
The moment before we went down the path to the river,
Amasina came up alone, and gave us her hand. She was
gracious, and completely at her ease. Whatever was said,
she had faith in her god Towenu, who had vouched for our
friendship.
[267]
Chapter XV
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
WE WERE recalled to the council house for a final
informal krutu with Granman Yankuso and some of
his elders before the more formal leave-taking on
the river bank. Our boats were being loaded and soon
we should be on our way down river. With the elders were
the diviners, and our friend, the bassia.
The Granman opened the krutu, greeting and addressing
the men who were present, until he turned to us.
"White man, you and your woman came to my village.
I held you both well. Now when you are ready to go I give
you my grandson for paddler, and the chief of my village for
captain of your boat. That is how we do with those who
come in friendship."
Through our town man, as was the way of the krutu, we
spoke our acknowledgments to him, and our regrets that
our visit was ending. Through our man, the last gifts to the
tribal head were tendered, and through one of the elders,
the ritual expression of thanks was returned us for what we
had put before the Granman.
We had two favors to ask of him. For many days we had
lived in this house, and had admired the fine carvings which
the council house held. In our own country, when we
thought of the days on the upper Saramacca River,
a piece of carving from this house would give us much
pleasure. But of the elaborate carvings we did not wish to
[ 268 ]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
deprive him. Might we buy, however, one of the simple
benches from the shelf above the door, which the chiefs
and we ourselves had used many times ?
The one we took down had interested us for its possible
ritual significance. On Its top a single design was repeated
four times. It was a representation of an axe-head, and the
clan of Yankuso was the Matchau, the Axe Clan.
The Granman looked at the diviner. ''''Fa jo do'^ — What to
do .'*" was his query.
The man he addressed murmured, " T''ohi — Trouble."
But it was, after all, only a small and slightly ornamented
bench.
"Take it!" the Granman said. "What else is it you ask.'*"
There was the apinti drum. In the house where objects
of all peoples of the earth were brought for men and women
to look at, there were none of the fine carvings the Bush
Negroes make. When we returned, we would place beside
the African and Indian objects which were there those of
the Saramacca people. As yet, we had not been able to
buy an apinti drum. This one was more beautiful than any
we had seen. Could he not sell it to us, so that everyone
might know that the finest of drums had come from the
council house of Moana Yankuso, Granman of the Sara-
macca people.'*
This time he did not hesitate. He smiled, and shook his
head.
"No, no, white man," he said, "this drum Is not for me to
sell. This one I cannot part with, not for all your goods.
Down river, when you visit my villages, you can get an
apinti which will be beautiful. When you come to the
village of Akunkun, and you see Kasanya, ask him to find
you an apinti. I will tell Captain Matalbo to leave a message
at other villages that you want an apinti. This one no gold
can buy."
This was not our first attempt to buy an apinti drum.
Nor was it to be the last refusal.
Waiting, we sat in the council house while our supplies
were being carried to the canoes and placed in them, until
[269]
REBEL DESTINY
Mataibo, the head of Yankuso's village, who was entrusted
with the safe passage of our boats, came to announce that
the men had done loading. Before the morning was yet
well advanced we left the house, and with the Granman
under his umbrella, which was the highest of insignia,
passed to the river bank.
Our friends were there — the bassia, and Dida, and
Amasina, and the Granman's wives and his little grandson,
who shouted to us, ''Waka bon, ye'e! — Travel well, you
hear!" in the best manner of his elders. Again three guns
sounded, and once more we were on the river, looking up at
the people of these villages of the Pikien Rio who were
waving to us from the shore.
Going down the river was restful. The enjoyment of the
easy motion of the boats was felt in the manner of the
paddlers themselves. Now there was no hard poling against
the heavy current. As canoes were urged on the two pad-
dlers wielded their long blades in unison, and the dugouts
swung downstream in the center of the river, where the
current was heaviest. When the murmurs of the rapids
ahead were heard, it was but a moment until they grew into
a roar, and then, in another, we were through, the man at
the front standing up for an instant so that, with a twist of
his paddle, he might turn the head of the boat from any
threatening rock, while the stern man did not stroke at all,
but merely held the craft on the course which was marked
where the water tossed itself into foam-capped waves.
Sometimes, as we came to rapids where the force of the
water was especially strong, or there was a sharp double
curve to be negotiated, the two boats would pause for a
moment while Mataibo called out to the younger men the
course to follow. Then into the falls, and through them, and
our bow paddler would carefully rearrange his loin cloth
and sit down once more to take up his steady stroking.
Opposite one village Sungi came in his boat to meet us,
to give and receive a final gift, and say his goodbye. But
it was not to the landing place of Dahomey that he took us
for this interchange, but to the village of his wife, he told
[270]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
US when we asked him. At one landing place where we
stopped for a moment, we could hear the drums sounding
the rhythm to the river gods, but the drumming stopped
abruptly as word went back along the path that white
people had come. Men streaked with pemba came down to
the river to look at the Bakra who had visited the village of
their Granman.
In the boat, we missed Bayo. The grandson of the Gran-
man, who was our bow paddler, we had met but casually
before we had started. There had been none of the chances
for conversation that had made of Bayo a friend before he
and his great-grandfather came to take us to the country of
the Granman. Later we would come to know this youth for a
pleasant young man, capable and quiet, who was proud
to show his ability, and quick to resent the suggestions of
our town man in such matters as making a shelter for the
night.
"We are children of the bush!" the young man exclaimed
sharply. "We know how to make this." And such a good
shelter did the paddlers build that men of a near-by village,
who passed, stopped and asked that it not be torn down the
next morning, as had to be done with shelters erected for
the night on the land of a strange clan, but that we should
let it stand so that others might use it.
When we asked him questions, however, or made observa-
tions on people who passed by in their canoes, he gave us
noncommittal replies. Mataibo, the captain of our boat,
was even more reserved, though he liked to twit our town
man, and in an unofficial capacity would have been amus-
ing. Conversation between the two paddlers, or between
them and the two young men who were entrusted with our
other boat, was in the clipped, rapid "deep-Saramacca"
speech which, in spite of our use of it in conversation at the
Granman's village, we still found it difficult to follow when
Bush Negroes spoke informally to one another.
As the day wore on, we began to get used to the rapidity
with which village after village was passed. Here was the
landing place of the one where we had stopped so that
[271]
REBEL DESTINY
Sedefo might greet his sister. It was almost a half-day's
travel, going up river, from Asindopo Lantiwe, yet it was
not quite noon, and we were passing it. Here was Hei
Kununu, its steep slopes already swinging into sight as we
rounded a bend of the river and came through the small
rapids above the settlement, and still it seemed as though
we had but begun our course down toward our base camp
and the railhead. And it was still early in the afternoon
when we came to Ma'lobbi.
At the landing place, women were about. Much of the
work of the Bush Negro woman is at the river's edge, and
for strangers like ourselves, passing in a dugout, the
presence of women working on the bank was the only sign
that here was a landing place, and that farther inland lay a
village. To the river they came with their carved clothes
beaters, like the one we could see in the hand of the woman
who greeted us here at Ma'lobbi, fashioned, as we later
learned when she sold it to us, in the shape of a male vodu
head on one end, and a female snake on the other. It was
at the edge of the water that a woman scraped cooking pots
and calabash dishes with sand, and it was^ here, iif it
seemed a good day for fishing, that a woman would go
wading in the water to rest a cooking pot on the river
bottom, and stand silently until an inquisitive school of
small fish swam into it when, with a quick jerk, she would
bring it up to take out what iish there were. This, aside
from the use of small hooks, was the only kind of fishing a
woman could do, for the fishing traps were for the use of
men. But the cooking pot brought in many small fish to add
flavor to a dish of rice.
As we walked into the village, accompanied by one of our
younger paddlers, the bassia greeted us. The head of the
village was waiting for us, he told us. Paddlers of small boats
on their way downstream had spread the word that our
visit with the Granman was drawing to an end.
[272]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
As we walked toward the chief's house we looked about
us, seeing again the evidence that here at Ma'lobbi there
were men who knew how to carve wood, seeing why it was
that our paddlers had spoken of it as a place for fine work.
"Ai, at Ma'lobbi they are good carvers."
Here was a house with its doorposts elaborately carved;
there a beautifully worked rice tray, lying where it had
been left by the woman who owned it, until she should need
it later in the day for winnowing her rice; farther along a
great bench stood, with the designs cut through in a fluid
progression over top and sides.
The captain was in the lower portion of his two-story
house when we entered. Several of the older men, who had
been present at our earlier visit and who remembered our
gifts of tobacco, came to join us, as the news of our arrival
spread through the village. Soon the women were standing
about, motioning to the white woman to come with them.
The house in which the captain received us was larger and
more imposing than the others in the village. It was his
gudu-zvosu — his treasure house. Its lower portion, where we
sat in conversation with him, was where he worked. Above,
where none of his wives might enter, his wealth was stored.
Here he kept the pieces he had carved, and from here drew
from time to time the presents he gave his wives. Here
lay the wealth which his nephews would inherit when he
died. But below, in the partially open shelter, was his
workshop where he fashioned rough logs into stools and
paddles, combs and food stirrers, trays and canoe seats,
and all manner of objects which he and his women used in
their daily routine.
All about the walls hung tools. There were machetes,
whose sharp blades showed a reflection of fire from the sun
which slanted on the wall. We had never seen so many of
these bush knives on display, nor, for that matter, such an
array of tools anywhere on this river. From projecting
boards or nails driven into posts hung several compasses,
their hinged arms sharp-pointed, so that the craftsman
might describe the perfect circles on the wood he carved.
[273]
REBEL DESTINY
This they had learned from the whites long ago, and
now everywhere on the river compasses were seen, or
carvings which showed their use. The machete, the small
sharp knives which lay about here on the work-table, the
compass, and sand made up any Bush Negro carver's tools.
But here at Ma'lobbi in this workshop of the captain were
tools from the white man's city, collected by himself on his
journeys down to the government office to receive his yearly
allowance, or by his men who had been to the French shore
and learned of the ways of the outside world. There was
a plane to make the blade of a paddle smooth as the skin of
a child, and there were two others in addition to this one,
we were assured, in the treasure house of the upper story.
Hammers, too, were useful for making boats, and even for
smaller carvings like benches. There was also a bit and
auger, though we were never convinced that the captain
himself had ever put it to its more prosaic uses.
"I have many more up there," said the captain, pointing
to the upper story. "I like them. If a man likes his tools,
then they help him in his carvings. As he sees with his eyes,
so they cut. I have always liked my tools, white man. I
have spent much time with them."
A young man sat to one side shaving down a block of
wood with a knife which he held.
"He is not carving," the captain said, following our eyes.
"He is making a piece for this," he explained, indicating a
plane. "Now is not the time for carving. There is too much
to be done. This is the time for cutting wood, for taking the
rafts down the river, for making boats, for bleeding rubber
trees for the white man, and for hunting game. When the
great rains come, then men sit about and carve."
As he spoke our eyes traveled to the various carvings
which stood about the workshop. In one corner leaned a
paddle which caught our attention because of its darkened
color, and the patina which long use had given it, so that it
seemed made of ebony. Against another wall were several
stools, all richly ornamented with carvings, while beside us,
[274]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
and so close that our hands, moving about to find a rest,
touched Its top, and sounded an involuntary rhythm, was
an apinti drum. We exclaimed at its beauty, for in form and
carving it rivaled the one we had admired in the council
house of Granman Yankuso, and we were determined to
try to buy it. But we turned our conversation to other
things. A stranger in this bush soon learns from the Bush
Negroes to broach an important request gently, remember-
ing the cautioning proverb spoken by the chameleon.
We talked of carving, of the white man's coming back
some year when the rains were heavy to sit by and watch
the men make paddles and benches, so that he might learn,
as children learn.
The captain was politely skeptical. It took a Saramacca
hand to do this work. But he smiled, "Ma kye, if you have
the gods anything is possible."
"That's a fine paddle in the corner."
He brought it out, and we admired it. Would he sell it
to us .''
"You must ask its owner."
"Didn't you make it, captain,'"'
"Yes, but it is not mine to sell. I gave it to my wife."
He would see, however, if she wanted to sell it. He would
himself go and call her.
As he went, he gave us the paddle that we might examine
it. We ran our hands over the smooth top, the design, the
beveled blade. It was not so tall as the paddles used by the
men, nor was its blade so broad as those used in steering
the great boats through the rapids. In form, it was quite
different from the round-bladed type used by the Indians
of the region, for it was slender and came to a sharp point,
and at the other end the carving formed a crutch-shaped
hold into which the hand fitted.
We studied this carving. Parts of the design had meaning
for us because of their realistic treatment. The motifs of
others were recognizable to us from explanations we had
been given of other carvings. But there were still details
[275]
REBEL DESTINY
of design which only the carver himself could name, or
someone who knew the symbolism of the art tradition in
which this paddle was carved.
During our first visit to these people we had been com-
pletely balked by the unwillingness of the Bush Negroes to
discuss their carvings. In answer to our questions we got
delightful evasions, but with the coming of Bayo to our
base camp, carrying his crudely carved stool, we learned
enough to make it clear that there was a great deal of
symbolism in the carving of the Bush Negroes and, as our
knowledge of these symbols increased, it became increas-
ingly easier to get descriptions of carvings in terms of the
meanings and values these held for the Bush Negroes
themselves.
Now, sitting in the workshop of one of the finest of
Saramacca carvers, the captain of Ma'lobbi, we traced
those parts of the design which we knew, mentioning their
significance to the men who were about.
"There are two snakes," we said, pointing to the real-
istically entwined bodies which formed the upper portion
of the hand grip, ending at the top with recognizable heads,
and with mouths held open, which supported symmetrical
figures of the top of the paddle.
"Aboma snakes," one man said, verifying to himself our
statement.
"These," we continued, "are the teeth of the great
lizard — bamha tande — and this part below the hand-grip
reaching part way toward the blade is a carved chain, and
you call it moni mo^ muye — money is more than woman."
The men laughed. "Awa, so it is. The man knows about
Saramacca carving."
And one of them took up the explanation, pointing out
the two symmetrical figures which were posed opposite
each other above the mouths of the snakes. "These are
monkeys. They are women monkeys. No, don't call them
just keskesi, their name is makaka," he went on, giving
us the name of the species, when we spoke the word for
monkey. "See the ears, the heads, the breasts. Ai, I
[276]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
know you see them. They told you much on the upper
river."
As he finished speaking, the captain returned with his
wife. Excited comments greeted him.
"The white man here knows temhe — carving."
"He knows lizard's teeth design."
"He knew that this was the aboma snake, and the
makaka."
The old man was skeptical. "^ so? Was it true.?" Let
the Bakra show him.
We repeated the lesson we had just learned to the cap-
tain and his wife who owned the paddle. They listened
thoughtfully. Then the woman spoke.
"White man, I have used this paddle for many years.
I do not like to sell it. But you care for it. You are a man
who knows carving. In your country you tell me other men
know carving. They will look at it, and see it is beautiful,
and they will know it is from the Saramacca. Take it, and
pay me what you like."
There were other carvings which we bought — a large rice-
carrying tray, and some food stirrers, one of which was
especially fine, made as it was of two small paddles with
miniature blades, the handles joined by a wooden ring-
chain, and all of this carved out of one piece of wood.
Few things on the river seemed to the outsiders more
characteristic of the life of the Saramacca people than these
carvings which were met with everywhere, however small
the village, however poor the home. When the seasonal
rains came, men incised their desires on wood, which later
told the legend of procreation, or safety on the river, or a
curse invoked against a woman if she proved unfaithful; or
something of humor, such as a man bidding for a girl's
favor, and she refusing him, while up above intertwined
were a man and woman, symbolizing the ultimate consum-
mation with the proper suitor.
[277]
REBEL DESTINY
The greater part of these carvings men made for women,
and it was. a rare woman who did not take pride in the
excellence of the carvings given her, though often it must
have been the pride in something which had traditional
value, for it would be false to assume that among any
people are all men equally endowed with creativeness
and all women with sensitive appreciation of what is
created.
As among so many peoples, two or three types of art
were to be found. There was the same sex division in the
art of these people as existed in all other aspects of life,
and the men were the wood carvers. The sharpest division
in the art of the men was that between the secular and
the religious. The religious art was crude. A block of wood,
roughly shaped, with several cuts to indicate a face, per-
haps a break in the line to represent the neck, and a few
more strokes in the wood to differentiate the upper part
of the woman's body, and there stood an ancestral image,
or a village god. Often white clay was added to this, and
sometimes alternate stripes of white and red, or white, red,
and black, but when seen on a village path underneath a
low open shelter, what color there once was had become
weathered to a dull gray. The sacred art also included the
charms called obias, worn on the neck, and about the upper
arm, or wrist, or below the knee, or at the ankle. Many
of these made pleasing ornaments. The white fiber dipped
in red clay became a deep golden brown as the sun paled
the crimson, and there would be the added color of a
finger's length of blue and orange parrot feather, fastened
inside the woven fiber square, and extending below the
fringe of the weave. Into this woven square cowries might
be sewn, two facing each other, or three, or four.
There was also the art of modeling, but this was so secret
and so specialized that we were assured that not even all
Bush Negroes knew of its existence, and modeled objects
appeared only in the most important of the shrines.
With the religious art might also perhaps be grouped the
red and white striped crooked sticks of the Kromanti
[278]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
society, the ''Congo" sticks, as they were called here, or
the "fighting" sticks.
The carvings, however, which we were admiring in the
house of the captain of Ma'lobbi were for secular use.
The Bush Negro craftsman brought to the ornamenting
of his paddles and his canoe seats, to his house posts, and
particularly to the door of his treasure house, to his women's
combs, and trays, and food stirrers, and clothes beaters all
the traditional skill and patience. But the exceptional
carver brought also the cunning in his fingers which his
gods had given to him and only to few others on the river.
Such a man was the captain of Ma'lobbi. Into the tradi-
tional designs such a man wove lines for the love of seeing
them grow under his hand, for there were always single
motifs which the people versed in the symbolism of the
art would describe as "beautiful," as having no meaning.
Yet with few exceptions the massing of outlines in a unified
design bore on fertility. Men and women alone or together,
and male and female animals were represented in all but
occasional pieces.
The Bush Negro artist was a man of consequence on the
river. His companions admired his skill, and the young
women were proud to have his handiwork. If he showed
his gifts early, he was at an advantage in courting a girl
of an influential family. The girl's mother, who shared
in the gifts of her daughter's suitor, might be willing to
overlook other less advantageous traits in the man or in
his family, while the girl's uncles would not be loath to
have such a man in their family to teach his art to his
sons, who would be their successors.
On several occasions we were permitted to see how very
deeply this appreciation of fine carving went. As in the
instance of the paddle we had acquired from the wife of
the captain of Ma'lobbi, it had happened often that the
consent of the woman to sell a given piece was necessary
before any trading could take place. Sometimes we traded
directly with the woman, sometimes she asked her hus-
band, or her brother, or her son, as the more worldly
[279]
REBEL DESTINY
person, to act for her. But always hers was the final word,
and often that word when the time came for us to carry
away the piece was "No."
" It was made for me by my husband when I was a young
girl. Now he sleeps, he is no more. I want to have it,"
was a statement which ended all bargaining.
Sometimes even after we had paid the woman, and
stored the piece away, she returned with the moist coins
in her hand, asking for the carved implement.
"Before some man from here will go to the city to buy
me a pangi, I may lose the money, or he may lose it on
the way. But if the clothes beater is here, I can use it and
look at it. I want to keep it."
One vivid Incident of bargaining concerned a peanut
pounding board which had belonged to the sister of Bassia
Anaisi. We were sitting and talking with him and his grand-
mother, when our eyes rested on his sister's house. From a
projection hung a strikingly beautiful piece of carving.
The rectangular portion of the board on which the peanuts
were crushed was bordered on top and bottom with filigreed
carving. It was made of brown-heart wood with Inlays of
purple-heart. Bassia Anaisl's sister supplemented our
guesses of what the designs meant. The top represented a
woman's head and headdress. The small brass nails, which
made a glistening line In the center of the upper curve,
were the cicatrizations on the woman's face.
"Look," said the woman, "she is a woman, but a woman
hawk. Here is her neck, and the small cut-out circles here
are her breasts, those curves at both ends are the wings.
The very small nails are the cicatrizations on the thighs.
She Is a woman, and she has made herself beautiful. This
large rounded portion is her belly, and the smaller one
underneath Is the gonu mofo — the gun's mouth," the last
being their image for the vagina. Meeting this from the
bottom curving upwards was a half-circle, which repre-
sented the male member. At the other end was more embel-
lishment. In the center was a double curve to symbolize
the first phase of the moon. Below were two ^' Ingi Kodyo,"
[280]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
Indian cudgels, a figure of speech for the buttocks, in this
instance those of the woman, and again the male representa-
tion. This was edged with a border of deep curves which
the woman said was mere ornamentation — scrolls. On
another pounding board, however, of this village, a similar
border was said to represent the boa constrictor. This
board stood on two legs, each the width of the board and
about two inches high, and worked in the same cut-through
scroll design.
When we suggested that we might care to acquire the
board, the woman became apprehensive. She took up the
board, and excusing herself, disappeared with it inside her
hut.
"No, no," she called from the house, when her brother
went to tell her of the offer we had made for it. "I don't
want money for it. I like it. I will not sell it."
The sum we offered was modest enough, but not incon-
siderable for this deep interior. We increased it, then
doubled our original offer. There was still no wavering on
the woman's part, but the offer began to interest her family.
Such wealth should not be refused. Bassia Anaisi began to
urge her in our behalf.
"With this money you can buy from the white man's
city a hammock, and several fine cloths. You should not
refuse this."
The old woman took up the discussion, then another
sister, and a brother. At last the bassia took us aside, and
asked us to leave his sister alone with them.
"We will have a krutu, and tomorrow you will hear.
She is foolish not to sell. But she cares for the board. It is
good, too, when a woman loves what her man has carved
for her. We will krutu about it, and you shall hear."
Three days passed before the woman's permission was
given to dispose of the piece.
"When they see this, your people will know our men can
carve!" she exclaimed in a voice which held as much regret
as pride.
[281]
REBEL DESTINY
The cult of fertility came to the Suriname bush from
Africa. Deepseated today in this civilization, it is not
strange that it should be invoked again and again in the
carvings, that men and women in sexual congress, and
animals in the act of reproduction should dominate the
art motifs, and in particular those carvings which men
make for their women.
The symbolism is known to all on the river though, as
we have indicated, a gifted artist might play with his
medium, and even give his own name to what he had
designed. Evidences of nontraditional playing with tech-
nique were, to be sure, not met with often, but one or two
instances stand out. One that was especially striking was a
hinged folding stool, fashioned after a bench seen in the
city, and decorated in traditional fashion, where the prob-
lem of decorating unfamiliar surfaces was met.
Bayo could take up many of our photographs of pieces,
acquired during our first visit and brought here into the
bush to show the natives how their pieces were exhibited,
and describe the symbols to us which made up the carvings.
There was one which interested him especially. He used
to sit with the photograph in his hand, running his fingers
over the glossy surface, as though he felt if he continued
doing it long he would actually feel the texture of the wood
which was so clearly imaged.
"Everything shows. Here's a crack, see.^" Then his
hands touched one motif after another. "This and this are
women, and these are men. A man and woman to one
side, and a man and woman facing them. It's like having
the tray here, white man." The small designs close to the
rim of the tray, facing each other, were the children to be
born of these unions. "This is a boy, and this a girl. That
is for both women to make twins."
We were looking over his shoulder as he explained the
symbols, but still could not distinguish in the symbols to
the side which represented the male child and which the
female.
[282]
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
Bayo laughed. "All this isn't easy, white man. A line
about this curve shows this to be a man-child. These are
things bush people alone know."
The decorated rim of this tray had interested many who
had seen the piece the winter before, and we had had
pointed out to us what we ourselves had remarked, that
the design was not continuous all around, but that it was
divided into four parts, the crosshatched portion alternating
with that of checkered squares. Did those have meaning.-*
we asked Bayo.
*'Ai, these belong to the women and the children. The
small lines are the hair of the children, and the squares here
that of the women." The brass-headed nails he touched
one by one on the photograph. "The women have nice
kamemba," he said, at last.
On the upper river we had acquired another tray with
similar motifs, but more elaborately decorated, with carv-
ings on the outer surface as well as the inner, and also with
many more brass-headed nails. This use of nails, which
was more general in the deep interior, had at first seemed
an anomaly, for they must come from the white man's city,
since the Bush Negro, we knew, had lost the African
technique of iron working. But as we saw more deeply
into their customs, we recognized that these nails studding
the carvings represented a survival of the African art
tradition, and it was, therefore, reasonable that in the
deep interior they should be found more profusely on the
carvings.
Human representations outlined with the realism of
African masks we almost never met, and the exceptional
instances suggested only resemblances. The mask itself,
as far as we could learn, was not used in their dances. The
men knew what masks were, but whether this knowledge
came as part of their African tradition, or whether it was
brought from the city and the French shore, we could not
determine. The African style of depicting the human form
had, however, not been entirely lost by their slave ancestors.
In this village of Ma'lobbi, where lived one of the finest
carvers on the river, the carving over a doorway held us
[283]
REBEL DESTINY
fascinated. It showed, in its purest form, the retention
of the African mask-like head. Sometimes on the prow of a
boat we would see in cruder form the outlines of a mask,
and once an old woman came with a food stirrer to us. Its
handle ended in a knob which with a few strokes of the knife
had been formed into a double representation of the human
head, a perfect parallel to the type of mask that is asso-
ciated with the people of the Ivory Coast.
Aside from the decorated apinti drum, only some of the
workaday art forms of Africa — combs, paddles, mortars,
among other such objects — were retained. For their decora-
tion the designs that in Africa had been cut into the base
of figures or about the borders of masks had been remem-
bered and reinterpreted in terms of the ancestral cults.
And from those memories the Bush Negroes had developed
the unique art which is theirs.
Thus, in the main, the art was symbolic, and many of the
designs represented the urge for reproduction. Some
stemmed from the fertility cult, though not entirely of it.
There was, for example, the double-bladed food stirrer,
which was given by a man to his wife with a curse woven
into its curves for the woman if she committed adultery.
There were carvings that did not deal with sex at all.
On the lower river we sat on the shore as a canoe came up.
Prow and stern were carved. On one of the seats was a
representation of the head of a feline, done with the utmost
realism.
"You have tigriF'' we asked the man, as we bargained
for the seats.
"I will sell you this, but do not ask me what it means."
The bird-headed paddles were also examples of this kind.
When laid on their sides, they showed the form of the
parrot, or whatever bird they represented — the exaggerated
beak, the head, the neck, the wings, and the feet. The
design called Alukutu folo, an emblem of those who
could see into the future, was engraved on many benches
on the upper river in particular, and these carvings were
parted with only with the greatest reluctance, lest we try
[284I
^:^'>~^.;l^'<^W
Houses and house posts in Ma'lobbi.
THE ARTIST OF MA'LOBBI
magic on their owners. And there was the Gankwe woman
who brought us a paddle representing the bird she called
the apassa.
"We Gankwe people do not eat the apassa," she had
whispered to us when we bought the paddle.
5
In the house of the captain of Ma'lobbi we sat and talked
of the carvings of the Saramacca people, and as we talked,
they brought us some of the things the men of the village
had carved.
"Do all men carve .^" we asked the chief.
"Not everyone has the spirit. But every young man
tries. If a man is good at hunting, or on the river, then
perhaps he can get the things he needs to give his wife
from others for what he can give the carver. But it is better
that he do these things for his wife himself. The women
like it better."
Not everyone could make a boat, he said, nor was every-
one able to carve the pau pau dindu, the intricate
"wood within wood" motifs that made a strip go like a
twisted snake in and out, in and out, through a design.
And not everyone could make a drum. Like that apinti
he had there.
It was the opening for which we had been waiting.
We had been admiring this drum since we had come into
his house, we said. We remembered it from the first time
on our way up river. It was as fine as any we had seen.
Had he made it himself.''
He smiled his appreciation.
"It is a fine apinti, ai," agreed several of the men sitting
about.
An apinti was one of the things we wanted to take to
show the white man. This one, especially, we would like
to buy. Would he sell it.-*
He looked at us for a moment, and then gently shook
his head. "To make an apinti is not a small thing. Not
everyone can make an apinti. I have worked on it for a long
time, and it is not yet finished. This drum I will not sell."
[285]
REBEL DESTINY
We redoubled our urging.
''White man, do you know what It Is to make an aplnti —
an obia drum ?"
A man had to have the proper spirit before he might
address the god of the tree from which the drum was to
be made. When he had felled the tree, he cut off from the
trunk the part he wanted to use and took it to his village.
Over it he had to pour the blood of a cock which he sacri-
ficed that the gods might come when the drum called them.
The maker had also to provide sweet rum and cassava
and eggs. The cassava was eaten by the people, but the
eggs were for the spirit of the drum, and only half the sweet
rum was drunk — the rest was poured over the wood. When
the body of the new drum had been fashioned, the people
gathered and sang, but they did not dance, for the head
yet remained to be made. A pingo, or a deer, might furnish
the skin, but these animals were shot where they had been
tracked in the bush, and not offered to the drum. Only
chickens were given It. And when the drum was complete,
then the maker sang his song alone.
"But the drum is not finished yet. It can be played on,
for it has a head, and its spirit has been satisfied. But
the carving is not yet done. I have worked on it a long
time," he repeated. "I want them to play it for my spirit
when I am dead."
A silence fell as he finished. There was nothing more to
be said.
"White man, we have sat together in pleasure. You
have come to the true, true Saramacca from far away.
You have bought the carvings of my people. The aplnti
drum I cannot sell you. But this stool you like I want you
to have."
He took up one of the round-topped benches, with care-
fully worked sides, and four purple-heart inlays on top,
each in the shape of a fowl.
"Take it with you to your white man's country. When
you show it, write on a paper that the captain of Ma'lobbi
made it."
[286]
Chapter XVI
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
IT HAD been a day of hard travel, down the Mamadam,
through the Musumba PratI, and down the long weary-
ing stretch of quiet water until we reached the Tita
Buka Falls. The memory of the up-river passage of these
troubled stretches had not yet worn down sufficiently to
allow of contemplating the downgoing without a measure
of strain, but our anxiety turned to astonishment when
the paddlers, skirting above the thunder of the water,
steered the boats into a barely visible channel down which
we floated by easy stages.
"Mati-o," said chief Mataibo to the young men, when
we had made the singularly fine passage, "the gods are
taking them with pleasure. We must do the same!"
Passing the Gran' Creek he prayed from midstream,
calling on the spirit of the creek, whom he addressed as
ancestor, to give us long life in our white man's country.
Now we were here at Djamungo, at Bayo's village where,
if he were only there, we should be seeing a fine dance,
and where, what at the moment was far more important
for us, many sacred objects awaited us. Djamungo was a
village about whose magic other villages on the river were
uneasy.
"Bayo is^at Gankwe waiting for you. He is helping the
men haul lumber, but when he hears you are back, he will
come," said a woman who came up saying she was his
[287]
REBEL DESTINY
mother. The woman who had made Bayo was her sister, she
told us.
The resemblance between this woman and Bayo was
marked. She had the same dark skin, the same stocky,
muscular build, the broad nose, the same general cast of
features we had known so well in Bayo. Similar, too, were
the sharply etched scars on her face, which were so black
and so prominent as to bespeak her great vitality and
rugged health. There were other likenesses, we learned,
and of these the most valued was the strength of their gods.
We had not been long in her hut before we noticed the
iron arm-band she wore. It was, we knew, a "/(2^w" — a
magical preventive which, in this instance, warned its
wearer of danger, and kept her from harm in a combat.
Seeing it on the arm of a woman was astonishing for many
reasons. Not in all our encounters on the river had we seen
a woman wearing an arm obia of iron. Iron was the sign
of the Kromanti, a men's group, composed of those men
who had the Kromanti spirit. It was in part warriors' secret
society, and in part, when it was Obia Kromanti, the men's
religious society which controlled the powerful supernatural
forces of preventive and healing magic which played so
prominent a part in the spiritual life of the Bush Negro.
Now there were, we had been told, some women who
inherited the Kromanti spirit, but these were few, and not
until after their menopause could they enter a Kromanti
house, and when this came they were too old to participate
in the dance, but they sang the songs when the spirit came
to them and did whatever else was known to the initiated
of their years.
But this woman who was Bayo's mother's sister was not
an old woman. As she talked to us, in fact, her breast was
swung over to the side, and against her ribs was the head
of the child on her back who was nursing. Yet on her arm
was the fighter's "tapu," as the emblem of membership
in the Kromanti group.
This was so important an anomaly that, following the
etiquette of the bush, we hastened at once to talk about
something else.
[288]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
"Will Bayo be married before we leave the bush?" we
asked, telling her that only a short time would see us return-
ing to our own country.
We had often talked of marriage with Bayo on our trip
up river and had offered to make up what he lacked in
gifts and money that we might witness the festivities of
marriage. He had, of course, promised to have matters
arranged.
Bayo's aunt laughed, however, when she heard the
question, and turned to the other woman who was with
us in the dimly lighted hut.
"Did you hear what the white man asks.'"' she called
out to her companion. "White man, let me tell you some-
thing. Bayo is a long way from marrying yet. Why, his
girl's breasts haven't begun to come yet!"
It seemed that Bayo had also to see to many things
before he could marry. He had not yet cut the field for his
mother-in-law, nor had he made any of the carvings which
he needed to give his betrothed and her mother, for Bayo
was a poor carver.
"Bayo has cunning in his eyes, and his head, but his
fingers have no cunning, Bak'a. . . . But you know this,
Bayo is strong."
Her train of thought turned at the last phrase to our
journey up river. Had we traveled well with Bayo.'* Had
he got on with the other men.'' Awa, she knew that people
liked him. It was the obia he had, and his own gods, but
his gods were bad, too.
"When he was in his mother's womb, he troubled her
much. He tore at her. Ai, she had no happy time of it with
Bayo."
We remembered the incest kunu in Bayo's family, which
lay in wait for all its members, killing off one by one until
the line was wiped out. We ventured a cautious question.
"You are the sister of Bayo's mother.'"'
The answer, however, did not take us to kunu, but rather
to the iron on her arm.
"Ai, and of his father who is now dead. In our family we
have strong gods. It is these that have come to Bayo. . . . "
[289]
REBEL DESTINY
"So we see from the Kromanti obia on your arm." Was
she, a woman, possessed of the war-like Kromanti spirit?
we asked her.
"It is as you see. I am a woman, and I have Kromanti —
and it's strong Kromanti."
"We had not heard of women your age getting Kro-
manti."
"Ai, there are not many, but when my spirit comes, I
dance heavy. I dance like the men."
We must have appeared unconvinced, for she became
more emphatic.
"What they do in other villages, white man, I do not
know. But I have Kromanti, and when the drums speak
here at Djamungo I, too, come."
She rose and went into the inner chamber of the house,
where the hammocks were hung, and brought out several
objects wrapped in old cloth.
"Bayo said I should have obias for you when you came.
He said you would pay well for obias. I have these for
you."
The trading commenced. There were two small images —
^^gadus^' they were called, both crudely carved. One was
called Winti Nyamusi. It was a spirit which gave children
to women.
"When I come to ask for children, then I take sweet
rum in my mouth, and I spray the gadu, then I say, ^Nay-
musi, da wcC buno mi'i — O Spirit Naymusi! Give me a
fine child.' Then the child will come."
What was the other image, the larger one, with ant-
eater's bristles inserted at sides and top .''
"That is a Kromanti obia. It is the Opete spirit, the buz-
zard. When you take it with you, you must speak to it so.
You must say, *Obia-o, I am carrying you away with me.
You must look after me, you must see that my life is spared,
O great spirit.' Then you must spray it with rum, but not
the sweet rum, not for Kromanti."
There were other obias she had for us, some to be worn
about the neck, and others to be worn below the knee.
[290]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
"Bayo has asked me to find a strong asumani for you,"
she said, naming the obia she held with the word for such
magically endowed properties used by the Ashanti today,
on the West Coast of Africa. In rapid succession she gave
us the African words of the Kromanti designation for the
white clay, for the ancestral pot, and for several other
ceremonial objects we discussed with her.
"Did you make these for us?"
"Ah, no. Women do not make obias. My brother made
them for you."
The next morning when we were leaving Djamungo she
came to the landing place with us. In our hands were the
images we had bought. The young paddlers looked on them
with fear. On no account would they even come too close
to us who carried them. It was not the image, nor the
external properties of a sacred object which disclosed its
power, but rather the magic that had been called to reside
in it, and the strength of the gods of him who had been
instrumental in bringing the magic to the figure of wood,
the brass bell, the cowrie shells, the ant-eater's bristles,
or whatever else was used.
"Tell them in your village," Bayo's mother's sister
called after us, "that here at Djamungo the Kromanti
spirit does not come to men only. When women get Kro-
manti, they, too, can fight."
2
We had not been back at our base camp for more than
a day when Bayo came up the path calling the greeting
of a comrade. Had we fared well with the Granman?
He had, he told with pride, seen all those things a man
who went on so long a journey should see, and he had been
to Lame again, where there were strong obias and where
the women knew how to love. Now he would remain with
us until we left the bush, and he might even decide to go
with us to the city, and from there to the French shore,
where there was money to be got. What with the money
he had earned for timber, and the money we had given
[291 ]
REBEL DESTINY
him, and what he could get on the Marowyne in a year,
it would be possible for him to see to it that his betrothed
had all the gifts that a man of position gave to his woman.
There were, too, other things to bear in mind. Already
he had seen a girl who would make a desirable second wife,
but that would require still more money.
"But, Bayo," we interposed, "we saw your mother at
Djamungo. She told us your girl will not be ready for
marrying for some time."
"Did she say that.'' Did she tell you that I am still a
child.?"
"What's the matter, Bayo.? Don't you like her.?"
"Awa, I like her. Not too much. She likes to talk."
We thought it politic to give the subject a new turn.
Close beside Bayo lay the dog that had accompanied him
the first time he came to us here, before our journey up
the river. His was a curious color, a faint pinkish hue which
puzzled us.
"What is the color of your dog, Bayo.?"
"He is white when he does not have obia on him. He
is a hunting dog. Tross is his name. He will stay with me.
The obia comes off when he goes into the river."
We laughed. "Does Tross hunt in the river, Bayo.?"
"No. In the bush. But if I leave him behind, he swims
out to my canoe."
Tross was to become better known to us as the days went
on. He had a great affection for his master, and this
feeling extended to all those who appertained to Bayo.
After Bayo had attached himself to our camp, we, too,
came under the aura of his dog's regard, though this may
have been made the more reasonable by the fact that the
netting of the mosquito guards of our hammocks appealed
to Tross as a comfortable place to spend the night. He was
a good watchdog, and sometimes we were awakened by his
low growl, and a voice saying ^^ Choi — Be quiet!" Just
now we were interested in the cord about his neck, and we
asked Bayo about it.
"It is more obia. It is strong, too. Nothing happens to
Tross when he goes in the bush. You will see."
[292]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
The conversation turned to the lumbering Bayo had
been doing. He had been helping some of the Ganl<:we men
bring to the river the wood they had felled. To cut down a
tree was not hard work, Bayo told us. It was, however, no
easy matter to bring the trunks to the water. For in the
tropical jungle timber does not grow in the convenient
"stands" known to the northern forests. The searcher for
rare woods will find a single purple-heart tree here, and
there, some distance away, a brown-heart or one of the
other trees for which the white man is willing to pay well.
With machete or axe the tree is felled and stripped of its
bark, and squared into a great long timber. The under
part of each end is shaped so that as it goes down the river
it will not split against the rocks it strikes.
Going back from the river bank are to be seen openings
in the bush and these lead to places where trees have been
cut. At short intervals lengths of branches are laid across
them. It is over these that the timber is hauled to the river
— over these main lumber ways, and over the smaller
ones that must be cut deep in the bush from every felled
tree to these principal paths.
Bayo had been hauling lumber. Cut and dressed, the
paths made ready, the logs had been taken to the river.
The Gankwe men had summoned their friends and the
men of neighboring villages to help them. The weight of
the hard wood is such that it takes great strength to haul
thej squared logs over the paths. Bayo had gone with the
men into the forest, and there they had spent more than a
week, eating of the rice and cassava of the men whose
lumber they were hauling, and having a pleasant time of it,
with joking and horseplay.
"When we haul the wood, we sing so te . . . until
..." he said, prolonging his last syllables in the charac-
teristic way.
The one whose logs were being brought to the water
opened the singing by first speaking his thanks in a formal
chant to those who had come to help him.
[293]
REBEL DESTINY
"Fow have come to go, come to go far, come to go far
to bring the wood to the water. But it is long, it is far, to
the river. Thank you, friends. ^^
Then the song was taken up by the workers and, with
each rhythmic measure, the great piece of lumber went
farther through the jungle on its way to the river. When
he had chanted for us the greeting to the men, Bayo
began to sing a song relating to men's casual exploits with
women and, as he finished the song, he laughed. "White
man, if you came with us, you would hear what songs the
men make up about women!"
3
The phonograph had delighted Bayo from the first.
When Apanto had summoned the spirit of his obia to
fight the machine, Bayo had watched. When the white
man's glue had repaired the broken belt, and the hot sun had
made the machine "walk" once more, Bayo had approved.
"The machine is not weak," he had said. "I will sing for
it."
And sing for it he did.
But the curse of Apanto still troubled the machine, for
up the river and down there had been difficulty with it.
Often when there was a particularly good song to be
recorded, the belt would give, the machine would fail the
white man. The story of the prowess of Apanto had gone
up the river with the Gankwe paddlers, and when the
machine stopped, heads nodded, and we would catch the
word "obia" among the murmurs of the bystanders.
Bayo thought, it seemed, that the machine's proud
spirit was by this time properly chastened and, since twice
the machine had refused to work while he was singing into
it, twice had made him stop the song and its drum accom-
paniment, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
"White man," said Bayo, shortly after our return from
up the river, "I will help the spirit of the machine. I will
[294]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
call the great gods. Apanto's spirit is strong, but Bayo has
strong gods, too."
The machine was made ready for him, and Bayo sat
down on a convenient box, his head bent over the tumao
drum which we had acquired and which his fingers could
scarce ever be near but that they played on it,
"It is not the right drum," he said. "You should have an
apinti for me to speak to the gods. But I will try it with this
one. Tomorrow I will go up the river to Djamungo. I
know a man who has an apinti. You will give me money,
and I will buy it for you. But now I will speak on the
tumao."
He began the irregular tapping which we had learned to
identify as the drum language. With one hand he carried
the message, while with the other he played irrelevant
motifs which served to confound anyone not initiated and
leave him, as it left us, who had worked out some of the
general principles on which this drum language was based,
utterly unable to interpret it or to tell which were the
significant elements.
"The great gods will look after your machine now, if they
will listen to the tumao."
The next day Bayo went upstream to get us the apinti
we so desired. He was not successful, but the gods had
listened to him, when he had invoked them on the tumao,
for Bayo's ministrations ended all trouble with our re-
calcitrant phonograph. Bayo indeed had strong spirits!
As the days went on, and record after record was put on
the turntable, and with its tracing of songs, or examples
of Bush Negro speech, or fragments of the rhythms that
called the various gods, was taken oflf and carefully put
into its felt-lined box, Bayo visibly swelled with pride.
This was his doing! With his strong spirits he had called
the great gods! He was young, and he had not spoken on
the proper drum, but they hiad listened to him! So his
thoughts went, and so he would repeat them to us.
His interest in the phonograph was intensified the more
he saw of it, and he sang and spoke and drummed, either
[295]
REBEL DESTINY
alone or with some friend, into the wax cylinders that
spoke back in such mysterious fashion. When Apanto came
to visit us, Bayo smiled as he saw the obia man approaching
from the landing place.
"His obia is strong, but mine is strong, too. Let him sing
into the machine."
Apanto was visibly surprised when he saw in operation
the machine his spirit had wrecked. "The machine is not
weak, Apanto," we assured him. "It has its own strength,
and now it has the strength your gods have given it. For
in the true, true Saramacca, a great obia man spoke his
message to the Great God into it, and since then it has
walked well with us."
Out of the corners of our eyes, we could see Bayo's pride.
"Sing for us, Apanto," we urged, for he had a beautiful
voice. "Sing us an Apuku song."
Now Apanto sang, not once, but many times. It is true
that when we asked for Apuku he sang Vodu, and when we
asked for Vodu he sang Tone, and when we asked for
Tone he sang Kromanti songs, and when we asked for
Kromanti he sang the sacred dirges called "Papa" songs.
Yet this was not otherwise than might be expected, and it
was not too difficult to play the records to interested men
of other villages, whose startled comments would soon tell
us the kind of song he had sung.
It was another day when Apanto again sang, and some
of these who had witnessed his first victory were about.
One such addressed himself to Bayo, who was sitting
near.
"Apanto's spirit fought the machine, and stopped it.
But the machine works and sings back to Apanto. Its
strength has come back to it."
"Awa, Apanto's spirit is strong," we heard Bayo reply,
"but there are other strong spirits on the Saramacca."
4
Bayo had spent the night at Gankwe, and had returned
resplendent with a new hairdressing. We joked with
[296]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
him about it as he came to take the white man through
the bush trails to a neighboring village.
One of the girls who admired him had achieved this,
but how she had managed to make the minute braids was
difficult for us to see, for Bayo's hair the day before, long
for him, had not seemed sufficiently yielding to permit of
braiding. Yet here he was, his head covered with innumer-
able small braids which divided the white scalp into sec-
tions and showed lines where the many regular parts had
been made. This made quite a new man out of Bayo. He
was no longer the warrior who went without food because
he was bored with the idea of preparing the food — a
woman's task or, at best, that of an old man like his great-
grandfather Bibifo who had cooked on the up-river trip.
Now he was a dandy.
"Ai-yo!" he crowed back as we speculated on the labor
that had gone into the creation. "It took her almost all the
night! It is hard work."
"She must like you, Bayo."
"She likes me well, ai!"
"Are you going to have her for your third wife.^"
"Who knows.'' But a man doesn't marry every woman
who braids his hair."
Soon Bayo and the white man were off through the bush,
Tross going ahead as scout. Back and across the path he
would dart and for the white man, unaccustomed to the
sounds of the bush, it was difficult to tell whether the rus-
tling he heard was caused by the dog, or by the small
animals stirred up from time to time. Once a snake coiled
on the path moved lazily away as they approached; Tross
had disturbed It, and the snake had no mind for more
encounters. Once a small animal of some sort dashed
across the trail ahead, the dog in close pursuit, and for
some moments we could hear them tearing through the
underbrush.
"Aren't you afraid that some animal will hurt Tross,
Bayo.?"
"He is a good dog. And I have put strong obia on him."
[297]
REBEL DESTINY
Bayo knew the bush as he knew the river. At one point
he stopped and, clipping off a long, slender branch with
his bush knife, he trimmed it and began to strike at a palm
tree. He was after maripa nuts, and soon they began to
pelt the ground. Their pink, slightly astringent meat was
highly prized by the Bush Negroes as a delicacy, and the
white man also found them good. Both munched them
as they walked farther into the bush. It was a good time
to speak of Bayo's marriage.
"Your mother said you needed to work hard before
marrying."
"Ai."
"Is it money you need.?"
"Much money, and goods besides."
"What will your girl do with all this money, and all of
these goods r'
"They are not all for her. She would have me without
them. It is her mother who must get things, too."
That Bayo was attractive to women, we had often seen,
but that his betrothed would have him without the wealth
demanded for her by right of whatever position her family
held, seemed doubtful. However, this was not the time
to argue the point.
"Your girl is still young. Do girls her age know enough
to choose a man .?"
The question brought us to the story of how Bayo became
betrothed.
His girl, he told us, was of good family. She had lived
in his village, because her mother at marriage had come
to live with her husband at Djamungo, but a few years
after Bayo had become betrothed to the girl, his mother's
sister took her away to the family seat up the river.
"Do you care for your girl, Bayo.''"
"Af'<2n sabi, Bak^a — I do not know. We shall see how we
get on. But her family is good, and they are looking after
her chastity, as families who have position do."
"What if you don't get on after you are married.?"
"We will separate. She will go back to her own family.
Sometimes, if a man doesn't like a woman too much, and
[298]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
she doesn't make children, then he can send her back. But
most often it is the woman who goes away."
When the wife left the home her husband had built
for her and went to her family, he had to go to her village
and plead for her return, while her relations berated him
soundly for his behavior toward their kin. If he had not
mistreated her badly, the family would urge her to return
to him, and so great would that pressure be that she would
have to go. But Bayo again repeated that this did not
happen often. If a woman left her husband and he failed
to come for her, they were divorced. She could not remarry
until three months had passed.
But Bayo was more interested in marriage than in
divorce, and the talk again turned to his betrothal.
His mother and her brothers had decided upon the match.
His uncles had gone to the family of the girl, and talked
with her mother's brothers. Her people called a family
krutu to decide whether Bayo was qualified to be a suitable
husband for this young member of their family.
"Were you there .^"
"No. It was a krutu of her family. But I know how they
talk at these krutu, for when my sister was promised in
marriage my own family had a krutu, and I sat and listened.
Anybody who knew anything bad about my brother-in-law
or his family told of it. They talk much at these krutu. The
woman you met at Djamungo talked when the men talked,
and she talked when the women talked," he finished with
a laugh, as though it were a relief to him to know that at
least she had had no say when his girl's family had gathered
to look into his own family position, and his personal habits
of work, and the gifts the gods had given him.
At this krutu of the girl's family, Bayo had, however,
been thoroughly discussed. Was he a good worker.'' Could
he hunt well ^ How did he behave in strange villages ?
At his initiation had the gods come strong to him ? Had he
done anything that his wife's family would later be ashamed
of.?
The white man wondered about the kunu which hung
over Bayo's family, the kunu of incest, the deadliest of all
[299]
REBEL DESTINY
kunu, which must kill his children. Was it safe to mention
it? A chance question was asked,
"Nothing will happen to my children, Bak'a. They will
belong to my wife's family. It is my sister's children that
things will happen to."
Bayo paused for a moment on the path, and stood in
thought. Was it that he wished to be entirely honest with
his friend ^ Was it that to confess the truth was too difficult
for him ^ Whatever the reason, his next remark indicated a
compromise.
"Nothing will happen to my children. Those of my
younger brother will die, but not mine."
The conversation came back to the less painful subject of
betrothal. Whatever the reason for accepting this boy whose
kunu brought such supernatural risk, the match had
apparently been satisfactory to the family of the girl, and
they had sent word that the marriage would not displease
them.
"Now I am earning the money I need, and later I will
make the things I must give my girl and her family."
There was, first of all, the work to be done for Bayo's
prospective mother-in-law. He might have to help her with
repairs on her house, or assist her in clearing a field. Before
he was married he would have to go into the bush and cut
the two fields for his wife, one for rice and one for cassava,
which a married woman must have, and in addition he
would have to cut an extra field for the mother of his wife.
"I must do it so they can be sure that I am strong, and
can take care of their girl when I marry her. But I will
not have any trouble!"
Before that, however, Bayo would have to see to the
carvings which a man had to have for marrying.
"I do not like to carve. But I have friends who will
carve for me while I go hunting for them!" That was the
way to solve such difficulties. When the carvings were
assembled he would have to make a boat for his girl.
Bayo was not yet certain, but he thought that another
boat would have to be made for his mother-in-law. Then
[300]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
houses would have to be built — one in his village where
they would live, and one in the provision ground for
his wife to sleep in when she worked in the field.
"Must you yourself build the house, Bayo?"
"My family will help me. Making a house is hard work,
too, and a man must have clever fingers for weaving the
walls."
There would have to be stools, and several well-orna-
mented combs. A clothes beater would have to be provided
for the bride, and a peanut pounding board, and one mortar
and pestle at least, and food stirrers and rice trays. A
cassava squeezer would have to be woven, and a sifter and
grater for the roots that were made into bread. And baskets,
too, he would have to weave.
"This is not all. This is only what I must make. Other
things I must buy for her."
He would have to provide cloths when the wedding day
came, and cloths for his mother-in-law, too. The small
kerchiefs which were folded in triangular shape and were
worn about the waist as the sign that a woman was married
he would also have to furnish, and two large cloths, each
the size of three tunics. He would have to buy an iron
cooking pot, and some small fishhooks with lines, and
some cups from the white man's city. He was going to
give his girl a pair of earrings, and a string of beads. Then
there would have to be the hammock.
Bayo laughed, "For a marriage, there must be a ham-
mock."
There were other things he was going to buy for his girl.
Brass arm and leg ornaments he would buy, since his girl
was already a fine dancer.
And when all these things were bought and given, then
it was time for the marriage.
"But it doesn't always happen that the marriage takes
place," said Bayo. "Sometimes the girl's people do not
like what the man has done. They have another krutu,
and decide the man should not marry into their
family."
[301 ]
REBEL DESTINY
This was a disgrace. A man was not looked upon as a
good suitor by other girls when this happened to him.
Everyone said he was worthless. It often came to pass that
such a man could not get a woman to marry him. Not
even a widow whose husband had left no brothers, and who
had to cut her own field, would consent to live with him.
Sometimes it happened, too, that the man's family did
not approve of the girl. When she came to help his mother,
they saw that she was lazy and inept, that she would never
be able to feed herself and her husband and her children
with what crops she raised, that whatever handiwork she
touched, she could achieve nothing pleasing. If that hap-
pened, then his family met in krutu, and a decision was
reached to break off the match. When that was done, the
man often had to forfeit the gifts he had made the girl and
her mother, but when the woman's family turned the
man down, then they came with all the gifts he had given,
and often an additional offering as well for what labor he
had done for her family.
"With me it is not so. My family likes my girl, and hers
likes me."
When the gifts were accumulated and the houses and
boats and fields provided, then, if the girl was ripe for
marrying, the marriage day was set, and on that day the
girl was brought to the house where she would live. Both
families were gathered in the village, and the uncles and
old women addressed themselves to the young couple,
admonishing them to live well together, and to observe the
traditional ways.
At night while the villagers danced bandamba, and
feasted on the rum and salt beef and other delicacies which
the man and his family had provided, the couple were led
to the house which had been newly built for them, though
sometimes they were taken to the house of one of the old
people of the man's great family. In Bayo's village, the
girl first was conducted to the house by a sister who helped
her make the preparations for the night. They tied the
hammock and then water was brought. This done, the man
[302]
iiow and arrow used for
shooting large fish.
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
was called, and the couple were left alone, while outside
the villagers danced and sang of fertility all night.
In the morning the man's brothers come to the house to
find out if she had ever before been to the hammock with
another man.
"What happens if they find that she has .^"
Bayo's reply was prompt. "Usually nothing. The man
doesn't give her as many presents as he would have given
her. If he had promised her thirty pangi, he would only give
her fourteen. If he liked her, he wouldn't turn her away."
"What would happen to her, though .f* Would they
punish her.'"'
"They say, Bak'a, sometimes a man likes her better for
it. It shows him other men had cared for her. But her
family scolds her, and sometimes punishes her, too, and
the women of the village talk plenty. They pull their lip
at her the next morning, and later, whenever there is a
quarrel, they talk about it again."
But if the girl were found to have been a virgin, then all
the people danced, and there was a great feast, with dances
to all the gods.
"You must come back for my wedding, Bak'a, you and
your woman. Then you will see dancing!"
"But your girl is still a child, Bayo."
"Ah, no. She is getting her cuts on her thighs. She
wears a cloth." He knew, because on his way down from the
Granman he had stopped at her village and when the
family was not about he had made sure. "If you come
next year, we will both be ready."
The two men still followed the bush trail when Bayo
had finished his account of how the marriage was con-
ducted. Now and then Tross would appear, wag his tail,
and be off into the underbrush again.
"Tell me, Bayo," the white man began, "do many girls
go with a man to the hammock before they are married .'"'
He waited for a moment before he answered. Smiling,
he ran his hand over his newly braided head with the
innumerable little braids between the lines of white.
[303]
REBEL DESTINY
"About half of them, I guess," he said.
5
When we returned to camp, Kasanya waited for us.
He had come with the game boards he had promised to
make for us, the adji game which was played in the house
of death, and which the fine carver in Kasanya's village
could not make because he was young, and a man needed
to have a wife under the sod before he was fitted to make it.
Kasanya had taught the white man to play the game the
year before, and though the white man had had much
practice in playing it at home, Kasanya won one game after
the other with ease.
With the white woman he would not play, nor would any
other man — not even Bayo who showed so much indulgence
toward the strangers. It was this way, Kasanya explained.
A man knew that a woman could not beat him at the game,
much less a woman who did not have the cunning of their
bush, and would not, therefore, be expected to excel in
what pertained to the life of the bush. But if the gods be-
came capricious and allowed the white woman to win, then
it would be more than a man could bear to be twitted up
and down the river about it. Songs would be made up about
it, and stories and proverbs. Master Nigger! A man would
be a fool to risk it.
When Kasanya had gone, Bayo came back from Gankwe
where, it seemed, his errands now took him daily. The sun
was still high enough so that a game might be played before
the hovering ghosts who in life had enjoyed the game would
take their places beside the players, and play unseen at
this game board with the living.
"Do you play adji, Bayo.^"'
^^ Azva! Suma no de! — Sure! No one better!"
But it soon appeared that Bayo had brought too much
self-confidence with him from Gankwe. He was promptly
beaten, and beaten again.
^^ Suma de, Bayo? — Someone better.''"
The boy grinned.
[304]
BAYO, THE PLAYBOY
Suma de, ai," he acknowledged.
Bayo remained in the bush, but he did not come to the
city with us, though he took us into the Awka villages as
captain of our boat. While at the base camp, he busied
himself with making small models of traps and snares, and
whatever other examples of Bush Negro work we needed to
augment our collection.
He was a poor weaver, for he was no craftsman at all.
But on the river he showed almost superhuman strength,
and his knowledge of obia and the gods showed his poten-
tialities for achieving what he most desired — to become an
obia man. It may well be that his great kunu had planted
this ambition in him. Perhaps, if he became a renowned
obia man, one of the greatest on the river, he would outwit
the combined power of ancestors and gods. His physical
strength was such that all seemed possible to him, and his
eye was quick, his curiosity unbounded. As a child of
incest, a twofold member of his clan, he had certain im-
munities from the gods, though his line would all the more
be flayed by the punishment which his parentage had
earned.
"White man," he would say to us, **the next time you
come, I will go with you to Africa. By then, I shall have
given my wife children, and my sister's children will be
grown. I want to go to Africa to learn obia."
His young brother was not strong. Bayo allowed them
to cut no kamemba on the boy, who was now almost eleven,
and it was clear that he would not be able to go through
the Kromanti initiation, that he would have few gods.
"What will you do then, Bayo.?"
God alone knew. He did not expect that even in Africa
he could learn all he needed to know to help his young
brother.
"Would he go with Bibifo.''" we ventured, remembering
that Bibifo had become Adrian.
He laughed. The white man asked many questions.
[305]
REBEL DESTINY
As we sat and talked with him, we learned much of his
life. His father had died soon after he was born. His mother
was still alive, but she was poor, and life was a burden to
her. His shortcomings in all that required discipline and
technique were directly traceable to the kunu, and so were
the deaths of his father, and several of his uncles. He had
been obliged to be his own master, to get his food as best
he could. His gods came to him early, and long before his
initiation he used to show evidence that his Tiger spirit
would be strong. But it was not entirely his lack of training
which was at fault. His uncle's spirits, too, were powerful
in matters of obia, but they had not vouchsafed him any
skill in carving or weaving.
Perhaps it was the exigencies of life as an orphan, whose
family was plagued as well with the greatest kunu of all,
that had given to Bayo's perceptions an amazing quickness.
When people were puzzled about the nature of our work,
Bayo decided that it was a type of white man's obia. The
white man's desire to gain knowledge not for gold, but for
its own sake, was not unlike the seeking of the good obia
man who did not become rich by his labors. Later, when
we spoke of what he had told us of ceremonies and cere-
monial life with men who were older, men versed in the
lore of their people, we were astonished at the grounding
the boy had in his own civilization.
If he was boisterous, somewhat boastful with us, it was
not difficult to understand the motivation. It was his urge
to assert himself. But among his own people, particularly
when he was with older men, he walked "softly," as he
himself said. Yet men twice his age saw to it that they
did not "rile" the boy.
"When Bayo gets his Tiger spirit, Bak'a, he is not the
boy you know. Be on your guard. He is young, but when
his Tiger spirit comes, he can kill."
[306]
Chapter XVII \
SARAMACCA OBIA
NO WORD of African origin which has survived in the
New World has taken on such grim meaning as
has the word ohia in many of the islands of the
Caribbean. No Negro there will speak of it, and its practices
and properties are secret. When obia strikes in the islands,
it is usually a matter for the government, and the forms its
vengeance knows too often take a grisly turn.
In the life of the Bush Negro, however, obia is every-
where, and its name the commonest of bywords, for among
the Suriname Negroes obia is not black magic, or witch-
craft, or sorcery. Black magic in the Suriname bush is
wisi^ and wisi is never confounded in the Bush Negro's
mind with obia.
"Obia is good. Obia heals," they say in Suriname.
"Obia warns, obia protects."
"Obia protects a man against the force of a bullet, the
thrust of an iron weapon, the dangers of fire."
"You want to know what obia is, Massa .''" our cook
asked one day. "We have this komjo singi — this priest's
song:
"/ am no master^
And I am no slave.
Yet when the masters come,
They carry water for me^
[307]
REBEL DESTINY
This, he went on to explain, had the meaning that obia
was not so great as the very great gods, and it was not to be
ranked with the lesser deities who served as emissaries
for the great gods, yet when the great gods wanted to help
mankind, it was through obia that they healed and purified,
it was to obia that men were instructed to turn.
It seems that when the Sky God created the Earth Mother
and the Mother of the River, he also created man and beast.
Man had a poor time of it, pitting himself against the
forces of earth and sky and water. And so that man might
survive, the Sky God had had to send obia into the world
to help man. Obia was not a god, it was a spirit. It gave
people knowledge of herbs which cured, and herbs which
prevented sickness. Obia warned of danger, and made
known those properties of earth and water and air which
healed and calmed. Obia taught the use of the band of
metal on the arm, or the string about the waist which fore-
warned of evil, and made man wary and alert.
After obia came into the world, the Sky God sent Akanta-
masu, the god of the ant hill, to plague man. Perhaps obia
had made of man an overbearing creature, defiant even
against the great gods, so that the Sky God brought the
Akantamasu spirit into being to teach him humility.
The answer of the Bush Negro was, of course, that so
it was, and so it had been long ago, but why, he did not
know. The Sky God had willed it so, and the Sky God was
so far from man that he never vouchsafed explanations
to human beings, and they in turn rarely taxed him to
ease their bewilderment.
There was also the power of the ancestors, but our Bush
Negro friends were never certain as to how they ranked
in the supernatural hierarchy. Some said they ranked after
the Earth Mother and the Mother of the River, that they
were greater than obia, because the ancestors punished as
well as helped mankind, and when angered their punish-
ment came swifter than that of the powerful Akantamasu
gods. Others said the ancestors were greater than obia,
because obia had been given to the ancestors long ago,
[308]
SARAMACCA OBIA
and it was they who In dream or vision, or in a state of
possession, instructed living men in the ways of yet greater
and greater obia. But there were those who held that obia
ranked after the greatest of the deities, that obia surpassed
the power of the ancestors, for obia knew how to make
''yorka tapu^^ — preventives against troublesome ghosts,
and obia men could summon the dead to enter the body
of a living man to make revelations.
Whatever the position of obia in the supernatural world,
its place on earth was to serve man, for of all living beings,
man alone knew obia.
What were the manifestations of obia in the life of the
Bush Negro as we found them.^
A black pot with its magic powers was an obia pot, the
charm worn about the neck was called an obia, the medicines
we gave the natives for their eyes or their cuts were called
white man's obia, and their own mixture of weeds steeped
in water, which stood in the burning sun gathering a green
scum until it should be ready for use, was also obia. Young
Yamati who had danced susa for us did not have a cord
about his neck, but, he had assured us, he had obia for
long life as did his partner Sabape, though his own could
not be seen, since it consisted of several obia cuts made
shortly after birth, which served instead of the cord. The
strings about the waists of children were oblas. The slight
cuts to be noticed on men's arms, on thighs, below the knee,
below the shoulder blades were obia cuts, too.
Nor was that all.
Bayo had said to us, "When obia comes a man does
bad things. He destroys. When mine comes, it Is ugly
sometimes."
It was obia, too — Apanto's obia — which had stopped
our phonograph, and obia again, invoked this time by
Bayo, which had strengthened the spirit of the machine.
We talked about obia to an elder, a village head, from
one of the down-river settlements, which was not, however,
[309]
REBEL DESTINY
important enough to be the residence of a clan chief. His
clan's magic was strong, and, being well past middle age,
he could afford to speak of these matters with the whites,
for like all Bush Negroes he was proud of the black man's
obia.
"Ya-hai, white man, obia may well puzzle you. It is no
small matter. No man knows all there is to know about
obia. The greatest of obia men is never done learning. You
say you spent more than twenty years learning your kind
of work. Twenty years is nothing. All his life an obia man
spends learning. The ancestors let him see a little at a time,
and a little more. 'One step at a time,' as the G'ama' says.
So it is, white man."
When did the learning begin, we asked him ."^
"In the bush here, children see what we do, and they
learn much by watching. They learn to recognize the kind
of obias a man wears, they learn to know the names of
obias, and about the tchina — taboos — that go with the
wearing of obias. That is the beginning." All children knew
that, but only boys could aspire to learn the secrets of obia.
A boy's definite training in these things began with
adolescence. The ceremony was not formal, for it concerned
only the boy and his immediate relatives. When the time
came to teach the novice about the gods, his father and
his mother's brothers met with him, and they held a krutu.
Other men also came, men of the village and elders of their
great family. The outsiders sat by and said nothing, while
the instruction was carried on by the father and the boy's
maternal uncles.
"First the father gives him his gods, and he tells his son
the name of each god and how he must serve him."
There were songs to be learned and dances and invoca-
tions; there were the offerings which had to be made, and
the manner of prayer memorized. He was told when he
might call on the god and what names the god bore, for
each god had several names, just as had each human being.
There were many names to learn for the gods — their day
names, their "strong" names.
[310]
SARAMACCA OBIA
So it was with each god, until the boy was ready to be
initiated into the Kromanti Society.
"There are many, many krutu, white man, for a boy has
much to learn."
When those who directed the krutu were satisfied that
the boy had learned how to serve the gods he had been
given, that he knew their powers, and those things which
were hateful to them and would incur their displeasure,
then a dance was held for him so that he might demonstrate
before the assembled festive villagers that he was ready for
manhood.
"We give a big play for a boy who gets his gods for the
first time. When the gods come to him at this dance at the
bidding of the drum, and he dances hard, then his family is
pleased. When a boy dances, then we know what is in him.
We know whether his gods are strong, whether he is to be
feared."
Once the father had transferred his gods to his son, he
did not dance much himself. He might continue to play the
drum at sacred dances, but dancing and drumming were
for the younger men. His son's worship of the gods through
the dance released the father for the study of obia. With
the governing elders, the father took up his role as a clan
member who sought the will of the ancestors when new
tasks were to be undertaken.
"What happens if the father has few gods to give his
son .?" we asked.
"Then his mother's eldest brother gives his to the boy."
"What if the boy's uncle has none to give.^"
That happened so seldom that he could not remember
such an instance, but he had heard it said that this had
occurred once or twice.
"A man must have gods to help him live. If his family
can give him none, then they buy gods for him. Sometimes
there are gods in the family that are not too strong, and
they want the boy to have strong gods. They go to a man
who knows about such things and who himself has strong
gods and buy a god for the boy from him."
[311I
REBEL DESTINY
A man who wished to buy a god for his son went to a
renowned obia man and agreed to pay him a certain sum
of money if, at the end of the period of training, the god
came to the boy.
"When the obia man says the boy is ready, they give a
dance. At this dance, the drum is played for the god, and
the boy must dance. If the god comes to him, then the
obia man gets his money, but if the god does not come,
then he does not get what was promised him, because they
had made an agreement for a god, and no god came."
The training was not very difficult — it was not like the
training for becoming an obia man, A boy was given obia
water to wash in. Every eight days the water in the obia
pot was changed, and this bathing continued for three
moons. When the ritual of purification was over, he was
taught the drum rhythms of the god, the invocations which
the drum sounded, and the spoken invocations. Songs,
and make-up for the dancing, and the dancing itself he was
taught, and when he might call upon the god, and what he
must do when the god comes, and what offerings the god
was to receive. If the god spoke "tongues," he was also
instructed in the appropriate language. There were the
words of the mocking little Apuku gods and the sounds
which only Tone people made, and there was the " Kromanti
tongo."
"Can all the gods be bought,?" we asked,
"Kweti, kweti!" he shook his head in emphatic denial,
"The river gods cannot be bought. You are born a Tone
man or woman, or the Tone god comes to you from your
family. But all the Vodu gods you can buy; and the god
Bongo, the alligator; and the ant hill gods and the gods of
the kankan tree, and the Apuku bush gods," He paused for
an instant, as if he were considering something. "And
men buy Kromanti for their sons, if they have none to
give them. Almost every man in the bush has Kromanti,
If he hasn't it, then he tries to buy it for his sons, A man
needs Kromanti, When he has the Kromanti spirit, fire
cannot hurt him, nor glass, nor anything that cuts —
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SARAMACCA OBIA
anything made of iron — nor can a gun shoot him, nor an
arrow pierce him. If he goes through a thicket of thorns
or climbs a thorny palm tree when the spirit comes to him,
he is not harmed. That is Kromanti."
"How much does a person pay an obia man for giving a
boy Kromanti."*" we asked.
"It costs plenty, white man. But a good obia man never
asks too much. If a man says he will give the boy Kromanti,
for not too many guilders, then we know he will do it. But
if a man asks forty, fifty, then we know he is not an honest
man, and he is not a good man. I have heard, though, of a
good obia man who took as much as twenty-four guilders,
but he gave the boy a strong Kromanti spirit, and it took
much time to teach him."
From time to time members of Bayo's family visited
our camp. Each time we were introduced to a new brother,
or father, or suzvagi — brother-in-law. Among these visitors
was a man whose name we never learned, though we had
talked with him a good deal. He was, we later came to
know, a man who knew obia. He was a scholar among
his people, a thoughtful man who often went about alone,
instead of being accompanied by a fellow clan member
or a member of his family, as is customary among these
people. Like Bayo, he had an incest kunu, and at his age,
he had already had occasion to see what kunu planned for
him. He coughed badly. When men went to cut timber,
he could not go with them because of his cough and the
fever which went with the cough.
"Have you been to a good obia man.''" we asked him.
He smiled. Of what use to go from one diviner to the next,
from one man who had special magic to another, when a
man knew that what was troubling him was kunu .''
"Come to the city with us," we said, when we knew him
better, "and we will take you to a doctor. He may be able
to do something for you."
[313]
REBEL DESTINY
He promised readily enough to go with us, but Bayo
told us later that he would not come.
"He says the white doctor cannot do more than obia
can do. He says a man must take what kunu brings."
Was there no obia against kunu ? we asked of Bayo.
*'No, but kunu is not greater than obia. It is something
else. When the Sky God gave obia to man, he gave it to
help man live, not to help him do bad things. When men
and women earn a kunu for their family, it is because they
do what is hateful to the great gods and ancestors. Obia
was not sent to save men from punishment."
"Does obia never punish, Bayo.^" We were thinking
of what he said about his own obia, of how when it seized
him, he destroyed things.
But he would say no more. "I am too young, Bak'a, to
speak of these things. At my age I know only a little obia.
You must ask the old men."
4
The conversation led us one day to the obia men on the
river. They were, we knew, important persons in the Bush
Negro communities. An obia man of reputation was not
only consulted by his own villagers and clansmen, but
men and women came to him from distant villages, when
those who were nearer had failed them. It occurred some-
times that even from the Awka villages on the lower river,
these Saramacca obia men were sought out — perhaps this
was because of the same tradition which encouraged the
buying of strange gods to enlarge the family pantheon,
perhaps it was because of something which touched still
deeper beliefs.
How did a man become an obia man.f*
From what we had already heard, it was apparent that
here was something which approached the formal education
of our own civilization, a form of education, indeed, which
we pride ourselves is unique to our own way of life.
All other knowledge the Bush Negro child gains by
being about with members of his family who are busy at
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SARAMACCA OBIA
the tasks which will fall to his lot when he reaches adult-
hood. Half in play, the boys and girls help their elders and
in that way learn how to work, how to conduct themselves,
how to sing and dance, how to make cicatrizations, and
how to pray to the gods. What they learn when they come
by their gods is also taught them by members of their
family. A boy's father and maternal uncles instruct him
in the gods they give him. A girl is made familiar with the
will of her gods and their manner of worship when her
mother and her mother's sisters give their gods to her.
Knowledge is, therefore, shared in the family, and much
of it, the Bush Negro says, comes to each individual from
his gods, since not every boy who watches a fine carver
can rival the carving of his teacher. When he does show
promise of excellence at a given task, it is because he, too,
has a god who helps him do his carving. It is the same with
drumming, and singing, and telling stories, and making
love.
But obia is learned formally and slowly. An obia man
may teach his own brother, or his sister's ablest son, or
his own son, even, what he knows, but the learning process
will be gradual, for no man may disclose too much to an
untrained mind. At times, however, an obia man trains
men who are not related to him. He may himself decide
upon a young man of promise to whom he cares to impart
his knowledge. A considerable sum of money may be offered
him by members of an influential family who wish to
have an obia man of their own kin and who send a young
man to him for training. In a dream or during possession
it may become known that the ancestors wish a certain
young man to apprentice himself to the obia man they
name.
The apprenticeship lasts from three months to a year.
The novice goes to live with the obia man, working with
him and observing all that his master does. During this
period of intensive training he goes with the obia man
into the bush and is shown the herbs which heal. He is
trained in the manner of bathing for the ak''a — the soul —
[315I
REBEL DESTINY
and how to cure fever, and iio-fio. He is shown how to make
obia medicine for lesions of the skin, and for colds, and for
diseases of children. He is taught the protective obias for
the woman who conceives, and those which help concep-
tion, the obias which keep people safe on the river, and
those which guard them in the bush against enemy spirits.
It may be, too, that during this first period of training,
the initiate is shown how to trap and treat the snakes from
which the snake "cuttee" is made. This cure for snake bite
is famous in Surlname among Bush Negroes and whites
alike, but the secret of preparing the cuttee is known to
the Bush Negroes alone.
While the young man is In training, he may not go with
a woman, and there are many more prohibitions which
he must observe.
"Not all men can become obia men."
"Does a man need obia in order to have Kromanti?"
we asked.
"To have Obia Kromanti, yes. . . . Now do not ask
about Kromanti, white man," said Bayo's uncle with a
smile. "Only a Kromanti man knows about Kromanti. Do
not ask, because I cannot tell you."
5
Men and women constantly drifted to our base camp with
carvings for our collection. Many brought us obias. Some
of these obias they took from their persons and sold to us,
but others were newly made for us, for some of those they
themselves wore, they would not part with, whatever the
inducement.
"Why do you want my obia, white man .^" a Bush Negro
asked one day. "Do you want an obia to carry you well to
your country ? I will make one for you, but do not ask for
mine. Mine has kept me in good health. I cannot give away
an obia which has served me well. The spirits would be
angered."
He returned after a day with one which resembled his
own, and as he gave it, he placed it on the upturned palms
[316]
SARAMACCA OBIA
of the white man and blew on it, drawing both his hands
lightly over the hands which held the obia. When he had
done this, he whispered its tchina.
"Do not let the obia come near a menstruating woman,
and do not eat the meat of the crab."
Types of obias varied. Some were of fiber twisted into a
cord and woven into bands to fit an arm or a leg, some
were worn around the neck, and ended with a few cowries
and a bell or a black sack with cowries sewn on them or
some bristles and a brilliant bit of a parrot's feather.
There were also the plain bands of iron, the Kromanti
obias worn by men.
One of the most interesting obias was the coffin obia.
It was not to be worn casually, as were all the others we
had heretofore acquired. When our cook saw this one he
paled.
"Mi Gado," he cried, and then turned to the English at
his command to give us a warning which would not be
understood by those who stood near. "What you got there .''
Put that away! You wan' fo' die.^" Nor would he come near
it until it was well out of sight.
It was, we saw, best hidden, if we wanted to continue
our course up the river.
The man who had sold it had himself impressed us with
its potency. "This obia is strong. . . . Look, it is made of
cedar, the same wood from which we make the big coffins,
and it is wrapped in the cloth we use to cover the coffin in
which the dead man lies. Now that you have the power
which is in the obia, I can tell you that the black on it is the
soot from the fire, the white is pemba, and the inside ring is
woven from the maripa palm. It will carry you well on the
river. Nothing can harm you when you already carry your
coffin with you."
The logic of his last remark was not so convincing to the
whites as it was to the obia man, but it seemed unwise
to question him about it.
"To keep it strong, you must spray it with rum twice a
month. When the moon is full you must do it, and again
[317]
REBEL DESTINY
before the new moon comes, and when you do this, you
must say,
''Obia-o,
Your spirit must stay,
Your power must not leave this.
Do not go elsewhere,
Do not become defiled^
There was the obia on which Bayo had lavished all the
magic he could command so that his friends might be
safe in the bush. From the sacred grass known as s^a — the
same grass from which the woven ceremonial dancing
skirts are made here on the river — he made several long
lengths of twine. These he wove into a square which later
became the pendant of this neck obia. On this, as a base,
he sewed two cowries facing each other, and in the middle
of the fringed border of this pendant he fastened a bit of a
macaw's feather, blue and orange in color.
The twisted cord about the neck had several knots in it
where the cord met the pendant. Tying Is the symbol of
attaching, of binding, so that if an invocation was uttered
in the making of these knots, and the twine was then
drawn taut, the power was certain to be lodged inside the
knots. Then, too, knots form links, and links, whether they
be in a metal chain or in fiber or wood, symbolize union,
and any object or ornament with links is, therefore, much
valued in bush and in town. A linked chain is a favorite
gift to please the akra, the soul, among the coastal Negroes.
A woman who wishes to attach her man to her will rise at
night noiselessly and will knot a hair from the man's head
three times, speaking her invocation. In the bush few obias
are found which do not have several knots in them.
In his exuberance Bayo placed so many prohibitions on
this finely woven obia, that we asked him if he could not
nullify some of them.
"For very strong obias, we have many tchina. It is best
so, because no one who wants to harm you will guess all
of them and so succeed in robbing the obia of its power.
[318I
SARAMACCA OBIA
But if the tchina are too difficult to observe, then the man
who made the obia can take the tchina away."
Suiting his action to the word, Bayo took some water
from the river into his mouth and, spraying it over the
obia, said, "The tchina I gave you, I take away. The break-
ing of these tchina must no longer defile you or take away
your power."
There was nothing more hateful to the gods and the
spirit of obia than an unclean woman, yet if an obia man
wished, he could instruct the power in the obia not to take
offense at unintentional contacts with menstruating women,
or at cloths belonging to such women, or at food prepared
by such women. But to accomplish this, an obia man had
to be very powerful and, even so, he could not feel sure
that the obia spirit would countenance such violations
indefinitely.
All of these personal obias had definite attributes. One
was made to guard an individual on the water, another in
the bush. There were obias for successful hunting and fish-
ing, for being safe against the evil spirits at the crossroads,
for slander, and for envy. One obia saw to it that the soul
remained strong, another that no illness sent by an enemy
might lodge itself in the body of the wearer; there were
love obias, and fighting obias, and obias which kept ghosts
away.
Yet whatever such obias were made of, the object in
itself had no validity. A simple fiber with a jaguar's tooth
attached to it might well have greater powers for safety
in the bush than an elaborately wrought obia, whose maker
had not a strong obia spirit to give it spiritual power.
Without this supernatural potency, it would be like a
village god that had been allowed to rot because of itself
it was merely a block of wood, and the deity for whom it
had been made had not come to animate it.
Long ago, the Anansi stories tell us, there was a bird
that knew obia. The cries of this bird shook all the kingdoms
[319]
REBEL DESTINY
of the earth. In one kingdom, a ruler sent the heralds to
proclaim throughout the land that he who killed the bird
would get half his kingdom, and his daughter in marriage.
Anansi, the spider, killed a hawk and brought it to the
ruler. But Anansi lied when he said this was the bird that
shook the earth with its cries. At the very time he was
trying to persuade all the people that this was the bird,
the cries of the ominous bird were heard. So they put Anansi
in jail. Now one day there was born to a woman a child
who at birth wore a cloth of pieced designs, and a hunting
sack. This boy said to his mother, he said, "Give me a little
water, mother, and I will go out into the world to learn
wisdom. God has sent me to kill the bird which troubles
mankind,"
When the boy grew to manhood he succeeded in trapping
this bird that knew how to cook obia without fire. He killed
the bird and took the obia pot with him, and that is how
he came by the secrets of obia. He passed on his knowledge
to the men of his family, and this has been going on till
today, so that obia is being spread throughout the world
by the descendants of this man who killed the bird that
knew obia.
But obia was not one thing only.
"Obia," Bayo's uncle had said, "is first of all the spirit.
It is everywhere. But there are many kinds of obia. There
is black man's obia, and there is white man's obia. Here
in the bush black man's obia is the strongest.
"A man who has the obia spirit makes obia to wear, and
obia to drink, and obia to rub the body with, and obia water
for bathing. He can make obia drums and obia benches.
The spirit tells you how to do things, and it tells you what
to do. When we say a man has strong obia, we mean
his spirit is strong."
The Bush Negro obia man, said Bayo to us one day, knew
the things the white doctor knew — he knew how to heal —
and he knew other things, too. He knew how to keep sick-
ness away. The things an obia man gave for healing were
[320]
SARAMACCA OBIA
called obias. The charms he gave for warding off illness and
evil were obias, too.
"So we call all these things. But each obia has a name.
Every charm I wear is an obia, but if I wore the one you
are wearing, it would be a soul cord, an ak'a tetei. One
below the knee we call asumani in my village, and one for
the wrist afimu. The one on the upper arm is named
ando. But there are many names, and they are all obia,
because inside them is the spirit obia which gives them
power. When a man sells you an obia and passes its power
on to you, he breathes on your hands as they hold the obia.
When he does it, he gives you the obia spirit which went
into the making of this obia. If he did not make it himself,
the spirit was given him by the obia man, and he gives it
to you."
Obia, then, is the spirit; obia is the preventive and
curing agent; obias are the charms that are worn by
people to help them. Some have called these obias
"fetiches," but even a slight understanding of them should
be enough to bring the outsider to the realization that the
object of itself is meaningless, and that it is only the power
that has been given the charm that makes it effective.
Yet it is not strange that the importance of the fetich has
been overestimated, for if the visitor did not draw out the
Bush Negroes about their gods and their theories of the
universe, the existence of these higher powers would almost
go unrecognized. For everywhere there are to be found
obias guarding the village, obias screening paths, obias worn
by the people. That they are important to the Bush Negro
is obvious. But they are important for day-by-day exist-
ence, and they do not possess the overwhelming importance
of the great spirits who control the universe.
Many of these charms came to us as tangible evidence
of the belief in obia. Some of those we acquired were of a
unique character because of the power that was latent
in them, some because of the intricacy of their taboos. Yet
all of them paled in interest and in arresting quality beside
the Kromanti Mama that came to us one night in secret.
I 321 ]
Chapter XVIII
"OBIA COMES!"
WHITE and gaunt and staring in the dim light, the
Kromanti Mama rested on its whitened bench, and
about it coiled a snake modeled from the same sacred
clay.
It had come to us in stealth, and as we responded to the
awe it inspired, we could not but wonder what had prompted
the man who had brought it to reveal one of the most secret
religious objects known to his people. He came late one
night, his burden carefully wrapped so that no one might
suspect what he carried. That night only, while in whispers
he told us what it was and wherein lay its powers, was it
out of those wrappings, for not alone during the remainder
of our stay in the bush but while we were in the city, we
were careful to respect the man's trust.
"When you take it to your white man's country, and some
man sees it who has a Tiger spirit, he will shout the cry of
the tiger. All who have Tigri are related. Wherever the
Kromanti Mama goes, there the Tigri obia goes, too."
2
Obia, we were told, came into the world to heal and to
warn and to protect mankind. Of all obia, Kromanti is the
strongest. Why, then, is the Kromanti obia so feared t
The clue to an answer to this question lies in the behavior
of the men to whom this obia comes when they are possessed
with it. The man who is actuated by Kromanti obia is
[322]
"OBIA COMES!"
feared by all who themselves do not have Kromanti. Obia
Kromanti warns and protects and heals, but its powers
are only for those who belong to the Kromanti group.
Whether Kromanti is the African warrior society pre-
served in this bush, it is impossible to say. If this were the
case, then the definite military organization of many of the
West African societies should be present. The military
character of any group among the Bush Negroes could
not even be hinted at, of course, without the greatest
caution. In their descriptions of the Kromanti, our intimates
among the Bush Negroes never indicated in any way the
existence of such an organization. Even leading questions
brought out only unqualified denials instead of the revealing
answers " I do not know," or " Massa Gadu sabi." Yet there
are undoubtedly secrets which Kromanti men do not share
with outsiders, and we remembered that when a Kromanti
man dies, he must be "separated" from the Kromanti group
just as he is "separated" from his family and from his village.
About the very meaning of the word Kromanti there can
only be speculation. During the time of the slave trade,
there were two ports on the Gold Coast of Africa known as
Little and Great Coromantyne. From these ports came the
slaves who, in the New World, were known as Coromantyne
slaves. These slaves were so warlike, so prone to cause
uprisings, that only English and Dutch colonies consented
to buy them and in these colonies when slave rebellions broke
out to alarm the white planters, they were led by the proud
Coromantyne slaves.
It would not be strange, therefore, if the same term was
carried over into the free civilization of this bush to
typify the obia which protected and watched over the
fighters who had won this freedom.
Other indications point to the same assumption. The
strongest spirits of the Kromanti, those which inspire the
greatest fear when they possess men of a village are
Tigri and Djadja. Tigri is the jaguar, Djadja is often vaguely
translated by our word "devil." If we again turn to the
West African societies, we find that one of the most dreaded
[323I
REBEL DESTINY
of the secret societies which flourish there is the Leopard
Society, and this African feUne is not very different from
the one which gives its name to the Tigri obia. Other societies
which chastise and protect have often been designated as
''devil" societies.
Kromanti is feared, then, because of the kind of preven-
tive it is. The man to whom this obia comes cannot be
harmed by bullets shot from guns, by glass, by swords that
cut, or by thorns which lacerate. Such a man is protected
in combat from the weapons of his enemies and from thorny
barricades that might be raised against his attack. It is
protection for the warriors, and when it comes, the warriors
who have the obia do not hesitate to test their immunity
and to try that of others. A friendly, unassertive man
seized by the Tiger Kromanti is in the grip of a power which
transforms him into a tiger. When obia comes in the sacred
dances, it is Kromanti obia. The Bush Negroes do not dance
for the healing, protecting spirit that is obia in general.
It is too remote. But when they dance and Kromanti comes,
the women often flee, and the men who do not have Kro-
manti discreetly disappear. Only those who have Kromanti
have nothing to fear from the attacks of their fellows,
for they are protected by the power common to them all —
the power of being unharmed by machetes or guns.
What is inside the Kromanti obia houses we cannot say,
for we were never permitted to enter them. When we recog-
nized their presence in villages we visited, the fact that they
were Kromanti houses was acknowledged, but we were
never allowed even to inspect the outside closely, and we
were never accorded permission to photograph one of these
shrines.
From our informants we learned that inside these houses
there are paintings on the walls in black and red, the
Kromanti colors, and in the white of the sacred pemba.
There were, we were told, whitened benches that had about
their tops the grass skirt of a kind worn by the obia man
when he danced.
In the Kromanti house, too, was the Kromanti Mama.
But until our friend brought us the one he had made for
[324]
OBIA COMES
US, with its attendant bench and modeled snake, we had
only heard the term.
In the dim light of our oil lantern, we listened and wrote
in our book, while our informant told us about the Kro-
manti Mama.
"You must take it down carefully," he said, "or it might
harm you."
The figure on the top of the bench was named Agbo. This
was the watchman, and to this figure came news of all
impending evil. About the neck of the figure was a Kromanti
fighting obia. A stout iron ring, with red and blue cloth tied
about one-half of it, it rested near the base of the watchman.
The eyes of this watchman were its most arresting fea-
ture. They were represented by deep sockets, and the effect
was heightened by the beak-like character of the nose. Two
ears completed the head, and on the body breasts were
modeled. It was the only piece of Bush Negro modeling we
had ever seen. This most secret of art forms was evidently
little practiced.
"The watchman sees all," said our informant, "the
Kromanti Mama knows when there is something about that
will harm. She tells the snake."
Coiled about its base, this snake was treated in the same
realistic style. The head of the snake and its tail almost
met at the side of the clay figure which it encircled.
"His name is Bimbawai," we were told.
The bench itself was not unlike the obia stools we had
seen in the shrines of the gods. Its rectangular top, curving
toward the center, was fastened to the two boards which
formed the legs. Like other obia stools, it was difficult to
tell whether, under the thick coating of white clay, the
wood was carved or not. In one respect it differed from all
others we had seen — the bench wore, fringe-like, a grass
skirt of the kind worn by the komfo, the priests. This was
suspended from the top of the bench, the cord going outside
[325]
REBEL DESTINY
the space where the snake was modeled, but never touching
it.
The man who was explaining the bench to us pointed
once more to the snake. "It is not always lifeless as you see
it here," he said.
When the snake came to life, trouble was brewing. It
turned red, the color of blood, and all who came into the
Kromanti house and saw it were warned of danger.
"How does the snake know when to come to life.'*"
"It is Agbo, the guard, who tells the snake. When she
tells him there is trouble, he turns red, and then we know."
Immunity as well as knowledge was afforded by the
magical powers of this stool and its snake and the Kro-
manti Mama.
"A man who has Kromanti sits down on the stool, and
puts Agbo on his head, and when he has done that, nothing
can harm him."
Thus is safety attained. But this only comes if the image
has been propitiated by the Kromanti men. Rum, not of
the sweet kind, must be offered it and prayers transmitted
to its spirit on the drum which Kromanti recognizes — the
apinti. If this is done, the Kromanti Mama will not lose its
power, and the snake will continue to turn the warning
color when danger threatens, and the bench will give pro-
tection to the men who have the Kromanti obia.
Not long after we had entered the bush we saw our first
Kromanti dance. The people of several neighboring villages
came to our base camp to dance for us. They asked, "Will
you be afraid if the dancing brings Kromanti.^" We told
them we should welcome whatever spirits came.
Late that afternoon canoes brought people to our en-
campment for the festivities. Some, with an eye to trade,
had brought carvings and obias, and, as we sat and talked
with them about what should be given for the pieces they
offered us, we could watch the dance outside our open hut.
[326]
"OBIA COMES!"
Two boys, each armed with two sticks, were striking the
flat top of a wooden bench called the kwakwa. There were
other rhythms than the steady beat made by the concerted
impact of the four sticks on the bench, but this set the time
for the hand clapping and songs that accompanied the
dances.
The young girls began the dancing. They were showing
how well they could dance bandamba, and pair by pair
they would take up the dance, the older women standing
by, singing and watching closely to see how they controlled
the muscles of their buttocks. When one girl showed clearly
that she outdid her partner, we could see an old woman step
between the dancing couples and put her arm about the
shoulders of the better dancer, congratulating her with the
crooning syllables, "Adoo! Adool"
As we went outside our hut, watching and joining in the
applause, more and more people came up from the river, and
among them were some older boys carrying drums. These
were not the regular drummers, but an evening is long, and
the sun had not yet set. This was the time for the younger
boys to gain practice in drumming the intricate rhythms
of the dances.
The drumheads tightened to give the proper tones, the
boys began to play, and, with the kwakwa, swung into
rhythms of the seketi. We had already seen it at Gankwe
when they danced for the dead man, but there were always
new words to these popular tunes, and these words were
often diverting.
Slowly the sun set, slowly the dusk came on. The singing
and dancing, the drumming and hand clapping continued
without intermission, as people came up the path from the
river bank. These late comers were almost all men. Some
of them we had seen at the Gankwe funeral, and we knew
we were to see good dancing. One by one, the boys at the
drums were replaced by men, and at intervals one or the
other of the three players gave up his place to a newcomer
who, by his manner of testing the tightness of the drumhead
and the increasing minuteness of the adjustments he made
[327]
REBEL DESTINY
in the cords, was recognizable as a more able musician, a
more experienced drummer.
Now the beat changed once more, and there were no more
young dancers to be seen. They were dancing awasa,
preparing for the spirits to come, so that during the long
preparation the fury with which obia would burst upon
them would be eased. In this awasa dance, the dancers
patterned the massed movements after the solo and
response of the song to which the dance was carried on.
Our paddler, Angita, acted as soloist against a chorus of
women. The seed rattles on his ankles clashed at the
proper intervals of the music, adding a new sound to the
combined notes of the drums and the monotonous pounding
of the kwakwa. Forward he danced as he sang his solo, and
the line of women opposite him retreated as he advanced.
Then, as they sang the refrain, he danced backwards, as the
women came closer toward him.
His rhythmic control surpassed any dancing we had seen
on the river — never since have we seen a dancer who
exhibited such perfect coordination of feet and muscles
of the body as did Angita. This time there was no inter-
ruption, for he danced on until, voluntarily relinquishing
his place, it was taken by another man, taller and more
lean, who began a new awasa refrain, as he continued the
dance. Occasionally a woman, brass on her wrists and at
ankles, stepped from the line of women, and the dance
became a wooing, the man advancing, the woman retreat-
ing, luring him on.
A new note sounded in the drums. In front of the hut
where we were sitting, the drumming beat upon our ears
with the persistence of the flaying tropical rain. This new
note soon superseded the other. Obia was being called by
the drummers — and obia came.
The light of the crescent moon threw into paler shadow the
oil lamps in the clearing. Overhead, screening the starlit
sky, branches hung from the trees of the big bush. Our cook
came up with our sun helmets.
"What are these for?"
[328]
"OBIA COMES!"
"Put them on. See the moon? You will catch fresh colds
if you sit in the moonlight with your heads uncovered."
So with sun helmets on our heads we sat, and, as we
listened to the new rhythms of the drums, there came a
shriek from the river which brought us to our feet. Those
who were not dancing ran up the hill away from the drums.
"Obia! Obia comes! It is the Kromanti!" were the cries,
and our cook and our town man placed themselves in line
across the front of our hut, watching uneasily.
"They will destroy all you have if they get inside," they
called to us, "we must try to keep them out."
Up from the river, along the path he had trodden but a
while before, came a man whom we could not recognize
in the disguise given him by the paint on his face. Half his
face was white, half a deep red, and we later learned what
we did not then know, that this was the face marking of
the Djadja Kromanti and that this man was possessed by
one of the two Kromanti spirits which carry danger to those
who are present when the seizure comes. He advanced
toward the drums, machete in hand, as though he were
stalking his prey, his legs raised high at every step, trailing
some enemy. At his mouth the foam was gathering, and
the words he uttered were in the Kromanti tongo, the sacred
speech not understood by the uninitiated.
The songs changed in character, and the singers were
men. The women who had not run away were dancing a
quick accompaniment to the drum beats, adding their
shrill voices to the singing and the intensity of the cries
of the possessed man. When the possessed man reached the
hut, he stopped in front of the drummers. As their rhythms
poured out of the barrel-like drums, he answered stroke for
stroke with shouted cries in his sacred secret language,
raising his machete higher and higher, until, with a quick
stroke, he slashed at two of the players who were seated
side by side on a log. He missed them by what seemed a
hair's breadth as his machete, whistling through the narrow
space between their bodies, sank deep into the log on which
they sat.
[329]
REBEL DESTINY
Other cries now came to us, and from the bush a second
possessed man burst into the clearing. He, too, had a
machete, and he made straight for our hut. But obia did
not prompt him to insist on entering, and he came close to
us, gibbering in our faces, and then, stepping high as had
the other, went his way to slash at our washbasins, sending
one of them, that we treasure as a memory of that night's
adventure, hurtling into the bush with a deep dent in its
side.
From the river came renewed shouts, and some of the
men dashed to the bank to jump into a canoe and paddle
into the rapids, so that they might watch the possessed
man who had leaped into the river to pit his strength against
the fast water. On and on he swam upstream in the foaming
water, as from the bank we watched his progress uneasily
in the clear light of the moon. Finally obia left him,
and the men in the boat seized his inert form and
brought him back to shore.
When we returned to our hut, we found several others
possessed. Obia had claimed six or seven, some with faces
painted half white, half red, as was that of the first man,
others with faces whitened, while still others had white
faces with black markings. These last had Tigri, and
the white was for Opete. Those who danced for the buzzard
had no machetes, but went about in a circle, moving with
bodies bent forward from their waists and with arms
thrown back in Imitation of the bird from which their spirit
took its name.
One man with the Tigri face-painting took away the
apinti from the drummer and placing it in the center of
the clearing leaned over it and began drumming faster
rhythms. Now indeed obia Itself was drumming.
Long before this, we had observed the amenities of the
occasion. As hosts, our duty was to provide the ceremonial
rum with which the spirits needed to be regaled, and our
cook, holding the bottle of rum for us, filled and refilled
the small glass which we offered to men and women. Some
did not drink at all but poured part of the rum on the
[330]
"OBIA COMES!"
ground, rubbing the remainder over arms and upper body.
Some took a sip and, like tlie others, poured the rest as a
libation to the Earth Mother. Few drank more than a
little, and only the men had as much as half of the small
wine glass we were using.
The bassia of Gankwe came to us. "Do not be afraid.
Obia has come strong, but we have prepared for it. The men
will not hurt people."
Led by him, we passed from one dancer to the next,
giving to this one a sip, to that one a taste. But there was
one elderly man who would not drink.
"Not until I get obia," he said, "and obia does not come
to me tonight."
Not all the possessed men were slashing about with
cutlasses. One man pulled up grass, eating part and throw-
ing the rest over his head. Another in the strength of his
possession uprooted large clumps of brush, and one broke
off a liana of some size and wrapped it about his body, and
danced with it.
Songs, dancing men, dancing women, machetes flashing
in the moonlight . . . and over all the beat of the drum.
This was the dance of the Kromanti obia.
Now the man who had refused a drink came up. He was
trembling.
"Obia comes!" he cried. "Give me rum!"
As he tossed off the drink, he dashed toward the possessed
men. In his hand was a rattle, the first we had seen at this
dance. The rattle is sacred to the Kromanti, and possession
can be brought on by shaking it even when there are no
drums. As he danced, he supplemented the rhythm of
the drums with his rattle, and his dancing surpassed in its
fury that of all the others. Men kept out of his way as he
dashed back and forth in his contortions, and he continued
his gyrations as those with painted faces, whom obia was
releasing, began to feel exhaustion.
The drums never stopped. As long as obia remained
unsatisfied, they would need to play on and on. While the
drummers beat the Kromanti rhythms, and the man with
I331]
REBEL DESTINY
his rattle danced his dance, the moon sank behind the screen
of branches.
It was late. Slowly the last dancer came out of his orgy of
possession. One by one the drums stopped until, for a
moment, all was quiet. Then, taking the apinti drum up the
path beyond our clearing, one of the drummers drummed
an invocation to the spirits that had come.
We trained our flashlights on the path which led to the
river, lighting the way of the dancers to their waiting boats,
while they sang for us the seketi song we had heard the
night of Zimbi's funeral.
Thank you, thank you, white man,
For coming to the Saramacca River,
For bringing us your diamond fire,
To light the darkness of our path.
5
At the village opposite our base camp, a girl had died
shortly before our return from up river. The eighth
night after the death was to be commemorated with the
usual dancing of "eighth-day night," and with the ceremony
of throwing away food for the spirit of the dead.
"Come tonight and we will dance for you," the men of
the village said. It was agreed that they should come for us
when they were through with the ceremony for throwing
away the food, for the bereaved family would not look
kindly upon the intrusion of the whites at the ceremony.
As we waited for the messenger, Bayo prowled about
uneasily. He had been nervous for the past few days. His
spirits had been troubling him, and he said he needed to
dance. It was some time since he had danced, and his
spirits were vexed with him for this neglect.
"If they dance Kromanti, I will dance, too," he said.
We talked with him of the rum we would have to take.
The strength in which it was distilled made it necessary to
cut it with water. Bayo watched us as we took out one
bottle, prepared the rum, and then took up another. His
hand interposed.
I 332]
A Saraiuacca elder,
who has Tiger spirit.
Bayo inspects an obia leaf
"OBIA COMES!"
"Do not take too much rum," he said. "When there is
much to drink, obia does not come."
The bottle ready, we waited. Eight, half-past, nine
o'clock. When we had decided they were not coming for us,
the sharp bark of Tross signaled the approach of a man up
the path from the river bank. As he came into the circle
of light, we recognized Apanto.
"Everything is ready, Bak'a," he said. "Come."
It was not an important village, this one across the river
from our camp. It was smaller and had much less power
than Gankwe, the seat of a clan head. But enough men had
assembled for the ceremonies to make a dance, and the
women were standing about waiting as we came from the
river through the palm-frond guard. The moon was again
up, but moving clouds hid it from view or covered it with a
haze which dimmed its brilliance. A few houses fronted on
the little clearing where the dance was to be held, and here
and there some oil lanterns had been placed.
Not everything, we soon learned, was ready, for drums
were lacking. They had an agida, but the two others which
were needed were not there. Poor villages very often had to
borrow their drums from other settlements. The dancers
stood about waiting.
We offered the tumao we had acquired, and Bayo
returned to our camp for it. A large tin basin, turned upside
down, gave the same metallic tenor voice as the apinti, and
so with the makeshift orchestra the dancing began, two
younger boys playing the kwakwa.
For a time it seemed as though we were only to see
seketi. The children had had no opportunity at all to per-
form, and they stood about watching, while their elders
danced the social dance we had seen so often. There was a
tall man from a friendly village farther down the river
whose dancing that night stood out. The careful awkward-
ness of his legs as he danced facing us, the carefully timed
movements of arms and body showed us that In seketi, too,
as the proverb ran, there were truly men on the lower river,
as there were on the upper.
[333]
REBEL DESTINY
A light rain fell, and for a while the dancing stopped.
Deserting our benches, we joined the natives who clustered
under the overhanging eaves of the houses, and sheltered
ourselves from the shower. But the rain was soon over, and
the moon came out again. The drummers took their places
and the dancers resumed their seketi.
"Dance Kromanti," we urged, remembering Bayo, "we
have seen much seketi."
"You will have to look out," said Apanto. "We have
strong Kromanti here," as the drums began to call
obia.
Bayo had been sitting behind us during the seketi. His
face mirrored a frame of mind that was none too happy, for
this was not the sort of dance that he had looked forward
to. When Apanto gave the word to play Kromanti, however,
Bayo rose, and when we next saw him, his head was low
over the inverted tin basin which served for an apinti, and
he was making the night throb with the intricacy of the
messages he was sending to the strong spirits which were
troubling him with their insistence for expression.
Where we sat, we could see the men becoming aware of
the voices of the drums. Several rattles had made their
appearance, and the sound they made as they were shaken
in concert caused the men's bodies to grow rigid, while the
women hovered uncertainly about. By now the evening's
"play" was begun in earnest. No children remained to
look on. At the moment, there was no dancing, for the men
with the rattles, and those who were merely waiting for the
spirit to come to them, moved about in the open place
reserved for the dance, back and forth, waiting for their
Kromanti spirits to enter their bodies. One man struck up
a song, and the chorus carried the refrain, until interest
in that song died down and another was sung.
These Kromanti songs were not of the lilting, rhythmic
kind which other dances required. Some of them were slow
and mournful, some quick and martial. Now they were
singing to the Opete. The leader sang
[334]
"OBI A COMES!"
Opete kzvasi Adjaini-o
Opete kzvasi Adjaini-obia-o
Opete kwasi
Tide Adjaini-a weti kzvao, kzvao, ku-ao, kwao.
The chorus repeated,
Opete kwaso, Adjaini-o-yi
Opete kwaso, Adjaini-o-yo
Opete kwaso, Adjaini-o-kumani!
They were becoming more and more agitated. The rattles
sounded a faster tempo, the drums beat louder, and the
music swung into another song.
Amanu Djadja-o
0-0-0-0-0-0
Amanu Djadja-o
0 ye-e-e
Kuma, luku, mowa,
0-e Mama-e
0-0-0-0-0 -0-0 . . .
This was a song of greeting for the Djadja spirit. Bayo
still urged the rhythms out of the improvised apinti which
he was playing. The drummers were calling all the Kromanti
spirits, the buzzard called Opete, the jaguar, Tigri, and
Djadja, the "devil." Would they come.''
The question was answered soon enough. Out of the
forest into the clearing ran one whose obia had come to him.
It was Opete obia and, in his strength of possession, he had
torn off two branches from a palm tree in the bush. These
he held under his arms, so that, as he pranced about in his
dance, he impersonated the awkwardness of the great
carrion bird which gave its name to his obia. The tufts of
palm leaves projecting from behind his flexed arms were
wings. He leaped as in flight, then with startling rapidity
he began turning round and round to the flapping of his
wings.
Apanto suddenly seized a stick we held and, whirling it
about our heads, was oflF to his dance, joining the six or
[335]
REBEL DESTINY
seven men who were dancing the individual dances of their
spirits. His dancing was unlike any we had seen on the
river. There was a stealthy, effeminate grace in his move-
ments, which produced a strange effect on the visitors.
Suddenly it struck us — Apanto was one of those who had
the dreaded Tigri! When he fought, he fought with his
finger nails, not his fists, and when he danced, he danced
with the feline grace of the tiger trailing his prey.
Suddenly the drums faltered. People near us cried out.
Voices were heard.
"Bayo!"
"Bayo has gone into the bush!"
"Sound the drums to bring him back!"
In the silence of the moment, we could hear from the
direction of the river the cries of our friend, now in the grip
of obia. '^ Hoi, hoi, hoi! Obial Hoir
The lull in the drumming was only momentary, for
instantly another man jumped for the makeshift drum,
which Bayo had left, and the voice of the spirits once more
rolled out. Ten, twelve men were whirling before us in their
dance, and now more joined them, until it was impossible
to remain seated, and we rose, and stood on guard.
More cries. These came from the village. Someone else
had got obia.
A woman dashed up to us. "Run, white people, run!
Come inside my house! Obia has come too soon! Obia is bad
tonight! You will be hurt!"
As we shook our heads, she hurried to a near-by house,
and we could hear the slam of the door and the sound of the
wooden bolt as it was shot to. She had done what she could
for the visitors. If they would stay, let them take the
consequences.
Before us a creeping figure appeared, with eyes fixed upon
us, his muscles tense, as if ready for a spring. The dancing
men who were not yet possessed, closed in front of us. They
held him as he crouched there, glaring. Those who restrained
him called to the others.
"See to the guns!"
[336]
"OBIA COMES!"
"Hide the bush knives!"
These Kromanti men, in the strength of their obia, try-
to seize weapons made of iron, and if they succeed in
wresting from a man a machete or gun, nothing is safe.
Apanto, the obia man, and the old men of the village, had
no wish for tragedy.
"Sound the drums louder, faster!" came the cry. "Call
Bayo from the bush!"
The drummers redoubled their efforts, until at last
Bayo's spirit responded to their call.
"Look out! Take care!" called the women who had
stayed outside their huts, as they ran before us up the path,
away from the two men whose obia was so dangerous. "It
is Bayo! Obia came!"
It was indeed Bayo, but not a recognizable Bayo. He was
on all fours. His knees and shins dragged over the stony
path on which he crawled so that we dared not think of the
lacerations we would see the following day. He stared about
him wildly. Saliva drooled from his mouth, and his tongue
lolled from between his parted lips. Two of the older men
had him in charge, and several of those who had been
dancing now came to his side to restrain him should he
attempt to leap.
"Stop the drums!" came the command, and in a few
moments the stillness of the night was restored to us. For
with the drums quieted, Bayo and the other whom obia had
possessed could be treated by the older men who knew
the way of obia, knew how to give them release from the
spirit without doing harm to the village and its people.
On Bayo dragged himself, out of sight, and the other man
was taken with him. Soon they called to us to come and sec
Bayo. He was being brought out of his seizure.
He was still on his hands and knees, and the saliva still
dropped from his mouth. As we looked, an elder stooped
over him and whispered some words in his ear. Taking the
small wineglass we had brought for our present of rum
for the dance, he poured a few drops of liquor in his eyes,
then in his ears, and then brought the glass to his mouth.
[337]
REBEL DESTINY
Bayo's teeth closed with a snap, and the glass came away
In the hands of the elder who had held it. A piece of glass
remained in Bayo's mouth. Slowly, as we looked on, his
mouth began to work. Would he swallow the piece of glass
whole ? Would he chew it into bits and then swallow it.^ We
had heard of those whom Kromanti possessed who did this,
but would Bayo ?
He did not swallow it. Slowly the muscles of the mouth
moved, and slowly the piece of glass appeared between his
lips, then, slowly ejected, it fell to the ground.
The old man tried again to make him drink, this time
giving him the liquor in a metal cup. When the cup was
released, the marks of the boy's teeth were deeply imprinted
on it.
In the clearing where the dancing had taken place, men
and women stood about in little groups, excitedly talking.
Obia had come without the proper preparation. Obia had
come too soon — it had come too strong. Lucky for them that
visiting obia men who knew how to control this strength
were present, people who knew how to take violent men
In the full strength of their violence and bring them to
sanity by speaking magic words which obia listened to.
"Ah, Bak'a, it is good they were here. Obia came too
strong. If the drums had not stopped, many would have
been hurt, and our village would have mourned. When obia
comes too soon, it is bad."
We were in our canoe, returning to the base camp. Two
of the men who lived in the village where the dance had been
held were paddling, and in the stern sat Bayo, a strange,
strained, silent Bayo.
He had regained consciousness, for when we had asked
him, "Are you ready to come back with us.^" he had
answered a hoarsely whispered "Ai." In the boat with us
was the tumao drum, and as the two of us and Bayo sat
silent, the paddlers gossiped about the events of the
evening.
[338I
"OBIA COMES!"
Back at the camp, Bayo was exhausted. Tross, after his
frantic welcome, had settled down and was lying near his
master who sat on a box, leaning against one of the posts
of the hut. We were alone with him and our servants.
The Bush Negroes had left us at the shore. Bayo had strong
obia, and his obia had obviously not been satisfied. Would
the spirits seize him once more .^
Wisdom dictated that we take ordinary precautions and,
as Bayo sat there, we accounted for all the machetes and
Bayo's shotgun and locked them in a canister.
Did he want water .^ No. Suddenly he roused himself, and
we came to our feet. What was to happen now.''
He strode over to the corner of the hut where the tumao
drum stood, and, hoisting it on his shoulder, walked out
of the hut. As we followed him, we could see him stop at the
river bank and place the drum on the ground. He brought
his hands down on the drumhead. A.rhythm sounded. Was
he signaling the village across the river that he had arrived
safely.'* Was he speaking to the spirits that had just left
him.'' The drumming left off as suddenly as it had started,
and he came back and replaced the drum.
But he was not yet ready to go into his hammock and
rest, and he stood against the doorway, his tired body
gleaming in the light of the lanterns, his knees slightly
flexed, arms spread wide over the side poles of the house, his
hands grasping the wood.
"Will you go to your hammock, Bayo?"
"Ai," and our town man who had helped him there came
back saying that he was already asleep.
"It is all over," we hazarded the opinion.
But our cook was of another mind.
"Massa," he said, "you can never tell when the spirit
will come back. Do not sleep without the lantern. Let it
stay lighted."
And so we slept wdth lighted lantern, while Bayo lay
separated from us by a partition which did not reach above
a man's head.
[339I
REBEL DESTINY
7
The next day was our last among the Saramacca people.
Bayo came to us early to help with the packing. He was
apparently none the worse for his seizure and, as he worked,
we could tell from his manner how release had come to him
and how the tension we had noticed the past few days had
left him.
On his body were no marks. His mouth showed no cuts
where the glass was bitten off" and chewed. When we told
him about the glass, he knew nothing of it. Had he not
known about this eating of glass, he might well have
doubted our word, for when we examined his lips and palate
and tongue, not even a scratch showed.
"What did you drum last night, Bayo.^"
"When, before the obia came to me.'"'
He remembered nothing after he had leaped from the
improvised apinti to run into the bush.
"Not when you drummed apinti, but when you came
back here and took the tumao to the river."
"I don't remember. Did I do that.?"
8
Despite the early hour we had to leave in order to catch
the weekly train for the coast, the boats of our friends
began to be seen off the landing place as they came to say
their farewells. The good woman Tita, whom they called
Mother Snake behind her back, was the first to arrive.
She walked slowly up from the river bank, pipe in mouth, a
pot on her head, and one in each hand. The pots held obias
which, she said, were made especially for us, to give us
great powers in our own land — one to keep us safe from the
ghosts of those we had wronged; one to guard us against
the acts of the unfriendly living; one to make all those from
whom we sought advantage "love" us.
Sedefo's younger wife came with her child on her back to
collect whatever tin cans were about, and some gift for
the child when it wakened, knowing that something was
[340]
"OBIA COMES!"
always given to children in the white man's camp. With
her, too, came Sedefo's eldest son, the one who had already-
danced Kromanti.
"White man," he said in a soft confidential voice that
was like his father's, "you gave the Granman gifts. Lower
river chiefs are big men, too." This was a prelude to the
suggestion that the Gankwe chief would not take it amiss
if we sent him a pith helmet.
From the village where we had seen Bayo possessed the
night before, Tenye and her two brothers, Yamati and
Sabape, came to say goodbye, and with them was their
"father" Semiye, Abane's brother. He was to have been
"captain" of our dugout, but several days before he had
told us he would be unable to go with us to the railhead.
As haltingly he gave us his reasons, we wished that white
men's lives were not keyed to railroad and boat and uni-
versity schedules — wished, too, that it were possible to
give a happier turn to the drama which bush destiny seemed
ready to stage for Semiye.
Semiye was as slender and graceful as Abane, that
superb dancer whom Yamati and Sabape, sons by different
wives, wished so much to emulate. The passion which
Abane had for dancing, Semiye knew to ilare up within
himself when he was at work. No man on the lower river
could send a heavily loaded boat up the rapids faster than
Semiye, and when he went fishing or lumbering, the catch
he brought back was large, his timber rafts were valuable.
He had not always felt this drive for work. When he and
his village friend Abai were boys together, Abai had been
the one to suggest games, to make decisions, to show
courage in leading girls down side paths into the bush.
When the time came for Semiye to go through the Kro-
manti initiation, he could not do the feats which Abai did
so easily and with such bravado. Later, when the courage
of a man was his, he was ashamed to ask for permission to
go through the initiatory rites that were intended to test
boys, and so Semiye was one of the few men on the river
who was not a Kromanti man.
[341I
REBEL DESTINY
In spite of all this, Semiye prospered. He married first
one wife and then a second, and his five children were
healthy and bright. But Abai, poor fellow, had had a hard
time. His wife was a scold. His small son was straight-
limbed and alert, but his girl child was ailing, and three of
his children had died before they could walk. These days,
when a load was to be carried for some white man to the
city, Semiye was the one most often hired, and, because
of their friendship, he saw to it that Abai went, too. Abai,
who as a youth had led in all their escapades, grew more
and more silent, but when the Tiger spirit possessed him, it
made him noisy and violent and caused him to run about
in search of Semiye with the threat to kill him. In the
village they said Abai's spirit was growing ugly; they said
that Abai's Tiger spirit hated Semiye. The night before,
we ourselves had heard Abai when possessed by his Tiger
spirit again threaten Semiye,
For the first time in many years Semiye began to know
the old fears, and because this time he had to contend with
a powerful spirit, he went to Apanto, the obia man, who
gave him a strong obia. Then . . . then he decided it
might be best to share work with Apanto occasionally.
"And now," he said, "you know why I can't go with you.
I can't go without Apanto, and you promised Bayo he
would have the front paddle."
After the dance of the night before, having witnessed
Bayo's Tiger spirit in action, it was all very understandable.
Thus it came about that our last hour on the river was
spent like so many other hours, with our boat in the compe-
tent hands of Bayo. But this time we were not to see him
at the prow of the boat, for when we had told him that
Semiye could not captain it, he had exclaimed, "Ai-yo!
Then I will be your captain, and the son of Sedefo will
take the front paddle." So now, with farewells said and
canoe loaded, the boat backed away from the familiar
landing place, turned, and was off down river, Bayo at the
post of command — an honor he would not soon allow his
friends to forget.
[342]
"OBIA COMES!"
The river had fallen. Whole stretches appeared as dry as
the sandy village clearings. The green-heart trees were in
full bloom, looking like giant flowering mimosas with heads
lifted high above the green wall of matted bush. As we
sped past the village landing of Gankwe, women wash-
ing their clothes and children at play called out a last
"y^^zoj{o-o-o-o," but in a moment we rounded a bend of
the river and were out of sight.
Our only stop was at New Village, not far from the
railroad, where the chief had promised to have an apinti
for us. He was expecting us, and with him was his friend, the
chief of Kadyu, whose village lay below the railhead.
"I had trouble finding a skin for the head," he said, "but
one of my men shot a deer, and so I have a fine one for
you. . . . And here is an obia to keep you alive on the
water." He transferred the power of the obia to us, and
then, as we rose to leave, he added, "When you get to
your home, tell the headman of your village 'Howdo' in
the name of the Chief of New Village, and his friend, the
Chief of Kadyu."
9
As we floated up to the landing place where men were
waiting to take our boxes to the train, we saw an hibiscus
tree in bloom before the little shop kept by a British Guiana
mulatto who did some trading with the Bush Negroes.
"What do you call this tree, Bayo.^"
"Which one, this with the red flowers.'' I don't know.
That's a Bak'a sani — a white man's thing."
Bakra sani!
The hibiscus tree, the mulatto who for the Bush Negro
is also a Bakra, ourselves and our phonograph and flash-
lights— all were white men's things, intruders in his bush,
strangers. Only by the grace of his powerful ancestors, and
of the gods of his ancestors, might such things be allowed
life and a measure of joy there, as witness the bright
blossoms, the livelihood the mulatto earned, and our own
good health.
[343]
GLOSSARY AND LINGUISTIC NOTES
THE language of the Saramacca Bush Negroes is called
by them the Saramacca tongo — the Saramacca tongue.
Though there are many African words in ritual and
everyday speech, the Saramacca tongo is essentially
Negro-Portuguese, with a sprinkling of English and Dutch
words. In the city of Paramaribo the Negroes speak
taki-takiy Negro-English, though Dutch and Portuguese
words are also found. The structure of the language of both
bush and coastal Negroes is essentially African, that is to
say, in all the borrowings it was the word which was
borrowed, while the African idiom was retained, so that it
may be said that the Negroes speak African dialects trans-
lated into English or Portuguese or Dutch. Simple examples
of this are such phrases as "carry come" for "bring";
"carry go" for "take away"; or "hunger kills me" for
" I am hungry "; or "one time" for "immediately."
For the correspondences between the languages of the
Suriname Negroes and of West Africa, we have relied on
various dictionaries and grammars of West African lan-
guages, and on our own findings made during our field work
on the West African coast. In writing the words of Suri-
name and West African languages in both the glossary and
the body of this book, the vowels have the "continental"
values, not those given In English. It is to be noted that
diacritical marks which would be necessary to Indicate the
strong nasalization that characterizes Bush Negro speech
have been omitted from both text and glossary. In order to
simplify the writing of native terms. Finally, we must
[345]
REBEL DESTINY
explain that in rendering the plural of native words, we
have not employed the terminal "-s" that makes the plural
in English, for in this regard we have followed the usage of
Saramacca tongo.
a, he, she.
Abitia, an important female ancestor. The name may be a modification of
Abena, a woman's Tuesday name (see under Afi). In one village on the
Saramacca, a dance known only there, called the binia, is said to have been
taught by a female ancestor during the "running away time." This fact may
have bearing on its origin, as it may point to an ancestor who had come
from the Benin (Nigerian) kingdom. The people of Benin are known as
the Bini.
aboma, boa constrictor.
adiosi, goodbye. From the Portuguese.
adji-boto, a game of counters. This is played in Suriname as it is in the Caribbean,
and in Africa. Adji is a Dahomean word. In Paramaribo, among the Awka
Bush Negroes, and in the Caribbean, the Ashanti name for the game, wari, is
employed.
Afi, "day name" for a girl born on Friday. The corresponding Friday name for a
boy is Kofi. These day names are found in bush and town in Suriname. They
are met with in Jamaica and names like Kofi (Cuffy), Kwaku (Quacoo),
Kwasi (Quashi), are known in the United States. These day names exist
among the peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa, where they are definitely
associated with the soul, in the same manner as they are in Suriname.
Af'ica, Africa. This is the Saramacca pronunciation of the word. While known
on the river, it is less used than the expression neng'e konde, literally, "Negro
kingdom." The word konde is used interchangeably for kingdom and village.
The word to, for example, in Dahomey, is used in the same way.
Afrekete, a Saramacca goddess, whose origin is Dahomean. In Dahomey her
genealogy difi^ers from the one given in Suriname. Dahomeans say she is the
daughter of Agbe and Naete, gods of the sea.
agida, the great drum of the Saramacca trio of drum types. In Paramaribo, when
the earth spirits are called, a spirit named Agida is invoked as one of the
earth pantheon.
ago, ancestors. It is said in Dahomey that among the ancient inhabitants this
Saramacca meaning was known.
agosu, name given a child born feet foremost. The same name is given such
children in Dahomey and in Haiti.
Akantamasu, the god of the ant hill. A Gold Coast name.
akra, see kra.
ambe, an exclamation said to be a contraction of the phrase "by my mother's
womb."
Amusi, name of Dahomean derivation.
Anansi, spider. Anansi is the trickster in the cycle of stories which bear his name.
The Anansi stories on the Gold Coast and in the New World are like the
Br'er Rabbit stories in the United States. In the New World, aside from
[346]
GLOSSARY AND LINGUISTIC NOTES
Dutch Guiana, Anansi appears as the dominant trickster in Negro tales in
Jamaica, and even in the stories of this country we occasionally hear of
Miss Nancy.
ando, an exclamation. Ando is thought to be a famous ancestor. One of the strong
warrior obias on the river is called the "hunter ando."
apinti, name of the Bush Negro tenor drum. The same name for this drum is
found in western Nigeria and Dahomey; among the Gold Coast peoples the
term is mpintin.
Apuku, gods of the bush, who are visualized as little people. Whenever natural
clearings appear in the jungle they are said to have been made by these
Apuku gods. In southern Nigeria and Dahomey children who die young are
called Abiku. They are said to be the messengers of the great gods who send
them to earth and recall them. In Jamaica there is a cult whose members are
called Pukumerians, but not enough is known of Jamiacan worship to be able
to determine whether this cult is exactly comparable to the Apuku cult in
Suriname.
Asaase, the Earth Mother. The earth deity has the identical name among the
Ashanti.
atoa, affirmative exclamation.
azvasa, Saramacca dance. In Ashanti this dance is known under the name awisa.
Awka, name for another tribe of Suriname Negroes. In southern Nigeria there is
a group of Ibo-speaking people known as the Awka people, and a village not
far from Ife called Awka.
ayo, yes.
azang, a "spiritual barrier" of palm fronds erected across a path in order to brush
away evil that might be seeking to enter the \'illage. The word is Dahomean.
The azang is today only infrequently seen in the larger Dahomean centers, but
when an epidemic comes, whether it is measles or influenza or whooping
cough or the dreaded smallpox, these are put in place.
azoke nyenye, firefly; the Dahomean word is azofle nyenye.
B
bak'a, bakra, bakara, white man. This is the same as the "buckra" of the Carolina
Negroes.
bak'a tnuyfy white woman. See also niuye.
bak'a sani, literally "white man's thing." Idiomatically, anything which is out-
side the civilization of the Saramacca people. Thus an hibiscus tree on the
lower river was called a "white man's thing." This term was also applied to
our flashlight before it had been christened "diamond fire"; to our phono-
graph; to our ideas; to our medicine. We have heard the same distinction
made in West Africa between the white man's things and those that apper-
tained to the blacks.
bandamba, dance for twins and marriage. It is known and danced in Africa on the
Gold Coast.
banya, a dance. It is found in both bush and town, and the bakafutu banya
(cross-legged banya) is associated with dancing for the ancestors. The dance
is known on the Gold Coast.
bassxa, the second in command to a chief. In the town this word is used to name an
overseer. The word is also employed in Jamaica.
I 347]
REBEL DESTINY
baya, to dance. From the Portuguese. See also hebi.
b'oko dei, daybreak.
bonkoro, the Paramaribo word for albino. The Saramacca people say "Tone
person."
boto, boat.
boyo, in the song we quote, this word refers to the Earth spirits. When the Ashanti
call on Asaase Ya, the Earth Mother, they also speak of the creature of the
underworld as Asaase Borva.
bungolo, half of a broken canoe on which a corpse lies until the cofHn is completed.
chaka, literally, shake. The meaning is extended to designate the type of dancing
which accentuates the shaking of the buttocks.
D
dede, dead, death.
Dosu, name given a child born next after twins. This same name is given such a
child in Dahomey and Haiti.
Djuka, a member of the Awka tribe of Negroes. In the city of Paramaribo and
elsewhere in the coastal region this word is used loosely to refer to all Bush
Negroes, whatever their tribal affiliations. No exhaustive study has been
tnade of the Awka tribe, but what material there is suggests a predominating
African culture from Southern Nigeria.
Dyombi, name of a god. In Suriname this deity, who is associated with the silk-
cotton tree, is thought of as the child of Gedeonsu and Tinne (q.v.), and is
dreaded by the natives. He is said in Dahomey, where he is also worshipped, to
dance with the thunder pantheon. In Dahomean folklore the Dyombi are
associated with hunters who conquered the mythical thirty-horned giants.
The name is well known to New World Negroes and has come to be asso-
ciated with ghosts. It occurs in the Caribbean interchangeably with zombi and
duppy.
flo-fio, as explained in the text. It is an old Dahomean term meaning "anger."
The word has also been reported as being in use by the Bantu-speaking
peoples of Loango as a name for a medicinal herb.
g'a, literally "great." It has been assumed that this word is derived from the
Portuguese "gran," but the derivation is probably a dual one, since the Ewe
(Togoland) word ga signifies "great, old," and in Dahomey ga means "chief,
elder, head of an organization."
g'aman, chief, headman. It is also the Saramacca term for the Dutch Governor
of the Colony.
g'a sembe, "big" person, i.e., important person. See sembe.
[348]
GLOSSARY AND LINGUISTIC NOTES
g'a tangi, literally "great thanks," but idiomatically "please," or "I beg you."
See tangi.
G'a Zombi, ghost. See Dyombi.
G'a Yorka, ghost. See Yorka.
gbolo, expression of affirmation. Used as interpolation in narrative, and in council
meetings.
Gedeonsu, name of a god who lives in the silk-cotton tree. In Dahomey the word
is a "strong name" for the same tree. The ancient people on the plateau
of Abomey, the present capitol of Dahomey, were the Gedevi, and there is a
legend in Dahomey which says that there were once two brothers, one Cede,
one Honsu. They quarreled and one turned into a stone and became the god
animating the great Gede rock in Dahomey. The other entered the silk-
cotton tree. When our informants in Dahomey heard that in Suriname they
worshipped Gedeonsu, they exclaimed, " You not only have Dahomeans there,
you have people from right here in Abomey."
gomi, a citizen. Literally "child of the earth," i.e., a person who belongs to the
village where he is living. Mi is the Yoruban word for "child."
gossi, doll. This word has the same meaning in Dahomey.
H
ha'i, kali, haul.
hebi, heavy. Also used in the sense of " hard," as In a baya hebi, "he danced hard."
llene Tonugbwe, said to be a "strong name" for the deity called the "Mother of
the River." Hene is Ashanti for chief. Whether Tonugbwe refers to the sacred
lake Nohwe, in Dahomey, or not, is difficult to say.
hohobi, twins. The word is from Dahomey, the modern Dahomean pronunciation
being hohovi.
Ingi, Indian.
K
kambosa, "the other wife of my husband." In its larger meaning, it signifies "the
woman who makes trouble for me."
kamemba, cicatrizations made on the faces and bodies of men and women.
kandu, a "spiritual lock" found over doorways, on fruit-bearing trees, and in
fields to keep off thieves by means of its magic power. It is of Bantu origin.
kankant'i, cotton tree. An old Dahomean word for this tree is gajiganti. See t'i.
Kediamo, the Sky God. This Is one of his "strong names." He is also known as
Nyankompon and Kediampon. These names are employed today in the Gold
Coast for the same deity, the latter pronounced there Twediampon.
Kentina dagoive, the name of one of the snake deities. Dagowe Is Suriname for the
Dahomean and Haitian Dangbe. The snake Dangbe is considered the founder
of one of the Dahomean families.
kere-kere, expression of affirmation used to interpolate In council meetings and
when listening to a long narrative. Also pronounced kede, and kelele. These
interpolations punctuate all pauses In speech, and the rhythm and inflection
[349
REBEL DESTINY
is analogous to the interpolations, "Oh, Lord," "Glory," "Yes, Lord," "Hal-
lelujah," and "Too true," used in Negro churches in this country. These
interpolations occur in speech and ceremonies in West Africa, particularly
on the Gold Coast.
kfrki, church. From the Dutch.
Kesekia, a snake deity. In Togoland this god is known as the wife of one of the
sky gods.
keskesi, monkey.
kodjo, cudgel.
kodo, expression of affirmation. It Is employed as an Interpolation In narrative,
and in proceedings at council meetings.
komfo, a person possessed by the spirit of an African diviner. In this sense the
word is used In both bush and town. It Is of Ashanti-Fanti origin.
koti-go, cut across.
'kra, soul. This word is that of the Gold Coast, a contraction of akra. Saramacca
people also drop the "r" and say ak'a.
Kromanti, the name of a category of amulets which help the fighter, and also, we
have strong reason to believe, of a male secret society. The former is known
as Kromanti ohia. The word can be most easily traced to the small kingdom
of Coromantyne on the Gold Coast of Africa and to the slave factories In the
coastal cities of Little and Great Coromantyne. The origin Is often traced also
to the AshantI oath of this name, commemorating a battle In which the
Ashanti King Osal Tutu was killed. Everywhere In the New World the
Coromantyne Negroes were known as intractable, and it is claimed that they
were the instigators of most of the slave rebellions in the New World,
especially Jamaica and in the United States. In the Saramacca bush the
role of the Krovianti group is in all respects akin to that of the Asafotche
companies on the Gold Coast today. In both instances they are companies of
young men — in more ancient times, warriors. In both instances they have
magic to help them In war. In both Instances this magic includes powers
which endow the members with resistance to bullets, and to all things that
cut or lacerate, like knives and thorns and glass. In both instances the power
comes from the enshrining of magic, in Surlname called obia, and on the
Gold Coast called sunian. In some of the old Asafotche songs sung on the
Gold Coast the word Kromanti appears. The opening of all Asafotche songs
with "fire, fire," a euphemism for calling the alarm to indicate the need for
all members to gather, is heard in the Kromanti songs. The role of the young
men of punishing for trespassing against clan or village property, and of
watching over the chief's rule, exists In the Saramacca country as it exists
on the Gold Coast.
krutu, council, counsel. The Saramacca pronunciation Is k^utu; krutu wosu,
council house.
kuma, a formal greeting. It is used especially in the Granman's village. The entire
Interchange when two people of the Saramacca tribe meet follows the West
African pattern.
kunu, a supernatural force controlled by the ancestors and gods, which punishes
with extinction the families of those who violate the laws of the ancestors. It
would seem to be derived from the Ewe (Togoland) word kunu, "death."
kweti-kzveti, no, no. A ceremonial Interpolation used In council.
kye, exclamation of surprise and entreaty. Sometimes pronounced ke and some-
times tye. This phonetic shift occurs in Negro speech everywhere in the New
[350]
GLOSSARY AND LINGUISTIC NOTES
World, as, for example, the Southern "cyah" and "cyarriage" for "car"
and "carriage" or "gyahden" for "garden."
Lame, name of a Bush Negro village. Probably derived from the city of Lome in
Togoland.
lanti, government.
liba, moon. The term is also extended to mean "crescential," as In liba-bangi, a
crescential stool. See also under tvosu. In taki-taki liba means river. Sara-
macca for river is liu, from the Portuguese.
lo, clan. Hlo is the Ewe (Togoland) equivalent.
loko, a sacred tree. It is called by the identical term in Dahomey and Togoland,
where it is also held in reverence. The Yoruba, who have the same attitude
toward it, call it iroko.
M
Mamadavi, the great falls of the Saramacca. There the "Mother of the River" is
said to live. It is difficult to determine the exact African parallel for this. An
important sacred lake in Dahomey is called Nohzve — "house of our mother."
The word dam in Ashanti means "room" and mama has our own connota-
tion. In Ashanti a tributary of the sacred Tano river is called Abereiva
meaning "old woman."
man, pronounced West Indian Negro fashion, "mahn." The meaning is the same
as in English.
massa, master. This word is pronounced in the Suriname bush as it is in the
South and in the English-speaking colonies in Africa and has the same
meaning. The pronunciation of the Coastal Negroes is massra.
matapi, cassava press. The word comes from the indigenous Indians.
mbe, "extended family," descendants through the mother's line not too distantly
related.
muye, woman. The derivation is the Portuguese mulher.
N
nana, grandfathers, ancestors. The word is Ashanti.
neku, a poisonous vine used to kill the fish in the creeks.
neng'e {nengere), this word means "Negro" in Suriname; the first pronunciation
given is that of the bush and the second of the coastal region. In the Sara-
macca country the word neng'e is used interchangeably with the word lo,
meaning clan, and has the further meaning of people. Thus, a man would be
spoken of as belonging either to the Popoto Lo or being a Popoto Neng'e. It
has been claimed that this word is a Negro modification of the Portuguese
word signifying "black." However, in Dahomey one of the gods of the earth
pantheon is called Suvi Nenge and he Is visualized as being the black vulture.
In recent times, tiiough, the Dahomeans ha\e learned to be ashamed of the
word nenge, which they have come to Identify with the French negre, for it
is said that Dahomeans who have gone to France as soldiers have come to
know It as a term of derision. Hence they prefer the French noir. In Dahomey
the forgers speak of a small piece of black iron as nenge, and once when our
[351I
REBEL DESTINY
cook was taken unaware, and wished to express his surprise at the excellence
of a game board which was modeled in such a way that the base of the board
was held up by six small human figures, his exclamation was "Genge nenge!"
This is a term of affection for a small child, a term which had apparently
fallen into bad repute in recent times because of those who had come to know
the European association. These examples would seem to indicate African
as well as European sources for the word "Negro." See also opete, yank'o.
neng'e konde, Africa. Cf. Af'ica.
neng'e Nana, African ancestors.
man neng'e, literally, " male Negro," but idiomatic for an adult man who has power
in his community, a man who has proved himself as a full-fledged member of
his group. It is a term of pride. Cf. man.
Nyankompon, name used by the Saramacca people for the Sky God. This is the
Gold Coast name of the same deity.
o
obia, a supernatural force which comes from the great gods and was given to man
to protect and heal him. Obia is also the term used for the charms which
derive their power from this force. In the British West Indies the term is
spelled obeah and is understood by whites to denote black magic.
obia cuts. The healing magic inherent In obia may be given a man either by letting
medicine enter his body through cuts made, or by putting this medicine
inside red or blue or white cotton or inside a cowrie shell or a piece of wood
or string which he wears as a charm.
obia man, a man who practices obia. Such a man would be a maker of charms, and
would have the knowledge to control and Invoke the personal force to make
effective whatever object he wished to endow with magic powers.
odi, Saramacca greeting. This may be related to the Southern Negro "howdy."
ogi, evil. It must be noted that the word in many instances as used by Negro
peoples in Africa and the New World has not the connotation that the word
"evil" has In our language. The expression "ogi s^yepi" means "evil itself,"
and Is often used affectionately to designate someone who has outwitted
another. The Negroes who speak French in Africa use the word malin
in the same sense, and the English-speaking Africans use the words "too
bad" or "bad too much." This use of "too bad" has persisted In American
Negro speech.
okai, go, turn.
okai no mo, keep on going, turning.
opete, vulture, buzzard. An Ashanti word. See also nen^e, yank'o,
opo, amulet which gives the owner power over the will of another.
Oyo, a word used by an important captain on the river to impress us with his
rank. Oyo is the name for one of the Yoruban stocks. A legend in Dahomey
credits the Oyo, their traditional enemies, with being the first rulers of the
earth.
pangi, woman's cloth. This is usually a strip about a yard wide and a yard and a
half long, worn so that It reaches from the waist to the knee and encircles the
lower part of the body. The word is derived from the French pagne.
[352]
GLOSSARY AND LINGUISTIC NOTES
pemba, white clay. This word is Bantu, coming from the region of the lower
Congo.
pina bonsu, hairdressing style.
pinda, peanut. This is also a Bantu word.
sajri, softly; idiomatic for handling a situation delicately.
seketi, a social dance. It is known in Ashanti but is today seldom danced there. We
collected a song in the Ashanti country with the same words as that of a
seketi song sung by the Bush Negroes.
sembe, person. This is the Saramacca word; the coastal Negroes use suma.
Sofia Bada, name of a god. In Dahomey this would mean Thunder King Bada, and
there Bade is the youngest son of the thunder pantheon and the most cruel one.
sula, rapids. Su in Ashanti is water.
suma, person. An Ashanti word. Cf. sembe.
susa, a boy's dance. It is often danced to thank the earth gods for good harvests.
tangt, thanks. Also used in the form " Tangi, iangi" for "I beg you."
tapu, preventive against evil magic.
lata, father.
tchina, taboo. This is a Bantu word used in Loango. In Paramaribo the word for
taboo is trefu, borrowed from the Jewish slave-owners who came from Brazil.
te, until. This word is employed in bush and town for "till," but in idiomatic use
intensifies the word it modifies. The expression so te is heard in story-telling
in Suriname as well as in English-speaking countries in Africa.
tembe, wood carving. Probably from the English "timber."
/*:, tree. An example of double derivation, coming from the English "tree" and
the Ewe-Dahomean word ati, which has the same meaning. See also
kankant'i, Gedeonsu.
tia, aunt. Used as a term of respect for any older woman. From the Portuguese.
tio, uncle. Used as a term of respect for any older man. From the Portuguese.
Tinne, a spirit which lives in the silk-cotton tree, and is the wife of Gedeonsu
iq.v.). In Dahomey Tinne is danced to in the pantheon of Agadahonsu, a god
who personalizes the totemic origin of one of the Dahomean families.
Tone, generic name for the river gods. Probably a Mahi (Dahomean) term. The
river cult is one of the strongest cults in both Suriname town and bush. In
Dahomey there is a legend that when the first kings of the last royal family
conquered the plateau of Abomey, the priests of the river cult fomented
rebellions against the new rulers, and were all sold into slavery. Nothing of
their cult is said to be known today in Dahomey, and the old gods they
worshipped are left to trouble the Dahomeans. Today there are places in
Dahomey where no Dahomean dares to go. Sometimes, it is said, they hear
drums beating from the river bottom, and sacrifices are given to the rivers,
although the proper invocations to appease the gods are no longer known.
Tonugbwe, river goddess.
Towenu, a snake god, also called "Papa God." Cowrie shells, which up to
comparatively recent times were the currency of West Africa, are referred to
[353]
REBEL DESTINY
as papa moni (money) on the Saramacca River. West African folklore gives
accounts of snake river gods in whose bodies are imbedded cowries.
trefu, food taboo. See tchina.
tTutru, indeed; true.
trutru Saramacca, Bush Negro name for all the land above the Mamadam falls.
The Saramacca Negro speaks the phrase with great pride. Whether this is
associated with the achievement of the early ancestors in penetrating the
bush, or is to be traceable to African distinctions of rank, it is impossible
to say. Among the Awka tribe on the Marowyne River the upper river tribes
consider themselves more aristocratic than those who live on the lower river.
tumao, a "long" drum, the medium-sized drum of the Saramacca trio of drum
types. It is played especially for the Apuku gods.
vodu, name of a particular kind of snake; a term used for all sacred snakes. In
Paramaribo it is known also in its fuller meaning as a generic term for all the
gods, which is the sense in which it is employed in Haiti {voodoo) and in
Dahomey. In Paramaribo they sing:
" We want to see the vodu in our yard,
We want to see them, brother."
w
waka, to travel. This word is from the English "walk."
waka bon, yere?, literally, "walk well, hear.^" The word "yere" is not only used
in the same sense as in the South, but with the same inflection.
waka koni, koni means carefully or with cunning, hence, "go with care." The word
konikoni in Suriname means rabbit and suggests strongly a connection with
Br'er Rabbit's name of "Cunny Rabbit."
wisi, black magic, poison. In Dahomey the expression "to poison a man" means
as often to use black magic against him as actually to kill him by the use of
poison, and this is also true of Suriname.
womi, man. This is from the Portuguese homem.
womi-ko-muye, man and woman. This is a term used generically for symbols of
procreation which appear on carvings. Cf. womi, muye.
wosu, house.
dede-wosu, house of mourning. Cf. dede.
liba-wosu, a house of more than one story. Few two-story houses are known in
the bush, and those appear on the upper river.
yahai, indeed, yes.
yank'o, buzzard. In the Saramacca country it is considered one of the buzzard's
"strong" names. In Jamaica and other British West Indian Islands variants
of this word are associated with the name of the buzzard. The derivation
usually claimed is that it is a corruption of the English "carrion crow." It is
possible that the famous "John Canoe" dances can also be associated with
the ancient dances to the buzzard, and this supposition is made more likely
I 354]
GLOSSARY AND LINGUISTIC NOTES
when one hears a Jamaican pronounce this phrase. On the Gold Coast there
is a play given by the women called nyonkro In which there are dancing and
sexual extravaganza in word play, mimicry, and general ridicule. It seems
quite likely that our own "Jim Crow" is derived from this term. Other
pronunciations of this term are yankoro, yankomo, and yankono. See also
neng'e, opele.
yenbo, no translation of this word was given us in Suriname; it is, however, the
Yoruban for white man.
yorka, spirit of one who has died, ghost.
l3S5
Index
Abini family, 255
Aboma, 3, 219, 277
Adji, making board for, 67-68
not played after sundown, 304
played for dead, 68, 70
Adultery, Asikanu charged with, 23
beating for, 254
punishment for, 74
Adyo ceremony, 212-213
Africa, 4, 10, 23, 26, 50-51, 62, 97, 153,
200, 261, 284, 305, 323
game board from, 67
gods from, 88
ordeal in, 204
West, photographs of, reaction to,
258-262
African, 10, 23, 26, 50, 102, 159, 283-
284, 291, 307, 323
dance, 33
obia, 57
rice, 100
tribes among Saramacca people, 50
Agbo, 325-326
Agida drum, earth spirits called on, 98
effect of, on menstruating women,
229
manner of playing to call gods, 244
played for Kesekia, 226
played before marriage, 220
response to voice of, 245-246
in Vodu shrine, 243
Agida Wenowa, 246
Agosu, 223
Aida VVedo, 265
Akantamasu god, as avenger, 233
brings kunu, 69
Akantamasu god, contrasted with obia,
348
rank of, 223, 308
Akatasi tree, gods, 152
not to be disturbed for farm, 69,
97
Akra (ak'a), 10, 95, 150, 212, 220, 315,
318
tetei, 321
Alabaisa, 197
Alabi, 255
Anago, 50, 139, 197
Anansi, derivation of name as applied
to folk-tales, 102
stories, 108-123
about origin of obia, 319-320
endings of, 104
told to amuse dead, 4
traditional openings for, 103
as trickster, 24, 250
story, 104-107
Ancestors, belief in powers of, 26
consulted concerning presence of
Whites, 262-263
divination by use of, 160
as moral force, 95
prayers to, 26, 46, 98
prophesying through, 160
rank of, 308
white cloth for, 53
Ancestral cult, shrines and worship of,
160
Ant hill, not to be disturbed for farm,
96
Apanto, curse of, 294
dances Tigri, 335-336
description of, 37, 296
sings into phonograph, 38-39
[357
REBEL DESTINY
Apinti drum, attitude toward, at
Ma'lobbi, 274-275
ceremonies on making of, 285-286
child plays rhythm of, 216-217
difficulty of acquiring, 269
for Great God and ancestors, 98
improvising an apinti, 333
from New Village, 343
in Saramacca council house, 178
Apuku, 41, 96, 153, 156, 208, 238-239,
296
birds and insects sacred to, 241
bought, 312
evil, 156, 260
offerings for, 240
speech of, 312
worship of, 240
Art, motifs in, 284
types of, 278-279
Artist, place in communities of, 279
Asaase, the Earth Mother, 9, 227
Asaeng, 223
Ashanti, 260
names, 170
people, 50
priest, 105
Asikanu, adultery case of, "J^f.
AsMtnani, 291
Autonomy of villages, 190-191
Awana, 134, 197, 255
Awasa, 8, 213, 215
description of, 328
Awka, name of African tribe, 23, 197,
30s, 314
Azang, spiritual guard, 53, 56, 238
B
"Bad bush," 20
Bakra sani, 32, 64, 179, 343-344
meaning of, for Bush Negro, 343
Bandamba, 29, 79, 98, 215, 327
description of, 218
Bassia, duties of, 191-192
woman, duties of, 192
Bayo, 33/., 287/.
Bibifo's treatment by, 141-142
early life of, 306
kunu of, 66, jj, 299-300
marriage of, delayed, 289
possession of, 336^.
Bedu, Mother, 255
Betrothal, breaking of, 301-302
gifts in course of, 300-301
BIbifo, 52, 53, 57, 85, 141, 147, 170,
182, 188, 199
Bimbawai, 325
Boat, parts of, 91
poling of, 52
testing of new, 51
Boats, construction of, 91
used on Marowyne river, 48
where made, 48
Bofyuando, obia, 195
Bongo, 312
Boni, 257
Bumba, obia, 195
Burial, of leper, 95
of stillborn child, 222
of woman who dies in childbirth, 222
Bush Negroes, psychology of, when
presented with unfamiliar situa-
tion, 259
strength of African traditions
among, 4
tales of first ancestors of, told by
Moana Yankuso, 257-258
Buzzard, 213, 267, 290
attitude toward dance for, 163
dance of Kromanti group, 17
reason sacred, 256
{See also Opete)
Calabash, used for storing ornaments,
24
Calabashes, design symbolism of, 219
method of carving, 219
Cassava, method of preparation, 209-
210
Cassava cakes, appearance of, 54
Chiefs, ceremonial dress of, 174-175
Saramacca, classes of, 180
Childbirth, difficult, means of easing,
221
obia man consulted in, 221
practices following, 222
procedure during, 221
supernatural aids invoked for, 221
Children, at ceremony for dead, 7
conversation with, 29-30
fo58 ]
INDEX
Children, fear of Whites by, 24-25
learning drum-rhythms, 216
play of, 215-216
predicting gods of, 217
Cicatrizations, 31-32
Clan, membership in, 194
organisation of, 194
supernatural powers possessed by,
194
Clans, importance of land to, 196
names of, 197
number of, 195-196
reluctance to name, 195
special magic belonging to, 195
territories of, 196
Clothing, 8
{See also Dress)
Coffin, carrying of, 10
ceremonies of making, 5
removal of, from village, 19
taking of, in canoe, 19
time to make, 5
type of, 5
Consultation, importance of, 193
in krutu, 193
Conversation, interpolations in, 25
Coromantyne, 323
Corpse, care of, 4, 5
departure of for burial ground, 19
drippings from, disposal of, 16
protection against, 15
farewell of, to village, 16
questioning of, 13
separation of, from family, 18-19
from Kromanti society, 18
from village, 19
Cotton, spinning of, 210-21 1
Council house, Saramacca tribe, 176-
179
village, 152-153
Crops, harvesting of, 100
nature of, 100
"Cuttee," 316
Dagowe, 240
song, 24s
Dahomey, 35, 50, 65, 135, 197, 2501
252, 260
closed to Whites, 171-172
seat of powerful magic, 195
Dan, 265
Dance, Kromanti, at funeral, 17
social, at S'ei, 163-166
method of ending, 166
Vodu, at funeral, 17
Dancing, by children, as prelude to
Kromanti dance, 327
for dead, 8-10
at funeral, 16
how taught children, 29
of White woman to river gods, 82-83
Danhowao, 240
Day names, 223, 233
Dead, burial of, 20
guarded, 7
house of, 7
salutes for, at burial, 20
salutes to, at funeral, 17
Death, 3-21
attitude toward, of child at birth,
222
causes of, 10
revealed by corpse, 12-14
consequences to guilty of causing, 13
of woman during parturition, 222
Death ceremonies, 6-10
Death customs, African nature of,
among Bush Negroes, 4
Death house, disposal of objects in,
15-16
Design, on paddle, 276-277
on peanut pounding board, 279-280
on tray, explained by Bayo, 282-283
Designs, 34
wood-carving, Bayo's explanation
of, 34
Discussion, attitude toward, 190
Diviners, 263
Divorce, 298-299
Djadja, Kromanti spirit, 323-324, 329
song for, 335
Dog, treated with obia, 292
Dombi clan, 197
Granman partially of, 256
hunting obia of, 195
Dosi, 255
Dosu, 223
["359
REBEL DESTINY
Dress, 36, 163, 186-187
of chiefs, 174-175, 179-180
women's, 27, 208
Drum-language, 170-171
Drumming, for dead, 3
for possessed, 151, 244^., 328^.
Drummond, Sir Eric, 253
Drums, for religious dance, 333
substitute for, 333
(See also Agida, Apinti, Tumao)
Dyo-dyo, 21 1-2 12
Dyombie, 150^.
Earth Mother, 95, 162, 220, 238, 261,
308
carved door sacred to, 178
day sacred to, 124
libation for, l6l
native name of, 227
prayer to, 211
Eating, time of, 54
Etiquette, of averting glance from
man of rank, 142
of ceremonial stammering, 46
of circumlocution, 49, 50
of entering village, 46
in exchanging gifts, 51
of greeting, according to age, 182
of leave-taking at village of Gran-
man, 270
of meeting on river, 58
of not watching others eat, 51
on river, 43-44
of serving according to rank, 54
in strange village, 190-191
in tribal krutu, 197-202
of woman seated, 28
of women, 155
of younger man before elder, 46
Evidence, cases before krutu, 203
F
Fandaki, 134, 197
Fandya, 90, 197
Fanti, 50
Farm, burning brush on, 97
clearing land for, 97
consecration of land for, 97-c
Farm, method of clearing bush for,
96-97
sex division of labor on, 97
Father and children, bond between,
133
Father's sib, cannot use force against,
139-140
gods, 310
invoked to protect soul, 134
kandu, right to violate, 138-139
kunu, 72-73
tchina, 136
village, rights of children in, 134-135
Fertility, cult of, 282
desire for, 220
Fetish, 321
Fio-fio, ceremony of retraction, 149
consequences of, 149-150
nature of, 148
washing for, 148
Fishing, types done by men and
women, 272
Folk-tales, beginning of, 103
ending of, 104
intervals introduced in, 103-104
Food, on journey, 54-55
"French shore," 22
Friendship, 226
maladjustment in, 341-342
Funeral, throwing away food at, 17
Funeral ceremonies, 15-21
for child, 222
for leper, 95
for one dead in foreign parts, 70
for women, dead in childbirth, 222
Gedeonsu, 150^.
Ghost, called upon to tell cause of
death, ia-14
(See also Yorka)
"Go aside," at Baikuti, 89
method of consultation, 189
God, Akantamasu, given White
woman, 233
of creek, 56
genealogy of each, 133
Papa, 227
song as speech for, 232jf.
[360]
INDEX
Gods, Apuku, worship of, 240
bought, 3 1 1-3 1 3
concept of, 36, 43
days danced for, 227
given by father, 310
given by maternal uncles, 311
great, acquiring of, 3 10-3 1 1
shrine to, 161
worshiping of, 161
personality as deriving from, 249
"washing for," 154-155
Gomi, immunity of, 77
sib rights of, 130
village rights of, 191
Grave, method of digging, 5-6
time to dig, 4
types of, 20
Grave-diggers, purification of, 21
return of, to village, 12
H
Hair, styles of braiding, 30
Harvest, time of, 100
Healing, obia's power of, 320-321
powers of priestess, 234
Hohobi, 223
House, of the dead, attendants during
day, II
menstrual, 228-229
cleansing rite of women, 229
possession in, 229
treasure, 131
Image, for village, 53
Incest, child of, 77
kunu for, 299-300
kunu in Bayo's family, 289
Inheritance, of clan rank, 132, 140
of gods, 3 10-3 1 1
of kunu, 72-73
of property, 1 29^.
of tchina, 336
Invocation, for dead, 3
to god of creek, 56
on a journey, 46-47
to Kromanti obia, 290
to Mother of the River, 85/.
to obia, 290, 318
Invocation, for planting, 98-99'
to Sky God, 26
to soul, 36
to ward off evil, 207
when separating dead from child, 18
from Kromanti society, 18
to Winti Nyamusi, 290
Kamho, 142, 143
Kambosa, 131
Kamemba, 31
attitude of girls toward, 225
cutting of, 223-225
infection of, 225
time of cutting, 32
Kandu, nature of, 138
right to violate, 138-139
Kankan tree {see Silk-cotton tree)
Kasito clan, 135, 255
head of, 171, 197
obias of, 195
Kediampo(n) (Kediamo), drum-
rhythms to, 12
invocation to, 46
Kentina Dagovve, 240
Kesefu, 223
Kesekia, 226, 233, 242, 244
Knots, in obias, 318
Komfo, 217, 325
song, 105, 307
Kromanti, Bayo possessed by, 336-
338
"Congo-bush" stick, 97
cost of buying, 313
dance, 326/., 332^.
dancing for, 328/.
danger to onlookers from possession
by, 337
houses, description of, 324
immunities under, 17
iron, sign of, 228
localized in head, 267
Mama, description of, 322, 325-326
powers of, 326
obia, power of, 322
invocation for, 290
reason feared, 322-323
obia dance, make-up for, 330
origin of word, 323
[361]
REBEL DESTINY
Kromanti, possession by, 324
feared by women, 336
secrecy about, 315
society, nature of, 323
separation from, 18
songs, nature of, 334
tongo, 312
types of, 17, 323
women members of, 288-290
Krutu, cases judged by, 203
as court of law, 203-205
farewell, 268
meaning of, 189
for religious training, 311
tribal, assembly of, 188
behavior in, 197-202
members of, 188
mode of speech in, 197-202
rules on clan dispute, 199
types of, 192
village, arriving at decision in, 193
Krutu zvosu, 16
Kunu, 3, 62-79
as affecting Sedefo, 52, 63-65
attitude toward, 79
Bayo's explanation of, 66
Bibifo on, 52
brought by suicide, 71
fatalism toward, 314
given White masters, 75
of Granman Yankuso, 76
how worshiped, 79
incest, of Bayo, 77
Kasanya on, 67-70
kinds of, 78
manifested in Zimbi's death, 3, 66
means of punishment under, 78-79
nature of, 70, 79
suicide threat to bring, 71, 74
working of, in family of Bayo, 313-
314
Kwakzva, 212, 327, 333
Kwama clan, 197
Labor, sex division of, loi
Lame, fighting obia of, 195
love obia of, 195
power of obia from, 43
Lanti, 193, 198
krutu, 192
Leader and Chorus, in conversation, 26
League of Nations, 253
Legba (Lebba), 133, 265
Leper, funeral of, 95
at provision ground, 94
Leprosy, theory of, 94-95
Loango clan, 172
elder, 25
healing obias of, 195
people, 50
Loko tree, 96, 265
Lumbering, bringing trees to river, 293
communal work of, 293-294
rights, 139, 140
M
Mafungi, obia, 195
Ma'lobbi, Captain of, attitude toward
apinti drum of, 285-286
carvings of, 273
house of, 273
Mamadam, reloading at, 84
rites when tripping at, 82
river at, 84
shrine at, 84-85
as symbol, 87
Maripa nuts, palm-oil from, 209
prized by Bush Negroes, 298
Marowyne River, 22, 48, 49, 58, 197
Marriage, ceremonies of, 302-303
duties of man preceding, 301
family krutu on, 299
prayers upon, 220
gifts preliminary to, 42, 298, 302
Masks, 283
Matchau, 134, 161, 255/., 269
Mawu, 191
Mother of the River, invocation to,
85-86, 308
Mourning, ceremonies of, 212-214
continence during, 213
dispensed with, 214
hardships of, 214
release from, 213
N
Nails, use of, in carvings, 283
Names, according to circumstance of
birth, 223
[362
INDEX
Names of ancestors, 144-145
for anomalous births, 223
given while young, 222
"soul," importance of, 223
Nana, 29
Nanai, 240
Nasi clan, 197
Neku, ceremonies validating owner-
ship of, 156-158
inheritance of, 156
for suicide, 71
use of, 157
Nen'ge, 153
Nyamfai, 134, 140
Nyankompon, Sky God, 25
O
Obia, attributes of, 307
carried by dog to river, 267
definition of term, 320-321
as gift of Sky God, 25
as healing power, 314
how learned, 310
Kromanti, possession by, 330-332
special powers of, 322
treatment to retain strength of,
290
manifestations of, 309-310
meaning of word in West Indian
islands, 307
pervasiveness of, 307, 320
rank of, 308-309
role on earth, 309
tale of origin of, 308
theory of origin of, 308
types of, 320-321
Obia benches, 325-326
Obia man, compared with doctor,
320-321
consulted during parturition, 221
disciples of, 315
elements taught by, 315-316
formal training of, 315-316
giver of ordeal, 205
place of, 314
role as teacher of, 312
as seller of gods, 312
training for, 312
Obias, coffin, 317
cuts, 32
Obias, decorative elements of, 278
given Whites, 267
by Bayo, 318
in Baikutu, 90
in New Village, 343
kinds of, 317
personal, attributes of, 319
for pregnant women, 220
to protect against dead, 11
purchase of, 290
renewing power in, 317
tchina of, 318-319
transferring powers in, 316-317
Obia ielei, 32
Okosu, 256
Opele, 37, 213, 249, 290, 334
dancing for, 335
make-up for, 330
medicine of, 69
obia, 267
Opo, 31
Ordeal, survival in bush, 204
types of, 204-205
Offerings, to ancestors, 98
before marriage, 226
for breaking mourning, 212
for Earth Mother, 161
to earth spirits, 98
for kankan tree gods, 151
for Kromanti, 290
for Kromanti Mama, 290
for making drum, 286
Oyo, 182
Papa god, 227, 236
songs, 20, 296
Paternity, physiological, 132-133
Phonograph, defeated by Apanto, 39-
40
reaction to, 35-38
renewed by Bayo, 294-296
in village of Granman, 264-266
Poitchi, obia, 195
Political order, 196-197
Popoto clan, 134, 197
Possession, by Akantamasu god, 229^.
of Amasina, 229^.
of Apanto, 335/.
appearance of those under, 2322^.
[363
REBEL DESTINY
Possession, of Bayo, 336/.
gifts to those under, 235
Kromanti, forms of, 329-330
preparation for, 226
releasing from, 337
by spirit of dead, 12
in Vodu shrine, 244-246
Pottery, 210, 239
black, potency of, 239
Powers, rank of, 308-309
Pregnancy, aids during, 220
cohabitation during, 214
mourning dispensed with during, 214
obias for, 220
protects adulterous women, 74
Proverbs, 45, 66, 69, 97, 127, 148,
150, 189, 197, 199
of Granman, 249
as point of tale, 123
quoted, 25, 67, 193
quoted in krutu, 199, 200
used to amuse ghost, 8
used in krutu, 259
used by Yankuso, 254
Provision ground, description of, 93
location of, 92-93
reasons for selection of, 95-96
R
Rain, ceremony for, in drought, 81
god of, 81
as good omen, 202
Rapids, not named until passed, 58
poling up the, 59
pulling boat over, 59-62
Rattles, in Kromanti dances, 331, 334
Realism, in art, 284-285
Rice, hulling and winnowing, 214
Riddles, 104, 107
formulae in asking, 104
River, attitude toward, 63
channels in, 55-56
mother of, at Mamadam, 82
name of, 227
origin myth of, 87-88
running rapids, going down, 270
sending boats up, 57-58
upper, description of, 146-147
River-god, songs to, 83
River-gods, earlier shrine to, 80
Rum, ceremonial offerings of, 332-333
on boat, 46, 65
on hands, 65
for Kromanti, 290
for Kromanti Mama, 326
for snake god, 220
Sabaku, 256
Sanctuary, given by chief to adulterer,
74
Saramacca language, attitude toward,
H7, 259
Seketi, 8, 213, 215
danced on lower river, 333
improvisation of words for, 24
to Lame women, 47
sung by Bayo, 52
sung at S'ei, 165
taught child, 94
Shrine, to Apuku bush-gods, 238-240
to Granman's father, 237-238
to Sky God, 161
to Vodu god, 242-243
Shrines, description of, 241
to family gods, 159
on river, 86
Silk-cotton tree, 150-15 1
gods of, how worshipped, 151
on farm, 96
at S'ei, 152
Singing, at death ceremony, 9
Snake, carving of, 285
cicatrized design of, 47
Dagowe, 240
Dan, word for, 265
guarded, when clearing farm, 96
kunu for killing, 72
ritual burial for, 72
taboo against carving, 72
Snake god, 3, 220
female possession by, 234
male possession by, 234
Papa, 227
(See also Vodu)
Snake gods, 153
pray to, before marriage, 220
Social organization, control of children,
128-130
extended family, 130
[364
INDEX
Social organization, household, 130
parent-in-law-taboo, 143
place of man in wife's family council,
129
playmate relationship, 141^.
relationship with maternal relatives,
127-128
relationship with paternal relatives,
125-126
residence rules, 130
sib, obligation to mother's and
father's, 139-140
sibs, matrilineal, 132
as summarized by a headman, 140-
141
Sokoma'usu obia, 195
Song, about American Whites on the
Saramacca River, 28
to carry action of tale, 114-115
to "cut" tale, 107
for dance at S'ei, 162
to end dance at S'ei, 166
Kromanti, sung by Ajako, 50
used to "cut" tale, 105
to Mother of the River, 87
obia, 307
seketi, sung at S'ei, 164, 165
to Sofia Bada, 106
of thanks, 332
wood-working, 294
Songs, Djadya Kromanti, 335
to river god, 83
of women in Aslndopo Lantiwe, 232,
234, 23s, 237
of women in Vodu shrine, 244, 245-
246
Soul, danger to, in tripping, 10, 82
Spinning, 210-21 1
Suicide, as revenge, 74-75
Susa, 33, 98, 215
Tapu, 288
Yorka, 309
Tchina, acquired from father, 136
against carving snakes, 72
for obias, 310
personal, varieties of, 137-138
(ire/u) nature of, 136/.
Thunder, as omen, 202
"Tiger fighter," 37
Tigri, dancing for, 335-336
Kromanti spirit, 323
make-up for, 330
Tone, 81, 82, 159, 241, 312
Tonugbwe, Hene, 227
Towenu, 227, 236
Tumao drum, 239-240
Twins, cult of, and dances for, 218
Village, "broken," 54
description of (Akisiamau), 238/.
(S'ei), 158-160
Virginity, 302-304
Vodu, 17, 153, 159, 213, 225-227, 239,
244-247, 267, 272, 296
bought, 312
house, 242
w
VVadia, Tata, 256
Wakaman, 130
White travelers, reactions to, 168-170
Wilhelmina, 208-210
Wind, god of, 81
Wisi, 31, 66, 204, 221, 307
Wisi man, 257
Woman, old, cicatrizations of, 27
dress of, 27
Women, fishing by, 272
in krutu, 192
political role of, 192
work of tending crops, 99-100
Wood-carving, council benches, 179
objects carved, 279
regard for, 279-290
reluctance to part with, 280-281
in Saramacca life, 276-277
stylized motifs of, 276
symbolism, 282-284
time of year for, loi, 274
tools used for, 273-274
Yankuso, Moana, ancestors of, 255
attitude of paddlers toward, 186-187
character of, 249-251
[365
REBEL DESTINY
Yankuso, Moana, description of first
meeting with, 175
early morning reports to, 185-186
eldest daughter of, 209
as enemy, 257/.
etiquette for visit to, 173
gives obia, 266-267
as host, 181-182
instructions to White travelers, 49
introduction of chiefs by, 182
on kunu, 75-76
parable about light and darkness,
258
as politician, 250-251, 264
principal wife of, 208
reaction to phonograph, 264
Yankuso, Moana, reactions to pictures
of Africa, 260-262
reception at village of, 175-176
as story-teller, 252/.
tales told about, 248-249
Yorka, 136
as avengers, 233
game played for, 68, 74
Can, 29
prayer to, 220
tapu, 309
Zombi, Can, 29
[366]
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