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Surinamese Maroon Foodways

Community

⚠ SIX PEOPLES WHO WON THEIR FREEDOM BY WAR, NOT BY ABOLITION. The SARAMAKA, NDYUKA (Aukan), ALUKU, PARAMAKA, MATAWAI and KWINTI descend from Africans who escaped Dutch plantations from the seventeenth century, fought the colony to a standstill in the forest, and signed TREATIES in the 1760s recognising their freedom and territory — roughly a century before emancipation. They are the largest Maroon populations in the Americas and they are distinct peoples with distinct creole languages. The food is riverine and forest: CASSAVA above all, bitter and sweet, as bread and kwak (farine); river fish; hunted game; rice; plantain and banana; palm fruits including MAROON and podosiri (açaí); peanut; okra; and smoking and drying as the preservation. ⚠ THE SARAMAKA WON A LANDMARK 2007 JUDGMENT at the Inter-American Court over logging on their land — a territorial ruling that is also a food-system one.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Saramaka community documented
  • Ndyuka community documented
  • Aluku community documented
  • Paramaka community documented
  • Matawai community documented
  • Kwinti community documented

Languages: Saramaccan, Aukan, Kwinti, Ndyuka-Trio Pidgin

What is recorded

  • The Saramaka, Ndyuka, Aluku, Paramaka, Matawai and Kwinti descend from Africans who escaped Dutch plantations and fought the colony to a standstill, obtaining treaties in the 1760s recognising their freedom and territory approximately a century before abolition. They constitute the largest Maroon populations in the Americas and are distinct peoples with distinct creole languages, not a subgroup of the Creole population. The Saramaka obtained a landmark 2007 judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concerning logging on their territory. documented
  • The Maroon wars end in treaties recognising Saramaka and Ndyuka freedom and territory — roughly a century before abolition. documented
  • The Inter-American Court of Human Rights rules for the Saramaka on logging and territory — a land judgment and therefore a food-system one. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to African Diaspora Foodways documented

    ⚠ Peoples who won freedom by war and treaty a century before abolition, not a subgroup of the Creole population.

  • related to Indigenous Guyanese Foodways documented

    Shared bitter-cassava technology across the Guiana Shield.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • related to Jamaican Maroon Foodways documented

    Two Maroon societies that won treaties by war — Jamaica 1739, Suriname the 1760s. ⚠ Related histories, separate peoples, separate foodways.

Recipes

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