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ABSTRACT
This article explores some of the writings of Dutch anthropologist H.U.E. (Bonno) Thoden van Velzen on the Ndyuka Maroon peoples of Suriname and Guyana, focusing particularly on the author’s description of the role of gods, spirits, and other non-human beings in Maroon socialities and worlds. The first part of the article describes Thoden van Velzen’s intellectual production, showing how his professional and political commitments to the Ndyuka led him to produce an ethnography on Ndyuka relationships with their ancestors, but also with the forests, rivers, sacred sites, and other beings with which Maroon people have negotiated their existence. In the second part of the article, the anthropologist himself speaks about his interactions with the Ndyuka in the Tapanahoni region in the 1960s, in an interview that addresses diverse levels of transformations in the knowledge on Maroon people.
RÉSUMÉ
Cet article analyse des écrits de l’ethnologue Néerlandais H.U.E. [Bonno] Thoden van Velzen sur les Ndyuka, peuple marron qui habite au Surinam et en Guyane, et son analyse du rôle des dieux, esprits et autres non-humains dans les mondes marrons. La première partie de l’article retrace la pensée et la production intellectuelle de Thoden van Velzen. Son engagement professionnel et politique avec les Ndyuka l’a conduit à produire une ethnographie des relations des Ndyuka avec leurs ancêtres, mais aussi avec la forêt, les fleuves, les sites sacrés et d’autres êtres avec lesquels les marrons ont su négocier leur présence. Dans la deuxième partie de l’article, l’ethnologue en personne revient sur ses rencontres avec les Ndyuka du Tapanahoni dans les années 1960s, dans un entretien analysant l’évolution des connaissances sur les sociétés marronnes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Professor Hendrik Ulbo Eric Thoden van Velzen published many of his writings under the name Bonno Thoden van Velzen.
2. Among others, see Smith (Citation1955) and Mintz (Citation1964).
3. For a recent review of this debate, see “Reflections from the Verandah” in Travels with Tooy by Richard Price (Citation2008).
4. Köbben’s initial project was for his young students to carry out research in Unbangishari, Central Africa. However, after preparations for fieldwork had begun, the project was cancelled at the last minute. In the period after the first phase of field research (1961–1962) and the publication of their book (1988), the couple became involved in different projects. Thoden van Velzen undertook research in Tanzania, and published various texts on rural producers and the Ujaama Revolution. See, for example, Van Hekken and Thoden van Velzen (Citation1972).
5. After leaving Utrecht in 1991, Thoden van Velzen became affiliated to the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (1987–1999) and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.
6. The short ethnographic film of the arrival of the oracle Agedeonsu at Tabiki, “Visiting Deities” (Thoden van Velzen Citation1962) is available online at: http://lahppgasmnufrj.weebly.com/visiting-deities-pt.html
7. Richard Price (Citation1983) has written a book on the Saamaca Fési-Ten (as the First Time is called in Saramaccan) and its relation to kinship, Maroon ancestors, and deities. Thoden van Velzen and Willelmina Van Wetering dedicated the last chapter of their In the Shadow of the Oracle (Citation2004) to explore the ways in which Fositen are used and transmitted, and the effect of this knowledge on their fieldwork and ethnography.
8. Take, for instance, the writings of the Ndyuka sabiman, obiaman, and plant specialist André Pakosie (Citation1989), published in academic and non-academic publications, and editor of the journal Siboga and the website Abeng.
9. The anthropologist’s life and career were the subject of a chapter in a special issue of the Dutch journal Etnofoor dedicated to the “Dutch Masters” (Thoden van Velzen, Kuik, and Veenis Citation2005).
10. This conversation took place on 6 June 2014 in Amsterdam. I thank Michel Koopman for his careful transcription.
11. Rudolf Asueer Jacob (Rudie) van Lier (1914–1987).
12. After the end of slavery in 1863 indentured laborers were brought from the Dutch East Indies and British India to work on plantations in Dutch Guiana. Their descendants living in Suriname and the Netherlands are called Javanese and Hindustani, respectively. See Hoefte (Citation1988).
13. WOSUNA stood for Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Suriname Nederlandse Antillen. WOSUNA and WONG (Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Nieuw Guinea) were research organizations run by the Ministry of Education.
14. Peter Kloos (1936–2000), Hans Speckman (1928–1977).
15. Max Gluckman (1911–1975), Mônica Wilson (1908–1982), and Godfrey Wilson (1908–1944).
16. See Köbben, Verrips, and Strating (Citation2005).
17. Willem Frederik van Lier (1877–1957), the posthouder, a functionary who represented the colonial government in Ndyuka territory between 1921 and 1927. See van Lier (Citation1919) and de Groot (Citation1969).
18. The forest gods (Ampuku) represent a counter-force in Ndyuka religion. Gaan Gadu is seen as an African god, a stranger to the South American forest. Ampuku are the autochthonous gods. Much of Ndyuka history reflects the tension between those two supernatural worlds.
19. Hurault’s book (Citation1961) is on much more than agriculture. He has, for instance, paid a lot of attention to religion.
20. The final mortuary rite which brings the mourner back to normal life.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Olívia Maria Gomes da Cunha
Olívia Maria Gomes da Cunha is an associate professor of Anthropology at the Museu Nacional, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1998. Her dissertation on vagrancy and identification science in Rio de Janeiro in the early twentieth century was awarded and published by Arquivo Nacional in 2002. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (1999–2000), visiting professor at New York University (2006–2007) and a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellow in 2002. Her research for Guggenheim resulted in a manuscript on ethnography, archives and artifacts of knowledge in Cuba, Brazil and US under evaluation. She has published on postemancipation and social movement in Brazil and Cuba, and her current research, initiated in 2009, is about art, creativity and other cultural and political transformations among the Maroon Ndyukas in Moengo, Eastern Suriname, after the late 1980s civil war.
H.U.E. Thoden van Velzen
Bonno Thoden van Velzen studied anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. In 1961–1962 he and his wife, Wilhelmina Van Wetering, conducted fieldwork in Ndyuka Maroon villages along the Tapanahoni River. From 1966 to 1969 he was part of a research team of the African Studies Centre (Leiden) working in Tanzania. Between 1971 and 1991 he held the chair of cultural anthropology at the University of Utrecht. From 1991 to 1999 he was a professor of cultural anthropology at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research. From 1991 to the present he is a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Netherlands. Among his main works are The Great Father and the Danger (1988), In the Shadow of the Oracle (2004), Een Zwarte Vrijstaat in Suriname: De Okaanse Samenleving in de 19e en 20e Eeuw (2013) and Een Zwarte Vrijstaat in Suriname: De Okaanse Samenleving in de 18e Eeuw (2011), the first three of those with Wilhelmina Van Wetering.