Country in South America. Suriname (formerly Dutch Guiana) is situated between French Guiana and Guyana on the north-east coast. Bounded to the south by Brazil and to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, it has an area of 163,820 km2. Suriname is notable for its heterogeneous population: ethnic groups among its approximately 450,000 inhabitants include East Indians (‘Hindustanis’, 35%), Creoles (30%), Indonesians (18%), Maroons (descendants of escaped slaves, also known as ‘Bush Negroes’, 10%), Chinese (2%), Europeans (1%), and other minorities such as Lebanese. The indigenous inhabitants were the Carib, Arawak and Warroo Indians, and Amerindians comprise 3% of the present population, retaining their own languages and aspects of their religious and musical traditions. There is no state religion. Most Creoles are either Protestant or Roman Catholic; the majority of the East Indians are Hindu, although some are Muslim; most of the Indonesians are Muslim; and the Maroons maintain distinct religions that are largely African-derived.
In 1651 the English founded the first European settlement in the territory and in 1667 Suriname was ceded to the Dutch. From the mid-17th century slaves from West Africa were brought to work on the sugar-cane plantations, and, after the abolition of slavery in 1863, Chinese, Javanese and East Indian indentured workers were introduced to meet the severe labour shortage that followed emancipation.
The official language of Suriname is Dutch, but English is spoken by many; Sranan (which contains elements of Dutch, English, Portuguese and several African languages) is a widespread creole, serving as lingua franca among the different groups.
TERRY AGERKOP/KENNETH BILBY (1–3, 5), PETER MANUEL (4)
Amerindian peoples of the interior of Suriname include the Wayana, the Trio (Tirió) and the Akurio. The Akurio are nomads; the Wayana and the Trio are seminomadic cultivators. Although there has been little musicological research on the Akurio or the Trio, it is known that the latter have a diversified musical tradition including shaman songs, used to communicate with spirits during healing ceremonies. They have a variety of aerophones, including bone flutes, an end-blown bamboo flute called monota, a nose flute and panpipes, which are sometimes accompanied by an idiophone made of turtle shell that is rubbed to produce a monotone pulse. Flutes are sometimes played heterophonically in ensembles of two or more. Extensive proselytizing by North American and European missionaries over the last few decades has resulted in the loss of much of the Trio musical repertory and has had an especially negative impact on the shamanistic song tradition.
The Wayana live in the same general region as the Trio, and there has been a certain amount of musical exchange between them (for example, one type of Wayana flute, the tïlïyo-luwen, resembles the Trio monota, and its Wayana name means ‘Trio flute’). A good portion of Wayana music-making is associated with public gatherings and community events, such as marake (adolescent initiation ceremonies), kalau (occasions for relating the principal myths of the Wayana tradition), funerals, shamanistic rites and inter-village dance ceremonies held as an expression of good relations between neighbours. The consumption of kasili (a fermented beverage made from cassava) usually plays an important part at such events. Some musical genres are also performed by individuals or small groups in more private settings. Wayana instrumental music is particularly rich in aerophones. These include waitakala, or tule (large bamboo clarinets, sometimes played in ensembles of three or more, using a hocketing technique); patete (bamboo nose flute); luweimë (bamboo panpipes with four tubes, sometimes accompanied by kuliputpë, a turtle-shell idiophone played by rubbing with the edge of the hand); kukunkuhuli (small side-blown clarinet consisting of a bamboo tube attached to a small calabash or ceramic equivalent); pëlum-pëlum (bamboo flute with four holes); kapau-yetpë (small bone flute with three holes); welëh-welëh (notched bamboo flute with three holes); titilu and pehpeu (side-blown bamboo horns, usually played heterophonically together with the kapau-yetpë flute); and several other kinds of aerophones. Idiophones (apart from kuliputpë) include kawai (seed rattles tied around the ankle for dancing) and stamping sticks, used in most dances. Among the forms of Wayana vocal music that have been noted in the anthropological literature are ëlëmi (magical songs), mareicae (songs performed by men to attract women) and melanda (songs performed by men to express affection for their wives).
The Indians of coastal Suriname, the Carib or Galibi (Kalina) and Arawak (Lokono), are settled cultivators and have had extensive contact with the urban and rural Creoles. Traditional Arawak songs, flute music and dances are remembered only by old people, while the young Arawak use the kawina music of the rural Creoles (see §3) at feasts. The Arawak transverse flute known as jankabuari, once played solo or to accompany singers at traditional dance festivals, is played infrequently today; when it is, it is most often accompanied by guitar. The Caribs, by contrast, have maintained their traditional music and use it extensively at shaman ceremonies, kasili feasts, initiation ceremonies, and omanganon and epekodono (first and last mortuary rites). There are three main types of wale (song): those known as alemi, which are considered old, and are usually performed by a pïyei (shaman) accompanied by a malaka (hand-held calabash rattle), while invoking spirits; those sung at funeral ceremonies, primarily by women, accompanied by kalawasi rattles (small closed baskets without a handle, containing dry seeds); and those performed with sambula (drum) accompaniment, most often by men, at various ceremonies and celebrations. The sambula (from Spanish, tambora) is a relatively recent innovation among the Carib; a double-headed cylindrical drum with a diameter greater than its height, it is generally played in sets of two or three, hung from a horizontal bar and struck with a padded stick.
Beginning in the late 17th century, groups of Africans escaped slavery and fled inland to the forests, establishing small settlements along the main rivers. Maroon peoples, descended from these groups, include the Ndyuka, the Saramaka, the Aluku or Boni, the Paramaka, the Matawai and the Kwinti.
The Maroons can be divided into two major cultural zones: eastern (Ndyuka, Paramaka and Aluku) and western (Saramaka and Matawai). Those in the same zone speak mutually intelligible dialects of a common language and possess broadly shared musical cultures, with the exception of the Kwinti, who, though located in the western area, are culturally closer to the eastern Maroons.
There are a number of music and dance genres associated specifically with eastern Maroons (though some of these are on occasion performed by western Maroons as well). Mato, susa, songe (also known as agankoi) and awasa are the most frequently performed genres among the Ndyuka, Paramaka and Aluku, forming an integral part of the booko dei and puu baaka funerary rites that are the most important ceremonial events in eastern Maroon life. Songs in all of these genres are sometimes performed without instrumental accompaniment, by a male or female singer and a predominantly female chorus who sing the responses. When performed as part of a dance, however, they are accompanied by an ensemble of three single-headed conical drums with open feet that vary slightly in size and are played with bare hands and, in some cases, sticks. Known as the gaan doon (large drum) and pikin doon (small drum), these share certain design features with drums that are found among several West African peoples, ranging from the Akan of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to the Fon of Nigeria and Benin. Some styles require other percussion instruments, such as the kwakwa, a long wooden plank beaten simultaneously by several players, each wielding two sticks. For awasa, dancers often wear kawai (seed rattles, originally borrowed from neighbouring Amerindian peoples) on their ankles; these form an integral part of the music.
Eastern Maroons also have a number of distinct music and dance genres associated with obia pee (ceremonies concerned with the invocation of gods and spirits, some of which possess devotees). Some of these genres, such as kumanti (centring on spiritual protection and healing) feature the same drums as the genres mentioned above. Others require special instruments. For instance, papa or vodu music (played for snake gods) requires a long (two metres or more) cylindrical single-headed drum called agida, played with the palm and fingers of one hand, with a single stick held in the other; ampuku (forest spirit) music, on the other hand, is led by a drum called asakembu, used in no other genre. Although these religious musical genres, like most Maroon musical forms, represent syntheses of elements from various parts of West and Central Africa, some are clearly related to specific African regional traditions; for instance, kumanti drumming (which is often augmented with a metallic idiophone called adaulo) must be seen, at least in part, as a descendant of certain Akan drumming traditions, while papa (vodu) drumming has discernible Ewe/Fon roots.
In addition to these major dance-drumming traditions, there are a number of other musical genres associated with various contexts: tuka, danced around the body of a deceased person before burial; fon ken and fon alisi, work songs used for beating sugar cane and rice, respectively; awawa, unaccompanied singing used for social commentary and criticism; and tutu, traditional flute melodies (now played on imported instruments, usually plastic recorders). In some villages, one can still encounter the agwado (or agbado), a three-string bow lute (pluriarc) consisting of a large gourd resonator through which three small bows are inserted. Agwado is played alone or used to accompany solo singing. Finally, a recently invented dance and drumming genre, aleke, merges older Ndyuka styles with elements from Creole genres such as kawina and kaseko, serving as an important medium of self-expression for the young.
The western Maroons, particularly the Saramaka, have an equally rich and varied musical culture (one that overlaps in many respects with that of eastern Maroons). Among the most important secular music and dance genres are adunké and sêkêti. Sêkêti songs, many of them containing social commentary, are performed in a wide variety of contexts. They may be used, for example, to accompany daily chores, gossip at spontaneous gatherings, welcome a chief returning to his village, or entertain crowds at major performance events such as funerals. Songs are sometimes performed unaccompanied (either solo, or by a leader and chorus with hand-clapping) and at other times with the backing of a full drum ensemble. New songs are constantly composed. Sêkêti also provides the musical accompaniment for two of the most popular western Maroon styles of dancing, djómbo sêkêti and tjêke. Other social dance genres, backed by distinct drumming styles and songs, include alesingô (danced on poles held horizontally by two men) and bandámmba (performed by women to welcome a man returning to his village after a long absence).
Saramaka religious music corresponds in many ways to that of the eastern Maroons. The main genres of music and dance linked with possessing gods and spirits, komantí, apúku and papá, closely parallel eastern Maroon kumanti, ampuku and papa, making use of similar drum ensembles, song styles and esoteric languages. Among the Saramaka, however, papá, unlike its eastern Maroon equivalent, has a special association with death rites. And while the Saramaka apínti drum is virtually identical to the gaan doon and pikin doon of eastern Maroons, certain other Saramaka drums used in both secular and religious genres (such as deindein and lánga doón, both single-headed, cylindrical drums with tuning wedges) have no exact counterparts among the Ndyuka, Paramaka or Aluku (see fig.1).
Other important Saramaka musical genres include work songs such as matjáu baai (tree-felling songs) and údu baai (log-hauling songs); papái bèntá (a form of lamellophone made with four or more split reeds, played primarily by young men); and kóntu songs (performed at wakes during story-telling sessions).
In contrast to the Saramaka, the Matawai no longer practise their traditional religious forms extensively and most of the older ceremonies are unknown to the younger generation. Non-religious forms such as adunké and fósitén sêkêti are known only by older people. The only Matawai form regularly used at ceremonial dances is the banya: the songs and dances are accompanied by two or three apínti and a kwakwa (among the Matawai this refers to a small wooden bench, beaten with two sticks). Nowadays, Matawai dances sometimes also feature the kawina music of rural Creoles.
Drum languages (apinti tongo) play an important part in both eastern and western Maroon ceremonial life; these are used to announce important events, to intone proverbs, to praise names and to communicate with the ancestors.
Maroons of all groups place a high value on artistic innovation, and the resulting cultural dynamism is reflected in music as much as in other arts. Not only are new songs constantly composed (in virtually all genres), but new genres periodically arise and come into fashion. Over the last two decades of the 20th century, as migration to the coast increased, Maroons (particularly Saramakas and Ndyukas) exerted an important influence on urban popular music. Not only young Ndyukas brought their aleke music to the recording studios of the capital, Paramaribo, but young Maroon musicians from all groups came to play a dominant role in the production of recorded kaseko (see §3 below).
Ceremonies for the winti or komfo (spirits or deities) are essential to the religious life of both rural and urban Creoles, since it is believed that Masra Gran Gado (the Supreme Deity) cannot be worshipped directly. The classification and the characteristics of winti vary according to different regions and ‘schools’: spirits include earth, water and sky winti, snake winti (the vodu and the dagwé), the ampuku (small inhabitants of the forest) and the kromanti (African winti associated with protection and healing). The winti are addressed in their own songs and drum rhythms. Each song presents in a short text a complex of ideas about the nature of the winti; during ritual observance participants possessed by winti perform dances in their honour. Drums used for these ceremonies are the apinti, the agida, pudya, langa dron and man dron (single-headed cylindrical drums of different sizes) and the kwakwa bench. In some areas, winti has been combined with popular forms such as kawina and kaseko (see below). In these newer versions, the bigi tu (sousaphone or tuba) has been reinterpreted in African terms and has come to play an important role in ritual, being used to invoke and entertain possessing gods and ancestors.
The kawina (or kawna), a popular musical form of rural Creoles, consists of songs in leader-chorus form accompanied by the kawina band, which comprises the apinti, kawina dron (small double-headed cylindrical drums), kwatro (from Spanish cuatro, a small four-string guitar), a pair of rattles made of tins, and sometimes other percussion. Beginning in the late 1980s, there was a resurgence of kawina in Paramaribo; a new urban variant called kaskawi developed, incoporating electric guitars and keyboards along with elements of urban kaseko and other Afro-Caribbean styles. This remains one of the most popular urban styles among the young. Old-time kaseko bands that play the genre called bigi poku or skratji poku were once typical urban ensembles; they consist of wind instruments (clarinets and saxophones), a banjo, a pair of calabash rattles and a military drum kit, and are used to accompany the setdansi (creolized versions of European ballroom and salon dances such as the kadriri or quadrille and the lanciers or lancers dance), and for various festive occasions in Paramaribo. In the second half of the 20th century, after being strongly influenced by North American jazz, kaseko absorbed many elements from foreign dance musics such as Guyanese badji, Trinidadian calypso and soca, Latin American salsa, Jamaican reggae and North American funk. Today it is played primarily by urban ensembles (featuring electric guitars, keyboards, drum kit, brass, saxophone and assorted percussion) and recordings are made in high-tech studios for mass consumption. Consisting of several sub-styles and sung in a number of Suriname’s languages, kaseko is now widely considered the national popular music.
Other traditional Creole forms include anansi stories (tales of the spider-trickster Anansi), which often have songs; lobi singi (songs criticizing lovers or venting other personal emotions, sung by women); and banya, laku and susa, various dance ceremonies, less popular in the 20th century than formerly, but still organized during festivities commemorating emancipation.
Although little European music is performed in Suriname, Creole music often combines European melodies and metres with Sranan-language texts; harmonized Protestant hymns and psalm singing are also sometimes heard, even in the performance of the winti melodies. European musical influence has been exerted by Roman Catholic and Moravian missionaries, especially on the Amerindians and the Creoles.
The Hindustanis, descendants of the indentured labourers who emigrated from India between 1873 and 1916, now constitute the single largest ethnic group in Suriname, numbering around 170,000, with roughly another 100,000 residing in the Netherlands since the 1970s. Around 82% of the Hindustanis are Hindu, the remainder being mostly Muslim. Most of the indentured labourers came from Bhojpuri-speaking regions of North India, whose traditional folk music culture has constituted the basis for much Indo-Surinamese music, as well as for the closely related East Indian music traditions of nearby Guyana and Trinidad. Although the Indo-Surinamese population is smaller than those of the latter countries, the continued vitality of a Bhojpuri-based koine (called Sarnami) as a spoken language has lent a particular resilience and depth to Indian music traditions in Suriname.
Much Indo-Surinamese music has clear links to Bhojpuri-region forms, direct exposure to which, however, was minimal after 1916. Particularly closely related to North Indian counterparts are women's song forms tied to life-cycle events, such as sohar childbirth songs and wedding songs such as matkor and gāli; stylistically similar are light catnī (Chutney) songs with loosely erotic texts and simple, catchy tunes in verse-and-refrain structure. All these are strophic songs, typically sung in quadratic metre (North Indian Kaharvā) by groups of female amateurs accompanying themselves variously on dholak (barrel drum), mañjīrā (cymbals) and (or) dāndtāl (a metal rod struck idiophonically with a smaller, u-shaped piece of metal). Among the predominantly male amateur song forms, particularly prominent is cautāl, a genre associated with the vernal phagwa (holī) festival, in which two groups of singers antiphonally exchange verses to the accompaniment of vigorous dholak playing in 7/4 and 4/4 metres. Verses from the epic Rāmāyana may also be sung in this manner, often by competing amateur groups. Hindu temples are focal sites for these and other types of collective singing, especially devotional bhajans sung responsorially with accompaniment on dholak, harmonium and often the tambourine-like khanjari. Formerly popular, but now rare, is the narrative or topical male song form birhā, sung to the accompaniment of the nagārā drum-pair, and in some respects resembling early 20th-century Indian birhā style.
Until around the 1940s, folk theatre genres like Gopichand and Raja Harishchandra were widely performed by semi-professional male troupes, featuring songs and dances. By this time, local qawwālī specialists, influenced by records of Indian singers like Kalloo Qawwal, came to be popular performers at weddings, Muslim functions and other events. An overlapping and ultimately more significant genre is baithak gānā (‘sitting music’), constituting a tradition of serious, primarily devotional songs sung by solo, semi-professional male specialists accompanied by dholak, harmonium and dāndtāl. Baithak gānā evolved as a counterpart to (and influenced by) Guyanese and Trinidadian ‘tān-singing’. Although incorporating Bhojpuri-derived folk elements, these genres also comprise idiosyncratic versions of dhrupad, thumrī, tillānā and other genres which link them, however obliquely, to North Indian classical and light-classical music. Baithak gānā was typically performed (often in competitive formats) in all-night sessions at weddings and wakes, and at nine-day Hindu rituals called yajña (yaj, jag). Baithak gānā singers, like cautāl groups and, in many cases, bhajan afficionados, derive song texts not only from oral tradition, but also from anthologies published in India.
Under the influence of modernization many of the aforementioned genres (such as baithak gānā and birhā) have declined dramatically and some, like folk theatre, have disappeared altogether. After the 1940s, Indian film music became by far the most popular kind of music among Indo-Surinamese, and much amateur and professional singing is devoted to renditions of Indian hits. By the mid-20th century, several professional ensembles had also emerged which performed film songs, along with qawwālī and bhajan, at weddings and other festivities. In the 1980s some contemporary performers like Kries Ramkhelawan (b 1958), influenced by Trinidadian trends, popularized ‘chutney-soca’, which fuses traditional catni lyrics and melodies with dance-band instruments and soca or calypso rhythms.
Most Suriname Javanese are Muslim, some of whom still speak Javanese and have retained many Indonesian traditions. Their most important events are the celebration of Indonesian independence, wedding feasts, circumcision ceremonies and the jaran kepang (a dance in which participants in a state of trance mime horses; fig.2). At feasts a wayang kulit (shadow-puppet play) or a tayub is usually performed; the tayub includes songs and dances of the lèdèk (female singer-dancer) who is accompanied by a gamelan ensemble, while the wayang kulit is based on the Hindu epic drama, the Rāmāyana. The dalang, who handles the puppets and sings the texts, is a versatile artist who knows the ancient languages for the plays and partly directs the ensemble. Ludruk, a mixture of folk theatre, music and dance, is also very popular.
Soon after their arrival in 1890, the Javanese labourers in Suriname began to design and build their own gamelans using local materials such as scrap metal left over from railroad construction. Today, the gamelan of Suriname is based exclusively on the sléndro tuning system. Usually the gamelan consists of a selection of the following group of instruments: kendang (double-headed barrel drum); gambang, demung, thithik, saron or penurus (metallophones, with 7 to 14 keys); and some combination of various other metallophones and/or gongs, such as kenong and ketuk, as well as local versions of the Javanese suspended bronze gongs (kempul, suwukan and gong ageng). The number of instruments varies from five to eight; some gamelan also include the suling (end-blown bamboo flute), or perhaps gendèr (a metallophone with tuned bamboo pipe resonators). Gamelan used in jaran kepang may also feature tarompet (a type of oboe) and ketipung (a small single-headed drum). A full Javanese gamelan with instruments of both sléndro and pélog tunings is housed in the Indonesian Embassy, but Surinamese musicians use only the sléndro section of the set.
Other musical contexts and genres include various slametan rites (making use of gamelan and other instruments); terbangan (percussion-accompanied Islamic devotional songs); angklung (music for ensembles of various bamboo idiophones); menore (a type of religious folk theatre with musical accompaniment); and kotekan (rice-pounding music). Each of these can be further broken down into sub-styles. For instance, there are two types of terbangan ensembles, used to accompany different categories of songs: terbangan cilik (or terbangan kencring), made up of a bedug (a large ritual drum beaten with a stick) and a type of tambourine; and terbangan-maulad nabi (or terbangan-gede), consisting of a number of large drums played with the hands, along with the kendang (the double-headed gamelan drum).
Finally, a number of more obviously creolized forms have recently appeared among the Javanese of Suriname. As in Indonesia, kroncong music is popular, a genre that fuses certain musical concepts and conventions from the gamelan tradition with Western instrumentation and tonality (see Indonesia, §VIII, 1). Surinamese kroncong ensembles most often feature some combination of violin, Hawaiian guitar, flute, guitar, ukelele (or banjo), double bass and sometimes cello, along with vocals. Suriname has also produced a Caribbeanized version of the gamelan, the ‘steel gamelan’, modelled in part on the steelbands of Trinidad, but still using the sléndro tuning. This and other such examples show that Surinamese Javanese music continues to adapt to the larger creole culture that surrounds it, even as it maintains an identity of its own.
GEWM, ii (‘Wayana’; V. Fuks)
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A. de Waal Malefijt: The Javanese of Surinam: a Segment of a Plural Society (Assen, 1963)
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P. Manuel, K. Bilby and M. Largey: Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae (Philadelphia, 1995)
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Musique Boni et Wayana de Guyane, Vogue LVLX 290 (1968)
Music from Saramaka: a Dynamic Afro-American Tradition, Folkways FE 4225 (1977)
The Creole Music of Suriname (Dutch Guiana), Folkways FE 4233 (1978)
Bally Brashuis and Blaka Boeba, Kwakoe Records KLP740312 (1980) [Suriname Creole winti music]
Lamie and Tjondro Utomo, perfs., Disco Amigo DA 33023 (1980) [Suriname Javanese gamelan music]
Akrema, SMA Records SMALP 001 (Amsterdam, 1981) [Suriname Creole winti music]
From Slavery to Freedom: Music of the Saramaka Maroons of Suriname, Lyrichord LLST 7354 (1981)
Javanese Music from Suriname, Lyrichord LLST 7317 (1981)
The Spirit Cries: Rainforest Music from South America and the Caribbean, Rykodisc RCD 10250 (1993) [includes Wayana and Aluku Maroon selections]
Switi: Hot! Kaseko Music, Stichting Popmuziek Nederland SNP 010 (1993)
Carlo Jones and the Surinam Kaseko Troubadours, MW Records MWCD 3011 (1995)
The Maroni River Caribs of Surinam, Pan 4005 KCD (1996)
Kaseko, Lewa Records (n.d.)
Musique instrumentale des Wayana du Litani, Buda 92637-2 (n.d.)
Surinam, Philips 832 231PY (n.d.) [Creole kawina and winti music]
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