Abstract

CUNHA, Olívia Maria Gomes da. Living in worlds saturated with various presences. Etnográfica [online]. 2020, vol.24, n.2, pp.401-425. ISSN 0873-6561.  https://doi.org/10/4000/etnografica/8952.

The article focuses on the controversies and conflicts arising from the use of concepts such as things (sani) and culture (kulturu), as well as the meanings that the Maroon Cottica Ndyuka credit to the relationships between people and material artifacts. To explore the complex transit of these notions between the Maroon people who inhabit the bauxitown of Moengo (Suriname) and nearby villages, located in eastern Suriname, the effects of two events will be explored. First, the installation made by a Dutch artist, but inspired by structures of wood, cloth, straw and other elements used in Maroon villages known as kifunga. Secondly, the negotiations that followed what Cottica Ndyuka converted to charismatic Christian-Pentecostal congregations (known as keleki sama) interpreted as a clear allusion to paganism existing in the villages but cannot exist in Moengo. The rumours and conflicts arising from these two modes of “presentification” of the relations between human and non-human beings and artifacts will be known from their local configurations through a analysis interspersed by historical and ethnographic references to the modes of territorialisation of the Ndyuka in the region.

Keywords : maroons; artifacts; art; materiality; Caribbean; Suriname.

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