Life at Maripaston

Preface

The Matuari Bush Negro Johannes King (ca. 1830-1898) taught himself to read and write at an advanced age. Throughout his life he was fascinated by the possibilities of bridging with the written word the gap with later generations. He particularly wanted to see two of his works published: his ‘Book of Horrors’ (containing accounts of his dreams and visions, among other subjects), and the present book, which we have given the title ‘Life at Maripaston’. King wanted to explain to later generations what was at the root of the problems between him and his elder brother, chief Noah Adrai, representatives respectively of the church and the state at the village level. King wanted to justify his life in the eyes of the church and of his own tribesmen. The book constitutes, therefore, an important contribution to the church history of Surinam, but at the same time offers interesting insights into the life of the Bush Negro communities in Surinam. Most important perhaps is the fact that the present book is one of the first original works in Sranan, the Creole language spoken in the town and the coastal region of Surinam. King did not use his own mother tongue, which had no written form at that time, but the related lingua franca.

H. F. de Ziel, himself a poet writing in this language, and also a qualified librarian, was staying in Holland in 1969 for reasons of health. He wanted to use this period for the benefit of his country. We discussed several possibilities in my office at Leiden University, and he was immediately fascinated by the idea of editing the manuscripts of Johannes King, and making them available to his countrymen and other interested scholars. I had formerly made a transcript of these manuscripts which was used by Mr. De Ziel, who was also given the opportunity by the Moravian Church of checking the transcript against the original manuscripts. The Koninklyk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde at Leiden showed an interest in publishing the result of his work. The Surinam Government kindly granted Mr. De Ziel a year’s leave to enable him to undertake the work. The Stichting voor Culturele Samenwerking met Suriname en de Nederlandse Antillen (Sticusa) agreed to pay the cost of translation. The Faculty of Letters of the University

VI LIFE AT MARIPASTON of Leiden gave permission for hiring a secretary to help prepare the manuscript.

Mr. De Ziel began his work in March 1969, the responsibility for the supervision of which I took upon myself. We had weekly sessions of about four hours each to discuss difficult problems of interpretation and work out editing procedures. Although Mr. De Ziel has not had any formal academic training, he should be regarded as the responsible editor. Where we could not agree on details of the editorial work, his opinion has been followed. He had the use of this book by his own countrymen in mind, while I tried to defend as well as possible the interests of international scholarship. I am happy to say that there were not many differences of opinion between us. I hope that Mr. De Ziel will find the opportunity of editing the ‘Book of Horrors’ as well.

Contents

I INTRODUCTION . å & bø ka & © 2 1—11

Introductory remarks .

Biographical notes .