DIANE VERNON

BAKUU: POSSESSING SPIRITS OF WITCHCRAFTON THE TAPANAHONY

This paper (1) is a repon on one pantheon of possessing spirits known as &^a (2),which was in full expansion among the Djuka of Tabiki on the Tapanahony river,Suriname, in the period when 1 visited them between December 1976 and February1978 (3). While even my oldest informants denied ever having seen il;uu me-diums in that village before (and I was unable to find any &uu spirit that hadpossessed a medium longer than 3 years) the flju phenomenon was then beingexperienced as visions in the night, as interpretation of illness and death, as witchaccusation, and as spirit possession. One example of & social drama is recountedbelow, and an attempt is made to situate the & in relation to other pantheons ofpossessing spirits. All generalizations attempted here should be understood to bepremature, and to apply only to one village, observed at a moment when it was mo-bilized by what it considered its first case of i&ft&uu possession and accusation.

THE DJUKAThe Djuka are one of six tribes of Bush Negroes whose territorial

homes are river-side villages in the rain forest of Suriname andFrench Guyana (4). These tribes originally formed in the 17th and18th century as African slaves escaping from the coastal planta-tions grouped together in the sanctuary of the bush. The fugitivebands worked out a subsistence economy in the forest based onhunting, fishing and slash-and-burn agriculture, while they con-tinued to acquire tools, arms, and new recruits by making periodicraids on the plantations. They were in turn pursued by colonial mi-litia which they fought off with guerrilla tactics until in 1760, thefirst peace treaty was concluded with the Djuka, granting them thesemi-autonomy which they still retain today. Among the promisesmade in the treaty was a regular tribute of coastal goods to be deliv-ered to the village chiefs (BENOIT, 1839). Today, this has beencommuted into small salaries paid out to Djuka village officials, the

^ DIANE VERNON

The abolition of slavery in 1863 opened new opportunities forthe Bush Negroes to obtain wealth and coastal goods, first throughlumbering, then from around 1880 until the 1920's, by their par-ticipation in the gold rush. Overnight, Bush Negroes from all tribeswere able to cash in on their knowledge of difficult river navigationand canoe construction to become the highly-paid specialists ofinland transport for the fortune-seekers of gold and balata (DE BEET& THODEN VAN VELZEN, 1977). It was a period of intensive con-tact between the Bush Negroes of different tribes and the &z&z

BAK UU 5

man children but die young. Other particularities, such as the Fonbelief that the soul of a deceased may be stolen and manipulated forpurposes of witchcraft (OLA BALOGUN, personal communication) accrete to build up a patchwork spiritual entity: a tool for ambi-tion, greed, vengeance, and murder that unites ideas of riches anddeath behind the guileless appearance of childhood. Like otherspirits, the /& varies from tribe to tribe and probably overtime as to what brings it, who is vulnerable to its attacks, andwhat is to be done about it. But Djuka, Paramaka (LENOIR, 1973)and Matawai (DE BEET, personal communication) all agree that it isnot native to their cultures but an imported evil, manufactured onthe coast by Creoles or Chinese (6). Among the Djuka, it is said tohave appeared relatively late in their history, first brought to theriver by &z/a

4 DIANE VERNON

A Creole lady from Martinique whose name was Medaille entrusted to a Malobi boatman alarge sum of gold. The boatman faked an accident in the rapids around Tapudam and ab-sconded with the fortune. Suspecting a hoax, the woman tried several times, but to no avail,to persuade the culprit to return at least pan of the treasure. Finally, she fixed up a flz^aawhich she sent to reap revenge. In Malobi people sickened and died until the day when thecause was discovered. The present headman of Malobi, kabiten Bonte, went to the lady andpleaded with her, promising that they would try to repay her part of the gold in trade, butshe replied that with the best will in the world it was now too late the B J was alreadyin the (Malobi) family.

The &, as it appears to the Djuka of Tabiki when it startlesthem from sleep in the night, ressembles a doll (7) or a lightcoloredCreole child dressed in city clothes (8). In truth, it is neither childnor doll nor deity, but the shade of some unknown (and probablyevil) dead, which had been captured and tinkered with by a Creoleor Chinese magician, and made to inhabit a mannekin. The littlebody is composed half of flesh, half of wood, its wooden half servingthe ZJz/wtt as a shield to foil its assailants.

While the Djuka claim not to know the art by which such magi-cians enslave the ghost of a deceased, HERSKOVITS (1936) offers acoastal description of how it is trapped in the hair and fingers of thecorpse. Such a technique fits easily into Djuka supernatural sche-mes, for it ressembles a perversion of one act of traditional Djukaburial rites abandoned since 1972 of using the corpse, or itshair and finger nails, as a temporary oracle for interrogating theghost of the deceased, which hovered over its remains.

Like the Haitian 'engagement' (METRAUX, 1977), the fiz isa spirit pet which the fo/aa (Whites, Creoles, or Chinese) may keepto make and guard their money. Tabikans do not seem to see them-selves as buying it for this purpose. They prefer to seek the assistan-ce of the traditional Djuka spirit that helps men to acquire progenyand fortune, the P#/>

BAKUU

40 k m,4 7 Z. * /V 7 /

F R E N C H

G U Y A N A

Fig. 1. Sketch map of northwestern Suriname, indicating the situation of Tabiki and neigh-bouring villages.

6 DIANE VERNON

nes, nervous disorders, even toothache, and as VAN LlER (1944)noted, insanity, all proved in 1976-78 to be attributable at leastin an appropriate moment of brewing accusations to the fiztt(10). But neither in theory nor in practice are these complaintsautomatically diagnosed as a & attack, nor are they the onlyills of which he is capable. They tended to be the chief complaints ofthe women who shortly became fiz/w mediums, or of the i$z/w# 'Jcontemporary surviving victims. (Whether or not the posthumous-ly diagnosed flz/fctt attacks that had killed past victims also tookinto account this specialization in illness, I cannot say. I was rarelyable to disinter their symptoms).

What brings on a fiz/ attack? There are certain indicationsthat the 'cause' of a z/tttt attack may have undergone a funda-mental change of definition from the introductory period of aveng-ing &7^tt guardians in the service of tf/fcw hunting for gold, to thepresent bewitching ffr/wa in the service of evil Djuka out to killclose relatives. Unfortunately, I have no information as to whetheror not .&/ were bought by Djuka for witchcraft during the firstperiod. And I am told (THODEN VAN VELZEN, pers. comm.) that inthe villages of Malobi, Vandaki, and Tsjontsjon, i&7/# still appearas avenging spirits today. In Tabiki, the correlation between social+ spirit changes appears more clear-cut: while I could obtain nosatisfactory accounts of Tabiki fizw and their mediums from thefirst period, it was said they had come as (avenging spirits) but that they came no more. The fiz#tt witchcraft epoch iscited as making its debut 'about 20 years ago'. This correspondsroughly with the new era which THODEN VAN VELZEN (1977)termed the 'opening up of the interior', characterized by renewedtraffic on the rivers and massive immigration of Djuka workers tothe coastal city. Tabikans say (but I have no statistics to verify this)that it is only within the past twenty years that the flow of villagersto the coast has begun to make itself felt so that certain ceremoniesmust be abridged, and the Djuka social calendar synchronized withbi-annual coastal holidays. It is within the latter half of this decade,a few years after the retirement of the (SJW Gz^w witch-cleansingoracle (THODEN VAN VELZEN & VAN WETERING, 1975) that me-diumship to fi^/ spirits of witchcraft began in Tabiki.

BAKUU /

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN TABIKIThe Djuka, like other Bush Negroes, are a tribal people, with at

their head a Paramount Chief, the GZJWTW. The tribe is composedof clans called /o, and the village of Tabiki is synonomous with oneclan known as Pedi. Within the framework of the clan, the matrilin-ear descendents of individual ancestors form the most relevant so-cial group in Djuka society: the foe the corporate matrilineage.The Pedi clan unites four such lineages, said to have escaped sepa-rately from different plantations, and joined together in the forest.Two of these foe Amanta and Dona are very small (approxi-mately 60 and 40 adults respectively), and for several months inthe year, when labor migration and bush camp farming drain awayalmost all their members, they are closed quarters. The two largerlineages called Pedi (approximately 110 adults), and Kaysina (ap-proximately 200 adults) are never so completely depopulated.

In Tabiki, the foe (even when as large as Kaysina or as geograph-ically segmented as Pedi) seems still to be respected as the largestexogamic unit. Since the preferential marriage partner is the classi-ficatory cross cousin, and since individuals are more comfortablemarrying within the village (KBBEN, 1967), members of the Pediclan were usually either lineage mates or affines.

Lineage members hold in common the rights to certain secularstatus positions (see below). They are also supposed, collectively, tohold the patents to particular gods, to avenging spirits (##), cer-tain spirits that had formerly possessed a lineage member, as well asappropriate certain paraphenalia such as shrines and carry-oracles.Major deities, like the god Geafeo.ytt which is under the tutelage ofthe Kaysina lineage, 'good' spirits such as an old line of X#/tfK/,and even very ambivalent spirits such as those sent to bewitch, allare either intentionally passed on or may be spontaneously revivedin new episodes in succeeding generations of the foe.

In a large lineage such as Kaysina, informal divisions occur. Seg-ments of the lineage sort out distinct village quarters and are identi-fied in common parlance as 'the people of...' its most prestigiouscontemporary member. Within these smaller divisions, goods, ser-vices and visits are exchanged, and certain spirits may be more rele-vant to this unit. This is the first working arena for small-time andnovice spirit-mediums and the place from which they draw audien-

8 DIANE VERNON

ce and clientele. Significantly, it is also the imagined target area forwitches, who may also employ spirits, but in secret, instead of pu-blicly and to kill instead of cure. The autonomy of the segment inwitch accusations is clearly visible in the iz/tt case described be-low: je^we^ of two different lineages collaborated in the chargesfrom 1976 to 1978, while the remainder of each lineage stayedaloof until 1979.

Further divisions may occur within the segment itself. Thosemembers of the quarter who spend from several months to most ofthe year away from the village in neighboring bush camp residen-ces seem to intensify relationships among themselves, and back inthe village quarter, they may show signs of functioning as an inde-pendent group. One of these signs I take to be in-group elaborationof witch accusations such as the one below. The fiz># witch scareappears to have had its origins in just such a produrt of intensifiedrelations of one part of a segment before being taken up by largerunits.

LANTI GOVERNMENT'When God made the earth, He retired from it. When He retired,

to whom did he leave it? To ///' (from a speech by Da Balawan).L?//, as a noun, means 'government', or as a verb, means formallyto present a case to a third party. All problems of men marriageproposals, mortuary ceremonies, breaches of conduct, and even theaffairs of men and spirits are dealt with in palavers with /##//-/wa (elders and titled specialists) at appropriate levels of social or-ganization (KBBEN, 1966).

The most official part of village government consists of titles rec-ognized and remunerated by the national government of Suriname.These are secular offices, though they may be awarded to an impor-tant religious leader. In Tabiki, clan head and village headman(&z/te) was Da (father) Akaapa, of Pedi lineage (segment II).Appointed by him were two sub-/te, one from the other half ofthe Pedi lineage, the other from tiny Dona ee. Secondary positionsof &WM were awarded to one man from each lineage, with, again,two in the Pedi ee (11).

Although these positions are passed on within lineages, and evenwithin particular segments which guard them jealously, they ob-

BAKUU

Fig. 2. Sketch map of the village of Tabiki.

1 0 DIANE VERNON

viously fail to reflect the social structure or the numerical impor-tance of the groups. They represent on the one hand favors whichoffer status and a small salary, on the other, the obligation andpower to perform roles in government. These are government spe-cialists who operate within the village, but may be invited to exer-cise, as do religious specialists (12) even beyond the boundaries ofvillage and clan.

LANTI AND WITCH ACCUSATIONSFrom the trials and burnings of witches in the preceeding cen-

tury (DE GROOT, 1969), witch accusations have been increasinglyrelegated to the margins of the village judiciary. To conform topressures from the national government of Suriname, in keepingdown violence in the villages, treatment of suspects has perforce be-come steadily more humane: lynchings are acts of outlaw justice,and beatings while still considered a justified course of action totake against a witch are discouraged by the /

BAKUU 1 1

How obedient is a spirit to the commands of mortals? Theologi-cally speaking, the orders of a &//>WO are backed up in the celes-tial realm by the great ancestors, while those of a few; are usuallyspoken in the name of a powerful spirit to which he is medium. Bythe fact of its possessing through trance, a spirit is demonstratingthat it desires the privileges that come of social intercourse withmen, and is prepared to respect their laws. The spirit's reputation isthen built up over the years to the greater status of its medium. Theunspoken penalty for anti-social behavior on the part of a uwz// isprobably exorcism, re-identification, or exposure of the medium asa fraud.

Furthermore, mediums act as appendages to secular govern-ment. Through their spirits they proffer oracular pronouncementswhich interpret events and advise on a proper course of action. Andas both PRICE (1975) and KBBEN (1967) remarked, these pro-nouncements are not purely personal inspirations on the part of themedium: he is rather the mouth-piece through which some part ofpublic opinion speaks. The medium is not only interpreter of hisgroup's opinion, he must also take into account the sometimes con-flicting views of other groups particularly those which hold sig-nificant secular or religious power.

A tame spirit is thus cast in the role of a powerful, sometimes ca-pricious fellow villager, but who has a respect for authority and cus-tom. The reasonable man concept of GLUCKMAN (1963), whichKBBEN (1966) found applicable to Djuka mortals is equally trueof their possessing spirits, which labor under an unspoken threat ofbeing discovered if their behavior does not conform to what mightbe expected of a 'reasonable spirit'.

It sometimes happens as it does in the case below, that no censor-ship is imposed on the revelations of a bewitching spirit, either bythe few; or by the /

12 DIANE VERNON

If the accused is convinced of his own innoncence, what recoursedoes he have? This is the question which the scapegoat of the storyfinally asks, and, in his case, the answer given him is 'none'. Djukajudiciary protocol is such that a defendent does not plead his owncase. His defense is handled for him by his kin either selected byhim, or who have themselves voluntarily come forward andthese spokesmen will plead what they feel to be appropriate, givenpopular opinion, the relationships of the protagonists, and politicalpressures (KBBEN, 1966). Obviously, then, the defense the ac-cused wishes to present must be one which his kin feel they canplead. But in the following case, it is these same kin who feel them-selves to have been his victims first members of his matri-seg-ment, then the affinal group (segment), and finally people evenfrom his father's matri-segment (which was also the other half ofhis affinal lineage). His kin, have, in a sense, already presented hiscase through the possessing spirit of the .& which admittedhis guilt for him.

At last, there is only one person who dares come before the ///on behalf of the accused, and that is the accused himself. He re-quests an appeal to a higher instance, to the court of the ParamountChief. But the system is not devised to work in such a way. A de-fendent cannot take himself to court, only his accusers can do that.

The advice given him is to wait. A man who feels he has not re-ceived his full measure of justice will normally bide his time andwait for future events to play into his hands (KBBEN, 1966),allowing him to ripost. But, in the case of someone unjustly accus-ed by a spirit of practising witchcraft, it seems that he can only hopefor some new oracular revelation that casts suspicions on the olderone, and that opens the road to a reinterpretation in his favor. Ifthis does not happen during his lifetime, his ghost, become ances-tor, may see to it after his death, by returning as # (avengingspirit) interpreted by a new spirit medium.

When does it happen that the stops are pulled and an accusationsubmitted by ecstatic witnesses heard? A year after the fizttdrama, people from the lineage of the accused (though from differ-ent segments) commented that such 'preferential' treatment wasout of order, and that 'they' had been wrong in allowing the hear-

BAKUU 13

ing. Who is 'they'? While the fow/ who socializes the ZJz/##(possessing spirit) is the first to censor it, it is the Azw*/', and particu-larly the headman who has the final say. Leaving aside for a mo-ment the question of private politics, which no doubt also played apart, the accusation seems to have served an important social func-tion as an oracular accounting for past tragedies, while at the sametime, acting as a return of justice for a man who had himself been aparticularly vicious witchbater.

COSMOLOGY AND THE PLACE OF THE BAKUUBelow the aloof apical God who created the earth and left it to the

&l/, sit the heavenly /*' the G&z Foo/fez (great ancestors).They take an eternal interest in the lives of their descendants, bothprotecting and punishing them. These spirits of the greater and les-ser dead, avenging or blessing, all make up one pantheon of posses-sing spirits the Foo/a. Beneath the Gatf Foo&z the cosmosteems with deities jostling for position. They are classified by theDjuka in two ways:

Spirits of the sky (to/ia ^J^U); of the water (taJ ^*^"); of the bush (Aori jWo); and thelatest 'city thing' (/bio &z

14 DIANE VERNON

'the cold people' this heading, discussed earlier, regroups all the dead. Togetherwith the &, it is the only pantheon which may contain 'foreign' elements (i.e. theghosts of non Djuka, or even non Bush Negroes). (I found 14 Voo/c permanently attachedto Tabiki mediums, with three others of impermanent status).

A clever anthropomorphic bush spirit, it is said to ressemble a human being tall of stature and black of skin. A great imitator, the .a can pass itself off as anotherspirit. It may possess (usually a man) out of friendship, or avenge as a , or it may behired to bewitch. (In Tabiki, I found only one man who was medium to an .Aro/x/ja, that inpartnership with a K00&2, was an agent of ia. All other Ampuku mediums (17) werewomen, and their spirits had originally been sent to bewitch.

u. This is not a free spirit, like the above, but the witchcraft form of the KOO&J theenslaved ghost of a probably evil person. The 'evil Koo/b' as the bu is also called, owespart of its malevolent powers to the knowledge it retains as do all K00&7 from a formerlife on earth. But whose Kooia it was, no one ever knows. No doubt it is non-Djuka. It hassince been tampered with, and it may, when possessing a medium in trance, make confusingand contradictory statements about its genealogy. Or it may call the names of present andformer owners in lieu of its father and mother. It may be of Creole identity, like the ones ofthe story, or it may have been brought all the way from China to help Chinese storekeepersearn money. When bought by Djuka, &uu are kept in the hen basket and fed on their fa-vorite commercial foods such as tea, coffee, biscuits or corned beef. No & of 1976 hadany taste for blood.

For no matter how evil its original nature, the & like the i4m/>Bifc sent to bewitch, al-ways kills on mission for another. As the Djuka say, 'Evil spirits are not evil the only evilis in the heart of man'. A single &ua spirit, like a bewitching J4/W/>BU, is in fact acomplex of several spirit forces which must be broken down, like a chemical compound, intoparts evil and parts good. The bad parts are paid to remain in the bush while the good arefixed to the human medium as a re-modeled spirit. This particular restructuring is only partof the process of 'washing' and 'fixing' through which a raw spirit is civilized, but it is themajor part, and appears to be peculiar to ylm/iu/tu and Bzyfcaa alone, in their witchcraft di-mension.

AMPUKU OR BAKUUAs a new agent of witchcraft, then, the fiz/aw seems at first sim-

ply to double for the bewitching -/!?># among Djuka residingmost of the year on the coast. (In the four known cases of posses-sion before 1976, all mediums lived outside the tribal village andin three of these the witch did too). Then, from 1976 on, it appearsthat a ban on in-village Z$z

BAKUU 15

often taken to the city on shopping sprees, and old mothers whomight never have left tribal territory may now be flown to the coastfor a period of medical treatment. Even those who are villageboundmay acquire a z/tttt second-hand from spouse or relative, inheritor steal one from a deceased witch. The imported fiz^ww has beenincorporated into the multifarious repertoire of black arts backhome.

Yet, a comparison of cases of fiz#tt and ^4w/)/ possession inTabiki suggests that Djuka may be experimenting with functionaldifferences for each. In either case, the ecstatic victims of witchcraftwere the same: all (but one) were woman, none of whom (with oneexception) had even been medium to any spirit before. As for thewitch, the sender of an A//>tt seemed to be visualized as a wom-an, while a / buyer could be of either sex.

In noting the symptoms of an ylw/>a^ or . attack of ill-ness, which preceeded possession trance of the mediums, one re-marks an interesting distinction, not so much in the types of illnes-ses attributed to each spirit, but in their duration. The histories ofi4?/>w/ attacks are a mournful tale of many accidents, or chronicailments that stretch back over the years sometimes to childhood,and of various attempts to come to grips with the unknown evil probably entailing many different diagnoses, until finally the witch-craft is detected by a third person (an otomaw) who through manywashings in appropriate baths, manages to tame the .A/w/>/# spiritsufficiently for it to surface from the body to the head, leave off itsattack and settle for dialogue. Both victim and family express reliefthat a cure is now in sight.

The histories of fiz/wtt attacks are remarkably short by compari-son: one accident, not many, usually from a few months to a fewdays, to a few hours suffering before the fiz takes possession ofthe victim in trance (sometimes even without the aid of a thirdparty to diagnose and tame the spirit see, in the story below, thecases of Naami and Koli).

Both victim and family are incensed against the fiz yer,and they make no secret of his identity even though the village &//'may censor such revelations. In 18 cases of i4w/>aia possession Iwas never able to learn the identity of the sender, even though two

1 6 DIANE VERNON

of my most cooperative informants were y4w/>/ mediums. Onthe contrary, # mediums were unabashed tattlers, and eitherthey themselves or an informant from the same lineage could tellme who the witch had been.

What this suggests is that victims of .Am/>tt/ witchcraft use pos-session as a means of dealing with illness, while iz/w# victims useillness as a lever to launch ecstatic witch accusations.

Furthermore, judging from the cases I recorded, a bewitchingv4//>/# is but one spirit hired to attack one person (woman) andperhaps her child. I know of no instance where such a spirit threat-ened a wider group. Once the ^4w/)/a reveals itself in trance andis turned away (by exorcism) or tamed (by 'washing'), its originalattack is discontinued. If it sickens its medium or one of her familyafter that, it is usually because someone has offended it, and it canbe persuaded to desist. In no case have I heard of its having a son orbrother spirit secretly pursuing the original witchcraft.

Yet this is exactly what occurs in most fi/tt attacks. A &is not one spirit; and a fiz/ #'/' (possessing spirit) is not thewhole fiz/tttt. The .Bz/aw acts more like a hydra: just one can giverise to an apparently unlimited number of attacking, possessingspirits. Thus, the taming of one of these spirits does not bring thewitchcraft to an end, as the 'cooling' of the single j4;w/>/# does(though it brings the witchcraft under control for that one victim).The fJz/ which produced the spirit still skulks in the secrecy ofthe hen basket in the house of the Z&z/## buyer, ready to send outother spirits at his command. The benefit the public can derivefrom civilizing a fiz spirit however, is that it may become aturncoat, spying on new moves of the 2z/# buyer, detecting new

attacks by its brothers, and helping to chaperone neophyte

In other words, while Am/>tt/tt seems to be witchcraft aimed atone individual (and possibly her child), the fiz/## can unleash itsspirits throughout a whole family of brothers and sisters, or a seg-ment, or a lineage, or across the boundaries of lineages over the affi-nal bridge.

And this is another interesting aspect of &z#tt witchcraft. Itseems apt to proliferate along affinal lines in a mirror imitation of

BAKUU 17

'good' magical power wielded by o^w/waw, //'//w, and to/', forwhom marriage opens up new opportunities of extending activityand influence into the spouse's lineage. The two different fiadramas which rocked Tabiki from 1976 to 1978 involved the vil-lage's two largest lineages, Pedi and Kaysina, which are linkedthrough many marriages. In both cases, the accusations passedfrom one lineage to the other through these bonds: in one case, thewife in the other lineage was named victim, in the other, cited be-low, she was dubbed accomplice.

Use of fiz/ttw expression for launching witchcraft accusationsagainst the affinal lineage is apparently not a speciality of Tabiki.THODEN VAN VELZEN informs me he witnessed about a dozencases of conflicts between affinal lineages over & which werebrought before the Gw GW oracle at Diitabiki in 1961 from thevillages of Malobi, Vandaki and Tsjontsjon. A full-blown 2Mw ac-cusation may pit one affinal lineage against the other, allowing anopportunity to express anger over issues which probably could notbe broached directly. (Thus, following on the coat-tails of the suc-cesful fi

1 8 DIANE VERNON

into Tabiki with a load of his benches, killing a child in yet anotherlineage segment.

CASE OF KAYSINA HI & PEDI II VS. DA BOOKOPALIAt the end of December 1976, Da Bookopali, who like so many

other Tabiki men spent most of the year working on the coast as amanual laborer, was returning home for the holidays. But he al-ready knew this home-coming wasn't something to look forwardto. In his absence, two spirit mediums had openly accused him ofbuying z/tttt to kill his fellow villagers.

Da Bookopali is a man in his late founies. He is a member of his mother's lineage, Kaysi-na III; his father belonged to Pedi I. About fifteen years ago, Bookopali set up housekeep-ing with Ma Bolon of Pedi II in what was for both of them a second marriage, and they hadthree children.

Bookopali is reputed for a sneaky disposition and a violent temper, and it is said peoplewere afraid of him and careful not to cross him. But if he handed out beatings, it seems hecollected them as well, and one of these is thought to have caused his failing eyesight.

For somewhere upward of twenty years, Bookopali had periodically lived and farmed in aregion called Gaa Kaba, where part of Kaysina III, of Pedi I, and of Amanta lineages havebush camps, and where Bookopali's parents and several of his real brothers and sisters resid-ed. Between 15 and 20 years ago, a witch accusation broke out between members of thesebush camps which involved a number of the protagonists of the 1976 fijw case. The hus-band of Bookopali's sister Atjalibaa was accused by another brother-in-law of having be-witched him. On the side of the accusers were Bookopali's uncles Papa Poku, Da Diiwan,and the now deceased Papa X. Although no one had died, and no oracle had spoken, the of-fended brother-in-law together with Papa X and Bookopali, tricked Atjalibaa's husband intocoming into their camp, then set upon him and beat him up. Bookopali followed up this firstattack with two more assaults, aided in one by Papa X. Papa X, was himself subsequently ac-cused of witchcraft against the daughter of another of Bookopali's sisters.

Over ten years ago, Bookopali's father died. Then a brother of Bookopali became ill inGaa Kaba, and was sent to the city for treatment, where he also died. Five years ago, Booko-pali's mother fell ill, and the family bush camp in Gaa Kaba began to break up. Bookopaliand several brothers went off to the coast to work, their sister Atjalibaa moved across riverwith her new husband; and Ma Bolon (Bookopali's wife) returned to Tabiki to cut fields. In1974-75, the grown son of Atjalibaa from her first marriage shot himself in despair overlosing his wife.

Sometime in the year 1976, Bookopali's retinal infection which Tabikans put down to athrashing he had received for playing with another man's wife, took a turn for the worse,and blindness set in. It was only later that the blindness was understood to have been causedby the &/au.

The first cry of alarm was sounded by Sa Mooite, a classificatory sister of Bookopali, whoafter two years of illness, went into trance in her bush camp home at Gaa Kaba, inSeptember 1976. Her ailment vanished and was replaced by an outspoken spirit claiming tobe a &. This raw ui'n// was tended to on the spot by the husband of Mooite's aunt, afew; from another village who often resides in Gaa Kaba. He did not censor the U'/B/;, nordid the Tabiki &/< when it was presented to them at the end of that month.

BAKUU 19

There it was seen by Sa Pikinsa of Pedi II before she returned to her own bush camp atAmpona Tapu. The following month Pikinsa herself was stricken with toothache, where-upon a second fij^au uraf; came into />fca and j4m/>w/ta. The prefered *a for this work are those 'who knowhow to fix &ua ' or those with K#Mntf, trying toconvince each of his innocence. Then, on January 7th, before alarge council and a huge gathering of villagers, Mooite revealed intrance that Bookopali had already killed seven people. None ofthese deaths was recent. The last Tabikan to have died was Atja-libaa's son, and the fiz^tttt was not responsible for that demise. Butnow a window on the past had been opened: one by one, deaths thathad not been explained could be blamed on the /. Further-more, alleged the spirit, Bookopali, not satisfied with those

2 0 DIANE VERNON

murders, had planned to kill Mooite, her brother, her sister, theiruncle Papa Poku, and one of Bookopali's own sisters. So far, noneof them was sick.

Bookopali had of course not been called to the council, nor did hejoin the audience, but his house was close enough for him to hear.Perhaps in despair, perhaps in hopes of some supernatural revenge,he tried to commit suicide by drinking vinegar. This merely addedto the conviction that he had a hard heart. After recovering, he wascalled before a small gathering of /

BAKUU 2 1

jump up man), Watf-mj&7ma/ (hanky-panky man or visitor), ACo/

2 2 DIANE VERNON

Ma Bolon, but the period of mourning for them had long been over. Much more dangerouswas Pikinsa's revelations that the one-night colic of Ba Motolu's baby was an attack ofBolon's Asiao. Ba Motolu flew into a rage, and it was fortunate that in keeping with the inhi-bition on violence, Pikinsa had chosen a moment for this disclosure as for the others when Bolon was away from the village. Bolon was convicted by the u

BAKUU 23

of a child from Pedi I, was attributed to it).Suddenly, on May 2, 1977, Sa Naami landed in Tabiki, and still in her city clothes, she

stalked into Pedi II, possessed by a vociferous fij^uu u/// which began to harangue MaBolon accusing her of further Bakuu cr;m. For while the New Years accusation had beenbreaking over the village, Naami had been with it in spirit: away in the coastal city, the samefjju which had sent spirits after Pikinsa and Mooite had sent another of its li'in// tohit Naami over the head, leaving her unconscious, with a gash in her scalp. Left to her owndevices, Naami found some commercial product which she rubbed on her skin in perhaps animpromptu imitation of the plant washing techniques of Djuka medecine, and when theburning subsided, the feufcau u/i// possessed her in trance. She had returned to the village tohave this new spirit attended to.

The reaction to this third a>& manifestation was general dismay. Two mediums had al-ready been recognized, one for each of the major Tabiki lineages: each had pointed out theculprit within her own quarter and had revealed past and prospective victims. The i*;// hadbeen properly attended to and propitiated and had now been integrated into the realm ofpositive religion, where their knowledge of evil made them specialists in the detection ofwitchcraft. There was no need for new witnesses Naami was flogging a dead horse.

The best she could manage was to rekindle hostility in a few women of her lineage seg-ment; her real sister who lived in her husband's quarter next door to Bookopali, and Pikinsaherself whose spirit immediately recognized Naami's as a younger brother and treated itas such, assuming the role of an unofficial & in response to Naami's needs.

In July, Bookopali returned from the hospital where he had gone in a vain attempt to findhelp for his eyes, and a few days later Naami and Pikinsa both in trance, led an attack on thescapegoat. Although the aggression was still made in the safety of daylight, they had chosena time when the village was practically deserted and the headman was away. This time, twoother women, one of them Naami's above-mentioned sister, joined the furies. An artery inBookopali's neck was severed. By a miracle of magic made on the spot by two Kaman//' me-diums of Kaysina III, the bleeding was stopped and the accused survived. Kabiten Akaapareturned in anger to upbraid the unruly spirits, and the attack was not repeated.

Now the violence of Naami's uncared for /*/ turned against her, tormenting her withvague complaints. By the New Year, her u^n/; was diagnosing as the cause of her 18 year-old-son's nervous disorder, the neglect it was shown. Both she and her husband applied toDa Iyemmi, who gave the boy a K2tfr/ spirit to protect him, but the aj< wanted no partof the new aau ;/; from the Bookopali &/ta. Koli, in trance, strode over toher uncle's door and bellowed out in fo/fcuu dialect. Bookopali invited the possessed inside.When she crossed his threshold, he turned the tables by launching an attack himself, bitingthe girl on the head, and tearing out tuffs of her hair. They were parted by a rush ofvillagers.

AFTERMATH FOR A SCAPEGOATBookopali had begun by losing his sight, which made him totally dependent on others, at

the same time that the accusation deprived him of all those on whom he might have depen-ded. Ma Bolon abandoned him at the outbreak of the trouble, trying in vain to save herselffrom a similar ostracism, but she continued to send him food by the children. All other ser-

24 DIANE VERNONvices were refused him except that of magic performed to save his life or a magical treat-ment which he paid for. He would sit in front of his house in hopes of visitors but the onlyones who stopped to chat were other-lineage people up from the city. Knowing himself un-welcome, he never visited anyone, but he carried on a vicarious social life by prowling oncat's feet and eavesdropping on others.

When yet a fourth Aiuu u/;/; came to molest him in the person of his niece, he tookmatters into his own hands. With no one else to speak for him, he requested permission toaddress an already assembled /e wV

/' fee people, about 50years ago by Papa Poku and Papa X. Yet, only part of this quarterever seems to have been involved: those descendents of two sisters(B + C) who have cut out their separate but neighboring bushcamps on the islands at Gaa Kaba.

o

o

B1

O A OPapa Poku

O AMooite Bookopali

Fig. 3. Skeleton genealogy of Kaysina 111 Makisitalaan

BAKUU 25

The primary mouthpiece of the accusation, Mooite, shares onebush camp there with two of Bookopali's 'future victims' herbrother and sister. The other people she named as menaced byiX/ww attack Papa Poku and Bookopali's sister, were also GaaKaba residents. Ma Bolon had only lately abandoned the fields sheand Bookopali planted there, and her fiz## is said to have attackedthe baby of Da Motolu, who spends the farming session in GaaKaba with his wife, Papa Poku's niece. The mother of this youngwoman has her own bush camp there, and is married to the &/'who washed Mooite's w/w/z'. Others, such as the lately possessedKoli, or deceased victims like Bookopali's brother, also lived there,and active behind-the-scene sponsors of the accusation such as DaIyeemi have personal interests in that area.

While people of other lineages farming there were passed over bythe oracle, all those of Kaysina HI (with the exception of one smallfamily) were implicated either accusing or accused or named asvictims or involved in the trimming and tutoring of new /;//, orbeing voluntarily or unwittingly assimilated to the new medium'sclientele.

Most of the population of Tabiki belong to one of the two majorlineages of Pedi and Kaysina: the first is the seat of secular power,the second the seat of oracular power in the form of a tribal god,and a continuing struggle for dominance is played out between thetwo. At the same time, much unites these rival groups member-ship in one clan of which Da Akaapa is the head, residence in onevillage, and above all the many marriages contracted between thesetwo lineages.

Judging by the list of people said to be victimized, the Bookopaliaccusation seems to lay particular stress on affinal links betweenPedi and Kaysina. Collaboration between the two lineages beganwith the naming of Bookopali's wife as the other half of an infernalcouple. Each of these 'witches' had also been a child of a marriagebetween the two lineages. Among those either threatened, posses-sed, or killed by the &z# spirits, the following are either off-springs of such marriages or have contracted one themselves, orboth:

26

child of

KoliMotolu's brotherBookopali's brotherAkaapa's sonPoku's son

DIANE VERNON

contracted

Mooite's sister

both

NaamiMotolu

4|

hOi-

ocyo

rO

I

T? r ? 4 9

* * ? 9

2 8 DIANE VERNON

At the same time, that the two lineages were cooperating in de-nouncing the guilty, however, Pedi II was subtly promoting a 'lessguilty than thou' version with Ma Bolon becoming an ever morewhite-washed accomplice, and the evil of Bookopali used as proof ofthe dubious morals of Kaysina people. Remarked one Pedi IImember: 'Makisitalan will break the village!'. Naami, who retur-ned to Tabiki railing at Bolon, had to be cued in. A month later,she decided that this classificatory sister was really innocent. WhilePedi II wanted to participate in the accusation, its naming of Bolonseems simply to have brought the danger of Bookopali nearer tohome, touching off persecutory feelings at that level of social struc-ture where VAN WETERING (1973) found them to be most inflam-mable: that matrisegment of daily contact which one Djuka womenreferred to as 'where one sweeps one's door sill'.

MEDIUMSWe have already seen that Mooite and Pikinsa, by assuming the

double identity of villagers victimized by the fiz/ attack and thepossessed spokesman of the 2z/ spirits pleading guilty to the cri-mes, created an open and shut case against the accused. But how-ever expedient such possession is for launching an accusation, it ap-pears to be the prerogative of those whose reputations can afford it:who are neither ^//ww nor religious specialists. Lzw/ww aresupposed to be personally under the protection of the great ances-tors, while spirit mediums are watched over by their w;/; whowould defend them against possession by a bewitching spirit. In allbut one case, Tabikans who had been possessed by or become me-diums to an y4w/)/ or a fl/ttw spirit had never known medium-ship before. (In a few cases, women were medium to both a be-witching Ampuku and a Papa spirit, but it was always the bewit-ching one which had come first).

The women possessed by the &/& uv// were able to assumeecstatic leadership of a public expression, but they remained depen-dent on the support of the &//'. Their licence to accuse could al-ways be called into question, as it almost was by Da Akaapa, who,at last, exasperated by the assaults on Bookopali (whose deathwould certainly bring in the police and jeopardize the headman'sexcellent relations with Diitabiki (THODEN VAN VELZEN, pers.

BAKUU 29

comm.), dropped his respectful appelations and referred to the me-diums as, '... little ladies who run around the village with u^;//screaming in their heads trying to kill people'.

LANTIObviously, since for once the headman neglected to silence the

uu//, the accusations of Mooite and Pikinsa were receiving prefer-ential support. Was the naming of Da Akaapa's son as former vic-tim and Da Iyeemi's wife as intended one supposed to invite or re-ward the cooperation of these important figures? Did Da Iyemmiuse his influence on his headman uncle (to whom he owes his posi-tion as &HW) to help his in-laws in Gaa Kaba, uncover a long-bre-wing suspicion? Certainly, he made his own contributions to theevidence if it is true that he went out one night in trance, possessedby his great ancestor spirit, to beat the flz/# off the roofs of themenaced Pedi II homes. At least, in a waking state, he emphaticallystated that Bookopali had bought fiz^tttt, and later, when Pikinsa'srevelations raised anger at Ma Bolon, that people '... should fightwith Bolon, make her see!'.

But other statesmen too, even from other lineages, made theircontributions. One bore witness to having actually caught sight ofthe /& itself sitting on Bookopali's table, while the guilty mantried to distract him from the evidence. And the day after Bookopa-li's pleas of innocence, both Da Akaapa and the ^ w of Kaysinavoiced their regret at the scapegoat's 'lack of cooperation' and 'in-ability to tell the story straight'.

Why was a witch accusation, which was so explosive that Booko-pali barely escaped being lynched, treated as something so respect-able by a village government concerned about keeping down violen-ce? Judging from the attention shown the first two mediums, it wasthe revelations of Mooite and Pikinsa that interested the &//'. Per-haps by proffering them the accusation was serving a very respect-able function.

THE ORACLEAlmost from the beginning, the accusation became an oracle, re-

viewing a backlog of tragedies: five deaths from the past were attri-buted to Bookopali's .&. All deaths and most illnesses are seen

3 0 DIANE VERNON

by Djuka as having a spirit cause. And the danger may cast a longshadow over the future: an avenging spirit will kill one lineagemember after another until it is propitiated.

Before 1972, when the new prophet Akalali put an end to thepractice, the cause of a demise used to be established in a last dialo-gue with the ghost of the deceased by carrying his corpse as anoracle. Now that post mortem interrogation is forbidden, if a spiri-tual diagnosis has been decided on as the cause of the terminal ill-ness, then it is put down as the cause of death. (Of the six deathswhich occurred in Tabiki from May 1977 to the end of the year,only two that of Atjalibaa and that of a young man stabbed in aknife fight in the city, could not immediately be accounted for).

Problems seem to arise most often in the case of death from acci-dents (such as the above), or from illnesses which evolve too quick-ly. But even in these cases, there is surreptitious speculation andconsultation of mediums until one day the death is spontaneouslyaccounted for by the oracle of a uvnl;.

Four of five deaths put down to the fiz had occurred since theban on corpse-carrying in 1972. (The one that happened prior tothis date was that of Bookopali's brother who died in the city, andwas not brought back for examination and burial). Two werecaused by accidents, two others by illness, in one case evolving rap-idly. I was unable to verify whether or not any of these had beendiagnosed earlier. Informants denied having 'heard what killedthem before'.

It seems likely that what the /a// was underwriting was a verypositive function of oracular autopsy: the evil /& spirits wererendering a traditional service in accounting for past deaths.

THE BAKUU AS A SYMBOLIn addition to this oracular use of the accusation, this first publi-

cized discovery of a fiz/e in their midst seems to have rallied thefears and moral indignation of Tabikans from every quarter againstan uncontrollable evil introduced from the outside. For during thecourse of the year other witch accusations were voiced: .A;>were sent against women, sickened them, possessed them, and werequietly washed; spirit mediums in trance saw and denouncedwitches; inter-lineage brawls over witchcraft took place; two con-

BAKUU 31

temporary deaths were attributed to the witchcraft of two living wo-men... but all of these were circumscribed events affecting a smallgroup, village headlines for a day. The Jz witchcraft of Booko-pali, although it began as an equally local affair within part of a lin-eage segment, whipped up anger and persecutory feelings in seg-ments with no victims to declare. An ever-multiplying number of

could be seen wandering about the village at night. 'Otz-don't know anything about flz/wa,' explained one woman,

'they too are afraid'.The very traditionalist Da Iyeemi took this opportunity to re-

mind people of the constant threat to the village posed by returningDjuka men who secreted these monstrous coastal weapons in theirluggage. Do such popular ZJz/## accusations as that against Booko-pali express the negative aspects of immigration and serve as sym-bolic demonstrations of what will happen to immigrant workerswho turn traitor to the society back home? 'If Bookopali boughtZJz## then let him leave the village', said the headman, 'let himgo live among the a&ztf!'.

As a a/

3 2 DIANE VERNON

BAKUU PROSPECTSHow important is the fiz/wtt pantheon in Tabiki and what are its

prospects for the future? In 1976, the situation there gave the cu-rious impression that in spirits fizyfcwtt Tabikans were starting fromscratch. The Zk/## of the fortune-hunting era have disappearedwithout a trace if ever they were there. One informant vaguely re-called that a long time ago, a man of Tabiki had protected his fieldswith a iz/#tt and that the theft of his bananas had brought it's spir-it down on them as a . But it didn't stay long. Apparently,since 1973, a new fiz/wa pantheon is building up, composed en-tirely of bewitching spirits.

Prior to the outbreak of the Bookopali case in October 1976, outof 73 spirits possessing Tabiki mediums (14), only four were fiz-

(or 5%), (as opposed to 20 KKWM//, 20 .fiz/w, 13 Foo&z, 16). By February 1978, ten ////' out of a new total of 82

(one medium died that year) were fiW or 12%.But how accurate a reflection of the fiz/ phenomenon do these

figures offer? While mediums of traditional spirits normally havetheir ///; tended to within tribal territory, where they are seen byfellow villagers and presented to the major village deity (Gedfeowja),

possession more frequently occurs in town, where the fiz-rather than the Aw/)ia is used to bewitch. When these are

small-time accusations between women in the city, the uu/; aretamed by an immigrant to/ there, and may not be seen in the tribalvillage for several years. This was true of all those fiztt w;/;which happened before 1976. Since New Years of both 1977 and1978, drew few Tabikans back to the native village, there may bemore ZJz/ uw?/; on the coast ones that did not make it homefor the holidays.

Furthermore, since z/tttt possession is essentially witch accusa-tion, it will result in mediumship only if the accusation meets withno objections on the part of the powers that be. If it does, then theflz/fcwtt uw?/;, which is evidence of witchcraft, may be denied itsidentity and passed off as something else, or be quietly exorcizedand replaced by something socially more acceptable. I witnessedone such metamorphosis of a fiz/ uw?/; and was told of others. Infact a close look at the histories of such spirits as Pa/w and Kama/;whose mediums are women, sometimes reveals that they were put

BAKUU 33

as protecting spirits after an original possession by a bewitchingAw/>a or fiz/tt.

I suspect then that the percentage of spontaneous . posses-sion in comparison to spontaneous possession by non-bewitchingspirits may favor the iztt pantheon more than these figuresshow.

If we look at the development that took place during the periodOctober 1976 to February 1978, the total of new spirits for thatperiod (counting those that first came and were identified and thosethat may have appeared before but were civilized at that time) is 20,and six of these were fizyfcww, or 30%. But if we ask which, of all thespirit categories produced the greatest number of new us/;/ in thatperiod, then it is the new pantheon that dominated the scene: 6 fiz-

, 4 KwdJ/, 4 Pa/w, 4 FOO^O, 2 Aw/>/w. (Two of the AT-i and one of the Pa/w were originally bewitching spirits, one of

which was a fiz/#).fiz/ttw mediumship seems to open doors to the same sort of

small-time magical-medical practice, which in Tabiki exemplifiesthe careers of mediums to bewitching i4w/> spirits. But the are-na of opportunity specifically open to fiz mediums is perhaps inffo# accusations not only the ones they trigger off but even inlater incoming ones where they are given an opportunity to speak.A properly trimmed Zk/# spirit is like a turn-coat which nowspies for the other side (i.e. the village). Furthermore, fiz me-diums support and provoke one another. It is possible that the exis-tence of a fiz pantheon in a village may indirectly stimulate newfiz# possession.

The logical relevance of ZJz for witch accusations betweenDjuka living on the coast; the greater outspokenness of the fiz/wwu/;// for major accusations within the tribal village, particularly be-tween it's competing affinal lineages; the anxiety over changing re-lations between Djuka in the context of a tempting, intimidating,threatening rapprochement to Western culture which may be ex-pressed in the nefarious &ztt these may all contribute to itspopularity. When it takes over functions such as diagnosis of pastdeaths (formerly under the auspice of the grave diggers), then itmay be ushered to the fore by the &//.

The Tabiki fo/#a pantheon is building up in an interim where

34 DIANE VERNON

the higher religious institutions are enjoying less influence: the re-tirement of the Gd G/ anti-witchcraft oracle; the aloofness ofTabiki to Akakali's replacement cult; the present neglect of the ma-jor oracle, Ge^eoj, whose licence to operate was the object of apolitical struggle for domination between the very two lineages Kaysina and Pedi which spent the year in collaboration and op-position over fiz# accusations.

While spontaneous 2Jz/# possession as an expression of perse-cution and aggression seems to have taken root in Bilo religion,treatment of it (mediumship or exorcism) may vary, and the extrafunctions (e.g. post mortem oracles) it opportunistically takes over,may eventually be more systematically handled by another institu-tion.

The emergence of a new cult may quickly impose new limita-tions on Ztt possession and rob it of the privileges it presentlyenjoys: those of permanent, respectable mediumship, and govern-ment recognition of its accusations.

NOTES

1.1 wish to thank JEAN HURAULT and BONNO THODEN VAN VELZEN for their valuablehelp and contributions and DANIEL DE COPPET for his criticism of an earlier draft.

2. By the term fej/utt I denote a type of spirit that is the object of worship of a spirit me-dium cult. These should be distinguished from a more common type of &: spirit,also known as ta/fctt .ran/ ('evil thing') and usually regarded as connected with bush spir-its in general and the .Am/>/fcu in particular (VAN LlER 1940: 191). Here 1 will refer tothis category of Aa/fcuu as 'bewitching Ampuku'. Such malevolent spirits torment theirvictims with illness, insanity or death. They are different from the 6auu I deal with inthat they fail to make the invaded persons speak out in coherent language. The fantasieswoven around them equally single them out as a different category (THODEN VAN VEL-ZEN, pers. comm). I have adopted the spelling used by LENOm rather than the moreusual &7/fc (current for other tribes and for the Opo Djuka) to conform with what seemsto be a local pronunciation. Mediums in trance use the coastal version a&.

3. Another visit from May 4 to June 1., 1979, allowed me to review the case described be-low at a later stage in its evolution.

4. The following is a summary using material from: DE GROOT, 1969; PRICE, 1973;THODEN VAN VELZEN, 1977 & 1978; VAN DER ELST, 1970; WOLBERS, (1861) 1952.

BAKUU 355. GREEN, for the Matawai; HERSKOVITS, 1936, for Paramaribo Creoles; LENOIR, 1973,

for the Paramacca; WOODING, 1972 for the Para. VAN LlER, 1940, mentions them asless well known among the Djuka than among the Paramacca. HURAULT found the Alu-ku knew of aaa but he saw no evidence of possession by them at the time (HURAULT,pers. comm).

6. Whites, also, are assumed to be past masters in & use. 'How could you never haveseen one?', retorted an informant, 'The streets in Holland must be teeming withthem!'.

7. WOODING (1972 b, pp. 195196) mentions actual wooden images being made amongthe Para.

8. The Paramaribo Creoles (HERSKOVITS, 1936), on the contrary, picture &uu as res-sembling a Bush Negro child.

9. A similar belief exists among the Creoles of Paramaribo, where the Qz,?ome (Boa tron-i/rrrfor) or J4O;TW (.Anatomiz) snake is said to be purchased and kept for 'luck'. This isa milder form of lucrative witchcraft than ownership of fijjrw, but with the same tragicending: it is the family of the owner that suffers, the snake growing jealous of the chil-dren, kills them (HERSKOVITS, 1936). Among the Djuka, no snake is bought: the Pa/)aspirits that ride on these snakes confer to the magician the knowledge of certain recipes(Papa ow) that draw wealth to the practitioner, with no sinister results. This method ofobtaining riches belongs entirely to the realm of good magic.

10. As originally described by VAN LlER (194f4), the &* doll had a deformed, hydroce-phalic head. This feature was absent from the 1976 visions, although sicknesses of thehead still tended to be associated with it.

11. This concentration of secular power in the smaller of the two major lineages (Pedi)should normally be off set by the power and privilege which accrue to the Kaysina lin-eage from its licence to operate the village oracle of Gerfeow.ru a separation of churchand state which is said to have been instituted at the founding of the present village ofTabiki. In the period under question, however, this cult was in a state of suspendedanimation partly because of the disputed inheritance of the priesthood, partly because ofconflicts with a rival village practicing this cult.

12. Religious specialists oizffM (medecine man), ur/;mjB (spirit mediums), and few;('boss', exorcist or tailor and tutor of spirits and initiator of their mediums) alsoenjoy free lance privileges. 0izma usually, but not necessarily, are also spirit me-diums, and derive their magical powers from their possessing spirit. They may, inaddition, be &/' if they know the technique for socializing one or more types of spirits.

13. Tabikans say that in the upper half of the tribe, Bj/tua spirits are exorcised, '... but itdoes no good they always return!'.

14. This count includes absent members of the Pedi clan who retain contact with the nativevillage and the few /ton/t/ (Djuka of other clans but who are permanent members of thevillage).

36 DIANE VERNON

REFERENCES

BEET, CHRIS DE & THODEN VAN VELZEN, H.U.E. 1977. BushNegro prophetic movements: religions of despair? 5/)'/o/ ^ 7W-, Lz'. Chicago: Aldine (pp.117-140).

, 1969b. Classificatory kinship and classificatory status: The CotticaDjuka of Surinam. Afa 4 (2): 236-249.

BAKUU 37

LENOIR, J.D., 1973. TAe Paramacca Maroo/zj: A .tfaa^ /' re%/'oai acca/-(;o. New York: New School for Social Research (doctoral thesis).

METRAUX, ALFRED, (1958) 1977. I* VWoa Haft/e. Paris: Gallimard.

PRICE, RICHARD, 1973a. Review of Charles Wooding, 1972./ 75 (6): 1884-1886.

, 1973b. Avenging Spirits and the structure of Saramaka lineages. fl//o/o>' o//?e/;-/'o. fjjyj /' /woar O / / J fa 5/. The Hague: Koninklijk Insti-tuut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 74 (pp. 215-233).

VAN DER ELST, DIRK HENDRIK, 1970. 77?e Ba.?/? Ne,?ro 7ne5 o/5an-o/w, 5oat ylwer/ca: J jjtei/r. Evanston: Northwestern University(doctoral thesis).

38 DIANE VERNON

VAN LlER, W.F., 1940. Aanteekeningen over het geestelijk leven en desamenleving der Djoeka's (Aukaner Boschnegers) in Suriname. B//