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Maroon Culture, Maroon Language

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... a witness to slaves being punished in this way' [18th cent. visitor to Suriname] ... Suriname - Saramacca / Bush Negros. Jamaica Leeward and Windward ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Maroon Culture, Maroon Language


1
Maroon Culture, Maroon Language
  • Nicole Scott

2
Aims
  • To discuss the impact of separation on culture
    and language
  • To ascertain why maroon communities adopted
    Creole Languages.

3
Issues to be considered
  • - What is marronage? Who is involved in the
    process (marronage of salt water slaves vs.
    acculturated slaves and Creole slaves
  • - Rate of marronage and nature of marronage
    (petit Marronage vs. grand Marronage)
  • - Extent of contacts between maroon communities
    and plantations
  • - Ethnic and linguistic homogeneity within the
    maroon population

4
Issues to be considered contd
  • Extent of contacts between maroon communities
    and plantations.
  • Ethnic and linguistic homogeneity within the
    maroon population

5
Issues to be considered cont
  • Stability of maroon communities (related to
    efforts made by colonial administration to hunt
    down maroons, in turn related to the resources
    which planters were willing or forced to commit
    to these efforts)

6
What is the impact of separation on language and
culture?
  • To discuss we need to become aware of the history
    of the maroons.

7
History of the Maroons
  • Maroons formed one of the oldest free black
    societies in the new world.
  • How?

8
History of the Maroons
  • Africans were brought to the Caribbean under
    different European authorities to work on sugar
    plantations.
  • Maroon communities were formed by runaways from
    the plantations.

9
History of the Maroons contd
  • The new societies were -
  • tiny bands that survived less than a year
  • powerful states encompassing thousands of
    members. These larger communities survived for
    generations and even into the twenty first
    century.

10
History of the Maroons contd
  • The English word maroon like the French
    marron comes from the Spanish word Cimarron

11
History of the Maroons contd
  • Maroons are characterized by their history of
    resistance.
  • Revolts in slave factories of West Africa.
  • Mutinies during the middle passage
  • Organized rebellions
  • Day to day resistance subtle but systematic
    acts of sabotage.

12
History of the Maroons contd
  • Wilderness setting of early New World Plantations
    made marronage and the existence of organized
    maroon communities an ever-present reality

13
History of the Maroons contd
  • Today their descendants form semi-independent
    enclaves in several parts of the Caribbean.
  • They remain proud of their maroon origins
  • They remain faithful to unique cultural traditions

14
History of the Maroons contd
  • Marronage two types
  • Petit marronage repetitive or periodic truancy
    with temporary goals such as visiting a relative
    or lover on a neighbouring plantation.
  • Grand marronage individual fugitives banding
    together to create independent communities of
    their own.

15
History of Maroons contd
  • Grand marronage was a chronic plague in the
    plantations. It posed military threats and
    economic threats.
  • Harsh penalties were often imposed

16
History of Maroons contd
  • If a slave runs away into the forest in order to
    avoid work for a few weeks, upon his being
    captured his Achilles tendon is removed for the
    first offence, while for a second offencehis
    right leg is amputated in order to stop his
    running away I myself am a witness to slaves
    being punished in this way 18th cent. visitor
    to Suriname
  • Castration, slowly roasted to death etc.

17
History of the Maroons contd
  • To be viable maroon communities had to be almost
    inaccessible.
  • Villages typically located in inhospitable out-
    of -the- way areas.
  • Jamaica Cockpit Country (deep canyons,
    limestone sinkholes, water and good soil scarce
  • Guianas - impenetrable jungles

18
History contd
  • Locales often inhospitable for troops and
    original runaways.
  • the harsh natural environments of early
    communities at first presented terrifying
    obstacles and it was only with a great deal of
    suffering and by bringing to bear the full range
    of their collective cultural experience and
    creativity that adaptation was finally achieved.

19
History contd
  • Alienation
  • Lack of adequate resources
  • Few tools (hoes, axes, guns)

20
History contd
  • Some maroon communities in the Caribbean
  • Cuba
  • Hispaniola
  • French Guyana
  • Suriname - Saramacca / Bush Negros
  • Jamaica Leeward and Windward
  • Leeward (Trelawny Town, Accompong)
  • Windward (Scotts Hall, Charles Town, Nanny Town,
    Moore Town and adjacent villages)

21
History contd
  • Economic adaptation They succeeded in
  • Horticulture
  • Manoic (cassava)
  • Yams
  • Sweet potatoes (other root crops)
  • Bananas
  • Plantains
  • Dry rice
  • Maize, ground nuts, squash, beans, sugar cane,
    vegetables, tobacco cotton.

22
History contd
  • Hunting
  • Fishing
  • Some areas did not achieve this degree of
    economic independence or were uninterested in
    seeking instead they lived directly off
    plantation society

23
History contd
  • Maroons remained unable to manufacture certain
    essential items (guns, tools, pots cloth). This
    kept these societies unavoidably dependent on the
    very plantation societies from which they were
    trying to isolate themselves.
  • Internal organization assured absolute loyalty
    of its members. (Loyalty, women etc)
  • E.g. desertion punishable by death.

24
History contd
  • The least acculturated slaves were among those
    most prone to marronage (escaped within the first
    hour/days of arrival in groups).
  • An unusually high proportion of Creoles and
    highly acculturated African-born slaves ran off.

25
History contd
  • Typical community composed of
  • Africans (literally just off the ship middle
    aged men). Highly acculturated Africans.
  • Unskilled plantation slaves born in Africa but
    who lived for years on the plantation bulk of
    the maroon community embittered slaves.
  • Creoles strong ideological commitments against
    the system of slavery

26
History contd
  • Contributions to culture and language was from
    newly arrived Africans, who represented a variety
    of languages and cultures, as well as by long
    term African born slaves and Creoles with a wide
    range of individual adjustments to slavery,
    orientations to reality and ways of handling
    problems.

27
History contd
  • They shared however a recently forged
    Afro-American culture and a strong ideological
    commitment to things which were African.
  • Environment alien and hostile but the maroons
    were equipped to deal with the alienation and
    hostility. Africans in the Caribbean who at first
    often shared little more than a common continent
    of origin and the experience of enslavement
    developed distinctly Afro-American ways with life
    from the very beginning.

28
History contd
  • Maroons drew on their diverse African heritages
    in building their cultures. Unlike other
    Afro-Americans who were unable to pass on
    integrated patterns of traditional culture,
    maroons could and did look to Africa for
    deep-level organizational principles relating to
    cultural realms e.g. naming children, systems of
    justice

29
History contd
  • Practices from different areas were incorporated
    more or less harmoniously into new developing
    systems in the Caribbean.
  • Maroon cultures contain a number of direct
    continuities from particular tribes e.g. military
    techniques, recipes for warding off sorcery
    (usually found throughout the Caribbean)

30
History contd
  • Physical isolation
  • Marronage created a context in which Africans
    communicated largely with Africans.
  • Isolation encouraged the development of a
    distinct culture and language(s).
  • Similarity in purpose survival outside of the
    jurisdiction of Europeansencouraged linguistic
    similarity

31
A look at Jamaica
  • The Jamaican Maroons
  • Focus on Moore Town
  • There are a number of complex linguistic
    phenomena closely tied to the ceremonial sphere
    in the community.
  • Basis of linguistic complexity - Kromanti
    ceremonies center around the possession of
    participants by ancestral spirits.
  • Ancestors have their own form of speech,
    different from that of living maroons.

32
A Look at Jamaica
  • Kromanti Play must involve only the language of
    the living but that of the dead as well.
  • Language of the living, normal discourse
    Jamaican Creole
  • Language of ancestors form of Jamaican Creole
    but sharply different from the most basilectal
    form of JC. Unintelligible to non maroons and
    those unfamiliar with Kromanti Play

33
A Look at Moore Town contd
  • Living speak to each other during Kromanti play
    in JC
  • Address those in possession deep talk (so
    visiting ancestors will understand)
  • Possessed addressing unpossessed or possessed use
    MSL
  • Kromanti used to communicated with the earliest
    ancestors, many of whom were born in Africa.

34
  • Characteristics of Deep Language
  • Vowel Epithesis e.g. waka walk
  • Liquids e.g. pre place
  • Metathesis of Liquids
  • Vowel nasalization e.g. grafa grandfather
  • Na verb to be, locative preposition
  • Verbal markers
  • Interrogatives and personal pronouns

35
Conclusion
  • With a rare freedom to extrapolate African ideas
    and adapt them to changing circumstances, maroon
    groups include, what are in many respects both
    the most meaningful African and the most truly
    alive of all Afro-American cultures.
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