Ndjuka wooden shrine near Marowijne River, Ampoma Tapu, Suriname, 1995.
Photograph by Thomas Polimé

"This prayer is good. This prayer makes children grow, makes them get big. Just the way the night and the day are fertile. God created them to make things grow, to make the earth fruitful. That's what this prayer says. That's what it’s about."

— Introduction to prayer in sacred language offered by Gaama Songo Aboikoni, paramount leader of the Saramaka Maroons, at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, Washington, D.C., 1992

Ndjuka /Aluku Maroon Human Life Cycle

According to Ndjuka and Aluku Maroons, human beings have an akaa (unchanging essential spirit), a soul, and a body. A person is born from the invisible world of the ancestors, grows from childhood into adulthood in the visible world of the living, grows old, dies, and returns to the status of ancestor. When a person has lived a good life, his or her soul returns to the visible world after death as a newborn. This process is known as nenseki (reincarnation).

The chart shows each of the three levels of existence in concentric circles.

• Inner circle = akaa (essential spirit)
• Middle circle = nenseki (ancestral soul in process of reincarnation)
• Outer circle = person in the life-cycle
• The upper half of the circle represents the visible world into which people are born and out of which they die.
• The lower half of the circle represents the invisible world inhabited by ancestors and spirits.

The two worlds co-exist but only ritual specialists (mediums) usually see and interact with the invisible world.

Courtesy of Thomas Polimé

                 Ndjuka ceremonial belt with cowrie shells.
                 Courtesy of Thomas Polimé

Ndjuka child’s ceremonial bracelet with Kongo mandjali (Papilionaceae) mixed with kaolin (white clay).
Courtesy of Thomas Polimé

Ndjuka shrine with flags, Diitabiki, Suriname, 1991.
Photograph by Diana Baird N’Diaye