Another of Blake's engravings in 
Stedman 's narrative depicts the 
whipping of a female slave. Stedman, 
a soldier who fought rebel slaves, 
wrote sensitively about slaves, their 
masters, and the Maroons. 
uals are trained to be artists, producing 
and selling sculptures, carvings, and 
woven textiles. (In some African soci- 
eties the role of critic is also a recog- 
nized specialization.) Suriname Ma- 
roons, however, expect all adults to be 
active artists and assertive critics. 
Children are fitted into this world of 
artistic production, performance, and 
connoisseurship from a very early age. 
Regardless of individual temperament, 
they all need the skills and aesthetic 
framework that will enable them to 
participate fully in Maroon life. From 
the time children can stand, they are 
frequently and enthusiastically encour- 
aged to dance to the rhythm of hand- 
clapping or thigh slapping. Six-year-old 
girls begin to learn the principles of nar- 
row-strip textile composition by fash- 
ioning three-piece aprons out of scraps 
of cloth too small for other uses, and 
boys carve crude wooden objects, such 
as combs and small paddles, at an 
equally early age. 
A significant aspect of Maroon art- 
istry is the central role it plays in social 
institutions. In discussing art with us, 
Maroons very often made reference to 
the social uses of the objects — most fre- 
quently enumerating the decorated 
objects that would be presented in par- 
ticular situations, such as the rites for 
newborns and adolescents, funeral 
ceremonies, and the celebration of a 
man’s return from an extended trip to 
coastal Suriname. People rarely dis- 
cussed particular woodcarvings with- 
out referring not only to the artist but 
also to the woman for whom the wood- 
carving was made and the details of the 
couple’s relationship at the moment 
each piece was given. Just as dance, 
This interior openwork door was 
carved by a Saramaka man about 
1930. Maroon architectural decoration 
includes carving, painting, and wood 
inlays. Often, the entire faqade of a 
house becomes a work of art. 
buckets, trade cotton, bottles, lanterns, 
and so on — have formed a substantial 
contribution to the aesthetic life of Su- 
riname Maroon societies since the very 
earliest days of their formation. The 
men who buy these objects at the end of 
lengthy stints as wage laborers outside 
the tribal territories (in coastal Suri- 
name, French Guiana, and elsewhere) 
select their purchases very carefully. In 
addition to basic utilitarian features, 
the different perfumes of soaps, the 
slightly varying finishes and propor- 
tions of tin lanterns, the colors of differ- 
ent cloths, the fringed edgings on 
cotton hammocks, and the curve of the 
handles on aluminum pots are all sub- 
jected to scrutiny. Once brought back 
to the home villages and distributed to 
wives and kinsmen, the chosen articles 
undergo the same kind of exacting eval- 
uation. The most successful purchases 
are displayed with pride, serve as the in- 
spiration for popular songs, and are un- 
derstood to reflect the care and 
aesthetic sense of the man who bought 
them. Many of these objects are then 
further embellished in the villages; for 
example, metal spoons from French 
Guiana may be elaborately incised with 
designs found also in local woodcarv- 
ings, and pots are often marked with 
simple carvings or decorated with red 
tape. 
Besides their variety, the arts of the 
Suriname Maroons are unusual in the 
extent to which they have traditionally 
been practiced by the entire population. 
For example, all men carve a wide 
range of objects as gifts for women — 
from canoes and house fronts to combs 
and food stirrers — and all women pro- 
duce elaborate patchwork and embroi- 
dered textiles to be worn by men. This 
is in decided contrast to many African 
societies, where only certain individ- 
58 
