Saamaka uwii: Saramaccan medical plant knowledge, practices and beliefs for local health care in Suriname

This thesis describes Saramaccan Maroon medicinal plant knowledge, practices and beliefs in relation to local health care, education and biocultural conservation. The Saramaccan ethno-medical system in the village Pikin Slee focused primarily on cure followed by health promotion, and disease prevention. People made a deliberated choice for traditional medicines, even though most health concerns could be treated in the village health center. Herbal bathing plays a significant role in providing local health care among Maroons. The geographical separation between the Saramaccan and Ndyuka Maroons have led to distinct plant use in their herbal bathing practices.Writing proper Saramaccan plant names and the translation of health issues from Saramaccan into Dutch is a challenge for pupils in Pikin Slee, indicating a gap between the official school curriculum (in Dutch), traditional knowledge and literacy in Saramaccan. The growing influence of Sranantongo interrupts the conservation of Saramaccan traditional ecological and cultural knowledge stored in plant names which are influenced by European, African and Indigenous languages. Central-African Bantu languages, especially Kikongo, contributed most to the names followed by West-African Kwa languages. As Saramaccan plant names store large amounts of traditional knowledge, they play an important role in the conservation of Saramaccan biocultural heritage.Fieldwork was funded by the STUNT-Beurs (University of Amsterdam), the Alberta Mennega Stichting, the Van Eeden Fonds and Stichting de Zaaier. Publication fees were kindly provided by Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Netherlands. These funding agencies were not involved in any aspect of the research preparation, collection of research data, nor this publication.LUMC / Geneeskund