Of Vernacular Plant Names of Suriname
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Index of vernacular plant names of Suriname Charlotte I.E.A. van ’t Klooster Jan C. Lindeman Marion J. Jansen-Jacobs BLUMEA Supplement 15 NATIONAAL HERBARIUM NEDERLAND, Universiteit Leiden branch 2003 ISSN 0006-5196 ISBN 90-71236-55-2 BLUMEA Supplement 15 © 2003 Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, Universiteit Leiden branch No part of this publication, apart from bibliographic data and brief quotations in critical reviews, may be reproduced, re-recorded or published in any form, including print, photocopy, microform, electronic or electromagnetic record without written permission. PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Biologists working in the field of ethnobotany face many scientific obstacles when searching through literature for information. Efforts of the staff of the Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, Utrecht University branch (NHN-U), have led to the documentation of plant species of the Surinamese rain forest in taxonomic works such as the ‘Flora of Suriname’ and the ‘Flora of the Guianas’. However, vernacular plant names were not the highest priority in these projects and only a limited number were included. Although these floras contain a lot of information, vernacular plant information, important to ethnobotanists, is insufficiently documented for Suriname. While writing my MSc thesis at the NHN-U more information about vernacular plant names of Suriname turned up. During a period of almost 50 years, Dr. J.C. Lindeman documented vernacular plant names of Suriname in the field and from collection labels in the Herbarium of Utrecht. Up till now, only little has been published about vernacular plant names of Suriname. In 2001 the website: Vernacular names of Surinam woody plants, has been published on the internet by Dr. R.W. Den Outer (www.gcw.nl/books/2002_03/). This site contains information about Caribbean and Guianas woody plant names but herbs and collection numbers are missing. Still the data collected by Lindeman are of great importance as collection numbers are given when known and spellingcorrections for Sranan have been carried out. This book is an attempt to work out all information gathered in Suriname and recorded in Lindeman’s personal notebooks. This work is intended to be used by botanists, ethnobotanists, linguists, anthropologists, custom officers for controlling the export of plants from Suriname and of course by those people who are interested. This study will hopefully help to fill a significant gap in botanical, anthropological and Surinamese literature. It may also contribute to a better integration of different disciplines and even to a greater integration of western and traditional knowledge. As this book represents an attempt to work out old collected data, the authors are aware it may contain mistakes. As the plant names were collected by many different people in the field, there may be inconsistent spelling of vernacular plant names or even erroneous names. Still the authors are confident it can be of use to many people, and hope readers will notify them when errors are found. The authors welcome any comments. The publication of this book had been made possible by the financial support from the Alberta Men- nega Stichting, and with the support of His Royal Highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who has showed much commitment and dedication to the preservation of traditional knowledge in Suriname. Many other people contributed directly or indirectly to this work. First of all, the authors are very grateful for the help received from the people working at the Nationaal Herbarium Ned- erland, Utrecht University branch, especially Prof. dr. Paul Maas and Dr. Tinde van Andel for their comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Drs. Gea Zijlstra is thanked for her precise work in correcting the nomenclature and Hendrik Rypkema for his illustrations. For the linguistic and historical information we would like to thank the following specialists: Dr. Jacques Arends, Dr. Adrienne Bruyn, and Dr. Norval Smith (University of Amsterdam, Department of Theoretical Linguistics), Drs. Marga Werkhoven (Nationaal Herbarium Suriname) and Vinije Haabo (Saramaccan native) for their help with the Creole languages. We would also like to thank Dr. Berend Hoff (Department of General Linguistics, University of Leiden), and Ronald Kiban (Carib native) for their help with the Carib language and their time spent in correcting the spelling of the Carib plant names. Charlotte van ‘t Klooster Jan Lindeman Marion Jacobs-Jansen CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgements Chapter 1 — INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 – General introduction . 1 1.2 – European influences in the new world . 2 1.3 – Origin of Surinamese slaves . 4 1.4 – Maronage process in Suriname . 6 1.5 – From slavery to freedom to independence . 8 1.6 – From a Pidgin to a Creole language . 9 1.7 – Creole languages in Suriname . 10 1.7.1 – European influences on the Creole languages . 10 1.7.2 – African influences on the Creole languages . 12 Chapter 2 — BOTANY AND NATURE CONSERVATION IN SURINAME . 13 2.1 – Botanical expeditions in Suriname . 13 2.2 – Ethnobotany, a new field in research? . 14 2.3 – Ethnobotany in Suriname . 15 2.4 – Scientific nomenclature versus vernacular nomenclature . 17 2.5 – Biological and cultural conservation in Suriname . 17 Chapter 3 — METHODOLOGY . 19 3.1 – How to use this book . 19 3.2 – Languages in the indexes . 20 3.2.1 – Sranan . 21 3.2.2 – Maroon languages . 21 3.2.3 – Indigenous languages . 22 Chapter 4 — REFERENCES . 27 Chapter 5 — INDEXES . 31 5.1 – Abbreviations . 31 5.1.1 – List of abbreviations for languages used in the scientific index . 31 5.1.2 – List of plant collectors mentioned in Lindeman’s notebooks . 31 5.1.3 – List of abbreviations used to indicate different arboreta in Suriname . 32 5.2 – Scientific index . 33 5.3 – Vernacular index . 153 5.4 – Genus index . 315 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION The ‘Index of vernacular plant names of Suriname’ is based on data collected by Dr. J.C. Lindeman who worked on the flora and vegetation of Suriname at the Utrecht University branch of the Nationaal Herbarium Nederland (NHN-U). Data collected by Lindeman will be presented in this publication together with Saramaccan plant names collected by the first author in a Surinamese shop in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Van ‘t Klooster, 2000). The purpose of this study was to digitalize the information collected by Lindeman and make it accessible to a broader public. Therefore four different indexes have been made. The first index gives a list of abbreviations used for languages, different plant collectors and forest arboreta. The second index is based on scientific plant names categorized in alphabetic order by family, genus and species, which provides the reader information on the vernacular plant names known for that species. Herbarium collection numbers are given if known. The third index is based on vernacular plant names, categorized in alphabetic order with the corresponding plant species and family. finally, the fourth index will help the reader to find the family to which a genus belongs. Chapter 1 provides information on the history of Suriname. The influence of the Euro- peans in the New World will be considered in a brief survey of the history of Suriname in section 1.2. It becomes clear that Suriname became a melting pot of different cultures, brought from many countries to Suriname. As only two Indigenous (Amerindian) lan- guages and the various Creole languages were documented in Lindeman’s notebooks, no special attention is paid to the languages spoken by the people that were brought to Suriname after the abolition of slavery in 1863. Next to the Indigenous who have lived in Suriname for thousands of years, six Maroon or Bush negro tribes came into existence in the interior because of the period of slavery by the English and the Dutch. All these tribes speak their own language. To know more about the differences between these languages, especially the Maroon languages, and Sranan (the lingua franca of Suriname), we have to know how they developed into different languages and not into one. In section 1.3, attention is paid to the origin of the slaves who were brought to Suriname. How the different tribes came to existence is explained in section 1.4. Sec- tion 1.5 gives more information about immigrants (Javanese, Chinese e.g.) who were brought to Suriname after the abolition of slavery in 1863. In the context of this study, it is important to know more about the languages that were created under influence of the Europeans among the African slaves who remained in captivity and those who escaped. This will be discussed in section 1.6 and 1.7. As the notebooks of Lindeman contain no vernacular plant names used by the labourers who were brought to Suriname after slavery, only little information about their background will be given. Chapter 2 concentrates on botany and nature conservation in Suriname. A survey of the first botanical expeditions in Suriname is given in section 2.1. A growing number 2 Blumea Supplement 15 of ethnobotanists working with a multidisciplinary approach, try to combine botanical information with anthropological information in the inter-disciplinary field of ethno- botany. Researchers of different disciplines like botany, anthropology and linguistics realize that their work often comprises more than one discipline, especially when work- ing with tribal communities. The question whether ethnobotany is really a new field of science will be outlined in section 2.2 and elaborated for the situation in Suriname today (section 2.3). This research is put in a broader context in section 2.4, which elaborates on biological and cultural conservation in Suriname. Chapter 3 explains the methodology followed in this study and gives some practical information for the user. Details will be given about the languages from which data are presented. For each language an explanation is given of how the rough material from Lindeman has been worked out and standardized.