Brokoday in Gunzi: Dance for the dead

"Would you like some rum with that bread?"--Borgi at 8 am

A brokoday is a Saramaccan funeral where the village remembers the person's life by staying up all night, drinking rum, playing music and dancing. This brokoday was for a young girl, a relative of one of the woman in Gunzi, who lived and died in French Guiana. Brokodays are celebrated on different occassions after the person dies
--days, weeks, and finally months after the person has died.
The last leg usually celebrated months after the person has died is called a limba uwii (cleaning hair) which is a traditional ceremony to remember the dead's spirit and drive any angry spirits out of the village. In this case, just weeks after the person had died (instead of months) we held the limba uwii. I believe this happened because the person died in French Guiana.

The preparations for the ceremony began about 3 weeks before the actual event. One afternoon I passed the village community center and noticed the guys hanging out skinning animal hides to put on their drum sets. A few days later, I got a preview of the Gunzi drumming band called Tei Wei Sponsor. They're good drummers but their lyrics on some of the songs are comical. In one song, the lead singer calls out, "I go to the store to buy butter, flour and salt!" And then everyone else in the band repeats that line. And of course, any good party needs food. So as forementioned in another blog I went along with most of the guys in the village for the fishing trip (ndeku). And a few other guys went out hunting and one of them shot a bush pig.


Saturday, December 18, 2010: Brokoday. I was awoken at 7 am by the knocking of the village bell, "gbeingbein". I arrived at the meeting house of a dead basia about 30 minutes and was courtesously on time. The morning began with prayer, the Captain sitting in the middle of the line of men, and Max, our spiritual leader for the week, sitting infront of them. The Captain said a few words asking for good fortune and then Max said a prayer to the Gods and poured libations of rum and soda out on the ground. A few minutes later, around 8 am, we were drinking the rum. 90% palum rum: Good morning, World! While we were drinking the rum, two guys walked out of the house holding a metal box. After opening the box, they began distributing bandja kotos, hand stitched traditional tops, that belonged to Basia Sumalu. Every man at the morning tuwe dan (throw away rum) prayer got a bandja koto, including myself. The women complemented how well the piece fit me. I liked it and thought it was strangely coincidental that Basiapai inherited the clothing of the Basia Sumalu.

In the afternoon, after the village had cleared the brush and weeds in the worshipping area, we sat down and did another tuwe dan, more rum! Finally, as night fell the bands and the food made their first appearances. Learning from my last brokoday, I sought out the food early and scored some rice and chicken from the women who cooked. Around 10 pm, the first band went on. Three bands played that night, including Gunzi's Tei Wei Sponsor who I recorded and played on the radio station the following night. The most comical part of the night occurred during one song, where the band repeatedly sang "lala cassava" which means grate cassava. And so, I got to witness my first "lala cassava" dance. This will probably only be appreciated by previous Peace Corps Suriname volunteers. I was laughing hysterically as 20 Saramaccans were doing their best dancing immitation of grating cassava. It's like their equivalent of the chicken dance. After getting in a little dancing with a few 50 year old ladies, I finally crashed at 4 am.

That morning I woke and helped the women crack some peanuts for the tuwe nyanyan (throw away food) ceremony later in the day. At a tuwe nyanyan a lot of food is prepared and mixed together--rice, peanut flavored rice, fish, meat and fish sauce. Two handfuls of food are thrown on the ground for the deceased's spirit. Then, the leader of the ceremony, Max, takes the food with two hands and places it in another person's hands if they forgot to bring dishes. So I got the food in my hands--rice, fish and pig mixed with a peanut sauce. And I ate the food right out of my hands like a little kid probably much to the amusement of my village. The ceremony concluded with 3 gun shots and the crowd dispersed.