A unique song from the eighteenth century has been found in the archive of the Amsterdam orphanage. It is written in Sranantongo – originally the language of the slaves brought to Suriname from Africa – and the content is quite explicit. No other erotic text in this language is known from the eighteenth century, so this find is a joyous response from science.
“Very special”, says Michiel van Kempen, professor by special appointment of Dutch-Caribbean Literature at the University of Amsterdam. “The erotic songs we know from Suriname are not older than the nineteenth century. This find is really a fluke.”
Scripture for whites
The song is written in Sranantongo, a Creole language that originated during the time of slavery in Suriname. “Sranantongo is a contact language that arose in a very short time. The slaves spoke this language among themselves and everyone else who had to do with them. Think of the plantation supervisors, but also clerks and missionaries. So the slaves didn't speak Dutch," explains Van Kempen.
Writing was mainly an occupation of the whites and the oldest written texts in Sranantongo were therefore made by whites. Clerks, for example, wrote down the statements of accused Creoles in Sranantongo in court. And clergymen who wanted to spread the faith wrote Bible texts in the language of the Creoles. “It was not until the nineteenth century that the first complete translation of the Bible into Sranantongo appeared.”
Erotic creole texts from the eighteenth century were hitherto unknown. Van Kempen:“We only knew work songs from the time of slavery. It may be that more erotic songs were not recorded because the people who could write them thought they were too outrageous. It's also really about flat folk songs. Folk tales are often very obscene in origin and then put into writing in the nineteenth century.”
“We do know erotic songs from later periods, but only because a bunch of American anthropologists recorded them in the 1930s. We call this erotic genre Lobi singi and the songs are mainly about the competition between lesbians, the mati. In these love songs, women scold each other because their girlfriend has found someone else. The phenomenon of love for women mainly occurred after the abolition of slavery. The men left for months to work in the rubber plantations in the interior. The women left behind in the city entered into erotic relationships with each other. This love for women therefore only occurred in the working class, where almost no men were present.”
Horny missionary
The newly discovered erotic song makes no bones about it. A man and a woman are socializing when they are seen by the singer of the song. He tells in the song what funny things he saw and then heard:the man in action could not satisfy the woman and that caused trouble. Who would have written such a song? Van Kempen:“We don't know. It is obvious that it is someone who enjoyed writing down what he heard. This is not a published text, but a handwritten draft. Maybe from a horny missionary, who knows.”
Sranantongo is a language with two qualities, according to Van Kempen:“On the one hand, it is very popular and direct, but on the other hand, it has great poetic qualities:a lot is said indirectly. This has to do with the time of slavery, when the slaves didn't want their masters to understand what they were saying. Their words had a veiled meaning and listeners who took the words literally struggled with that language. They didn't understand what was being said. Even if you know all the words, you still have to understand the meaning of the language, and that is difficult.”
The double meanings of words can also be found in the song, Van Kempen shows:“If you look at the third stanza, it literally says 'on the green she stretched out her hands'. That still sounds pretty sweet, as if the lady is sitting on the grass. The translation only says something completely different, namely:The woman rested bent over with her hands on the ground (while the man took her from behind). Two lines later it's about the man who will break his stuff. 'Boeltje' is a free translation. Literally it says 'stone' and of course that means his stiff."
The melody of the song is unknown. “At first glance, it seems to fit a melody that is still often sung at weddings today. All older Surinamese know this song, Me go bai wan kaw in other words:I am going to buy a cow. But this should be further explored.”
Lyrics
The original lyrics in Sranantongo (left) and a free translation (right) by Mark Ponte, Margot van den Berg, Gracia Blanker and Maikel Groenewoud.