Suspected Gods: Spirit Possession, Performance, and Social Relations in Multi-Ethnic Suriname.

Abstract

This dissertation describes how contemporary Afro- and Indo-Caribbean communities use oracular spirit possession to construct distinct sensibilities of social relation I label coalition and encompassment in ethnically plural, post-colonial Suriname. Afro-Surinamese Ndyuka Maroons and Indo-Guyanese/Surinamese Hindus differently employ oracular possession to diagnose the hidden causes of misfortune and restore correct relations between people, gods, and spirits. I argue that, for both populations, how gods and spirits become materially present in ritual interaction provides knowledge of the genuine ontological content of their social relations. By making people’s daily struggles with sickness and other problems into signs of the relations they embody, Hindu and Ndyuka oracles instill their patients and devotees with distinctive forms of awareness about who they are and how they should be. This dissertation examines both how oracular possession accomplishes this, and explores the often-paradoxical consequences these different relational sensibilities have for wider Surinamese society.