Maroon women still grow rice varieties named after their ancestors who hid seeds in their hair when they escaped slavery in Suriname

Given the few written documents left behind by those who escaped slavery, the analysis of African agency in the transfer of crops and knowledge in the successful establishment of Maroon communities benefits from other disciplines, such as oral history, ethnobotany and linguistics. Here we report the histories of several enslaved women, who escaped in the early periods of slave rebellion in Suriname. They played a crucial role in ensuring food security for their runaway communities by bringing rice seeds hidden in their hair. We combined information from ethnobotanical surveys, Maroon oral history, archival documents and published accounts to show how Maroon farmers safeguard their agricultural diversity and cultural heritage by cultivating rice varieties that still carry the names of their female ancestors who took along these seeds during their flight to freedom. We trace the routes of the Saramaccan ancestors Sééi, Yaya and Paánza, Tjowa of the Matawai, Sapali, Ana and Bapi of the Aucans, and describe the rice varieties named after them. The legends of these female ancestors acknowledge the importance of women in Maroon survival. Maroon women’s agricultural knowledge probably contains much more neglected oral history on how their ancestors obtained food crops from plantations or Amerindians.