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PLANTS, PROPERTY AND TRADEamong the Trio and Wayana

of southern Suriname

Marc Brightman, postdoctoral research fellow,

Muse du Quai Branly, Paris

Abstract: Tis paper considers the trade of plant knowledgeamong southern Surinamese Amerindians. An international NGO(Amazon Conservation eam) specialising in the preservation of eth-nobotanical knowledge employs rio and Wayana shamans to treatlocal people and record their treatments for the NGOs archives. Te

politics and practices involved are complex: rio and Wayana regard knowledge as being of socially extraneous origin, and do notclaim exclusive ownership of it, although they do see knowledge asexchangeable; moreover the remi songs which are seen as containingthe true curative power are not recorded by the NGO. Objectionsto the project come from the perspectives of local individuals whodo not benet directly, and of Western actors sceptical about theeventual legal ownership and benet sharing of potential nancially

protable knowledge. But the ethical issues vary according to the perspective of the actor: although indigenous actors understand themercantile rationality of the project on its own terms, and accept thecoexistence of parallel types of relationship with nature, they privi-lege a view which focuses on the advantages of trade rather than thetransfer of intellectual property.

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IntroductionPlants are important to humans because of the material benets

they offer, as sources of numerous types of product such as foods,medicines, clothing, cosmetics and building materials. When therelationship between plants and humans is binary, as it is, at least inmaterial terms, in much of traditional everyday Amerindian prac-tice, then it can be studied and analysed in terms of Amerindiancosmology and practice. However, it is now common for plantsand plant knowledge to be traded between Amerindians and non-

Amerindians. Tis has led some authors to focus on the need toprotect Amerindian knowledge using Western instruments of intel-lectual property (Posey & Duteld 1996). In these circumstances,

Amerindian and non-Amerindian actors differing understandingsof both plants and the transactions in which they are involved raiseimportant questions. While Amerindian conceptual systems have

been studied in their own right, and the problems of Western ap-propriation of indigenous knowledge have been studied in terms of Western legal instruments and philosophical categories, there is aneed to focus on the meeting point between these two elds: whatdoes Western trade look like from an Amerindian perspective? Tisraises questions about the differing forms of property that may befound in Amerindian and Western contexts: what is consideredscarce and valuable by the actors involved in these inter-culturaltransactions, and in what sense are items owned? Tere have beenno previous coherent attempts to dene indigenous Amazonianforms of property,1 and the discussion of trade in the followingparagraphs will therefore lay the groundwork for further theoreti-cal development in this area. Te main question to be considered

with regard to property is this: anthropology has dened propertyas relations between persons with regard to things (Hann 1998);

1 Except for Brightman 2007, chapter 2.


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PLAN S, PROPER Y AND RADE 159

but in Amazonia it is very difficult to distinguish persons fromthings. Most resources come from plants or animals, and manyspecies of fauna and ora are said to have souls, which tend to bedened as a form of humanity (Descola 1986:119ff.). Personhoodis also shared by all such species, and is itself regarded as limited:the death of one person signies the birth of another, and vice-versa, albeit of differing species (Vilaa 2002). If property exists in

Amazonia (and most anthropologists have written as though it did

not), it must therefore in some sense be regarded as relations be-tween persons with regard to persons . It is against this backgroundthat the trade of plants should be examined.

Among the rio, Wayana and Akuriyo of southern Surinameand French Guiana, trade of various kinds is important both as oneof the characteristic activities of a leader, and as one of the mainforms of contact with outsiders. While plants and plant knowledgeare commonly exchanged between different Amerindian groups,interaction and trade with non-Amerindians is far more recent,and is conducted in signicantly different ways. I will focus on myexperience in the primarily rio village of pu, and for the sake ofsimplicity I will refer to the people as rio, although some of the ac-tors involved are in fact Wayana or Akuriyo. In rio accounts of thepast, including life histories and informal narratives, most of whatis instantly recognisable to a Westerner as historical involves con-

tact with non-Amerindians (White people or Creoles). Although Ithink this recognition results from the non-Amerindian observersidentication of him- or herself with other non-Amerindian his-torical actors, it is true that the rios recent sustained contact withnon-Amerindians has a special place in local narratives.2 What re-lationships with non-Amerindians have in common is that they

2 It is worth noting that this is not because Amerindians give a special place

to modernity, but rather because they regard non-Amerindians as particu-larly fertile forms of alterity and sources of knowledge.


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are primarily trade relationships. However, the rio also make sig-nicant distinctions between different kinds of non-Amerindians,such as mekoro (Maroons), pananakiri (urban Creole, Javanese,Hindustani and White people), and karaiwa (Brazilians). In thischapter I would like to compare the historical relationships betweenthe rio and two categories of non-Amerindians: the Maroons andthe urban representatives of a conservation NGO called AmazonConservation eam.

1.Te rioTe rio live mostly on the upper apanahoni and Sipaliwini

rivers in Suriname and on the Paru de Oeste river in Brazil. Teyare Carib speakers, though many of them speak more than onelanguage, including other Amerindian languages (such as Wayanaand Waiwai), Surinamese Creole, Portuguese, French and Dutch.Tey live mostly from swidden horticulture, gathering, hunting andshing, but are also engaged on various social levels in the exchangeof objects, including commercially produced food, sometimes asgifts, sometimes through barter, and sometimes for cash, depend-ing on the relationship between the exchanging individuals. Sincethe 1950s they have received education and sustained contact fortrade and work on projects of various kinds with Western society,

at rst mainly through missionary organizations, and more recentlythrough state and non-governmental agencies.

Tis chapter will focus upon their relationship with one NGO,but this should be seen in the context of a longer history of trade rela-tionships with a variety of different actors. A number of authors have

written about the vast trading networks that have existed in differentforms across the Guianas region (e.g. Tomas 1972; Butt Colson

1973; Mansutti 1986), and these authors agree that at the basis ofthese networks in the past were trade specialists who cultivated and


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maintained a large number of relationships with distant persons, us-ing shamanic knowledge to protect themselves from the dangers thatthis involved. Each of these relationships operated on an individualbasis, and did not rely on a formal alliance between villages or othercollective bodies, and nor did it necessarily involve marriage.

For the rio, a trading partner is called jipawana , and for theSurinamese rio the most typical and exemplary manifestation ofthe -ipawana was the Maroon.3 From some time soon after theirescape from Dutch plantations in the 17th and 18th centuries untilthe arrival of North American missionaries among the rio some50 years ago, Maroons were the rios principal source of manu-factured goods (which the Maroons captured in raids or barteredfrom the Dutch, British and French): they traded objects such asaxes, machetes and glass beads for the rios hunting dogs and otherpets, and basketry. Te rio sometimes illustrate their view of this

relationship by a myth, according to which a rio man accidentallymade the rst Maroon by piercing a proto-Maroon spirits bottom,and thus giving him an anus; at rst this killed him, but he wasresuscitated when the rio made a ute from one of his bones.4 Tis myth can be read as a condensation of the rios gift to theMaroons of the knowledge that made them into human beings: itis possible that ancestors of the contemporary rio of today once

taught the Maroons how to make gardens and otherwise live inand from the forest. Whether this is literally true or not, the riostill say that the Maroons do not know how to prepare maniocproperly, and they maintain this mythic representation of them ashuman only thanks to the rio, suggesting that the latter continue

3 Although all Maroons are known asmekoro in rio, the rio mostly traded with Ndjuka, the group whose territory lies nearest to their own.

4 Tis myth, told to me by Ksi in 2004, is also recorded in Koelewijn &Rivire 1987.


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to regard themselves as morally superior. Te Maroons greater ac-cess to the highly valued metal goods of European colonies is thuscompensated by a more profound sense of proper moral conductand substance perceived by the rio as unique to themselves.

Many older rio men remember how they looked after theirtrading partners as though they were kin, feeding them and lodg-ing them, and my host in pu, Ksi, told me how his relationship

with me reminded him in this respect of his Maroon-ipawana from long ago; the comparison was of course also inspired by myrole as a provider of objects. But it seems to me that the com-parison draws attention to a unique claim of the Maroons to beingtrue -ipawana in a way in which Amerindian trading partners werenot. Tis is because, at least in theory, marriage with a Maroon isnot considered possible. Te way in which socially distant personsare made safe is through domestication and familiarisation, andfor this reason trading partners are addressed and treated as kin.However, the exchange of persons, in the form of marriage, is riskyand complicated: the danger of non-reciprocity is of an entirelydifferent order from that involved with trade. If Maroon tradingpartners cannot become in-laws, then the dissolution of affinity inthe rios relationship with them is less ambiguous. 5

Since the arrival of missionaries, NGOs and the state, manu-factured objects have multiplied among the rio and money hasbecome habitually used. Craft objects and bush meat are sold in

5 It is important to note that the rio take an ambivalent view of their rela-It is important to note that the rio take an ambivalent view of their rela-tionships with jipawana . Te risk involved in dealing with outsiders (whichis primarily regarded as of a spiritual nature by the rio themselves) remainsattached despite the protective use of ctional kin terms. o analyse theserelationships that seem to transcend distinctions between consanguinity

and affinity in terms of friendship (Santos Granero 2007) is a distortionof what are, in reality, often rawly self-serving political relations.


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the city for cash. Relationships with these various urban or Westerntypes of actor have largely replaced those with Maroons, but it isstriking that they are similarly thought of and enacted as personalrelationships with individuals, although in most cases there is muchless emphasis on the element of feeding and nurture. In fact, thebureaucratic nature of some of these new forms of trade relation-ship means that in such cases the cultivation of personal relation-ships, which was and remains valued for its own sake, is scarcelyallowed to take place. Tis is what I would like to examine in rela-tion to the case of the trade in plant knowledge with the North

American NGO, Amazon Conservation eam (AC ).

2. History of relations with AC AC was created in the mid-1990s by the ethnobotanist Mark

Plotkin as an offshoot of Conservation International. It functionsas a charity, claiming to promote the mutual benet of biodiversity,health and culture, and works in various locations in Suriname,Brazil and Colombia. It was originally intended to create its ownrevenue through the patenting of medicines based on bioprospect-ing, through a company called Shaman Pharmaceuticals. Te com-pany, founded on the premise of prot sharing with source com-munities, failed to market any new products and went bankrupt

(Clapp and Crook 2002), and Plotkin renounced the principle ofbioprospecting as ineffectual and detrimental to fundraising be-cause of its bad image. Indeed, I have heard rumours, both in theGuiana region and in Europe, that Plotkin is a biopirate, althoughthese never amount to more than vague accusations, lacking evenanecdotal substance. However, such rumours are fuelled by the his-tories of real but unrelated cases: Amerindians across the region

have heard of the infamous case of biopiracy among the Wapishanaof south-western Guyana: in the early 1990s Conrad Gorinsky pat-


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ented Rupununine, an antibiotic derived from the seeds of thegreenheart tree,6 and Cunaniol,7 a neuromuscular stimulant fromthe leaves of the barbasco bush, although both patents were revisedfollowing a legal battle.8 In addition to this, the Protestant mis-sionaries who operate sporadically among the Surinamese rio see

AC as a threat to their evangelisation project, and have activelyspread rather less credible rumours that AC are Moslems, whichaccording to the world-view they promote, is the strongest kind ofdemonisation although this has not really affected relations be-tween AC and the rio, who are far from being passive consumersof missionary rhetoric.

Te agship project of AC is the Shamans Apprentice pro-gramme, which is based on the creation of a structure for the pres-ervation of indigenous knowledge: the NGO nances a traditionalmedicine clinic to run parallel to the conventional medicine clinic

in the village, and pays a number of local people with a reputationfor especially rich knowledge of plant medicine to work in the clinicon a permanent basis, providing cures free of charge to anybody

who wishes; these healers are officially called shamans by the NGOin its promotional literature. Attached to each clinic is a school, alsorunning parallel to the conventional school, in which the healers areexpected to teach local children about plant medicine. In my expe-

rience the clinic works very well, the shamans run it to a regulartimetable, and people frequently come there to be treated. On theother hand, I very rarely saw the school in operation. In the clinic,the shamans record the symptoms and treatment of each case, andan AC representative comes to the village every few months touse the record as an eliciting device, taking details and samples of

6 Ocotea rodiaei

7 Clibadium sylvestre 8 http://nationalzoo.si.edu/publications/zoogoer/2002/5/raiders.cfm


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any new treatments. When I asked AC representatives what theydo with the plant knowledge they collect, they told me that they

just store it, although they may do tests on it, and the possibilityof patenting and marketing is not theoretically excluded, althoughthe intellectual property and proceeds would, it seems, be sharedby the source community. Te rio themselves vaguely suspect thatby taking plant specimens the AC workers will somehow makelarge amounts of money from the sale of the specimens themselves,but they do not express concern about the transfer of knowledge;they assume that it is instead the material specimens that are ofvalue to AC . Te explanation for this seems to lie not in a lack ofunderstanding that knowledge has value in its own right, but in theplacing of different values on different kinds of knowledge. Afterall, most treatments are accompanied by the singing of spirit songsor remi , and it is in the ability to sing these correctly that the truly

important and powerful knowledge is believed by the rio to lie. Infact, the heart of the matter appears to lie deeper than this, in a sha-manic ability to see and inuence the spirits of the healing plants.In both cases, knowledge is not so much an abstract piece of infor-mation, as a skill: a concrete and demonstrable ability to perform atechnique. Although these are esoteric forms of knowledge, the rio

would not necessarily refuse to teach theremi songs to those who

wished to know them; on the contrary, I have frequently been toldhow regrettable it is that so few people wish to learn about this kindof ancient peoples knowledge.

3. ypes and values of relations It is interesting to compare the rios relationship with the

Maroons and their relationship with AC . Firstly, there are sev-

eral similarities. From the rios point of view, both are trade rela-tionships with outsiders who come to the village to obtain certain


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things which depend on rio specialist knowledge: the Maroons wanted dogs and basketry, which the rio are still experts in train-ing and making, whereas AC wants plant knowledge. In bothcases, the outsider is non-Amerindian, and therefore will not intheory marry a local person.

However there are also several differences: the most impor-tant of these is that the AC workers do not practise commensal-ity with their rio informants; they do not spend long periods oftime with them, and scarcely interact with them other than on arelatively formal, information-gathering and administrative basis.Moreover, the AC workers see themselves as representatives of anabstract collectivity (an organization), whereas the rio interact

with them as individuals. Perhaps for these reasons, the rio use aformal and abrupt mode of speech to address them. Tey do this inSranan ongo (Surinamese Creole), as no AC workers speak rio,and some also have to use a translator to communicate in Sranan.

Although it is in Sranan ongo, the abrupt, aggressive speech usedin negotiations with AC is reminiscent in tone of the strongspeech used in the past by leaders to negotiate with potentiallydangerous outsiders (Rivire 1971; Brightman 2007:184-89).9

4. Perspectivism and political economy of knowledge Te different points of view of the different actors in trade re-

lationships can be understood in terms of a modied version ofViveiros de Castros theory of Amerindian perspectivism (1998).Te bureaucratic nature of the NGOs mode of operation preserves

9 Te Maroons used to communicate with the rio in a dedicated tradelanguage, known as rio-Ndjuka Pidgin (Carlin & Arends 2002: 25). Itseems likely that this could also take on a strong form in cases where the

interlocutors did not know each other well; such is evidently the case in thesample provided by Carlin (loc. cit.).


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the other, and also by analysing theremi chants used during thepreparation of plant medicines, more still could be revealed. Fornow, I can conclude that trade of plants and plant knowledge hasvery different meanings when seen from different cultural perspec-tives. Specic concern with plants and plant knowledge stems part-ly from Western preoccupations with biodiversity and the controlof scarce resources in a nite global physical environment (Ingold2000; Lovelock 1979). As this concern is part of the motive forcefor the existence of the trade in plants and plant knowledge, itshould also be seen as something that is not shared by all partiesinvolved in the transactions that result. Te rio see things differ-ently, as I have shown, and from their point of view, this differ-ence represents a form of continuity when seen in the context of

rio myth and history. It can be seen as an example of the dual-ism in perpetual disequilibrium that Lvi-Strauss has argued tobe characteristic of indigenous American mythology (Lvi-Strauss1991: 316): the Maroons are reduced in myth to dependency fortheir very humanity upon the rio, and their gratitude is portrayedas leading them to give the rio large amounts of valuable tradeitems in return for what the rio see as relatively worthless things.

o an even greater extent, the rio preserve the disequilibrium oftheir relationship with AC by taking what they desire from them

in return for what they see as relatively worthless knowledge. Itis true that the rio can adopt the classicatory systems of ACin order to interact with them the existence of plural classica-tory systems poses fewer problems for them than it does for theNGO representatives. Tis recalls questions to which Lenaerts hasrecently drawn attention (2006): the difficulty of reconciliationbetween situational and taxonomic classication systems only ex-

ists from the point of view of the latter. But classication is notthe objective that interests the rio. Tey value the presence of


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AC because they see them as fullling the same social role as theMaroons once did: that of non-marriageable trading partner (a role

whose interest lies in its transcendence of the problematic distinc-tion between consanguinity and affinity). Because of this, trade inplants does not hold a special place in rio history as they see it;instead, plants and plant knowledge are among many other ordi-nary rio products demanded by outsiders in return for things the

rio desire: they should therefore be seen alongside baskets, dogsand other traditional trade items. Although trade is partly moti-vated by sociability (scarcity is often even feigned or exaggerated tofoster social relations), it is nevertheless based on the differing rela-tions of possession of objects, skills and knowledge between actors.In this context, there can be little question that it is legitimate tospeak of property in Amazonian societies a fact which becomesclearer still when regarded in the context of inter-ethnic exchanges.

However, the precise denition of the peculiar nature of propertyin Amazonia, where distinctions between things and persons are farfrom clear, remains to be set out.

Acknowledgements Tis article is a version of a paper presented in Brussels at

CEISAL 2007 and in Oxford at the 2007 workshop of LowlandSouth Americanist anthropologists in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Iam grateful for the useful comments of participants at both events,and to the organisers for inviting me. Vanessa Grotti read and gaveme important comments on drafts. Tanks are also due to thestaff of AC , both in pu and in Paramaribo, and to the villagersof pu for their kind hospitality. Te material presented here isbased upon data gathered during my doctoral research, funded by

the ESRC, the Ling Roth fund, St. Johns College, Cambridge andthe Crowther Beynon fund.


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