Highly nutritious and easily carried, dokonu (corn meal wrapped and cooked in banana leaves) helped Maroons survive in the forest. It is served as a traditional meal at the annual Nanny Day celebration in Moore Town, Jamaica.

Man preparing dokonu at Nanny Day celebration, Moore Town, Jamaica, 1991.
Photograph by Diana Baird N’Diaye

Traditionally made as gifts or used at home or in rituals, bowls made out of calabash (a hard tree fruit) are a popular women’s art form. Although they may consult with men on patterns, women design and carve the bowls’ interiors using shards of glass. Carved calabashes sold as tourist art have become a new source of income for some Maroon communities. Carved calabashes, Suriname, 1997. Courtesy of Thomas Polimé

Maroons in Suriname and French Guiana prepare a variety of foods using plants and techniques learned from Native Americans, their African ancestors, and the coastal plantations.

Saramaka woman setting out afada, a dish made with peanuts, Asindóópo, Suriname, 1991.
Courtesy of Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution

Ndjuka woman preparing apodo, a dish made from the fruit of a pina palm tree, Diitabiki, Suriname, 1991.
Photograph by Diana Baird N’Diaye

" . . . We would pound corn in a huge mortar made from a tree trunk to prepare sufkee (suffki) and toli, our special dishes."

— Charles Emily Wilson, Seminole Maroon elder and community historian, Brackettville, Texas, 1992