Ms. Alida Pageant – Free At Last in Suriname, South AmericaRead Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/globe02/samerica/suriname/freedom/freedom.html
Before a slave woman ran away into jungle from an eighteenth-century Suriname sugar plantation, she wove rice into her hair so that she would have something to plant. Under her breasts and her skirts she hid a piece of cloth, a kitchen knife, some thread or a spoon -anything of practical use that she could successfully carry away into an unknown new life fraught with uncertainty and danger. (Photo above: Miss Alida 2003 is Joan Dogojo.)
This was a time referred to by historians as "the golden age of Suriname" because of wealth exported in form of sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco and timber. Plantation life under Dutch colonial rule was hideous for black men, women, and children. The Dutch were such cruel slave masters that, to keep their own slaves inline, American planters threatened them with sale to a Dutchman. Slaves who fled into jungle were known as Maroons, from French word marronage, or runaway.
Slavery was abolished in Suriname in 1863. Today, on July 1, descendents of these Maroons celebrate their independence. This day of dancing, eating, parading and dressing in traditional koto, is called Keti Koti, from Sranan Tongo words for "cut chains".
The koto is a voluminous form of dress designed by slave women to hide their figures from attention of lustful white planters. A wide tube of cotton fabric is hardened with starch made from casaba root. It is lowered over head, and gathered under breasts where it is tied. The portion of fabric above tie is rolled down towards waist. Sometimes additional gathered cloth is worn under back of skirt. Over shoulders is worn a short cape, tied in front. Matching fabric - anisa - is tied around head in various styles, sometimes signifying a message or personal statement. A woman wearing such a koto dress is referred to as a "koto misi".