The Mystery of Black Rice: food, medicinal and spiritual use of Oryza glaberrima by Maroons in Suriname and French Guyana

Abstract During plantation slavery, African rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.) was widely cultivated in the Americas but it was soon replaced by Asian rice (Oryza sativa L.). Maroons, descendants of Africans who escaped slavery in Suriname, are nowadays the only ones who cultivate African rice. They claim that their ancestors found it growing wild in a swamp owned by a forest spirit, but its specific use remained unclear. Genomic research linked this rice to an O. glaberrima variety in the Ivory Coast, but how did a fully domesticated African crop end up wild in an Amazonian swamp? Based on interviews with 99 Maroon farmers, of which 20% cultivated black rice, we describe its diverse uses in (ceremonial) food, offerings, spiritual medicine, and its role during funerals. Maroon's oral history accounts on the origin of black rice differ between and within communities: enslaved women brought it from Africa or plantations, runaways found it in the savanna during their escape, and ancestors encountered it in interior swamps. The ability of black rice to compete with weeds, grow on poor soil, its shattering seeds, and its visibility to birds explains how this African domesticate could become wild in the Amazonian forest. Migration to cities, gold mining, and evangelization may lead to the loss of black rice knowledge and practices. The multiple and sometimes contradicting stories about black rice have to do with the diverse ethnic and geographical backgrounds of the Africans who were brought to Suriname and their different histories with the crop after marronnage.