CLAUDIO GROSSMAN: For another wife, would that be the result of the weight of the grandmother, or it would be proceeded by some type of collective decision-making procedure.

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RICHARD Price: A grandmother would not say that, such a decision would come out of a collective process, a public meeting of a number of people, who would discuss often over many days, the proper distribution, and its quite possible, that a particular wife, who was a more recent wife, might receive less of a particular amount for distribution, than a wife who had been married and who had been working with these relatives over many years. That’s the kind of thing that’s completely within the competence with the Saramaka customary law of this kinship group to decide.

CLAUDIO GROSSMAN: Why wouldn’t you? Let me ask you another thing. Maybe you don’t know this, but I will inform you about this. We requested that a special trust fund be created for children, for example. This is something, and there would see a difference. What do you think about that? Would be admissible, acceptable within the Saramaka culture? Would that be equivalent to raping their conviction, setting aside a trust fund for children, for example?

RICHARD Speed: I think it makes a great deal of sense, for the following reason. The men who died, who were killed, were providers for certain children.Continue reading→