In the Shadow of the Tiger: The Amerindians of Suriname - Softcover

There may have been as many as twenty distinct Amerindian groups, speaking different languages, on Surinamese soil before the final settlement of the Europeans there in the 1650s, from which time on Amerindian life would change forever. While Suriname, for historical reasons, counts as a Caribbean country, the Amerindian peoples have a distinctly Amazonian culture, one in which the human and the spirit world are intricately connected. Transformations of form from spirit to human or to animal abound, different levels of realities co-exist. Mediation between these worlds is the task of the shaman.

This book not only offers a panorama view of the rainforest of Suriname, giving the reader a glimpse of the Amerindian world of Suriname, but also factual up-to-date information on the eight remaining Amerindian communities of Suriname, some six of which are small and little-known ethnic groups living deep in the interior of the country.

EITHNE B. CARLIN was born and raised in Northern Ireland. She studied at Trinity College Dublin and received her Ph.D. in Linguistics in 1993 from the University of Cologne, Germany, with a thesis on So, a moribund language of Uganda. She has been doing research on the Cariban and Arawakan languages of the Guianas, in particular those of Suriname, since 1996. She currently holds a tenured position in the Department of Languages and Cultures of Native America, in the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, the Netherlands
DIEDERIK VAN GOETHEM studied Photography at the Academie voor Kunst en Vormgeving in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. He has held several exhibitions and has worked on various projects. One important theme in his work is landscape. Van Goethem has published photo books on the Biesbosch and Waddenzee nature reserves in the Netherlands.