Aluku

The Aluku or Boni is the name of a Maroon ethnic group living mainly on the riverbank in Maripasoula, southwest French Guiana, and the eponymous term for their language, which has more than 5,000 speakers. They are mostly descended from former slaves (rebels) from Suriname Paramaribo, who escaped and fought for freedom, then later found peace. The language is a creole of English and other influences. It is similar to the languages spoken by the Paramaccan and Kwinti or the Jamaican Patois.

The Aluku the word is pronounced haloukou, are a legendary ethnic group in French Guiana originally from Suriname descendants of African slaves from majorities of Gold Cost (present Ghana), also known as rebels or Bushinengué (bush negro), also called Maroons, who escaped from Dutch plantations in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, today Suriname is the former colony of the english then of the Dutch at last. They speak a variant of the language Aluku, and the Ndjuka Paramaka. Before the aluku, other groups of slaves escaped: the first slaves are those who will compose the Saramaca, the second group Ndjuka. sometime after the Ndjuka The Aluku or also called Boni. Boni is a name taken from one of their former notorious leader Bokilifu Boni, some think he was a mulatto slave. Sinking, slowly, in the Amazonian forest, they finally settled in the end of the eighteenth century along side the riverbanks tributary of Lawa Maroni, now forming the border between French Guiana and Suriname . As to the mixing between different clan, they formed a new ethnic group. The struggles for freedom against the Dutch troops and also against the Ndjuka and the Saramaca almost extinguished them. Now feuding brothers living farther north, created a sense of belonging to the same people living in either one side or the other of the River Today border. It is similar to the languages spoken by the Pamaka and Ndjuka.

In the late eighteenth centuries the Aluku occupied the region of today Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, Apatou, Grand-Santi and the largest fraction of the territory still occupied called Fochi-ké (First Cry)better known as Aluku is located in the region of Maripasoula, consisting of municipalities and city of Maripasoula and the capital city of Papaïchton and his traditional villages ,Kormontibo, Assissi, Loca, Tabiki, and Agoodé in French Guiana and Cottica, Suriname. Another part, far downstream lies near the mouth of the river with city of Apatou and Maiman. There is also a very large population Aluku in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni,Cayenne Matoury,and Kourou. Traditionally, Aluku sustained itself, living in gathering, hunting, fishing and nomadic culture far from their homes. However, taken together, they seem to have passed the point of no return to society of consumption, the market economy and modernity. Many bonuses are hired as drivers of river boats (pirogues) by the Army, in the 9th RIMa. According to Bernard Delpech, in Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, No. 182: they undergo the "destabilization of the basic traditional material, cultural transformation, altering the rules of collective life"

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