A Language Carved in Wood
The tembe tradition of the Saramaka Maroons
Every line holds a name
Each paired hook maps a family's journey from the coastal plantations to the deep interior rivers.
Density is the devotion
The finest panels leave no exposed wood. Devotion is the carver filling every groove without remainder.
Three pigments, one earth
Red ochre, white kaolin, black soot — three colours ground by hand from the same riverbank earth.
Symmetry is not ornament
Bilateral balance mirrors the Maroon cosmology — the seen and unseen worlds held in equal carved weight.