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Transcription: [00:21:37]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
One of the things that adds to the man's prestige within his tribe is his wood carving ability. After making objects such as drums, paddles, and spears, he likes to adorn them with decorative designs. Here he is putting the final touches on a stool.

[00:21:52]
Women do domestic chores. Here, flour is being prepared for their bread. It comes, though, from a much more unusual source than our flour, as it's made from the deadly poisonous roots of the cassava plant.

[00:22:05]
First the poison is squeezed out. Then the root pounded and sifted many times. The extracted poison is enough to cause instant death. While I tasted the bread and am still here, but I can't help but wonder where the first taster is.

[00:22:22]
[[drumming introdcues & underscores lecture]] Towards dusk the savage rhythms of the jungle drums began to pound in our ears. We were to witness a Fire Dance - one of the weirdest exhibitions of Voodism to be seen - is performed as a certain part of the religious rite.

[00:22:48]
Frenzied with excitement, and as if possessed by spirits, they're able to go right into the hot blazing fire without any pain or bodily harm. Medical science has always been baffled by this supernatural display as there's no physical explanation for it at all. [[drumming continues louder]]

[00:23:53]
[[drumming softer, underscoring lecture]] As darkness crept over this uncanny spectacle, the Bush Negros continue their mysterious rite at the same wild pitch, long into the night. And we really felt as though we had witnessed a kind of sorcery and black magic taken right from the ancient heart of Africa. [[drumming louder & fade out]]

[00:24:23]
The Negros that did not escape into the bush country, remained as slaves. But once slavery was abolished they left plantations to live in town. And here in Paramaribo their descendants, the Creoles, present a most unusual sight.

[00:24:39]
These women are wearing the unique Kotomisi-- the traditional dress of the Creole women of Suriname found no where else in the world. They're really not this fat. Actually they're wearing more than fifteen petticoats. In fact, the name 'Kotomisi' means "petticoat woman". The dresses are made of from 25 to 30 yards of stiffly starched cotton with the hem alone measuring more than 5 yards.

[00:25:07]