Rip Van Winkle in the Rainforest

Abstract This article reports on a several-week-long visit to Upper River Saamaka by two anthropologists who had been absent from the area for 45 years. They witnessed significant changes in transportation, communication, village layout, education, clothing, agriculture, ritual life, and sex roles. They also report on central government encroachment, illegal logging, Saamaka political resistance, and depopulation due to migration to the capital and to neighboring French Guiana.