Keti Koti

The festival

"Keti Koti" — "the chain is cut off", in sranan tongo. Every July 1, Suriname commemorates the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands on July 1, 1863 — a freedom that remained in part formal until 1873, after ten years of forced "trust" on plantations. On a holiday since 1955, the feast — officially Dag der Vrijheden, Day of Freedoms — opens from June 30th to the evening by Kabraneti, the night of the ancestors of the Winti religion.

In Paramaribo, sheaves were laid in front of the statue of Kwakoe, the free slave breaking his irons, inaugurated in 1963 for the centenary (Kwakoe means "Wednesday": July 1, 1863 was one). Then came Bigi Spikri, the "great mirror": the parade in bright traditional clothes, in memory of the liberated who, in 1863, crossed the city in their finest clothes to see themselves — finally — in the shop windows.