Johannes King (born: Adiri circa 1830 - 24 October 1898), was the first

Maroon Maroon ( US/ UK , Australia ) is a brownish crimson color that takes its name from the French word ''marron'', or chestnut. "Marron" is also one of the French translations for "brown". According to multiple dictionaries, there are var ...

missionary, and the first important writer in

Sranan Tongo Sranan Tongo (also Sranantongo "Surinamese tongue," Sranan, Surinaams, Surinamese, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language that is spoken as a ''lingua franca'' by approximately 550,000 people in Suriname. Developed originally amo ...

. King belonged to the Matawai tribe, and performed his missionary activities for the

Moravian Church The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...

Biography

Adiri was born as a son of

granman Granman (Ndyuka language: ''gaanman'') is the title of the paramount chief of a Maroon (people), Maroon nation in Suriname and French Guiana. The Ndyuka people, Ndyuka, Saramaka, Matawai people, Matawai, Aluku, Paramaccan people, Paramaka and Kwint ...

(paramount chief) Kodjo of the Matawai, near the plantations of Haarlem and Maho in Suriname. Adiri was born and raised in a completely

illiterate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...

society. In 1852, Adiri moved to Maripaston. During this period, he fell ill, and the illness lasted many years. In 1855, Adiri started to receive

visions Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...

: a strange god pointed at an alien religion, told him to go to the city, and be

baptized Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

. Adiri went to

Paramaribo Paramaribo (; ; nicknamed Par'bo) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's ...

, where he met van Calker, who was the preacher at the Moravian Church. He didn't stay long, and returned to his village soon after. Adiri returned in 1860, and had taught himself to read by then. He had used an A.B.C. (

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

) book, and '' Singiboekoe'', a book with

psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

from the Moravian Church in Sranan Tongo. Once again he didn't stay long, but when he returned home, he started to build a church in Maripaston. In 1861, he returned to the city, was baptized, and changed his name to Johannes King.

Missionary

King first started to preach under his own people for which King was paid by the mission. King was briefly granman when his brother died, but opted to be solely a preacher. In 1864, he was sent to the Ndyuka for a dual purpose: The Moravian Church had up to then been unable to reach the Ndyuka, and the Matawai wanted to make a

peace treaty A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring ...

with the Ndyuka. In 1864, King published a book about the visit in

. The book is hard to read, because he uses an

autodidactic Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individua ...

spelling and often confuses ''a'' with ''h''. The original is archived by the Moravian Church in

Zeist Zeist () is the capital and largest town of the municipality of Zeist. The town is located in the Utrecht province of the Netherlands, east of the city of Utrecht. History The town of "Seist" was first mentioned in a charter in the year 83 ...

Author

During 1864 and 1865, King wrote and published over 1,000 pages on his visits to various tribes. His most important works are a 1868 book about the

religions Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, tran ...

and customs of the Maroons, the 1886 ''Skrekiboekoe'' (book of horrors), which deals with his visions, and a 1886 history of the Maroons. King also wrote ''dresibuku'', a medical book, but decided to keep it secret. The fast majority of his writing are archived by the Moravian Church in Zeist or

Herrnhut Herrnhut ( Sorbian: ''Ochranow''; cs, Ochranov) is an Upper Lusatian town in the Görlitz district in Saxony, Germany, known for the community of the Moravian Church established by Nicolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf in 1722. Geography It is ...

Legacy

On 29 May 1958, the Johannes King Hospital in Stoelmanseiland was named after Johannes King. In 1973, the dairies of Johannes King were published in Sranan Tongo as ''Life at Maripaston'' with summary in English by

Henri Frans de Ziel Henri Frans de Ziel (15 January 1916 – 3 February 1975), working under the pen name of Trefossa, was a neoromantic writer in Dutch and Sranan Tongo from Suriname. He is best known for the Sranan Tongo stanzas of Suriname's National Anthem. Bi ...

Notes

References

External links

Johannes King at Digital Library for Dutch Literature
(mainly in Dutch) {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Johannes 1830 births 1898 deaths Granman Matawai Moravian Church missionaries Surinamese male writers Writers in Sranan Tongo