The Mother-Daughter Ajé Relationship in ToniMorrison's Beloved

Introduction

Toni Morrison has often expressed disappointment with crifi-cal analyses of her art. In an interview with Thomas LeClair

she said, "I have yet to read crificism that understands my workor is prepared to understand it. I don't care if the critic likes ordislikes it. I would just like to feel less isolated. It's like having alinguist who doesn't understand your language tell you whatyou're saying" (128). To my reasoning, Morrison is calling for ananalysis Üiat complements the art, one that is grounded in theartisf s culture, language, worldview, and milieu. My goal withthis essay is to attempt to address Morrison's critical challenge byusing an Africana theoretical perspective centered on a forcecalled Ajé to interpret the intricacies of the mother-daughter rela-tionship in Beloved.

Ajé is a Yoruba word and concept that describes a spiritualforce that is thought to be inherent in Africana vvomen; addition-ally, spiritually empowered humans are called Ajé. The statelyand reserved women of Aji are feared and revered in Yorubasociety. Commorüy and erroneously defined as witches. Ajé, areastrally-inclined human beings who enforce earthly and cosmiclaws, and they keep society balanced by ensuring that humanbeings follow those laws or are punished for their transgressions.These women, honored as "our mothers" {àwon lyá wa), "mymother" (îyà mt), and the elders of the night, are recognized as theowners and controllers of everything on Earth (Drewal andDrewal 7). Àjé's suzerainty comes from the fact that it is consid-ered the origin of all earthly existence, and women of Ajé areeuphemistically called "Earth" {ayé).

Odùduwà, the tutelary Ôrisà (Select Head) of Àjt is heraldedas the "Womb of Creation" (Fatunmbi 85) and is symbolized bythe life-giving pot of origins and also the "wicked bag" or earthentomb in which all life forms find eternal rest and also regenera-tion. Àjéj the "daughters" of Odùduwà, are said to oversee cre-ation and destrucfion, divination, healing, and the power of theword. Civen its female ownership and administration, it is fittingthat Àjé's terrestrial source of birth, actualization, and marufesta-tion is the womb. Owners of Ajé are said to control reproductiveorgans, and they are bonded through the cosmic power and thelife-giving force of menstrual blood. Importantly, Aji can begenetically passed from mother to child.

Ajé "sister systems" are found throughout Africa, and Ajéalso survived the Middle Passage to exert marked influence onneo-African communifies. However, while a Yoruba proverb

Teresa N. Washington isAssociate Professor ofEnglish at Grambling StateUniversity. This article isbased on research that aisoyieided Washington's essayin The Literary Griot 13.1&2(Spring/Fall 2001 ) and herbooi<, Our Mothers, OurPowers, Our Texts:Manifestations of Ajé inAfricana Literature (indianaUP, 2005).

African American Review, Volume 39, Numbers 1-2© 2005 Teresa N. Washington 171

asserts, "Kàkà ko san lára ajé ó nbi ornoobínrin jó eye, wá nyi lu eye" ["Instead ofthe Ajé changing for the better, she con-tinues to have more daughters, pro-ducing more and more 'birds' "](Lawal 34), Africana literature is notoverly reflective of the mother-daugh-ter Ajé relationship. Most writersdepict Ajé as a controlling matriarchwho uses her power, forcefully or gen-tly, to guide her family and often thecommunity. Another depiction is thatof the young Ajé who is misunderstoodby a mother who denies or is incog-nizant of her daughter's force. In thiscase, it is often a surrogate mother Ajéwho guides the young woman towardsself-actualization. This surrogacy isapparent in Indigo and Aunt Haydee'srelationship in Ntozake Shange's novelSassafi-ass, Cypress, & Indigo; inPeaches's connection to Maggie in ToniCade Bambara's short story "Maggie ofthe Green Bottles"; and to a more intri-cate extent, in Shug Avery's mentoringof the adult Celie in Alice Walker's TheColor Purple.

Narrative/protagonist control alsoaffects concurrent mother-daughter Ajéinteractions. To forestall full conflictbetween the mother and daughter,many works depict a mother Ajé whois nearing death or has a waning forcewhile the daughter's Ajé is latent, as isthe case with Janie and Nanny in TheirEyes Were Watching Cod. If both womenare simultaneously active, they usuallyfind separate spheres of existence andexpression, as is apparent in AmosTutuola's My Life in the Bush ofChosts,in which an uninitiated Ajé daughterflees her initiated Ajé parents and livesalone honing her force (114-18). Also inToni Morrison's Sula, emergent AjéSula Peace returns to Medallion toplace her grandmother and communitymatriarch Ajé into the Sunnydale nurs-ing home (94). Sula irütiates a changingof the guard of Àjt by removing Evafrom the sphere of influence and inter-action, Sula is free to realize and savorher personal and textual climaxes. Likemost Africana textual communities.Medallion, the setting of Sula, is not

large enough for two concurrentlyactive Aj¿ but there are texts that dealwith this powerful confluence offorces.

Mother-Daughter ÀJé's LiteraryLineage

To craft fiction in which there aretwo simultaneously active Ajé is

to create a work humming with thelayering and unveiling of indivisibleparadoxical complexities. When Ajé ispassed genetically and amalgamatesspiritually and physically, the result ismothers and daughters enmeshed in aweb of creation and destruction, loveand hate, silence and signification.Although this study's focus isMorrison's Beloved, to clarify the intri-cacies of the mother-daughter Ajé rela-tionship, I will frame my analysis with-in a brief discussion of two other worksof lineage Ajé: Audre Lorde's "bio-mythography" Zami: A New Spelling ofMy Name and Jamaica Kincaid's shortstory, "My Mother." These three worksare linked in their interpretation of therole of the father in the mother-daugh-ter Ajé relationship and in their explo-ration of sacred space.

Ajé is a woman-owned andwoman-administered force but, reflect-in̂ g the structure of Yoruba cosmology.Ajé is a force of balance based on com-plementary pairs. The male aspect isessential to Ajé) and many males havethis power and exercise it. However, inZami, "My Mother," and Beloved, thefathers and father figures are dead, notmentioned, or exiled from the sphereof spiritual interaction. In "MyMother," no father is mentioned, andin Beloved, Halle, Sethe's husband andthe father of her children, is largelyirrelevant to the primary action. Even ifa father figure is present, as with PaulD in Beloved, he is pushed out of thesphere of interaction so that the lineageAjé can define themselves for andagainst themselves. While the removal

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of the male aspect from the space ofinteractions may be a commentary onthe horrific struggles Africana menfaced in lands riddled with slavery,neo-slavery, and colonization, thesethree texts intimate that a larger cosmicagenda is at work. Within the familyunit the father occupies a position ofindisputable relevance—even in hisabsence. However, in the mother-daughter Ajé relationship, the father isnecessarily relegated to the outside.

Zami gives the clearest articulationof the role of the father in the mother-daughter Ajé relationship. In Lorde'stext we find the male force essential tocreation but irrelevant, and possibly animpediment, to full spiritual expan-sion. Lineage Ajé finds its apex in amatrilineal trinity: "I have felt the age-old triangle of mother father and child,with the 'I' at its eternal core, elongateand flatten out into the elegantlystrong triad of grandmother motherand daughter, with the 'I' moving backand forth flowing in either or bothdirections as needed" (Lorde 7). AsLorde describes a movement from aone-dimensional transference to a uni-fied multidimensional spiritual trinityof Ajé, the triangle of origins, in whichthe father is indispensable, becomes aseamless matrix of Mother Power thatimparts articulation, recognition ofshared identity, and the ability to expe-rience the individual wealth of Ajé con-current to that of the group.

In addition to patriarchal absence,these women of Ajé navigate through acharged space that alternately symbol-izes death and destruction, on the onehand, and creative and spiritual devel-opment, on the other hand. In Zami,the narrator describes the way hermother Linda, "a very powerfulwoman" and a "commander," uses herAjé to redefine destructive concepts—and to infuse them with power—forthe sake of her and her progeny's sur-vival: "My mother's words teachingme all manner of wily and diversion-ary defenses learned from the whiteman's tongue, from out of the mouth ofher father. She had to use these defens-

es, and had survived by them, and hadalso died by them a little.... All thecolors change and become each other,merge and separate, flow into rain-bows and nooses" (Lorde 58).

While Linda's struggles giveAudre the skills to survive, the sourceof Linda and Audre's power lies not inthe master's tools but in the Mother'sText. Lorde writes, "I grew Black as myneed for life, for affirmation, for love,for sharing—copying from my motherwhat was in her, unfulfilled. I grewBlack as Seboulisa, who I was to find inthe cool mud halls of Abomey severallifetimes later—and, as alone" (58).Linda's seemingly blank pages bear thefaded ink of the Book of Destiny (Fa),as penned by Seboulisa, CreatorMother and "Great determiner of des-tiny" (Gaba 79).̂

Lorde, as black as ink and filledwith signifying properties, uses Zamito consecrate a curvilinear space ofjuba, bom of spirit, flesh, and text:"Ma-Liz, DeLois, Louise Briscoe, AuntAnni, Linda, and Geneviève; MawuLisa,thunder, sky, sun, the great mother of usall; and Afrekete, her youngest daughter,the mischievous linguist, trickster, best-beloved, whom we must all become" (255,emphasis in the original). At the con-clusion of Zami, as foreshadowed in thepreface, Lorde's matrix of Ajé is bound-less and ever-welcoming of evolvedfriends, ancestors, and kin. At the cen-ter of the matrix is the deity Afrekete,the cosmic, textual, and physical moth-er, who, laughing at the nooses andcrying through the rainbows, emergesfrom the ink as an original reflection ofthe Africana woman's Self.

The unnamed characters ofKincaid's "My Mother" navigatethrough a charged space that morphsfrom brackish pond to impenetrabledarkness to ocean. The mother initiatesher daughter into the force of Ajé byproving that space to be not a void butthe expansiveness of Odùduwà (theÔrîs,à of creative and biological ori-gins). The mother extracts educationaland transformational tools fromOdùduwà's bottomless pot, and she

THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER Aj¿ RELATIONSHIP IN TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED 173

shares her finds with her progeny. Forexample, when the daughter sits on hermother's bed "trying to get a goodlook" at herself in a completely darkroom, the mother lights candles, and,by doing so, teaches her daughterabout their multi-tiered powers of sig-nification: "We sat mesmerizedbecause our shad-ows had made aplace betweenthemselves, as ifthey were makingroom for someoneelse. Nothing filledup the spacebetween them, andthe shadow of my mother sighed"(Kincaid 54). Rather than illuminatingthe singular self, a mirrored unity isrevealed, and the mother and daughterwitness the singularity of their indivisi-ble selves and tfieir material and spiri-tual forms.

The profundity of and possibilitieswithin blackness move the mother firstto sigh and later to juba. The daugh-ter's shadow joins tihe mother's in tex-turing free space with rhythm, vibra-tion, and expression. The women singpraisesongs and pay one anotherhomage: "The shadow of my motherdanced around the room to a tune thatmy own shadow sang, and then theystopped" (Kincaid 54). Just as lightmade their shadow-spirits visible, theirshadows reciprocate and impart exis-tence through the space, in the light,and between the shadows. The motherreveals the space between her self andher daughter to be not a void, but aspiritual playground and classroom.TThe mother even enters into the cosmicspace herself and emerges as a daugh-ter of the Vodun serpent deityDamballah-Hwedo (Kincaid 55).However, the mother's tutorials onspiritual expansion, that are alsopromises of shared power, providebrief respite for the daughter who vac-illates between rapturous awe of hermother and pathological desire todestroy her.

Tormented mothers of Ajéare not destroying their

progeny. To quote Sethe,they are putting them

"where they'd be safe."

Realizing her daughter's paradoxi-cal impasse, the mother conjures anocean from a brackish pond, and sendsher daughter on a boat ride to the Self.Having crossed the void she createdonly to find the architect of her exis-tence reflecting her Self as always, thedaughter finally enters into a "com-

plete union" withher mother. Theirunion is metaphysi-cal: "I could not seewhere she left offand I began, orwhere I left off andshe began." It isalso physical: "I fit

perfectly in the crook of my mother'sarm, on the curve of her back, in thehollow of her stomach" (Kincaid 60).The daughter anticipates reaching thesame spiritual apex of amalgamatedAjé that Lorde achieves: "As we walkthrough the rooms, we merge and sep-arate, merge and separate; soon we shallenter the final stage of our evolution" (60-61, emphasis added).

A Beloved Re-Embodiment of ÀJé

My Mother" is a text woven,on a largely ahistorical

tapestry, and liberated in that freespace, the protagonists themselves con-stitute their only barriers to expansion.Beloved also revolves around a motherand daughter's desire to enjoy a perfectunity. However, as the narratorpoignantly reveals, enslaved Africansin America were struggling for exis-tence in lands in which they could listrelatives, especially children, who hadbeen less loved than "run off or beenhanged, got rented out, loaned out,bought up, brought back, stored up,mortgaged, won, stolen or seized" (23).Rather than subject their progeny tothe financially motivated, sexuallydepraved, and morally bankruptwhims of their oppressors, some moth-ers of Ajé returned the creations of

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their wombs to the tomb-like "wickedbag" that holds destruction, creation,and re-creation. Although many dis-cussions of lineage Ajé describe themother killing (mentally, spiritually, orphysically) her daughter, Morrison'swork forces us to re-evaluate this sim-plistic assessment. Tormented mothersof Ajé are not destroying their progeny.To quote Sethe, they are putting them"where they'd be safe."

Having a safe, sacred space hasalways been of paramount importanceto displaced African peoples, andunder circumstances only she couldhave imagined, Odùduwà's enslavedprogeny attempted to recreate hersacred space of creation. Such spaceshave been called the Arbor Church, theConjuring Lodge, the crossroads, andthe praying groimd. What occurs inthese spaces has been called manythings, but it is all juba. In Zami, thespace of juba is manifest in the linguis-tic tools and silences of Linda that aretransformed by the daughter Audre. In"My Mother," the space of spiritualinteraction is the ever-present, ever-malleable brackish pond. In Beloved,various forms of juba are discussed inrelation to the sacred spaces and timesthat facilitated them.^ Fittingly, thejuba that is created by Sethe andBeloved, twice in the novel, is theexemplar melding of the spiritual andmaterial under Aj£ and this Aje-juhaoccurs both times at 124.

The primary setting of Beloved is ahome at 124 Bluestone Road inCincinnati, Ohio. From the opening ofthe work, it is apparent that 124 is aspace of freedom, juba, and Ajé so com-plex that it can be considered a charac-ter. Morrison emphasizes 124's human-ity at the beginning of each of the nov-el's three sections, which respectivelydescribe 124 as "spiteful," "loud," and"quiet." Sethe's daughter Denverregards 124 as "a person rather than astructure. A person that wept, sighed,trembled and fell into flts" (23).3 Whilethese descriptions of 124's vitality aredue to Beloved's spiritual presence, thedomicile had long been an arena for

cosmic and material interrelations, andthis development may be the result ofits spiritual and numerological station-ing. Perhaps Morrison namedBluestone Road after the healing blue-stone that, when applied to a cut,"burns like hell" but heals instantly(Grant-Boyd). The number 124 is thenumerological equivalent of seven, thenumber of Ôrisà Ôgiin, owner of iron,technology, and weaponry. Ogún'srole in protecting and empoweringenslaved Africans and complementingSethe's Ajé is profoundly important.Additionally, Ousseynou Traore con-tends that readers unconsciously regis-ter the unseen number three in 1-2-4.The number three often indicates spiri-tual unity, and it is also the number ofthe alternately silent and signifyingYoruba trickster Èsù, who, similar tothe concept of Beloved (discussedbelow), is omnipresent and omniscient.

Located on the "free side" of theOhio River, 124 is where runaways andthe officially free went to find succor,connect with lost relatives, and rebal-ance their shattered equilibrium.However, Baby Suggs transforms itinto a space of spiritual healing. Whenthe elder woman realizes and actual-izes her Ora (power of the word), 124becomes a healing gateway for thetransformational juba of the Clearing.Located just outside 124, the Clearingis the African American equivalent ofthe sacred spiritual groves where Westand Central African initiations and rit-uals, including sacrifice, take place.Similar to the Grandmother deity ofAnlo people. Baby Suggs, holy conse-crates the Clearing as the "Ground ofall being," and uses the Clearing and124 to help her community determineits destiny (Gaba 79).

Communal mother and mother-in-law to Sethe, Baby Suggs uses the com-plementary spiritual forces of 124 andthe Clearing for a two-tiered commu-nal initiation process. After she hasmended, as well as she can, the tornlives of the newly freed and still seek-ing, she calls them to the Clearing tomend their spirits.

THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER AJÊ. RELATIONSHIP IN TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED 175

They knew she was ready whenshe put her stick down. Then sheshouted, "Let the children come!" andthey ran from the trees toward her.. . .

"Let your mothers hear you laugh "Then "Let the grown men come,"

she shouted...."Let your wives and your children

see you dance...."Finally she called the women to

her. "Q.VJ," she told them. "For the liv-ing and the dead. Just cry...."

It started that way: laughing chil-dren, dancing men, crying women andthen it got mixed up. Women stoppedcrying and danced, men sat down andcried; children danced, womenlaughed, children cried until, exhaust-ed and riven, all and each lay aboutthe Clearing damp and gasping forbreath. (87-88)

Fully indicative of juba—the conflu-ence of song, dance, prayer, lamenta-tion, and exultation—calls in theClearing invite the resolution of allconflicts and the unification of every-thing bifurcated. Initially, Suggs speci-fies roles for gender and age groups.As these roles become transformedthrough her Ajéj they are bonded andmelded to the point that such divisionsare rendered meaningless because oftheir interdependence. The Ajé ofAfricana women, the Osó (male spiritu-al power) of Africana men and the àse_(power to make things happen) ofboth, as manifest in Üie promise oftheir children, are united in theClearing through Baby Suggs, holy.

The orature that accompanies thejuba is not a religious sermon or cate-chism but a spiritual charge that trans-forms into a unified whole the fewthings that the Clearing participantsdare lay claim—their bodies and spir-its, and most fragile, their love:

Here . . . in this here place, we flesh;flesh that weeps, laughs, flesh thatdances on bare feet in grass. Love it.Love it hard. Yonder they do not loveyour flesh. They despise it. They don'tlove your eyes; they'd just as soon pickem out. No more do they love the skinon your back. Yonder they flay it. AndO my people they do not love yourhands. Those they only use, tie, bind,chop off and leave empty. Love yourhands! Love them. Raise them up andkiss them. Touch others with them . . .

stroke them on your face 'cause theydon't love that either. You got to loveit, \iou\ (88)

Suggs's Clearing calls invite alldichotomies to return to their originalunified state. The power of her wordtransforms gender roles and individualand anatomical character until every-thing is merged and shared holistically.Revising the concept of human sacri-fice. Baby Suggs, holy leads each com-munal member to submit every ele-ment of themselves—section by sec-tion, entity by entity—in order to re-establish connection with the commu-nal Self and the "Ground of All Being."

Baby Suggs is the Iyánlá (GreatMother) of the textual community. Sheis the quintessential Ajé: a benevolentforce of determination who galvanizesthe powers of the Earth with her staffof ase,. As the goveming heart of hercommunity, Suggs is not merely theinitiator of action, but she is also sub-ject to communal critique and correc-tion for improper actions. Twenty-eight days, one monthly moon after thearrival of Sethe and the newbornDenver, Suggs celebrates the arrivaland life of her progeny by turning twobuckets of blackberries and a fewchickens into a feast to feed the entirecommunity. The 28 days' celebration ofunity is a false one that calls Suggs'sapplication of Ajé into question.Interpreting Suggs's feast of joy as apersonal flaunting of wealth and ashow of pride, the community removesits complementary protection from her.The Ohio commimity's critique is sub-tle, methodical, and devastating.Rather than sending a warning aboutthe riders who have entered town tosteal her progeny, the communitystands in perfect silence. Suggs's tres-pass and the resulting communal cor-rection spark the first pattern of moth-er-daughter Ajé interactions.

Ajé are associated with birds thatact as spiritual media. The Spirit Bird,Eye Oro, is capable of aesthetic creativi-ty, astral cum physical destruction, andsublime protection. A Yoruba praise-

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song describes the force of the SpiritBird and the women who wield it.

Mo leyi nílé (1 have a bird in the house)Mo leys, nita (1 have a bird outside)Ti mo bá IQ, sode (When I go on outings)Efmuo mi WQ. mi o— (Give me my proper respect)

(T. Washington 55)

The "bird in the house" is a figurativereference to Odùduwà's primal wombof power, which is replicated in allAfricana women; the "bird in thehouse" is also a literal reference to thesacred calabash, in which the SpiritBird is housed (Ojo 135). When thisspiritually-charged Bird emerges andgoes on outings, its power and poten-tial are awesome.

Àjé's birds of power take to wingoften in Morrison's fiction. In Paradise,buzzards circle over and signify at awedding (272-73); in Sula, sparrowssignal the changing of the guard (89).In ]azz, Violet is introduced as livingwith and later releasing her flock ofbirds, and Wild, Violet's seemingmother-in-law and re-embodiment ofBeloved, is signified by "blue-blackbirds with the bolt of red on theirwings" (176).4 The Spirit Bird bothrecurs as a symbolic totem and regular-ly assists Morrison's women of Àjiwith their confoxmding actions. In Sula,matriarch Eva Peace is described interms of Àji. Swooping like a "giantheron," Eva extends her arm in themanner of "the great wing of an eagle,"as she douses her son in kerosenebefore setting him ablaze (46-47). Thismother creator-destroyer-protector,who "held [her son] real close" beforekilling him, also takes wing later in thenovel and jumps out of her window inan attempt to save her daughter, whoinadvertently has set herself on fire (75-76). Following Eva's path, when Sethesees schoolteacher's hat, she sees a lifethat cannot be tolerated. She snatchesup her children like Eye Oro, "like ahawk on the wing . . . face beaked . . .hands work[ing] like claws," to putthem in a safe place.

She was squatting in the garden andwhen she saw them coming and recog-nized schoolteacher's hat, she heard

wings. Little hummingbirds stuck theirneedle beaks right through her headdothinto her hair and beat their wings. And ifshe thought anything it was No. No.Nono. Nonono. Simple. She just flew.Collected every bit of life she hadmade, all the parts of her that wereprecious and fine and beautiful, andcarried, pushed, dragged themthrough the veil, out, away, over therewhere no one could hurt them. Overthere. Outside this place, where theywould be safe. And the hummingbirdwings beat on. (163, emphasis added)

Guided by an invisible collective ofAjé hummingbirds, Sethe hides herchildren in the woodshed of 124.Melding her Ajé with the existentpower of the Clearing and 124, Sethecreates in the woodshed an ojúbo, orpraisehouse, where Ôrisà are kept andworshipped with libation and sacrifice.Sethe takes her children, whom shedefines as minor Ôrisà—her "pre-cious," "fine," and "beautiful" cre-ations or re-embodiments of herself—inside the o;wbo/woodshed. There, theterrestrial mother Ajé begins the workof transformation—placing her chil-dren back into Odùduwà's pot of exis-tence and creativity. Under the institu-tion of slavery, this return may well bethe most profound expression of devo-tion. Using a handsaw, one of the ironimplements of Ogún, as a tool of facili-tation, Sethe returns the living deitiesof her self to the Mother, aware that Ajéand Íyánlá, the Great Mother, are theonly forces that can ensure her chil-dren's safety.

It is well-known that Beloved is are-membering and re-ordering of thelife, actions, and Ajé of a womannamed Margaret Gamer. In "TheNegro Woman," Herbert Apthekerrecalls Gamer's act of Aj¿ whichoccurred in 1856: "One may betterunderstand now a Margaret Gamer,fugitive slave, who, when trapped nearCincinnati, killed her own daughterand tried to kill herself. She rejoicedthat the girl was dead—'now shewould never know what a woman suf-fers as a slave'—and pleaded to betried for murder. 'I shall go singing tothe gallows rather than be returned to

THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER AJ¿ RELATIONSHIP IN TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED 177

slavery' " (qtd. in Davis 21). Gamerordered her existence, and that of herprogeny, with the only means availableto her—her Ajé. And Sethe uses thesame maternal, retributive, protectiveAjé as the historical Garner. However,due to the brutality of the institution ofslavery, the actions of Sethe andGamer are not rare or unique.

The Unwritten History of Slaveryidentifies another child-saving Ajé inFarmie of Eden, Tennessee. Fannie'sdaughter Cornelia recalled that hermother was "the smartest blackwoman in Eden" and a woman with anÀ;é-esque duality. Farmie "could doanything": "She was as quick as a flashof lightening, and whatever she didcould not be done better." But she wasalso "a demon." As her daughterrecalled, "Ma fussed, fought, andkicked all the time She said thatshe wouldn't be whipped. She wasloud and boisterous.... She was toohigh-spirited and independent" to be aslave. "I tell you, she was a captain"(Rawick, Unwritten History 283). Anenslaved captain, Fannie ingrained Ajésurvival tactics into Cornelia fromchildhood, telling her, "I'll kill you, gal,if you don't stand up for yourself....fight, and if you can't fight, kick; if youcan't kick, then bite" (Rawick,Unwritten History 284).

As a living example of À;'é-resis-tance, when the plantation mistressstruck her, Fannie beat her, chased herinto the street, and ripped off herclothes.^ Fannie declared, "Why, I'llkill her dead if she ever strikes meagain." Fannie is clearly historicalmother to Sixo, the ever-self-possessedenslaved African in Beloved whograbbed his captor's gun to provoke astand-off. Cornelia recounted hermother's reaction to the county whip-pers who had been employed to chas-tise her for beating Mrs. Jennings:

She knew what they were coming for,and she intended to meet themhalfway. She swooped upon them likea hawk on chickens, I believe theywere afraid of her or thought she wascrazy. One man had a long beardwhich she grabbed with one hand, and

the lash with the other, , , , She was agood match for them, Mr, Jenningscame and pulled her away, I don'tknow what would have happened ifhe hadn't come at that moment, forone man had already pulled his gunout. Ma did not see the gun until Mr,Jennings came up. On catching sight ofit, she said, "Use your gun, use it andblow my brains out if you will,"(Rawick, Unwritten History 287)

When Fannie declared, as wouldBrer Rabbit, "I'll go to hell or anywhereelse, but I won't be whipped," Jenningsdecided to send his unbeatable slaveout of his Eden, but he told Farmie shecould not take her infant, his "proper-ty," with her. Truly Gamer's (and liter-arily, Sethe's) sister of struggle, on theday she was to leave, Fannie took herinfant, held it by its feet, and, weeping,"vowed to smash its brains out beforeshe'd leave it." Comelia concludes,"Ma took her baby with her" (Rawick,Unwritten History 288). And yet Fanniewas not exiled. She and her husbandreturned from Memphis to Eden andtheir children with "new clothes and apair of beautiful earrings" (Rawick,Unwritten History 289). Fannie lived therest of her life in as much peace as herAjé and an oppressive society couldafford her. Indicative of biologicalacquisition of Aj¿ Comelia grew to bejust as À/é-influenced as her mother.

Cornelia's oral testimony about hermother is included in George P.Rawick's The Unwritten History ofSlavery. Morrison corrects the ostensi-ble oversight implied in Rawick's titlewhen she writes the history and sprin-kles the spirit of Fannie—from swoop-ing vengeance to whip-grabbing stand-off to beautiful earrings—throughoutBeloved. Using the methodology of thetraditional Yoruba Eye Qro, Sethe'sactions in her sacred space blend thelives of both historical Iyá, Gamer andFannie. Sethe, as did Margaret Gamer,succeeds in killing her third child, theoldest girl. When schoolteacher and hismen enter the woodshed, Sethe holdsDenver by her feet fully prepared tobash her newly bom head open on therafters. It is apparently important to

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Sethe, Margaret, and Fannie that thegirl-children be made safe, first andforemost. They are the ones who cangrow to have their milk stolen, theirwombs defiled, their womanhoodmocked.

When Beloved opens, nearly 18years after Beloved's death, the homet;hat was a sanctuary for Sethe andcountless other displaced Africans isthe desolate stomping ground for awrathful "baby ghost," who is thedaughter successfully sent to the otherside. Sethe and Denver live alone withthe "ghost," exiled from the communi-ty not because of fear, but because thecommunity finds Sethe's show of love,similar to that of Suggs, too pridefuland selfish. From the outset, a condem-nation of the grounds of pride seems astretch in Sethe's case. She is remem-bered as holding her head too high andcarrying her neck too stiffly as thepolice led her away. It seems either thecommunity is too judgmental or thatMorrison is plying narrative control;however, from a Yoruba perspective,Sethe and Baby Suggs have trespasseda law of Ajé that "one must not displaywealth" (Opeóla). The community, act-ing very much as a society of tradition-al African elders would, punishes BabySuggs with silence after she celebratesher spiritual and material wealth withthe magnificent feast. As a mnawayslave, Sethe does not even own herself,let alone her children, by Americanstandards. However, she dares to loveand protect them with the only meansat her disposal. By doing what no othercommunal member would conceive ofdoing to protect his or her wealth,Sethe's private work of protectionbecomes a grandiose display. Herknowledge of her wealth and power ismade obvious in her refusal to weep orbeg forgiveness for her deed. Showingno remorse and exuding an air of"serenity and tranquility" after heractions, she loses communal respectand consideration.

Sethe's crime of displaying wealthis an ironic one that speaks volumesabout the complexities of the Africana

community. In an interview with ElsieB. Washington, Morrison elaborated onthe centrality of self worth to enslavedAfricans in America: "Those peoplecould not live without value. They hadprices, but no value in the white world,so they made their own, and theydecided what was valuable. It was usu-ally eleemosynary, usually somethingthey were doing for somebody else"(235). Sethe clearly values her children,as is evident in her descriptions ofthem, and she does for them what noperson can do. But her trespass is bet-ter understood in the light ofMorrison's next statement: "Nobody inthe novel, no adult Black person, sur-vives by self-regard, narcissism, self-ishness." One could argue that thecommunity doesn't punish Sethe forsaving her daughter; they punish thenon-communal narcissism surround-ing that act.

Sethe clearly understands what hasthe ultimate value in life and also therole racist oppression plays in devalu-ing what Nikki Giovanni calls "Blackwealth":

That anybody white could take yourwhole self for anything that comes tomind. Not just work, kill, or maim you,but dirty you. Dirty you so bad youcouldn't like yourself anymore. Dirtyyou so bad you forgot who you wereand could think it up. And though sheand others lived through and got overit, she could never let it happen to herown. The best thing she was, was herchildren. Whites might dirty heralright, but not her best thing, herbeautiful, magical best thing. {Beloved251)

Although the divine part of Sethebecomes maimed, dirtied, and twistednearly beyond repair, her childrenemerge from her womb as whole, per-fect, and shining as she once was. Thestatement, "The best thing she was,was her children," makes it clear thatSethe's act is not just an attempt to savethe deified progeny that she has creat-ed, but an attempt also to claim the"magical," priceless, and most exquis-ite aspect of her divine original Self.

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Abandoned by every living personexcept the daughter who nearlybecame the second recipient of her"thick" love, Sethe and her spiritualand terrestrial daughters exist in a per-fect trinity of Mother, Daughter, andSpirit, that is broken only when Sethegoes out to work. 124's isolation fromthe larger Africana community empha-sizes Morrison's point about Sethe'schoosing individuality over commu-rrality, and it also facilitates the lineageÀjé's unification. Sethe's desire to helpher "best thing" understand heractions and Denver's loneliness andfrustration move the two women tosummon their spiritual third. In invok-ing Beloved—"come on, come on, youmay as well just come on"—Denverand Sethe use power of the word (Oro)to impart unification of spiritual, phys-ical, and geographic planes of existenceat 124. In other words, they invite thehidden number three, the unifyingspiritual member, to share their materi-al space. Beloved, having received a rit-ual invitation, begins crossing allboundaries to enter the sacred realmprepared by her mother. However, theexistence of enslaved Africans inAmerica imparts a new dimension toinvocative transformational juba:Beloved was sent to a safe placethrough the violent protective Ajé of ahandsaw. In cosmic reciprocity, it isviolence that precipitates her re-embodiment.

In Chinua Achebe's Things FallApart, after a child named Onwumbikodies, Okagbue, the healer and diviner,gives the corpse special treatment.Because Onwumbiko is an ogbanje{abíkú in Yoruba), a spirit child whotorments parents by dying soon afterbirth, Okagbue slashes the corpse, and,holding it by one foot, drags it into theforest for burial.^ In a revision ofOkagbue's treatment of Onwumbiko,Paul D takes a chair and beatsBeloved's spirit without mercy as soonas he enters 124 (19). The healer andPaul D seem to have the same thing ontheir minds: "After such treatment it[the spirit child] would think twice

before coming again" (Achebe 54).However, to quote Okagbue, Belovedis "one of the stubborn ones whoreturned, carrying the stamp of theirmutilation—a missing finger or per-haps a dark line where the medicine-man's razor had cut them." Paul D'sseemingly successful exorcism actuallyforces Beloved from the spiritual to thematerial realm. She arrives, and Sethetakes her in as she would any otheryoung, orphaned African Americanwoman.

Great scholarly debate continues tosurge over who Beloved is and whatshe represents. The common theorythat Beloved is a ghost is dubiousbecause she eats, defecates, makesvicious love, dribbles and urinates, andwashes and folds clothes on request.Beloved could be defined as ghostprior to Paul D's arrival, but thewoman who reveals his Red Heart isno ghost. Morrison describes Belovedas a multifaceted entity: Beloved is "aspirit on one hand, literally she is whatSethe thiriks she is, her child returnedto her from the dead. And she mustfunction like that in the text. She is alsoanother kind of dead that is not spiritu-al but flesh, which is, a survivor fromthe true, factual slave ship. She speaksthe language, a traumatized languageof her own experience" (Darling 247).Beloved is each of these three things,and being a confluence of all, she isinfinitely more.

Beloved reflects and represents allmanner of Àjé's "ravage and renewal/'for a people locked in the forgetfulnessof the atrocities that have befallenthem. As a spiritual force of sufficienttangibility to impregnate. Beloved is aravished girl newly escaped from adefiler's prison: because she is tooweak to walk, she glides over the earthor two-steps. Beloved is the "marked"child in African American culture whois affected, in vitro, by the horrors themother witnessed.^ She is also the àbikuchild of the Yoruba—the one bom-to-die—who is slashed and scarred to pre-vent retum, but re-enters, from thespirit realm, the traumatized womb for

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rebirth and perhaps a chance at terres-trial longevity. A child of countless sac-rifices and as many Mothers, Belovedbears on her neck the scar of the onefor whom she vows to bite away achoking, silencing "iron circle."Beloved, as Aj¿ is aláawo méjt (one oftwo colors). As a spirit, she kneelsbeside Sethe in white, the hue of ances-tral transmigration, and arrives physi-cally at 124 Bluestone Road clothed inblack. Seated on the stump of cultural,ethnic, and ancestral cognition, theblackness of Beloved is the life-soilenriching the forgotten roots and thefar-flung branches of the African fami-ly tree. Describing her journey throughthe Middle Passage, Beloved is thewalking recollection of atrocities toohorrible to remember, and she is theMother who saved her descendants sothat they would have the luxury to for-get. The Mother whom enslavedAfricans first thanked for their safelandings, no matter how vile the jour-ney or the arrival, was Yemoja: theMother of Waters, the Mother ofFishes. John Mason finds that Yemojasymbolizes the "universal principle ofthe survival of the species" (308).Beloved is Yemoja's strolling promise.Indeed, when Beloved stalks into theforest at the end of her textual exis-tence, it is not surprising that she bearsthe Great Mother's fish on her Select/edHead. Occupying various identitiesand positions—including those of pro-tagonist, author, and intended Africanaaudience—Beloved defies any andencompasses all definitions.

As it relates to the textual mother-daughter Ajé relationship, in the initialstages of her arrival, Sethe is too closeto the truth of Beloved's life, death, andreturn to recognize her as her daugh-ter. However, Denver, who took moth-er's milk and sister's blood in one swal-low, realizes what one will not revealand the other carmot see. It is throughthe slow process of rememory that Setheunderstands who Beloved is. CaroleBoyce Davies defines rememory as"the re-membering or the bringingback together of the disparate members

of the family in painful recall," involv-ing "crossing the boundaries of space,time, history, place, language, corpore-ality and restricted consciousness inorder to make reconnections and markor name gaps and absences" (17).Beloved travels through the cosmic 16crossroads, where Ajé meet (T.Washington 27, 53), to return home to124. Upon arrival she opens Sethe's"restricted consciousness" anddemands the naming and claiming ofher dismembered self therein.

As Morrison develops it in Beloved,rememory is an unalterable, unforesee-able, and frightening process that isrelated to material and spiritual spacesand also to books.^ Beloved initiatesthe process by which she will be re-membered gently. As she sits andwatches Sethe comb Denver's hair, sheasks, "your woman she never fix upyour hair?" and takes Sethe psychicallyback to the plantation where she grewup and to the mother with whom shehad almost no encounters. Sethe ver-bally rememories that her mothershowed her the brand burned into herbreast and that her mother was so hor-ribly lynched that "by the time they cuther down nobody could tell whethershe had a circle and a cross or not"(61). Before the force of rememory canoverwhelm her, the telling of the narra-tive is transferred. It is Sethe's "restrict-ed consciousness" that rememoriesbeing taught an African language byboth her mother and her caregiver.Nan. Sethe's rememory enlightens thereader to the fact that her Ajé and itsmethodology are as biologicallyderived as Fannie's and Cornelia's.Memories of Nan telling Sethe that hermother named her after a man whomshe had loved, one whom she had "puther arms around," and that she hadkilled the products of rape she gavebirth to, well up in Sethe's conscious-ness but do not cross her lips. WhileSethe's verbal rememory clearly helpsBeloved cement her transitory spiritualself in the material world, the unspo-ken orature provides a doorway forother dismembered selves to enter.

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The subconscious rememories,recounted in third person by an omni-scient narrator, are "spaces" that theauthor and historical and extra-textualcommunal members must fill (Wilentz85). For example. Beloved's inquiriesabout Sethe's "diamonds," her requestthat Sethe "tell me your earrings,"places at the mother's knee the histori-cal Cornelia, who had been brieflyabandoned in "Eden"; the fragmentedSethe, who had chosen to forget a giftfrom "Sweet Home"; the authorialMorrison; and all other seeking sur-vivors. Additionally, in the passagewhere Sethe's concept of value isdefined, as a result of free indirect dis-course, the "you" that can be dirtied,shamed, used egregiously, and fouledis at once Sethe, potentially her chil-dren, Margaret Gamer and, her chil-dren, and also the reading audience.While it initially appears that the pas-sage is comprised of Sethe's rumina-tions as directed to Denver, it is thenarrator of Beloved who articulatesSethe's logical epiphany on value andopens the discourse and pronouns toinclude textual and extra-textual audi-ence members. For another example,the question "How did she know?" fol-lows Beloved's first spate of inquires(63). Although the reader assumesSethe is thinking to herself, the spacewithin the unspecified pronoun isquite wide. "She" can refer as easily toBeloved as to Morrison; furthermore,the query seems subtly directed atreaders—as a question we mustanswer, a space we are obligated to fill.

As author-narrator, Toni Morrisonis clearly the medium of rememory.When the coalescence of history andtragedy are too much for her charactersto bear, it is Morrison who writes the"imwritten" and her constructed narra-tor who verbalizes the "unspoken." Itis not Paul D who recounts a floodedwooden cage, the Hi-Man, and a break-fast of horror. He had placed thesepainful humiliations "one by one, intothe tobacco tin lodged in his chest[and] nothing in this world could pry itopen" (113). It is Morrison, as other-

worldly "Beloved" Self, who, at thethree-road junction of history, the spiritrealm, and the present, can share PaulD's rememory comprehensively.Expanding Lorde's Afrekete-centeredmatrix of Ajé, the holistic aesthetic ofMorrison, the mediating Iyá-Íwé(Mother of the Text), makes the act ofreading Beloved an initiation into theBeloved Self, the Beloved Spirit, andthe ever-present past for spiritual, his-torical, and contemporary audiences.As the novel's biblical epigraph makesclear. Beloved is a divine Pan-Africanparadox: she is human and spirit; rec-ognized and dis-remembered; otherand self; novel, character, and reality;"Sixty Million and more." The very exis-tence of Beloved, let alone our readingthe work, becomes a cosmic applica-tion of a necessarily stinging bluestonefor every Africana person who bearsbut has ignored the genetic scars ofslavery in order to survive but must re-member every fragmented affliction inorder to heal and evolve fully.

Although Sethe, as most Africanapeople, cannot safely re-member with-out sliding into an abyss of pain, shecan and does articulate the painfuluncontrollable process of rememory toDenver, and explains why she had toopen her pot of creativity and place herbest, most exquisite and magical cre-ations safely inside it—away from theever-threatening force of rememoryand the more terrifying threat of repeti-tion:

Someday you be walking down theroad and you hear something or seesomething going on. So clear. And youthirJc it's you thinking it up. A thoughtpicture. But no. It's when you bumpinto a rememory that belongs to some-body else. Where I was before I camehere, that place is real. It's never goingaway. Even if the whole farm—everytree and grass blade of it dies. The pic-ture is still there and what's more, ifyou go there —you who never wasthere—if you go there and stand in theplace where it was, it will happenagain; it will be there for you, waitingfor you. So Denver, you can't never gothere. Never. Because even though it'sall over —over and done with —it'sgoing to always be there waiting for

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you. That's how come I had to get allmy children out. No matter what, (36)

Sethe, like so many continental anddislocated Africans, attempts to escapea past that cannot be outnin, a past thatfollows, taints, and tickles. By using Ajéto save her daughter and exorcise theforce of Sweet Home from her and herprogeny's existence, Sethe consecratesan irifinitely more powerful space ofrememory. And when Sethe andDenver summon her. Beloved returnswith an Aji antithetically equal to thelove, intensity, and killing-pain of hermother-self.

Morrison has explained the dou-bling at work between Sethe andBeloved as what occurs when a "goodwoman" displaces "the self, her self."Morrison describes that dislocated"self" as the Igbo describe the chi, thepersonal spirit who guides one to one'sdestiny and as the Yoruba describe theenikeji, the heavenly twin soul withwhom one makes agreements beforebirth. With Beloved and also ]azz,Morrison has said that she tried to "puta space between [the] words ['your'and 'self'], as though the self were real-ly a twin or a thirst or something thatsits right next to you and watches you"(Naylor 208). Most relevant to Beloved,Babatunde L,awal and Ikenga Metuhmake it clear that the enikeji and chi canbecome offended and angered by theirearthly representative's actions. Just asthe spirit twin can protect its humancomplement from harm, "offendingone's spirit double or heavenly com-rade may cause it to withdraw its spiri-tual protection," leaving one suscepti-ble to death (Lawal 261, Mehih 69-70,respectively). Beloved is more than adaughter; she is Sethe's "self," her"best thing." Like the chi, she is a deityto Sethe. However, Sethe's "best thing"revises African cosmology; she with-draws her dubious spiritual protectiononly to go directly to her mother, at herrequest no less, for full re-membering.

Beloved, her life, death, and return,represents the juncture between therememory/reality of Sweet Home, thebonding and bloody jubas of 124, and

the cycles of tragically dislocatedAfricana peoples—who are doomed torepeat past lessons if we fail to re-member and evolve from them. As thewomen at 124 navigate this immensematrix of love and pain, shades of thedaughter Áji's desire to kill her moth-er, also prevalent in Kincaid's work,emerge in Beloved. However, Beloveddoes not want to destroy Sethe.Instead, she wants the two of them to"join" and return fully unified to the"other side."

In addition to complete re-mem-berment. Beloved desires free, uninter-rupted discourse with the fascinatingentity who put her in a safe place ofloneliness and confusion. To achieveher aim. Beloved uses her Aji to forcePaul D, with his distracting "love" forSethe, out of 124, and Paul D facilitatesthe process. Having found out aboutSethe's saving action, he demands thatSethe explain what to her is elemen-tary. Rather than answer him directly,Sethe circles—the kitchen, the topic,the answer. She circles as would a buz-zard, that spiritual messenger; shemoves in the manner of the spirit-hum-mingbirds that hover over her head.Sethe's circles constitute issue avoid-ance, and for many reasons: (1)explaining her actions to Paul D wouldbe tantamount to explicating the eso-teric to the layman; (2) her actions arebeyond the justification that his silentquery seeks; (3) Morrison makes itclear that no human being, includingthe "last of the Sweet Home men," canjudge Sethe (Darling 248). The ques-tions Paul D asks belong only toBeloved. But from another perspective,Sethe's circular response to Paul D isalso no more than useless perambula-tion. Until we address the Continentalterror that forced millions out of Africaand onto alien lands, concerning bonesbleaching in the Atlantic and ancestor-warriors chained on auction blocks.Africana people will run without aim,circle about, and seek out safe havens,but will always bump into that silentlywaiting and watching self.

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Aside from Sethe's reaction, PaulD's inquiry about the newspaper andhis counting Sethe's feet make it clearthat he is simply not ready, and hedoes not become prepared until thenovel's end, to be the complement thatSethe needs. Paul D is the primarymale force in the novel, and it is in hisWesternized masculinity—his acts ofviolence, his audacious attempts toquery and judge, his revision of histender Sethe song, and his refusal toaccept Sethe's "thick" love—that hisunpreparedness is apparent. Conse-quently, he is moved out of the sphereand cannot move anything in it.

With the male aspect exorcised,Sethe and Denver harness all theirpower to re-member Beloved, and withthe latter's physical-spiritual reality,the three women become a trinity ofMother, Daughter, and Daughter-Divinity similar to the cosmic matriar-chal trinity that Audre Lorde describesin Zami. But rather than the shared sig-rufying "I," a possessive "mine" flowsamong the women: "Beloved, she mydaughter. She mine"; "Beloved is mysister"; "I am Beloved and she [Sethe]is mine" (200, 205, 211). Rather than thecustomary narrative style, to accommo-date the space and the unspoken lan-guage of love of this trinity of Aj¿Morrison uses open-ended lyric freeverse:

You are my face; I am you. Why didyou leave me who am you?

I will never leave you againDon't ever leave me againYou will never leave me againYou went in the waterI drank your bloodI brought your milkYou forgot to smileI loved youYou hurt meYou came back to meYou left meI waited for youYou are mineYou are mineYou are mine (216-17)

More clearly here, Morrison expandsEnglish syntax to accommodateBeloved and to provide space for lost-found souls and intended audience

members to enter.^ With the first lineof the passage. Beloved becomes a mir-ror. The fathomless depths of the blackink encompass, absorb, and reflectevery communal member, the pagesprovide reflection and refraction, themargins seem to radiate with unseenbut impending revelations. But theglimpse of eternity Morrison offers herreader glints with a different light forSethe.

Within the rhythms, de-riddling,and reunion of Beloved, Sethe, andDenver are accusations, gatherings-upof pain, demands of ownership, andreminders of debts impossible to pay.Sethe's énikéji would ordinarily textureher existence and consciousness fromthe sacred realm. But in having equat-ed her best self with her children, mak-ing the decision to save that preciousself, and summoning the self for a dis-cussion, Sethe comes face to face withher spirit, her embodied conscience,and her own (and all her people's)past. As any good mother would, Setheis resolved to nourish her own and ourown "best thing," but she doesn't havethe balance, discretion, or distance ofthe elder in "My Mother," and she maynot need it.

Sethe has recognized and becomeenamored by the living presence of herexquisite self, and she seeks to feedthat self:

The bigger Beloved got, the smallerSethe became; the brighter Beloved'seyes, the more those eyes that usednever to look away became slits ofsleeplessness. Sethe no longer combedher hair or splashed her face withwater. She sat in the chair licking herlips like a chastised child while Belovedate up her life, took it, swelled up with it,grew taller on it. And the older womanyielded it up without a murmur. (250,emphasis added)

Eventually, Beloved forces Denver outof 124, and Beloved and Sethe, likeKincaid's protagonists, revel in thevoracious singularity of their duality.The Beloved-Sethe-Self has returnedfor what she was derüed: maternalbonding, verbal milk, and complete re-unification. With no other means to

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appease her physical entkeji (spiritualguide), Sethe gives herself to her Self.

Although the community womenunderstand Beloved to be the slaindaughter, she also represents Sethe'sbest self, that of each of the communalwomen, and through Morrison'sefforts, the best self of all Africana peo-ple. Given the all-encompassing totali-ty of Beloved, Sethe's initial saving actis not as selfish as it seems because shesaves Beloved, who retums to remind,confound, and heal both textual andextra-textual Africana communities.However, by community standards.Beloved, as an all-in-one Deity, is toocomplicated, too brilliant, and far toopainful for existence. Embracing themost superficial and the least painfulaspect of Beloved's multitudinous Self,the communal women gather todestroy the "devil child" who is alsotheir individual and collective "bestthing."

The overwhelming and paradoxi-cal truth of Beloved and the griefunder-girding their collective con-sciousness move the women to take "astep back to the beginning." In thebeginning, there were no whippings,no bits to suck, no lynching, no sanc-tioned lessons in racist brutality thattutored Hitler and the Boers. There wasonly Oro_- Rowland Abiodun, in theessay "Verbal and Visual Metaphors:Mythical Allusions in YorubaRitualistic Art of Ori," reveals the cos-mic dimensions of the word Qrô.Stating that "words" is a lay transla-tion. Oro is also "a matter, that is some-thing that is the subject of discussion,concem, or action," and it is the"power of the word" (Abiodun 252).An important "matter" and serioussubject of coricem. Beloved embodiesand attracts Oro. And just as OrOj thepower of the word, opened the path forwisdom (ogbón), knowledge (img), andunderstanding (dye) to enter the worldat the beginning of creation (Abiodun253-55), so too does the communalwomen's Oro catalyze their creative,destructive, and interpretive abilities.

The communal mothers convergeon 124, and they harmonize the vibra-tions of OTQ Àjij the vibrationsOdùduwà made when she pulled exis-tence out of her Pot. They interruptSethe and Beloved's joining and invitethem into the Clearing brought to theirfront lawn. Sethe's carefully nurtured"best thing" emerges as an àbiku soonto give birth:

The singing women recognized Setheat once and surprised themselves bytheir absence of fear when they sawwhat stood next to her. The devil-childwas clever, they thought. And beauti-ful. It had taken the shape of a preg-nant woman, naked and smiling in theheat of the afternoon sun.Thunderblack and glistening, shestood on long straight legs, her bellybig and tight. Vines of hair twisted allover her head. lesus. Her smile wasdazzling. (261)

The women's response to the beauty ofSethe's Beloved-Self helps readers bet-ter understand the mother's rapture,devotion, and vanity. What is more,although condemrüng her in Westemterms, the women have no fear ofBeloved, for they know her well.Beloved is, like Denver, "everybody'schild." These women do not bond toexorcise Beloved because she is "evil"or the "devil." I believe the womengather to destroy her because her pres-ence and their acknowledgment of herreality, which is the answer and therememory of each question and eventpushed deeply into the subconscious,would quite simply break their hearts.

Sethe, for all her alleged vanity andpride, appears to be the text's mostprogressive figure. Having conferredwith Odùduwà, she knows what"value" is and is not, and she knowshow to protect what is priceless, notjust for her personal satisfaction but forthe evolution of the community. Sethealso turns the community's gifts of sus-tenance for her into sacrifices thatnourish Beloved's pregnancy. And it ispossible that Beloved's unborn childsymbolizes the perfect and completehealing and evolution of Africana peo-ples. Additionally, and despite a case

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of mistaken identity, Sethe's personaldevelopment is apparent in her deci-sion to kill Bodwin, the Euro-Americanabolitionist owner of 124.

In this community, still reelingfrom the horrors of slavery and out-raged by neo-enslavement, it is theexternal factor, that of Euro-America,that gives the priceless dollar values,that dirties the best thing, and that tex-tually, moves stasis to action. Just aswith schoolteacher, the arrival ofBodwin, new employer of Denver andowner of a Sambo flgurine, expeditesthe convergence of the twin circles ofAjé. Bodwin is ignorant of two orbs ofAji and his role in uniting them, butwhen Sethe sees him approaching, shethinks the défiler has returned, again,to enslave, sully, and steal her "bestthing," and she releases her Spirit Bird:"She hears wings. Little hummingbirdsstick their needle beaks right throughher headcloth into her hair and beattheir wings. And if she thinks any-thing, it is no. No. Nonono. She flies.The ice pick is not in her hand; it is herhand" (263). When Sethe mounts onwings of Aji to attack Bodwin, thecommunal women thwart her, and,again, through violence there is partialunification. The women save Bodwinand re-integrate Sethe. Her mother's

violent community reunion leavesBeloved abandoned, but smiling. Herultimate desire for holistic unificationaborted. Beloved explodes, leaving"precious" and "fine" vestiges of herunspeakable self to take root in the soil,float on the waters, make darker andmore defined the ink of the text, andburrow into the recesses and tickle theconsciousness of all too forgetfulminds.

This is healing ink. As blood, itstains memory and mind.

Chemical oil scent laced with indigo,this ink is difficult to wash from thefingertips. It tattoos the soul. This inkdemystifles sweet homes, discombobu-lates linear time. This ink, so Black it israinbowed, so pure it signifies despitethe Ethiopic's salty waters, so rich evenits clarity complicates, could only havecome from Odùduwà's cosmic womb.Bound by ink-blood oaths, buried solu-tions, and a proclivity for evolution,Lorde, Kincaid, and Morrison confabwith the cosmic and re-fashion the for-gotten. Dipping deep into the ink ofAjij their words dance the jubas ofmothers and daughters forsaken, lost,and found, and leave lessons to help usre-determine our Destiny.

Notes 1. MawuLisa and Mawu Sebou Lisa are synonymous terms for the West African Mother-FatherDeity created by Great Mother Nana Bùrukù to give the Earth its form, rotation, and revolution, and toprovide human beings with i<nowiedge of their destiny through the Book of Fa. The worship ofMawuLisa/Mawu Sebou Lisa, Nana Bùrukù and other deities in this spiritual system is indigenous tothe Fon, Anio, Ewe, and many other West African peoples. The Vodun deities and the Fa divinationsystem of the Fon are similar to the Ôrisà and the Ifá divination system of the Yoruba. See Gaba 79;M. J. Herskovits 124, 155,176; and M. J. Herskovits and F. S. Herskovits 135.

2. Sethe witnessed shape-shifting juba as a child (31). The other form of juba represented inBeloved is in relation to the character Sixo who, when he was caught fleeing, first grabbed the gun ofone of the captors for a stand-off and then began singing as he was burned alive. The narratordescribes the words of the song and its rhythm as having a "hatred so loose it was juba" (225-26).

3. Cf. Hayes.4. Morrison has discussed Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise as being a quasi-trilogy with the character

Beloved being re-embodied in each text. See Cutter, "The Story Must Go On and On."5. For one woman to "naked" (strip) another in a battle is a common tactic of humiliation I have wit-

nessed several times in West Africa. See Aikali 84-85.6. See Christopher N. Okonkwo's "A Critical Divination: Reading Sula as Ogbanje-Abiku" in African

American Review 38 (2004): 651-68.7. See Rawick, Kansas 91 and Rawick, Georgia 338.

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8. In her review of J. Brooks Bouson's Quiet As It's Kept, Martha Cutter states, "Repeatedly, mystudents report that Morrison's novels unsettle and perhaps even traumatize them as readers" (672).

9. Handley discusses Morrison's "incantory powers [to] summon not only ghosts but also readers"(691). Also see Sale 42.

Abiodun, Rowland. "Verbal and Visual Metaphors: Mythical Allusions in Yoruba Ritualistic Art of Orí." WorksWord and Image Journal of Verbal-visual Inquiry 3.3 (1987): 252-70. Cited

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Call For PapersAfrican American Review is soliciting essays for a special issue on the

Post-Soul aesthetic to be published in 2007, Greg Täte calls the Post-Soul "theAfrican American equivalent of postmodernism," and a working definition of thePost-Soul aesthetic could indude, but not be limited to, this quotation fromThelma Golden, curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem (who prefers the term"post-black"): "For me, to approach a conversation about 'black art' ultimatelymeant embracing and rejecting the notion of such a thing at the very same time,, , , [The Post-Soul] was characterized by artists who were adamant about notbeing labeled as 'black' artists, though their work was steeped, in fact deeplyinterested, in redefining complex notions of blackness,"

Recognized nearly 20 years ago primarily by Trey Ellis ("The New BlackAesthetic," 1989), Greg Täte ("Cult Nats Meet Freaky-Deke," 1986) and NelsonGeorge {Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and BoHos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture,1992), the Post-Soul aesthetic could be used to describe the work of PaulBeatty, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Danzy Senna, Mos-Def, Dave Chappelle,Me'Shell Ndege-Ocello, Colson Whitehead, Aaron McGruder, Ellen Gallagher,The Roots, Spike Lee, Saul Williams, Kara Walker, Living Colour, and DariusJames, to name only a few.

In addition to these artists and provocateurs, prospective article topicsindude theorizing the Post-Soul as critical praxis; postmodernism and the Post-Soul aesthetic; observations, commentary, and critiques of the Post-Soul aes-thetic and/or scholarship on the Post-Soul; critical readings of Post-Soul novel-ists, artists, filmmakers, musicians, et al,; critical readings of individual Post-Soulnovels, art, film, music, etc; gender and the post-soul aesthetic; social class andthe Post-Soul aesthetic; hip-hop and the Post-Soul aesthetic; essentializedblackness and the Post-Soul aesthetic; naming the Post-Soul aesthetic—identifi-cations and identity crises; mass marketing and/or mass communication and thePost-Soul aesthetic; the Post-Soul aesthetic and the African American vernacu-lar traditions; satire and the Post-Soul aesthetic; the Black Arts Movement andthe Post-Soul aesthetic; Ralph Ellison and/or Albert Murray and the Post-Soulaesthetic; the "cultural mulatto" archetype in Post-Soul texts; redefining black-ness in Post-Soul texts; signifyin(g) and the Post-Soul aesthetic; politics and thePost-Soul aesthetic; Double consciousness and the Post-Soul aesthetic; thePost-Soul in the college classroom; Pre-Soul and Post-Soul; and Post-Sex(uali-ties) and the Post-Soul,

Completed papers are due December 31, 2005, Send queries, proposals, orpapers to:

Bertram D, Ashe, Associate Professor of English and American StudiesUniversity of Richmond28 Westhampton WayRichmond, VA 23173bashe(3>richmond,edu

188 AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW

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