In Chenjerai Hove's Bones and Buchi Emecheta's The Slave Girl two prevalent and parallel symbolic objects emerge: bones in the first novel and Ojebeta's cowry bells in the second. There is no immediately apparent correlation between the two. The bells, charms meant to ward off Ojebeta's playmates from the spiritual world that her father procured at great peril, demonstrate her status as a loved and valued daughter. Bones most readily symbolize the Shonas' connection to dead ancestors, as well as a collective remembrance of those who have died fighting for visions of a stronger Zimbabwe. The book's dedication says as much:
For the women whose children did not return sons and daughters those who gave their bones to the making of a new conscience, a conscience of bones, blood and footsteps dreaming of coming home some day in vain.
Viewed in the context of the Yoruba and Shona religions, however, these symbols appear parallel, linked to the common beliefs of the Shona and the Yoruba that (1) "the dead do not really die but continue to live forever as ancestors" (Ephirim-Donkor, preface), (2) that with proper ancestor worship "the nature and purpose of the soul can be deciphered," and (3) that "restoration to the holistic life" (Ephirim-Donkor, 41) is attainable. Understanding the parity of these symbols facilitates comparison of their different roles in each novel, along with the techniques the two authors use to link them to specific themes.
The Shona Significance of Bones:Bones in Shona culture represent not only the connection between the living and the dead but also instruments of divination. The divination ritual allows one to call upon the power of the ancestors and other deities to cure "whenever a person has reason to believe that one has lost touch with oneself, resulting in a series of misfortunes or unexplained circumstances" (Ephirim-Donkor, 41) . The miserable circumstance of the commercial farm laborers in Bones cries for such a remedy: "the women will one day break their backs weeding the fields of the white man . . . The men are all castrated, you used to say. They cannot lift up their heads against the one man who uses the baas boy as his whip"(14).
The "nganga," diviners and herbalists, as well as laymen of the Shona culture use "bones" or hakata (called so although they are ritually prepared from wood ) (Gelfand, 163) , to detect the causes of both spiritual and physical illnesses. "Many men who do not pride themselves with the title of nganga claim to be able to divine with hakata for matters of average importance in daily life." "As long as those who interview the diviner are spiritually related to the patient, the bones are able to 'talk'. (Gelfand, 163)" Therefore, the function of bones as tools of divination is commonly known in Shona culture and serves to reinforce connections to one's spiritual relations. Cowries, for Ojebeta and for the Yoruba:Interestingly enough, cowries, which Ojebeta keeps with her always as tokens of her cultural identity, are also tools of divination in Yoruba culture. The system of "the sixteen cowries," practiced by both men and women, reveals the coming of any of five blessings or five evils, "long life, money, marriage, children, and defeat of one's enemy. . . [or] death, illness, fighting, the want of money, and loss. . . the client may then ask what is necessary to insure the promised blessing or to avert the predicted evil" (Bascom, 8).
The diviner appeals to the power of the deity Olurun, "who assigns and controls human destinies." He is most important deity to "the yoruba [who]believe in reincarnation and in multiple souls" (Bascom, 33). Slave Girl begins by tying Ojebeta to Olurun in a particular way: she is an Abiku. "If a woman has several children in succesion who die at childbirth . . . they may not be different ancestral souls, but one ancestral soul being repeatedly reborn . . . It does not want to remain long on earth, preferring the life in heaven.. Such children are known as Abiku or "one born to die" (Bascom, 35). Villagers believe she has already come to earth many times in the form of her many deceased older sisters and must be persuaded to not run away again soon with her omnipresent playmates from the spiritual world. Yoruba diviners also call upon the Egungun, who "some say are the dead ancestors returning from heaven" (Bascom, 51). These alliances with Olurun and the Egungun link the divination ceremony of the cowries more strongly still to that of the bones, both as a bond with the dead which guide to a better future.
These two symbols of divination fit snugly into a socio-political interpretation of the novels as truthful, critical explorations of the African situation, as novels seeking change for the better, just as the traditional diviner did when he looked into an individual's soul to prescribe actions to be taken to regain personal health. The two authors use different strategies, though. First take the scene in which the blacksmith files off Ojebeta's charms:
Ojebeta could cry no more. She saw the charms which had been tied on by her loving parents, to guide her away from the bad spirits of the other world, filed painfully away. The cowries, too, which hung on banana strings were cut off with a big carved knife. She now cried in her heart which was throbbing up and down as though it would burst, as the hard lesson made itself clear to her that from this moment on she was alone. Her survival depended on herself. "May I take them with me?" she begged the blacksmith when he had finished. . . Chiago looked helplessly at the little girl who was doing her utmost to cling to her individuality. She did not know yet that no slave retained any identity: whatever identity they had was forfeited the day money was paid for them. She did not wish to rob the girl of the small bit of self-respect she still had. "Have them, but you must hide them in your npe." (71-2)Beginning here, the theme of maintaining one's individuality, rather than succumbing to slavery, which renders human beings a soulless commodity, becomes central to the novel. Ojebeta goes on to be the one slave of her household who remembers her origins, which later allows her to escape indenture and, in what promises to be a romantic conclusion, re-integrate into her village life, then finally into a middle-class urban life. Emecheta's Ambiguities:
Emecheta does not, however, write such a simple equation for fulfillment as that suggested by the image of Ojebeta's faithful guarding of her cowries. That image suggests that individual health and satisfaction flower unambiguously from awareness of one cultural identity. Ojebeta, in fact, fails to escape slavery completely as she indentures herself to her husband, Jacob, who pays Clifford for her, who had inherited her from her original owner, Ma Palagada. Knowledge of her origins, though it once housed and nourished her, did not in and of itself escort her to freedom.
Should the cowries then be seen as Ojebeta's bondage to a overbearing, patriarchal society that passes her around like the proverbial sack of potatoes? Or, rather, is Ojebeta betraying her cultural roots by moving to the city and detaching from traditional life styles? The latter is a possible interpretation, especially because no mention of the cowries are made in the latter chapters of the book.
Emecheta often employs this technique of leaving the reader with opposing yet possible and likely interpretations of her statements. Fishburn refers to these ambiguities as Emecheta's heavy use of "'hybrid construction'-- that is, statements that seem to emanate from one person but in reality convey 'two semantic and axiological belief systems'" (94). This technique appears throughout the novel, especially in Ojebeta's thoughts. For example, When Ojebeta is purchased by Jacob he is referred to in what would be bitter terminology from the mouth of a modern Western woman, as her "new master" (178). Soon thereafter, however, she reflects that she feels "free in belonging to a new master" (179). When the men joke about spending money on women, she laughs: "For had she not been rightly valued?"(179)
The Western reader is left confused. The book's ending, whose interpretation affects the interpretation of the meaning of the cowries, affects the reader similarly. In showing us the reality behind Ojebeta's rags-to-riches marriage, "perhaps the novel is a feminist critique of marriage -- an interpretation that allows us to maintain our identification with Ojebeta. This identification is brought to an abrupt halt, however, when we see how honored she is when her husband buys her from the Palagadas" (Fishburn, 94). Thus the question remains unsolved, that of whether the metaphor of the cowries implies that a better life lies in nourishing one's connection to one's "ancestors" or cultural past. She seems both to suggest this and to add that it is not enough. Such ambiguities appear to be Emecheta's strategy of representing this complex society, one influenced by two contradicting cultures.
Bones and Images from the Natural World:In contrast, Bones firmly advocates traditional relationships with one's ancestors as a path to gain strength and courage for the changes that must come in Zimbabwe. Chapter 7 is titled, "The Spirits Speak: 1897 My Bones Fall." It begins, "Arise my children. Do you not see the vultures flying over the corpses that are not yet ? . . . The large wings of the vultures are like shady clouds that you cannot read the pattern of the sky. The sky, so old and with so many eyes that you do not see" (43). Hove often uses the combination of Shona religious symbolism worked into descriptions of the physical setting. This technique serves to further emphasize the power of the traditional culture, of the religious and the natural worlds bound together in metaphor, as they are bound together in the minds of the Shona. Here the ancestors, who implore their "children" to listen, talk of the great misfortunes and "disease" which has befallen the children. The disease grips so tightly that the children can no longer "see" the sky, the home of the god of the ancestors. They call for their children to listen and to learn ways to cure themselves, finishing the passage with, "Do not let the eyes of disease inflict its pain on the land while you sit under the shade of the tree without a name as if all is well. No, you cannot be children without parents to warn them that fire burns" (44).
Though Marita dies and Janifa goes insane before the book ends, Janifa has gained powerful knowledge from Marita, allowing her to know that their legacy will not be forgotten, and to think hopefully of the future of the struggle of her people:
Here again Janifa envisions a strong Shona people, a people looking to and listening to their ancestors (often through signs in their natural environment) to learn "to fly again."hey will not forget to point fingers at the place I work and the many songs I will sing to the ears of those who have died so that the bird which once had broke wings can fly for all to see. A black bird with wings broken by so many ruthless hands that many people think it is not possible for the bird to fly again. Then they will see the footsteps of the bones of the woman rising early in the morning to urge all the villagers, all the cattle, the birds, the insects and the hills to rise with the rising bones, to sing with the singing bones. (112)
In conclusion, a major symbol of the Shona and Yoruba people's relationship to their ancestors run through both Bones and The Slave Girl the traditional divination tools of the bones and the cowries. Emecheta's cowries make a two-pronged statement. On one hand they point to the benefit of knowledge of one's cultural identity. On the other, Emecheta does not definitively conclude that this will alone sustain a person in the modern, Western-influenced Africa. Hove uses the symbolism of bones, often in the form of mixed natural and religious metaphors, to advocate the importance of traditional beliefs, and of remembering the past, in the survival and health of the modern African. Despite their differences, both authors probe the past for wisdom to use in the construction of the future.
Bascom, William. Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba divination from Africa to the New World. Bloomington, Indiana U. P.: 1993.
Ephirim-Donkor, Anthony. African Spirituality: on Becoming Ancestors. Trenton, N.J., Africa World P.: 1997.
Fishburn, Katherine. Reading Buchi Emecheta: Cross-Cultural Conversations. Westport, C.T., Greenwood P.: 1995.
Gelfand, Michael. Shona Religion. Wynberg, South Africa, Juta& Co. Ltd.: 1962.
