Moon Witch, Spider King

Menstrual blood in the narrative—referred to as “Moon blood”—symbolizes the power of women to procreate, considered divine in some cultures, but it also represents death. The consumption of blood, whether literal or symbolic, is extensive in both religious and cultural rituals. Catholics drink the metaphorical “blood of Christ,” a ritual known as transubstantiation whereby the power of Christ is infused into the mortal body. A blood transfusion restores life, but the Ipundulu, the vampire birds of James’s narrative, drink the blood of their victims and turn them into docile zombies. With such diversity of meaning, the proliferation of blood in the novel symbolizes many things at once: women’s power to create life (which, in turn, leads to their oppression and demonization as witches); the spilled blood of all those killed by the Aesi, Sogolon, and constant warfare; and guilt such as Sogolon’s guilt over her long life while her son died brutally. Red, the color of blood, is also a potent symbol of sexuality (and therefore, life), and James does not shy away from giving his characters robust sexual lives.

Oral traditions are important in colonized societies. They cannot be censored or rewritten in the same way written records can, and therefore, they give Indigenous cultures some power over their colonizers. In this novel, written records serve an important purpose as well. They provide a reliable recording of the truth when oral traditions fail (due to the Aesi’s memory purges). Writing is physical and tactile, a hard copy in a world of spoken words and vanishing memories. The burning of the Hall of Records in Kongor is a tragedy of monumental proportions, the destruction of centuries of learning and culture, and a terrible blow to the written traditions of the southern griots.

One of the most significant texts in the novel is Emini’s scroll, a linen parchment depicting dreamlike images of a modern metropolis: homes and temples rising into the clouds, an eerily prescient visual description of Dolingo with its cities built in trees, elaborate system of transportation, and floating rivers. Emini—and later Sogolon—keeps the linen wrapped around her body under her clothing as a way of keeping it safe, an acknowledgment of its tremendous value. Texts, whether written or visual, mark the transition from oral storytelling to writing, a major milestone in history and the only safeguard against the Aesi’s memory purge.

Master Komwono’s boli is a power object meant to channel the natural life forces of the user. Constructed over a wooden armature, it is layered with organic materials: mud, sticks, clay, and animal feces. The boli represents the mystery and magic of cultural artifacts, and, ironically, it imparts its magic to Sogolon after a single, brief touch. It’s unclear whether the master has ever tried to use the boli for his own purposes, but after years of carefully tending it by adding materials to its surface, he seems to have no more power than before, while Sogolon, “one with no power” (38), suddenly is able to channel the power of the wind. In James’s narrative at least, the boli is not only an object of power but an object of justice, empowering the powerless and tipping the scales in favor of the oppressed.