Payel Dutta Chowdhury

Identity at The Border

A conflict facing many African Americans in the modern world is the loss of African roots and heritage in a society that does not encourage cultural identity but stifles it instead. For the African American experience, going back to the roots signifies establishing a close proximity with the family and the larger community which have always been the very substance of their existence. They have always believed that their lives are all entwined, and it is this fundamental connection that gives them their basic strength. In the representation of the community, one problem that African American women fiction repeatedly faced is that of striking a balance between reality and ideology, between what the community actually is in the larger American capitalistic society and the wished for ideal, of a community which is constructed in a more inclusive manner involving an expanded notion of time and space, bringing within its ambit the distant as evoked by the sense of the Afro-centric, with its larger geographical connotation and spiritual dimension.
Among the recent group of African American women novelists, Gloria Naylor holds a prominent position in contemporary African American literature. In a literary career spanning over two decades, Naylor has mainly concentrated on the representation of African American life and culture and if one looks for a common thread which can be regarded as binding her novels, it is her interest in the representation of the African American identity. Naylor considers how black cultures are formed by diverse groups of individuals, how they are maintained through the nurturing of their members, how they can be destroyed through the abandonment of their shared past and heritage, and finally the question of the survival of that culture in a political context which emphasizes multiculturalism. Her engagement with the idea of African American identity and a larger community in a definite space is reflected in the narrative structure of her third novel Mama Day (1988). It is significant that the site is visualized and constructed as an island away from, though close to the American mainland. It is a utopian space, created for the representation of the ideal, though utopian space aimed at achieving that which was not achievable in a culturally realistic setting of the 1980s.

Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day brings the all-black inhabitants of the island of Willow Springs very close to the spirit of Africa. Located on the border between Georgia and South Carolina, Willow Springs is not represented as a place charted on any map, nor is it actually a part of any state. As Tucker says, “Naylor’s choice of location has obviously been dictated by the historical relationship of the islands to the perpetuation of African culture" because the "Sea Islands are, with the exception of New Orleans, the most African of places in America.” Naylor’s choice of creating Willow Springs away from any real geographical location provides us with an instant idea of whether she wants to create a utopian space projecting her concept of community. Given the constraints of the time period when she was writing, it was no longer possible for her to portray a homogenous entity of the African American community. The Willow Springs island, even though a fictive place, is thus, closer in spirit to the south – trying to go back to the roots of the African American culture and identity. Interestingly, Gloria Naylor has always been situated in the north, but her novels are based on the south and the idea of the southern community, and she herself asserts that the “…South is the closest we’ll ever come to Africa.”

Mama Day is a novel that spans two worlds. One is the southern barrier island of Willow Springs – a place exempt from the laws of nature and the often racist laws of man. The other world is New York City: multi-racial and governed by strict and seemingly heartless codes of love and survival. In Willow Springs, the presiding presence is Miranda (Mama) Day, nearly one hundred years old and still going strong. She is the great-grand daughter of Sapphira Wade who made the year 1823 synonymous with magical events, notably her own liberation from slavery by bewitching her master and lover, Bascombe Wade and persuading him to deed the island to his slaves.    

Possessing some of her ancestor’s gifts, Mama Day is a healer of the community with roots in the past, strength in the present, and insight into the future. Gloria Naylor creates the perfect conjure woman in Mama Day. Obviously, being called Mama Day or Little Mama by her entire community, even by her sister, she carries the honorary name of Mother. Her healing powers for the community transcend the world of science and verge on the magical. Even as early as a child of five, Mama Day has demonstrated the ability for premonition: knowing, for example, that her baby sister, Peace, was going to be drowned in the well and sensing that “there is more to be known behind what the eyes can see.”(36) Her ability to read signs is not only an important component of African belief systems but is also crucial to the construction of the novel. She also has “(g)ifted hands”(88), which she used in caring for her mother, who had become almost insane after the death of Peace. She now uses those hands to care for the sick, to deliver babies, and to cultivate gardens. She is much closer to her roots than the rest of Willow Springs, as is demonstrated by her conversations with ancestral voices during her solitary walks in the woods or during her clearing of the graves in the family cemetery. With her magical abilities, she serves as the mediating figure of the community, the bridge between the everyday world and the sacred world of her African ancestors.

Mama Day also with all her gifts of magical powers serves as a community mother for the inhabitants of Willow Springs. She works with nature, especially in treating Bernice Duvall, who is desperate to have a baby. When being too desperate, Bernice takes the fertility drug, Perganol, and becomes seriously ill, it is Miranda who makes the correct diagnosis of ovarian inflammation and then summons Dr. Smithfield because she knows that her knowledge does not extend to chemically constructed drugs. The most ritualistic example of Miranda’s magical powers to help the community is the ritual she performs for Bernice, a fertility ritual based around “(a) rhythm older than woman….”(140) The ritual involves the chicken, the egg, the woman, and the ‘other place’: the source of Mama’s strength. Weik has identified that “(t)he chicken is one of the most powerful symbols of the woman…and the egg is the most powerful symbol of fertility in African Voodoo.” She makes Bernice plant black and gold seeds to aid and abet her fertility and to drive away the influences of her mother-in-law (Pearl) for psychological reasons, and as ritual-actions all these are clearly beneficial to Bernice because she is finally able to give birth to a child. What underlies Mama Day’s treating Bernice is not only magic, but more of motherly love and concern. Her subsequent cure of Carman Rae’s baby once again highlights her acting as a community other mother. Hour by hour, she sits with the baby cradled in her arms, making him sip the mixture that she has made, until his spasm of coughing decreases and he sleeps peacefully. Subsequently, she guides her in ways of bringing up her children in a better way. This concept of mothering among black women seeks to move towards the mutuality of a shared sisterhood that binds African American women as community other mothers. Just as Mama Day, other black women in African American communities do not act only as mothers in their family networks, but also as community other mothers. Collins says that “(i)n local African American communities, community other mothers become identified as powerful figures through furthering the community’s well-being.” Mama Day’s involvement in fostering the Willow Springs community development forms the basis for her community-based power.

Mama Day’s bonding with the community stems from her deep attachment towards her family – her only living sister, Abigail, and Abigail’s grand-daughter, Ophelia (Cocoa). The two sisters have lots of differences, as Miranda points out “We’re like two peas in a pod, but we’re two peas still the same.”(153) But even with whatever differences they have, together they form the concept of ideal motherhood for Cocoa. Abigail had always been lenient towards Cocoa, whereas, Mama had been the strict disciplinarian. As Cocoa recalls,

Mama Day just didn’t believe in cuddling. But if Grandma had raised me alone,
I would have been ruined for any fit company. It seemed I could do no wrong
with her, while with Mama Day I could do no right. I guess, in a funny kind of
way, together they were the perfect mother.(58)

Abigail and Miranda together had been the ideal mother for Cocoa and had reared her up to face the outer world. Now that Cocoa is settled in New York, these two women still bond with her by sending her letters once every month. In writing letters to Cocoa, Abigail and Mama always have different opinions and “although it’s the same fight every letter they answer, it never occurs to either of them to write back to Cocoa separately.” (66) This familial bonding operating throughout the novel confers identity, purpose, and strength for the survival of all these three women.

Ophelia’s strong tie with her grandmother and great-aunt is further enhanced by her deep-rooted bond with the Willow Springs community, her true home. ‘Home’ itself is a magic word for Cocoa, and whatever may happen, every August she returns to Willow Springs for a visit. Cocoa, thus, returns to the island to renew her bonding with her family, both past and present, for only on the island can she be in contact with them both physically and spiritually. The Willow Springs community also receives Cocoa with open arms whenever she comes. It is this contact with the larger community that instills in Cocoa a sense of her own selfhood. Even when she is away from home, she depends a lot on her grandmother’s and great-aunt’s letters that inform her about each and every incident at Willow Springs and make her aware of their existence even in their physical absence.   
The Willow Springs community extends its ties not only to Cocoa, but also to her New York-bred husband, George. He is an orphan who starts recognizing the importance of familial and community bonding once he gets married to Cocoa who he feels has more than a family – an entire history. The love and care that is showered on him by Cocoa’s family when he visits Willow Springs is something that he had never come across – “Up until that moment, no woman had ever called me her child.” (176) George was so much carried away by this love and affection that much to Cocoa’s surprise, he plans to leave New York and stay forever in Willow Springs.    

Naylor, all throughout the novel, has given subtle hints of the Willow Springs community bonding through certain important symbols; one such is the ‘Candle Walk’. Observed on the 22nd of December, Candle walk “suggests a recognition of the fact that this longest night of the year also marks the beginning of the return of the sun from its lowest zenith, a rebirth that correlates with the rebirth of the terrestrial world.” As the people walk up and down the main road carrying some form of a light; they exchange gifts and food, and they tell each other “Lead on with light.” (110) In Miranda’s younger days, Candle Walk was different from the present time. At that time, after going around and leaving what was needed for others, folks used to meet in the main road, link arms and hum some ancient song and then, walk to the east end of the island with their candles saying, “Lead on with light, Great Mother. Lead on with light.” (111) Candle Walk was mainly a way of getting help from others without feeling obliged. Giving something back was never a hardship – only it had to be any bit of something “as long as it came from the earth and the work of your own hands.” (110)    

But things have taken a little different turn with the young folks having more money and working beyond the bridge. Now they buy each other fancy gadgets from the catalogues and at times say ignorant things like, “They ain’t gave me nothing last Candle Walk, so they getting the same from me this year.” (111) A few youngsters, without understanding the real significance of Candle Walk, even drive their cars instead of walking, flashing the headlights at folks they passed, yelling out of the window, sometimes drunk, “Lead on, lead on!”(111) But whatever might be the changes, the basic community bonding by means of Candle Walk, is still inherent in Willow Springs and even Miranda feels that there is nothing to worry about these little changes as Candle Walk has kept on changing and reshaping over the past generations.

Another important symbol of community bonding is brought out in the novel through the idea of 'quilting': "Quilt-making can be seen as a paradigm for the effects of the African diaspora…." When Cocoa and George marry, Cocoa asks her grandmother, Abigail and great aunt, Miranda for a double-ring wedding quilt as a wedding present. The sisters make the quilt entirely from scraps of clothing worn by themselves and the rest of their family - sisters, fathers, uncles, and mothers. Miranda even finds a piece of cloth that she concludes must have been worn by the great Mother of Willow Springs, Sapphira Wade. This type of quilting is central in African American culture because it brings together the fragments of black families separated by slavery and other ways, and pieces them together into a seamless whole where, "you can't tell where one ring ends and the other begins." When George and Cocoa receive their present, George is so much awed by the beauty of the seven square feet quilt that he immediately wants to hang it on the wall as a work of art rather than use it. But Cocoa, unlike the so-called educated Dee in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”, knows it was not meant to be admired, but rather to be used – “They had sewed for my grandchildren to be conceived under this quilt."(147) She recognizes the art which is created for everyday use, not just for art’s sake.

Other symbols of community bonding central to the story are interweaved in the novel. One such is the idea of braiding hair. In an interview to Charles H. Rowell, Naylor says,
…I recall, when I went over to Senegal and I was researching a historical novel I'm going to write, I had my hair braided there. The woman, the beautician in the beauty shop, had a little low stool; they sit you on that little low stool, between their knees, and they braid your hair. A lump came into my throat, because it brought back memories of how my mother did my hair. She'd sit you between her knees.

Braiding hair has also close associations to the African culture and the idea is used by Naylor in this novel to highlight on the Willow Springs community relationships and their culture. As Naylor recalls her own memories and associations with the idea of braiding hair, we find a similar picture in this novel where Cocoa gets her hair braided by Ruby when she comes to visit Willow Springs. It reminds her of the old memories of her younger days and her association with the Willow Springs community.   

 
The Willow Springs community is close to Africa in spirit, and thus, we find Naylor celebrating the African heritage of black Americans and their community’s distinct beliefs and culture. Explaining the significance of the community’s beliefs and rituals for the Africans and the African Americans, Sobonfu Some states, “Rituals are to the soul what food is to the body. Without rituals, a community suffers from fragmentation and confusion; with them our pathways are clear.” He also explains that the ‘elders’ who function as the anchors of the community, lead their communal and private rituals, such as, welcoming the newborn and bidding farewell to the deceased. An example of one such ritual is the funeral of the child of Bernice and Ambush. For African groups, “the afterlife was a reality; death was a journey to the spirit world, which, nonetheless, did not constitute a break with life on earth.” For the Willow Springs community, although their world was peopled by both bad and good spirits, ancestral spirits were especially important in the New World and served as guardians of the living. This view finds poignant expression in the funeral scene in the novel and brings forth not only the community beliefs and culture, but also their bonding with their ancestors and with each other.

In representing the realistic scenario of the 1980s when projecting a homogenous African American community was no longer possible, Naylor has created Ruby, the other local conjure woman, who in defining herself solely as a possessor of men, has rejected all ties with women and seeks to do them harm. This failure of community bonding on the island reflects tensions within Willow Springs and between it and the outside world. Ruby becomes excessively jealous and possessive of her husband, Junior Lee and being so, breaks her ties with the Willow Springs circle. The spirit of competition that Ruby feels with the other women causes her ostracism and her ultimate insanity during which she poisons Cocoa. In describing Cocoa’s illness, Naylor has focused on the rift caused in the community, breaking the trust and understanding among people.

Mama Day’s biggest challenge as a community mother and healer involves saving Cocoa from the clutches of Ruby’s hatred. In this battle, Mama as the incarnation of love can do only so much to combat Ruby; to heal Cocoa, she needs George’s love and help too because he has become a part of her existence. Miranda knows that to help Cocoa, George must hand over his belief to her – “She needs his hand in hers – his very hand – so she can connect it up to all the believing that had gone before….So together they could be the bridge for Baby Girl to walk over.” (285) By placing his hand in Miranda’s, by joining the secular with the sacred, the real with the magical, they can save Cocoa. While he does save Cocoa, asserting that “…these were my hands, and there was no way I was going to let you go”, (301) he is unable to make a genuine surrender of belief to Miranda, and hence loses his life. Ophelia, however, survives beaconing the triumph of Mama’s love over Ruby’s hatred.

In this novel, Naylor has represented community bonding as empowered by folk tradition, by nature, and by abiding spiritual forces. In an interview to Angels Carabi, Naylor said, Mama Day “…is about the fact that the real basic magic is the unfolding of the human potential and that if we reach inside ourselves we can create miracles.”13 Given the picture of the disturbed African American community of her time, Naylor in her third novel has projected an imaginary location outside any realistic locality where selfless love and bonding, even if required to be achieved beyond the community, are essential requirements for survival. Mama Day, then, is an ultimate celebration of African American cultural identity and community ties cutting across the barriers of time, space, and nature.

 

Works Cited

Carabi, Angels. “Interview with Gloria Naylor”. Belles Lettres 7, Spring 1992

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 1991

Fowler, Virginia. Gloria Naylor: In Search of Sanctuary. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996

Lindsay. “Recovering the Conjure Woman: Texts and Contexts in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day”. African American Review, vol. 28, no. 2, 1994

Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York: Vintage Books, 1988 [All quotations in this artcle from Mama Day have the same publications details.]

Rowell, Charles H. “An Interview with Gloria Naylor”. CALLALOO, Vol. 20, No. 1,  The Johns Hopkins Press. [Interview conducted over telephone on 3rd February, 1997, between
Charlottesville, Virginia, and New York City.]

Russell, Sandi. Render Me My Song: African American Women Writers from Slavery to the Present. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990

Some, Sobonfu. “from whence we came”. African American History. Essence, December 1999.
Tucker, Lindsay. “Recovering the Conjure Woman: Texts and Contexts in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day”. African American Review, vol. 28, no. 2, 1994

Walker, Alice. “Every Day Use” in In Love and Trouble. London: Women’s Press, 1984. [Originally published by New York – Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: The Women’s Press Fiction, 1973.]

Weik, Erin. “Conjure in Mama Day”. December 1996. www.lythastudios.com/gnaylor/conjure
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