UofM Feminist

*Its essay/book report time :)*

Sandra Jackson-Opoku’s The River Where Blood is Born tells the story of nine generations of daughters, the ninth daughter from the daughter of Deepest Memory. The ancestors of the afterlife village at the Place Where Blood is Born are depending on this ninth daughter to keep the village alive. The daughter of Deepest Memory must keep telling their stories so subsequent generations will remember and understand their histories. Angelyn Mitchell in her book, The Freedom to Remember, states, “History is a matter of memory: who is allowed to remember determines what is remembered. What is remembered as well as what is not remembered informs and influences both the present and the future” (Mitchell 110). Throughout the novel, the telling of stories and the keeping of memories is very important to the remembrance of the ancestors and the existence of the Place Where Blood is Born.

Throughout The River Where Blood is Born, the main characters encounter incredible life changes. What holds these women together in the present and the afterlife are the memories and stories. Ama Krah (Proud Mary) is the daughter of Abena Anim, who tells her of the Place Where Blood is Born. Ama and her lover, Kwesi, “had listened to her tales as she toiled in her garden or gathered herbs by Two Rivers. Had grown to near man- and womanhood seeing Abena Anim gaze upriver with eyes that saw more than they could ever know. ‘There is a place, children. A village at the headwaters of one of these rivers. It is the place where I was born’” (Jackson-Opoku 41). Although Kwesi, being an unrelated boy, does not understand Abena Anim’s stories or her reference to her mother calling her to the Place Where Blood is Born. Ama does. “A mother’s voice seemed to call to them upriver, a voice that only Ama heard. A wind seemed to tug them downriver, a force which only Ama felt” (J-O 42). Shortly after this revelation, a pregnant Ama Krah is taken from her home and sold into slavery. According to Harihar Kulkarni, author of Black Feminist Fiction,

Under the most traumatic conditions of slavery and colonization where the slave is ruthlessly torn from his home, from his land and people, denuded of his culture and heritage, uprooted from his history and family, transported under the most inhuman conditions of the sea, transplanted into chattel slavery in an alien land, stripped of his past memories, and religious beliefs and practices and finally, reduced to a mere ‘atom’ without a personality or social identity, it is no more possible for him to be in harmony with the inner self.

Although the harshness of the uprooting of African men and women is quite accurate and disturbing, Ama Krah pushes back and refuses to allow herself to be completely devoid of her upbringing. The stories and memories that Abena Anim has given to Ama Krah allow her to fight back against the slave traders and eventually escape bondage. Simone de Beauvoir in her book, Le Deuxième Sexe, argues, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature” (Kolmar 184). Ama Krah was raised solely by her mother by the river; that being her ‘civilization and society,’ she became a woman who followed and, most importantly, remembered the stories and memories from her mother.

On the slave ship, Ama Krah’s daughter, Diaspora, was born. Unfortunately, however, she was given away to a wealthy family in Barbados who ran The Rivers Estate who renamed her Emilene Winston. Because she was raised away from her mother, Emilene did not have the stories that aided Ama Krah. However, she did have the stories from Nanny Griggs who taught her about Africa and healing. Being a Black woman raised by a white adoptive mother, Nanny Griggs was the only person who gave Emilene some background on the African Diaspora. According to Kulkarni, even though she did not know her life before Barbados, “Knowledge of the true self must be obtained, no matter if one has to make a descent into the dark recesses of one’s own unconscious” (Kulkarni 33). Silence was expected ever since she came to live at The Rivers Estate. Only in the last few lines of her story does Emilene find her voice and recognize her history: “I look around, almost expecting Mother Mercy to answer for me. But she is gone, both my white parents are…My infant son stirs in my arms, rooting to find nourishment at my breast. The rain begins to fall, spattering gently against the roof, speaking to me in voices. We are not lost, we are not nameless, we are not silent.” (J-O 75). The stories from Nanny Griggs and her acknowledgment of her history and voice allow her to accept the ancestors that she had not known and connect her to her family.

Much like Diaspora (Emilene Winston), Earlene Josephs grew up not knowing her mother. Earlene is a singer who, every once in a while will travel to other states or countries to perform. On her way to the Quad Cities, she passes through Simon’s Acres, which triggers in her memories of her father and childhood. “Simon’s Acres, Illinois. Simon. That’s funny; I had me a father named Simon. I remembered him in the same way I do the birds and wildflowers that were a part of a life I lived before this patch of hair on my temple became white” (J-O 96). Feeling pulled or ‘called’ by the nearby river, she makes it to a house owned by a Miss Bryn Mawr. After talking to this woman and her maid, Flossie, Earlene begins to piece things together and eventually brings her memories into one and understands what really happened to her father and their home. Earlene has a flashback to when her father was killed and their home caught fire. She visits Miss Bryn Mawr again the next day but this time, she confronts her about her father stealing their land and murdering her father. Miss Bryn Mawr reacts by throwing Earlene out of her home: “ ‘My daddy never stole a thing in his life, especially from a nigger. You better get on out of here and forget you ever seen this place.’ I stepped through the open door. ‘How can I forget? I’m just beginning to remember” (J-O 109). Although it took until she was 57, Earlene finally discovered her family’s past and understood her connection to history.

Earlene Josephs’ daughter, Darlene, understood and knew her past and her history. Later on in life, like her mother, she discovers not her family but herself and her identity. On her first big trip to Montreal, she feels out of place and odd, but after some reflection and time, she decides to turn her life around. “I was tasting the world and liking it. I was getting ready to come out moving like a mountain…I aimed to find a way to the top of Royal Mountain. I was going to get up there and see what it looked like to have a city spread out at my feet” (J-O 128). As one continues to read, Darlene travels to the Caribbean, New York, and to Africa. According to Alma Jean Billingslea-Brown in her book Crossing Borders Through Folklore, she states “Ultimately, the motif of yearning and return, as [Davies] suggests, delineated a common ground where African people both on the continent and in diaspora could meet and engage one another” (Brown 56-7). In order to be in closer contact with her history and ancestry, she traveled to Africa, where she runs into her second cousin, Alma. While in the Caribbean, Darlene adopts a young girl named Sara Winston who, unbeknownst to her, is a relative. Sara is a minor character in the novel, however, she works with Alma Peeples in Washington D.C. and does go home eventually to connect with her family. In her travels and understanding of her family, Darlene Josephs may be the daughter of Deepest Memory that the ancestors are searching for.

Allie Mae (Alma) Peeples and Big Momma (Bohema Beasley) spend a summer together where Allie Mae changes dramatically especially after hearing Big Momma’s stories. Big Momma, Earlene’s mother, remembers her family and ancestors every month by going to the cemetery and putting flowers on the graves. She teaches Allie Mae how to piecework a quilt and to bring pieces of everything and everyone into it. She shows her how the thread and the pieces come together to create something new from the familiar. More than teaching Allie Mae about family and remembering, she encourages her to tell her own story.

Sometimes Big Momma sews clothes by pinching off patterns – the sleeves from a Butterick, the collar from Simplicity, the bodice from Vogue. Sometimes she even makes her own patterns from brown shopping bag paper. I do the same thing with stories. Pinching off the princess from Snow White, the hero from Sleeping Beauty, the love story from The Little Mermaid, and the happy ending from Cinderella. Big Momma says I’ve been blessed with a story to tell. More and more now, I’m starting to tell stories of my own.

As Allie Mae begins to create and record her own stories, Big Momma teaches her about her body and herself. When Allie Mae gets her first period, Pat (Cinnamon) Brown, her cousin, and Big Momma help her and initiate her into womanhood. “She watches as her womankin oil her cleansed body, working together in the dark, silent room. A clean, folded white rag is positioned between her legs and carefully anchored there by a length of blue beads Big Momma flashes from a cloth sack” (J-O 166). The beads that Big Momma gives to Allie Mae are another story about a hunter and a lion. The beads are strung on a lion’s tail and look and feel like water. They come from Ama Krah when she came across the ocean from Africa. Big Momma gives some history to Allie Mae to take with her to help her remember and keep her connected. She also entrusts Allie Mae with telling the stories after she is gone. “Big Momma sighs. Drops her head and shakes it slowly. Puts away her pins and needles, her threads and scraps. Folds the finished quilt across her lap. ‘And when I’m gone, Little Daughter…I want you to tell mine’” (J-O 183).

In her essay, Coming of age in the African American Novel, Claudine Raynaud argues “Childhood can be either the moment for a happiness never to be retrieved, an age of innocence, or a time already plagued by the torments inherent in the condition of being black in America, as if the protagonist had always already been immersed in experience” (Graham 106). Within Allie Mae’s life, we see her already playing a mature almost maternal role in caring for her mentally retarded brother, Benny. Her mother requires her to take care of the house, make dinner, and take complete care of herself. As a young woman growing up in inner city Chicago, Allie Mae takes on many responsibilities and handles them very efficiently, which may foreshadow an ability to become the daughter of Deepest Memory.
Cinnamon (Pat) Brown is raised separate from her mother, but adored by her father. Lola Brown did not want children and as a result, after giving birth to Cinnamon, would not allow her daughter to call her mother. During the summers spent with Big Momma in Cairo, Cinnamon doesn’t engage in the stories or care about her ancestors. Unlike Allie Mae, Cinnamon does not look up to Big Momma. Her role model is her good friend, Blondine. After she is murdered, Cinnamon adopts her life philosophy: “Spice is the variety of life [and life] ain’t nothing but a party!” (J-O 203). She lives her life in search of spice, mostly at parties because “parties promised pleasure, and pleasure was the primary of life’s seasonings” (J-O 283). Even after her father’s death, Cinnamon and her mother, Lola, never get along. Because she does not remember or care for the stories, Cinnamon does not see the world like she had planned. In fact, she doesn’t even find the pleasure that she seeks.

With the help of Big Momma’s story beads, her own stories, and her guide, Kwesi Omobowale, Alma Peeples travels to Africa in search of the Place Where Blood is Born. More than a reminder, the beads are a guide. “These story beads speak to me in a language I had long forgotten. They come alive in loving, rattling like a snake giving warning. Like the rumble of far-off drums, or the call of nearby waters” (J-O 334). Alma searches for stories everywhere she goes. When Kwesi and Alma are in a danfo waiting to leave Lagos, a woman comes running to get in before it leaves. Alma braids her hair, allows her to sit, and talks to her trying to discover her story and her history. She searches for her own genealogy and history while always trying to discover everyone else’s stories. She leaves behind a legacy and written accounts of the stories and memories she has collected throughout her life. Because she searches so heartily and remembers so much, one could argue that she is the daughter of Deepest Memory although Jackson-Opoku does not answer that question for us.

The stories of these nine daughters take us on a journey to find the daughter of Deepest Memory. The ancestors of the River Where Blood is Born, at the end of the novel, begin to settle down and trust that their daughter will arrive. The stories told and memories kept throughout the book throughout the generations keeps the ancestors and their village alive. In doing so, the daughters discover their own histories as well as those of their family. Alma Peeples and Darlene Josephs go as far as Africa to trace their roots. As Angelyn Mitchell states, those who remember and what is remembered influence the present and the future (Mitchell 110). These women’s journeys uphold the ancestry and slowly make it back to the Two Rivers where if they follow the blood, they will cross over to the Place Where Blood is Born.