Journal Article

POWER OF THE WORD/POWER OF THE WORKS: THE SIGNIFYING SOUL Of AFRICANA WOMEN'S LITERATURE

Washington, Teresa N

2005

Overview

\"Oruko n ro ni. Oriki nro eniyan: Naming affects the individual; Encomium shapes personality\" (Kolawole 26-27). This Yoruba proverb reminds us that profound cosmic, political, and personal power and responsibility accompany acts of naming and signifying. Considering the vulgar and erroneous terms by which she and her works have been known -- black witch, negress, Sapphire, castrating bitch, and black magic, witchcraft, magical realism -- the Africana woman's efforts to recover and create language appropriate to her being and art are logical and necessary; this work may even be her duty. Clenora Hudson-Weems suggests as much in Africana Womanism; in fact, the first two of her \"eighteen distinct and diverse characteristics of Africana Womanism\" are \"Self-Namer\" and \"Self-Definer\" (55-58). The veracity of Hudson-Weems's assertions is apparent in Alice Walker's neologism, \"Womanism,\" which inspired Hudson-Weems's study, and in Molara Ogundipe-Leslie's \"Stiwanism,\" \"Stiwa\" being an acronym for \"Social Transformation Including Women in Africa\" (qtd. in Kolawole 22-23). However, I contend that the self-claiming, -naming, and -defining powers of Africana women have sources more ancient and authentic than reactions to the racist and myopic socio-political agendas of others. In this article, I will attempt to use the ancient Yoruba concepts of Àjé and Òrò to elucidate the origin of the signifying soul of Africana women's literature. [Rowland Abiodun] asserts, \"In Yoruba traditional thought, the verbal and visual arts are [...] considered as metaphors\" for the \"essence\" of Òrò (252). Similarly, in Workings of the Spirit, Houston A. Baker contends, \"In mythomania, strategies are multiple, guises of the spirit are manifold, and genre, paradoxically, an almost noncategorical denominator. Such flexibleness and permeability are functions of the nonmateriality of classical space which is always a medium rather than a signally distinctive substance\" (76-77). The invisible essence or mythomanic space of Òrò resides in the artist/speaker who transmits through the artwork/utterance. The conjured and conjuring essence of Òrò continues its mission of meta-signification by obligating the audience to use its properties to remember and re-charge ancient and create new words of power. Òrò's cyclic signifying path is evident in such poems as \"Ka 'Ba\" by Amiri Baraka, \"Conjuring Against Alien Spirits\" by Quincy Troupe, and \"My Daddy's a Retired Magician\" by Ntozake Shange. Òrò's furtive force is also manifest in Toni Morrison intentionally putting \"spaces\" and \"holes\" in her art for her audience to fill (Tate 164). Even when invisible or unknown, Òrò is a cognitive-critical-creative force that unites art to artist to audience with the goal of infinite re-creation. As is well known, [Zora Neale Hurston]'s ground-breaking literary documentation and application of Àjé Òrò, including her transcription of [Marie Leveau]'s aásàn, had fallen out of print and into obscurity when Alice Walker decided to vindicate her mother. During the depression, a haughty relief worker humiliated Walker's mother and denied her free government-issued food. Walker wanted to redress this violation and empower her mother, and she chose literary Àjé, compounded power of the works, as her weapon of choice. Walker needed an effective and authentic Òrò to give her mother agency; but, similar to Morrison who \"distrusted\" published studies on Africana spiritwork, Walker described available expositions on the \"craft of voodoo\" as \"all white, most racist\" (Davis 225; Walker, \"Saving\" 11, respectively). However, just as Bòkólo's text of supremacy radiates from the margin, a \"footnote to the white voices of authority\" led Walker to Hurston's Mules and Men and Leveau's Òrò aásàn (Walker, \"Saving\" 11-13).

• Publisher: Femspec
• Subject: African American literature / African Americans / American literature / Baraka, Amiri (1934-2014) / Black literature / Creativity / Folklore / Literary criticism / Literature / Mental depression / Metaphor / Miller, E Ethelbert / Morrison, Toni (1931-2019) / Mythology / Naming / Neologisms / Occult sciences / Parapsychology / Personality / Poetry / Politics / Racism / Space / Transcription / Walker, Alice (1944- ) / Women / Yoruba language