New Soil for the Future Return Home: Daniel Black's The Coming
by ANYABWILE LOVE
in Spring 2017
Stephen Small-Warner, "Tiffany's Favrile," (2014)
i lost a whole continent.
a whole continent from my memory.
unlike all other hyphenated americans.
my hyphen is made of blood. feces. bone.
when africa says hello
my mouth is a heartbreak
because i have nothing in my tongue
to answer her.
i do not know how to say hello to my mother.
--nayyirah waheed, "african american ii"
The question of what Africans lost culturally in the process of becoming “hyphenated americans” is considered in the poetry of nayyirah waheed in salt (2013). This idea of cultural alienation in waheed’s work is most noticeable in the eventual loss of the traditional languages of enslaved Africans. waheed's work is not the first to address the phenomenon of cultural retention. The seminal work of Amiri Baraka (maa kheru), Blues People: Negro Music in America[1], is one of the earliest attempts to engage the idea of a new national and cultural identity in foreign geographical spaces.
In particular, Baraka attempts to unpack the circumstances under which the enslaved African became the “American Negro.” In other words, what were the particular set of circumstances and the path taken by these enslaved communities that led to the engraving of cultural norms in a new world? Baraka argues that Africans upon arrival saw themselves as foreigners. America, Baraka notes, was a foreign land to the enslaved and as such they considered their status not as citizens, but as exiles. Their transmission of rituals and tradition was passed down in African languages—not English. Baraka asserts that it would be music—more specifically the creation of the Blues—that was the beginning of the African American. Even more directly, he notes, “When America became important enough to the African to be passed on, in those formal renditions, to the young, those renditions were in some kind of Afro-American language.”[2] The pouring of this new language, along with Blues, into their pre-existing constellation of aesthetic creations would be some of the earliest attempts to push back against the estrangement from their culture.
Additionally, in her poem, “Improvisation” from Wounded in the House of a Friend, Sonia Sanchez recalls the horrors of the enslavement process. Sanchez writes, “It was the coming across the ocean that was bad...It was it was it was the packing the packing it was the packing the packing the packing the packing the packing of all of us in ships that was bad it was the coming it was the coming.”[3] This impending wretchedness in Sanchez’s work is the point of departure for author Daniel Omotosho Black’s fifth novel, The Coming (2015).
Black’s previous novels have concerned themselves extensively with the nuanced Black lived experiences in America. Beginning with his first two works, They Tell Me of Home (2005) and The Sacred Space (2007), we are offered a glimpse into the complicated lives and larger communities of their main protagonists, Tommy Lee (TL) and Clement. The differences in the two novels are minute when compared to how they both connect the struggles that come along with the challenges of being descendants of enslaved communities in a world that denies your humanity.
The writing of his most recent novel, Listen to the Lambs (2016), was interrupted by what Black describes as hearing a voice speak, that pushed him to write The Coming. It is no surprise then that Black centers much of the work of The Coming on the importance of listening. Listening as both an exercise in remembering and a cautionary tale. The nameless narrator cautions the community— both current, and more importantly, future communities—against the pitfalls of a failure to listen and adhere to ancestral wisdom, to community elders, and to the tales of lived traditions and rituals.
Unlike Black’s prior novels, The Coming offers us a glimpse into the daily lives of Africans before the encroachment of enslavement. In the first of the three parts of the novel, Black takes care to draw the reader’s attention to the importance of naming in African nations and individuals; of rituals; of historical memory; of daily rites; and of language. The narrator recalls arrogance, greed, and the squandering of elders’ wisdom as contributors to the exchange of cultural norms for material gain, and ultimately the undoing of the community. The process of this undoing is systematically presented by the author. The destruction of their homes followed being bound by chains. Next, the community was taken away one by one. The farmers first, then their healers, then the keepers of the history—the jalis, the warriors, and then the artists, orators, teachers, and lastly, the gatekeepers. Finally came the march to the legion of boats that would carry them to larger ships where they would be forcibly transported to lands distant to them. As the narrator explains, “We knew not where we were going. But we knew we were not going home” (25).
The disaster that awaits in the penultimate scene of the novel is underscored by the attention to detail in Black’s nuanced narrative of these communities. This rupture begins in earnest aboard the ships that would draw the enslaved Africans further away from home. Black takes the reader through the daily strife that awaited the captives and it is here that they try to make sense of their current circumstances: the whippings, the forced feedings, the sobering fear of being thrown overboard, the poking and prodding of potential buyers at ports. They wail along with Abuto as he is separated from Chisanganda who is sold to “some well-dressed pale men” (81). Their historical ways of knowing become their means to maintain their sanity.[4] The calling, wailing, and praying to their ancestors, Orishas, and the Divine happened in these interior spaces amidst this tragedy. Cloaked in darkness, the narrator recalls, “In other moments we talked to silent gods. Oshun? Obatala? Yemaya? Allah? Can you hear us? They did not reply” (25). Black fills this space of quiet with resolve from the captives. In these moments—the coming, is where Black demonstrates the power of lived tradition to resist against oppressors. This resistance would come at a cost to national identities for the survivors. In detailing the plans, the reconfiguring of national identities around common goals, and the execution of their revolts, Black brings into considerations the kinds of transformations Michael Gomez historicizes in Exchanging Our Country Marks (1998). Gomez, whose work riffs on Sterling Stuckey's and Baraka's, argues that modern advances in African studies allow us to understand and investigate the sociocultural reanimation of collective identities with greater accuracy. Black’s narration of these processes in Part Two contributes to this conversation and must be mentioned as part of this investigative work in future discourses.
Part Three of the novel is perhaps the most personal. As the horrors aboard the ship come to an end, the remaining fifty, including Abuto, Atiba, and the “Wolof Man,” arrive in their new world. The resolve to survive and recall these moments despite the enormity of the atrocities is best described by the narrator, “Soon, we learned the name of the place...It felt funny on our tongues, but we repeated it, over and over, that we might never forget. It had been the place of our arrival” (121). As exiles they accepted this new place as home. Dislodged from their earth, from soil rich with ancestral memory, nurtured by years of ritual and offerings, those who remained began the work that would guarantee that there would be memories of them for those yet to arrive, that “someone someday would tell their story” (124). Added to this sense of urgency was the lingering sense of Death as they suffered in stalls awaiting the continuing separation of their group at the hands of strangers that would soon bid on them[5] and take them further away.
Black does not conclude the novel with a sense of hope out of any allegiance to prior tropes. He instead wants the reader to understand that it was because our ancestors survived that hope endures. They survived and lived long enough for a transmission of cultural norms to be passed on. They left either through death or sale, but not without affirming their part of a whole that was complete before this devastation. Their true home was a milieu that declared that their humanity could not be bargained. This new place, which eventually would become home, would be embellished with carvings of symbols rooted in proverbs. Their meanings, usage, and significance were reinforced through example and whispered to the newborn, narrated through the new Christian god, and were orchestrated through new instruments and sounds. Their ring shouts which declared their understanding of the cosmos would be recast into the second line.[6] The language of the Akan would be reframed in the folklore and linguistics of the Lowcountry. Time and space could not decouple them from a home whose return was only limited by the flesh.[7]
The Coming is a communing with our Eegun; both our bloodline and our common pool of ancestors. Black stands as witness to testify to the endurance of their efforts. Throughout its pages, the question of what was lost during enslavement is answered. Black continues the responses to Baraka’s original queries. The enslaved did not believe that they would be here permanently. They understood that they were captives and as such their cultural norms would be passed on through the ritual practice of traditions.[8] America would not be the point of departure for their stories nor would it be their end. It would become what the narrator is certain of: a place where their seeds that would return home would be planted.
References
[1] Amiri Baraka, Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America and the Music That Developed From It (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1963).
[2] Ibid, xii.
[3] Sanchez, like many in our community that are living libraries, is best appreciated live. I have been fortunate to see her perform and speak several times. If the occasion presents itself, I implore you to make whatever provisions necessary to sit at this elder's feet and learn from her years of practice, research, and love that is poured into her people at every show, talk, and panel she blesses.
[4] This idea is introduced by Greg Carr, on musician Nicholas Payton’s Afro-Caribbean Mixtape (Paytone Records, 2017). Carr notes, “Black folk did not go crazy because they did not look to the West for their ideas of God or the Divine. All of them bound by the notion that this world is not my home, I’m just passing through.” It would be of great benefit to the reader to find a quiet place to engage this masterful work of Payton’s latest contribution to Black American Music (BAM).
[5] For a sonic engagement of the horrors of the auction process consider turning your attention to the brief but powerful recording of "Bid Em In" by Oscar Brown (maa kheru) from his 1961 Columbia Legacy release, Sin & Soul. It should also be noted that a short animated film directed by Neal Sopata which uses the lyrics of Brown was released in 2004 and is also worth your consideration.
[6] The ring shout or ring circle performance and its importance to the preservation of African identities can not be mentioned enough. See Sterling Stuckey’s Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory & The Foundations of Black America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987) as well as Samuel Floyd’s (maa kheru) The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) for further reading on the ring shouts and second line.
[7] This idea is informed in part from the character Nunu in the 1993 film, Sankofa,directed by Haile Gerima. In its first act Nunu, the matriarch of the enslaved community, admonishes, “If not for this flesh we would grow wings that would carry us home!”
[8] The practice of ritual and tradition are complementary. However they are not mutually exclusive in the continuation, preservation, and improvisation of culture. Wherein tradition is the “what” of the cultural practices, ritual allows us to approach the question of “why.” Tradition facilitates the “what,” or the sensory response and development of one’s culture. It does not, however, suggest the “why” or the eternity of the continuance of one’s culture—this is better comprehended and understood through actual ritual practices. In this vein, ritual, in helping us get to the “why” cements tradition into eternity. Ritual practices are the refusal to move away from established cultural norms even when the geographical space or form may shift or change. Additionally, tradition when buttressed by ritual, reinforces to the next generation that their existence is married to the continuation of the cultural practices for reasons that are clear to everyone involved. For more see, Marimba Ani, Let the Circle be Unbroken: The Implications of African Spirituality in the Diaspora (New York: Nkonimfo Publications, 1997).
Anyabwile Love is an Assistant Professor at the Community College of Philadelphia. He earned a Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University. He is currently writing a project on John William Coltrane. Follow him on Twitter @AnyabwileLove.
