Gloria

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ISSN 2278-9529 Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal

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Preservation of Native Culture in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day

Pooja Sahu Research Scholar

School of Studies in English Vikram University, Ujjain

Gloria Naylor like all black writers confront in her artistry in literary history. Naylor’s novels provide an intimate portrait of everyday black folk whose lives are sometimes reduced merely to the struggle for survival but reveal the inherent strengths of the black community and the richness of black culture. Her novels have the influence of southern heritage. Her third novel Mama Day is primarily set in the southern landscape. The novel strives to reestablish the importance of southern place in African-American identity. The world of Afro American is closely linked to black cultural and communal traditions. She has incorporated African belief systems and rituals still central to African American life. She uses folklore to explore the complexities within her culture. It chronicles the development of black folk culture in depth through the depiction of Willow Springs and its residents. Her characters George, Cocoa and Mama Day present a larger social context based on the strain between Eurocentric culture and African American folk culture.

Gloria Naylor, as an African American, has deep connection with her southern roots and heritage. The element from her life that has been most influential on her novels is her southern heritage. Understanding that southern life in many ways defines the African American experience, Naylor feels obligated to capture this essence in all of her works. Though she knows that every black experience is not southern or working class, she affirms the southern space as an inescapable foundation. According to her-

The black community is diverse and all facets of black life should be explored. …this newer generation…will be further and further removed from its southern roots, and with this shift there will be less interest in those working class struggles that so often are related to the racial conflicts so well known in the South.1

In this regard, Naylor has presented her novels with the cultural heritage of African American culture in the form of oral tradition, story-telling, supernatural elements, ancestral presence, and the folk traditions in order to preserve her native culture and its various facets in the heart and mind of the coming generations who are deprived of her culture in the influence of white culture. Henry Louis Gates asserts that: “In the history of the African-American literary tradition, perhaps no other author has been more immersed in the formal history of that tradition than Gloria Naylor.”2

In the context of cultural study, African American heritage is largely defined by oral traditions and folklore. Africans brought in as slaves to work the plantations in the New World strove to maintain their religious and cultural bearing by relying on their memories of folk traditions in their various homelands and transforming them to usable and passable forms in the Europeanized environment of the New World. Oral narratives are an important means of maintaining the continuity of traditional Africans cultures. Myths about lineage, legends, folktales and other forms of verbal art transmit knowledge from one generation to another. The use of legend, passed on orally through the generations, erase the boundary of time between past and present. For Bernard Bell- “The Afro- American novel is

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not merely a branch of the Euro-American novel but also a development of the Afro -American oral tradition.”3

In oral tradition, folklore is a knowledge-sharing, identity forming practice that is utilized by many cultural groups and it has emphasis on orality and story-telling. It is a traditional part of culture which encompasses values, beliefs and assumptions which are transmitted by word of mouth. It is an important dimension of cultural and literary experiences. It has become a powerful instrument in the preservation of both history and culture. For marginalized cultures, folktales are a means of creating a cultural identity outside of printed history. The folklorist Bernard W. Bell asserts that folktales-

Transmit knowledge, value, and attitudes from one generation to another, enforce conformity to social norms, validate social institutions and religious rituals and provide a psychological release from the restrictions of society.4

Gloria Naylor in Mama Day employs folklore as the representative of contemporary African American culture. Mama Day combines and emphasis upon the supernatural elements, story- telling and folkloristic traditions. In southern communities, the story- telling inspires the oral performances. In story-telling, the story tellers recount their experiences in order to secure ownership of events that belong to them. Through story-telling, members of southern community vigorously reaffirm their connection to each other in order to willfully cultivate intimacy in a community. In Mama Day, the story-telling is conducted in the racially separate African American community of Willow Springs, a mythical sea island where the Day family has been lived since the times of slavery. The island of Willow Springs is an independent state secluded from the mainland and the population of black people ascribe to a different set of cultural beliefs.

Naylor subverts traditional African American folklore conventions through the narrative voice. It is the organic voice of the Willow Springs community. The fictionality of the narrator allows for a perfect ethnographer that presents the island’s community without bias. The narrator voice reflects folklore itself; both constantly adapt to meet the needs of their social contexts. The voice establishes the porch connection that serves as the interactive metaphor for tellers and listeners. It evokes southernness in its positions. In Willow Springs, traditions are subverted by a set of myths. The story of Sapphira Wade governs the island’s history. In the myth, Sapphira was a slave woman who married Boscombe Wade and after bearing him seven sons, she killed him. Those children are the heirs of Willow Springs blessed with the gifts of magical powers. Boscombe Wade’s death and Sapphira’s fate varies and these inconsistencies within the myth are typical of oral folklore, which is adapted in each telling. Oral myth is symbolic of community.

The residents of the island retell the myth to each generation to ensure its longevity. They value their history through their relationships with one another. The oral myth of Sapphira Wade emphasizes Willow Springs’ rootedness in the past. The myth of the island is significant in its antithetical portrayal of heroism. Sapphira’s heroism is directly responsible for the existence of Willow Springs. Susan Meisenhelder states that Sapphira-

Not only asserted both her autonomous ethnic and gender identity by defying her position as a slave and freeing herself from her white master; but through her heroic actions in securing the land from her descendents, she also made possible their freedom and cultural independence.5



The island’s cultural traditions are communicated through folklore. In African folk traditions, family is comprised of the living, dead and unborn with communication open among each group. The African American world of Willow Springs sustains Cocoa and George’s power to continue their talking and listening even after physical death. Cocoa directly addresses George and George addresses Cocoa. It is imagined that Cocoa and George have physical presence in the story but in reality, he has been dead throughout the novel. Cocoa has been talking to him in her family graver, and in Willow Springs and he also replies from the graveyard. African religions tend to stress the belief that death is a rite of passage which allows for contact with the living. The traditional culture of Willow Springs challenges the necessity of a physically present, living storyteller to permit an absent-present, dead yet living one. Cocoa’s role as a story listener to her physically dead husband generates a kind of “discourse of distrust” in African American fiction. Virginia Fowler says- “The silent conversation between the dead George and the living Cocoa that comprises much of the narrative points to the African belief system operating in Willow Springs.”6

Willow Springs followed the oral production where ancestors serve as models for telling and listening. The African mothers used the oral tradition of story-telling to impart cultural values which have been passed down from one generation to another. Mama Day communicates with the dead. The spirits of her ancestors are placed in the Other Place. Mama Day interacts with past family members, her father and mother to know about the family whole. Her communication with the dead helps her to provide a means of influencing future events.

The Africans’ native folk culture has included many religious beliefs such as conjure, Voodoo, Hoodoo which have played an important role in African American culture. Naylor is highly influenced with her native heritage in her perception of women. Her heritage helps her in creating types of characters who carry within themselves the features of their culture. Conjure addresses the undervaluation of African medicinal practices and belief systems, not only in relation to medicine, but also to ancestry, religion and finally to language and signifying practices. Lindsey Tucker uses a definition of conjuring traditions by a nameless critic who “prefers to view conjure as being comprised of practices which are natural – using plants to cure – and unnatural – using spells and charms”.7

The elements of conjure are applicable to Mama Day of Naylor. Mama Day characterizes the four traits – oral quality, participation of the reader, the chorus and the presence of ancestors. These traits are highly relevant to the magic realism with its emphasis on the process of story-telling, links with the community and cultural background, and interaction with the reader.8 Mama Day brings to the force African myths and beliefs, conjuring and Voodoo practices, folklore and story-telling as a material unrecognized by dominant cultural practice. Naylor employs magic realist strategies to force a re-visioning of history. In an interview, Naylor has stated about the magic realism in Mama Day:

I moved from the most universally accepted forms of magic into those things that we’re more resistant to accepting…..That’s where there are indeed women who can work with nature and create things which have not been documented by institutions of science, but which still do happen. So, the book’s an exploration of magic.9

It offers a heritage both to those black people who are culturally orphaned, cut off from any traditions other than those of mainstream America, and to those who are linked geneologically to the black American culture. Mama Day is the fusion of supernatural world



of Willow Springs Island and the realistic world of New York City. These natural and supernatural codes cross multiple boundaries between the spiritual and the material, animate and inanimate, life and death, and ultimately between reality and fantasy.

Willow Springs is a little island off the coast of the United States. It is located between Georgia and South Carolina. It is not appeared on any map. It seems to be running in its own pace. It is a close knit community of African Americans with common heritage and tradition. The island’s inhabitants experience a continuity of past, present and future. They live on the land which is cultivated by their ancestors and where these ancestors are buried. The spiritual life of its inhabitant remains bound within the fuzzy geographical location of the island. They focus on faith and spirituality.

The magic of the novel is established from the beginning which forces to think about the perception of the world and the concept of reality. The time of the events is summer fourteen years ago when Abigail’s granddaughter, Cocoa comes from New York with her husband George to visit her aunt, Mama Day. The time is now August 1999: “It’s August 1999 – ain’t put a slim chance it’s the same season where you are. Uh, huh, listen. Really listen this time: the only voice is your own”. [Mama Day, p.10] The story of the novel takes place at New York and at Willow Springs. The story in New York Chronicles the life of George, Cocoa and with their first meeting, marriage and early life together. Their life symbolizes the modern and urban world which is juxtaposed against the natural world of Willow Springs.

When George comes with Cocoa to visit Mama Day in Willow Springs, he realizes the strangeness of the place on the island when he said: “I had to be there and see – no, feel –that I was entering another world.” [Mama Day, p.175] The visit across the bridge at Willow Springs takes him into a new and unknown world which suggests eternity, the specific meaning and indomitable spirituality of the place full of mystery and inexplicable events. Mama Day’s family has been living on the island for centuries and the place is an inseparable part of her complex identity. Mama Day serves as a communicator between the people on the island and the outer world. She is a smart wise old woman for the residents of the island who has senses about the good and bad for the community. She represents a nostalgic remembrance and reverence for the folkloric antecedents of African American literature. Her character represents conjure woman. She has no biological children; she is everybody’s mama. Her given name Miranda, “worker of wonders” 10 bespeaks her power to assist even in the creation of life. Mama Day mediates between the cultures of Willow Springs and Manhattan, as she does between the past and the present.

In African American culture, witchcraft, conjuring and sorcery have its place within black culture. The female ancestors of Mama Day were endowed with abilities of casting spells and possessing medicine for healing. Mama Day reveals the power of witchcraft and healers in the form of conjure woman. She continues the tradition of conjure which has passed down through the generations of the Day family. Miranda descends from a long line of conjurers – both men and women. Her father John – Paul was the seventh son of Jonah who was also the seventh son. Jonah’s mother, Sapphira Wade was a potent conjure woman whose legacy took on god–like qualities. She has the power of her ancestors and her great grandmother Sapphira Wade.

She feels changes in nature that communicate to her the signs of unpredictable events. She has the ability to read signs. A practice of reading signs has great importance to African American religion and textuality as an important concept of divination. Her second



sight is her awareness of the behavior of plant and animal life. She knows of the coming hurricane, not because of supernatural ability but her ability to read the actual signs of nature. Mama Day has exceptional psychic abilities to forbid and predicts the unknown future. Her intuition is also strong enough to foresee tragedies and odd consequences in the future. She also has strong senses about George’s visit in Willow Springs that might have horrifying consequences. It is an unpleasant thought and her inner foreboding scares her as she suspects there is nothing she can do about it. A few days later, while Mama Day is enjoying the company of George and Cocoa, the abstract premonition finally shapes into a concrete thought: “DEATH. Miranda feels death all around her…This here was real death. But whose? It didn’t have to be a who – it could be a what”. [Mama Day, p.226] Mama Day is also able to listen to and read nature’s indications as when she feels about the coming of hurricane in Willow Springs.

Despite her power as a conjure woman, Mama Day is also a healer. Healing is an old practice prevalent among every culture. There has always been a close interrelatedness between witchcraft and healing. Their knowledge and power of healing comes from their ancestors who became an inseparable part of the healing process. The field of medicine and religion are so thoroughly intertwined in African Culture. Mama Day is skilled as a root doctor and a practitioner of herbal medicine. She employs both her supernatural powers and her knowledge of natural medicine. Due to her medical knowledge, she is a successful healer and a midwife. As a midwife, she manifests the natural healing component of Christo-Conjure.

The residents have full trust in Mama Day’s remedies and highly respect for her healing abilities. Mama Day performs magical pregnancies with ease. The occurrence of the supernatural is mainly concentrated in ‘the Other Place’, the Days’ old house where Miranda and Abigail used to live as children. The ‘Other Place’ serves as a meeting point between the real and unreal world where the unexpected events take place. For the pregnancy of Bernice, a local woman, Mama Day uses her supernatural power and natural medicine. She nurtures Bernice so much to prepare her for the final healing element in ‘the Other Place’. With the help of indefinable ancient spiritual hands, Mama Day performs a ritual. She seems to be holding a chicken on her lap. Hens and eggs stand as the symbol of fertility. The ritual that takes place is quite otherworldly. Bernice strips down naked and rests her head on the embroidered pillow. She feels someone’s hand in her body. The exceptional power of the Other Place and the presence of an unnatural spirit serve as mediators between Mama Day and Bernice. She uses the Other Place to enhance the power of her healing and to call for the ancestral spirit to help in the pregnancy of Bernice who desperately longs for a baby. The Other Place is connected to ancestral spirits that is an inseparable part of the island’s history and of Mama Day’s heritage. In Bernice’s case, the Other Place proves to assist in creating a new life but in George’s case, it proves to be the cause of George’s death.

In black culture realm, the ancestral signifies “a singular entity” created of “the family members…blur [ring] into one historic body.”11 The presence of the figure of the ancestor functions as a mediator between the present and the past. The role of ancestral spirits in the healing process is invaluable. Naylor creates the mythical character of Sapphira Wade who is Mama Day’s Great Grandmother. Her ancestral voice is present on the Willow Springs. She is the mythical one who left by wind. Sapphira was “a prototype of ideal black woman” who secured the land for her descendants, “freeing herself from her white master.”12 Sapphira’s presence is felt mainly by Mama Day who has a second sight. Mama Day uses her ancestral power and the presence of Sapphira as a mythical power in Bernice’s pregnancy. Sapphira’s spirit is also felt in the destructive storm which comes to Willow Springs and tears



down the bridge to the mainland. The strength of the storm delineates Sapphira’s sacred feminine and spiritual power that she was endowed with.

Along with the ancestral power of Sapphira Wade, the Willow Springs is also the witness of the ritual of Candle Walk which is performed by the residents as a text of condition. The ritual of Candle Walk is performed on the 22nd December, the longest night of the year which marks a rebirth of the terrestrial world. It is a Christo-Conjure celebration that incorporates the practice of ancestral reverence. It re-inscribes Sapphira’s position as a goddess or the Holy Spirit. In Willow springs, Candle Walk is an oral tradition which passes from generation to generation to remember the power of ancestors, who were the parents of this island and part of its story of origins. The motto behind this oral tradition is “Lead on with light, Great Mother. Lead on with light.” [Mama Day, p.111]. The candle walk celebration symbolizes the light with which their goddess Sapphira led them out of darkness of slavery into the light of freedom. Sapphire is like Moses, the greatest biblical conjure.

Naylor’s Mama Day has presented the preservation of native culture in black society through oral history, story-telling and the presence of ancestors which make the African Americans closer to their native cultural heritage. She focuses on the intricacies within African American culture and creates an environment in which the richness of black folk culture can be explored. She has preserved and drawn on a sense of distinctive black cosmology and mythology.

Works Cited: 1 Wilson, Charles E, Jr., Gloria Naylor: A Critical Companion. London: Greenwood Press, 2001, p.12. 2 Gates, Henry Louis, and K. A. Appiah, eds. Gloria Naylor: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad, 1993, p. ix. 3 Bell, Bernard W., The Afro- American Novel and its Tradition. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1987, p. xiii. 4 Bell, Bernard W., The Contemporary African American Novel: Its Folk Roots and Modern Literary Branches. Amherst: The University Of Massachusetts Press, 2004, p.73. 5 Meisenhelder, Susan, “False Gods and Black Goddesses in Naylor’s Mama Day and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Callaloo. 23.4, Autumn (2000): 1440-1448. Print. 6 Fowler, Virginia C., Gloria Naylor: In Search of Sanctuary . Ed. Frank Day. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996, p.94. 7 Tucker, Lindsey, “Recovering the Conjure Woman: Texts and Contexts in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day”. African American Review 28.2 (1994): 173-188. Print. 8 Foreman, Gabrielle, “Past on Stories: History and the Magically Real, Morrison and Allende on Call”. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Eds. Lois Parkison Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995, p. 286. 9 Perry, Donna, ‘Interview with Gloria Naylor, December 1991’. Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1993, p. 233.



10 Wall, Cherly A., “Extending the Wall: From Sula to Mama Day”. Callaloo. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Vol. 23 No.4 (2000): 1449-63. Print. 11 Wardi, Annisa J., “Inscription in the Dust: A Gathering of Old Men and Beloved as Ancestral Requiens”. African American Review 36.1 (2002). 12 Meisenhelder, Susan, “False Gods and Black Goddesses in Naylor’s Mama Day and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”. Callaloo. 23.4 Autumn (2000): 1440-1448. Print.



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