Paper...

Entry #23
08 April 2007
Work: The River Between (Ngugi Wa Thiongo)

(Note: I’ve found that because I was in the play, I don’t have to also write the paper, but the essence of it is below in a very rough format.)

This paper is keeping me up nights. I have so many sticky flags in the pages that its beginning to look like a door skirt.

I keep looking at the cover, wondering about the artwork (and if I can find the source or commentary on it or if it’s followed the book through its interpretations and reprints), wanting to go see Mary Vollero to get her opinion on it. Her office hours are very limited, and that’s been a dead end so far.

The cover of this book has two brown arms, outstretched and coming back together at the fingertips. The river is visible between the arms, and there is a space between where the fingers meet and the junction of the thumbs (also touching). As I read, thinking of mother-based religion, woman-based religion (regardless of what’s conveyed in the text), I kept looking at that cover. The space outside of the arms and the river show the land: grassy, perhaps thicker in some places, ending in mountainous tuft-like growth at the horizon. I keep seeing a vagina. The water gives birth to humankind. The space between fingers and thumbs is a void. In it should be a clitoris, but there is only a peek at more water (perhaps an allusion to circumcision?). What of the think trickle of a river (think due to depth perception)? Perhaps this is a connection to the heart, or symbolic of the umbilical cord.

Waiyaki and Nyambura meet at the river. They fall in love at the river. Their love, as with any love, creates another being, joins two together, making one larger life. They meet in secret, at the “mother river.”

Nyambura, as a woman, must by default have some of the mother in her. Therefore, she must have some of the divine. I have a note on page 108 of my book: “Too close to the earth to have a father religion. The Mother must be present!” And there is much evidence. Yes, it is said that Murungu created Gikuyu and Mumbi. It is necessary, in a coup (the overthrow of the women) to replace the religion of the people as well as its leaders. But a man cannot give birth. A male god cannot give birth. Not without a mother god. Let’s suppose that Murungu has created these two. They go forth and multiply and bear all daughters, who become the mothers of the tribes. Why not fathers, if this is a father religion?

The answer lies in the overthrow of the women. Just as the Holy Bible must be pruned and edited in order to maintain control of the people of the time, the Gikuyu people must prune their myths. To have overlooked such a detail as “mother of tribes” may be coincidence, may be ignorance, may be ineptitude. It may also be my own sense of wanting to read something into a work that isn’t there, but there is too much to support my claim to ignore. Perhaps research will ferret out an explanation or a confirmation. I surely have enough books sitting here in front of me on African religions.

But suppose that this usurping of a woman’s power and the reordering of myths is only a stepping stone. It is not nearly as complete as it need be to institute a water-tight (no pun intended) patriarchy. The women are still necessary in day-to-day life and therefore must be respected in that way. Joshua’s brand of Christianity, though seeming in one way (and in the eyes of missionaries of the time) to be more humane to women, gives the men even more control in their homes. Man is the leader of the church is the leader of the home is the leader of the society. And a male god is at the head of it all, giving him credence by the sacred laws of the bible. This works so much better in a patriarchy than a system whereby women are necessary, needed and (somewhat) respected members, if not partners.

I ask myself what conclusion, other than “there’s more mother here than is admitted, but she’s oppressed,” can I reach? Perhaps (to borrow from another culture) the yin and yang must be restored to balance—for all of us—in order for any real progress to be made anywhere. Mother can’t rule, Father can’t rule, but together, they can Parent.

Till later…