Barracoon: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

It’s summer when Hurston first arrives at Cudjo’s house. She knows he’s at home because his gate is unlocked; he latches it with a wooden peg “of African invention.” Climbing up to the porch, she finds him eating breakfast alongside another man and addresses him by his African name, Kossula. Cudjo is so touched that she knows this name that he tears up, telling her it’s “jus’ lak I in de Affica soil.”

Cudjo explains that the other man is a caretaker who has been staying with him during a recent illness. However, he seems to be healthy and cheerful now; his garden is planted, and he has several fruit trees growing well. Hurston explains that she has come to talk to him, but Cudjo says he doesn’t care why she’s come; he likes to have company because he is often very lonely. For a while, he ignores Hurston and sits in quiet abstraction.

After a while, Cudjo returns his attention to her, saying that sometimes he can’t help crying from loneliness. Hurston asks how he is feeling, and he responds that “I thank God I on praying groun’ and in a Bible country.” Taken aback, Hurston asks if he had “a God back in Africa.” She sees that he looks very anguished and starts to feel guilty that she has “come to worry this captive in a strange land.”

Eventually, Cudjo clarifies his previous statement. He says that in Africa his people always believed in the existence of God, but called him Alahua. Because they didn’t have the Bible, they never knew that God also has a son, and they didn’t know any Biblical stories like the one of Adam and Eve. He says that his people “ain’ ignant – we jes doan know.” He asks if that’s all Hurston wants to know.

Hurston responds that she wants to know many things, from Cudjo’s captivity to his life as a free man. Cudjo cries again, thanking God that finally someone has come to tell his story. He wants his life to be known, so that one day someone will be able to go to Africa and tell his countrymen about his life. He says that he “can’t talkee plain,” but he will tell his entire story as clearly as possible.

Cudjo says that his real name is Kossula. When he arrived in America, his master Jim Meaher was unable to pronounce his name. Cudjo asks him, “Well, I yo’ property?” When Meaher responds that he is, he shortens his own name to Cudjo.

Cudjo begins to explain his origins in West Africa. His family doesn’t have “ivory by de door,” meaning they aren’t rich or of royal blood. He wants to be clear on this, in case someone ever goes to Africa and claims that Kossula comes from a rich and important family. His grandfather is an officer for the tribe’s king, Akia’on, and follows him around rather than living at home.

Worried that Cudjo is getting distracted, Hurston interrupts that she wants to hear about his life, not his grandfather’s. With an expression of “scornful pity,” Cudjo says he can’t “tellee you ‘bout de son before I tellee you bout de father” and his grandfather. His grandfather, he continues, has a large compound with several wives and children. In his village, the husband’s house is always in the center of the compound, surrounding by the houses of his wives.

Cudjo explains that it wasn’t his grandfather’s idea to marry so many women. Rather, according to local tradition the wives themselves select subsequent wives. Typically, a wife approaches a young girl she has in mind and makes the case for her husband, telling of all his good qualities. If the girl agrees, the wife speaks to her parents and, if both parties are satisfied, the girl goes to the wife’s compound. The husband must then pay the father a certain amount, depending on the physical beauty, social position, and previous marital status of the girl.

When the new wife arrives at her husband’s compound, she lives with the old wife in order to learn the household tasks and how to take care of the husband. When she’s ready, the husband builds her own house, marking the occasion by killing a cow and hosting a celebration for the whole village. In Cudjo’s grandfather’s compound, this happens many times.

Generally, all the wives cook food for their husband. After he eats, the husband goes to sleep, fanned and massaged by the younger wives. Other people guard the compound so that nobody wakes him up. Sometimes a young slave boy in the compound makes too much noise and is taken to Grandfather for a scolding. Grandfather threatens to sell the young boy to the Portuguese, but while other men sometimes actually do this to their slaves, Grandfather never does.

Once, tragedy strikes the chief of the village; his newest wife dies while she is still living with another wife and learning the ways of the household. When he receives the news, the chief shouts and cries, saying that he paid a lot of money for her and has never even slept with her.

Finishing this anecdote, Cudjo looks across his thriving garden to his daughter-in-law’s house. Hurston feels that he has forgotten she is there. Eventually, he tells the man sitting beside him to get him some cold water. Smoking his pipe in silence for some time, he tells Hurston to go away and come back later. He’s too tired to talk now. She leaves him sitting among the mosquitos that populate the house’s porch.