Tradition and History Theme Analysis

For the maji, winning the war against the monarchy isn’t just about establishing a government that allows them recognition under the law or freedom from violence and oppression. It is, at its heart, about preserving a belief system and a way of life that those in power would like to see wiped out of Orïsha altogether. This demonstrates, first of all, the immense power of belief systems and history to educate, to soothe, and—especially in the case of the maji’s ancient spells—to fight back. The flip side of this is also true, however: the novel shows clearly that one of the most effective ways to oppress, disempower, and dissolve a group is to cut them off from their history. Doing so denies people the tools and knowledge necessary to keeping their community and traditions alive.

In Orïsha, legend holds that long ago, Sky Mother, the supreme deity, created 10 gods who then shared their powers with humans—and in doing so, created the maji. This forms the basis of a belief system that, until the Raid, was alive and strong in Orïsha. In that system, maji were beloved and revered members and leaders of their communities, using their powers to help in addition to keeping humans’ connection to the gods open. For the most part, all of this disappeared with the Raid. King Saran murdered all maji over the age of 13 and temporarily severed humans’ connection with the gods, effectively cutting the country off from its belief system—and cutting young divîners off from their elders, as well as from their ability to do magic. It’s possible, then, to read the Raid as a successful bid to break down a group of people whom Saran saw as dangerous enemies. To do so, he took away everything meaningful to them, from their families and their elders to their language (he criminalized Yoruba, the language with which maji perform spells) and, quite literally, their gods.

Inan and Queen Nehanda take this oppression even further as they work to take down the Iyika. Killing young maji is, for Nehanda, a good start, but she recognizes that killing isn’t enough to take down her enemies. Rather, she must continue Saran’s work and destroy the connections between living maji and their gods and history, which she does by destroying the ancient temple at Chândomblé. Chândomblé contains scrolls that hold Yoruba spells, which the Iyika need if they want to be able to fully use their power. It’s also, importantly, the last temple standing in Orïsha, making it the final link between the young maji and their past. Destroying the temple and the scrolls with it thus effectively destroys not just any hope of learning the spells on the scrolls; it’s another emotional strike that destroys the last place where maji could connect directly with the gods.

On the whole, then, Zélie and her fellow elders are working from a severe disadvantage. Zélie is only in her late teens, and she’s only met two maji or divîners older than their early 20s (Mama Agba, Zélie’s childhood mentor; and Lekan, a sêntaro (priest) who awakened Zélie’s connection to the gods in the last novel). The Iyika are, in this sense, a band of children struggling to reconnect with roots that are difficult or impossible to rediscover—all, for the most part, without adult guidance. These struggles manifest in multiple ways. Clan elders, like Zélie, are supposed to train other clan members. But as many elders only received an incomplete education in Yoruba and are self-taught in using magic, they sometimes struggle to teach skills that they’re still developing themselves. They also lack a complete understanding of the extent of their powers or the constraints that should be on them, which leads to ill-advised attempts at magic that end, for the most part, in tragedy. Though Mama Agba lives with the Iyika providing guidance, she’s old, weak, and cannot draw on her powers without harming herself—putting the young Iyika rebels in a situation where their only adult mentor cannot fully connect them to the past. Though this doesn’t devalue the help that Mama Agba does give, it does make it clear that the Iyika are, to a degree, flying blind.

Despite the novel’s clear insistence that severing these connections between present and past or humans and gods is a horrific crime, the novel’s ending also suggests that a necessary (though not ideal, in this situation) element of these traditions is that young people will eventually take on the leadership roles once filled by the old. This is something that Mama Agba puts into practice when she offers herself as a sacrifice so the elders can connect their ashês. The practice of connecting one’s ashê with another’s is rare, dangerous, and can have disastrous results (the last time it happened, the resulting connection created majacite, a material that’s poisonous to maji). It’s also impossible to sustain a connection without a blood sacrifice. However, the Iyika feel that the possible upsides outweigh the risks, and Mama Agba agrees. Mama Agba therefore becomes the blood sacrifice necessary to make the connection tenable for the 10 elders, which allows the elders to use their magic in tandem without the use of spells.

Again, though the novel doesn’t excuse or condone the actions the monarchy takes to sever connections between the present and the past, Mama Agba’s sacrifice adds nuance to this idea. While her death represents that of the last true maji who survived the Raid, it also enables the young maji now in power to more effectively channel their magic and overthrow the monarchy for good. Hopefully, the young maji will have the opportunity to become the elders they never had, and in doing so, recreate and strengthen their people’s connections to the past and to the gods.