Dilemma over embracing or escaping from Yoruba culture
One is likely to encounter cases of death in a society comprised of different groups of people who are not willing to understand each others’ cultural practices and customs. Such is the case in Wole Soyinka’s Death and a King’s Horseman. Soyinka does a brilliant job using different layers of conflict as he tells the story of Elesin, who is prevented from fulfilling his duty of his ritual suicide by the British, who view the custom as illegal and barbaric while the colonized Yoruba view his suicide as not only a tribal obligation, but a world’s obligation to maintain peace between the world that we live in, and the world of the spirits. The overall conflict that Soyinka presents in Death and the King’s Horseman, is the inability of the British and the Yoruba to understand and accept each other’s cultural practice through conversation, misinterpretation, and their religious and moral beliefs.
Unintentional misinterpretation is the leading cause when offending someone through a cultural misunderstanding, for instance the case in the play of how the British despise ritual suicide and term it as barbaric. On the contrary, the Yoruba believe ritual suicide is for enhancing peaceful co-existence between the living and the dead. In act two, Simon Pilking’s, the British government official in charge of the colony, and his wife, Jane, are introduced in the play. They dress in the native egungun costumes, preparing to go to a fancy dress ball, when Sergeant Amusa comes in. Amusa’s intentions are to notify Simon of Elesin’s upcoming ritual suicide that is to take place that night. Amusa, being a firm believer of Yoruba customs, works for the British colonist to enforce their laws, but he still has deep respect for the native’s beliefs and practices. At the sight of the Pilkings in there egungun garments, Amusa becomes so frightened and offended that he insists they not wear them because they represent the cloth of the “dead cult.” To the Pilkings, the traditional outfits only represent their desire to impress the other guest at the ball and to win first prize. The Pilkings wearing the egungun costumes could easily be interpreted as a misunderstanding, but when Amusa requests they take them off, Simon suggests that Amusa does not believe in the Yoruba’s “nonsense” and “mumbo jumbo (Soyinka 25).” Later in the act, Simon even refers to the Yoruba natives as “sly, devious bastards,” reinforcing his callous opinion on their culture. The Pilkings’ disregard to the Yoruba culture is their lack of understanding of the meaning behind the traditional egungun garments and its significance towards the Yoruba’s spiritual life. In his 1986 nobel prize speech, Soyinka (1986), narrates about the German enthusiast named Leo Frobenius visit to the lle-lfe, the cradle and heartland of Yoruba race. The German comes across an object of beauty, which is the product of Yoruba hand and mind. The racist admits the lle-lfe was a head of marvelous beauty, cast wonderfully in antique bronze and incrusted with a patina of glorious dark green. However, Frobenius starkly admitted he felt sad that the assembly of feeble minded blacks were the legitimate creators and the guardians of the great art piece. This statement is ungracious and demonstrates an invitation to free-for-all kind of attitude possed by colonizers, and justified by the grounds that blacks are unworthy and do not deserve to be keepers of marvelous art, nor inhabit their resource-rich continent.
Once Simon reveals Elesin’s intent on ritually committing suicide, he recalls that a few years back, he and the Chief had a bit of a scrap. He had helped Elesin’s son, Olunde, get into a medical school in England to become a doctor. Olunde, being the eldest son, was to follow Elesin’s legacy and be the next King’s Horseman. If Elesin died before the King did, Olunde’s fate would have hastened to Elesin’s role, in which he would be the one taking his life to accompany the King into death. Even though Olunde’s fate was destined, he chose a different direction with the help of the Pilkings. This created such conflict between the two that Elesin ended up putting a curse on Simon and shaming Olunde for being influenced by the Pilkings. The Pilkings do not understand the Yoruba’s culture and traditions and nor do they care about being prejudicial. They have intervened and altered the patriarchy that the Yoruba tribe has in place. Jane even commends their action by saying “I wouldn’t stay if I was trapped in such a horrible custom.” Elesin and the Pilkings have two different outlooks on the greater good of Olunde’s future, and both in there thinking was in support of Olunde, but their views are completely opposite of each other. One is to stay in the Yoruba’s culture and the other is to escape from it.
One of the main conflicting differences between the British and Yoruba revolves around their cultural beliefs of what Elesin suicide signifies. For the Yoruba, Elesin’s suicide is not a personal killing of himself, but a communal offering. He is giving his life for the community to maintain a balance and peaceful co-existence between the worlds of the unborn, the living, and their dead. The Pilkings practice Christianity, therefore view suicide as the ultimate sin that separates one from God. In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), murder is murder. Whether you are murdering someone else or you are murdering your own self, it is ending God’s gift of life. In a religious concept, suicide is even worse than murder because you can’t repent from your own suicide, but we do know that God forgives murderers; just like God forgave Moses, David, and Saul (Paul the Apostle). That is one aspect on Pilkings’ view towards Elesin’s suicide; it is illegal, barbaric, and unforgivable in Gods judgment. But, the real reason Pilkings must put a stop to Elesin’s suicide is because the Royal Prince is visiting the Oyo. The Princes’ visit brings a great deal of stress and anxiety upon Pilkings and only adds tension to this conflict. Elesin’s success in suicide would be viewed as Pilkings failure to bring order among the colonized Yorubas. It would symbolize a direct representation in his lack of power and authority that his position requires. More importantly it would be an embarrassment for Simon to allow such a thing while entertaining the Prince in his governing colony. Simon strongly believes Elesin has to be stopped. The difference in the colonizers understanding of ritual suicide is clear, even though Pilkings’ motives seem to be two sided.
Olunde’s exposure having lived and studied abroad has opened his eyes and given him a comprehensive understanding of the western world culture. In Act Four, while Simon is putting a stop to Elesin’s ritual duties, Jane runs into Olunde at the masquerade. Jane is still wearing the egungun costume and makes reference to it after their formal greetings. She tells him that she is wearing the costume for it is of a “good cause,” being that His Highness is in town. Olunde responds indignantly “and this is the reason for which you desecrate an ancestral mask.” He continues by referring to what he’s learned and observed in England from their western behaviour, “I discovered that you have no respect for what you don’t understand (Soyinka 50).” This line says it all. Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman revolve around this focal point. Understanding is everything. Without understanding grows judgment, and judgment cultivates into prejudice, and prejudice breeds into zealous hatred, and then hatred ploughs into death. But, on the other hand, understanding could blossom into mutual respect of each other’s cultures and traditions if seeded.
In his 1986 Nobel prize speech, Soyinka narrates the example of the Mau Mau freedom fighters massacred by ruthless white colonialists to illustrate how racisim and prejudice breed hatred leading to death. The author states that white officers were completely detached from the ongoing massacre of the Mau Mau freedom fighters, perhaps because they did not experience the reality of the black victims as human beings (Soyinka, 1986). Soyinka draws similarity with what was ongoing during the apartheid era in South Africa. He argues that the average South African white did not view blacks as also human for centuries since they first settled in the region during the late 17th century. The first settlers knew perfectly that the natives they had found in the region constituted a civilization that had endured for centuries. Driven by imperial greed, the first white settlers sought to destroy these native civilisations, instead of embracing and trying to understand their culture, a very stark paradox of their missionary intenstions to spread the gospel (Soyinka, 1986). Soyinka uses the admission of Eddie Roux, an enlightened Afrikaaner political rebel to illustrate how the blacks were disregarded completely as humans. Eddie Roux confesses that in Apartheid South Africa, those destined to inherit the new world were the white workers organized into trade unions who had voted for the labour party. The native Africans were on a different plane, hardly regarded as humans, they were part of the scene sme way as the trees and the dogs.
Soyinka skilfully continues to add conflict upon conflict to reveal how the British and Yoruba differentiate in their understanding. Jane and Olunde’s conversation move forward after an uncomfortable silence. Jane updates Olunde on how the war is affecting them. She tells him the story of the ship captain that blew himself up with his ship in order to save the lives of others living around the harbour and the other ships. Olunde admires the Captain who took his own life to save the community. Approaching the topic differently, Jane does not see valour in the Captain's actions. She views the Captains self-sacrifice as “nonsense” and a waste of life. She states, “Life should never be thrown deliberately away.“The Captain’s martyrdom and Elesin’s ritual suicide are in direct comparison in giving their lives for unselfish reasons that are focused on the greater good of others. Olunde realizes this, but gives up on trying to sway Jane out her chastity belt of moral beliefs.
In Death and the King’s Horseman, Soyinka does such an impressive job relentlessly building conflict after conflict through conversation, misinterpretation, and religious and moral beliefs to show the differences between the British and the Yoruba’s understanding of each other’s culture. One gets frustrated on why the British can’t comprehend and understand the reasoning of the Yoruba’s desire to carry out the ritual suicide. What’s even more intriguing as a reader, whether consciously or unconsciously, by your frustration towards the British, you end up rooting for Elesin’s own suicide. Because of the difference in understanding, Elesin did accomplish his own suicide, but in a tragic way. By Simon stopping Elesin’s joyous communal sacrifice, he helped Elesin succeed in his own personal killing of himself. In the end, you have two different cultures that need to co-exist with each other through basic understanding, but are not willing to do so. The world is in a constant state of cultural blending that it becomes harder to not understand each other than is to want to fight it. You become a lone rock in the river, attempting to stop the flow of understanding.
Works Cited
Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King's Horseman. New York: Hill and Wang, 1975. Print.
"Wole Soyinka - Nobel Lecture: This Past Must Address Its Present". Nobelprize.org. 27 May 2013 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka- lecture.html
