#eng5480week8

[nabilahwrites-blog]

“It ain’t about right or wrong, truth or lies; it’s about a slave woman who brought a whole new meaning to both them words, soon as you cross over here from beyond the bridge

Gloria Naylor, Mama Day 

[spookypatroldetective-blog]

www.archives.gov/education/lessions/slave-trade.html

Bill of Sale, 1864

"Even though Abraham LIncoln issued the Emancipation in 1863, slaves were still being bought a sold in the south."

This bill of sale is a lot like the fictional bill of sale in Mama Day by Gloria Naylor. While the bill of sale for Sapphira in Mama Day is somewhat comical and amusing with the wording of, "not without extreme mischief and suspicions of delving in witchcraft", and "conditional of sale...Final", to show that Sapphira was no meek and mild slave and that her owner was doing the upmost to rid himself of a troublesome slave without return. This fits well into the overall amusing aspects of the novel but it also highlights a fundamental aspect of chattel slavery in America. The fact that human beings were sold as property. The above bill of sale describes the slave Henry as being, "sound and healthy in mind and body" and that he is, "Slave for Life".  

It is extremely hard to know what it must have felt like to be reduced to the sum of your labor. It seems very dehumanizing not only for the slave but for the slave-owners, slave traders and everyone involved in the slave trade. The fact that Henry did not have a last name is yet another indication of the level dehumanization that was central to slavery.

 Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York. Ticknor and Fields. 1988. print

[sdassanayake7-blog]

The Magic of Tradition

“ On Willow Springs, the Day family, a community of women, preserve their cultural memory through the repetition of material practices that include cooking and weaving, and through the transmission of personal and communal stories.” 

In Daphne Lamothe’s essay, “Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day: bridging roots and routes,” Lamothe discusses the relationship between magic, culture, and maintaining tradition. While the novel frequently emphasizes the role of the “true conjure woman,” Sapphira Wade, and her magical descendants, Lamothe suggests that the magic of Willow Springs also presents itself through  daily practices of the female residents  (Naylor 3), (Lamothe 155). The essay discusses how “material practices” like “cooking and weaving... [along with] the transmission of personal and communal stories” serve as means through which the residents of Willow Springs retain cultural identity (Lamothe 155). Thus, Lamothe equates these more mundane activities with magic in terms of cultural relevance. Furthermore, the essay also discusses Willow Springs’ isolation from the mainland, illustrating how geography permits a degree of resistance to "Western” influence on the island (Lamothe 156). The town’s geographic and cultural distance from the rest of the United States implies that Sapphira Wade’s magic can only exist within such a controlled environment. 

Ultimately, Lamothe’s piece made me wonder if the magic in Mama Day should be interpreted literally. Perhaps the magic of Willow Spring’s is not so much about actual supernatural power as it is about the combination of culture and history that thrives in the town. Just as Sapphira Wade’s power was passed down to Mama Day, recipes and stories survive generations in Willow Springs. Perhaps Willow Springs is simply colored by the magic of tradition.

Lamothe, Daphne. "Gloria Naylor's Mama Day: Bridging Roots and Routes." African American Review 39 (2005): 155-69. Biography in Context [Gale]. Web. 29 Feb. 2016. 

Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1988. Print.