Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

I am learning so much about Africa while enjoying a mystery written by Kwei Quartey. The title is Wife of the Gods. I've been reading about a woman brought to trial by her brother in law. He takes his sister in law to a witch doctor. The accused woman's name is Akua. She is infertile. The decision is that the wife, Osewa,  has no womb because her sister has practiced bad magic upon her. It is decided by the witch doctor to have three chickens killed. If they die breast up, Akua will gain her freedom and not have the blame on her shoulder of her sister's childlessness.

I really became so upset with this part of the novel. I am sure the bloody experience destroyed Akua's mind and spirit. She is described as "writhing and screaming like a beast...frothing saliva." I wonder what it is like to see this happen when you have not grown up in this society's culture. I would feel totally helpless. I don't know if looking at a woman "feathered and bloodied" would leave me out of my right mind. How is it possible to learn without prejudice the practices of other countries and religions?

The novel is fascinating. Just had to write about this woman's experience. I also thought of the barren woman. Did this situation cause a breech between the sisters? Two women are emotionally hurt because of one man's impatience to wait for his wife's birth of a child.
Thank goodness, in our society we are not judged by whether we can have children, or are we?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catherine E. Mckinley had a deep desire to know about Indigo. It became her purpose.

Image
"We watched the woman disappear into the bend of the road. It was unsettling. She seemed possessed, driven by some mimetic force. I was afraid that that force was also a part of me. I was also a worshiper, set wandering in an unfamiliar land."   It seems this week I have been driven to write about my mother. It has happened more than once. Here she is again. Tapping my shoulder a reminder that she loved blue. There is the one and only photo of her where she wears a dress of blue. The photo was taken years and years ago. In the photo are my two nephews, my mother and myself.. The photo was taken in West Philadelphia. She sewed it. A light blue that now I wish to call "Indigo." I have much to learn about Indigo. It is easy to pick up on the author, Catherine E. Mckinley's, fervent love for the color. One day my son asked me my favorite color. I said, "I don't have one." I don't. Perhaps, I choose colors by mood. Today red  and tomorrow green,
Read more

First Chapter First Paragraph

Image
http://www.bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com Closed until June 13     "Michael Hunter stared at the hand-lettered sign on the Gull Motel office, expelled a breath, and raked his fingers through his hair. Not the welcome he'd been expecting after a mind-rumbling thirty-six-hour cross-country drive to the Oregon coast. And where was he supposed to stay for the next three weeks, until the place opened again?"
Read more

Are these the types of lives we are seeing and reading about in the news today?

Image
"The difference between life and death was information:..the greatest danger was not the river, but the desert beyond. There the temperatures were so hellish they melted stones, there was no water, and they could be preyed upon by scorpions, wildcats, and hungry real coyotes...Rattlesnakes, as well as coral, moccasin, and darting indigo snakes, came out to hunt at night, the time when the migrants set off, because the daytime heat was lethal." isabelallende
Read more