Beyond Stories
How Indigenous Storytelling Expands Our Worldview
By: John-Paul Kunrunmi
New perspectives can stretch us, whether they are introduced through firsthand experience or relayed via word of mouth. This is why education is put on a pedestal and why we’re also advised to travel a lot whilst we're young. Learning broadens us. It contorts us into containers of experiences other than our own. But travelling is certainly not always cheap, and the cost of going to school continues to skyrocket. This is where reading steps in to save the day. It takes our minds elsewhere to soak up goodness that can’t be found at home. Books are a cheaper, alternative way to travel. Especially when authors do away with Western narration and lead us by our hands to look out at the world from different vantage points.
Non-Western storytelling can consider the views of beings other than humans. We aren’t the only ones who have something to say. Indigenous stories with non-human narrators can fly us to different parts of the globe, immerse readers into new cultures and fresh perspectives, and remind us that through literature, we truly do have the world in our hands.
Spirits have feelings too.
Situated in one of the poorest regions of Brazil, Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior (translated by Johnny Lorenz) introduces us to the South American encantados. River-dwelling spirits that can take on human or animal form. With the majority of the novel from the perspectives of sisters, Bibiana and Belonísia, in the third act, we hear from the encantada Santa Rita the Fisherwoman.
Once revered as a village protector, but now forgotten by the people, she floats over the village seeking people to host her. As generations progressed, slavery and colonialism took over, and villagers forgot to sing her songs and even forgot who she was. Vieira Junior makes it clear that these spirits also feel. She and the other encantados are being erased from their culture, being replaced by a version of Christianity that demonises their existence. Crooked Plow comments directly on this erasure. It exposes readers to Brazilian folklore while concomitantly expressing how these beings have been undermined by Western ideological insistence through the relationship between the encantados and the villagers.
Miúda, Santa Rita’s old host, has died. She mourns being able to walk, to dance and feel. These are things that are ascribed exclusively to humanity as the Western experience dictates, but Vieira Junior teaches readers otherwise. Santa Rita is not human, nor does she long to be human. She is a deity who enjoyed being a respected voyageur, being revered by hosts who were willing enough to allow her to make a home in them during sacred Jarê rituals. But now she has been forgotten so she finds her homes by force. For some cultures, spirits aren’t just spooky disturbances, but are important and have feelings and voices too. Vieira Junior calls us to acknowledge that what we see isn’t all that exists. That even if we do not agree to this, for some Brazillians, considering the encantados is how they live.
We’re all a little bit Divine.
Personalised providence from God. A spark of divinity given by God to man. Igbo cosmology dictates that humans are made up of more than body and soul. That humans are made up of The Body, The Guardian Spirit, also known as Chi, The Mind, and The Incarnate Spirit. What if our stories weren’t told by us (hosts), but by our Guardians who live with us inside? Our Chi intercedes for us. They have been around for generations, having walked with our grandparents or even great-grandparents before walking inside of us. They interact with the Chi of others around us, making sure their hosts have our best interests at heart. They also sit back when we are too stubborn to change our minds, even when they know the outcome will be bad. This is how the story of Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities is told. A Chi who is pleading to The Divine – referred to by their many Igbo names such as Chukwu and Obasidinelu – on behalf of Chinonso, their host. At Hay Festival 2024, I listened, live, to Chigozie Obioma reject the labelling of his work as magical realism. To him nothing about his writing is magical.
The systems exist right here with us as an alternative way of experiencing life. He expressed that this is the effect of Western publishing being so closed-minded, but also desperate to tie his work to something they understand. Obioma offers readers a little bit of Nigeria, and how the Igbo culture has illustrated life and interpreted common concepts like sickness, love, destiny and many others that have been concluded on by Western thinkers. He includes a diagram at the front of this book to explain how Igbo people widely interpreted our existence before the introduction of Christianity, and this frames nicely how the rest of the book is narrated.
There is a comfort in knowing that within us, there is Divinity that has our back. That even within ourselves we are not alone. Obioma writes so that we might stand up a little bit taller when we look at ourselves in the mirror. He suggests that, like Chinonso, we are never alone. He doesn’t need to defend himself. He isn’t the only one that knows exactly how he feels. His Chi explains to The Divine that Chinonso is good. That there have been times where they’ve had to leave Chinonso’s body (leaving him vulnerable) to bargain with other Chi, and fight evil spirits that want to harm Chinonso. By the end of this book, readers might consider that we could be more complicated than just body and soul. That we might be more than we know. We are invited to see ourselves in different dimensions. To try to push self-reflection deeper, towards a depth that Igbo cosmology recognises as standard.
Reading is believing.
Born with one foot planted firmly on the other side, Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater introduces us to Ada. Unbeknownst to her parents, Ada is also an ọgbanje, a term in Igbo culture that translates to ‘children who come and go’. After a traumatic event, she learns she has different selves, Asụghara and Saint Vincent. In total Ada is host to three different entities.
Freshwater is known to be Emezi’s debut and also autobiographical fiction. Ọgbanje are half-human and half-spirit and live in conflict with themselves and their physical body as they know that there is more than the material world. This can manifest as struggles with mental health, as experienced by Ada. The book is narrated from the perspective of the ọgbanje, telling the reader about Ada (their host) and why her life is the way it is. Throughout the prose, Emezi reminds us that they too are not restricted to Western insistences, referencing other ọgbanje spirits as Ada’s “brothersisters” and informing us that Ada’s birth mother Saatchi is only her custodian. Ala, the Igbo deity, is her real mother.
Although Ada is perceived as someone who is traumatised and fractured, Emezi informs us that there is more than just body and soul, similar to the aforementioned Obioma. There are explanations of Ada’s struggles that transcend what readers may be familiar with.
When the book was first released, there was a lot of backlash from Nigerian readers both at home in Nigeria and throughout the diaspora. Ọgbanje are taboo. They bring misfortune and torture parents by repeatedly being born as children that die not long after being brought into this world.. Emezi wasn’t supposed to write about them, to claim that they are an ọgbanje. To this day Freshwater still causes a lot of commotion. But in the same space, others claimed that by reading Freshwater, they understood something new and went to research more. Some still didn’t agree with Emezi's work but left with knowledge. This is the power of indigenous narrators, and non-human voices that come with culture and history. Emezi invites us into their world through Ada in an attempt to make normal for readers the way that they view themselves. Even if you don’t agree, they ask that you respect how they see themself, as this is how they navigate the world.
Conclusion:
We all know that the world is bigger than what we know and that there is always more to see, more to understand. It might be a struggle for some to access this knowledge firsthand. But the books above are more than just stories. They have been crafted deliberately to challenge worldviews and then expand them. To leave readers feeling hugged, taught, and richer in thought. If you’re someone who loves to learn, indigenous storytelling might be for you.
