Couple of passages from Alex Haley's Roots

[Vidya Pinto]

These evening meetings had a general pattern that
Kunta had learned. The usual first talker was usually the
woman who cooked in the big house. She mimicked things
said by both the “massa” and the “missus.” Then he heard
the big black one who had captured him imitating the
“oberseer,” and he listened with astonishment as the others
all but choked trying to stifle their laughter, lest they be
heard in the big white house.
But then the laughter would subside and they would sit
around talking among themselves. Kunta heard the
helpless, haunted tone of some, and the anger of others,
even though he grasped only a little of what they discussed.
He had the feeling that they were recalling things that had
happened to them earlier in their lives. Some of the women
in particular would be talking and then suddenly break into
tears. Finally the talking would grow quiet as one of the
women began to sing, and the others joined in. Kunta
couldn’t understand the words—“No-body knows de
troubles I’se seed”—but he felt the sadness in the singing.
At last there came a voice that Kunta knew was the
oldest man among them, the one who sat in the rocking
chair and wove things of cornshucks, and who blew the
conch horn. The others would bow their heads, and he
would begin speaking slowly what Kunta guessed was
some kind of prayer, though it was certainly not to Allah. But
Kunta remembeed what was said by the old alcala down in
the big canoe: “Allah knows every language.” While the
prayer continued, Kunta kept hearing the same odd sound
exclaimed sharply by both the old man and others who kept
interrupting him with it: “Oh Lawd!” He wondered if this “Oh
Lawd” was their Allah.

*****************************************************

He was more concerned that there remained some
serious matters he wanted to take up with Bell, but he never
could quite seem to get around to them. Among them was
the fact that she kept on her front-room wall a large, framed
picture of the yellow-haired “Jesus,” who seemed to be a
relative of their heathen “O Lawd.” But finally he did
manage to mention it, and Bell promptly said, “Ain’t but two
places everybody’s headin’ for, heab’n or hell, and where
you goin’, dat’s yo’ business!” And she would say no more
about it. Her reply discomfited him every time he thought of
it, but finally he decided that she had a right to her beliefs,
however misguided; just as he had a right to his. Unshaken,
he had been born with Allah and he was going to die with
Allah—although he hadn’t been praying to Him regularly
again ever since he started seeing a lot of Bell. He
resolved to correct that and hoped that Allah would forgive
him.

*****************************************************
With each passing day, the air became colder and
colder, the sky grayer and grayer, until soon the ground was
covered once again with snow and ice that Kunta found as
unpleasant as it was extraordinary. And before long the
other blacks were beginning to talk with great excitement
about “Christmas,” which he had heard of before. It seemed
to have to do with singing, dancing, eating, and the giving
of gifts, which sounded fine—but it also seemed to involve
their Allah, so even though Kunta really enjoyed by now the
gatherings at the fiddler’s, he decided it would be best to
stay to himself until the pagan festivities were safely over.
He didn’t even visit the fiddler, who looked curiously at
Kunta the next time he saw him, but said nothing about it.

*****************************************************
He was thirty-four rains old! What in the name of Allah had happened
to his life? He
had been in the white man’s land as long as he had lived in
Juffure. Was he still an African, or had he become a
“nigger,” as the others called themselves? Was he even a
man? He was the same age as his father when he had
seen him last, yet he had no sons of his own, no wife, no
family, no village, no people, no homeland, almost no past
at all that seemed real to him anymore—and no future he
could see. It was as if The Gambia had been a dream he’d
had once long ago. Or was he still asleep? And if he was,
would he ever waken?

*****************************************************
Bell took one look at him standing in the doorway and said,
“Couldn’t think up no other way to git you dere when Kizzy
git christened.”
“Git what?”
“Christened. Dat mean she jine de church.”
“What church? Dat ‘O Lawd’ religion o’ your’n?”
“Don’ let’s start dat again. Ain’t nothin’ to do wid me.
Missy Anne done ax her folks to take Kizzy to dey
meetin’house on Sundays an’ set in de back whilst dey
prays up front. But she can’t go to no white folks’ church
less’n she christened.”
“Den she ain’t gwine no church!”
“You still don’ unnerstan’, does you, African? It a priv’lege
to be axed to dey church. You say no, de nex’ thing you an
me both out pickin’ cotton.”