Cliffsnotes on Kingsolver's the Poisonwood Bible

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On Kingsolver’s

The Poisonwood Bible By Kris Fulkerson

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Publisher’s Acknowledgments Editorial Project Editor: Tere Stouffer Acquisitions Editor: Greg Tubach

CliffsNotes® On Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible Published by: Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com

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LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR

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CliffsNotes On Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible

Barbara Kingsolver is not only a contemporary American author of best-selling novels, nonfiction, and poetry, but also a freelance journalist and political activist. Kingsolver cares deeply about the world in which she lives and the people in it, and her writing attempts to change the world—to make the world a better place in which to live. Thus, Kingsolver writes about current social issues such as the environment, human rights, and social injustice. Her protagonists tend to be resilient, sensitive females, who are successfully surviving the typical day-to-day struggles found in America. Although Kingsolver’s characters tend to find themselves facing traumatic dilemmas, Kingsolver is able to interject humor, which lightens the tone and communicate the love, hope, and strength that is evident in the lives of people from all cultures and walks of life. Kingsolver’s personal experiences and passions, as well as her love of the southwestern United States, deeply influence her writing. Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955, in Annapolis, Maryland, to Virginia Henry and Wendell Kingsolver, a physician. The family moved to eastern Kentucky in order to be close to family, and Kingsolver’s father worked there as the only doctor in rural Nicholas County. This was a depressed county—oddly situated between the poverty of coal fields and the affluence of horse farms—and most people living there were not well off. They earned enough money to ensure their survival through tobacco farming, but were dependent on neighbors for everything else. Nicholas County did not have a swimming pool, and Kingsolver never laid eyes on so much as a tennis court until she went away to college. From an early age, Kingsolver enjoyed telling stories—her parents would listen to bedtime stories, instead of telling them. And because her parents were intolerant of television, Kingsolver spent her time reading and writing stories and essays—the county bookmobile was an especially strong influence. Surrounded as she was by fields and woods, Kingsolver became fond of studying nature. Beyond her fascination with the large family vegetable garden, the many plants and animals in her environment fascinated her and often found their way into her parents’ house; her parents’ understanding, however, stopped at the threshold to their house, and Kingsolver’s snakes and mice were not allowed inside. In 1962, Kingsolver’s father chose to practice medicine where he felt he could make a significant difference in the lives of others, so he took his family to St. Lucia, where they lived in a convent hospital, and then to Central Africa. While living in Africa, Kingsolver experienced what it was like to be a minority and an outsider. She was the only white child

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in the village. At the time, her hair was long enough to sit on, and, never having seen hair like hers, the village children tried to pull it off as though it was some sort of headpiece. Kingsolver’s experiences in Africa opened her eyes to the world, provoked her curiosity about people from other cultures, and served as a model for the setting of The Poisonwood Bible. Back in the States, by the time she was eight years old, Kingsolver was adamant about keeping a daily journal and entering every essay contest for which she was eligible. One of her essays, entitled “Why We Need A New Elementary School,” included a description about how her teacher had been injured as a result of the grade school’s ceiling falling on her. The piece, published in the local newspaper just before a schoolbond election, was instrumental in the passage of a school bond. After graduating from high school in 1973, Kingsolver attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, on a scholarship to study instrumental music. Once in college, however, Kingsolver changed her major to biology and worked to eliminate the rural Kentucky accent and expressions she had adopted from that particular region, both of which invited teasing from others. (Much later, Kingsolver realized how unique her language had been and resurrected it in her writing.) While in college, she was exposed to the writing of feminist authors Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, studied Marx and Engels, German philosophers and socialists, and participated in anti-Vietnam War protests. She graduated magna cum laude from DePauw in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. To satisfy her curiosity about the American Southwest, Kingsolver moved to Tucson, Arizona. She began graduate studies in biology and ecology at the University of Arizona and worked as a research assistant in the physiology department until 1979. During her college years, and time spent in Europe, Kingsolver supported herself working myriad small jobs, working as a typesetter, copyeditor, archeologist, X-ray technician, biological researcher, and translator of technical medical documents. After receiving her Master of Science degree in 1981 from the University of Arizona, Kingsolver accepted a job at the university and began writing science articles. She also pursued additional graduate studies and took a writing class with author Francine Prose. It was then that Kingsolver realized she did not want a career in academics; she wanted to write. She began working as a freelance scientific writer and journalist, with articles appearing in The Progressive, Smithsonian, and The Sonoran Review. Kingsolver also began writing short stories that were

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published in Redbook and Mademoiselle, and anthologies such as New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best; 1988; Florilegia, an Anthology of Art and Literature by Women; and Rebirth of Power. Kingsolver began a nonfiction book in 1983 about the copper mine strike against the Phelps Dodge Corporation in Arizona. She spent hours interviewing union wives about their experiences during and after the strike. However, a year later, the book remained half finished, and because her agent was having trouble selling it, Kingsolver stopped working on the project and returned to freelance writing. On April 15, 1985, Kingsolver married University of Arizona chemistry professor, Joseph Hoffmann. She soon found herself pregnant and unable to sleep at night, and although her doctor suggested that she scrub bathroom tiles with a toothbrush to battle her insomnia, she sat in a closet instead and began writing her first novel, The Bean Trees. If her daughter Camille had not been born three weeks late, Kingsolver might never have finished The Bean Trees, which was published in 1988. With the advance from having sold The Bean Trees, Kingsolver finished her nonfiction account of the Arizona mining strike, entitled Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983, which was published in 1989 by Cornell University Press. She also completed a collection of short stories called Homeland and Other Stories, also published in 1989, and then went on to write the novel Animal Dreams (1990); the sequel to The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven (1993); a bestselling collection of poetry called Another America: Otra America (1992); a collection of essays called High Tide in Tucson: Essays From Now and Never (1995); and another novel, The Poisonwood Bible (1998). All of Kingsolver’s writing has received much acclaim, including the American Library Association awards for The Bean Trees in 1988 and Homeland in 1990; the citation of accomplishment from the United Nations National Council of Women in 1989; the PEN fiction prize and Edward Abbey Ecofiction award, both in 1991, for Animal Dreams; the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction in 1993 for Pigs in Heaven; and the feature-writing award from the Arizona Press Club (1996). The Bean Trees has been published in more than 65 countries throughout the world and was released in 1998 in a mass-market edition. In 1995, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters degree from her alma mater, DePauw University.

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Kingsolver was divorced from her first husband in 1993. In 1995, she married Steven Hopp, an ornithologist, animal behaviorist, and guitarist, with whom she had a second daughter, Lily, in 1996. Today, Kingsolver, her husband, and their two daughters continue to live in Tucson, where she also cooks, gardens, and hikes. Because Kingsolver loves music, she sings and plays keyboard in several small groups, including an amateur rock band called the Rock Bottom Remainders, which is made up of fellow writers Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Dave Berry. Kingsolver continues her role as an environmental activist and human rights advocate, taking full advantage of the opportunity her writing career offers for spreading her political and social message. Her hope is to leave the world “a little more reasonable and just.”

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A BRIEF SYNOPSIS

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A Brief Synopsis

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In 1959, evangelical Baptist preacher Nathan Price takes his family to the Belgian Congo as missionaries. Nathan travels to Africa intent upon saving souls, but his wife, Orleanna, and four daughters (Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May) are more concerned with what supplies they should take to live comfortably there for the next year. When they arrive in the Congo, they are assigned to the village of Kilanga, where the Prices will be the only American family. Soon after their arrival, it becomes clear that they brought the wrong types of supplies and are woefully unprepared to deal with life in such a drastically different culture and climate. Nathan is inflexible in his approach to both the Congolese and his family, and Orleanna and her daughters are overwhelmed by their changed circumstances. In time, the Price girls begin to adjust to their new life in the Congo. Rachel hates everything about it and simply wants to be a normal American teenager. Leah, Adah, and Ruth May, on the other hand, begin to appreciate the Congo. Leah, who is Adah’s twin, enjoys observing the Congolese culture, while Adah studies the variety of plants, animals, and insects around them. Ruth May spends her time climbing trees and befriending the village children, to whom she teaches the game, “Mother, May I?” Meanwhile, Nathan tries to persuade the villagers to come to church and get baptized, and Orleanna worries for her family’s safety and health. The stability of the Prices’ mission in Kilanga is soon challenged on both local and global fronts. One night Anatole, the schoolteacher, comes to dinner and tells the family that the village chief is unhappy with Nathan’s church. Rather than trying to work out a compromise with the chief, Nathan gets angry and sends Anatole away. Around the same time, Ruth May breaks her arm, and Nathan takes her to a doctor in Stanleyville. While there, the doctor discusses the possibility of the Congo gaining independence, and Nathan scoffs at the idea. Soon after, the Underdowns (missionaries who once served in Kilanga) tell the Prices they need to leave the Congo due to the upcoming elections and independence, but Nathan refuses, determined to continue his mission. Orleanna and Ruth May become sick and are bedridden. With their mother ill, Rachel, Leah, and Adah must now run the house, and they soon discover just how difficult it is. After a month of illness, Orleanna is well enough to get around again, but Ruth May doesn’t show any signs of getting better. Orleanna begins actively searching for ways to get her family out of the Congo.

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During this time, the area enters a period of drought, compounding the difficulties in finding food. Seeing that the Prices are struggling to keep their family fed, Tata Ndu, the chief, begins courting Rachel, intent on marrying her in order to give the Prices one less mouth to feed. Although the Prices appreciate the intention, they don’t want Rachel to marry the chief, but they also don’t want to offend him. Therefore, Nathan arranges for Rachel to pretend to be engaged to Eeben Axelroot, a corrupt pilot who lives in the village. Brother Fowles, the missionary who preceded the Prices in Kilanga, visits the village one day with his Congolese wife and children. Orleanna and her daughters are struck by how his approach to bringing Christianity to Africa differs from Nathan’s: He has a much less restrictive view of scripture and worship and seems to be well-liked throughout the village. One night the Prices are awakened by hordes of ants swarming through the village and eating everything they can, including plants, animals, and people. Everyone in the village flees to the river to escape the ants. Adah, who is disabled, is upset when her mother chooses to save Ruth May rather than her. On that night, Leah tells Anatole, the schoolteacher—with whom she has been spending a great deal of time—that she loves him. One Sunday, while Nathan is preaching, Tata Ndu interrupts his sermon to hold a vote to determine whether or not the village will choose Jesus as the village’s personal God. Jesus loses. Meanwhile, Anatole has given Leah a bow and she has been learning to hunt. When Tata Ndu decides to have a huge hunt to procure some food, Anatole argues to allow Leah to participate. The chief and elders of the village are against a woman participating in the hunt. They hold a vote, and Leah’s cause barely wins. After the vote, someone tries to kill Anatole by putting a poisonous snake in his bed. The hunt takes place, and afterward Leah gets into an argument with the chief ’s son regarding who killed an antelope. It is obvious that Leah did, but the chief’s son doesn’t want to admit that a woman could best him. A fight breaks out in the village over the issue. That night, the Prices’ servant, Nelson, is afraid that someone will try to kill him. Leah and her sisters sprinkle ashes on the ground inside and outside of the chicken house where Nelson usually sleeps to catch

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anyone who might go in there to do him harm. Nelson sleeps at Anatole’s that night. The next morning they go to see if anyone entered the chicken house, and they find a poisonous snake there. As the snake flees, it strikes Ruth May and she dies. The footprints in the ashes show that the witch doctor, who has six toes on one foot, planted the snake. Orleanna prepares Ruth May for burial, bathing her body and sewing a shroud. She moves the dining table outside and places Ruth May’s body on it. The village women and children come and express their mourning by kneeling around the body and shrieking. Rachel, Leah, and Adah are all shocked by what has happened and can only kneel and pray. Orleanna brings out all of the other household furniture and goods and gives them to the village women. It begins to rain and Nathan comes out and baptizes the village children in the rain. The children don’t understand what he’s doing; they only know that their friend is dead. Encircling her body, they call out “Mother may I?” Orleanna takes her daughters and leaves Kilanga in the rain without ever looking back. On the way to Bulungu, a town several days from Kilanga, Leah falls ill with malaria. She has to be carried on a pallet to Bulungu. When they reach Bulungu, Orleanna negotiates with Axelroot to fly Rachel out of the Congo. She leaves Leah with Anatole and takes Adah on a fruit truck to the embassy in Leopoldville to fly back to the United States. Even when Leah is well enough to travel, she decides to stay with Anatole. They marry and have four sons. Anatole is imprisoned twice for supporting revolutionary causes. They eventually move their family to Angola, where they start an agricultural commune. Leah learns from Brother Fowles that after many years of moving from village to village, her father was killed at the hands of angry villagers who blamed him for the deaths of their children in the river. Rachel first lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with Axelroot and enjoys the society and comforts there. She later marries twice and inherits a hotel in the French Congo from her second husband. She devotes her time and energy into running the hotel and becomes a successful businesswoman. Adah goes to college in Atlanta becomes a doctor. While in medical school, a neurologist helps her to recover from her disability and learn to walk without a limp. Later, she goes to work for the CDC, investigating

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tropical diseases, and becomes well-known for the discoveries she makes about AIDS and the Ebola virus. Orleanna becomes active in the Civil Rights Movement. She can never shake the guilt she feels over Ruth May’s death and feels haunted by Ruth May’s spirit. In the end, however, she finds peace when she and Adah return to Africa briefly. As they are shopping in the market with Leah and Rachel, the spirit of Ruth May looks on and tells her mother to forgive herself for Ruth May’s death.

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LIST OF CHARACTERS

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Nathan Price An evangelical Baptist preacher who takes his family into the Belgian Congo in 1959 to do missionary work. His experiences in World War II shape his uncompromising desire to be an instrument of God, even at the expense of his family.

Orleanna (Wharton) Price Nathan’s wife. Spirited and beautiful as a young woman, her will has been broken by years of marriage to Nathan. She is desperate to protect her children from the dangers of the Congo.

Rachel Price The oldest of the Price daughters. Beautiful and shallow, she is a product of Western civilization and cares mostly for appearances and fun. She does not hesitate to use her beauty to manipulate others.

Leah Price One of the Price twins. Intelligent and idealistic, she initially worships her father but later learns to think for herself. Her strong sense of justice makes her sensitive to the political, economic, and racial injustices occurring in the Congo.

Adah Price One of the Price twins. Born with a neurological disorder, she limps and moves slowly. Although she can speak, she chooses not to as a child and teenager. She is highly intelligent, but her disability has caused her to view the world cynically and to question her self-worth.

Ruth May Price The youngest of the Price girls. Innocent and strong-willed, she dislikes being the baby of the family and does everything she can not to be left behind. Her pure heart inspires the love of both her family and the villagers.

Anatole Ngemba Kilanga’s schoolteacher, who acts as a translator during Nathan’s sermons. A supporter of the independence movement, he later marries Leah and is imprisoned multiple times for his political views.

Eeben Axelroot The mercenary airplane pilot who lives in Kilanga and who is involved in a variety of shady activities. He takes Rachel with him to Johannesburg after she leaves Kilanga.

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Nelson (Lekuyu) A former student of Anatole’s, employed by the Prices to do miscellaneous chores for them. He is protective of Ruth May.

Tata Ndu The chief of Kilanga. Tata Kuvudundu Kilanga’s medicine man, or witch doctor. Fyntan Fowles The Price’s forerunner in the Kilanga Mission. He was removed from the mission for marrying a native African.

Celine Fowles Fyntan Fowles’s wife. Methuselah The parrot left at the Kilanga Mission by Fyntan Fowles.

Reverend Frank and Janna Underdown Missionaries who once served in Kilanga and who leave the Congo after independence is declared there.

Mama Bekwa Tataba An opinionated woman who helps the Price family with cooking and cleaning during their first six months in Kilanga.

Mama Mwanza The Price’s neighbor, who lost her legs in a fire. Kind-hearted and generous, she helps the Prices when they are in need.

Pascal A Kilangan boy who is Leah’s first friend in the Congo. He is later killed by Mobutu’s army.

Tata Boanda An old Kilangan fisherman, who has two wives. Mama Lo The village hairdresser, who also runs a palm-oil business. Gbenye Tata Ndu’s oldest son. He resents Leah’s hunting skill. Lucien A Kilangan boy whom Nathan baptizes.

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Bwanga Lucien’s sister, whom Nathan baptizes. The Templetons An American couple in Johannesburg, with whom Rachel initially stays after leaving Kilanga.

Robine DuPree Rachel’s French friend in Johannesburg. Daniel DuPree The First Attache to the French Ambassador. He is first married to Robine, and then to Rachel.

Remy Fairley Rachel’s last husband, who leaves her The Equatorial Hotel when he dies.

Bud Wharton Orleanna’s father. He is an eye doctor in Pearl, Mississippi.

Aunt Tess Orleanna’s aunt, who encourages Orleanna to marry Nathan.

Pascal, Patrice, Martin-Lothaire, and Nataniel Ngemba Anatole and Leah’s sons.

Elisabet Anatole’s aunt, with whom he is reunited when he and Leah move to Bikoki.

Sister Terese A Benedictine nun in charge of the hospital laundry at the mission where Leah stays after leaving Kilanga.

Elevee Pascal Ngenba’s friend, who leaves school at a young age to become a prostitute.

Wesley and Jane Green A Baptist minister and his wife, who run a hospital mission on the Wamba River.

sisters

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Eeben Axelroot,

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Nathan Price,

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Rachel Price,

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Leah Price,

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twin sisters daughter of Nathan

Adah Price,

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Orleanna Price,

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Ruth May Price,

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mother of

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Character Map 15

sisters; compete for mother’s affection

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CHAPTER BY CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND COMMENTARIES

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Chapter by Chapter Summaries and Commentaries

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Book One: Genesis

Summary In the present day, Orleanna Price reflects upon her time in Africa, remembering walking single-file through the forest with her daughters to have a picnic on a stream bank. The forest is not only filled with life, it is alive. The huge columns of trees vibrate with animals and vegetation, and Orleanna and her daughters seem like “pale, doomed blossoms” amidst the wild beauty. Alone for a moment by the stream, Orleanna spots an okapi—a type of gazelle—across the water. Her gaze locks with the animal’s for a moment, and then it is gone. As she remembers this moment and her time in Africa, Orleanna is not simply reminiscing; she is speaking to one of her children, although she doesn’t specify which one. She asks to be judged, and implies that the child to whom she is speaking is dead and haunts her. Her request for judgment is also a request for peace from her child’s restless spirit and from her own troubled memories. In 1959, the Price family prepares for its year-long missionary trip to Africa. Restricted to carrying only 44 pounds of luggage apiece, the Price women struggle to decide which items to take with them. Finding a loophole in the restriction, they end up smuggling extra items, such as boxes of cake mix and tools, under the multiple layers of clothes they are wearing. When they arrive in Africa, they are greeted by the Underdowns, a missionary couple who once lived in Kilanga, the village at which the Prices will be stationed. The Underdowns explain that Kilanga once had a thriving mission, with four American families, a church, a school, and a doctor who visited regularly. However, over the years the mission diminished, and it has now been reduced to one family—the Prices. The residents of Kilanga herald the Price family’s arrival with singing, dancing, and a feast of goat stew. As Orleanna and her daughters try to take in the onslaught of unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells, Nathan immediately focuses on the nakedness of some of the women and launches into an angry sermon about their sinfulness. The celebratory

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atmosphere dies with his speech, and as the villagers begin to disperse, the Price girls try to choke down the goat stew. The Price’s new residence consists of a three-room house (with a front room and two bedrooms), a separate kitchen behind the house, a latrine, and a chicken house. Within the house are furniture, books, and kitchenware from previous missionaries, as well as an African grey parrot named Methuselah, who lives in a large bamboo cage and annoys Nathan with his cursing. As the family settles into their new home, they observe—and are observed by—their neighbors. The girls are fascinated by the villagers’ homes, habits, and clothing, and the villagers are curious about the Prices as well. At first, the girls stay indoors, afraid to venture too far from the security of the house. Not only are the people of Kilanga strange to them, but the untamed jungle wilderness of the Congo is also daunting. Leah, however, prefers the outdoors to housework and helps her father plant a garden with the seeds he brought from home. Leah idolizes her father and works hard to please him. Absorbed with his own agenda, however, Nathan does not appreciate or even notice Leah’s adoration. As Leah and Nathan plant their garden, Mama Tataba—their housekeeper—informs them that they need to make hills for the seeds rather than simply planting them in the flat earth. Nathan takes offense to her advice and also ignores her comment that the poisonwood plant he is handling will hurt him. The next day, Nathan wakes up with a painful rash on his hands, arm, and eye, where the poisonwood sap touched him. A few weeks later, heavy rains fall and wash out the garden. After the rains cease, Nathan replants the garden, this time shaping the garden into the flood-proof hills that Mama Tataba suggested. Meanwhile, Nathan has begun preaching Christianity to the Kilangans. His Sunday church services are sparsely attended, so he decides to stage an Easter Sunday in July. Nathan desperately wants to have a grand baptism in the river, but the villagers strongly oppose the idea. Consequently, Nathan decides to instead have a picnic by the river after the “Easter” church service. For the picnic, Orleanna kills and fries much of the large flock of chickens that came with the chicken house. While Nathan gloomily stares out at the river during the picnic, Orleanna helps to create a festive atmosphere as she moves throughout the crowd offering the villagers fried chicken. Despite her success with the church picnic, Orleanna finds it hard to adjust to her new life. Without modern household appliances, tasks

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such as cooking and cleaning present challenges she had not anticipated. These tasks are made even more difficult by the humidity, insects, animals, and potential diseases that thrive in the Congo’s climate. Mama Tataba’s assistance in everyday chores is invaluable. Nathan is not finding life in Africa to be exactly as he envisioned it either. For example, although the plants in his garden are flourishing, they are not yielding any food. He finally realizes that the insects needed to pollinate the plants don’t exist in Africa. As a result, no matter how much the plants may grow and flower, they will never bear the vegetables he had hoped for. Nathan’s other project—baptizing the villagers—is also proving to be unsuccessful. One Sunday, after a long sermon about baptism, Mama Tataba lectures Nathan about his obsession with dunking the Kilangans in the river. She tells him that the villagers refuse to go into the river because a girl from the village was killed in the river by a crocodile the previous year. After her confrontation with Nathan, Mama Tataba quits and leaves the village. Irritated and angry, Nathan takes his frustrations out on Methuselah, removing the parrot from its cage and hurling it into the trees.

Commentary The first thing one notices about The Poisonwood Bible is that the story is told from the perspectives of the five main women in the novel—Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May—giving readers more than one viewpoint. Note how carefully Kingsolver differentiates each character’s voice; she quickly establishes the distinctive personalities and perspectives of these five characters. Orleanna, who speaks only in the present, is trapped in the past. Her experiences in Africa haunt her, and she seeks absolution from one of her children. Rachel, the oldest daughter, appears to be a typical American teenager. She speaks in clichés and is self-centered and opportunistic. Beneath her superficiality, however, she possesses a keen eye for the absurd. Leah, the older of the twins, shares her father’s faith and is open to the new experiences of the Congo. Eager to please, she displays an earnest sense of right and wrong. Her twin, Adah, on the other hand, defines herself by her disability. Adah is analytical and cynical—the opposite of Leah. As shown by her love of palindromes and reading sentences forward and backward, Adah examines life from all angles, sometimes seeing things that others overlook. The youngest daughter, Ruth May, is full of questions.

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She views the world through a child’s eyes, making observations that are colored both by her religious upbringing and by her innocence. Readers may wonder why Kingsolver does not give Nathan a chance to speak and present his viewpoint on the events that occur, given that he first appears to be so central to the story. As the novel progresses, Kingsolver’s choice regarding Nathan will become clearer. Although Nathan sets events in motion, he should not be considered the central character. The novel is more concerned with his family’s reactions to his actions rather than with his actions themselves. In addition to recognizing different points of view in the novel, keep in mind that Kingsolver uses the Prices’ experiences to tell the larger story of life in the Congo. Kingsolver explains, “This book is a political allegory, in which the small incidents of characters’ lives shed light on larger events in our world.” In other words, although the Price family’s story is a rich one, the novel becomes even richer when the Price family’s story is read in the context of the political backdrop that Kingsolver establishes. Consequently, to fully understand The Poisonwood Bible, readers must not ignore the political events discussed in the novel. In this, the first book of the novel, Kingsolver establishes key points regarding Nathan and his family’s relationships with the villagers. Take, for example, the two feasts described in this section. The first feast, given by the villagers to greet the Prices, begins festively. The villagers are receptive to the family and want them to feel welcome. Rather than taking this opportunity to establish a friendly relationship with the Kilangans, however, Nathan fixates on sinfulness and berates the villagers for their displays of nakedness, thus displaying his own ignorance and arrogance. Nathan cares only for his own view of the world; right and wrong are as clear to him as are the words in his Bible. Nathan has sensitivity neither to the villagers’ cultural norms nor to their feelings when he— a newcomer and guest—insults them. As a result, the feast ends with a subdued air and relations between the Prices and the Kilangans are off to a bad start. Nathan’s inflexibility ruins an opportunity to repair his damaged relationships with the villagers at the second feast in this section—the Easter Sunday picnic. He fails to appreciate not only the Kilangan’s willingness to socialize, but also the asset he has in his friendly and conscientious wife. Nathan’s narrow view of the world allows him to see only that the river in front of him is empty of the villagers he wants to baptize; he ignores the sight of Orleanna’s winning over the crowd.

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Book Two: The Revelation

Summary In the present day, Orleanna continues to think about her experiences in Africa and still speaks to one of her daughters. She confirms that one of her children is dead, saying, “Africa, where one of my children remains in the dank red earth,” but she does not indicate to which child she refers. She reflects on her time in the Congo with guilt and anguish, examining her day-to-day struggles there and trying to determine what she could have done differently. She remembers that after Mama Tataba left, her days became consumed by the efforts it took to keep her family fed and healthy. Meanwhile, she remembers Nathan’s becoming more obsessed with bringing salvation to Kilanga and viewing the resistance he was encountering as a test from God. Orleanna recalls watching helplessly as Nathan became less and less aware of their children and their family’s basic needs; his fixation on his mission left her so overwhelmed by the practical details of daily survival that she could not see the larger problems looming ahead. In their second six months in the Congo, the Price family begins to learn words in Kikongo, the language spoken in Kilanga. As they learn the language, they are also learning about familiar and unfamiliar plants, animals, and insects. Enthralled by her new surroundings, Leah tries to memorize not only the names of things but also the unique sights and sounds. She comments, “Oh, it’s a heavenly paradise in the Congo and sometimes I want to live here forever.” Despite her reverence for the beauty of the Congo, however, Leah acknowledges that “it’s not always paradise here, either. Perhaps we’ve eaten of the wrong fruits of the Garden, because our family always seems to know too much, and at the same time not enough.” The beliefs and skills that the Prices brought with them into Africa never seem adequate in the face of the knowledge needed to survive each day. With time, the family begins to know their neighbors. Mama Mwanza is the closest neighbor; she lost her legs in a fire and walks on her hands. There is also Tata Boanda, who has two wives and attends Nathan’s church. Even as the Prices look at their neighbors and marvel or shake their heads at the villagers’ unusual characteristics, the family

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begins to realize that the villagers also view them as peculiar. The village children, for example, will come and stare at the house or at the Price girls and run away if the girls try to approach them. To continue their education, Orleanna starts giving Rachel, Leah, and Adah lessons every morning. In the afternoons, the girls are allowed to play outside. Gradually they begin to make friends with the village children. Ruth May befriends the children first, teaching them how to play “Mother, May I?” Soon after, Leah befriends a boy named Pascal, who teaches her the local language and gives her lessons on vegetation and weather. Leah is struck by how practical his games are (Build a House; Find Food) compared to the games she and her sisters play (Mother May I; Hide and Seek). Leah realizes that childhood is much different for the Congolese; even as children, the Congolese learn how to survive. Embarrassed by her lack of practical skills, Leah observes, “For the first time ever I felt a stirring of anger against my father for making me a white preacher’s child from Georgia.” Leah explores the forest and longs to tag along after her father as he tours Kilanga and neighboring villages trying to bring them the Word of God. Leah is fascinated by the village women and by the fact that girls her age are already married and have children. She also loves watching the people that congregate in the middle of town, whether going to the market that occurs every five days or gossiping and fixing each others’ hair. Leah and Adah also spy on Axelroot, the white bush pilot who lives in the village. They are intrigued by the guns, tools, and radio that he keeps in his shack. One day, Ruth May breaks her arm while climbing a tree to spy on the “African Communist Boy Scouts” (the Jeune Mou Pro, or Congolese revolutionaries) who gather in the woods. Nathan takes Ruth May to Stanleyville (now Kisangani) to have her arm set. In Stanleyville, they visit a doctor who engages Nathan in conversation about the unrest in the country. They talk in particular about a man named Patrice Lumumba, a former postal worker who advocates achieving independence through nonviolent methods. The doctor criticizes the European and American economic and political policies in the Congo—especially the injustice of enslaving the Congolese in the rubber plantations and mines. Nathan counters the doctor’s statement saying, “The Belgians and American business brought civilization to the Congo! American aid will be the Congo’s salvation.” The doctor seems skeptical of this viewpoint.

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Not long after Ruth May’s fall, Anatole Ngemba, the local schoolteacher, comes over for dinner. He’s 24, an orphan, and an attractive man. Unlike many Congolese, he is educated; the Underdowns taught him how to read and write. He speaks French, English, and Kikongo, and he translates Nathan’s sermons for the Kilangans every Sunday. At dinner, Anatole tells Nathan that the village chief, Tata Ndu, is concerned with the rising number of villagers going to Nathan’s church. The chief doesn’t mind when people with bad luck go—such as those who feel their gods have deserted them—but he worries about the other villagers following such “corrupt” ways. Anatole’s statement angers Nathan, and he argues that the people need some spiritual guidance, especially since Tata Ndu is not a minister of any kind. Anatole then explains that the people go to Tata Kuvudundu, a “priest of the traditions,” for spiritual guidance, but that Christianity is not out of the question, especially since the villagers “remembered the missionary times, when Brother Fowles had gotten practically the whole town praying to Jesus.” This news sends Nathan over the edge, for it implies that Nathan’s missionary work is lacking, and he asks Anatole to leave. After his dinner with the Price family, Anatole sends Nelson, one of his pupils, to them to do chores and errands in exchange for meals, a place to sleep in the chicken house, and a basket of eggs to sell in the market each week. Nathan’s spiritual influence in the community improves when Adah nearly gets eaten by a lion. As she is walking through the forest one day, she hears something following her. She doesn’t reach home until nightfall, and when she gets there, she simply slips into the hammock at the end of the porch as she normally would, without letting anyone know she is home. A little while later, Tata Ndu comes to the house and tells everyone that his son reported finding the tracks of a lion following Adah’s tracks, signs of a pounce, and blood going into the bush. A party of men were searching for her body. Stunned by what she hears, Adah can only watch her family’s reactions. Her sisters can’t understand what Tata Ndu is saying, but her mother does and stands frozen. Adah observes, “Such affliction I saw on her face I briefly believed myself dead.” Nathan responds by commanding the family to pray. As he prays aloud, Adah forces herself to come forward, interrupting her father’s prayer. Once the village learns of her miraculous escape from death, more villagers begin coming to church because they believe that Jesus protected Adah from the lion.

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Meanwhile, the rainy season is upon them and the village children are getting sick with the kakakaka (dysentery). Worried about contagion, Orleanna finds reasons to keep her daughters in the house. For Christmas, she gives them needlework materials so that they can work on their hope chests. Rachel throws herself wholeheartedly into the project, Leah works on hers for awhile before giving up, and Adah embroiders black borders on hers. In January, the Underdowns surprise the Prices with a visit. They come to tell them that there is talk of the Congo having an election in May and gaining independence in June. They inform the Prices that the Mission League is sending everyone home. It is also revealed that Nathan came despite the Mission League’s recommendation against it, and that his mission is not officially sanctioned by the Mission League. Nathan tells them he won’t leave until a replacement arrives. Anatole makes preparations for the election, visiting the villagers and preparing them to vote. Every man in Kilanga will throw one pebble into the bowl representing the candidate of his choice. The pebbles will be collected and taken upriver to be counted. As the village and nation prepare for independence, Tata Kuvundundu leaves a warning of chicken bones outside the Prices’ door, indicating that they should leave. The Underdowns send a letter telling the Prices to prepare to leave; they will no longer be receiving money or supplies from the Mission League. Nathan continues to refuse to leave, even though Orleanna tries to reason with him and Rachel throws a fit demanding to be allowed to go home. They learn that Lumumba is elected Prime Minister, and he and other elected officials are establishing a parliament. On the day the Prices are supposed to leave, only Nathan and Leah board the plane that the Underdowns send for the family. Rachel tries to climb on, but Nathan pushes her back. After the plane flies away, Orleanna goes back to the house and crawls into bed. After a while, Ruth May climbs into bed with her. Leah and Nathan travel to Leopoldville to watch the Congolese independence ceremonies. The Underdowns are horrified to discover that Nathan is determined not to allow his family to leave the Congo. Thrilled to be chosen by her father to accompany him, Leah watches the ceremonies with awe, fascinated by Lumumba’s speech and the roaring of the crowd cheering him on.

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On the same day that Nathan and Leah attend the independence ceremonies (June 30, 1960), Adah discovers Methuselah’s remains beside the latrine, where he had been roosting since Nathan let him go. He was killed by a civet (a catlike carnivore). Adah views his death as a liberation and compares Methuselah’s independence with the Congo’s.

Commentary In this section, we gain a better understanding of the personalities of the four Price daughters, as well as an early view of the political events that will shape their lives. Rachel continues to focus on herself and to distance herself from the Congolese. Notice which events she narrates— Anatole’s coming to dinner, the Underdowns’ visiting, and trying to convince her father to let her go home. Unlike her sisters, she seems to have made no connections to the Kilangans or the land. Leah, on the other hand, is enthralled by the Kilangans and spends much of her time watching and studying them. Her friendship with Pascal furthers her appreciation of their culture and even causes her to question her own culture’s values. Meanwhile, Adah spends her time studying her environment and discovers aspects of the land’s plant, animal, and human life that her sisters miss. Ruth May is perhaps the most successful of all the sisters in adjusting to their new life. Her fearless tree-climbing shows how she has become a part of the environment, and her easy friendship with the village children demonstrates her ability to connect to the Congolese culture. As his daughters adapt to life in the Congo, Nathan becomes even more entrenched in his beliefs and his desire to “save” the people of Kilanga. He cannot conceive of his worldview being incorrect, and he refuses to consider any opposing viewpoints. He demonstrates this inflexibility with the doctor in Stanleyville and again with the Underdowns. For example, when the Stanleyville doctor mentions Lumumba, Nathan reacts with disdain, pointing to Lumumba’s lack of education as a reason why he will never make a difference. Nathan obviously doesn’t understand the unrest moving throughout the Congolese masses. Similarly, when the Underdowns come to warn the Prices about the impending elections and independence, Nathan again scoffs at the idea of the Congolese being able to achieve self-rule, saying, “They don’t have the temperament or the intellect for such things.” Nathan’s responses to the doctor and the Underdowns reveal him to be representative of the colonial powers that believed they could and

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should control the Congo nation. His arrogance and disrespect mirror the attitudes the Europeans and Americans held toward the native people. Notice how he believes he is bringing civilization to the African people, just as the foreign governments claimed they were civilizing the nations they colonized. Additionally, look at how Nathan blindly tries to impose his will upon the people of Kilanga without ever taking a moment to find out what they want, need, or already know. Such behavior parallels the approach the Europeans and Americans took toward the Congo. Nathan’s decision to stay in the Congo despite his family’s protests and the recommendation of the Underdowns also shows him to be incredibly selfish and single-minded. Like the countries in power, Nathan acts without caring about what is best for those who depend on him. He is concerned only with achieving his own agenda.

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Book Three: The Judges

Summary Orleanna thinks back to the beginning of her relationship with Nathan. The United States entered World War II soon after they were married and Nathan was drafted. He was sent to the Philippines, where he received a head wound and was taken to a hospital. Meanwhile the rest of his company was captured and died on the Death March from Bataan. The incident impacted Nathan deeply, causing him to have “a suspicion of his own cowardice from which he would never recover.” When he returned home to Orleanna, Nathan threw himself into his preaching, traveling throughout the South spreading the Word. Finally, when Orleanna was pregnant with Rachel, they settled in Bethlehem, Georgia. Less than two years after Rachel was born, Orleanna had the twins and her life became consumed by motherhood and housekeeping. She comments, “For six years, from age nineteen until I turned twenty-five, I did not sleep uninterrupted through a single night . . . And you wonder why I didn’t rise up and revolt against Nathan? I felt lucky to get my shoes on the right feet, that’s why.” In 1960, after Leah and Nathan return from the Independence ceremonies in Leopoldville, the Prices try to adjust to their changed status in the village. They no longer receive money or supplies from the Mission League and are therefore reliant upon the few supplies they have and what they can forage. Orleanna and Ruth May remain sick in bed most of the time, leaving Rachel, Leah, and Adah to take charge of the household. As they try to cook and clean, they realize just how hard their mother worked to keep them fed and healthy. Leah is embarrassed by her family’s lack of practical knowledge and even sometimes “pictured a father with shiny black arms pulling fish from the river and a mother with dark, heavy breasts pounding manioc in a wooden trough.” One day Anatole comes to visit. He brings the family a rabbit for supper, as well as some news that one of the Congo’s provinces (Katanga) has seceded from the new Republic of Congo. Apparently, there is unrest in Katanga because Lumumba is reluctant to make business deals with the Americans and Europeans. Lumumba has asked for help from the United Nations and is threatening to ask the Soviet Union for help if the United Nations doesn’t offer assistance.

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While Ruth May is sick with malaria, Nelson gives her a nkisi, or charm, to protect her. He says that it will keep her spirit safe if her life is ever threatened. For the charm to work, she must think of a safe place, and when danger threatens, her spirit will go there. Ruth May decides that her safe place is as a green mamba snake in the tree. She likes the idea of being able to see the whole world from such a high vantage point. After a month of being sick, Orleanna begins to recover. As her body regains strength, her spirit also seems to have new life. She speaks her mind now, even in front of Nathan, and seems determined to find a way to get herself and her daughters out of Africa. Even Leah is beginning to doubt her father’s judgment in keeping them there, especially since he is doing nothing to provide for or protect the family. This one doubt opens up the possibility of other things that Nathan may be wrong about, which is difficult for Leah to consider. Brother Fowles, the missionary who preceded the Prices in Kilanga, visits the village one day with his Congolese wife and children. A kind, intelligent, and genial man, he has many friends in the village and is well-liked there. Nathan does not approve of him, however, especially after the two men debate scripture for awhile and Nathan cannot best Fowles in scriptural knowledge. Nathan also disapproves of Fowles’ attitude toward the Congolese, because he has a gentler philosophy than Nathan regarding conversion. Rather than forcing his beliefs upon them, Fowles finds ways of incorporating Christianity into their beliefs, using their songs, prayers, and their views of the world to convey his message. Before leaving, Brother Fowles and his wife give the Prices books, food, and medicine. A drought has hit the region, and food is scarce. Tata Ndu begins visiting the Prices, bringing them gifts. They are puzzled by his attentions until Nelson informs the family that Tata Ndu is looking for another wife—Rachel. It is likely that he recognizes that the Prices are struggling to get enough food, and he is trying to take Rachel off their hands so that they have one less mouth to feed. Rachel throws a fit, so Nathan strikes a bargain with Axelroot to pretend to be engaged to Rachel so that the chief will not be offended when they turn down his marriage offer. Now “engaged” to Axelroot, Rachel begins secretly planning to flatter him and then convince him to fly the family out of Kilanga. As they spend more time together, Axelroot continuously brags to Rachel that he is an important person. He claims his job as a pilot is just a cover and that he has ties to the CIA.

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While Rachel is walking with Axelroot one day, he tells her that Lumumba is going to be killed. He intercepted the news on his radio: “Yesterday Big Shot sent a cable to Devil One with orders to replace the new Congolese government by force.” When spying on Axelroot, Adah hears him and another man discussing that President Eisenhower has ordered Lumumba’s murder. Shocked by the news, she later shares it with Leah. Meanwhile, Leah has begun teaching some of the younger students at the school and spends much of her time with Anatole. When they are together, they talk about Congolese politics, and she tries to describe life in America to him. She is very attracted to him, and he is drawn to her as well, nicknaming her béene-béene, meaning “as true as truth can be.” Leah has also become excellent at hunting with the bow that Anatole gave her for her birthday. Although she enjoys using the bow, Leah’s hunting is viewed with disapproval by the villagers because it is unfeminine. One night, the village is overrun by ants that cover everything “like black flowing lava.” The ants try to devour everything they come into contact with, including plants, animals, and people. Everyone in the village runs to boats in the river to escape the ants’ stinging bites. In the midst of the tumult, Adah and her mother face each other in the house. Adah knows that her disability will hinder her from moving fast enough to save herself from the ants, so although she has been in a self-imposed silence, she breaks it to plead with her mother, “Help me. Please.” Holding Ruth May, Orleanna pauses, tells Adah to follow her, and goes out into the crowd. Adah tries to follow, but she falls and begins to be trampled by the panicked crowd moving around her. As she struggles to rise, Anatole suddenly lifts her up and carries her to a canoe. Adah is severely troubled by this event, feeling that her mother has shown that she values Ruth May’s life more than hers. Meanwhile, Leah escapes in a canoe with Anatole. Frightened by the experience with the ants, she feels her faith in God slipping. She tells Anatole that she loves him, but he tells her she should never say that again.

Commentary Orleanna’s description of the early years of her marriage provides us with a better understanding of Nathan’s obsession with staying in the Congo; he will not abandon his post in a jungle again. However, his decision to keep his family in the Congo is leading his daughters down dangerous paths. Rachel, for example, must pretend to be engaged to

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a despicable man in order to avoid being courted by the village chief. The most disturbing aspects of her pretense are the beginnings of an attraction to Axelroot and her calculated moves to persuade him to fly her family to safety. Rachel is determined to get her way and will use her looks to do it. At the same time, Leah is also taking control of her life. As she falls in love with Anatole, she drifts farther from her father’s narrow view of life. By the end of this section, she has lost her faith in her father, her faith in her country, and her faith in God. All she has left is her love for Anatole. Adah’s world view is similarly shaken in this section. The experience with the ants caused her to lose her trust in her mother as well as her already-fragile sense of self-worth. Meanwhile, for much of this section, Ruth May’s life is in jeopardy as she battles malaria. By giving her the charm, Nelson offers her more protection than her own father does. Kingsolver does not show Nathan offering his daughter even a prayer. The political allegory that Kingsolver is creating becomes more apparent in this section. In the last section she established that Nathan’s views represented those of the colonial (American and European) powers trying to control the Congo. In this section, Kingsolver shows the people who are dependent upon Nathan realizing that they have been betrayed by him and reacting to that sense of betrayal. In a similar fashion, Adah and Leah discover that they have, in a sense, also been betrayed by President Eisenhower, who ordered Lumumba’s murder. As president, Eisenhower is a father figure, the leader of their country. Learning that he is capable of murder leads them to question what their country stands for. Also significant in this section is the appearance of Brother Fowles. Up to this point, the novel has presented only one view of Christianity in Africa. Brother Fowles provides a counterpoint to Nathan’s narrowminded approach to religion. Even though Fowles was dismissed from the mission for marrying a Congolese woman, his kindness and generosity show him to be doing more good for people in one visit than Nathan has in one year. Fowles and his wife give out food and medical supplies, as well as simple comfort. He has a strong sense of God and a remarkable knowledge of the Bible. Next to Fowles’ easy smile and quick mind, Nathan appears mean-spirited and unpleasant. As Fowles comments, “There are Christians and then there are Christians.” By introducing Brother Fowles into the story, Kingsolver does for her readers what Anatole does for Nathan’s congregation—she provides a clear picture of an alternate philosophy and leaves it to her readers to decide which one they prefer.

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Book Four: Bel and the Serpent

Summary Still haunted by her experiences in Africa, Orleanna imagines the political meetings that led to Lumumba’s demise and Joseph Mobutu’s installation as leader of the Congo nation. According to a U.S. Senate investigative committee in 1975, the United States government, including Eisenhower and the National Security Council, suggested the coup and offered to pay for it. As a result, Lumumba was arrested and Mobutu was put in charge of the army. Lumumba escaped but was recaptured and beaten to death, leaving the Congo under the despotic rule of Mobutu. After the episode with the ants, the villagers return to Kilanga to find all of their food supplies eaten. The drought continues, causing water to dry up and plants to die. The people long for rain and are beginning to doubt the effectiveness of Jesus. At church one Sunday as Nathan is giving a sermon, Tata Ndu interrupts and announces that the village will hold elections right there regarding whether or not the Kilangans will choose Jesus as the village’s personal God. Despite Nathan’s outrage, the vote takes place, and Jesus loses, 11 to 56. Soon after the vote in the church, Tata Ndu announces that the entire village will participate in a large hunt. Leah, who has been honing her hunting skills, wants to join the men in hunting. Her request is met with disapproval from Tata Ndu, Tata Kuvudundu, and the other old men. Anatole argues for Leah and for the need to embrace change, and many of the young people agree with him. The village votes on the matter, with the vote 51 to 45 in favor of letting Leah hunt. Tata Kuvudundu speaks out against the decision, stating that the animals will rebel against such unnatural behavior. After the meeting, Nathan and Leah get into a fight over her desire to hunt. Nathan forbids it, and Leah defies him. Later, Anatole finds a mamba snake in his bed and is lucky he isn’t killed. On the morning of the hunt, the villagers beat down the tall grass on a hill. They then set the grass on fire. Encircling the hill they follow behind the flames as they move forward. The women and children pick up basketfuls of charred caterpillars left in the fire’s wake. The circle of

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fire grows smaller, trapping all of the wildlife that was in the area inside. The trapped animals begin trying to leap through the fire to escape, and as they try to escape, the hunters shoot at them. Leah kills her first game—an antelope. However when she goes to claim it, Gbenye, the chief’s son, claims that his arrow killed it. Nelson proves that Leah killed it and ridicules Gbenye’s aim. The whole village begins arguing over who killed the antelope, and Tata Ndu insults Leah by hacking off the rear leg of the animal and throwing it at her feet. She responds by throwing it at Gbenye’s back. The evening ends in chaos. Back home after the hunt is over, the Prices cook and eat their antelope leg. Nelson comes in and reports that he has seen an evil sign outside the chicken house. Nathan tells him that he’s being superstitious and refuses to let Nelson sleep in the house with them. As the Prices try to sleep, Nelson disturbs them with his pleas to be allowed inside. Finally, Leah gets up and with her sisters goes outside to help Nelson. They sprinkle ashes on the ground inside and outside the chicken house to catch anyone who may try to harm Nelson, and Nelson sleeps at Anatole’s that night. The next morning, Nelson and the girls go out to examine the ashes. In the ashes the see the footprints of Tata Kuvudundu, who has six toes on one of his feet. Inside the chicken house, they find a green mamba snake. As the snake darts out of the chicken house, it strikes twice at a pole Nelson has shoved at it. They hear a cry and look up at the treetops where they think the noise has come from. Then they look at Ruth May and see that she is turning blue. Tearing her shirt off, they see that the snake has bitten her right above the heart. Before they can run for help, she dies. The girls tell Orleanna what has happened. Moving as if in a daze, she bathes Ruth May and sews a shroud for her. She then moves the dining table into the front yard and places Ruth May’s body in the shroud on the table. The women from the village come and drop to their knees and shriek, beginning the mourning ritual for the death of a child. Not knowing what to do, Leah and Adah kneel there with them and pray. Orleanna begins moving all of their furniture and possessions into the yard. When she is done, she begins giving the things to the women. The women leave with their new things, but the village children come back to circle the yard. It begins to rain, and Nathan emerges and takes the opportunity to baptize the children in the rain. The children don’t understand what he is doing; instead, they begin calling out “Mother may I?” to Ruth May’s body.

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Commentary In this section, we finally reach the crisis that has been hinted at since the beginning of the book: Ruth May’s death. Preceding her death are a series of events marking the collapse of different institutions. First, the village votes to end Nathan’s ministry, signifying his complete failure to bring Christianity into their lives. Then the village votes to allow Leah to hunt, a decision that goes against the village leaders and Kilangan traditions, causing disruptions in both the community’s power structure and its cultural beliefs. The disruption is complete when Leah actually bests the chief ’s son in shooting the antelope. A woman has beaten a man. The hunt, which should have been a celebratory event, disintegrates into anarchy. With that in mind, it becomes clear why Tata Kuvudundu placed the snake in the chicken house. He was trying to reestablish order in his community by removing the troublemakers, Anatole and Nelson. His attempt to regain stability, however, only caused more destruction. With Ruth May’s death, the Price family is shattered, sending the remaining Price women out to make their own way in the world and leaving Nathan behind with nothing. Reading this section in terms of the political allegory, it is important to recognize that Ruth May died on the same day that Patrice Lumumba was murdered—January 17, 1961. Just as Ruth May was the spirit of the Price family, Lumumba was the spirit of the independence movement. With his death, the future of the Congo was bleak. However, a close reading of Ruth May’s death shows that there is hope, not only for the Price women, but also for the Congo. When Ruth May is bitten, her sisters hear a cry that seems to come from the treetops. Remembering that Ruth May had chosen the treetops as the safe spot for her spirit to go to if death was near, we can believe that Ruth May’s spirit escaped. If Ruth May’s spirit escaped, then perhaps Lumumba’s did as well. With those spirits free, healing might be possible.

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Book Five: Exodus

Summary Orleanna remembers her overwhelming grief when Ruth May died, so much so that Orleanna felt that she had to keep moving so that her grief wouldn’t catch up with her. After clearing out the house, she took Rachel, Leah, and Adah and walked out of the village. As she remembers that day, it becomes clear that she has been talking to Ruth May. She begs Ruth May for relief from her guilt, saying, “If you are the eyes in the trees, watching as we walk away from Kilanga, how will you make your judgment? Lord knows after thirty years I still crave your forgiveness.” She wonders if Ruth May’s spirit is still just Ruth May or if she has become part of the larger spirit of Africa. When Orleanna and her three daughters leave Kilanga in the deluge of rain, they head toward the neighboring town of Bulungu. Their journey is made nearly unbearable by the mosquitoes that are hatching and filling the air, biting and choking the Price women. During the trip, Leah succumbs to malaria and has to be carried to Bulungu on a pallet. Once they reach Bulungu, Orleanna negotiates with Axelroot to fly Rachel out of the Congo and finds a truck driver who agrees to take her and Adah to the embassy in Leopoldville. Orleanna leaves Leah in the care of Anatole, who is also in Bulungu. After Leah recovers enough to travel, she decides to stay with Anatole and marry him, rather than rejoin her mother and sister. Axelroot takes Rachel to Johannesburg, South Africa, where they live together but don’t marry. Thrilled to be back in civilization again, Rachel goes to parties and begins making friends. She eventually grows tired of Axelroot and turns her attention to her friend’s husband, who is an attaché to the French ambassador. Her scheme works, and she marries him and moves to Brazzaville, French Congo. Back in the United States, Adah has decided to break her selfimposed silence and begin speaking. She enrolls at Emory University in Atlanta, determined to eventually go to medical school. Science has become her religion. She frequently visits Orleanna, who has moved into a small cabin and has begun a garden. Adah often wonders about

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Orleanna’s reasons for choosing to take her out of the Congo rather than Leah. Anatole is imprisoned for his revolutionary activities, and while he is in prison, Leah stays in the safety of a convent. She hears news that Nathan is still in Kilanga, now living in a hut in the forest after his house burned. He is still intent on baptizing people and sounds as if he has gone a little mad. While at the convent, Leah works on learning languages, including Lingala, which is widely spoken throughout the Congo. She has some moments of despair over what has happened to her family and especially to Ruth May, but her focus on Anatole helps keep her from a complete breakdown. After Anatole has been imprisoned for three years, he is released and he marries Leah. They move to Bikoki Station, where Anatole is reunited with his mother’s sister, Elisabet. While there, Anatole works as a teacher, and Leah volunteers at a clinic. In medical school, a neurologist tells Adah he thinks she can be cured of her dragging right side and encourages her to take part in an experimental program. For six months, she doesn’t walk at all; instead she crawls and uses a wheelchair. One day, she feels a snap on her right side and is soon able to teach herself to walk again—this time without the limp. As someone who always defined herself by her disability, Adah now wonders who she is without it. Busy with medical school, Adah sees Orleanna, Leah, and Anatole only sporadically. Leah and Anatole are also at the university. Leah is studying agronomics there and is pregnant with her second child. Orleanna is involved with civil rights work, especially marches. Everyone is still haunted by what happened to Ruth May. In the 1970s, Mobutu changes the names of cities and places to make them “authentic.” Leah and her family, who have moved back to Africa, practice quizzing each other on the changed names—for example, Leopoldville is Kinshasa and the Congo is Zaire. She and Anatole have three sons and live in a small tin-roofed house in Kinshasa with Elisabet. Life there is difficult. They have little food, and Leah longs for more protein. The family lives in fear of Anatole being imprisoned again for his loyalty to the Lumumbist party. Because of the economic problems caused by Mobutu’s mismanagement of funds, people in Kinshasa resort to bribes and the black market in order to take care of things as simple as getting one’s mail. Rachel has married again and is a widow. Her husband left her a hotel—The Equatorial—in the French Congo, about 100 miles north

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of Brazzaville. She pours all her energy and devotion into the hotel and thinks, “Finally, Rachel, this is your own little world. You can run it exactly however you please.” She is a good businesswoman and is successful. However, she is attuned to class and racial distinctions and comments that she doesn’t view Leah’s children as her relations because they are half black. In 1981, Anatole is arrested again for treason, and his family fears that he will die in prison. Orleanna’s friends in Amnesty International write letters on behalf of Anatole, and Orleanna raises money to bribe officials to give Anatole some food. In 1984, Rachel, Leah, and Adah reunite one month before Anatole is set to be released. The sisters rediscover their different outlooks on life, and Rachel and Leah argue about communism. Leah reveals that she has heard that Nathan is dead. She tells her sisters that he had moved up the Kasai River over the years and was still trying to baptize children in the river. He had gained a reputation for turning into a crocodile and attacking children. When a boat full of children from the village he was in was attacked by a crocodile, the village blamed Nathan. They tried to chase him out of the village, but he resisted and ended up being surrounded in a watchtower. The villagers set fire to the tower and he burned to death. Adah comments that his death parallels a section of the Old Testament. Later, when she returns to the states, Adah tells Orleanna about Nathan’s death.

Commentary Readers may find this section to be a bit long and disjointed. That feeling comes from the sudden change in pacing that happens here. The previous four sections together covered a period of about a year and a half, while this section covers twenty-five years. Additionally, in the previous four sections, all the characters were living in the same place and, therefore, were narrating different viewpoints of the same series of events. In this section, however, the narrators are in different locations, leading separate lives. As a result, their stories are told with large temporal and geographical gaps. Why does Kingsolver alter the movement of her story this way? And why doesn’t the story end with Ruth May’s death? The answer to both questions lies in the fact that this novel is a political allegory. Kingsolver is telling the story of the Congo’s journey to independence after colonial

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rule. Unfortunately, that journey didn’t end with Lumumba’s election in 1960 or with his death in 1961. After Lumumba died, Mobutu ruled for more than three decades, destroying the country’s economy in the process. The Congo would not have a chance to be truly free until Mobutu was no longer in power. Therefore, to make her story follow history, Kingsolver needed to continue tracking the lives of the Prices. After Ruth May’s death, the Price women scatter, each one on her own path. It is in this section that their different philosophies are fully developed. Rather like her father, Rachel pursues her own agenda at the expense of others. Racism and classism mark her as still having American attitudes about life in Africa. She is happy with the little world she has created at The Equatorial, although—again, like her father—she has ended up alone. Leah, on the other hand, has gone in the opposite direction as Rachel. Still an idealist, she desperately wants to be forgiven for her whiteness and what her country has done to Africa. Married to a revolutionary, she believes in social activism and tries to create change in small ways, teaching people about health and agricultural issues. On the other side of the ocean, Adah also tries to change the face of Africa, but she uses science rather than activism. Haunted by the memory of all the children she saw die in Africa, including Ruth May, Adah studies viruses and tries to find cures. Finally, Orleanna is haunted by guilt over Ruth May’s death. It gnaws at her and leaves her restlessly searching for forgiveness.

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CliffsNotes On Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible

Book Six: Song of the Three Children

Summary Rachel reflects upon her life. She is proud of her hotel and how well she has kept herself, but she misses the United States and regrets not having children. She imagines she can never go home to the United States now, not after so much has happened to her; she just wouldn’t be able to fit in. She recognizes that Africa is Africa and cannot be changed, as much as men like her father believe it can be: “The way I see Africa, you don’t have to like it but you sure have to admit it’s out there.” Leah imagines Africa before the Europeans came and thinks about how the Europeans changed life there for the worse. After a lifetime of fiercely believing in justice, she comes to the conclusion that “there is no justice in this world...What there is in this world, I think, is a tendency for human errors to level themselves like water throughout their sphere of influence...There’s the possibility of balance.” She and Anatole are living in Angola now, on an agricultural station. Families come to live with them and help them raise pigs and grow maize, yams, and soybeans. Leah wishes for forgiveness from Africa for what her people have done to it. She views her own children as the beginning of the healing process. Adah is trying to save children by learning about disease. Working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she studies the life histories of viruses, including AIDS and the Ebola virus. She has never married, but has a relationship with a recluse like herself who suffers from post-polio syndrome. She collects Bibles named for the typographical errors in them, such as the Camel’s Bible (camels was printed instead of damsels) or the Murderers’ Bible (murdered was printed instead of murmured). She thinks of her father proclaiming “Tata Jesus is bangala” to the villagers. In Kikongo, bangala can mean most beloved or poisonwood, depending on the inflection. Nathan always said the bangala meaning poisonwood. Adah thinks of her father’s and family’s story as the Poisonwood Bible.

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Commentary This section provides readers a final comment on colonialism from the perspective of the different philosophies of the characters. Notice how all three women respect Africa, even Rachel. They recognize that its essential nature cannot be changed. In examining their own lives, they all acknowledge regrets they have, but they also have each achieved something they are proud of. Out of the three, Rachel has changed the least. Her view of the world is still the same: “Let others do the pushing and shoving, and you just ride along.” Both Leah and Adah have had to alter their philosophies somewhat, though. After so many years of witnessing injustice, Leah has lost her faith in justice and instead hopes for a balance between good and evil. Meanwhile, with her lost disability, Adah has also lost her sense of betrayal. Instead she sees the world filled with misunderstandings; she comments, “Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.” That comment makes sense in terms of what Nathan said about the Americans and Europeans bringing civilization to Africa. In fact, he believed he was bringing civilization to Africa in the form of a Bible. In reality, however, as Adah observes, he and the other colonial powers were simply bringing to Africa a series of illusions—illusions of what they thought Africa was, and illusions of what they thought Africa would be. In the end, as all three Price daughters point out, Africa will not be changed.

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Book Seven: The Eyes in the Trees

Summary A spirit watches from the trees as Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, and Adah walk through a market. The spirit is that of Ruth May but also that of Africa. On the day they are in the market, Mobutu, who has run away and is in hiding, dies. It is a turning point in the Congo’s history. In the market, they stop in front of a woman who is selling wooden carvings of animals. The woman is from Bulungu, but she says she does not remember a nearby village called Kilanga. She is certain there was no such place. Orleanna buys her great-grandchildren figures of elephants, and the woman gives her a figure of an okapi as a gift. Ruth May’s spirit remembers Orleanna and the four girls walking through the forest, noting how on that day Ruth May killed a spider and their presence caused an okapi to settle further in the woods. Had they not passed that way, the spider would have lived and the okapi would have been killed by a hunter. The spirit comments, “Every life is different because you passed this way and touched history.” As Orleanna and her daughters walk on, Orleanna spots a boy who is the same size as Ruth May was when she died. Orleanna begins to mentally calculate how old Ruth May would be now, but she is distracted and calmed by the feel of the okapi figure in her pocket. The spirit says, “Mother, you can still hold on but forgive, forgive and give for long as long as we both shall live I forgive you, Mother...The teeth at your bones are your own, the hunger is yours, forgiveness is yours.” With that absolution, the spirit tells Orleanna to “Move on. Walk forward into the light.”

Commentary This section gives the novel a circular feel and a sense of closure. It is fitting that Orleanna return to Africa with her three daughters to say goodbye to Ruth May, for it is in Africa that Orleanna will find peace

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after spending so many years grieving for her lost child. To give closure both to Orleanna and to readers of the novel, the spirit revisits the moment described at the beginning of the novel—that of Orleanna’s leading her daughters through the forest on a picnic. That initial image in the book led to a long series of events upon which the characters oftentimes felt that they had no control or made no impact. The spirit’s interpretation of the forest picnic contradicts those feelings of helplessness. What the spirit seems to be saying is that sometimes it’s the small moments that lead to change—the killing of a spider, the startling of an okapi. By revisiting the memory of the forest picnic, the spirit offers a new, larger perspective on an old event. This leads one to reevaluate the other moments in the story and wonder in what unseen ways did these characters touch history. The death of Mobutu and the reconnection of Orleanna to Ruth May’s spirit also suggests that a healing process has begun for both the Congo and the Price family. Ruth May’s spirit instructs Orleanna to forgive herself. Because Ruth May’s spirit is also the spirit of Africa, its directive to forgive pertains not only to Orleanna, but to all people who had no control over the damage and suffering that their leaders and forefathers inflicted on innocent lives. According to the spirit, if people forgive and remember, they can move on and begin to live again.

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GLOSSARY

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Glossary

á bu (Kikongo)

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No matter; more or less.

a-ana (Kikongo)

Child.

Afrikaans A language that developed from 17th-century Dutch and is an official language of South Africa. Also called Taal. akala (Kikongo)

Man.

attaché A person officially assigned to the staff of a diplomatic mission to serve in a particular capacity: a cultural attaché; a military attaché. aurora borealis Luminous bands or streams of light that are sometimes visible in the night skies of northern regions and are thought to be caused by the ejection of charged particles into the magnetic field of the earth. Also called northern lights. authenticité (French)

Authenticity.

babushka A woman’s head scarf, folded triangularly and worn tied under the chin. bákala mpandi (Kikongo) baki (Kikongo)

Good, strong man.

Thief.

bàndika (Kikongo) To kill with an arrow; sex between a husband and wife. bängala (Kikongo) Poisonwood tree. bangala (Kikongo) bantu (Kikongo)

Something precious and dear. People.

barnstorming party To go about (the country) performing plays, giving lectures or campaign speeches, playing exhibition games, and so on, especially in small towns and rural districts. Originates from the use of barns as hangars in the early days of aviation, to tour (the country) giving short airplane rides, exhibitions of stunt flying, and so on. batiza (Kikongo) báza (Kikongo)

To terrify. Twins.

Beelezi (Kikongo)

Belgians.

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béene (Kikongo)

Truth.

béene-béene (Kikongo)

As true as the truth can be.

bënduka (Kikongo) Any of a family (Hirundinidae) of small, swiftflying, insect-eating passerine birds with long, pointed wings and a forked tail, including the barn swallow and purple martin: most species migrate, often between widely separated summer and winter homes. benduka (Kikongo) bidibidi (Kikongo)

Crooked walker. Bird.

bidila dipapfumu (Kikongo) Cemetery for ngana, religious leaders. bikinda (Kikongo)

Spirits of the dead.

biläla (Kikongo)

Song of mourning.

braai (Afrikaan) Barbecue or party. cadeau (French) A gift or present. casques bleus (French) citoyen (French)

Police with blue helmets.

Citizen.

commerçant (French) Storekeeper or merchant. Congo A country of west-central Africa with a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. Called Zaire for many years. Now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. conniption Tantrum; fit of anger; hysteria. de trop (French)

Too much.

demijohn A large, narrow-necked bottle made of glass or earthenware, usually encased in wickerwork. dikonko (Kikongo) dimba (Kikongo)

Edible locusts and crickets. Listen.

dundee (Kikongo) Several meanings, including an antelope, a small plant, a hill, and the price you pay for something. école secondaire (French) Secondary school such as a high school.

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exodus A departure of a large number of people. The Exodus marked the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. Filaires Any of nematode worms that are parasitic in vertebrates and are often transmitted as larvae by mosquitoes and other biting insects. The adult form lives in the blood and lymphatic tissues, causing inflammation and obstruction that can lead to elephantiasis. fufu (Kikongo) scrub.

A staple food in the tropics made from the root of a

fufu nsala (Kikongo) darkness. fyata (Kikongo)

Forest-dwelling, red-haired rat that prefers

Being poor, without money.

gree-gree (Kikongo) A charm worn around the neck to ward off evil. hantu (Kikongo)

A place or time.

hemiplegia Paralysis affecting only one side of the body. hootenanny A meeting of folk singers, as for public entertainment. ici (French) Here. impala Medium-sized, reddish antelope of central and south Africa. invertebrate zoology The study of animals that do not have a backbone or spinal column. jezebel

A loose, immoral woman.

Jim Crow laws The systematic practice of discriminating against and suppressing African Americans, following the Civil War and continuing until the Civil Rights Movement. kakakaka (Kikongo) E.coli bacteria, which spreads a disease that causes the destruction of intestine; also means hurry up. Khrushchev, Nikita kibáazu (Kikongo)

Premier of the U.S.S.R. from 1958 to 1964. A curse.

kintu (Kikongo) All animals or inanimate objects, things that are not muntu. ko ko ko Sound made to simulate knocking on a door when the house does not have a door.

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kukweka (Kikongo)

Courtship ritual.

kuntu (Kikongo) The quality of being something: beautiful; hideous; lame; and so on. kwashiorkor (Kikongo) children.

Severe protein malnutrition, especially in

l’enveloppe (French) Envelope. la cité (French) léa (Kikongo)

City. Nothing much.

leba (Kikongo)

Fig tree.

lenzuka (Kikongo) People who are outcasts from the village because they are viewed as bad luck. Livingstone, Dr. David A Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa. maintenant (French) Now; at the present time. malala (Kikongo)

Oranges with blood-red juice.

malaria An infectious disease characterized by cycles of chills, fever, and sweating, caused by the parasitic infection that is transmitted by the bite of an infected female mosquito. mama (Kikongo) woman.

Mother; also used before the name or title of a

mamba Extremely poisonous African tree snakes similar to the cobras. manene (Kikongo)

Path or trail.

mangwansi (Kikongo)

Green beans.

manioc A shrubby tropical American plant widely grown for its large, tuberous, starchy roots, which are eaten as a staple food in the tropics after leaching and drying to remove cyanide. Cassava starch is also the source of tapioca. Also called cassava. mankondo (Kikongo) mankulu (Kikongo)

Bananas. Ancestors.

marchè (French) Marketplace.

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martyrdom The suffering of death by a martyr; extreme suffering of any kind. maw The mouth, stomach, jaws, or gullet of a voracious animal, especially a carnivore; the opening into something felt to be insatiable. mawalalal (Kikongo) toward you. mbote (Kikongo)

Rain in the distance that does not move

Hello or goodbye.

mbote ve (Kikongo)

No good.

melee A noisy, confused fight or hand-to-hand struggle among a number of people. midiki (Kikongo)

Milk.

mondele (Kikongo)

White daughter.

mongo (Kikongo)

Mountain.

mookoo (Kikongo)

One.

muntu (Kikongo)

Any living, dead, or unborn person or a god.

mvúla (Kikongo)

A pale white termite that comes out after a rain.

mvundla (Kikongo)

Rabbit.

mwana (Kikongo)

Children.

nanasi (Kikongo)

Pineapple.

nanasi mputu

Papaya.

ndolo (Kikongo)

Rain.

ngana (Kikongo)

Religious leader.

ngondi (Kikongo)

Types of weather.

ngonndo (Kikongo)

Red and black monkey.

nguba (Kikongo)

Peanut.

nguka (Kikongo)

Caterpillars.

nkazi ndolo (Kikongo) nkento (Kikongo)

Gentle rain.

Woman.

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nkisi (Kikongo)

Charm made to ward off evil.

nkoko (Kikongo)

River.

nkundi (Kikongo)

Friend.

nommo (Kikongo)

The force gives life; word.

nommo bandu (Kikongo) The littlest one on the bottom; the reason for everything. nsongonya (Kikongo) Swarm of migratory ants that eat all vegetation and animals in their path. ntu (Kikongo)

Existing without nommo.

nuni ndolo(Kikongo) Thunderstorm. nuus (Afrikaan) News. nyoka (Kikongo)

Snake.

nzolani (Kikongo)

Most precious one.

nzole (Kikongo) marriage.

A double-size pagne that symbolizes the unity of

nzolo (Kikongo)

Dearly beloved.

okapi A forest mammal related to the giraffe but smaller and having a short neck, reddish-brown body, creamy white cheeks, and whitish stripes and bands on the legs. pagne (Kikongo) Wax-printed fabric approximately 12 yards long that is wrapped around a woman’s hip and tied at the waist. palindrome A word, phrase, verse, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward. papier hygiénique (French) Toilet paper. Piggly Wiggly States.

Grocery store chain popular in parts of the United

pirogues A canoe made from a hollowed tree trunk. poisonwood A medium-sized tree with poisonous sap that causes dermatitis. prix-fixe (French) Fixed price.

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pygmy A member of any of various peoples having an average height less than 5 feet; an individual considered to be of little or no importance. quinine A bitter, colorless, amorphous powder derived from certain cinchona barks and used in medicine to treat malaria. résidence (French) Home. sarong A skirt consisting of a length of brightly colored cloth wrapped about the waist that is worn by men and women. Schistosomiasis Any of various generally tropical diseases caused by infestation with schistosomes, characterized by infection and gradual destruction of the tissues of the kidneys, liver, and other organs. Also called bilharziasis, snail fever. supplémentaire (French) tata (Kikongo)

Additional.

Father; used before the name or title of a man.

tours de maître (French) Towers of the masters. tribes of Ham The book of Genesis in the Bible refers to Noah’s curse on Ham’s son, Canaan, in which Noah condemns all of Canaan’s descendents to a life of slavery. tsetse flies Any of a family of small flies, including the species that carries the trypanosomes that causes sleeping sickness. umvundla (Kikongo)

Jungle rabbit.

vermifuges A medicine that expels intestinal worms. Whipworm Roundworms with a whiplike front portion that is parasitic in the intestines of mammals. zulu (Kikongo)

Sky.