Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Binta takes Kunta with her to the rice fields, where Omoro constructs a shelter for Kunta. Binta feeds Kunta before herself, coats him in shea tree butter, and brings him to Grandma Yaisa’s house. Omoro often takes Kunta into his own hut, showing him the various charms and weapons and telling Kunta that he will be a great warrior one day. After 13 months, Kunta begins walking with help from Binta.

During a drought, the women help plant seeds, and the village eats stored dry foods. Kunta and the first kafo, children under age five, listen to Nyo Boto, an older woman with orange teeth. She tells the children a story of a crocodile stuck in a net, who asks a passing boy to help him. Nyo Boto’s story concludes that good deeds are often repaid with bad deeds, and the children are given beetles and grasshoppers to eat.

A flood turns Juffure into mud. Nyo Boto tells the children about a drought in which many people and animals died. The rain that ended that drought was brought by Kairaba Kunta Kinte, a marabout, or holy man, who married Grandma Yaisa. The story earns Kunta respect. When the food runs out, the villagers turn to eating what they can forage. The foraged food lacks nutrition, though, and villagers begin to die.

Kunta develops a sore on his leg and goes to Grandma Yaisa’s, where she is also sick. She shows Kunta books that belonged to his grandfather and tells him how Kairaba came to Juffure. Kairaba lived in Mauretania, and he became a marabout and travelled through Old Mali. He came to The Gambia, where his prayers brought rain, and the King of Barra offered Kairaba a wife named Sireng, the mother of Kunta’s two uncles, Janneh and Saloum. Kairaba saw Yaisa dancing, and he also married her, after which she gave birth to Kunta’s father, Omoro. Kunta lays awake at night thinking about how his life is entwined with his ancestors.

Binta is pregnant again. With a new brother, Lamin, Kunta feels dismissed. Grandma Yaisa’s illness is progressing. While Kunta is with his kafo, he hears that Grandma Yaisa has died, and the village prepares for her funeral. Omoro tells Kunta there are three groups of people in the village: the living people, the ancestors, and those who have not yet been born.

After the drought, the village returns to life, and the children begin playing again. The boys wrestle, hoping to one day wrestle as champions for Juffure against other villages at the harvest festival. The girls cook and care for dolls. Binta thinks Kunta is poorly behaved, and he often receives beatings for scaring Lamin or misbehaving. Binta’s tactic to scare Kunta is to threaten him with the toubobs, or white men that kidnap people.

When clouds cover the new moon, the jaliba, who plays a talking drum inscribed in Arabic to contact other villages, requests a magic man to come and exorcise the spirits for Juffure. When the magic man arrives, he displays a series of relics, writhes as he fends off the evil spirits, then touches the relics with a magic wand. He announces that the evil spirits are gone, and the people of Juffure bring him gifts.

During travelling season, Kunta and his best friend, Sitafa Silla, serve as lookouts with the rest of the first kafo, watching the path for visitors. Children in the first kafo are naked, and they envy the second kafo’s clothing, dundikos. Kunta and his kafo spend part of the day attending the arafang’s lessons on Arabic and verses from the Koran to the second kafo. For the harvest, Omoro tells Kunta to help guard crops and harvest with the first kafo. The men of the village harvest while the jaliba plays music, and women bring food. Binta sews Kunta a dundiko.

Kunta moves to the second kafo, starts attending school with the arafang, Brima Cesay, and herds goats. Kunta spends a day with Toumani Touray, the son of Omoro and Binta’s best friends, and Toumani scares Kunta with stories about toubobs and slatees, Black men who work for the toubobs, who kidnap people. Classes take place each day after breakfast and after the boys return from herding goats, and their first lesson is to memorize a verse from the Koran.

The harvest festival begins; women spin and dye cloth, and men make repairs in town. Kunta watches Lamin occasionally, as the grandmothers are busy making hairpieces for young, unmarried women. Men carve masks, and women prick the inside of their lips and dye their skin darker black. Kunta asks Omoro why they are dying their skin, and Omoro responds that a woman is more beautiful the more blackness she has.

The harvest festival begins with a full day of drumming and dancing. Juffure welcomes visitors with wares to sell and money to buy the goods. Some young men leave, bringing gifts to other villages. “Pagan” traders selling tobacco and alcohol avoid Juffure, as Muslims do not smoke or drink. Storytellers, called griots, arrive and sing songs of heroes and countries of the past. The Juffure wrestlers win against a rival team, followed by a dance at which the wrestlers court unmarried women.

The men dress with frightening masks and spears to gather third kafo boys, blindfolding them with sheets. The third kafo boys are taken away to manhood training. Kunta and his classmates discuss the training, including beatings, being left in the forest, and having a piece of their foto, or genitals, removed. Kunta daydreams that he is a famous hunter, stalking a wounded buffalo that has terrorized Juffure. His daydream ends as he realizes his wuolo dog and Sitafa are calling for him, as his goats have wandered into a neighboring farm.

During the dry season, the days are hot, but the temperatures drop after sundown. At nightly bonfires, the second kafo sits close enough to listen to the grandmothers’ stories and start wandering on their own. Kunta reflects on the struggles of the Mandinka people and wonders if things will always be so difficult for them. The village begins burning the fields to fertilize them for the upcoming rainy season, which will be Kunta’s seventh.

At eight years old, Kunta starts taking Lamin with him to run errands. Kunta once viewed Lamin as a pest but helps Lamin understand the village culture. Lamin asks Kunta questions about everything, and Kunta asks Omoro or Binta for answers he does not know. Binta strikes Kunta less often, and Kunta knows that bringing Lamin with him saves Binta the trouble of watching over him.

Omoro explains to Kunta and Lamin that anyone can become enslaved through poverty, heritage, or imprisonment during war, but the laws of their ancestors protect them with rights, like food, clothing, a spouse, and land to till. Omoro distinguishes between Mandinka and toubob slavery, noting the violence of the toubobs. Nyo Boto came to Juffure as an enslaved person, but she stayed after the man who purchased her died, becoming close friends with Kunta and Lamin’s grandmother, Yaisa. Omoro tells Kunta and Lamin about his brothers, Janneh and Saloum, who left Juffure and became famous travelers. Janneh, Saloum, and Omoro once investigated toubob ships, and Omoro describes their violent ways. Omoro says the toubobs have a unique smell and exude nervous energy, warning his sons to watch out for them.

Janneh and Saloum start a village near Juffure, and Omoro plans to go to the founding ceremony with Kunta, who is considered young for this kind of journey. Binta is pregnant and fears that Omoro and Kunta may not return. When they leave, Kunta and Omoro bring the dust of their footprints with them for luck, and Kunta struggles to match Omoro’s pace.

Kunta and Omoro do not speak and ignore other villages they pass. Omoro notes that toubob bring their canoes near this area. They eat and continue walking, passing into territory with more cactuses and palms, until they come to another village and stay for the night. The villagers are elderly, and there are babies crying. The villagers explain that they were attacked by toubobs, who kidnapped everyone except the infants and elderly. Omoro and Kunta sleep outside, and Kunta is comforted by the sounds of forest animals.

Omoro and Kunta leave the village, and a traveler warns them about toubobs in the area. Kunta injures his foot, and Omoro gives him a balm and bandages the foot. Omoro and Kunta stop at the next village, and Omoro pays the village’s jaliba to play a drum message letting Janneh and Saloum know that he and Kunta will arrive at their village the next day.

Omoro and Kunta arrive at the village of Janneh and Saloum, who are excited to see their visitors and give them a tour. Kunta recognizes people from the Fula, Wolof, Serahuli, and Jola communities. Janneh and Saloum present a map of Africa, explaining where different cities are, where the toubob come from, and where they are now. They tell the crowd that many of the resources in Africa are brought to the northern coast and traded with Europeans.

When Kunta and Omoro return to Juffure, Kunta has a new baby brother, Suwadu. Kunta tells the second kafo about the journey, but he is interrupted by a panther killing one of Kunta’s goats. Kunta sprints to his dead goat, and the panther runs away. Kunta skins the goat and fears his father’s reaction, but Omoro is worried. Omoro explains that all boys make mistakes, showing him a scar from when a lion killed one of his own goats.

Kunta and his kafo mates graduate, becoming members of the third kafo. The new third kafo boys are frightened by the impending manhood training. On the last day of the festival, Omoro puts a white hood over Kunta’s head, which stays on overnight, and in the morning, the dancing men with spears and masks grab the second kafo boys from their homes, leading them to the jujuo, or training grounds. Anyone who fails to complete manhood training is treated as a child for the rest of his life, shunned by friends and family.

At the jujuo, Kunta recognizes the kintango, or the manhood trainer, as Silla Ba Dibba, and his two assistants, Ali Sise and Soru Tura, none of whom acknowledge the boys. Silla explains that their training is meant to protect the village. The boys are herded with beatings from sticks and separated into small groups in huts. They learn to navigate with the stars, move quietly and track animals, smoke out a beehive, use codes with scarves and sandals, and speak in a secret language for men. The boys’ fathers visit, but they do not acknowledge their sons. The kintango tells Kunta that Omoro and Binta have a fourth son named Madi.

The kintango relates the story of how Sundiata, a formerly enslaved Mandinka general and son of Sogolon, the Buffalo woman, defeated King Soumaoro of Boure. The boys train in military tactics and weapon-making. A griot tells the boys about the empires of Africa: the Benin, led by the Oba and his counselors; Songhai, with the capital city of Gao; King Kanissaai of Ghana; and Timbuktu, capital of the richest African empire, Mali. A famous moro, the highest degree of teacher who teaches arafangs and counsels kings and elders, arrives and teaches the boys about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, reviewing their sacred texts.

The boys fear the kasas boyo, or circumcision. The kintango tells them to take out their genitals, wrapping a cloth dipped in numbing paste over them, and the kintango circumcises each boy. The kintango refers to the boys as men and explains their new duties as village protectors. The kintango opens the gate of the jujuo and tells the new men to return to Juffure. Kunta is surprised to feel sad to leave, but all the new men cheer and shout as they rush home.

Kunta and the other new men maintain their composure, walking slowly and without expression as they enter Juffure. Kunta exclaims to Madi, his infant brother, and is shocked to find that Suwadu has grown so much in four months. Kunta finds Omoro thatching the roof of a hut for Kunta. Kunta tries to avoid his mother, as Binta dotes on him whenever she sees him.

The new men must tend to their own crops, as the Council of Elders allots each man a plot of land. Kunta trades his surplus and accumulates objects of household and spiritual value. The new men become frustrated that the women their age only attract the attention of men 10 years older than themselves. Kunta dreams of marrying a woman and imagines what sex is like.

Kunta feels lonely and settles along the outside of the men’s bonfire circle, behind the adults like Omoro, who sit behind the elders. The men discuss the toubob, noting that 50-60 people are going missing each month. One elder says the toubobs burn down villages and kill those who resist. The men are angry that there are so many slatees, African people who help the toubobs kidnap and kill, concluding that the toubobs entice slatees with money.

Kunta displays a basket woven for him by a widow to upset Binta, and some men suspect that the widow may have romantic interest in Kunta. Kunta encounters three young men who are Feloop, a branch of Mandinka, and are travelling to find gold and offer to bring Kunta. Kunta decides to bring Lamin with him to find the men and gets Omoro’s permission. Binta is upset, parading Suwadu and Madi around town and claiming that she only has two children left, as though Kunta and Lamin were already killed or kidnapped.

Kunta and Lamin leave Juffure after first prayers, and Lamin struggles to keep up. Lamin spots a panther on a branch ahead of them, and Kunta chastises himself for daydreaming about the drum he plans to make himself when they return to Juffure. When Kunta and Lamin finally meet with the men, they spend the day sifting through clay for gold pieces, and Kunta and Lamin end up with six quills of gold. When Kunta and Lamin arrive back in Juffure, Lamin gives the gold to Binta, and both Binta and Omoro express their approval of Kunta.

Kunta attends the Council of Elders meetings, which function as a court to which people can bring disputes or requests. Kunta witnesses two of his kafo mates and two widows in town requesting teriya friendships, in which the widows can have sex with and cook for the two young men. The Council grants these requests, citing the widows’ need for men and the benefit of experience for the young men. Afterward, Jankeh Jallon requests the advice of the Council, as she has recently given birth to a child who appears to be biracial. Jankeh was captured by toubobs and escaped, but her child was likely fathered by a toubob, leading the village to ostracize her.

Kunta recalls how Jinna M’Baki, the widow who wove a basket for Kunta, looked at him knowingly during the council. Kunta thinks about a teriya friendship with Jinna and wonders why any man would get married if he could have a sexual relationship with a widow. He concludes that men get married to have sons and families, but Kunta wants to travel. Kunta consults the arafang for the best route to the Kintes’ birthplace in Old Mali and plans to bring Lamin. When Kunta notices that dawn is breaking, he resolves to cut the wood he needs for his drum frame before heading back to town.

Kunta selects a big enough tree to shrink for a drum. Kunta hears a twig snap and spins around to see a white man attacking him. Kunta fends him off, but two slatees and two toubobs attack him at once. He gouges the eye from one man, but Kunta falls, thinking of his family that he needs to protect.