The axiom, ‘It’s a man’s world’ plays out in Dele Charley’s The Blood of a Stranger.
The women are given little or no positions in the drama. They are presented as: dancers/singers, sacrifices, sex toys and something to use and discard; not fit for serious positions like being the custodian of Mando’s customs or as go-between for the people of the land and their gods.
Through the unseen female character of Soko’s daughter, Charley depicts the place of women in the ancient African society – they had no place in governance. Maligu in his conversation with Soko, the priest, in the opening scene, tells him that there’s no continuation for the priesthood since Soko has a daughter and no son; the spirits will not accept Soko’s daughter as successor to the priesthood because she’s female.
Dele Charley also paints the women in the stereotype position of being a man’s private companion, to cater for his carnal needs of warm his bed and bear his children as seen in the words of Kindo who says, “The king’s wives do not follow him everywhere he goes.”
Then Wara’s response: “The king does not choose his wives… they are given to him. He uses them to get his food and to bear him children.” Then, in the words of Santigi (the king) in Act 2, Scene 1 where he says, “You need a woman, Kindo… a woman who will live with you and give you children…” Continuing this trend of thought, Kindo says, women should look up to men, commending Wara that she does not doubt him or asks many questions and that she shouldn’t change.
But, I believe that the playwright portrays women in these roles to attack their acceptance in the society. Women are worth more than mere companions to the menfolk.
In the desperate plea of Wara to Kindo, “I want to be your woman, I want to live in your hut and bear your children…” and, “I am ready to risk anything to be with you, Kindo,” we see the mentality of the ancient uneducated African woman. Her whole ambition is to get married to the man she loves and have children by him, the men can go on and take the world!
Also, women are depicted as bringing calm and soberness to the menfolk. All through the play, Wara pleads with Kindo not to do anything rash. This supports the king’s notion of the role of a woman in a man’s life, she calms the man, especially, a hot-blooded man like Kindo, the warrior prince, hence he advises Kindo to marry.
Apart from Wara, the other women are faceless. Wara is the chief female character. She’s a stereotype. Through her relating with Kindo, we find out that she respects tradition (believes in spirits and customs and does not question them as Kindo does), she fears customs like many women and loves her man fiercely like many African women.
Act 2, Scene 2 opens with singing, and dancing. Whitehead, Maligu and Soko enjoy an evening of drinking and musical entertainment with some girls just like the ‘runs girls’ in 21st century political setting.
Whitehead demands of Maligu and Soko, to bring him Kindo’s woman, Wara. Here, the playwright limns the realism of what goes on in the corridors of power – deals are sealed with women – the women are the play toys (I take liberty to note here that these kind of women are ignorant or foolish (women of the lowest cadre, a unit of women who have no idea that they have something up in their grey matter to offer society more than what’s between their legs. They do not understand that they too can rule the world and make the money from which the men who use them as sex toys, give them the stipends they receive) but Wara stands out as one of those who cannot be used.)
Whitehead goes further to demand, “I want her (Wara) tonight.” He doesn’t want to hear that it would be a difficult task. He says he’s given Maligu and Soko enough money that he can have anything he wants. This is what happens in political setting, a man’s rubber throat gets him so entangled with the cabals, and he who pays the piper dictates the tune, that he sells his inheritance!
Soko and Maligu bring Wara tied in a sack to Whitehead’s compound against her wish. By this the playwright shows that some of our young people are forced into what they do. However, the fact that Wara escapes the instant she has the chance, shows also that you, girl in a bad situation can quit if you so desire – where there’s a will, there will be a way.
Whitehead says to Soko and Maligu that he’s going to his compound to meet with Wara, but they should return later to take her away. What does it say to the girls, ladies and women who think they have found ‘love’ or trade in the corridors of power? It says, your worth is a man’s sexual satisfaction. Once that is done, they will take you away. That’s why people who live like that, in old age, live a miserable lonely life nursing the shame and regrets of their lost usefulness.
In the same Act 2, Scene 2, Kindo says, “The women are giving themselves to the men everywhere.” It is the effect of the evil tobacco, the drugged tobacco. So, the playwright through the mouth of Kindo, a very sensible man, says that it is wrong for women to give themselves to men, everywhere without decorum, outside acceptable relationship.
In Act 3, Scene 1, the playwright exposes Africa’s warped belief. The king approves the killing of a virgin girl as sacrifice to the gods, but does not approve of his son, Kindo, the warrior priest, killing Parker, Whitehead’s lieutenant as captured below:
Santigi: You have killed a man, Kindo.
Kindo: Yes, my Lord, I have killed a man.
Santigi: Our customs forbid you to kill a man during peacetime.
Kindo: You were going to kill a girl, my Lord.
Santigi: Do you still question the will of the spirits?
Kindo wants to know the difference in the two killings from his father who will not hear of it. The king insists that his warrior son must be banished despite all he’s done for the land.
So, in this play women are treated as being dispensable. Some places in Africa, virgin females are still sacrificed (I heard of one done in a market in one of the suburbs of a big city not too long ago).
And this is not Dele Charley desecrating women, but a playwright exposing the evils in our land. The Santigi of Mando very well accepts this virgin female sacrifice because the gods will it, but punishes his son, Kindo for killing a bad man in the time of peace! Very interesting. This shows how some ancient Africans refused to use their brains in anything that had to do with the gods or spirits, even without questioning the integrity of the custodians of the so-called customs of our land or our fore fathers.
Why kill your fellow man in sacrifice to an unseen spirit? How reliable is the man who said you should? What makes you think something will go wrong if you don’t shed human blood? And how come some people (of your tribe, race and tongue) do not do it and nothing has happened to them?
Although a tragedy, the play presents some satiric elements. For example, the Santigi’s and the people’s blind belief in the spirits to the point of accepting anything the priest presents as a word from the gods. Then, the playwright, portraying an unscrupulous man who’s very materialistic, as a priest thus humanising the priest.
The priest is just a human being, don’t swallow everything he says, use your senses.
The satiric elements continue in the drugged and drunken dancing and singing of ‘dorobe’ by the people while the white man rapes their land of its precious stones. It’s laughable and sad.
Just an addition. The white man’s right hand man like a traitor to his brethren, the rest of the African brotherhood, has taken on the white man’s name. His name is Andrew Samuel Stevenson Thomson Parker. What a name! His African identity has been completely swallowed up by the white man. He has lost his African identity, his culture as Kindo points out to him in Act 2, Scene 1. Not even his name can identify him as an African.
