Chapter 1 Themes

Colonisation

• Colonialism came with various intentions, with different individuals having different motives for wanting to settle on African land. The writer notes, “The missionary and the hunter, followed by the gold digger and the settler, had flocked in with their various intents.” Others had come to spread Christianity, while others wanted to settle, hunt, or mine and steal minerals.

Racism

• White people see black people as inferior because of the colour of their skin. Mr Wilson had no regard for the people in the valley because they were black. He viewed them as “serfs” meaning that he saw himself as the landlord and landowner while they were peasants working for him. In addition, he is grateful for his skin colour. According to the narrator, he muses, “To the gods he gave thanks … for giving him a skin that was whiter than dark.”
• The superiority of white men when juxtaposed against black people allows them to treat black people as second-class. When the white men are summoned to the Wilson house, the whites are on horseback, and have rifles while the blacks are following “panting for breath and clutching spears.” This helps in pushing the power dynamic on white dominance within the community.
• Hatred and animosity exists between the black and white communities. Despite the black people alerting the white community over the tragedy at the white homestead, the whites still hate the black people. The white leader dislikes the black leader who summoned them to the scene of the tragedy, and “A hate, stifling hot, seemed to flow from those impersonal eyes and consume him in a hell of anguish.
• The colonisers use names to demean black people by referring to grown men as boys. When one of the white men says there could have been children in the Wilson house, he adds, “We did not find any, but that boy would know.” However, in the next paragraphs, the boy turns out to be a grown man. The narrator highlights, “The man who had summoned them looked around him with eyes that did not see.”
• Humanity knows no race. When the man sees a child lying amidst death and the ruins of what had been Mr Wilson’s house, “His heart warmed toward the child”, and he told the child, “You are safe now little one.” He therefore did not see colour, but saw a baby, trapped and alone, and decided to help the child.

War

• One of the major outcomes of colonialism is war. The first chapter highlights the victory of indigenous peoples against the settlers, and thus highlights the power of unity. “The people were united under their leaders with one voice and one soul, they set out to restore the land” and “They took their axes and spears and rushed boldly to fight the guns.” Despite having inferior weapons, they still won because of their collectivism.
• War is brutal and affects everyone, even the innocent. When the white men came with the guns and the dynamite, “Men women and children were smoked out, dynamited out.” This highlights that everyone is at risk during wartime. Furthermore, a simile describes this brutality; “Like the beast that never remembers its father, mother, brother, and sister once it has fed and grown, men forgot himself.”
• War leads to the senseless deaths of other people. When the man arrives at the Wilson’s homestead, he finds it in ruins. “He could not think why man could so brutally kill man.”
• Because of the dynamic nature of war, people are also at risk from the people fighting on their side. Even among the same team or army, there can be discord. When the white leader is enquiring if there had been any children in the homestead and is using violence in his enquiry, another man from his team spoke up because, “It was true that in the wars he levelled his gun at other man, but this he did because he knew that it was a matter of the other man’s neck or his own.” This highlights the lack of loyalty during war times.

Powerlessness

• War affects the vulnerable mostly, leaving them more at risk. Due to the impact of war, “The old men tottered after the fleeing crowds, and they and the mothers, and the grandmothers took children and hid in the hills and in the caves.” As such, the people mostly affected by conflict demonstrate powerlessness to fight on their own.
• Black people lost their dignity to the gun. When the men come to survey the damage at the Wilson farmhouse, the blacks cannot fight the animosity they feel from their white counterparts. “They still had pride and dignity in them but they knew the spear had less power than the gun.” As such, despite their best efforts to fight and resist the enemy, the lack of arms hinders them.

Gender

• Men and society as a whole disregard women’s voices and intuitions. Mr. Wilson was arrogant enough to believe that nothing would happen to the family during the war. When his wife implored him to leave, “he blocked his ears to the petitions of his wife and made sure and made sure the powder was kept dry and the gun oiled.” He therefore did not trust his wife, but believed in the strength of his mind and gun.
• Women’s instincts lead to the hasty protection of their young even in times of danger. When Mrs Wilson realises she is in danger, “she hastily wrapped the baby in a shawl and spread out her voluminous clothes to shield the bay from view and impact while she threw it to the ground at the same time.” Later, as she lay in agony and dying, all she could think of was her child. “Her hands fumbled beside her in search of the child that was not there…”. Even though she had a spear lodged in her hip, her instincts still told her to protect her child.

Oppression

• Oppression allows people to become loyal to the system that oppresses them. Mr Wilson’s servants chose to protect their master rather than flee for their lives. As such, they joined in fighting against their black kin. When they intervened in the conflict, “they soon cursed themselves for not having run away with their lives.” They therefore died while fighting on the side of their master and against fellow black men like them.

Religious Beliefs

• The mountains are seen as sacred and places in which the spirits dwell. As such, local villagers have to stay away from them. This is because, “Contact with the spirits was fatal to men, and so even when the need for sanctuary necessitated the immediate exploration of the mountains, nobody went there.” This highlights the reverence for the mountains.
• Colonialism tramples upon people’s beliefs and imposes new religious beliefs and practices amongst the colonised. While the indigenous peoples were scared to go into the mountains, because of the fear of spirits, “to the missionary the mountains were deemed barren grounds for his exertions.” Colonialists therefore do not respect the laws of the land.

Chapter 2 Themes

War and Conflict

• War and conflict know no skin colour. Skin colour does not exonerate any person from death during conflict, even between people from the same racial background. Chedu hides from a band of men who look like they are coming from a war. He notices, “The men were like himself, but even though they looked familiar, they were also utter strangers.” This highlights that the fear of strangers amongst different tribes.
• War disrupts peace and ordinariness of life. Aware of the danger that the village is in because of the likelihood of attack, the men reminisce. “In the past, spears were used for protection against wild animals; now they would be used for protection against other men.” This highlights the impact of war on people and communities.

Gender

• Duty segregation exists in the village with some roles reserved for women and others reserved for men. As Chedu arrives home, he notices, “Dark figures of women moved about as they prepared supper.” As such, cooking and preparing food are domestic chores reserved for women.
• Women will carry out multiple tasks at once due to the domestic nature of their roles. However, expectations for men differ. While Chedu sat on the stool, Tsitsi sat on the floor preparing supper for her family. She “adjusted the baby on her right knee, and poked the fire with a stick.” Meanwhile, her husband does nothing and simply recounts the story of how he bumped into the baby.
• Even in shared spaces such as the meeting place, segregation between men and women exists. “The men sat in a semi-circle on the one side of the fire and the women sat in a semi-circle on the other side of the fire.” Men therefore asserted their superiority and dominance through the segregation of seats.
• All women are seen as incapable of fighting in war because of the domestic nature of their roles. When the elder warns the people of the impending war, he says, “I advise all men of this village to keep their arms ready for women and all women to be ready to flee to the caves in case we should be surprised.” This highlights that even if women strong enough to lend to the war effort exist, their efforts deserve no recognition.

Community and Culture

• When Chedu’s wife realises that he has been missing for a while, her first instinct is to alert the rest of the village. She says, “I almost went to tell the elders about it, but I decided to wait for tonight before telling them.” This dependence on the rest of the village for matters that affect an individual household indicate that there is communal decision-making about important matters.
• Tsitsi demonstrates humanity, kindness, and community who while suckling her own baby, hears the cries of the strange baby brought by her husband into their home. She takes the crying child, and nestling “it in her left arm and knee, gently pushed her left breast into her mouth.” Tsitsi therefore instinctually responds to the needs of a crying baby without question, thus showing her kindness.
• Tsitsi wonders what the cultural repercussions of feeding a white child will be for her and her husband. She asks him, “Shouldn’t we have asked the elders first before we fed her? Is it permissible by the law of our fathers?” Cultural practices therefore supersede individual choices.
• Cultural practices see difference as an ill and an omen. Even though Tsitsi and Chedu have agreed between themselves to keep the baby, they are afraid of the verdict from the elders. Tsitsi raises her concerns and says, “Who knows, they might even decide to take the life of the child since some might see her as an ill omen.” This means that the community fears people who look different from them.
• The communal nature of traditions indicates the need for respect of customs and rites. The elder reminds the people of Ngara of the custom that they have which entails never crossing the hills because, “Evil spirits dwell there and we do not wish to draw them to our home.” The community intends for the respect and adherence to all communal rules.
• There is a sense of community and togetherness amongst the Ngara people. When Chedu tells the story of how he found Jikinya, the elder asks what has to be done and relays, “By our custom, we are all required to decide what action to take.” This means that the decision does not rest in the elders, or the men, or the women alone. The community as a whole has the mandate to make decisions.
• The history of a people plays a role in determining their actions. One man raises scepticism about Jikinya’s presence and uses tradition to explain why the village has to get rid of Jikinya. “Our forefathers used to take the lives of such children instead of keeping them for the safety of the land.” This indicates that what people did in the past highly affects the behaviours of people in the present.

Race

• Children and babies know no colour and thus racism is largely taught. When the baby looks up at the dark face smiling down at it, it “smiled, revealing its bare gums, and twitched its limbs in the shawl.” For the baby, the face, despite being from a different race, was welcoming, and that was what was important.
• Discrimination exists for children born with albinism. When Tsitsi noticed the baby’s colour and the texture of its skin and hair, “She hung back, awestricken.” This highlights the treatment of people with albinism as misnomers and taboos.
• Colour does not make people different, but people remain the same regardless of differences in pigment. Chedu says of Jikinya, that despite her different colour, “She is like any other baby that you know. She drinks milk and wails like any other baby.” This means that human are the same and are driven by the same needs despite their different pigments and races.
• The lack of experience in certain areas induces fear in people. When the people see Jikinya they become terrified of what the repercussions of keeping her will be for the community. One of the man asks, “What would become of us if we were to accept this child and then found ourselves in danger the next morning?”. This highlights that people fear that a person of another race may bring danger to them.

Love

• Love exists between Chedu and Tsitsi making decision-making between the two of them easier. For instance, “Chedu’s eyes cleared and took on their customary sparkle, filling Tsitsi’s heart with joy at the same time.” The two therefore have an unspoken love language between the two of them.
• Love knows no bounds and transcends even the biological binds that exist. Tsitsi and Chedu resolve that they will keep the child. Chedu says, “There is a link, a bond between this child and myself which nobody can sever.” Chedu therefore feels close to the child after having rescued her from her parents’ ambushed farmhouse.

Spirituality

• Religion helps people accept the hand that fate deals them. When Tsitsi is scared that Chedu has gone beyond the boundaries set for them by the village, and asks, what would have happened if the spirits had got to you?” Chedu responds, “The gods would have willed it.” This highlights the importance of belief systems in allowing people to accept the good and misfortune that they encounter.

Leadership

• The elder is able to use wisdom to talk to the villagers and thus effectively resolve disputes. He tells the villagers, “It is not without reason that you respect me as your father in this village.” He is therefore able to use wisdom to help in driving the village forward.

Chapter 3 Themes

Tradition

• The people of Ngara follow their traditions and customs. “Life in Ngara was guided by custom.” Everything in Ngara follows the beliefs and traditions of the people in Ngara.
• The whole village celebrates the birth of a child signifying the importance of communal celebrations. “After the relatives (had seen the baby) the village came to see the baby.” This highlights the community with which one person or family becomes a part of the entire community. The use of a metaphor when after the celebration, everyone would wander to their homes, “their spirits lined with the gold of love” helps in illustrating this.
• A sense of community allows people to each other to work and carry out communal duties. Once the harvest comes in, “people came out, joined in families and helped each other to gather in crops.”
• Ngara preserves peace through quick dispute and conflict resolution. A dispute is solved conclusively and efficiently as soon as it arises, leading to peace in the community. “The spirit of peace was so strong that any little disturbance was keenly felt and had to be quickly dealt with.” This signifies the importance of living in harmony amongst the Ngara.
• Violence amongst boys and young men is seen as traditional and customary. When Chedu learns that his son is being abused and hit in the forest, he is angry. However, he does nothing against it as he too had experienced the violence. “He had not forgotten that bitter experience.” As such, violence signifies a rite of passage in the village.
• The men of the village go to meet every evening to discuss the goings-on in the village. After supper, Chedu and Tendai sometimes “went to the fire to meet the other men of the village.” This helps to strengthen community and working together within Ngara.
• The men of Ngara hunt together and share their spoils from the hunt. This highlights a sense of the community. After the hunt, “meat would be cheap in Ngara and the old men would sit by the fire and roast chunks of dried meat and the children’s stomachs would grow until they looked like giant-sized crickets” for weeks after the hunt. The sharing of food and eating together signifies a sense of community.
• The people in Ngara are peace-loving and get along with their neighbours during dry season festivities. They invite people from Changani and they all celebrate. When a Changani man continues to look at Maidei, one of the Ngara men is not amused and when they raise their fists to fight, the villagers quickly disperse the fight and the two men were brought together and make to shake hands drink beer from the same jar to show that the unpleasant incident had been forgotten.

Gender

• Ngara segregates duties and roles between men and women within the community. “The women rose early and went to remove the weeds with small hoes and while they were gone the men repaired the roofs.” At the harvest too, division of labour exists. After the rapoko had been harvested and beat to release the grain the men went away and left the women to sift the grain. In the evening the men returned to carry the grain home. The division of labour is also unfair as no roofs were repaired daily while working in the fields is hard work.
  • While Jikinya and Tsitsi are carrying water for the home Tendai is at home and is “busy sharpening a stick.” The roles that the women have are harder than those of men. Gender roles are established from a young age. When Jikinya, Tendai and their friends are playing house, the boys immediately take the male role, asking girls to be their wives and going off to the hunt. The girls sit in groups and do each other’s hair and doing domestic roles such as selling nuts and doing each other’s hair while being “merry housewives”. This highlights social conditioning gender roles are socialized and learned from what children see.
• • At play, children made different toys with their clay. The girls made pots and jars and carried water to their play homes close by. Meanwhile, “The boys made bulls and cows and dogs and fought them.” The segregation of duties is taught early with girls becoming not only domesticated but learning greater responsibility than men.Girls are raised to be wives and to be able to look after children. As Jikinya grows older, she gets more responsibilities in the house. Tsitsi and Maidei’s mother would watch as Jikinya cooked in the house, “instructing the girls in what was soon to be expected of them as married women.” Women are thus trained to be wives from an early age.
• Sisterhood and positive female relationships are magnified. After the quarrel between Tsitsi and Tambudzai’s mother, the oldest woman helped in brokering peace between the two women. “The two men were pacified and the next morning Tsitsi awoke to find a bundle of firewood … left in the night in front of her hut by Tambudzai’s mother.” This speaks to the importance of women easily finding ways to managing their disputes.
• Ngara normalises the abuse of women and girls. As Jikinya and her age mates are beginning to revel in male attention, they find that they have to fight physical abuse from the boys. Jikinya confesses to her friends, “Togara grabbed me last night and he pushed me to the ground and held me down.” Young men therefore assert their like for young women through physical abuse without any reprimand.
• There is an interplay between strength and weakness between the two genders.
  • Womanhood is portrayed as weakness. When Tendai begins to go to the forest to herd flocks and hunt he could not fight back the bigger boys and they would say to him, “You are too weak …as weak as a woman.” As such, the weakest creation in the village are women.
  • Manhood is measured by physicality and the ability to fight back. When Chedu realises that his son is continually being hit by others, Chedu would teach the boy the art of fighting and would tell him, “You will soon be a man.” As such, manhood asserts its strength through physicality.
  • When Maidei and Jikinya play fight with Tendai, Tendai would always conquer over them and tell them, “Men are made stronger than women.” As such male superiority rests in male strength.
• While the girls including Jikinya and Tsitsi cook, Tendai and Chedu marvel the craftsmanship of a spear and other weapons. This highlights that the domestication of women’s roles while men have the responsibility of physically protecting of the family.

Love

• There is the exaltation of filial and motherly love.
  • Tsitsi demonstrates a mother’s love when she attempts to rescue Jikinya from the snake. As she helplessly watched Jikinya playing close to the snake and attempting to touch it, “she became a flood, roaring and terrible of her own feelings and desires, a torment if her own love and hate.” This highlights that motherly love transcends the racial boundary.  The bond between Jikinya and Tsitsi is filled with love. When the two of them go to fetch water and Tsitsi is about to place a jar of water on Jikinya’s head. “Together the child and mother were surrounded by a universe of gold and light and love in which they were time and space and the universe.”
  • A mother’s love transcends hero status. Despite being a hero in the forest, Tendai would rush home to his mother’s hut to have his wounds washed.

Race

• Even though Tendai is aware of the differences between him and Jikinya, he has not noticed them before. “Now he could see that Jikinya’s hair was longer than everybody else’s, straighter that everybody’s … A difference was also visible in the appearance of their skin.” However, he knows that there is no difference between him and his sister. They are simply siblings who love and care for each other. This highlights that the differences between races are only just a social construct.
• When the children fight and one boy is injured, Jikinya is blamed even though it is Tendai who has caused the injury. The injured boy’s mother says, “It’s that little creature you are keeping in your house.” In addition, the woman also says Jikinya is a “beast.” This highlights that the disdainful treatment of difference.

Violence and Peace

• Domestic violence begins at a very young age. When Jikinya, Maidei and others are playing house as young girls, one of the girls asks why Maidei refused to play house with her brother and when Maidei responds that the brother is ugly a scuffle begins until the brother is hurt by Tendai and begins to bleed from the mouth. Earlier, the girls, in imitating becoming housewives, had to pretend to fight. This highlights that fighting is seen as normal among women and men in Ngara. Ngara socially conditions children to fight to resolve disputes.
• Violence helps to assert male superiority. As Tendai the reputation of Tendai’s physical prowess grows, he begins to challenge the stronger and older boys. He and Vito, an equally powerful boy, had been avoiding a fight between the two of them but the others had started pitting against each other as champions and the question had to be settled today. The ability to wrestle with others and win thus defines championship.
• Violence, if unchecked can lead to war. Grandfather acknowledges Tendai’s power but he is sceptical of its force. Grandfather tells Tendai to avoid bloodshed saying, “There is nothing so soul-destroying as to see men wild and hungry for the blood of their brothers.” The wisdom of the old man highlights the need to keep violence checked at all times.

Innocence

• The chapter depicts children as innocent and forgiving. Despite having fought and causing havoc in the village earlier, Jikinya and Tendai go back to play with the others. When Jikinya joins them at play later on in the day and she smiles shyly at the others, “At once the solemn little faces released into tense smiles that soon beamed out.” This highlights the forgiving nature of children.

Power

• Once Tendai becomes a hero, the other boys begin to treat him like a king in the forest. He gets the best honey and the best portions of meat before passing these on to others. While others tend to the flock he sits and talk with the other heroes. Physical strength thus helps to assert power.

Chapter 4 Themes

Gender

• Role segregation in Ngara occurs according to gender and age.
  • Older men repair roofs and carve household items while younger boys go to the pastures with the cattle. Older women mould household implements while young girls undertake domesticated chores in the house. Women however have many roles compared to their male counterparts. After Jikinya has “swept the floors, washed the pots and dishes, and placed the evening meal on the fire”, she prepares to go and fetch firewood. Meanwhile, her brother is helping others take care of the livestock in the pastures.
• • Girls are raised ready to take care of their own homes. When Jikinya has finished her household chores, Tsitsi praises her and tells her, “It is what is expected of every married woman and so you will have nothing to worry about when you have your own house.” Girls are therefore raised to run their homes when they eventually get married.The segregation of duties also manifests in John’s dreams. While John drinks with the younger men in the dream, “young maidens brought huge platters of food, venison and lamb, bread and fruit of every kind.” John and the strange men ate until their hunger was satisfied.
  • Duties are segregated even during ancestral feasts and ceremonies. Men have the responsibility of digging for water, while women are responsible for fetching the water. In addition, in the ancestral camp, the women carry out the preparations while the men camp near them so that they can protect them.
• Only men can talk about and prepare for war. While Ngara prepares for the war, the “men sharpened their weapons and the women got food ready to flee to the hills at a moment’s notice.” Women do not fight. Even when they were strong enough or have the mental aptitude to partake in a war, they cannot participate.

Peace and War

• The people of Ngara choose to preserve their peace and leave in harmony with their neighbours. The last war fought in the village was when Tichafa was a boy.
• Peace is a collective effort that everyone in the village makes. John ascribes Ngara’s peace and serenity to the village’s instinct. However, as the village prepars for war with Changani, he realised that peace was not, “instinctively achieved … but something for which the whole valley worked together.”
• War solves dipsutes. When neither the Changani nor the Ngara can agree on a way to solve the dispute that they have, regarding Jikinya’s departure from the community, they prepare to fight. “Nothing short of war would solve the problem.”
• When the Changani’s and Ngaras realise that they have a new threat in the gun and the white men, they forget the battle they were about to fight. Chedu implores them, “Let us all unite now and fight together, or we shall all be wipe out.” The Ngaras and the Changanis heed the call immediately highlighting the importance of unity in the face of a common enemy.

Spirituality

• Jikinya is awed by the creation of her village and wonders what brought it into being. When she wonders why the sky is blue and she concludes, “The same almighty hand must have given it that colour for it seemed to blend with the deeper colour of the hills.”
• The Ngara worship ancestral gods. As they prepare for the rain, Tichafa tells John, “When we lay down our misery and hopes to the spirits of our Departed, they will approach the Supreme God and supplicate for us.” Tichafa highlights that the spirits are alive in living people. This indicates the ties that the Ngara have with their ancestors.
• Religion and forms of worship between the Ngara and Christianity are similar. After Tichafa explains traditional religion to John, John realises that the only difference between the two religions is the lack of thick volumes of books, pulpits, and castles of stone in traditional worship.
• White people have traditionally shunned African spirituality. John had previously seen the religions of the villages as “mere hysterical dances”. This indicates the poor respect for black people’s religions amongst white people.
• The aim of religion is to cleanse the soul and almost all religions succeed at that. John realises that the passing of the beer gourd from one person to the next during the rain-making ceremony is similar to the “partaking of the Body and Blood from the silver chalice.” For him, therefore, the soul is the most important aspect of all religions despite their differences in worship.

Humanity

• All people are the same.
  • Non-verbal language is universal and allows people from different walks of life to effectively communicate. Even when the strangers and the Ngaras cannot understand each other’s languages, they immediately establish rapport and see “each other as equals.” It was understood that they spoke different languages but their mutual feelings were recognised by all present.
  • After John remembers his dream, he is ashamed of his instinctive aggression to Tendai’s presence in the hunting ground. His own feelings of superiority embarrass him.
  • John recognises the universality in Tichafa’s form and posture as something he had observed amongst his own people back home, especially the thinkers and philosophers. He thinks to himself, “the essence behind the creative genius of Europe and the East was at work here in this man sitting under a tree in the African sun.” This helps in highlighting the similarities between all people, despite coming from different backgrounds, races, and parts of the universe.
• The Ngaras value and appreciate all humans. Even though they were fearful of the strangers, they soon came to accept them. “As strangers, they had upset the security of the valley, but their mutual feelings were recognised by all present.” This signifies that a person is who they are because of other people.
• Humanity does not see colour, and outward appearance does not define a person. Tichafa wonders how Jikinya’s personal appearance affects her being an intricate part of Ngara. “What had the girl’s appearance to do with her inner self, her personality that was essentially moulded into the richness of the life of Ngara?”. As such, personality is seen as humane and is not defined by how a person looks.
• There is love and acceptance amongst the Ngara’s especially around Jikinya who looks like an outsider. The Ngara’s prepare to fight for Jikinya so that she can stay, despite her ‘causing’ the drought. When John offers to take her with, one of the elders refuses and says, “Jikinya will not go. She is our daughter. She will live with us.” Despite not having any biological ties to Jikinya, the village prepares to keep her safe.
• Learning about other cultures and peoples helps in destroying stereotypes. The more John stays in Ngara, the more he starts to recognise the changes going through him. He notes, “With each day that passed, he came to realise that he was learning from them and they from him.” This learning thus helped to shatter existing stereotypes.
• Art and dance bring people closer and helps to unify them. When John joins the Ngara to dance with them, he feels as one with them. His “soul had made peace with itself and come to meet them, to mingle with their own, and create one unit of love and peace.”
• During times of distress, people unite to find solutions to common problems. After the rains refuse to fall, Ngara and Changani decide to unite. The Changani’s tell the Ngara’s, “we must unite and consult the spirits about what must be done.” This highlights community in decision-making and finding solutions to community problems.

Colonialism

• The pale man, though friendly to the villagers, had a mission to accomplish amongst the Ngara’s. His role within the country was to “make a survey of the land beyond the outlines of the mountains, to investigate the richness of its soil, its game, its rocks … and indeed to report on anything that might further the interests of the settlement.” The white man therefore intended to find out if the land could be colonised. The Europeans would thus be able to use it for the advantage of their country.
  • Despite John beginning to treat the locals with respect and dignity, he still remembers his role as a colonist. He continues to “inspect the richness of the soil as he worked up the land.”
• Colonialism is theft as it robs people of their land, secrets, and possessions. When John sees the beauty of the land, he thinks of how the land and resources will benefit nation. He thinks of “tobacco crops that will be sent away to fill the pipes of men thousands of miles away, vines … to replenish the cells of far-away England.” There is thus no beneficiation of the land for locals, with all produce benefiting the European countries.
• Colonialism uproots people and makes them bend to the will of the coloniser. John knows that the present owners would stand aside and be laborers and foremen at their best”, or they might be “moved from one part of the valley to another … until no knowledge of their traditional seat remained.” As such colonialism strips people of existing knowledge.
• Colonists understand the pain of their actions on colonised nations. In a display of double standards, John thinks to himself, “Even though he himself had taken part in the despoilation of peoples … at heart he was still a humanist.” While he deplores the use of a gun during colonial processes, he is not averse to taking away people’s lands.
• White people define the improvement of people’s lives through their lens.
  • John notes that once Ngara is conquered, there will be schools, doctors, mines, and farms in the area, and this will “improve the lives of these people”, and European civilisation is the end goal for the African people. As such, what exists for black people is not civilisation as there are no schools or European doctors.
  • The colonists see Africa and Africans as underdeveloped. This is because of the modernisation that the Europeans have experienced in their lands. John notes that Africa is too simple and deprived of “deep thought, a crude and cruel striving from birth to death under cruel circumstances in which no joy could be had, a barren thing to be enriched from elsewhere.” The thought and philosophy that Africans have is therefore belittled and can only be viewed through the white lens.
• The cost of modernisation that comes with colonialism is great. Colonialism affects people’s lives and ruins their simplicity mostly through violent means. John notes that “with the schools and the doctors would come the guns and the mines and the factories to destroy all this love.”
• The colonists also find colonialism hard as it forces them to adjust to the demands of the colonial lands and the expense of humanness. John admits it would be hard to take away Jikinya from her home as he had suffered himself when he came to Ngara. He thinks to himself, “he had had to suffer great pains to adjust to the life of this small valley, he had had to strip himself to the bone of his humanity.” As such, colonialism affects both the colonised and the colonists.
• Colonialism robs people of their religions. Even after realising the similarities in the different religions, John realises that religion will be one of the many ways that will be used to colonise people. He thinks to himself, “soon bells would be tolling in the valley and the Body and Blood would be here to submerge this simple way of reaching the soul.” This highlights that the colonists target the mental aptitude of the people they intend to colonise.
• Colonialism destroys villages and tribes violently. After the combined Changani and Ngara victory, the two tribes find it hard to celebrate. The Ngaras realise that there is a greater likelihood for annihilation in the future as it is only a “matter of time before Ngara and Changani would be no more, dissolved by the power of the bullets.”

Love

• Love transcends racial and biological boundaries. Even after Jikinya has learnt that she descended from some family beyond the valley, her love for Tsitsi and Chedu does not diminish. Instead, “Chedu and Tsitsi were the parents she knew; the parents that she loved and who also loved her.” The possibility of having parents outside does phase her as she feels loved and belongs to her adopted family.
• Chedu and Tsitsi continue to love Jikinya even as she has become a young woman. When John mentions to them that he wants to take Jikinya back to her people, the news upsets the couple. “Their love was so deep that such news could only grieve them.” The love that parents have for their child goes beyond just having raised her. It also affects them when they imagine the child might leave.
• Jikinya is as much a part of Ngara as Ngara is a part of her. When John asks her to leave with him, she demonstrates this love through a series of rhetorical questions “How can you expect me to leave my people like this? How can you expect me to agree with you.” Jikinya’s love for her home transcends the love she might get from leaving the valley.
• The Ngara’s demonstrate community and love when they fight for Jikinya. When the Changani’s insist that Jikinya is the source of drought in the village and has to leave, Tichafa emphasises, “The girl is not a stranger … she is a child of Ngara.” The village therefore does not see Jikinya’s skin color, but appreciates who see is as a person who grew up amongst them.
• Sacrifice is an important aspect of love. When Tendai catches Jikinya in the act of fleeing from Ngara, he restrains her. He tells her of the sacrifice the village is making to save her life. In a rhetorical question, Tendai asks her, “Don’t you see that we are all willing to lay down our lives for you?” This indicates the depth of love that the village has for one of their own.

Race

• Racial superiority is asserted through violence and is thus instinctive in the white man. When Tendai startles John as John is about to shoot down some animals, John’s first reaction is violence. “He wished to raise his arm or the butt of the gun to strike the young man.” This demonstrates the racial supremacy inherent in white people.
• White people have a superiority complex. John sees Jikinya’s placement in Ngara as “a curse of providence” and an “injustice of providence”. Living among black people is therefore seen as a curse and an injustice thus highlighting the superiority complex that white people have.
• Humanity does not see colour because of the social construction of race. John notes that the people he spoke to regarding Jikinya did not speak of her appearance, “never seemed to even think of it as if it never existed.” This highlights that the people of Ngara saw Jikinya simply as a human being and not so different from them.
• White people recognise the superiority endowed to them by their white race. This allows them to see black people as inferior. John notes that in all African villages he had “always seen himself as an outsider and remained an outsider; seen himself as a superior individual from a superior culture.” As such, the colour of his skin makes him believe that he is a better person than the others around him.
• Racial difference is feared. When the Changanis and the Ngaras consult as to what might be the cause of their drought, they realise that it is the stranger that is causing droughts. For the Changani’s, the stranger is not John who they see as a visitor, but is Jikinya who is the cause of misfortune in the village. The Changani’s believe that an earlier caterpillar catastrophe “had been caused by the pale girl of Ngara who … was a witch.” Even when one blends in and is accepted, their difference is always viewed with suspicion.
• There is a racial disdain for black people which is largely fuelled by stereotypes of how black people behave. When John tells the captain that two tribes are about to go to war, that is the Changani and the Ngara, the captain laughs and says, “and you thought you would bring peace to a band of natives.” Black people are therefore not expected to be peaceful and this is largely stereotypical.