Under the Shade of the Tamarind

I recently chanced upon this line from Hugh Thomas's book, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870: "In some respects, the treatment of slaves was, Park thought, far from being harsh or cruel. They were led out in their fetters every morning to the shade of the tamarind tree, where they were encouraged to play games of chance, and asked to sing, to keep up their spirits" (384). This reference to the tamarind tree resonates so much more fully now after having read Solibo Magnificent. I wonder if we can think of the tree as providing another of those alternative spaces we've talked about from time to time this semester, spaces that allow for more enabling performances/realizations of identity (e.g., St. Pancras/Saltfish Hall in The Lonely Londoners, Medouze's hut in Black Shack Alley, the Halsey Street apartment for Avey and Jay in Praisesong for the Widow (which you are about to encounter), etc.). In Chamoiseau's novel, the tree stands as the center of community life, the center of communal solidarity and collective identity, the center of resistance. It suggests borders between the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown, the physical and the spiritual, etc. It suggests ancestral knowledge (making it the perfect place for the wisdom and storytelling of Solibo). It exemplifies and symbolizes both rootedness and mobility ("roots and routes"). And with Thomas's quote, we gain the added significance of the tamarind tree as a place of refuge and protection for slaves; these trees supplied them with shade, medicine, food, and later must have played a role in helping slaves/maroons to escape.

In reading this novel again, too, I was reminded of how there are so many wonderfully evocative and poignant moments of writing in this novel, moments that are worth contemplating in isolation. An example: "That scene lasted forever -- and could have gone on and on: a tafia-soused audience, sitting in a circle at the crack of dawn, does not inscribe itself in the ephemeral. But then, after eons (exactly three hours, thirty-eight minutes, and twenty-two seconds, says the coroner), a basaltic old man left the assembly and made toward Solibo. His name was Congo and he seemed to owe Death four centuries" (16). Or this one, on memory and grieving, and on storytelling's solace: "Sidonise, who had seemed for a few moments to be drowning in another world, starts to murmur an inaudible story. A strange smile transfigures her pain, her eyes follow the flight of internal visions. There is a prowling memory there, of those that death, in its tide, drains from our heads, our hearts, our dreams. Oh life plays hide-and-seek, never giving all of herself at once, but leaving to death's seasons the essence of her stems, her flowers' subtle perfume. There, through the small sherbet vendor, Solibo confronts our distress, dissipates it, as certain churches do the sadness of the devoted. Charlo' forgets his cheek and raises his inundated eyes" (78-9).

Perhaps you have other passages, other reflections to share?