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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Akata Witch, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Belonging
The Individual vs. the Collective
Friendship and Teamwork
Education, Power, and Corruption
Summary
Analysis
According to Fast Facts for Free Agents, masquerades aren’t just symbols of ancestors or spirits, acted out by men in elaborate costumes. In the Leopard world, masquerades are real—as are ghosts, demons, and other supposedly mythical things. Masquerades are dangerous and can do anything, from steal one’s soul to rewrite a person’s future. Free agents should leave masquerades to those who are more qualified to handle juju.
This excerpt is a warning for free agents to be on the lookout for absolutely anything. It also suggests that humans, even Leopard People, aren’t all that powerful compared to masquerades and the like. It’s unclear at this point, though, if the book is correct to suggest that free agents aren’t as qualified as Leopard-born Leopard People—the tone is condescending, suggesting the author herself may be prejudiced too.
Themes
Sunny complains about the itchy raffia dress as Orlu offers to carry her heavy purse across the bridge to Leopard Knocks. Then, Orlu rubs a black stone next to the bridge’s beginning and steps onto the bridge. Something odd happens to his face, but he strolls casually into the mist. Sasha goes next, but Chichi turns to Sunny and explains that all Leopards must be initiated to become functioning Leopard People. Because Chichi has always known she’s a Leopard Person, her initiation just marked the beginning of her life journey. Sunny’s initiation, meanwhile, is the beginning of her “Self.”
Because Sunny hasn’t known she’s a Leopard Person all her life, her journey necessarily looks different from Chichi’s. The moment Sunny discovers she’s a Leopard Person, Chichi implies, is the moment that Sunny learns who she really is. In turn, this suggests that Sunny has pretty much been flying blind prior to today—she had no chance of figuring out who she is without this crucial piece of her identity. Now, she can move forward and gain more self-knowledge with her friends’ help.
Themes
Chichi then explains that every Leopard Person has a spirit face in addition to their human face. A spirit face is private; it’s like being naked, and you can’t lie in that form. Privately, Sunny thinks this is all crazy as Chichi says the bridge is part of the spirit world that exists in the physical world, so you have to call up your spirit face to cross the bridge. She swears Sunny to secrecy and then calls forth her spirit face. Chichi’s face morphs into a long ceremonial mask—which looks oddly like Chichi.
Leopard identity, per Chichi, is multifaceted. A person’s spirit face represents the parts of them that make them who they are, but this piece of their identity isn’t something that’s acceptable to share with everyone in this culture; it’s personal and rather private. Chichi also reveals that the spirit world is all around them, and that the spirit world is liable to show up anywhere.
Themes
When Chichi changes back, she starts to coach Sunny through calling forth her own face, but Sunny realizes that everyone saw her spirit face after her initiation. She’s mortified, but Chichi assures her it’s fine and says that Sunny’s face looked like the sun. When Sunny says she felt like a ballerina, Chichi pulls out a knife, speaks some Efik words, and classical music begins to play. Sunny feels drawn to the music, and Chichi tells her to concentrate on the music and cross. Sunny’s face tightens and she puts a foot on the bridge. This is going to be easy. Sunny dances across the bridge fearlessly and notices that some monster is watching her from the river. She catches sight of Leopard Knocks and hurries to the end of the bridge—and then the music stops and Sunny’s spirit face disappears. She slips and starts to fall.
The tightness Sunny felt in her face during her initiation, she discovers, was due to her spirit face showing. It’s interesting that Sunny’s spirit face looks like the sun—the sun is, at this point, Sunny’s enemy due to her albinism, so this offers hope that Sunny may discover a way to safely be in the sunshine after being initiated. Sunny also discovers that when she settles into her true self (by calling forth her spirit face), she’s not afraid and is confident in her own abilities. This reinforces the idea that as Sunny puts together who she is, she’ll start to feel more at home in her own body and in the wider world.
Themes
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Sasha reaches out and snatches Sunny’s gold necklace, which he uses to pull her to safety. He and Orlu settle her at a picnic table as Chichi appears—and Orlu says the river beast probably cut Chichi’s music. Sunny looks around as her heart slows. Leopard Knocks is like nothing she’s seen before. The buildings are sophisticated mud huts, many with multiple stories, lots of windows, and white drawings on them. Palm trees grow between them, and music plays in the streets. Sunny feels like an intruder and wants to go home, but Chichi leads her forward. As the kids walk through Leopard Knocks, Chichi points out juju powder shops, tobacco shops, and a bookstore.
In a roundabout way, Sunny’s father saves her—recall that the necklace was from him. So even as he resents his daughter, he’s still protecting her. As Sunny studies Leopard Knocks, the sophisticated huts she sees suggests that she was wrong to judge Chichi’s mother’s hut and think it’s crude—it is, no doubt, sophisticated like these ones, but just not as visually compelling. Sunny has been through a lot today and isn’t convinced she’s where she belongs. But with her friends’ help, she steps forward into her new world for the first time.
Themes
Chichi insists on going into Bola’s Store for Books. Sunny studies the books, which are written in all sorts of languages—including one called Nsibidi. Chichi purchases a book for Sunny titled Fast Facts for Free Agents and pays for it with Sunny’s chittim. Then, Sasha suggests they go to Mama Put’s Putting Place for lunch. Sunny pays for her meal in chittim and asks her friends to tell her everything. Chichi explains that there are Leopard People all over the world; they’re called witches or sorcerers elsewhere. Being a Leopard Person is spiritual, rather than genetic. Usually it stays within families, but sometimes it skips a generation, as it seems to have done in Sunny’s family.
Finally, readers discover where Fast Facts for Free Agents comes from: Chichi trying to help Sunny learn about the Leopard world. At lunch, Chichi makes it clear that by being inducted into Leopard society, Sunny has become part of something much larger. She’s spiritually connected to people with magical abilities all over the world. Though again, the novel implies that there are still divisions between magical people; having different names for those with magical abilities naturally creates divisions.
Themes
Leopard Knocks, Chichi says, is the West African headquarters for Leopard People. Sasha says that New York is the official American headquarters, but the African American headquarters are on the Gullah Islands in South Carolina. Chichi continues that she and Orlu have known their spirit faces their whole lives, so they’ve been coming to Leopard Knocks since they were babies. They were initiated two years ago into the first level, which is called Ekpiri. They’ve all done this early, as most kids do it at 14 or 15. Next comes Mbawkwa at 16 or 17; Sasha boasts that he’s ready for it now. Chichi says Ndibu is after that, and it’s like getting a Ph.D. A candidate has to get a masquerade’s consent to progress.
Again, Sasha makes it clear that there are divisions within the Leopard world: Black Americans have created their own community in the South. That Chichi, Sasha, Sunny, and Orlu are Ekpiri already suggests that all four kids are precocious and able to handle juju that’s advanced for their age. Then, noting that Ndibu candidates need a masquerade’s consent starts to complicate Fast Facts for Free Agents’s insistence that masquerades are all evil. They play an integral role in Leopard higher education, suggesting they have some stake in allowing Leopard People to progress.
Themes
Finally, there’s Oku Akama; only eight living people in Nigeria have gotten there. Chichi says Anatov is one person. There are Kehinde and Taiwo, and Sugar Cream is the Head Librarian at the Obi Library. She’s the most respected. Seeing Sunny’s confusion, Orlu interjects that in the Lamb world, money and material things are the most important. But in the Leopard world, people earn chittim by learning—knowledge is the most important thing. So Sugar Cream protects the greatest knowledge site in West Africa. Sunny asks if this is why Chichi’s mother lives the way she does, and Chichi nods. Orlu notes that Chichi’s mother is also a Nimm princess, but Sunny has no time to ask what this means. Sasha says that not all Leopard People use this philosophy; some Leopard People just want power, or Lamb wealth.
Orlu crystallizes how Leopard society views money and power. Power, he insists, comes from learning—and a person’s earnings delineate how educated they are, rather than how good they are at a specific job. This, in theory, incentivizes lifelong learning rather than becoming educated just so one can amass wealth (which explains why Chichi’s mother lives in a hut, rather than a more comfortable house, and is still studying). However, Sasha implies that there is corruption in the Leopard world. In this way, it’s no different from the Lamb world. This also suggests that young people, like Sunny, will have a choice as they get older: do they want to value education, or enriching themselves?
Themes
Sasha notes that the four of them are an Oha coven. Orlu says they’re too young, but Sasha says it adds up: he’s an outsider, Sunny is “outside in” because she’s albino, and there are two girls and two boys. Sunny grumbles as Sasha explains that an Oha coven is a group set up to defend against something nefarious. Before he can say more, though, something above them explodes—and warm, wet meat, hair, and teeth fall onto the table, letting off a rotten smell. Sunny almost vomits as Orlu tells her that nobody knows exactly what tungwas are, they’re just annoying and disgusting.
Sasha thinks highly of himself and his abilities, so it follows that he’d jump right to thinking he’s part of something that Orlu insists is for people with way more education and maturity than they have. At this point, Sunny doesn’t want her albinism to define her. So far in her life, being albino hasn’t done her any favors, and she’s been teased for it. That Sasha suggests it’s what makes Sunny part of the Oha coven, though, suggests that albinism may be able to define her positively, too.
Themes
On the walk back, Sunny checks her phone and realizes she’s going to be late. She tries to call her mother, but the call won’t go through. It takes 10 minutes to get Sunny back across the bridge. At Sunny’s gate, Chichi warns Sunny that she’ll sleep poorly tonight. Sunny is two hours late. She calls for her mother as soon as she opens the door, but her mother still slaps her. Sunny’s father shouts at her and threatens to flog her if she comes home late again. Sunny hates him. Her mother pushes her toward her room and quietly tells Sunny to change her clothes.
Sunny has entered a whole new world after being inducted into Leopard society, but she’s still a kid and still has to deal with her parents when she gets home. So though discovering her Leopard identity may have started Sunny’s “Self,” her world is still fracturing—especially since she can’t tell her parents anything. Her mother, though, seems unusually incurious about the raffia dress, suggesting she may have some idea of what’s going on.
Themes
