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Leopard Person
Masquerades are spirits that usually live in the wilderness, but Leopard People can summon them to the physical world. They look like Lamb masquerades, which are men dressed in beaded or raffia costumes with ceremonial masks—but real masquerades can be any size (from a foot tall to hundreds) and tend to have something unpleasant, like stinging insects, at the core instead of a person. They enter the physical world through termite mounds, are extremely powerful, and are always dangerous.
Masquerade Quotes in Akata Witch
The Akata Witch quotes below are all either spoken by Masquerade or refer to Masquerade. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 15
Quotes
“How many chittim fell when it was over?”
“Seven coppers,” Orlu mumbled. “We could have gotten people killed and we got paid for it.”
“As a group you made a mistake and you learned you could also right it,” Anatov said.
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Chapter 16
Quotes
“No one is willing to push the envelope. So what if she called up a damn Mmuo Aku and it went wild! She still did it! She still performed the most sophisticated juju any of them had ever seen.”
“True, but you’re wrong,” Orlu said. “We can’t live in chaos. The ages are set for each level for a reason. You can be able to do something and not be mature enough to deal with the consequences.”
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Chapter 19
Quotes
On instinct, Sunny let her spirit face move forward. In that moment, her fear of everything left her—her fear of Ekwensu’s evil, of being flayed alive by the monster’s fronds, of her family learning of her death, of the world’s end. It all evaporated. Sunny smiled. She knew how the world would end. She knew that someday she would die. She knew her family would live on if she died right now. And she realized that she knew Ekwensu.
And Sunny hated her.
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Get the entire Akata Witch LitChart as a printable PDF.
Masquerade Term Timeline in Akata Witch
The timeline below shows where the term Masquerade appears in Akata Witch. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3
...to an all-Lamb neighborhood, so he got into fights—and Orlu snaps that Sasha set a masquerade on a few kids. Chichi is impressed, since that’s upper-level juju, but Orlu insists that...
(full context)
Chapter 4
According to Fast Facts for Free Agents, masquerades aren’t just symbols of ancestors or spirits, acted out by men in elaborate costumes. In...
(full context)
...is after that, and it’s like getting a Ph.D. A candidate has to get a masquerade’s consent to progress.
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Chapter 15
...Yao angrily insists he has more to show. Chichi offers a deal: she calls a masquerade, and Yao never challenges her again. Orlu scolds Chichi for taking things too far, and...
(full context)
...and begins to draw in the dirt with her juju knife. Sunny has known about masquerades her whole life. They’re spirits that enter the physical world through termite mounds. In the...
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...drums, a flute, and then big drums. Orlu warns Sunny not to run as the masquerade emerges from the mound. It has a wooden knob at the top, which is attached...
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Orlu shouts for everyone to get down, but people are too panicked. The masquerade dances and Orlu shoves Sunny down. He tells Chichi and Sasha that “it” is going...
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Then, Anatov tells Sasha he’s an “idiot.” Orlu’s mother told him about the masquerade he called—and calling a powerful water spirit like Mmuo Miri could’ve been deadly. Anatov threatens...
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Chapter 18
...explains she’s like Satan, but she’s real and not just a metaphor. She’s a powerful masquerade, and if she comes through, what Sunny saw in the candle will come true—and an...
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Chapter 19
...Sasha’s body into the obi as a termite mound rises in the mud outside. The masquerade starts to emerge when the mound is six feet high; it looks like dead, tightly...
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...stands up, feeling strong—she doesn’t want to die in hiding. Slowly, Sunny approaches Ekwensu. The masquerade doesn’t notice Sunny until Sunny is very close and has called her spirit face to...
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