102 pages • 3 hours read
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Novella Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
After Binti wakes, she goes to speak with Okwu. They both go to the lake and swim into the water. Binti is profoundly aware that if her people see her without her otjize, they will regard her as insane. Binti watches as Okwu swims in the lake with shining baby snails. Binti finds peace for the first time since coming home. When Binti returns to the Root, she trees to calm herself. Just then, her edan begins to hover, and it breaks into different pieces; it is composed of a solid gold ball and its metallic casing.
As Binti attempts to put the edan back together, she sees the Night Masquerade outside of the window. The Masquerade points at Binti and speaks to her. This interaction thoroughly rattles her, as she recalls the Himba lore: “Only men and boys were said to even have the ability to see the Night Masquerade and only those who were heroes of Himba families got to see it” (155). Binti’s father and older brother rush into her room, unable to understand why Binti could see the Night Masquerade. In the commotion, Binti’s younger sister, Peraa, says that there are “Desert People” outside their home. Binti’s mother tells her to dress in her pilgrimage attire and apply otjize.
Desert People surround the Root, and Binti is unsure of them: “Some were men, some were women, and all had skin that was ‘old African’ dark, like my father’s and mine” (160). Binti’s father speaks to a tall old woman, Auntie Titi, whose hands continue to move in the air. The Himba people believe that the Desert People are incapable of controlling their hand motions due to a neurological condition. The tall woman, who is Binti’s paternal grandmother, promises that they will have Binti home the next night. Binti’s grandmother is proud that Binti has seen the Night Masquerade, but Binti’s mother continues to deny it. Eventually, Binti leaves with them, and they tell her that Binti will be meeting with Ariya, priestess of the Desert People.
When Binti was 8 years old, she found the edan in the desert. During that expedition, she met Ariya. As Binti travels with the Desert People, she notices that a boy her age, named Mwinyi, is the sole person in charge of protecting the group. Mwinyi is capable of speaking with the desert dogs and convinces the pack of wild canines not to attack. It is only then that Binti realizes that Mwinyi is also a harmonizer. Auntie Titi insists that they do not label him as such—Mwinyi is simply their son.
Binti recalls the moment she found her edan. At the time, Binti had been furious that she could not attend a dance. Although Binti, as a woman, could not own her father’s astrolabe shop, the Himba had chosen her as the next master harmonizer. Binti loves dancing, yet her community told her that it would be inappropriate for the next master harmonizer to do so. To find peace, Binti often stole into the desert to tree. Binti set up a tent in the desert and was digging into the sand when she pricked her finger. She dug at the sand and found a strange flower. Beneath it, Binti discovered the edan.
Ariya watched her unearth the edan and told Binti that it was a “god stone” (171). It was Binti’s first brush with the Desert People. Even as a child, Binti understood her father’s view of the Desert People:
My father […] like me […] was the shade of brown like the Desert People and he’d never liked this fact. My mother was a medium brown, like most Himba, and I knew for a fact that he was proud that all their other children were too … and that the one who got the desert complexion and hair made up for it by being a master harmonizer (171).
Binti knew that she must conceal her encounter with Ariya. When Binti showed her father the edan, he was unable to decipher what metal the edan was composed of. He told her that it tasted like the “Undying Trees during dry season” (173). The Undying Trees grow throughout Osemba and are a vital part of the Himba culture. The trees are both scientific and spiritual; they are older than anyone can remember and produce salt that healers use for medicines.
Binti remembers how the edan tastes like this “life salt” and wonders how different her life would have been if only her parents had let her dance. She continues further into the desert with the Desert People.
Binti realizes that the Desert People had lied about getting her home within the day. Instead of sending a messenger to alert her family, they order Binti to communicate with Okwu telepathically. It takes Binti a while, but she is eventually able to speak to Okwu. Okwu asks Binti if it needs to come and get her, but she assures it that she is fine. Binti relays the message and spends the night in her grandmother’s tent. Unable to sleep, Binti finds Mwinyi and speaks to him. She asks Mwinyi about their hands. Mwinyi tells her to ask her grandmother.
Mwinyi is angry that Binti and the rest of the Himba think that they are savages. The Desert People’s real name is the Enyi Zinariya. Mwinyi and Binti are both harmonizers, and there is an instant connection between them. The next morning, Binti asks her grandmother why the Enyi Zinariya speak with their hands. Auntie Titi tells Binti the history of the Enyi Zinariya. Although the Himba believe them to be “savages,” the Enyi Zinariya have had technology that surpasses the Himbas’ for many generations. An alien race, a golden people called the Zinariya, visited the clan on the way to Oomza University. The Zinariya became fast friends with the clan and left a special technology as a parting gift:
Biological nanoids so tiny that they could comfortably embed themselves into our brains. Once you had them in you, it was like having an astrolabe in your nervous system. You could eat, hear, smell, see, feel, even sense it (183).
This allows the Enyi Zinariya to communicate over large distances. The clan continued to pass down the nanoids from generation to generation. Binti is unable to use the nanoids as hers have not been activated. Binti travels with the Enyi Zinariya for the next three days and eventually reaches the clan’s home.
In this section of the trilogy, Okorafor depicts the curious tension between roles and barriers. The Himba are a traditional people who believe that everyone needs to fulfill their assigned role in the community. Binti breaks the rules of her people when she leaves for Oomza University, but she still battles with the image of who she believes she should be, particularly as it relates to religion. Although Okorafor does not strictly analyze the religion of her characters, each group has a faith entirely unto its own. The Meduse, for example, devote themselves to water and worship it as their god. Binti not only struggles to reconcile the many new facets of her identity with her original ideas and beliefs, but she also slowly begins to see the flaws in her previous thinking.
Binti’s thoughts about herself reflect her attitude towards other cultures. No longer pure Himba, Binti must reconcile her ideas around the Seven polytheistic gods that the Himba worship and with her own wants and desires. For example, the Himba believe that to wash with water is a sin, and that women who fail to cover themselves with otjize are improper. These mores oppose Binti’s own desire to shower as well as the Meduses’ love for water:
As I sat there, watching Okwu dance with its god, I thought about how strange it was that for me to swim in water was taboo and for Okwu such a taboo was itself a taboo. I remember thinking, the gods are many things (153).
Although Binti manages to reconcile the conflicting taboos between both facets of her identity, she still struggles against the image that her family has of her. Their treatment of Binti juxtaposes the Enyi Zinariyas’ treatment of Mwinyi, another master harmonizer. The Himba holds the master harmonizer to a high standard; because of this, they forbid Binti from dancing as a child and later tell her not to apply to Oomza University. The Enyi Zinariya, however, treat Mwinyi like a person rather than a label. Binti’s grandmother explains that the Enyi Zinariya do not call them master harmonizers, and instead ascribe a more familial term: “Our son” (165). Binti must learn how to live outside the narrowly defined labels that she has collected throughout her life and journey.
Plus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
By Nnedi Okorafor