Abeng

After the shark incident, the Savages return home and prepare for the second service of the day at the Tabernacle of the Almighty Church. This is a smaller and more modest place built on land leased from the nearby grocery store belonging to Mr. Chin. Mostly Black women attend the church, and it has its own choir accompanied by an organ. Habitually during the service, one or two people, usually women, are “seized by the spirit” (12). The minister, brother Emmanuel, preaches against dancing, drinking, gambling, and going to the movies, which all lead to sinning. However, his services have little effect because “the space the temptation entered could not be filled by hymn-singing or sermons” (16). Black men, who receive minimal pay for menial work, live “from week to week” (16). Black women find some solace in their children and relatives, as well as the weekly church services, but they often work as live-in servants, forcing them to stay apart from their families. 

In addition to the two churches, Clare learns a third way of worship in the house of her maternal grandmother, Miss Mattie, who lives deep in the countryside. Clare’s grandmother is the daughter of Judith, a white woman who ran away with one of her family’s servants, Mas Samuel. In old age, Judith, known as Granny, became a “bitter old woman,” while Clare’s great grandfather remained a “sweet brown man” “beloved by all around” (13). 

Miss Mattie hosts a weekly Sunday prayer group, which she doesn’t allow Clare to attend. After helping her grandmother prepare the house for guests, the girl goes to the river to play with her friend, Zoe. 

The novel describes the grandmother and Clare as “a sorceress and her apprentice” (14), which serves to introduce the story of Nanny, an obeah, or wise woman, who was one of the leaders of the Windward Maroon rebellion and was assassinated in 1733. She is famous for her magic and ability to catch a bullet between her buttocks (14).

This chapter explores in more detail the modern history of Jamaica. Originally, a Spanish colony, the British conquered it in 1655. Between then and the declaration of freedom in 1834, there is “sustained guerrilla warfare against the forces of enslavement” (20). During that period, the runaway slaves who opposed the British became known as Maroons; those who earned freedom from the plantation owners in exchange for informing on and fighting against the rebels were called the blackshots. 

Even though most of the attendees of the Tabernacle Church are descendants of slaves, they are unaware of their history. At school, they learn that “the whites who brought them here from the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast were only copying a West African custom” (18). They are also ignorant of their ancestors who could serve as role models: The Maroons who fought against enslavement, for example, or the inhabitants of the great African kingdoms, which were as advanced as their European counterparts. 

Two separate segments inserted into the narrative give more details about the sorceress Nanny and her failed attempt at uniting her forces with those of another Maroon leader before a blackshot killed her.