The mother-daughter Aje relationship in Toni Morrison's Beloved

African American Review, Spring-Summer, 2005 by Teresa N. Washington

Suggs's Clearing calls invite all dichotomies to return to their original unified state. The power of her word transforms gender roles and individual and anatomical character until everything is merged and shared holistically. Revising the concept of human sacrifice, Baby Suggs, holy leads each communal member to submit every element of themselves--section by section, entity by entity--in order to reestablish connection with the communal Self and the "Ground of All Being."

Baby Suggs is the Iyanla (Great Mother) of the textual community. She is the quintessential Aje: a benevolent force of determination who galvanizes the powers of the Earth with her staff of ase. As the governing heart of her community, Suggs is not merely the initiator of action, but she is also subject to communal critique and correction for improper actions. Twenty-eight days, one monthly moon after the arrival of Sethe and the newborn Denver, Suggs celebrates the arrival and life of her progeny by turning two buckets of blackberries and a few chickens into a feast to feed the entire community. The 28 days' celebration of unity is a false one that calls Suggs's application of Aje into question. Interpreting Suggs's feast of joy as a personal flaunting of wealth and a show of pride, the community removes its complementary protection from her. The Ohio community's critique is subtle, methodical, and devastating. Rather than sending a warning about the riders who have entered town to steal her progeny, the community stands in perfect silence. Suggs's trespass and the resulting communal correction spark the first pattern of mother-daughter Aje interactions.

Aje are associated with birds that act as spiritual media. The Spirit Bird, Eye Oro is capable of aesthetic creativity, astral cum physical destruction, and sublime protection. A Yoruba praise-song describes the force of the Spirit Bird and the women who wield it.

   Mo leye nile (I have a bird in the house)
   Mo leye nita (I have a bird outside)
   Ti mo ba lo sode (When I go on outings)
   E fowo mi wo mi o-- (Give me my proper respect)
   (T. Washington 55)

The "bird in the house" is a figurative reference to Oduduwa's primal womb of power, which is replicated in all Africana women; the "bird in the house" is also a literal reference to the sacred calabash, in which the Spirit Bird is housed (Ojo 135). When this spiritually-charged Bird emerges and goes on outings, its power and potential are awesome.

Aje's birds of power take to wing often in Morrison's fiction. In Paradise, buzzards circle over and signify at a wedding (272-73); in Sula, sparrows signal the changing of the guard (89). In Jazz, Violet is introduced as living with and later releasing her flock of birds, and Wild, Violet's seeming mother-in-law and re-embodiment of Beloved, is signified by "blue-black birds with the bolt of red on their wings" (176). (4) The Spirit Bird both recurs as a symbolic totem and regularly assists Morrison's women of Aid with their confounding actions. In Sula, matriarch Eva Peace is described in terms of Aje. Swooping like a "giant heron," Eva extends her arm in the manner of "the great wing of an eagle," as she douses her son in kerosene before setting him ablaze (46-47). This mother creator-destroyer-protector, who "held [her son] real close" before killing him, also takes wing later in the novel and jumps out of her window in an attempt to save her daughter, who inadvertently has set herself on fire (7576). Following Eva's path, when Sethe sees schoolteacher's hat, she sees a life that cannot be tolerated. She snatches up her children like Eye "Oro, "like a hawk on the wing ... face beaked ... hands work[ing] like claws," to put them in a safe place.