A Dance of the Forests

“Will you take my case?” 

The dead couple have traveled through time and the afterlife, waiting generations for the wrongs they suffered in the Court of Mata Kharibu to be redressed. However, when they are finally resurrected, their appearance scares off the village dwellers, exciting their fear and suspicion. As none of the living are willing or able to right the wrongs of the past, Aroni interferes on behalf of the dead couple.

“Rola: I see we’ve got another of the good old days.

Obaneji: On the contrary…”

This brief exchange foreshadows the Forest Head’s intent. Obaneji (the Forest Head in disguise) hints that he is not interested in the past. The Forest Head instead represents the idea of resisting nostalgia for a glorious past that never really existed. The ellipses, as The Forest head declines to elaborate on his meaning, hints at the double-meaning of the denial: the present is not a return to a glorious past, and the past was not so glorious, either. 

“The accumulated heritage—that is what we are celebrating. Mali. Chaka. Songhai. Glory. Empires.”

Adenebi and the rest of the village intended to summon illustrious ancestors from the past to the Gathering of the Tribes. Mali and Songhai were powerful West African empires, and Chaka may refer to Shaka, a prominent monarch of the Zulu Kingdom. The villagers prefer to focus on the heroic myth of the past, and ignore the uglier aspects of the past, represented in the dead couple who are ignored by the villagers at the start of the play.