Tribal Scars or the Voltaique

TRIBAL SCARS or THE VOLTAIQUE

      In the short story ‘Tribal Scars’ written by Sembene Ousmane shows the theme of the dehumanising effects of slavery. Slavery is a condition of having to work very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation. The story begins with a group of men discussing current affairs when someone brings up the subject of Tribal Scarring. Saer tells them a story about a man called Amoo and his daughter Iome, his story was soon accepted by the group that African Tribes started scarring themselves because they refuse to be slaves. Amoo keeps his daughter Iome by his side at all times during the horrendous actions by Momutu and his men, which isn’t suitable for 9 year old, this was his way of protecting her from the slave-hunters. Amoo had been working for Momutu, the leader of the slave-hunters. The job was to kill the whites and take their prisoners (Negro men and women) and take them as Momutu’s prisoners so he could sell them off to the slave-traders. Although Amoo’s kind and soft personality didn’t suit the job, it was the only way for him to escape slavery for a short while.

     Slavery turns people into commodities. Commodification of humans allows people to do horrible things to each other as they are no longer humans but things. The slave-hunters are selfish, they would rather sell their own race to the whites so they could avoid being slaves but this don’t make them any more human than the ones who were captured. They do this because they’re scared of becoming slaves so they do it to other people. The slave-traders do horrible things to these humans because they feel as if the negroes are not humans but they’re creatures/animals instead. They keep the slaves locked up in chains together, polish them so it will attract the buyers/bidders. They sell them to work hard for their “masters”. This doesn’t make any of these people a “better human”, by treating other humans as savages. They are all afraid, so one human would do something horrible to the other just to feel in POWER, or other people would just do it for a few iron-bars. In page 108 the conversation between Momutu and his men carries out the subject of how much they think Amoo and his daughter Iome would be worth if they capture and sell them to the slave-traders.

“He’s a fine fellow. Worth four kegs”

“More than that… He’d fetch several iron bars and some other stuff as well”

“... we’ll seize him and his daughter too. She’s worth a good bit.”

     The slave-hunters (Momutu and his men) would hunt for people who were strong, no blemishes on their body, they would find people who were fit, so they were capable of doing manual work. They hunt these kind of people because they were more ‘valuable’ to the slave-owners, which means more profit for the slave-traders and the more Momutu and his men get rewarded for their work. The slave-traders buy these men and women because they need people whose physical abilities are excellent due to they would be working outside on the fields/plantations throughout the whole day. They use African people because their skin is dark and their skin can protect them from the sun unlike people with white skin, their skin can get affected.

     In the story Iome was a beautiful young girl, she had nothing wrong with her body or face, she was perfect. Momutu though that he would earn a reward if he captured her, It is likely that if Momutu had captured her and she had gone into slavery, her owner would put Iome into the house to work she would clean and cook indoors rather than work in the plantations, because she was pretty, the slave-owners would want a woman to work inside as well and not harm or scare the children away while she works. The tribal scars is how she lost her value, because her father had scarred her body to keep her from being lave, he wanted her to have her freedom and to never become a slave. She wasn’t valuable anymore because of the blemishes in her body so no one would buy her, she was worthless to the slave-owners, and traders. And her skin wouldn’t be useful for making boots as well.